This episode is a masterclass in building for the Bharat consumer.
We sat down with Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary, co-founders of Lokal, a content, classifieds, and digital services business for Tier 2 & 3 India doing:
From starting as a hyperlocal content app to adding classifieds and now digital services (i.e., online legal & medical advice, emotional wellness, and astrology), Lokal is playing a key role in defining how India outside the metros accesses the internet.
If you're building for the next 500 million Indians coming online from Tier 2 & 3 towns, this one's a must-listen.
Tune in and let us know what you think!
Chapters:
00:00 – Coming Up: Why Lokal Is Winning in Tier 2 & 3 India
1:31 – Intro
2:36– The vision that shaped Lokal — and who it’s really for
4:06 – How digital services became the next step for a 6-year-old company
6:48 – The real problem: solving accessibility in small towns
7:07 – Why classifieds couldn’t scale on their own
8:18 – Lokal cracked what others couldn’t: here’s how
9:47– The Lokal model: simple, online, pay-per-minute
11:14 – Business Model: Is Lokal the Zomato or Uber of digital services?
12:44 – Why digital services work better when layered on classifieds
13:54 – User behavior from classifieds: what they’re learning from usage
16:19 – Why they’re building multiple apps (not one big super app)
17:31 – The content app: Lokal’s branding tool
20:47 – Matrimony in Tier 2+: one category, endless nuance 21:21 – Tier 2+ users do pay — if you get it right
23:25 – Why pay-per-minute pricing actually works here
25:04– What Lokal’s conversion rates and user spend tell us 26:31 – Power users in small towns
28:43 – Lokal’s take: why “super app” thinking doesn’t fit Bharat
31:17 – Supply is the real challenge — here’s how Lokal is fixing it
33:59 – What Lokal service providers actually earn
34:34 – How Lokal fixes the “no response” problem
35:50 – User behavior in Tier 2/3 is different
38:27 – Privacy challenges in matrimony
39:38 – Matrimony success stories from Lokal
40:16 – Privacy across other verticals: legal, real estate & more
41:13 – Lokal’s take on AI: what’s coming next
42:54 – Inside Lokal: team structure and how they work 50:19 – Scaling services: building around proven playbooks
52:39 – Rapid fire
53:03 – What’s one quirky, fun tradition the two of you have as founders?
53:44 – What’s one truth very few people agree with you on?
54:12– Do you have 90-hour work weeks at Lokal?
55:40 – What’s the proudest moment at Lokal?
56:51 – What’s one thing you’ll never put in a pitch deck? 57:10 – What’s one app you just can't live without?
57:28 – What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve done for your startup?
58:12 – What’s the most memorable failure you’ve experienced?
58:52 – If you could go back to Lokal’s early days, what would you tell your past selves?
59:45 – Breaking news or breaking for lunch?
1:00:07 – Bangalore weekends or outside Bangalore?1:00:43– Cricket match or the DOU?
1:01:09 – What’s the last number you see before sleeping?1:01:41 – Late-night debugging or late-night biryani runs? 1:02:18 – Closing