In today’s tech-driven world, who doesn’t want to stay updated with the latest and trending events across the globe and also save some time by reading less? But nowadays, the youngsters or working professionals barely have the time to read the newspaper during their hectic working schedules.
Therefore, Azhar Iqubal, an IIT dropout, came with an idea to launch a news app, Inshorts, that delivers important information in just 60 words or less. Want to know the success story of Inshorts. In this blog, we will discuss how Azhar and his partners Anunay Arunav and Deepit Purkayastha managed to launch a successful digital platform in India.
How Did It Begin?
While studying in IIT Delhi, Azhar Iqubal (CEO and Co-founder of Inshorts) decided to start a new Facebook page – News in Shorts in 2013 along with two of his friends Anunay Arunav and Deepit Purkayastha.
The idea behind starting that page was quite simple – to provide news summaries with the links to original sources. Soon, their page began attracting the attention of hundreds of readers and a lot of people, especially youngsters, were highly impressed with the idea.
A few months after starting the page, three IITians joined a startup accelerator program, backed by the Times Internet group, in which they learnt several things about entrepreneurship and how to establish a successful business.
Eventually, the three friends managed to start their own business venture as they launched their news app – Inshorts in 2013. The goal was to pique readers’ attention and persuade them to spend at least 5 mins a day on their app.
Obstacles In The Road
While starting the new business venture, Inshorts team made a big mistake of trying to develop too much and launch too little. They spent a whole year on developing a product that they never released or sold. As a result, they were not completely aware of how the market was functioning.
They finally learned they were creating a service for people rather than a product for just selling purposes. After a lot of discussion, they finally figured it out. In the case of Inshorts, one can say they learnt several things from their mistakes and successfully managed to build a big brand.
Growth of Inshorts
What started as a News in Shorts, soon got renamed as Inshorts. The app provides summarized news in 60 words or less.
At present, the Inshorts app has more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store. If we take the stats into account, the operating revenue of the company increased from $13.07 million in FY21 to $18.94 million in FY22. The current valuation of the company is $550 million (approximately).