Now Discover Amazing New audio & Music Everyday Using ListenIn

ListenIn, an audio app launched in Jan, 2016, brings to this mainstream audience a whole host of unexplored, undiscovered audio which otherwise make up for quite a unique and engaging content, , was launched in Jan, 2016. Naman Chaturvedi, founder ListenIn, explained about his product and strategies adopted to promote it, in an interaction with BWdisrupt team.

How and when this idea of developing an audio app came into your mind?

It all started on a drive to an indie gig at a local performance space, sometime in early 2015. Driving through the Bangalore traffic we just couldn’t find a decent alternate to ad-cluttered-FM which could provide us an audio experience beyond usual-bollywood numbers. While at the gig, we were listening to some awesome live music and we realized that none of the Indian Indie music or for that matter most audio content be it poetry, stories, jokes, news has any reasonable presence on any digital platform centred around the Indian audience. All this make up for an interesting content for easy listening. The party ended but the idea stayed.

We figured that almost everybody wants to listen in to something fresh and new, but most people aren’t up-to-date on music and they don’t have the energy to explore beyond the usual popular tracks. We did a quick research with about 500 friends and nearly 60% said that they would love to listen in to People-curated audio streams over automated bots or exploring on web and other platforms. That’s where we decided to bootstrap the idea and had been building on it ever since.

Many audio apps have already established their names in the market. How do you compete with them? What is the point of difference?

Competition –

a. Most Audio platforms in India are focused around Bollywood, popular International music.
b. Also most Indian platforms focus around providing a huge repertoire of content to the user – where users can actively search for specific type of music and play which results in most-cases similar popular tracks which are-top-of-the-mind being played off and on again

ListenIn –

a. ListenIn is a “Tap & Play” solution with specific curated choices for the time, day and activity.
b. ListenIn provides an interesting mix of content from a wide growing variety of content from Talk Shows, Comedy, Jokes, Poetry/Shayari, Meditational, Yoga to Music
c. Everything is curated and matched to time & day – to increase user appeal for that moment. ListenIn Playlists – from 20mins to 90mins
d. New streams are introduced & refreshed almost every alternate day –

So if our user is driving to his office in his car or takes a cab – just tap into ListenIn and find fresh & new content from a wide content variety. ListenIn’s building its own technology to bring near real-time publishing. It allows us to publish Serialized content streams for specific time & day – like we have recently been publishing the audio-cast called “What’s Next for the latest Game Of Thrones Season 6 Series” which shows up every Tuesday Mornings before usual office-drive time. Similarly we publish our fresh episode of “Indie Music News Bytes” every Wednesday & #GossipGirlSeries on Bollywood called “BollywoodMentals” every Thursdays. It has been just two months since we have entered in the market with our soft launch, and we have lined up some really amazing features which will make the whole ListenIn experience a lot more easy and fun

What is your Target group?

We are working towards creating a strong content and product differentiation for a larger audience. At the current stage we are trying to appeal to an audience who are in everyday commute either to-and-from office or to-airports/stations. But that does not restrict the appeal of a well curated content streams – we have seen use cases where ListenIn users tap into a 20min playlist of jokes to break off the monotony at work or listen in to a 3-part series on Buddha for meditation or as a stress-buster.

Competition is surely tight and fast-paced when it comes to digital audio and video platforms. For us we are focusing on filling in the gap where the users tap into FM-radio for instant gratification without the need to “search” but are bothered by very similar music choices and too many advertisements.

What are the major product features?

1. Tap & Listen in
a. All content published on the platform is in playlist format
b. Playlists ranging from a variety of streams ranging from 15 mins to 1.5hr

2. Multitude of content
a. ListenIn aims to provide the best driving, working experience to its users
b. Available on tap – 30mins of comedy, 45 mins of poetry, 90mins of music from a variety of genre and mood, news, gossip and stories

3. Handpicked for the time & day
a. ListenIn content stays up-to date with latest hourly trends
b. Playlists keep changing everyday day to bring in a fresh experience everyday – for different moments

4. ListenIn content always kept fresh & new
a. Playlists are curated by a team of top radio guys with a smart use of intelligent technology
b. ListenIn content is updated at near real-time to keep it fresh and new

5. User Favorites, History
a. Users can favorite their likes
b. Go back and trace a song, joke, poem they loved from their ListenIn History

6. Sharing with friends is super easy
a. Users can share with friends and groups on Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter who can instantly enjoy the shared-content by clicking on it

What strategies are you adopting to enhance the customer reach?

ListenIn is a digital audio platform which is looking at working with multitude of content creators acting as an aggregator from various partners including Indie Musicians/Artists, to story-tellers, Voice-Over artists, audio-casters. This model of operation provides us a large channel for user reach and acquisition. We are also employing other mediums to resonate with and acquire users from our target audience both online as well as offline.

Who are your investors?

As a business we have brought in Timbre Media as an investor-cum-partner. Timbre Media is started by the erstwhile APAC leadership team of WorldSpace radio and brings in strong experience to the business. We are also in discussion with prominent VCs and Angels to raise financial funding for the business.