Entrepreneurship - Journey of Cofounders:
How cofounders Azhar Iqbal and Deepit met although they are from different colleges?
Deepit is from IIT Kharagpur and the other two are from IIT Delhi. Deepit and Azhar were school time friends and part of the same coaching institute. In fact, they are quite close academically as well and it's a funny thing that they both got the same marks, they had a good relationship and Intelectual frequency. Anunay Pandey was Azhar's roommate in college. he was very good in technology so they thought that they 3 could do something.
As a CTO what resources are Deepit use? what are the key tools which empower him or his to be productive? in role?
As per Deepit
"In functioning in the company you need to have some structure in the role but as a co-founder, you are ending with many roles of different kinds so there is no specific schedule. work like new projects, following ups on that projects what are the environments and problem, changes any kind of work may be there. As per the Deepit if someone really knows what exactly you are searching for google is the best tool. sometimes people don't search for the right things. the best way to make the right decisions is to make informed information."
As a person what Deepit does to calm his mind and be productive?
In the entrepreneurship journey there are lots of ups and downs similarly in Deepit's journey there have been lots of ups and downs. so as per Deepit having a conversation with really close people like fiancee and others really helps.
What is the greatest thing Deepit has learned while this journey in professional life?
The one thing that really important keeps showing a mirror to yourself by asking as many uncomfortable questions to yourself because if you are comfortable with all then you are not showing reality to yourself. that is not all the people do often.
Some Interesting Facts:
Are there any legal/copyright issues involved in this process?
According to the Legal Counsel, there are no issues because News In Shorts cover only facts, rephrase it their own language, and also provide a link to the original source.
How Inshorts select their stories or decide on the selection of certain news and leave out others?
Most of it is again an editorial choice. The selection of stories is as same as what other media publications used to be there. But what they have been moving into is, they are trying to create more and more stories. They are trying to personalize feed based on your reading pattern.
Is Inshorts really ruining the current media system?
Many people have this question that isn't it a bad thing for us? because you will get only a superficial understanding of what we read? But as per founder Azhar, many reviews of Inshorts say that "I was not reading the news before, now I am reading" means because of Inshorts they at least started reading the news. Azhar and the team believed that those who used to read in-depth stories would also continue with Inshorts. Basically, as per Azhar, those who have never used to have a habit of reading news are coming into the habit and they served a kind of underserved area.
Why the young team at Inshorts?
Most of the people are young at Inshorts between 20-35 mostly. As per Azhar Iqubal, they are not against anything but primarily because of the same generation the wavelength matches easily. Hiring or team selection is the area where Inshorts invest most. They believe if hire the right kind of people everything else is settled.
As per Azhar when he goes for hiring he asked questions to himself internally that "can this person be my friend? if he had not been working here?" that person not work as employees but that person will take authority in work. they are just like family. They don't treat as employ the office is also like a second home.so that is about matching wavelength. They feel the problem that Inshorts people are trying to solve, they have that feeling of authority.
How many active users use Inshorts on a daily or monthly basis?
Inshorts is the most read English news App in India with more than 10 million downloads on Android and IOS. Inshorts users are active for an average of 15.4 days per month and 4.5 days per week. According to App Annie data, Inshorts users are active for the highest number of days in a month among the top 10 apps in the News & Magazines category on Android phones, ahead of the most downloaded apps in the category like Twitter and DailyHunt.
How one can differentiate between the Inshorts story and the sponsored story?
The major things that will be on stories is would be clearly written that whether it is a sponsored story or a normal story. Inshorts never compromise with user experience. As per Azhar, the primary thing is that how interestingly the stories can be created. of course, the ultimate traffic would be relatively very less from that sponsored and vary from story to story, maybe from 0.5% to 5%.
How do Inshorts can say that they provide content without any opinions because every story has some importance...so how they segregate on that situation?
As per Azhar primarily any story can be divided into two parts whether it is incident or opinion on some incident. In terms of an incident we directly write that and in case of opinion, we write in 60 words that any XYZ person from any organization done some opinion piece on that incident and they give a link to that story.
How funding round really change things?
When Inshorts was without funds team was not that large. Then they got good people on board and the good people on board given them more flexibility. At the Inshorts office, they try to make a culture that is completely like home. where availability of food, separate room for rest, games. so the money helps in most of the places. The second thing is that Sachin, binny, and Gaurav Bhatnagar on board, these people who were into the industry for many years so if whenever Azhar had any query he can get them clear. that's the other perspective of funding.
What could be the business policy regarding stories? how a user can identify whether it is Inshorts story or someone else's? How to maintain quality when you scale main if you producing 6000k stories a day?
In 2016 as per Azhar, If Inshorts would partnering with so many publishers with a large number of stories it will never affect the quality. because the first thing is to whom Inshorts is partnering with, is one of the ways to go about it means who are adding those stories. and for a large no of stories, there is an in-house team for quality checking. For 6 to 10 thousand the team of 500 will be enough. It would be a manual system for quality checking.
How automation works for short story creating?
These need very very excellent technology in terms of algorithm and programming. there should not be any compromise with quality. They use the Rapid60 algorithm.
What are some important trends that disrupting the news industry?
Data sciences, AI, and ML are the important trends but most people start using these as a buzzword rather than understanding it.
What kind of customer traction Inshorts has been getting?
Inshorts doing almost a bn million views a day since 2016 and most of their daily users browse 100 stories a day.
About Competitors of Inshorts:
Comparison with ScoopWhoop.
ScoopWhoop has a similar model of monetizing where they are selling sponsored stories and they are dealing with the fixed rate of the timeline. As a big platform, they are also having banner ads and Google Adsense. so many people doubted about the method of revenue-generation. In answer to that as per Azhar 'feed buss' in the US is the biggest example of this. it generates huge amounts of revenue through sponsored stories only. Indian market will take some time to mature in that field.
Daily hunt and Flipboard were the current competitors? how Inshorts grew against them?
The value proposition that Inshorts have been adding is the key factor. as said before the main focus of the Inshorts has been on the people who were not reading the news before. so that's different the Inshorts basically served the underserved area. Though other competitors are in the market for a very long time, the market share of Inshorts speaks all about value addition.
How Inshorts see competition from Twitter and other digital media startups?
They don't see content creators as a competitor but they are moving as a platform model where the content creator can use them to leverage the short-form content and reach out to a much bigger audience. So, all the news aggregators maybe their competitors but Inshorts add unique value in terms of any clutter-free environment where anyone can be updated just in 5 to 10 min. when people come on Inshorts they have in mind that nothing here is wrong everything is well endorsed.
About the Advertisement Platform:
In 2016, the advertisement market in India was very small, so to look at the way for revenue generation was really tough?
Banner ads were mostly the way in which current media publishers were depending on revenue. the one key area Inshorts people looked into was the sponsor adds. There were lots of examples in the US market that the sponsored stories can generate much more revenue than Banner ads. so as per the Azhar and team the interesting sponsored stories could be the way forward for Inshorts.
Which categories of brand advertise on Inshorts?
Mostly, Premium and new-age brands who look for innovative ways to connect with consumers find Inshorts to be a suitable platform to advertise. Currently, they are working with almost 300+ advertisers along with this they are adding around 10 new advertisers every month. Inshorts client list includes brands like Vodafone, Oneplus, Netflix, Mitsubishi, Mercedes, and Myntra, among many others.
How personalization helps Inshorts in targeting users for advertisements?
They have added a layer of personalization to their content using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Their intuitive content recommendation engine learns from the user preferences and behavior and accordingly provides a personalized array of shorts in the ‘My Feed’ section of the users. Along with AI, They are fulfilling the growing demands of an entitled consumer to deliver a deeper level of intuitive personalization.
Inshorts uses this personalization engine to target advertisements. This engine Analyze the behavioral pattern of readers and also look at the previous history of the type of content consumed by them, from this recommendation, Inshorts serves relevant ads to its users.
How Inshorts share the revenue?
Suppose in totality 1 bn news swipes per day suppose one publisher is there which contributes to 10 percent of that screen-swipe that means out of the entire revenue that Inshorts generating, 10% revenue in some way is being contributed by that player.so Inshorts share 10% revenue with that publisher. so that's the collaborative way in which most like Facebook and other media looking and willing to share revenue.
What is Video/Text Ads format? How much impact it is Creating?
Inshorts has over time developed a lot of innovative ways in advertising that help in delivering the advertiser’s message in the most unique way possible. The Video + text (2:1) advertisement format used by Inshorts, where two-third of the screen is used as a text/ image and the rest showcases a video ad. The ad formats in Inshorts are designed to be non-intrusive and for seamless consumption, thereby serving the interests of both readers and advertisers.
Will, they completely focus on sponsored content or they also advertise logo and other things?
Primarily they were focused on the sponsored content only. there may be other plans in the future. As per Azhar, there is a huge market if the numbers of viewers are to be trusted and sponsored stories are an extremely good way to brand your company.and it is the content that users loved to consume.
Which types of surveys are conducted by Inshorts?
Inshorts conducts two types of surveys on its behalf – #DailyInsights Poll and Pulse of the Nation Survey.
1.#DailyInsights surveys: They are conducted every day on the app, which aims to seek the prompt opinion of young millennials on present-day issues that are faced on an everyday premise. One can likewise observe the results of the survey in a split second and can share the outcomes through Whatsapp and email with friends and family. This consumer poll gives Inshorts readers a sneak peek into the minds of fellow citizens in the country.
2. The Pulse of the Nation survey: It is conducted on a larger picture, which highlights topics of national interest.
Brand Surveys: Inshorts also conducts surveys for brands, where the brands can get real-time user feedback on any product launch. The results of these Polls can further be used to amplify the brand value.
What are the results of Inshorts collaboration with Netflix?
Inshorts has done multiple campaigns with Netflix for their web series like ‘Narcos’, ‘The Umbrella Academy’ and ‘13 Reasons Why’. Inshorts incorporated its new advertisement format, called Digital Magazine, for these campaigns, which has already helped Netflix get 3x more engagement as compared to text ads for its new series, ‘The Umbrella Academy’, within just 2 weeks of its release.
From where the customers of Inshorts are coming?
Inshorts is targeted at the smartphone generation, users who are short on time and want to stay updated with the current affairs. Thus, a majority of its users are mostly from metro cities, Tier 1, and 2 cities. The top ten cities include New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Chandigarh, and Ahmedabad. Inshorts is getting traction across age groups, wherein 38 percent of the users are in the age group of 18-24 years, while 40 percent are in the age group of 24-35 years. Also, The app is quite popular among influencers like industry experts, politicians, and CXOs across the spectrum.
Read In-depth case-study on Inshorts here:
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