Acquisition project | Inshorts
What is Inshorts?
What it does? | Produces news in 60 word format - in tik-tok like scrolling feed |
|---|---|
Founded | 2013 |
Form Factor | 1. Available for download as a mobile application on Android & Apple app stores. |
Form Factor | 1. Available for download as a mobile application on Android & Apple app stores. 2. Available in web as mobile only UI, similar to app |
Value Proposition | 1. News in 60 words. Helps in quick digestion of daily news 2. Easy to scroll through news across world (can choose topics of interest) very quickly at glance, without having need to go in detail 2a. News heading gives context 2b. 60 word format gives quick brief 2c. Clicking on news takes to original article directly |
Uniqueness | Inshorts is only a aggregator, and dont have any overhead of news publishing news |
Interviews
Name | Tashu | Pranav | Ronit | Jatin | Chandra | Nikunj |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | 28 | 30 | 18 | 34 | 28 | 23 |
Why they use inshorts? | To get news in brief without going to multiple apps and websites | Know whats happening around | Single source to get whats happening | Follow daily sports on mobile | Be aware of whats happening | News consumption is easy |
Income levels (Yearly) | 10-20 Lac | 50 Lac+ | - | 50 Lac+ | 5-10 Lac | 5 -10 Lac |
Gender | Female | Male | Male | Male | Male | Male |
Location | Bangalore | Kota | Raipur | Chennai | Raipur | Raipur |
Work | Product Manager | Architect | Student | Self Business | Family Business | Family Business |
Marital Status | Single | Single | Single | Married | Single | Single |
Where do they spend time? | Whatsapp, instagram, facebook | Whatsapp, instagram | Snapchat, Whatsapp, Instagram | Facebook, whatsapp | Whatsapp, Instagram, reddit | Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp |
What they dont like about the app | news feed is not personalised enough | I select specific topics, but get news from other topics also | Headlines have become bait to read, and don’t give actual value | Need only sports and politics. See other topics also | Too many notifications in a day. The clickbaity notifications make me open the app several times a day, but I had to forcefully stop notifications from settings to avoid using the app mindlessly after reading notification | App doesn’t contain enough local news on things happening in my city |
ICPs
ICP 1 | ICP 2 | |
|---|---|---|
Ideal customer profile name | GenZ | Millenial |
Age | 18-24 | 25-35 |
Goals | Primary go-to source of news (probably only source) | Alternate to multiple news sources, News channel and news paper |
Income levels | 0-10 Lac | 0-50 Lac |
Gender | Male / Female | Male / Female |
Location | All over India (Understands one of English or Hindi) | All over India (Understands one of English or Hindi) |
Companies | Students, Family business - Varied | Job, Business - Varied |
Marital Status | Single Majorly | Single / Married |
Where do they spend time? | Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp | Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook |
Pain points | Dont like traditional sources of news consumption | Single place for all news, of topics which are of choice |
Current solution | Instagram news pages eg. - Buzzfeed | Multiple apps on phone - TOI, ET, Money control |
Competition
Criteria | Inshorts | Aadhan | TOI Shorts | Shuru |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Type of app | News in 60 words | News in 60 words | News in Short (60 or more) | Local news + Videos + Short content |
Key difference | English and Hindi News. | Focus on multiple languages - regional content - Tamil, telugu, | Only english content. Only source is Times of India | Focus on local news + video format. Primary audience tier 2-3-4 |
Audience | Tier 1-2-3. Enligsh and hindi speaking geography | Tier 1-2-3 | Tier 1 | Tier 2-3-4 |
Competition against inshorts | - | Yes. Eating into non english / hindi markets of inshorts. Very similar to inshorts in UI and feed | Focus only on times of India content. Not very overlapping audience with inshorts | Different audience than inshorts. Competes with Public (Another app from inshorts group) |
Rating on Playstore | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.4 | 4.4 |
Downloads on playstore | 10M + | 1M + | 50k + | 1M + |
Playstore screenshots
Aadhan - 4.1 star + 10L+ Downloads
TOI Shorts - 4.4 star + 50K + Downloads
Shuru - 4.4 star + 10L+ Downlaods
Market Size estimation
Existing channels working for inshorts
No Paid Ads
Its advertising spend on FB is almost nothing compared to MAUs of 8Mn+ (total spend in 5 years is ~₹25Lac - last ad in Feb '24, previous to that in Feb '23)
On a personal note, I don't recall seeing any inshorts ads in a long time
No Referrals
There isn't any active referral program in Inshorts. Primary sharing is via content loop
Content Loop
Based on interviews, online research and personal experience, inshorts is relying primarily on content loop and word of mouth for getting news users
How does user share inshorts today?
Sharing news that appear on feed by clicking on share button
Sharing insights (special series on topics like Sneaker Empire or Understanding IMAX)
- Click on Share in the insights
- select sharing one image or series
- share on whatsapp or channel of choice
in framework
| News | Insights |
|---|---|---|
Hook | Breakout news, Sounding aware/smart | Trivia, Sounding smart |
Content creator | Inshorts | Inshorts |
Distribution channel | Whatsapp / FB/ Insta |
Improving and adding Channels
Content Loops (Organic Push)
Create new content that can be shared apart from news (which is core product) and insights which are difficult to create in quantity
More content we create thats shareable, our product discovery improves
Some examples of content that can be created in quantity and will be shared by wider audience
We want to create content loops mimicking how actual news paper is designed with different sections catering to different user personas
- Astrology forecast of day - Inspiration from weekly astrology forecast in news papers and Aadhan app
Sports matches trivia / on this day / facts of day -
- Previous day match winners / match summary in a creative card
- Stock market facts sheet / todays top gainers / top losers / stock market performance of today in 1 image
- election related results for regional, state and country elections (regional if possib;e to accurately get data via some APIs)
- Bollywood/Tollywood celebrity bday posts for A - list celebs
daily motivations quotes / thought of day - widely shared in kutumb app in personalised mannner
Social media presence (Organic Pull)
- Instagram presence of news apps
Source - https://instrack.app/instagram/
| Inshorts | Aadhan | Times of India | Hindutan Times |
|---|---|---|---|---|
IG Followers | 380k | 151k | 2.9M | 3.1M |
IG Posts | 1174 | 318 | 26048 | 31700 |
Engagement Rates (The average engagement for recent posts compared to the number of followers) | 0.06% | 0.01% | 0.1% | 0.56% |
Weekly posts | 23 | 0 | 94 | 207 |
Average Likes | 217 | 10 | 3057 | 17287 |
Conclusion
- Inshorts needs to increase its social media presence and get more users to follow it and engage with content. This becomes the channel for further activation in the app
- Social media presence will be important to create pull. Other major news aggregators are doing far better job than inshorts (which surprisingly has much more content)
- Youtube
Inshorts' Youtube is DEAD
Last youtube post was created 3 years ago
Times of India Youtube -
.
Plan -
Post similar video content thats posted on instagram as youtube short to keep channel active
- Whatsapp channels
Whatsapp channels are the latest addition to social media presence. Other news platforms have built a good traction and engagement in whatsapp channels
| TOI | Hindustan times |
|---|---|---|
Followers | 9.4 M | 624 K |
Reactions | 200+ | 50+ |
Inshorts doesn't have a whatsapp channel 😱
Plan -
Create a whatsapp channel for inshorts and post screengrabs of inshorts app for eg 5-7 major news a day. And add link to redirect to install the app
Market expansion
Inshorts only caters to India's population that can speak english and hindi. This is roughly 40-45% of Indias population only.
Inshorts is missing on a major market which regional apps like Way2News, Aadhan are capturing.
This is a low hanging fruit and should be actively pursed by adding conversion for major regional languages. Following are list of languages based on decreasing number of speakers (prefence order for localisation)
Language |
|---|
Marathi |
Teulgu |
Bengali |
Kannada |
Urdu |
Tamil |
Gujrati |
Conclusion
- Being a platform that earns revenue from ads primarly, it is difficult to be dependent on paid ads to deliver less than 1 CAC/LTV
- Focus should be on non paid channels. Inshorts has largely been able to maintain that in its journey (Ad spends in its FY reports are primarily on Public App and not inshoirts)
- Creating deeper content loops will help to increase breadth of topics covered by inshorts, thus also increasing audience which will share content
- Immediately increasing TAM is possible (and very quickly) by adding support for additional languages. Our meal is being eaten by other apps, which is basically a low hanging fruit for us
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