The founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard famously said: ‘You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion’.
And yes, he was a science fiction writer before he became the head of religious order.
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, entrepreneurs in India have been doing that for years. The good people in tech are catching up now.
There’s an App called ‘mymandir’ — it got to a stunning 2% reach in the month of February this year. Why? Take a look at its description:
‘mymandir is a unique social network that connects devotees and temples with each other. It’s a place to share your religious and spiritual updates, create and join groups of temples you visit, and connect with other devotees through the updates they share.’
Wow. That’s gold!
It also promises users the ability to ‘See photos and videos of aarti of various gods (Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Devi Lakshmi, Krishna, Saraswati, Durga, Ganesh, Hanuman etc.) and godmen (like Mahaveer, Parshwanath, Bahubali, Sai baba, Baba Ramdev etc.).’
Forget — Music streaming, people want Bhakti Sangeet!
As a category, this is huge. People want to hear the same songs on their smartphones that they grew up listening to on their cassette players. Genre’s like Gurbani/ Bhakti & Hanuman Chalisa are extremely popular.
In terms of metrics: Devotion Apps have a lot of organic demand, so very low CAC & high retention. Throw in video and photos for ‘darshan’ — you’ll get some phenomenal screen time!
This is content for India by India.It’s not slick or sexy and it’s not a ‘listicle’ or a ‘viral’ video. It’s both urban and rural. It’s so obvious that we completely ignore it.
One thing you’ll find is that as a market, it’s still wide open. Most of the firms catering to the demand — are small app development shops and startups that still haven’t broken out of their cohorts. It’s a space you could still build a huge business in.
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
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You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
