Every now and then, we do a deep dive using our platform to uncover the apps/ companies that are proliferating faster than others. These scans always throw up interesting results not just because of the variety of use cases we uncover but also because of the unexpected things people have an affinity for!
Some of it is seriously weird. There are apps being built out that play on every emotion from nostalgia to sexual frustration to economic insecurity.
It’s amazing how often unfunded companies have larger user bases than highly funded ones and how many entrepreneurs are building better and bigger businesses without ever stepping in to the lime light.
As we shine the light on some of these businesses, our aim is equally to show case to investors that there are businesses worth talking to that are not part of the ‘ecosystem’ and also to show entrepreneurs (current and aspiring) that you can build a business without chasing investors. I also want to highlight the themes that are gaining traction since they reveal much about our fears & aspirations.
Having said that, in this list you will find companies that fit into every possible stage of growth:
- Un Funded
- Incubation Stage
- Angel Funded
- Seed
- Series A and beyond
- Corporate Owned
The categories we’ve covered are:
- Books & Reference
- Tools
- Sports
- Board
- Travel & Local
- Education
- Entertainment
- News & Magazines
- Finance
- Social
- Casual
- Shopping
- Food & Drink
- Communication
- Photography
- Racing
- Business
To provide a balanced view, we have covered products experiencing both exponential and linear growth. It’s worth keeping in mind as you read this that as the user base of any product gets larger; its growth may slow down in percentage terms despite picking up an equivalent or higher number of users.
This e-mail is broken up in 2 parts:
- Part 1: Free to View + Tweet to Unlock and receive the Raw Data (in Excel)
- Part 2: Pay (Rs. 1800) to Unlock the data and receive the Raw Data (in Excel) for the entire report.
- This section is in 2 parts:
- Interesting Trends — Majority of these companies may be difficult to invest in but allude to interesting trends worth exploring or thinking about.
- Investable Trends — Many of these companies are unfunded or still in early stages of growth.
There are a few things that stand out about this data, mainly the repetition of a few key themes over and over again. These are:
- Utility Tools that improve phone performance or help with file transfers — take a look at Booster Kit, Plutoie File Manager and XShare. Throughout this newsletter — you will find examples of these Utility Apps growing fast. They cover everything from Apps that improve your phones performance, increase its battery life to those that delete duplicate files to increase memory.
- Wall Papers and Posters –these just keep growing — why though? The play store is strewn with apps like this. People want to customize their UI and phones functionality to their needs. Launcher apps like this one allow them to do that.
- Government Related — if you study ‘eCourts Services’, you’ll realize that it targets a specific use case and audience — in this case, the legal fraternity. Rather surprisingly, the developer, in this case, is the Government of India. The applications of technology for legal services and the ability to mine through large amounts of data are very compelling. This is a space where intelligent assistants & bots could become very powerful tools.
- Nostalgia — time and again, we see products that ride on this trend taking off. ‘Ludo’ for some reason is a mobile game that people can’t get enough of. And yes, ‘Photo Par Shayari Likhne Wala Apps Write Hindi’ is a real thing.
- Dating — time and again we see products that claim to help users find love /mating partners — growing really fast. This is a space with a lot of organic demand. It also tells us that there is a great deal of frustration with current dating apps like Tinder. (Mostly disappointed men). Which brings us to an interesting catch 22 situation — clearly there is a demand for another dating platform but how do we help people find a significant other when almost across the board they are of the same gender?
- User Tracking — Some of these products such as WhatsTracker are interesting because of the use case they claim to serve (whether they do in fact cater to it is debatable). The ability for us to track where our friends are in real time, creepy as it may sound — this is something a lot of people want — especially for their children & significant others who they worry about. Honestly, given what you read about in the papers — who can blame them. Check out an app called ‘Family Locator’ to see what I mean.
iPhone users, of course, have a ‘Find My Friend’ feature but then — India is an Android country. Google maps also has a location sharing feature, but a standalone, purpose-built product might be a better solution. - The Unexpected presence — ‘Plantix’ is a German app that claims to be a plant doctor for farmers and people who want to cultivate edible crops at home. Its presence in India is still small, but I wonder if this growth is a result of an increasing number of farmers getting connected to the internet? Are they searching for apps that could help them improve the quality of their produce?
If you’re keen to look at the raw data behind these growth curves — click here and we’ll send you the raw files in excel once you show us some social media love!
— — — — — — — -— — — — — — -End of Part 1 — — — — — — — — — — —
Thanks for your time,
Ashish Kapoor
Team KG
P.S.At the risk of sounding like a broken record, am I the only one who thinks that the opportunity for inorganic growth using this data is compelling?
Originally published at kalagato.com.
