I'm Lal Chand Bisu, Co-Founder & CEO at KukuFM. Ask me anything!

+1 want to know

That’s an excellent question.

When we started out, we faced a challenge that many considered impossible: asking Indian consumers to pay for content. Both internally and externally, there was a common belief - Indians won’t pay for content.

But something was changing in India. Thanks to Jio’s affordable internet and the rise of UPI, we saw a shift happening. Faster internet access and seamless digital payments were creating new possibilities.

Around December 2020, at a time when hardly anyone was charging for content, we sat down and did the math. We realized that if we didn’t charge for valuable, high-quality content, we wouldn’t have a sustainable business in the long run. It was a tough call, but one we had to make.

So, we took the leap. We introduced a paywall. Honestly, we were not even sure what content we’d put behind it yet! But we simply put it out there and asked people, ‘Do you want an early bird discount?’

That night, something magical happened—50 people subscribed overnight.

We were stunned. Who were these people? Why did they trust us enough to pay for something new and untested?

We decided to call them. I still remember speaking to our very first customer, Amit, who worked at a rice mill. I asked him why he chose to subscribe, and his answer left us humbled. He said:
"I listen to your shows while I work. This is the first time I’ve ever paid for anything on the internet, and it’s worth it. I never get time to learn otherwise."

For Amit, learning while working was life-changing. And for us, hearing his story was the validation we needed.

That moment gave us the confidence to move forward. We haven’t looked back since.

Today, I can proudly say that what started as an experiment is now a thriving platform, thanks to people like Amit—who believed in us, even before we fully believed in ourselves.

This ^^ Especially the PocketFM comparison!

Audible is text to audio. We are an audio first platform. We create serialised audio dramas that is exclusive to us. PocketFM is quite similar but we have diverse genres in different languages.

Users choose Kuku FM given our vast content library and exclusive content genres that they can't find elsewhere.

People in India started realising the value of premium content in the last couple of years and UPI further enabled us to scale.

Spotify is a capsular content platform for music while we are a different content bucket in the audio space where we offer serialised content.

This type of content needs a different user experience and skill sets. Also people don't prefer super apps in India and prefer different use cases for different apps.

Even i do feel fearful of the ecosystem sometimes but fear is also an opportunity to become even more strong. Keep building. Best wishes.

Got it. Thanks sir

I got addicted to podcasts in 2016. After 1 year i connected the dots that this content format is different from text or video that is easily available to everyone. It gives you physical freedom to do tasks while listening to them. Text and video had a large content library but there was no such player in audio in India hence i saw this opportunity to build something exciting here.

Thanks to JIO and UPI, we were able to scale and launch just in time to capture this growing need.

My favourite audio books on Kuku FM are

Bhagavad Gita Hero ki Kahani Hidden CEO The battle for Kohinoor Psychology of Money

Everyone needs content on the go while they are exercising or cooking and you cant consume content like video while doing so. The future is extremely exciting for the industry at large.