In conversation with AppyHigh Co-Founders, Venus Dhuria and Aneesh Rayancha

RedSeer estimates that short-form video platform influencers with 10M+ followers earn around USD 20,000 – 40,000 per month, whereas those with 1M+ followers earn only USD 40 – 200.

How did the journey of AppyHigh begin?

Venus and Aneesh met while working at Reckitt. Aneesh (an alumnus of IIT Bombay) worked as an R&D scientist while Venus (a PEC Chandigarh alumnus), worked on setting up manufacturing facilities for new products. Their jobs required innovation and invention every day and that's how they discovered a common entrepreneurial zeal and a desire to do something different, together. 

In 2014, Aneesh & Venus together started Rutogo, a cab aggregator for outstation and local cabs. The product merged with Ixigo Cabs & they joined Ixigo to lead this vertical and expanded it to 10,000 bookings per day.

They observed the rapid pace at which the mobile first mindset was catching up in Bharat, as smartphones brought portability and lower cost of ownership. They moved to quickly experiment with different apps based on the all-in-1 model.

With people spending almost 4-5 hours on their smartphones, AppyHigh was established with objective of saving users’ time and enabling them to do more, with its ecosystem of intuitive, hassle free and easy to use every day apps

Explain the business model of AppyHigh. (In simpler terms)

AppyHigh is a mobile internet technology company. We make every day apps that are intuitive and easy to use and allow users to save time. Our apps can be categorised into the utility, productivity, & discovery categories.

Our ecosystem of apps is focused on impacting everyday experiences of users on their smartphones, by which we have garnered a large user base. 

In line with the consumer internet industry, our business model is continuously evolving, we currently generate revenues by serving users via apps and in-turn generating revenues via ad-revenues, in-app purchases and premium subscriptions. In the future new revenue streams such as template marketplace, tech licensing and content commerce are expected to contribute significantly.

What does the potential growth of the creator economy in India look like?

The rise of the creator economy is one of the most mesmerising evolutions happening in India. With low starting up costs and virtually zero barriers to entry, it’s giving rise to millions of solopreneurs, making people independent & self-reliant. New talent is emerging on a daily basis, there are nano creators, who go on to become micro influencers, mega influencers and then celebrities. 

The concept of creator economy is driven by the underlying human affinity for individuality, community building & authenticity. On top of this, there are 3 major factors which magnify the impact for India - 

1. Burgeoning affordable internet availability. Internet infrastructure is now reaching nooks and corners of not only cities but also small towns. Cost per GB of internet is the lowest in the world (almost 0.6 USD per GB)
2. Easy availability of affordable quality hardware in the form of low cost smartphones that enable content creation and consumption by everyone. There are almost 500 million smartphone users in India and this is expected to touch 1 billion by 2025.
3. In the last 2 years, with lockdowns etc, a lot of activities went online/digital and this has led to a very rapid evolution of platforms that open monetisation opportunities. YouTube, Instagram, ShareChat - all of them enable creators to monetise their content via ads, brand partnerships, fan subscriptions. Tech driven companies are enabling logistics as well - eg Meesho, Shopify & even amazon/flipkart are enabling creators to sell products/merchandise if they want to.

As the industry matures there are a lot of startups coming up that are not only just providing monetization avenues, but also supporting the creator journey in multiple ways - from credit, to working capital, expense management, legal support, setting up their tech operations, etc.

The creator economy in India has the potential to emerge as a powerful contributor to India’s economic growth by creating livelihood and entrepreneurship opportunities for millions of young Indians. It will also have a massive impact on job creation. The potential of the creator economy in India is no less than that across the globe. More and more creators would be able to monetise, average incomes from monetisation will also go up, further, with local as well as global brands trying hard to catch the attention of the Indian consumers, it would not be surprising if the Indian creator economy doubles every year for the next 5-10 years.

What kind of creator tools does AppyHigh offer?

At AppyHigh we are enabling creators in 3 ways - 

1. Content Creation - Our apps enable fast paced share-worthy content creation. Distinct and exciting content created at a fast pace is key to success in the creator ecosystem.

Our app Instore is an AI based all in 1 social media tool that enables nano influencers, micro influencers and others to auto generate captions, hashtags for their content, check changes in followers, create photo grids, collages and can also bookmark the content for inspiration or reposting. 

2. Content distribution- The second important aspect is driving maximum reach, shares or eyeballs for the content. This helps increase the follower/fan base for creators, ultimately leading to higher revenues

Our content curation & recommendation platform called Masterfeed, which is integrated into more than 4+ AppyHigh apps, allows creators to distribute content to the users (50 million as on date and can potentially reach 1 billion in the next 5 years) in the AppyHigh ecosystem of apps. Masterfeed already has approximately 3.2 million engaged users. 

3. Ecosystem enablement - We have not only developed products to enable creators, but are also strategically supporting creator startups with knowhow and with our early-stage investments. We are one of the first investors in some of the fastest growing creator economy/solopreneur enablers in India today such as - Dukaan, One Impression, RigiClub, Krishify, Listed.Fans, Redesyn, EloElo, CultureX, KahaaniBox, Unlu & many more. 

What is your vision in expanding this category?

Our vision is to enable content creators to maximise their revenue/income potential by accelerating their content creation and distribution journey. 

One one hand our creator tools enable creators to develop share-worthy content quickly with the least possible effort. We already have 15+ AI powered tools. The future roadmap also includes customisable content templates, user generated templates, creator community building & management, and social media tools marketplace. 

On the other hand, Masterfeed accelerates the content distribution process, by allowing a vast audience to consume the unique content published by various creators.

Further, this comprehensive portfolio of tools is also in line with our core purpose of making users more productive and saving time.

What is the expected growth for your content creator tools in 2022?

Our target is to grow our use base 2-3x which currently stands at about 20 mn MAUs.

Since the growth of social media platforms, content creators have no longer been at the mercy of production and marketing houses. Creators can create content and share it easily. However, what are some ways in which they can monetize it?

Some of the most common ways to monetise content are as follows - 

1. Ad Revenues - This can be one of the easiest ways to monetise. If the creator has a sizable follower base and gets a good level of reach and engagement on her posts, the platform can monetise posts via ads. The ads can appear before the content is played or even in-stream, in various formats like bumpers, in-display, overlays and banners.
2. Brand collaborations - Brands seeking to reach a certain audience type and size reach out to relevant creators to get them to create branded content and post on their social handles.
3. Tips and donations - this is relatively new trend and is not in-built in all platforms, creators can enable their followers to tip them or donate out of their own willingness
4. Subscribed content - again, relatively new, fans/followers can be given an option to subscribe for premium/exclusive content.
5. Personalised products/merchandise - creators with a large, loyal audience base can in fact start their own brands/merchandise lines in various product categories, though it would take a significant amount of effort to manage the supply chain to produce and deliver the products.
6. Educational content - creators are conducting workshops, knowledge sessions, selling courses while charging a fee

As per Kalaari Capital report, one reason behind India’s contribution to the billion-dollar creator economy is that many traditional people, and middle-class Indians are becoming creators. What are the possible reasons behind this? What is fuelling the creator economy? 

The concept of creator economy anywhere, is driven by the underlying human affinity for individuality, community building & authenticity. In India, the adoption has accelerated due to certain macro and cultural factors - 

Macro factors

1. Burgeoning affordable internet availability. Internet infrastructure is now reaching nooks and corners of not only cities but also small towns. Cost per GB of internet is the lowest in the world (almost 0.6 USD per GB)
2. Easy availability of affordable quality hardware in the form of low cost smartphones that enable content creation and consumption by everyone. There are almost 500 million smartphone users in India and this is expected to touch 1 billion by 2025.

1. In the last 2 years, with lockdowns etc, a lot of activities went online/digital and this has led to a very rapid evolution of platforms that open monetisation opportunities. Youtube, Instagram, ShareChat - all of them enable creators to monetise their content via ads, brand partnerships, fan subscriptions. Tech driven 

Cultural factors

1. Entrepreneurial spirit - India historically has always been an entrepreneurial community. The creator economy allows you to become a solopreneur, rather than look for a job.
2. Low cost of starting - all you need is a smartphone and an internet connection
3. Language is no barrier - content can be created and is consumed by people in various regional languages. The lack of english speaking capability is not a deal breaker.

RedSeer estimates that short-form video platform influencers with 10M+ followers earn around USD 20,000 – 40,000 per month, whereas those with 1M+ followers earn only USD 40 – 200. This shows that the creator economy is skewed towards the top few. How do the creator tools cater to the middle layer of the creators? 

Creator tools actually enable one’s journey from a rookie creator to an effectively monetized one. 

Consider the resources that the high earning creators have access to - they can hire professional teams, equipment, outsource some content creation as well, in fact they can also hire professional managers to help them increase their client base.

But the creator tools are available to everyone, not only the large creators. A lot of the features are available free of cost, or at a very small cost. This allows even the smallest of the creators to create good content, embellish it, so that the chances of it getting noticed and appreciated go up

What are some key threats to the creators?

Dependence on a single person for continuity & creativity - Creators are mostly solopreneurs and the entire process from idea generation to distribution is run single handedly. With no backup, in case of any disruption to the creator’s individual capability, revenues can shrink dramatically.

Challenging to maintain content quality & authenticity over a sustained period of time - Also, one of the biggest reasons people trust and like content creators is because they create original content. In the attempt to create content consistently, there is always a risk that the content loses authenticity, which can impact fan/follower loyalty. 

Challenging to remain in sync with social media trends to remain relevant and sustain popularity

Unpredictability of revenues - Almost 80% of the creators today depend on brand deals for revenue. As of now, these are unpredictable as they are not the mainstay of a brands marketing plan. It will be essential for creators and the ecosystem to scale other monetisation channels such as subscriptions for premium content, paid content for sharing knowledge and expertise, and own products/merchandise.

Further, the average monthly earnings of creators hover around USD 200. There are many reasons for this - too much content availability, ecosystem maturity, and to some extent the original content platforms did not pass on the benefits to creators as effectively. However, this is slowly getting addressed with new-age platforms and Web 3.0 initiatives.