To tweet, or to Koo? That is the question

Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka need a break. Life has been very busy for the two co-founders of Koo since the middle of February. Launched in March 2020, Koo, a vernacular-focussed microblogging platform on the lines of Twitter—which is funded by venture capital heavyweights like former Infosys CFO T.V. Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital and Kalaari Capital, among others—took off in February thanks to a tussle between Twitter and the Indian government. The government had wanted the microblogging giant to block certain accounts, which the latter had initially refused to comply with.

Since then, many high-profile ministers tweeted that they have logged in on Koo, a microblogging platform which lets users choose from a wide array of Indian languages. This has led to an over 20-fold rise in daily users, the latest estimates say.

If that wasn’t enough to keep the co-founders busy, they’ve had to deal with alleged privacy issues (which they have since denied) and criticism that one of the investors in the parent company, Bombinate Technologies, was China-based Shunwei Capital. Finally, in mid-March, Shunwei sold its minority stake, which was acquired by former Indian cricketer Javagal Srinath, BookMyShow founder Ashish Hemrajani, Udaan co-founder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, and Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, among others.

Amid all this, what comes forth is the unassuming nature of the co-founders. “We are both very middle-class people,” Bidawatka, 40, tells Fortune India. Their partnership dates back to the early 2010s. Then, Radhakrishna used to run his car rental aggregator, TaxiForSure, which was acquired by Ola in 2015, while Bidawatka was a part of The Media Ant, a media discovery and buying platform he founded after he left online bus ticketing platform redBus.

“After two and half years of me running TaxiForSure, we were looking to scale up,” says Radhakrishna, 39. Because he wanted to scale up, Radhakrishna needed someone who had experience running his own business. “We hit it off right away and I wanted Mayank in,” he recalls.

Koo’s genesis happened after Radhakrishna exited TaxiForSure. After his departure in 2015, he got some funding and began to experiment. Around the same time, Bidawatka co-founded Goodbox, a Bengalurubased e-commerce platform that connected small businesses with consumers. They kept in touch and frequently exchanged ideas. “We kept experimenting,” says Radhakrishna. Out of these experiments was born Vokal, a vernacular-focussed question-and-answer app on the lines of Quora.

“Data shows that a majority of Google searches in India happen not via keyboard, but via voice search,” says Bidawatka. The duo began to design an app that would have a voice-enabled search option for questions which would be answered by subject experts, in local languages.

“We realised we needed something that would give answers to Indians searching for stuff in vernacular languages in a better way. That was Vokal’s problem statement, and it sought to bring subject experts on one platform,” he adds. That’s when they realised there was a demand for a microblogging platform that catered to Indian languages.

“We went to Twitter to see that these people weren’t really using it, so we asked why? And the answer was that it [Twitter] was not in the local language [which] these people wanted to use to communicate in. And, thus, Koo was born,” says Bidawatka.

The competition

Although Koo has seen a surge in users, is it a viable alternative to Twitter? Especially since such Big Tech applications are deeply embedded in users’ lives. It isn’t that alternatives haven’t been explored in the past. A few years ago, Twitter had found itself embroiled in a controversy over its content moderation policies, and many users started using another platform called Mastodon. But as the controversy died down, Mastodon was forgotten. And Koo isn’t the only available Twitter alternative; there are others as well from India, such as Tooter.

But Koo’s co-founders aren’t worried. “Internet businesses are usually a winner-takes-it-all market. So you first have to get supply, and the supply won’t come till users come. And users won’t come till supply comes. It’s a chicken-andegg scenario,” explains Bidawatka. “Aprameya and I have been running network businesses since the last decade or so. And we know how to crack a chicken-and-egg problem.”

The co-founders say that focussing on vernacular languages gives them an edge because it enables them to not only build a space that reflects the unique realities of the country, but also helps create a localised community.

Experts, however, are cautious about Koo’s position in the market. Nikhil Pahwa, Internet rights activist and editor of tech news platform Medianama, says that for a social media app, the question of viability comes much later. The first phase, he says, is to acquire users and create a viable proposition for monetisation, although the revenue earned per user is low, whether it is through advertisements, or transactions, or any other model. “[That’s] why you see social media companies not making any money because they are not playing a two-, three-year game. They are VC-funded to enable them to garner a significant part of the market share,” he adds.

Pahwa argues that tech companies have a history of copying features from other apps. “It will take a minute for Twitter to put in Indian languages as a feature; plus we already have Indian language keyboards available.” According to him, Koo’s emergence and its reliance on Indian languages as a key differentiator needs to be seen in the context of another Bengaluru-based social media platform with a significant Indian language offering, ShareChat. “ShareChat already has around 50 million active daily users; I don’t think Koo is there yet,” he says. In fact, towards the latter part of February, news reports had suggested that Twitter was interested in acquiring ShareChat, a company it has invested in.

However, Koo’s cofounders, have a different viewpoint. For Radhakrishna, also the CEO, the focus on Indian languages and features that can be localised would see them through. “If it was a case where a feature can be copied and catered to the same audience that uses both Koo as well as Twitter, then it makes total sense. In our case, most of our local language users have never used a microblogging app ever before. Their first tryst with freedom of expression is with Koo. That is our demography. And that demography will remain loyal to Koo,” he says.

Bidawatka says that the success of any social media platform depends on the kind of network effect it helps generate for its users. “For Twitter, the value doesn’t lie with the features it has, but the network it has built. You start with five followers and over time you accumulate 10,000 followers, which means I have reached a stage [where] I can’t leave this platform anymore. The network effects generated by our localised communities would stay loyal to us,” he says.

Experts, however, feel that banking on just language might not be sufficient. Mumbai-based Shashidhar K.J., associate fellow at think tank Observer Research Foundation, points out that while language is important, it is not the only thing out there. He cites the example of messaging app WhatsApp. “If you look at WhatsApp as another social media app rather than a messaging one, you’ll see that there people exchange views in languages other than English, although the interface might be in English. How do they do that? Via videos, via audio,” he says.

In essence, he argues, the movement is now towards video and audio. For such mediums, he says, you do not need a separate language as a feature, because audio and video can be in any language.

In fact, experts have also argued that one of the main reasons why Twitter is interested in ShareChat is primarily because of its short video app, called Moj, which claims to have over 80 million monthly active users. “If you ask me, I’d advise Koo to focus more on audio and video than on any other feature, since that is where the game lies,” Shashidhar says.

Will Koo be able to mark its territory in this crowded space? Or will it be gobbled up by Big Tech? Only time will tell.

(The story originally appeared in Fortune India's April 2021 issue).