Dhruv Sharma: Hey there, listeners. Hey there, listeners. It's Monday, October 12. This is stream number one fifty. It's also Utsav's birthday today, and this is a happy birthday, Utsav.

Utsav Somani: Thank you. Thank you. Another trip around the sun.

Dhruv Sharma: And today is turning out to be a creator economy special. Our first guest today is Divyanshu Damani, and he's building a company called TagMango. Divyanshu, welcome to The Offline Network.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Thank you so much, Dhruv. Thanks, Utsav. Happy birthday once again, Utsav. Thank

Utsav Somani: you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dhruv Sharma: Great to have you on TON. And, Divyanshu, what is TagMango?

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): What is TagMango? TagMango is like, Shopify, but for digital products in the simplistic way of after I explained it. We're more focused on helping creators make money off their audiences. So... And they can sell all kinds of educational digital products, so courses, workshops, memberships, and we provide the entire infra level. So from the ability to collect payments, host your courses, manage your communities, cover your marketing automations, everything end to end from a singular place itself. So that is what TagMango in the most simplistic way, is.

Utsav Somani: Phenomenal. And you've lived, I mean, multiple lives and pivots, in this journey as well. Right? Because it started with your own journey where you realize that a million followers does not mean that you actually have a business. So what are the different iterations that you went through to land at the current one?

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): So a quick backstory, as you highlighted, started out, as a creator myself on a prehistoric platform. I don't know if many of you have heard of it. It's called Facebook. It used to exist back in 2017.

Utsav Somani: Man, I called the social reckoning yesterday, so that name is fresh. It's probably...

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Oh, okay. That makes sense. So So twenty seventeen, eighteen is when I, ran through and built an audience set. Then, Facebook decided to kill its algorithm, so was unable to kind of reach to my million plus followers across the different channels I had hardly gone about creating and also was struggling to make money. That became the problem statement on top of which TagMango was birthed. And, back in 2019, it was actually a nano micro influencer marketplace. So we used to find nano influencers, micro influencers connect with brands in their localities and try to go deeper into that segment. In 2020, we identified that that was a very operational heavy business. So tech was just an enabler, not the not the primary, not the primary engine, and we will... We could foresee that there'll be scalable challenges, and we'd gone through YC. So that was a constant feedback. Also, we were getting about the model back then. And then, from there, the one major pivot that happened for TM, this is in 2020, we shifted from monetization with brands to figuring how we can help creators monetize through their audiences instead. So that is the journey we undertook, and that had multiple iterations. It started out with a very brief moment. It was a cameo like model. So, like, video shouting with, like, video marketplace, birthday wishes, etcetera. Then it moved briefly towards... For a couple of months, we were testing out Patreon like models that does India support a creator, like, how Patreon allows to support? And then we identified very early on that India is not so altruistic that we do support a creator per se. And we started to see early trends on the education side that, they were willing to pay for value that was being provided on the platform. And from there onwards, we started to go deeper on the education side of the spectrum. And now more than the creator economy, we'd like to identify ourselves that we're in the knowledge economy. So any knowledge creators per se wanting to kind of monetize their audiences, they come out of the platform, and we've built infrastructure focused for these knowledge creators to monetize their audiences extremely well. So that's been the journey. And since 2022 almost, we've just gone deeper and deeper into building suit of features and functionalities to help them build scalable businesses in a more simplistic manner.

Dhruv Sharma: Makes it super clear. So these, knowledge creators, they've gone through. Ordinarily, how many tools, how many subscriptions are they juggling with, and how do you bring that... All of that in just one place?

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Previously, they used to kind of juggle with, like, multiple different subscriptions, something else for payments, both Indian and international payments, something else for cost hosting, which is like a learning management system, something else for, like, community hosting, email automations they'd be using, like, ConvertKit, etcetera, other platforms altogether. So instead of using tasks, like, multiple tools and juggling with them, which increases complexity of business, also increasing... Increases cost significantly, and just, overall, even reduces customer experience and delight for their own students, for their own customers, we brought, on the basis of our learnings back then when when TagMango really came through with this one stop solution, we could see that we were, able to substitute six to seven different such toolings that creators and coaches were ideally using at that point of time and bring them all under one singular roof itself. So that's what happened.

Utsav Somani: And, you launched something called Mango AI recently. Everyone's launching AI tools and, support, support, support stuff for, people on their platform. So what does Mango AI specifically do that was not possible before?

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): I think, naturally, as software is becoming more and more commoditized, we have to reinvent the entire business model keeping in mind that as AI models go about improving, we are not substituted as a business, but it only goes about empowering our business. So we've been thinking about deeply in terms of what does the new version of our business side look like, like all other technology founders are thinking about it in the world of AI. And Mango AI initially is just like a dipstick. Like, we've just dipped our toes into AI, where it's, the ability for you to prompt and understand how your business is running across doing analysis, even taking actions within your business. It's how you connect with the cloud MCP and kind of run it through cloud on a platform. But, more than that, I think, which is which is still very early on in terms of how we've thought through AI. But what we are working towards is we want to become, the context left for their businesses end to end and also the intelligence layer that powers the individual context of the creator ID that's there and run it in agentized loops so that the creator or the coach, whoever is showing up on the platform, has to do lesser and lesser technology with the context across thousands of creators, best practices, how can we bake it into their own intelligence for their businesses so that outcomes are much sharper and their focus is just the human element where they go about interacting with their communities, building deeper relationships, and the... Everything when it comes to technology. That's the AI view that we have for our business, so this is the journey that we are already undertaking.

Dhruv Sharma: Divyanshu, so I'm still thinking about, you know, knowledge creators. I think that's the term you used and and, man, I'm only able to think of, like, two kinds of knowledge creators, either, like, the test prep kinds or the people who'll sell you courses for, like, 9 rupees and so on. Right? Those... The micro courses or microlearning, etcetera. But I'm sure there's a lot more to it. So give us a sense of, you know, the creators you work with, the learners, who are they, what are they coming to learn. Yeah. Give us a sense.

Utsav Somani: I've seen those fitness and diet plans also, like, where you, like, on Twitter where they try to sell you, stuff.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Right. So let me take some time to unpackage this, which will actually give you clarity in terms of the the kind of... Different kinds of creators that's there on the platform. So let me break this down into two parts. One, I'll break down in terms of, the size of creators, how we kind of perceive creators that someone who has a following on social media. So within that, there is one bucket, people who have following on social media that are quintessential creators. There are also those that don't have a following on social media, but they're able to drive attention through other mediums, particularly through performance marketing, which are the coaches on the platform. So if you think creators, I just keep us 100, 200, 300,000 followers on social out there. They usually, do one stop kind of digital product. So they would launch a course or they would launch a learning cohort within the same, and they would monetize that because they already have attention, in any of these surface areas that's there. Then another kind of... Which is the larger percentage of our business is actually coaches who've turned entrepreneurs per se, who are using the full suit of functionalities that Tagman widely provides. And within that, there's like... And, within that, there's interesting... Very interesting, kind of, things that people are selling on the platform. But the structure with which they ideally sell is that they they don't just sell a one stop digital product. They're building a transformational community around a certain team. So for example, there is, a creator whose name is Harsh Davey, a coach whose name is Harsh Davey. He's a... He was in the corporate world for twenty years, and he started teaching flute on the platform, which is an hobby driven activity. Can you take a guess how much he's made, like, lifetime on the platform over the last three years teaching flute in a country like India?

Utsav Somani: I have no idea, honestly. Anybody

Dhruv Sharma: is no longer My guess is that... Your... Was it... Your guess is as good as mine. Notera is the one.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): He's made more than 25 crores teaching flute on the platform.

Dhruv Sharma: That is so cool. Yeah.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Which is a nonfinancial outcome driven thing. Yeah. Usually, make money online is easier to sell, but something that's hobbyist driven. So the... So this is... Imagine this is like an online university that has been created. It's a new form of education where people are ideally taken through different levels. There is a 5,000 rupee product and a 2 lakh rupee product as well. And it's built out as a community where, of course, there is interaction. Universities. Right? There are schools. There's different classes that's happening for the same, and you're going through a certification program and then we have a degree. It's maybe his third level program, Joy. It's called Flute Ganharvas. He said that if you complete in six months or twelve months, 60 ways of playing the flute or four raga, so whatever the nuance of it is, then you go ahead and successfully complete and get a flute Gandharvas certification. You're certified for the same. And it's not just the learning that you get from the mentor. It is also, the satsang, the community coming together. And in... And if you if you take a step back in today's world where loneliness is a pandemic, and because of social media and now even AI, loneliness is getting more and more amplified. People are finding... Oh, there are... People are finding common themes. So let's say if it's fluke, and within that, they're able to find satsang and a sense of community within the same. And that's where the real monetization opportunity ideally lies. There is one creator on our platform. She's built a menopause community, a menopause community, and she's, like, a double digit CR. She's able to bake on an annual basis. But, again, like, it becomes like a safe space, for a certain kind of audiences. And within that, she talks about fitness and mental health and a lot of those transformational pieces. But that is the thing that has been the most successful, and even the platform's tailor made to build such functions itself.

Utsav Somani: This is quite fascinating because I think Nava famously says productize yourself. And, typically, the creators that come to our mind when we talk about creator led businesses are typically... I mean I mean, these fashion or, I mean, tech influencers doing these products, or selling products or doing brand deals on their Instagram pages. That's the very narrow definition that comes to our mind when we think about creative businesses. But, I mean, what you've exposed is, like, the hobby side of things where they become educators or, yeah, I mean, run communities on this thing. I think that's fascinating. How much of, this, was inspired by Ankur of Teachable? I believe he's your investor and must have been, important in the journey that has led you here.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): No. Absolutely. I think, Ankur definite definitely in our early days of our journey, he was able to provide us a lot of insights, and he'd already exited Teachable. And directionally, he he shared with us some of his learnings that he had gotten in Teachable, especially around, GTM. But since then, I think we've not been in touch for a while now since he got into Carrie and other things. But, yeah, we're we're grateful for all our investors and, like, the input they've been able to provide, especially Y Combinator. One of our, like, our group partner at YC was Michael Seibel, and the amount of clarity that Michael has in terms of the ability to really derive sharp insights from a very short period of time has been, very, very instrumental in our journey, especially in the pivots... Early stage pivots that we ideally undertook for TagMango as well.

Dhruv Sharma: That's take... Divyanshu, you know, because you primed us with that fantastic example of, you know, the flute maestro, maybe we can use that to just go a little bit deeper. So you said, like, you... A really large sum of money made over, you know, many, many years. Obviously, it must have taken some time to get there. So what... Tell us also about what the journey was like and what were some of the early experiment... Like, were there setbacks along the way? How did he discover his audience? What experiments were tried, you know, on the packaging of content side, pricing? Tell us more about that journey. I think that'll be of a lot more interest.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Absolutely. I think,

Utsav Somani: Even some numbers as well, maybe. I think that'll be helpful for us to contextualize the whole thing about the business.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Right. So if I take a step back and look at... If I give you a context of TagMango's numbers, we, we have close to, like, 10,000 plus creators that are monetizing slash active on the platform. We get up close to 200,000 paid learners on the platform every single month, close to 15,000,000 transactions. It's happened since the lifetime of the business. And, about eight hundred eight hundred to one thousand crores of FanVil GMV is where we'd create our earnings that where we arrive at, for this fiscal year is what we are projecting. So that's the scale of the business, and all of this has been done through audience monetization of some sorts. If I have to even break it down between the creator and coach kind of segments, close to 65 to 70% is what coaches ideally go about making in the transformational community format that I mentioned. And, what the journey looks like for all of these guys. So there's one person who is very instrumental in our space. His name is Siddharth Rajsekar. I don't know if you guys have come across him. But, Siddharth primarily teaches you the framework of building a business on top of your knowledge. So how do you go about monetizing your expertise slash your knowledge is what he goes about teaching and, like, exceptional guy, and we've deeply partnered with him. So his entire community comes and uses TagMango itself. And, most of the people are replicating his model. So the structure that's there, the way you go about interacting, the way you go about nurturing your customers on your first level two, so that they move to the higher tier... Higher paid, ticketed product. How do you structure out the higher, ticketed product, plus everything. Like, each part of the business, it's like the framework of the business, like how YC is there, without the investment piece. He goes about covering it. And he runs a quantum community as well, and that quantum community is, close to 10 lakh rupees a year is what he charges from his top 100 customers, where he also does, like, offline events within the same, and, of course, one to one conversations. But it's very unheard of in the creator slash coach economy to build a membership suit of almost 7 to 10 lakhs a year and have 100, 120 people pay it, which is a very unique space he's been able to create for himself as well.

Utsav Somani: Nice. That's what, we do it offline as well, by the way.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Oh, so you guys have a cohort as well?

Utsav Somani: We do. We do. These founder cohorts called ports where seven to eight founders are clubbed together across different cities. We live in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad and small presence in Dubai, and they pay us somewhat in that range as well. Events, retreats is included, but the magic is behind the closed door sessions that we call pods, where an executive coach comes with you. It's like a CEO support group, for scale founders.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Amazing. No. Then we should chat more on that. We'd love to kind of, share with you what everyone else is doing on the platform too. And there's a bunch of insights we've been able to capture in the journey, and we'd love to learn also what you guys exactly and how you've tailor made it as well.

Utsav Somani: So one final quick one before we close this out. Our next guest is also here. If a 23 year old creator or supposedly wanting to become a creator is in our audience today, would you tell him build a business first or be a creator first? Audience or business?

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): I think in the world of AI, everything is getting... The ability for you to build product has become so much more easier. A lot of the differentiation will be in terms of how you're able to capture trust. What I'd say is when you're... If you're... Even if you're... Whichever route you're taking, you have to have a strategy for the other side of the spectrum. So you can't just go about becoming a creator individually without having a a monetization view on it and not being smart about it. If you're just going in for the vanity and the metrics, that won't work for you. If you're just thinking about the business, especially if it's a business that's connected to this certain domain where you capture audiences at large, then you should have a strategy, on the other side as well so that you can make the most from your personal brand slash your creator journey and how do you want to go about executing on it.

Utsav Somani: Super useful. Thank you so much, Divyanshu, for coming on our show. Wishing you a good rest of the week ahead.

Divyanshu Damani (TagMango): Thanks so much, Utsav. Thanks, Dhruv. Cheers, guys.

Dhruv Sharma: Good chatting with you. Cheers.

Utsav Somani: Alright. So we've learned about creative business. Let's, welcome Eashan from Aydus to teach us how to make it viral, once you're becoming a creator. Eashan, welcome to TON.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Hi, guys. Thanks,. Thanks, Dhruv. Thank you for having me.

Utsav Somani: So everyone talks about going viral, but when a brand, like, say, Polymarket or deal comes to you, what does going viral mean for them? Like, is it a ROI attached, or it's just, like, sheer number of likes on Twitter and, basically, no ROI after that or more soft branding in the long run?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Good question. So this really depends on the company's journey is is how I would put in first. For example, something like this is, let's say, totally different for for a poly market or a XP for that matter, versus someone like deal. For example, in Deel's case, it's a b to b company. For them going viral, especially on short form, would, would not mean much in terms of enterprise deals closed in their case, going wild on LinkedIn. And then inbound coming from there would make more sense just in terms of let's say revenue, but there's a lot more to it. So for example, in case of a company like Deel, it's also a $17,000,000,000 company, by a virtue of it being a HR payroll platform. It it's not a sexy business, right? Which means, people like us, or, or let's say the common audience for that matter doesn't really know about Deel. And there is a lot of value in just the deal being everywhere, which will help them say attract better talent. Eventually for a company of that scale, whenever they get listed, it just makes sense for them to be known in the market. So that's, that's really dependent on the, the company's journey. That being said, I think, when we work with clients, we first start with this exact question, which is what's your goal? Meaning, views is not an end goal for us. In in in our case, views is simply a means to get to a business goal. We let's say boil down all the business goals to simply three, three points. One of them is getting more revenue, which is more users, etcetera, getting more funds, and attracting better talent. I don't think there is anything beyond these three.

Utsav Somani: By getting more funds, you mean, like, people actually wanna go viral because they get noticed by VCs or future investors?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Absolutely. Absolutely.

Utsav Somani: Oh, wow.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): That's... I I I mean, the the entire Twitter launch market is, say, made to to result into better funding, right, for the next round or the VCs to get interested in you. It's it's, it's all condensed to that.

Utsav Somani: And what does a business do or a founder do who has no zero... I mean, zero social presence? Like, the world is gonna be hard to him or her?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): So if if you see me, I I don't have a lot of social presence. Right? So it it it really depends. The the world is obviously hard to the person who who is not that active. But I I would say, it's...

Utsav Somani: Let me let me say, I mean, a different question then. Would Steve Jobs be posting on Twitter, his threads and, like, making short form content?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): I think so. I think so. I think Steve Jobs would be doing it. Yeah.

Utsav Somani: Oh, nice.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. Well, Nishant, so we're talking about virality, which as you said is the outcome. Yeah. And so there's a lot that leads up to that moment. And, you know, I was I was just looking up how you guys do the work, meaning once you get that first brief and before you go back and present... And this is long before the campaign actually goes live. You guys study very, very in-depth the company that's briefed you and their audience, etcetera. Take us behind the scenes and tell us what that process is like. It almost... It's almost like, you know, somebody has a big match day coming up and they're watching videos of how their... How the team they're gonna play, you know, performs and you guys really study everything in-depth.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Absolutely. Absolutely. So how I term ourselves is we are really the Navy Seals of growth, for tech companies. And what that what that means is, you you don't need us every time. Like, we're we're not a company that's gonna be on a retainer and just keep doing, you know, media tools for you. Rather, we come on your most important day. And when that happens, you have to have a lot of depth. You have to figure out, you know, first, what is the exact goal that the company is chasing? Secondly, who is the customer? So our our main job starts from there. So the ideal customer profile. And then from there, reverse engineering the entire campaign. Really going in-depth. For example, let's say, if if, if it's a white coding... So for example, we're working with Emotion for that matter. In in a case like that, you would really want to understand, is this company trying to target the the the people who understand tech? So people like you and me. Or is it the normal restaurant owner who is based in Italy, who is a 35 year old trying to figure out, how to make a tool that helps him in queuing? It's a very specific brief. Like this, there will be multiple different customer profiles, and then you would try to, let's say, get famous, go viral slash target, each of them separately.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. And you do this organically. None of those stuff is paid for?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): We we do, we also do paid, because let's say, how how we sort of work is, there is a entire funnel where the funnel would start from organic. And at the end, you need to target... Retarget the same customer. And, you know, eventually... First, like,

Utsav Somani: big organic push is, like, just many accounts all at once. Like, I mean, see what works. So, basically, like, 500 nameless accounts is going at it, or is there more, like, science behind the whole thing?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): There is a lot of science behind the whole thing. Meaning what the platform's value at the end, if if I were to let us summarize, It's it's very simply watch time. So even if we are putting out a lot of content on multiple accounts, it is still going ahead and looking at which video has the most watch time. And to find that out, there is a lot of science behind it. Like, we we have our daily reports which look almost like each of the research reports. And that that is a mix of, say, looking at watch time, looking at engagement rate to views ratio, looking at comments to views ratio. All of these numbers speak to you of whether a video even... So for example, a video at 100 k, can convert better for you and give you, say, more outcomes versus a video at a million. And all of that boils down to the type of engagement that a video gets, which is a function of how the video has been made. So, yes, there is a lot of science behind it. That being said, the way short form works is on volume. For example, on Twitter, you guys see one post going viral. These are generally the launch posts, and you can engineer that. On Instagram, YouTube shorts, etcetera, you cannot engineer one post. That is why you need multiple posts going out in multiple channels. That's, say, the entire thesis of UGC or Clipping.

Dhruv Sharma: Super interesting. Shun, how long does a playbook last before it goes stale or, or is each campaign a n of one kind of event?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Each... So each industry and niche is an n of one. And I would say within that, usually, three months is how we look at a playbook sort of lasting and then something being reinvented on top of it. But if, let's say, everyone on the team is super smart or students of how how a person thinks, then it is it is... It's it's not that difficult. Like, it's a daily... It's it's your job. And this is one of the core reasons why we think right now. People talk about, say, AI writing scripts or AI writing briefs for marketing copy, etcetera. We don't think that is possible at least in the in the market that we operate in simply because there is an insane amount of budget that goes behind each of these campaigns. And you want someone to really think from first principles, understand all the nuances of this customer, and then make 600,000 videos for that matter.

Utsav Somani: So, I mean, you've spoken about a bunch of, interesting, interesting topics and companies as well in your, on your website as well, and the numbers are just insane. Like, over a billion views, per month across platforms for you. Tell us a little bit about when should a company approach you? When should they think about doing a launch video? When should they think about other things as well? When does, one start thinking about this, virality engine, per se?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Okay. Okay. So, firstly, we don't do launch videos, on x. We do everything on short form. So... And let's say that that includes doing UGC, doing influencer, doing paid, etcetera. But that being said, when a company should approach us, usually it is say them being about at least a spend of, 3 to 500 k a month, on growth. Now this can be either paid. It can be organic, whatever. But that that would be the baseline for them. Along with that, it's not just the budget. It is more about PMF. So does the product have, say, PMF? Are people referring it? When you run ads on them, are people really converting from there, etcetera?

Dhruv Sharma: And you said something super interesting, Eashan, which is, you guys think you're students of how people... How other people think. You, you know, you study psychology a fair amount, consumer psychology anyway. How do you actually... How do you compete for someone's attention? Like, what draws someone into, you know, the short form content that you're creating?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): So it's it's actually, it's, it's very, very easy to do when I, when I put it, you know, that way it sounds very complicated, but there is really no rocket science. What you have to do is think from a layman's angle. You know, the, the normal person on the street or the normal person on Instagram, how... What are they doing when they are, say, scrolling for that matter? And to boil it down, it it simply is, am I hooked onto what I am watching, or am I scrolling up? Leave all of the analysis behind. Just observe a video from a layman's eyes and then see is the video engaging enough. It's... When that happens, you would you would say, like like, be able to judge what is a good post, what is not a good post.

Utsav Somani: There's a question from a live audience, Harshdeep Nera. How is Aydus different from a plain marketing firm? I think what he's trying to get at is that agencies or typically service led businesses stop at founder's taste. So how do you build a proper, large, scalable business around this, or is, hiring great talent only solution to growing?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): So it... It'll be... Obviously, we're in the services business. So it it boils down to hiring great talent, having the right processes. Using using AI, all of that, I'll I'll keep that aside. Everyone does it. But, yes, I need to be very, very straightforward. We we would look at how a McKinsey has scaled. We would look at how a DCS has scaled. There are straightforward playbooks. So there is a very, very straight path, which is not that complicated to build a fundamentally strong business, which is, let's say, cash flow first, which will be on top of just hiring great talent, and that's what I started with. We we really are the number one growth team in the world, and that's... This is... So as a as a founder, this is the biggest problem for me just in general, which is how do we find better talent and how do we find the best people in growth to to move to ColdMangra, work with us here....

Utsav Somani: Share some, hiring secrets because you're working with some of the biggest names in the world. So I'm guessing, you're doing something right, and the team that you're building speaks for itself.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): It's it's been... So, it's been just more than a year, you know, not not not a really long time in in a company's journey. But, yeah, the companies that we work with helps a lot in attracting great talent because, if they were not working with us, it's very difficult to work with these companies unless you actually move to The US. So that helps. Also getting other smart, great people helps in, let's say, just getting more smart people. So doing doing a bit of that, but I think there is there is no there is no rocket science. It's it's just the same. Do a hiring post, interview great people, and then... Wider post help us a lot. So if you guys go to my LinkedIn or, our employees LinkedIn, you would see a lot of rage, baby, wild stuff that we keep doing. That gets us in front of a lot of eyeballs. And then from those eyeballs, we we have a rigorous interview process. So from there, we eventually hire good people.

Dhruv Sharma: And you have such an impressive list of companies that you've worked with, Ishan. What were some of those early customer wins like, and has it gotten easier with time with now just so much proof of work?

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Yes. Yes. It it has gotten easier with time. So, for example, we move with Flo Health. It's a period tracking app. We've worked with them for over a year now, gotten them about three fifty odd million views, on socials. That's that's been pretty interesting. We worked with Deel, like you guys said, made them super famous on, Instagram and YouTube shots. We produce a social tease for them. So if you guys have seen Brooklyn Coffee Shop, we we produce something on the lines of that. So all of this production happened with, let's say, some of the biggest influencers in New York. We... Who else have you worked with? We we...

Dhruv Sharma: The North Face was my favorite client of yours, by the way, that that campaign.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Oh, yes. Yes.... One month. Yeah. Yeah. The North Face was super interesting. So what we did with them was, they have this, refurbished vertical on their website where you can go and, let's say, purchase a $200 jacket for $100. And there was not a lot of visibility for something that's so strong. So we built a channel or or let's say a bunch of accounts on short form, which marketed that. That was pretty cool, which resulted into a bunch of revenue for them.

Utsav Somani: Awesome, Sean. As a final closing one, if I'm a 26 year old founder just funded, by tier one VC. My series a is done. So I don't have unlimited resources, but I'm on my path to PMF. What is one distribution hack which people are using that I shouldn't be using? What is that recommendation that you'll make? I

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): I would I would want to understand your your niche more. So...

Utsav Somani: Suppose I'm a d two c brand. Let's say that. Easiest.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Okay. Okay. That people should not be using. So I've... I I recently did an article about UGC, which talks about how... Why you should not do UGC. We get a lot of inbound from companies who want to do it, and it seems like it's it's... Let's say, that's where all of the arbitrage is, and that's where, let's say, a lot of people think that growth lies. That's not the truth. UGC helps you get a lot of top of the funnel, but if you don't have a d two c product that sticks or people repeat the buy again and again, all your paid ads don't convert. For example, if you are operating under ROAS of three, I wouldn't tell you UGC. So even if the entire Twitter tech circle is telling you to UGC, I would just tell you to focus on a product and focus on paid ads and do UGC once, say, you are beyond three to five CR in terms of monthly spend.

Utsav Somani: Alright. Perfect. This was phenomenal. Thank you so much for coming on TON, this Monday.

Eashan Shetty (Aydus): Thank you, guys. Thanks, Utsav. Thanks, Dhruv. Nice to meet you....

Dhruv Sharma: All the best.

Utsav Somani: Alright. I

Dhruv Sharma: almost borrowed your question at seven. I was gonna ask Sean about what am I... What if I'm a 25 year old founder and most of my round is done, but I still don't have a term sheet, then what kind of a video can I do to find?

Utsav Somani: Attract investors. Yeah. Dude, I don't know people do that to attract investors. Like, I mean, that's insane. Like, we'll probably chat to him separately and ask, but, I mean, that's...

Dhruv Sharma: You do what it takes.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. Alright. Tell Tell me about what is going on in the world of Elon Musk and Ambani.

Dhruv Sharma: Gosh. Do we really have to talk about this?

Utsav Somani: We can, I think, just mention it? This is all, I mean, of course, dated now because it all happened on October 9 where Elon Musk, I think, was...

Dhruv Sharma: I mean, just...... Slightly old tantrum now.

Utsav Somani: Slightly old tantrum, which was going around on x where he said that, hey. Why is Starlink not launching in India? Blah blah blah. And he's made it out to be a case where it would benefit people in rural India. And a lot of arguments have happened. Like, people have taken the more political side of things, but I think the more interesting argument that I read was that it's in the cheapest country in the world. I think Starlink is still around 8 to $9,000 a month. 8 to 9,000 rupees a month. Yep. Which for most of India and rural India will be a very, very tough, financial spend for Internet.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. I also wanna point out that it's... I mean, we're not new to this. Right? Like, we we may not have 9,000 satellites up in the, in low earth orbit, booming satellite Internet down, but we have three x America's connected users. We have at least five x the number of towers, that give people three g, four g, five g connectivity, and, half, if not the the same OFC, route length as, as The US. So our people are pretty connected at this point in time. And, sure, satellites, like the next......

Utsav Somani: The largest consumer of data in the world, actually.

Dhruv Sharma: We're the largest consumers of data. Rajan was on our show just, you know, on on stream one four nine spoke about how we have more consumer AI startups in India than any other place in the world. And it's not as the... As though the government of India has permanently shut its doors in Starlink in the manner that China has or Russia has or Iran has. The only thing they're waiting right now is for, you know, the k u and k band spectrum, which is not gonna be an option, which is not gonna be an auction. I'm sorry. In this case, it'll be administratively allocated. So only a matter of time before that happens. So, yeah, I think it was...

Utsav Somani: What I think... I mean, a lot of people also said that... I mean, he's also had his way in The US. Like, I mean, Chinese EVs are not allowed to compete in their market. So making a human cry about another country, and Prakar Gupta was a famous podcaster as well mentioned that we're not like US where you have oceans around you. We are actually surrounded by Pakistan and China. So anything that we do, having a free market reign of all... Any kind, is also not an easy consideration for a country like India. So we do actually have to be very careful. And I thought that was a very interesting point. Mhmm. SpaceX still is doing some really cool stuff. They wanna become a mobile operator and have the gen two constellation also approved. All of these are extremely technical things which are in house professor Dhruv will have to explain to us now. Professor.

Dhruv Sharma: No. I mean... So the the funny thing is, he he don't want... Wants to get into the satellite Internet business in India, and he wants to become a, you know, a standard telco in The US. And so what they've done is they've acquired some spectrum from a private equity firm. I think it might be low band spectrum so it can easily penetrate through buildings and just give you better connectivity. And if you're if you're using, like, if you're using hybrid infrastructure, which is a combination of satellite Internet and all of the terrestrial infrastructure, then, you know, you become a pretty good provider. So the reason why Starlink works on aircrafts, for instance, or if you're sailing over the Pacific is because you don't need ground infrastructure. So they have, like, 9,000 satellites up in the air and they all have interlink. And so, you know, you start... Your terminal communicates with the first satellite and if there's no ground station nearby, then that satellite communicates with another, which communicates with another till they can find a... Yeah. Till they can downlink to a ground station that then just uses the the standard terrestrial network to, I don't know, push a request to Google's data center. So that's how it works, and that's why, you know, you could be anywhere in the earth and and still use this.

Utsav Somani: Yeah. And, I mean... So... Yeah. So the Starlink two also, apparently, 100 times more bandwidth, And, yeah, I think they're gonna be, I mean, awesome. I mean, if this happens. But think about satellites in space. Geo, of course, didn't meet us chance to announce their version of this, LEO satellites to get more connectivity for Indians and all sovereign. So by 2035, they wanna have 1,600 satellites up there to beam data at, like, I mean, crazy, capacity. Right? I mean, it's insane.

Dhruv Sharma: And then combined with the terrestrial infrastructure that they already have, I think, good for them. And 1,600 is a lot. So even though it's gonna take about eight or nine years to get there, but, I think to reliably, offer satellite and its service, I think you need somewhere between 800 to a thousand to cover the entire planet and then, of course, a lot more for And... Just lower latency and...

Utsav Somani: How much does Starlink have? In the article, it says fifteen fifteen thousand. I don't know if it's still live or it's a number that they wanna achieve.

Dhruv Sharma: I think they've launched... They may have launched the... I don't know the exact count of how many satellites they've launched because you decommissioned them also at a certain point in time, but they have close to 10,000 in orbit right now. And it's like...

Utsav Somani: Commission at this thing. So what is the life... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course, they must have a life of wear and tear and stuff. Or it's fine. Sometimes they might even run into each other. Right? If they don't have, like, avoidance, I mean, collision avoiding technology.

Dhruv Sharma: Fortunately, they're separated and they can... I mean, in in such scenarios, they can maneuver. The interesting thing is, like, there, this v two, the most recent generation of, you know, Starlink satellites, not that big. Give or take the size of a car till they deploy their solar panels. And there's pictures on the Internet of how they'll stack maybe 20 of them inside of Falcon nine and then just send them up to LEO and then deploy.

Utsav Somani: Life?... This?

Dhruv Sharma: The life of of a satellite?

Utsav Somani: Yeah. I

Dhruv Sharma: don't wanna get this wrong, but I think they're effective for at least four or five years before you have to deal with them.

Utsav Somani: Nice.

Dhruv Sharma: And, I mean, the other thing we definitely wanna mention is now we are the only third country in the world to send, to have, like, private orbital launch capabilities in Sky Root and then, you know, there's many more that are coming along as well. So I think, sure, we are... We're late entrance to the race. What I think

Utsav Somani: I think will be very interesting is that, I mean, you, of course, we'll have to do some work for it, but maybe because we're not streaming during the Diwali break, you can prepare a presentation and do, like, a master class on this, and we can record it and then release it as a special around that time when people can learn about, like, these interesting topics that we've probably not covered in-depth with founders, from the industry. And you can, do that. I think that'll be cool.

Dhruv Sharma: As fact, what

Utsav Somani: is that is or so that

Dhruv Sharma: I think we'll have to bring the real pros out. Fortunately,

Utsav Somani: we do have

Dhruv Sharma: friends who work in the space economy, and, we'll get some time from them and assemble another, you know, star star panel and do such a thing. But... Yeah.

Utsav Somani: Shalom. We're talking about Jio. The biggest IPO is on us. November 21... October 21,. So it's like a Diwali gift from, the Reliance Industries. I mean, they will house many businesses. I think, you put out a list also. Yes.... At 107,000,000,000 or just about that, in terms of valuation, they're gonna raise 30,000 crores. This is literally the largest IPO that the country's ever seen. So insane amount of liquidity for investors, insane amount of liquidity, and number of shares being unlocked in the market. So let's see. Fingers crossed for a good one. Yeah. The gray market premium is around 15% for this right now. Alright. Another IPO from the tech world, Zetwork. They've upped their IPO size. They're looking to sell shares worth 2,000 crores approximately in that. Accel, k Capital, and Kalista Capital, Lightspeed, a bunch of, Peak 15 also from, Rajan's firm is also there. So good bunch of, winners in this, awesome IPO for the tech world as well. And what Rajen mentioned, I think, was fascinating. We are actually the country that's had more IPOs in the last two years than any other nation in the world.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah. We have.

Utsav Somani: Is... I mean, what a statistic. Like, I didn't even know that, was the case, but, wow, great stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Done. I think that's it from us, for Monday till October 12. We'll see you on Wednesday, same time, same place. Thank you for tuning in, guys. Bye bye. Thank you for joining us.