Part 1: Kuku's Lal Chand Bisu on killing three products, ditching the free tier and charging Bharat ₹399 a year
About this episode
Lal Chand Bisu discusses the evolution of Kuku FM, including pivotal business decisions and the impact of vernacular audio content.
Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. This is the conversation Bisu, who is just not the kind of founder who walks around telling you these numbers, finally agreed to do. In Part 1, we get into the company history, the pivots, the contrarian decision to cut the free tier, and what 40 million Hindi listens to Rich Dad Poor Dad really mean. Chapter list 00:00 — How old is Kuku FM, and what Bisu was doing before (Easy Prep, two and a half years at Toppr) 00:02 — June birthdays, coincidence, and Bisu's definition of luck — "most things are out of control" 00:04 — The three pivots: podcast aggregator → UGC → PUGC. What killed each one and what was kept constant 00:09 — Why vernacular audio IP didn't exist, and why Kuku had to become a studio rather than an aggregator 00:14 — January 2021: cutting the free tier and charging ₹399 a year. The investor pushback…
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