Koo has potential to go to 100 crore users: CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna

Koo co-founders Aprameya Radhakrishna (left) and Mayank Bidawatka

It has been a dream run for Aprameya Radhakrishna, the co-founder and CEO of Koo, the Indian microblogging platform, last year as the social network platform clocked one milestone after the other.

Downloads spiked from 5 lakh in January to 2 million in February 2021, on the back of the showdown between Twitter and the government. Its valuation multiplied to $150 million as it raised $30 million from a clutch of investors led by Tiger Global in May 2021. In March, prominent Silicon Valley investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan also invested in Koo.

At the end of August, the total downloads stood at 13.3 million. The company is not celebrating yet as Radhakrishna says there is much more to do, and, obviously, with remote working, celebrations are not possible.

Koo clearly was conceived at the right place and at the right time. Founded by Taxi For Sure founder Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka, the app went live in March 2020.

In this interview, Radhakrishna spoke about building a social network platform and why it is different from his previous venture Taxi For Sure, the evolving social media landscape in the country, moderation, and challenges.

Aprameya of Taxi for Sure and Aprameya of Koo… how have the two journeys been different for you?

Radhakrishna: There is a logical end to every transaction. You will book a cab and will get dropped somewhere. Here (at Koo), it's a continuous process. You consume content today, tomorrow and day after. It is a lifelong engagement. So you have to keep learning what the user likes, at an individual level and keep adjusting to them. When there is an external world, how do you kind of map the two together? So it is a very different business and we had to spend a lot of time learning what and how it is to run social media.

How do you see the social media landscape evolving in India? Koo is reaching lakhs of users, and since the Tiktok ban last year, we have a whole host of short video apps that came up like Josh, Moj and others.

Radhakrishna: Let's see what a social network is. There are two different things. One is a content network and the other is a social media network, which is a very people-first network. Here, there is a reason for you to connect or not connect. That is a fundamental definition of social media. Take this statement and apply it to various platforms.

If you use Facebook, it is a friend or not a friend. Instagram is about lifestyle, it is all about do I follow this person or do I not? Like, I will follow Tiger Shroff, but I will not follow Varun Dhawan. So it's a choice. Then, there is Twitter for thoughts and opinions in English. So I will follow this person because I like their thoughts. This person I won't follow because I hate them. Then LinkedIn is a professional network, where you connect, or not connect (with someone for) a reason. Now, these are all social networks. Now with the examples that you gave, there is no reason to connect. The reason to exist is not there in any Indian app, except Koo.

Could you elaborate on that?

Radhakrishna: When you are a content-first platform, you own the content. What I show and what I don't show is the platform's decision. In that sense, you are almost like a publisher. On a social network, it is different. You follow someone I'll show you, and if you don't follow, I won't force it. Each individual on the platform owns up his/her profile. They will go and say, 'follow me on this, Koo'. That will not happen with a content-first network.

Most of the social media or, as you said, content platforms are clones of popular platforms. They include Koo, too, which was more or less a Twitter clone. Are you different now?

Radhakrishna: Let us look at the Twitter network in India. (Most of the action happens in) Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and sparsely somewhere else. People on Twitter are connected outside (the country). They are all following Elon Musk. This is to say that they are dense outside India, sparse within India, and within their own networks, which is the English-speaking India.

Let us look at Koo. People from smaller cities of Karnataka or Tamil Nadu are heavily interconnected within the language networks. This includes people who are not on Twitter, but those who are speaking the language. A social network is valuable because of the uniqueness of the network you create. It is not what you see on the app, it is who you see on this unique network who have never connected before for thoughts and opinions. We brought that out using language and through user-generated content. Hence, it becomes people's first user-generated content on a new network. That's how I would describe it.

Is that what has led to over 10 million downloads since your launch in March 2020?

Radhakrishna: We are just at the tip of the iceberg. One crore downloads are nothing for a platform that we have. While we should celebrate it, the potential of Koo is to not go to 10 crore, but 100 crore. That is when we will hit our potential.

Every person in India has a thought or an opinion -- from the most significant to the common man. Cricket lovers will say KL Rahul should not have played outside off stump today. Tiger Shroff fans will say he is looking awesome and that stunt of his is awesome. In politics, everyone has an opinion. What a religious or spiritual guru says, what a media channel says or doesn't say, what a journalist says or doesn't say, everybody has an opinion.

There are celebrities and educated class, and there is the aspirational India and there are people who have given up in life. These are the four categories of people in India. The connection between celebs and educated India is happening on thoughts and opinions on Twitter. Celebs and aspirational India who won't connect in English are not happening anywhere for thoughts and opinions. Educated India talking to aspirational India in (local) language is not happening. That is what we are actually creating. You have a pyramid – A, B, C and D. At the bottom is the short-video market, which is for people who have given up on life and just want a distraction. People with a lot of time will watch entertainment. ‘C’ is the aspirational India, B are educated, English-speaking class and A are celebrities. While interaction between A and B are happening on Twitter, interaction between celebs and aspirational India and also educated class is happening on Koo.

Last we interacted in June, you were around 6 million and within two months, you have been able to reach 10 million. What explains it?

Radhakrishna: We are a real network and not a content network. So we will ride on every emotion of India. Some election happens, Koo will rise, and if something else happens, Koo will rise, so that is how it will grow. It will keep growing. It is our job to just keep inspiring India to come to Koo.

Though you launched in 2020, it wasn't until 2021 that you started seeing traction when the standoff between the Indian government and Twitter escalated, and many ruling party leaders joined the platform...

Radhakrishna: Yes, acceptance by the most influential people of a country is a moat. But it is not easy to get acceptance. So acceptance by the topmost people who move India today – its political leaders, Bollywood, cricketers and other sportsmen, spiritual leaders, media, journalists, and writers –what these guys say is what India behaves like on a particular day. One of these guys says something and India talks about it. These guys have accepted Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. We have not paid anybody for joining or producing content.

What drove acceptance in Koo earlier was clearly political, due to the clashes with Twitter and top BJP leaders joining the platform. Recently, many Congress leaders joined Koo when Twitter blocked accounts of top leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, and also Congress party’s Twitter handle. But politics as a moat cannot be sustainable in the long term. Is there something more to Koo?

Radhakrishna: Let me show you the product. You type, say, ‘Hello Everyone’ in English on Koo. In the app, you can translate it to other Indian languages, say, Hindi, Kannada or Tamil. Within a minute, I've taken my English and translated it to more languages and posted it across different language communities.

Your messages in English will go to the English-speaking community, Kannada will go to the Kannada-speaking community, and Tamil to the Tamil-speaking community. If you go back to the pyramid, if you spoke only English, you will only reach B, but now we have helped you reach C, the aspirational India. Reaching this audience is important because this is where the mass is. If you want what you are doing every day to influence India beyond the English-speaking audience, you have to do this.

When you are building social networks, one of the key challenges is moderation, which is also a contention between the government and Twitter. Koo’s stand, however, is different. In earlier interactions with us, you have shared that for posts that fall in a grey area, Koo will work with the community to decide to take down a post or not. But do you think that it will work, especially when time is of essence in taking down some posts?

Radhakrishna: For us, it has not happened yet. But if it does, how can we facilitate fast action from even the respective agency? For example, if it is violence and if it's something that is of national security, we will have to quickly work with the Ministry of Home Affairs to figure out what we should do with this.

I agree, it might take time the way it works today. But if we want to be efficient, and we want to build a good social media ecosystem, we will have to make a few tweaks. There is some urgent stuff that needs to be dealt with, so that we can have a way to address it faster. So those are dialogues that need to be done over a period of time. It won't happen overnight.

Koo is still a young company. But we have enough examples of what could go wrong when moderation fails. Are you talking to government agencies and putting in place measures to address them?

Radhakrishna: We keep discussing scenarios about what if this happens and how quickly we can respond.

What does the Koo-verse look like? Are they different from Twitter?

Radhakrishna: Essence of India is very different. There are people with an organic following of 1 million and more. They're all like such fresh micro celebrities that have been created on Koo. They are not talking about politics, they are writing poems and they are actually speaking about life. That's what they're getting famous for. A Kannadiga doesn't like politics. The whole day he will write poems. In Tamil, some movie guys come on Koo and it will rock. Some of them are there. So each community has to be built separately.

Can you share how you are building that community?

Radhakrishna: We have to keep at it, community by community. So it's like running the country. In India, if you are the Prime Minister, you have to understand every state separately and you have to govern each state separately. That is how Koo is building the community. We have eight languages and each team will have 5-6 members.

For instance, if anything is happening in Karnataka and it is spoken about on Koo, everybody will be interested to know the real user perspective of what is happening and also want to express what they think about something that's happening, right? So we keep inspiring people to come and express themselves. But it is practically impossible to go and knock on everybody's door. But you make the platform filled with interesting people who are saying interesting stuff, and they will go and tell more people. So it has to be how you get those interesting people on board (who we reach out to).

Are you looking at monetisation yet? Also, are you looking beyond advertising?

Radhakrishna: We will start experimenting monetisation at some scale, like, let's say when we hit 5-10 crore downloads is when probably, we should be starting experimenting. We are at 1 crore now. But it has to be beyond advertising. We have a few ideas in mind. Let us see how it works.

Can you share more on that, like are you looking at subscriptions or other modes, though we have not seen many successes?

Radhakrishna: Let us come back to who you are right now - social network or content platform. If you're a content platform and try to do advertising, you won't make too much money because you can't target your audience. I'll tell you the ongoing experience of some people. When their businesses were born and advertised on TikTok, they were shown a billion views on their videos.

But web analytics or app analytics don't show even a little bump. Now, will that guy advertise again? I wouldn't. First time, I'll be like everybody is speaking about it, so let me advertise. Then if nothing happens, why will I ever advertise? You have to have some kind of metrics to show that it works. Otherwise, people won't come. Facebook is able to drive downloads to businesses and that's why people are spending.

Is this how Koo is looking at monetisation?

Radhakrishna: Yeah, that will be one of the ways we'll look at other things.

When do you see Koo reaching 10 crore downloads?

Radhakrishna: Hopefully, in a year. We have not yet gotten aggressive. We are building our team, really putting things in place so that we can succeed.

How big is the Koo team right now, and how fast have you grown?

Radhakrishna: We are 200 employees now, from 40 in February 2021. Upfront, we are investing a lot, because you know the potential of the platform and its needs to be world class. Now to be world class, you need to invest into the right team. Otherwise, how will you build it? People will compare Koo to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and say, ‘Koo has to improve in this, has to improve that.’

But I know we have to, if we want to beat all these guys. The only way to beat is by getting the right people. So we have to keep building the team, and, at some stage, we will become better, because we know India deeper than anyone else.

What is the biggest challenge when building a social media network in the country?

Radhakrishna: Talents. That's why the salaries have become so high in the world.

Do you also plan to give BMW bikes, like some companies?

Radhakrishna: That is not us. At least I am too South Indian in Bengaluru to give BMW bikes. Tomorrow, some guy will give a car, so the person will jump there and say ‘keep your bike’. I don't want it. The reason for somebody to join and build should be more than just money.

Do you see yourself taking over Twitter users soon? Twitter, reports peg, has 22 million active users in India. You shared that about 40 percent of the 10 million downloads are active monthly users.

Radhakrishna: It is a possibility. Because India is not their focus is what I would say. We are very focused on what we want to do with India. 'By the way I'll do it' focus will never work for any company. In India, if you look at all companies that are being formed in the technology space, the first thing that they started is what their role is for, and anything second hasn't worked for anybody.

Swiggy is known for food delivery and anything else they've done is not as big as food. Ola Cabs tried food and groceries. Koo is focused on becoming India, language and network.

In June, you told us that Koo is also working on a Clubhouse-like feature. Can you share an update on that?

Radhakrishna: We are in the process of building it. But my take on audio rooms is basically, it is going to be a feature in every app, like chat. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have chat. Similar to that, everybody will have audio rooms. It will become an essential feature in every app, but it is not the reason to go to an app.

For instance, lifestyle followers will go to Instagram and do audio rooms there, if they have the feature. Again, coming back to my first statement, social networks are valued for the uniqueness of the network. You cannot build the network around a feature. But rather by giving the feature to the network, which makes it more successful.

When the Nigerian government banned Twitter, Koo was able to tap into the market. Can you share growth in Nigeria, learnings and overseas expansion?

Radhakrishna: So we are just figuring out an overall strategy for Nigeria and international operations through our learnings in Nigeria. After that, we will figure out which other African countries or Southeast Asian countries we will enter. About our learnings in Nigeria, it's too early. I don't have much to share now, but we are still learning. Every country and their mood is different. What they care about and what they don't care about is all different. So we just want to figure out what we need to change when we go to other countries.

Do you enjoy running Koo better than Taxi For Sure?

Radhakrishna: Absolutely. If you have to compare Taxi For Sure, Koo is more enjoyable. It is definitely, like, 100X more in terms of velocity. Taxi for Sure, I thought was fast-paced but this is 100X because, it is emotions, thoughts, opinions and the scale at which this operates is much, much, much more.

I know this might be too early, since you have been building the product for the last 1.5 years. But do you see yourself exiting the firm like you did Taxi For Sure?

Radhakrishna: Taxi For Sure, we never wanted to exit. But it is not always your choice. There are so many hypothetical scenarios here. In a transaction company, nobody has emotions. For a user of Taxi For Sure, if I sell to Ola, it doesn't matter. But when you build a company around the emotions of India, and if you just do it overnight, go and sell it to another firm, though we are not competing directly, the market views it a different way. So you are going to be looked at as somebody who just sold for money, right? Once you are an entrepreneur, especially a company like Koo, you would never want to sell right. It's fun.