Why Koo Failed: Startup Lessons of Founder Mindset & Branding

While many news articles are covering that Koo (the Indian version of Twitter) shut down, we need to look deeper into why Koo failed from a strategic perspective. The first one that hit me the strongest.

The Founder Mindset: Capital vs Sustainability:

Being a serial founder & investor, the first thing we see before investing is the founder mindset. And this is what the founder said (and I quote): 

"Building ambitious, world-beating products from India in fields like social media, AI, space, or EV requires patient, long-term capital. When competing against global giants, substantial capital is necessary. These are long-term investments, not profit machines to be churned in two years. We hope to see this long-term perspective for significant Indian ventures."

I tried raising money in my second venture - unsuccessfully - and then never ever went to raise funding! In fact just recently, a VC firm approached us & my co-founder, Arpita Bose immediately said "No." It's very nice to talk about funding from afar, but ask any founder who has raised money.. and the first thing most of them will say is "Never again."

Personally I feel the reason a founder builds a startup is to do things on their own. That's what is killed (except rare ones) as soon as you get investors on board.

The Exit Strategy: Lessons from TaxiForSure:

So let's look at the track record of the founder. His first venture. TaxiForSure. He operated that for 4 years from 2011-15, before selling to Ola. It started with an investment of Rs 8 lakhs and grew to a size where it had a turnover of Rs 1,200 crores. They claim ~4 million rides. 

So why did they sell out? 

Following the 2014 Uber rape case in Delhi, TaxiForSure’s founders, Aprameya Radhakrishna and Raghunandan, were compelled to make the difficult decision to sell the company to its competitor, Ola cabs, for $200 million. (Source: StartupToEnterprise)

Damn.. $200 mn?? Bad luck I suppose. So what did he do next? He became an "angel investor". Makes sense.. like Sachin Bansal after selling Flipkart. 

Not really. What was Aprameya's average ticket size? 4-10 lakhs! That's it. Shows you how much he believes in the startup ecosystem.

The Rebranding Fail: Missing the USP

They claim they were just a few months away from being India's Twitter. But look at this rebranding that they did. Can you imagine that they would have spent a whole tonne of money to do this!

Being a PR & personal branding agency, the very first thing we tell all our clients is highlight your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

For instance, they are an app made by India, for India. Where's the Indian flag then? There are a tonne of ways you can depict that .. maybe even the tuft of feathers from the head! But if people don't know what you stand for, why would anyone download your app?

The Influencer Fallacy: Why Politicians and Actors Can't Save a Social Media App

They are a social media app, right? So they must've had a robust influencer strategy! Wrong. The only influencers they wanted were Kangana Ranaut, Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, cabinet ministers etc. While it may sound good on paper, let me tell you the obvious challenge: "Politicians and celebrities aren't influencers."

Most people think they are - but my co-founder is an influencer with 2.5 Mn Instagram reel views in 2024 & built her YouTube strategy from 1-10,000 subscribers in 95 days.. so of course, Modi coming in and saying "Download Koo", will drive India crazy.. but the success of an app isn't in "Downloads." Social media works on people coming back to the platform every day, multiple times! 

And think abut it.. do you think Modi will stop posting on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.. and post exclusively on Koo!! Even if he does, how many people would be logging in 10 times a day to see what he's saying. And if that person does.. do you really think he'll be interested in buying mobile cases (ads)?

Why Koo Failed In It's Social Media Effort:

Building a social media app is a very different ball game. We have 25k followers on LinkedIn, 21k on Instagram & 25k on YouTube. Each of these are different. 

There's a reason that Google+ failed. 

There's an equally big reason that TikTok worked. 

There's a reason that Microsoft, IBM & Oracle can't ever do social media apps the justice they deserve. 

It was obvious that Koo would fail. It was a matter of whether they'll be able to offload the debt and burden on someone else. Thankfully they couldn't. 

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