Venture Everywhere Podcast: Manu Jain with Vir Kashyap
Venture Everywhere Podcast: Manu Jain with Vir Kashyap
Vir Kashyap, an LP of Everywhere Ventures and a Partner in The Fund India catches up with Manu Jain, co-founder and CEO of VAMA.
Listen on Apple & Spotify!
Episode 38 of Venture Everywhere is hosted by Vir Kashyap, GP of The Fund India (Everywhere Ventures), and he catches up with Manu Jain, co-founder and CEO of VAMA, an app that connects consumers with astrologers and spiritual services globally. Manu discusses his journey from the telecom ecosystem to identifying an opportunity to digitize the deep rooted practices of astrology and devotion. Manu also shares insights about India's unique content consumption and how these experiences shaped VAMA to serve a market driven by faith and tradition.
In this episode, you will hear:
VAMA's role in connecting the Indian diaspora to their cultural and spiritual roots.
Challenges and opportunities in building a startup culture and team in a niche market.
The rise of spiritual technology in India and the importance of attracting and retaining top talent.
Potential for virtual religious experiences to reach diverse devotees.
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:0:00 Jenny: Hi and welcome to the Everywhere Podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:20 Vir: Welcome, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Venture Everywhere Podcast. I'm Vir Kashyap and I'm the GP of the Fund India, part of Everywhere Ventures. And I started my journey in entrepreneurship in India, building a company called Babajob out of Bangalore, where we got over 10 million job seekers on the platform and got over a million people better jobs.
00:00:44 Vir: And through that journey, I've been inspired to continue to support entrepreneurs who are building mission driven companies. And that's what brings us today to Manu and his company VAMA, which he's building out of New Delhi in a very exciting space. And I'll pass it over to Manu for a little bit of a background.
00:01:01 Manu: Thanks for having me, Vir and morning, evening to everyone listening. Vir, so VAMA stands for Virtual Astrology and Mandir App. It's basically a spiritual tech app which connects customers to astrologers on one side and temples or pujas or spiritual gurus on the other.
00:01:18 Manu: The background that I come from, and I'll just take a step back and share what we have done. And I think why it resonates so much with what we are building today. So I've been part of the telecom operator content ecosystem in India as early as 2009, when I joined a company which is now called Paytm. But at that time, it was One97 Communications.
00:01:36 Manu: I used to run B2B SaaS for them for telecom operators, basically provide content as a service to telecom operators. 2009-10, India didn't have a lot of mobile internet penetration. So people would consume content off IVRs, off text messages.
00:01:50 Vir: I think at that point, there was about 20-30 million people online, right? In India, max.
00:01:54 Manu: Yeah, absolutely. And I think my journey starts from there. While there is another decade of my work experience, Vir, but it's purely working in call centers, trying to support the family. We went through shit at a family side.
00:02:07 Manu: 2003, suddenly in college, I have to start working. The only job in India an undergraduate could get was working at a call center. Did that for about four or five years, continued my education. But work seriously started at One97.
00:02:19 Manu: Did that for about five years and was part of the whole telecom operator ecosystem. My last corporate gig was at a telecom operator called Aircel. Was there for about four years. And I think part of the whole content ecosystem, right? So from there, I think we had seen the power of astrology, that astrology was the most consumed content on India, right? On mobile phones, but this is before internet.
00:02:44 Manu: India and Indians consume A, B, C, D. A is for astrology, B is for Bollywood, C is for cricket, D is for devotion. So when we started to build something on consumer between me and my co-founder, right? It was very logical that we look at astrology and devotion.
00:03:00 Manu: And I think we had seen this side at telecom operator. Me and my co-founder, all three of us come from the same ecosystem. Himanshu, my co-founder was at Airtel for about a decade.
00:03:11 Manu: Acharya Ji himself is a third generation astrologer, PhD in astrology. He was a content partner for telecom operators for astrology. And the three of us have been friends now for about 15 years. So when we thought we'd do something on the internet, like this is the thing that's staring at your face.
00:03:26 Vir: Right. And I think, I think for the audience who don't know, I think it's a fascinating story to delve into a little bit of the telco boom. And I just think it's such an interesting time of India's digital evolution. That now we've long forgotten, I call it the post geo era.
00:03:42 Manu: Yeah.
00:03:42 Vir: I think it's so critical to understanding to how the digital consumer is in India today, because that's how it started. And we were very limited. As you pointed out, the three, four facets, those were all controlled. Those were all those walled gardens controlled half a dozen. At one point, I think we had about a dozen telco operators, right?
00:03:59 Manu: Yeah, about eight to nine.
00:04:02 Vir: Right. Exactly. That’d be a fascinating case study. From a business digital standpoint of this whole, the boom and the bust cycle of Indian telcos. And we had all this, and now we're back to just, I think really just two operators back in the country.
00:04:16 Manu: I still would like to say there's three, Vodafone are still a large decent player. But yeah. And I think you would know this, but I think for people do not know the size of scale. So telecom operators on just astrology were doing about a hundred million dollars in 2014-15 a year. This is when mobile penetration was not high. This is when mobile average revenue per user or ARPU as what we call it is very low.
00:04:41 Vir: Right. I think it was hovering 20, 30 rupees a month type of level, right? I mean, it was literally, we're talking 50 US cents per user, right? This was what was keeping them alive. Like this was the main revenue driver.
00:04:53 Manu: I remember my days at Aircel when we would be pressurized for targets. We would just send a promotion message for astrology and that's it, man. The amount of pull that the country has on faith-led services is phenomenal.
00:05:07 Manu: So I think for me, those days and you're absolutely right. I think what we are building today comes from us looking at this business very closely for the last 15 years. Between three of us, we have about 45 years of looking at this business. But yeah, you will be surprised to know this Vir, that One97's first business was an astrology service.
00:05:26 Vir: Right. I think that's why it set the foundation for some entrepreneurs who've done very well. Obviously, one of your mentors Vijay, right? And when they made that transition, Viru at Dailyhunt, Vijay and a few other folks who made that very successful.
00:05:42 Manu: It was bizarre.
00:05:43 Vir: Right. And so we have these great examples of folks who made that nice pivot from the vast value-added service, telco days into the content. Because I think what it gave you is a very good grounding on the pulse of the digital consumer and across the country.
00:05:56 Vir: I think that's an interesting topic in itself, like these circle managers. I remember because we used to also work with a lot of these guys at Babajob, because we were selling the job content to the telco operators to get distribution. That was the only way to get distribution.
00:06:09 Vir: But I remember then you would have to talk to the folks in Delhi or Mumbai or Chennai in the central office, and then the job wasn't done. Then it was like, okay, that was only one step.
00:06:17 Manu: You forgot that you have to wait at receptions for half a day to wait for them to meet them.
00:06:23 Vir: Yeah, exactly. That's the only channel. There was no Facebook, no nothing, right? It was the only way to reach customers was through the telcos. Then you’d have to go to each circle. And then it actually gave you a lot of understanding of also the regional differences throughout the country in preference. I mean, that would be fascinating.
00:06:40 Manu: And I'm very surprised that a telco hasn't built an internet like this product yet. The telcos have tried building in content, but this was their home ground. But I think telcos also inherently like to partner, but neither have they invested yet in something like this.
00:06:56 Manu: But because they know this, right? And also, I draw parallels now to the internet world to those days, and you're getting me back in nostalgia and getting me excited. But all product managers today look at this whole click flow optimization or clicks optimizing.
00:07:11 Manu: This is literally what a vast manager was doing all his life. This is what we have done for 15 years. Look at how people come on an IVR. How many clicks have you done? How many keys have you pressed? And then you move on. A lot of what we see today on internet, I think, was because of those world giants. A lot of people, talent has moved out from telco and moved on to these startups.
00:07:34 Vir: Yep, there wasn't much of an internet business. That was the only way to get started. And so, maybe we could also take a step back and think about also, what does the offline world look like in devotion and astrology in India? What is the landscape? If you could give us a little bit of an overview.
00:07:50 Manu: About a million temples exist in India, maybe more. And for us, this business is purely offline. People are pegging the industry at close to $70 billion is what the offline business is. Online is not even a spec in that universe yet.
00:08:07 Manu: While COVID has been a great enabler, people can't physically travel to temples. That's how virtual pujas started. People would not be able to travel to temples. And that's how they would start doing virtual pujas.
00:08:20 Manu: Also, in times of distress, people's faith is higher. And this is what data from Twitter that I was reading or Excel reading. And that's also another thing. But the business today continues to be offline.
00:08:33 Manu: This is one of the final frontiers that hasn't moved online yet. And we are hoping that we will help in this transition from offline to online. The guardrails of, or the rails of connectivity are there. Mobile internet is there. Content is there. So things have started coming together for it to move to online.
00:08:53 Manu: The railroads have been laid with Jio coming in. But I don't even think even 1% of the business has moved online. For us, if you're doing about 1% of a $70 billion TAM, it's huge.
00:09:04 Vir: Right, exactly. And what was the moment for you when you realized that this is what you were going to build?
00:09:11 Manu: I'm a very accidental entrepreneur. And I think I go after low-hanging fruits. It's just my safety net that plays out. Like maybe that's how it starts from always. And then there's no safety when you're becoming a founder. So I think we started from an astrology marketplace because we had a supply of astrologers.
00:09:28 Manu: And the first principle is this. If you go to an astrologer, an astrologer will recommend you a remedy. If he recommends you a remedy. A remedy is you wear a gemstone or you get a puja done at a temple. So we thought we can easily close the loop there. What we didn't anticipate was that the temple side had so much traction.
00:09:51 Manu: The last 10 years of India, the Hindus have suddenly started taking center stage. They want to talk about their religion. They want to consume this content. Spirituality is one of the most consumed content on Instagram. So it was very simple for us to say, look, there are enough people doing, let's say, a hundred rupees.
00:10:09 Manu: We thought we can maybe do one rupee. That's how literally it started from. We had a supply of astrologers because of our co-founder. So we said we had supply sorted. We could easily build this, scale this. And then when you stumbled on it, along the journey, you realize that this could potentially become really large.
00:10:26 Manu: The reason why we signed up for this also, I think me and Acharya Ji come from, this is our second venture or second business. Like I had a small business before this, which was small profitable. I think we wanted to build large businesses. We believe there's nothing larger than this that will be built out of India.
00:10:43 Manu: This will be bigger than any other internet first business that you have seen. The potential is there. Now, either we build it or the next guy builds it or someone else builds it. But someone's going to build a really large, mammoth company in the spiritual tech space. And I feel there are going to be at least three to four of such because the space is really large.
00:11:01 Vir: Yeah. No, it's a large space. And I think it's also a way for people to connect. And I think as we've moved from these generic social networks, let's call them, I think it's also we've seen these more specialized social communities. And I think devotion and astrology is one other way for people to connect.
00:11:20 Vir: And obviously, India is such a multifaceted country with so many different dimensions. It is the birthplace of Buddhism, right? You have Jainism, you have a lot of global religions, which started from India. So India is an exporter. Besides, it's actually a net exporter of religion when you think about it. So it is a country with a lot of that context.
00:11:42 Manu: And also the Indians who went outside. For them to reconnect back, for their children to know what roots they are. Because the children are not getting it. They don't have that much visibility. So for them, they are getting more connected. They want their children or their grandkids to know more about how temples are, how worship happens. So we believe the future in 2035 will look a lot virtual as well.
00:12:06 Vir: Right. Meaning that the percentage of people who are taking in-person versus online.
00:12:12 Manu: For example, Vir, if you look at the younger generation today. My first experience on a temple, if that experience is going to be great virtually. I have two daughters. My 8-year-old daughter, if she goes to the temple, doesn't like that experience for whatever reason, for her upbringing. And she might have some preconceived notions. Versus her seeing Instagram content about temples, it's better for her. She starts seeding into that content.
00:12:37 Vir: Got it. What are some of the regional differences you see in some of the users?
00:12:42 Manu: We are currently more North India and Central India specific. But Indians, irrespective of which region you come from, have their own temples. You will have your own God that you follow. Or you are more aligned to one God.
00:12:54 Manu: So today we are building for North and Central India, which is a region that we want to go capture and take pole position in, and then come to South India. But on the whole, I don't see any difference in any specific region of India, saying that, let's say North Indians are more religious than the other part.
00:13:10 Manu: There is no such data. The largest temples exist in South India and North India as well. If there is a Tirupati, there is a Vaishnavi Devi also, which are large epic temples of India, right.
00:13:20 Manu: Now there is a Ram Mandir, I believe this is potentially the biggest media hype that has happened for the biggest temple that has opened. For a lot of us, including me, have been waiting for this moment for this temple to get opened.
00:13:31 Vir: Right, and I had a similar moment too. Also there are some big temples opened around the world, in Abu Dhabi, I think in New Jersey, there has been a big one. And so the diaspora is also very engaged.
00:13:41 Manu: Yeah.
00:13:42 Vir: How do you see the non-Indian audience of this playing into the strategy?
00:13:47 Manu: I think today for us, our focus is connecting temples on one side and devotees on the other side with a platform. Today we offer Hindu Sanatan temples. We are adding Jain temples. We might have our first Buddhist temple coming out on Buddha Purnima, which is in this month.
00:14:03 Manu: So we are building across multiple faiths or religions. So we look at ourselves as a platform. The bulk of the temples today are in India. The devotees could be anywhere in the world. But we already had a meeting in Abu Dhabi with the temple. And let's see how that works out.
00:14:18 Vir: Yeah, But I think it makes it even more compelling for the virtual offering when you're far away. And it makes it just more challenging to make it back to your temple the further are you away.
00:14:28 Manu: For example, if you were in the US and you grew up in India, there is a neighborhood temple that you're already affiliated to. Our vision or our dream is that for you to be able to reconnect to that temple. You would help in that temple's maintenance. You would maybe like to donate to that temple because you grew up around that temple. It was your neighborhood temple that you went to.
00:14:29 Vir: Exactly.
00:14:50 Manu: So I think that's where we are. We are still taking baby steps to get there.
00:14:54 Vir: Yeah, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. You stay connected to the place where you grew up through various ways. And so I think this is one way for someone to stay connected with where they grew up as well. By leveraging the VAMA technology. And so you've grown quite a lot over the past 12 to 18 months. Can you talk to us a little bit about the team and how you see that shaping up?
00:15:14 Manu: Sure. There are three co-founders. All three of us come with very distinct skills. Himanshu is more an operations product guy. Acharya Ji is supply because he understands the temple ecosystem. He understands the actual ecosystem, so he has a team of supply.
00:15:27 Manu: I'm trying to just keep it all together and making sure that there's runway for us to exist. I'm leading partnerships. I lead revenue along with company and culture. I think we started with literally two employees for the longest time.
00:15:40 Manu: We are not techies. We were fortunate to get tech people along our journey. We very recently hired a very senior person from the industry. It took me eight months to convince him to get him on board. Religious tech or spiritual tech is not everyone's cup of tea.
00:15:55 Manu: And also, I am competing with large funded fintechs for the right talent. A lot of VCs still have a traditional approach to this sector. It's a very new sector. It's breaking out now. There is no Silicon Valley comparison. There are some Christianity super apps like a Glorify and Hollow.
00:16:13 Manu: But there is no Hindu super app yet. So it's difficult for people to measure this. And same for people as well. I have to convince and say, look, this is the business that we are in. This is how we are building it. So today our business is defined literally by three of us and the CTO. There are people in product and marketing that we have.
00:16:33 Manu: We have about 60 odd people today in the company aligned across different companies. But a lot of it are very junior people, Vir. I think as founders, we have not raised crazy capital. Neither will be able to raise or neither did we try raising. It's not something that comes to us.
00:16:49 Manu: We try to build the business ground up. So very conscious of people. I think we spend a lot of time trying to get the right person on board at a culture fit. I think I over index on culture. So in the people that you have, of the 60 people, 15 are customer service, upselling, audit.
00:17:07 Manu: So if you were to take those away, then tech is our largest team. So Vivek, who's our CTO, comes from Times Internet, like a senior guy at tech. We have another guy helping me in partnerships and revenue, comes from telecom operator. We believe telecom operators looked at data very analytically. They really had a lot of segmentation that were very well. So build those funnels up.
00:17:27 Vir: Right. What is some of the bigger challenges you're facing now? Obviously, there was a different challenge a year ago. Now you do have some capital, you have a team to execute on. What keeps you up as the CEO of the business?
00:17:39 Manu: I think the only thing I obsess about is people. How can I keep them motivated if I've got them and how can I keep them happy? A lot of times as founders, we are obsessing about, okay, I can change this.
00:17:53 Manu: Founders, I think in startup till series B, founders are the product managers. So we will come every day and every day we wake up, we will have 10 ideas. And we'll say, okay, we want to do this and the tech guy and me will have a four hour discussion on why we should not do this.
00:18:07 Manu: But it's finding the right people for me is something that I always obsess about. Like, how can I hire the sharpest performance marketing person? Right now, only in my mind, I think about performance marketing, I think about product. How can I get the sharpest people in India to come build with me on this?
00:18:26 Manu: When I don't have top dollar, I'm not a fintech, which is flavor of the season or flavor of the decade. But how can I compete with those people? How can I attract that talent and how can I retain? Because the guy I have also will get two offers a month. So how do I make sure that they continue to be with me?
00:18:44 Vir: Got it. Yeah, exactly. So retention of obviously attracting that talent and then keeping them engaged. And obviously, the best way to do it is to keep growing fast because that always keeps people engaged.
00:18:55 Manu: I've realized that people will rally around the mission. And early-stage startups are very mission driven. People haven't joined us for top dollar. They believe in what you're building. Either they believe in the CEO or the founder, or they believe that this could potentially become the next big thing.
00:19:14 Manu: My pitch to every employee in our town hall is I truly hope this is your last job. This is my last gig. I don't want to do anything else after this. So I want to say to you also. And I think this is the trust that we will work.
00:19:27 Manu: That if it is like that, then treat it like your own company. Some people will get it, some won't get it. So I think my filter is in the first 45, 60 days that you have stuck around then you'll stick around.
00:19:38 Vir: Got it. And so if we ask the team or some of your peers, one thing we always like to ask folks when they join The Everywhere Network is what's your superpower? And so what can people in the community come to you for?
00:19:50 Manu: I think I'm a sales partnership hustler. But I truly leverage the power of my network. I'm trying to harness this skill. I learn from people like you or my other friends. I think my superpower is to giving back to the community what it's given to me as well. I'm a networker or a connector. I love to connect people. Superpower is to continue to crack sales. And I think I look at very short-term goals and try to build on it.
00:20:17 Vir: Got it. Yeah. And I think there's a particular, you said hustler and you're in Delhi. And there's a particular type of Delhi hustler entrepreneur that exists that doesn't exist in other parts of the country.
00:20:29 Manu: It's so strange. I remember this when we used to pitch. The only metric we would have in our decks was revenue profit. Nothing else. There's nothing for the first 12 months, we didn't talk about DAU. We didn't talk about repeat rate.
00:20:42 Manu: Even today, you were to go to my person who makes content. He will know the revenue of my company for the last month. He doesn't know what repeat percentage. Because we just over obsess on it. It's business fundamentals 101 for me. How much revenue I make? What's my profit? What's my loss?
00:20:59 Manu: Now I'm realizing there is a contribution margin. There is cost of goods sold. But in the end, it's profit and loss. There are fancy accounting terms that we can build on this. But that's a part of Delhi business that I think I've grown up into.
00:21:13 Vir: Yeah. I think Delhi has such an interesting history as a city. Obviously, within India, Delhi itself is such an interesting microcosm. And it's been ruled by so many different rulers over time. And so people have had to adapt.
00:21:28 Vir: And I think it makes folks from Delhi particularly resilient. I think people in the south, for example, it's been a more consistent kind of leadership. And so I think in the north, you've kind of had... I mean, this is obviously over a very long time period we're talking. But I think it's still there in the culture.
00:21:44 Manu: Yeah.
00:21:45 Vir: You still see it in the day to day. And so what's a book you're reading right now that you think some of the listeners may enjoy?
00:21:52 Manu: So there's a book called A New Earth. It's by Eckhart Tolle. I've literally got it out. I'm going to start reading it literally from this weekend. But I've been hearing really good things about it. And Paul Santos, who's Wavemaker's founder, actually recommended it. And I spoke to five other friends and they've all read it. And I'm like, wow, it just tells you how to create your better life today. That's the tagline of the book.
00:22:15 Vir: Oh, nice. I forget which country he's from, but Eckhart Tolle. But obviously a legend, and I think he's helped many folks.
00:22:23 Manu: I'm excited about reading it. There are a few folks who really pumped me up for it. And I think founder journeys are very ups and downs. So this is something that I will resonate with is what I've heard from people.
00:22:34 Vir: Oh, great. I know you're based in Delhi now. But as you obviously have all your users across the country. And now you're a global investor in the company now in Southeast Asia. Any places that interest you that you could go and pack up and take the family?
00:22:49 Manu: I live in the best city in the world. It's called New Delhi.
00:22:54 Vir: So that answer is very clear.
00:22:56 Manu: I'm a hardcore Delhi boy. I think Delhi is a vibe. And it is made because of the people with big hearts. I wouldn't trade this for anything else in the world.
00:23:05 Vir: Great answer. You're living it. And you're building your business there. And your team's there. And it's becoming more and more centric in the global context.
00:23:13 Vir: Well, thank you so much for your time, Manu. And thanks for sharing some of the insights that you've garnered and building. And we look forward to seeing VAMA continue to grow and prosper. And being part of the journey with you.
00:23:23 Manu: Thank you so much for having me.
00:23:25 Scott Harley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We're a first check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, Everywhere.VC, on LinkedIn and through our regular Founder Spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe and we'll catch you on the next episode.
Check out Manu Jain in Founders Everywhere.
Read more about VAMA’s seed raise.