Who Koo?

Twitter's name changed to 'X'. After the threads launched, Meta's share price shoot up but we saw a downfall in the engagement of threads. Yes, Meta is building an ecosystem and indeed ecosystem wins but having a copycat of any other company's product is not a good move to win the board.

Threads launch and Elon's dream of The Everything App made an Indian social media sideline. The platform - KOO.

After so many experiments in building the Everything app - X, people are still amazed and using the application to witness the changes. Rather, Koo got it's engagement drop.

In its communication to investors, Koo has said its monthly active users reduced to 4.1 million in January from 9.4 million in July 2022. Monthly active users are the ones who log on to the app, at least once a month.

It's a 50% cut down, the good news is Koo finally made a revenue. Revenue of 1 4 Lakhs. Koo registered 75% growth in its operating revenue to Rs 14 lakh during the fiscal year ending March 2022 as opposed to Rs 8 lakh in FY21, its annual financial statement with RoC shows.

Koo spent around 202 Cr to make revenue of 14 Lakhs in FY22.

The spending is quite biased towards marketing in FY22, and that is because of the expansion and customer acquisition. To compete with big giants, it is hard to make a change, especially in social spaces. Marketing makes more sense in these times when Koo needed more customers and engaging them.

75% growth in revenue in FY22 is now expected to grow more in FY23. The main reason for it can be predicted Elections in 2024. Around Rs 55,000 crore, or $8 billion, was spent during the Lok Sabha elections, according to a report by the Centre for Media Studies.

The major chunk went to digital spaces to get things in light and overall in the places. Koo can get political revenue support for campaigns and revenue streams.

Now, let's move towards the question "Why users are not using Koo regularly?"

The main answer for this is in UI and UX.

We will break down the parts of the User Interface of Koo and compare it with its competitors by focusing on the User Experience part.

This is the UI of the front page of the Koo app. When we open our application first, this screen appears. Analyze it in a while, We have a lighter dark theme (not the whole of a black theme which is positive). We can write what is in our mind with a tap, the screen has it on the front. The logo is in the center and trending has a different section, we have multiple tabs to switch from - Feed, People, Topics, Premium, Polls, and more.

In the nav bar, at last, we have 5 options, where home is primary and the rest are for navigation. We have a sticky {+} option that stays while we scroll the Koo app.

The UI is looking quite good right?

Now let's check out the competitor.

The UI of Everything app - X which was Twitter before. We have a logo in the center again, 5 options in the navbar for navigation, and multiple things that seem similar. But what is the major difference in UI?

The color palette, the dark black shade is more compatible with the X app.

The main difference which created an impact is - cutting off unusual stuff. Fewer options for users, more smooth transition, and a user experience. In the Koo app, we had topics like Feed, people, poll, and all. Which gave more choices but gave users "Not The Clean Design theory".

In the X app, we have a clean design which is indicated for you and the following. That's all.

Fewer choices for users, more probability of engagement.

Koo can make UI more compatible and easy to use by focusing on revenue generation. Koo App has raised a total of $50.8M in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Nov 24, 2022 from a Venture - Series Unknown round. Koo App is funded by 18 investors. Accel?and?Kalaari Capital are the most recent investors.

Koo can be a great potential for Indian Social Market but competitors are taking over and a question still stays "Why should I use your application".

Yes, why? When many are giving us a more user-friendly and clean User Interface and Experience.

I hope you learned something, that's In The Ishank's Mind, will meet you next Tuesday.

Thank you for giving it a read :)