Much like we would leisurely opt for listening to an audio book and multi-task our way through it; learning through audio for academics is taking shape. Mashable India talks to Mr. Pulkit Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, Khabri about the latest addition to the knowledge sharing platform with audio courses for government job examinations for the Hindi speaking markets. This comes in after having roped in some names like Mr. Arun Sharma, IIM Bangalore Alumni and CEO, Mindworkzz who have contributed in mentoring and training lacs of competitive exam aspirants in the country; in the past on Khabri.
It’s been an interesting uptake for Khabri with the creators having gone up by 5 times and the platform crossing 1,00,000+ creators.
1. How has Khabri democratised information and audio content for Bharat?
Khabri is the only Non-English platform in India that provides knowledge to empower the young population of Bharat (tier 2, 3 cities and villages). Khabri serves more than 2 million people and growing to help them achieve their career goal of qualifying in government job preparation and it is done free of cost with minimal hardware/internet bandwidth requirement and in their regional language. Audio makes it easy for them to consume the content anytime, anywhere even while doing some other task and thus Khabri has become the first choice of gaining relevant knowledge for its users from Hindi speaking markets.
2. The audio led knowledge platform has now streamlined government courses on audio straight from teachers. How did this come about?
We have launched these audio courses required to prepare for government competitive exams including History, Geography, Politics, Science, English, Reasoning, Computers, DI, Hindi, Current Affairs, Static GK, and Maths. The duration of courses ranges from 4 to 100+ hours with an intent of democratizing the Government Jobs Exam preparation across Hindi speaking markets, by keeping the course prices highly affordable, starting from as low as Rs. 49 (upto Rs. 299) without compromising on the quality of teacher or content. We have also planned these courses in a way that courses by top teachers from every region will be available on our platform, so that Khabri users can access the courses in their local dialect/language. This will make learning not just more effective but will also reduce the cognitive effort for the users.
3. Is this similar to audio books?
It is actually very different. When you talk about an audio book, it is primarily covering the syllabus however with our Audio courses, which are made by renowned teachers for specific subjects/examination, the user will get to understand the topic with examples and also know which topics he need to focus on more…so it is almost like getting tough by a teacher in the class.
4. How do listeners engage with the experts/teachers or is this only a one-way listening course?
Students can connect with teachers on doubt clarifying live audio sessions if the teacher wishes to provide it as part of the course. Khabri already provides that tech-solution to teachers in their logins. However, currently most teachers have put their recorded sessions. Additionally, users may connect with the teachers through the comments section anytime.
5. What are the kind of insights we can get to understand the listener engagement on the platform?
We are proud to say that we have the highest engagement time for any audio app in India. It is also apparent from high 30-day retention on the app which is above 40%.
6. What are the categories that have worked the most? What have the interested listener and creator demographics been like?
Government Job Examination and Current Affairs have worked the best for us. The users are Hindi speaking, 16 to 30 years M/F from tier 2 and 3 cities and villages across Hindi Speaking markets. The creators are aged 18 to 60 years, from across India making content in Hindi.
7. How is the samachar section wetted?
Khabri is not journalistic, our model is of news aggregation from reputed sources like AFP, Reuters, ANI etc.
8. How is Khabri using live audio to connect with its listeners? In the last one year how has that shaped up?
Live in Khabri is a Live and Interactive Audio module through which multiple people can get into a discussion live on the Khabri app and any number of listeners can tune in to listen to the conversation. The listener can also send a request to connect with the discussion host to interact with them; however the request needs to be accepted by the host. We launched Khabri live for our platinum level creators in April last year and since then, we keep having multiple live sessions on the Khabri app.
We launched this feature with a celebrity show where we got 12 celebrities who were from humble backgrounds and made it big in their lives. It was an inspirational show for our users, especially those who are preparing for government job examinations.
9. How has the audio business shaped up for Khabri in the last 24 months?
In terms of users, creators, engagement and retention, we have seen impressive growth however, we are still in pre revenue stage but are very close to start generating revenue in June itself with our paid content model launch.
10. How do you see Khabri scale up in the near future?
India has 850Mn youngsters (below 35) with the biggest need for knowledge. We are building an audio driven knowledge and learning ecosystem to empower Tier 2, Tier 3 towns and villages of India in their local languages to build a career. Khabri is going to be the go-to place for non-English speaking youth of this country to gain knowledge and get empowered to achieve their career goals.
