Masterclass: Building Viral Digital Brands in India | Anirudh Pandita (Pocket Aces & Loco)

"The default state of your business is usually dead." This stark insight from Anirudh Pandita, founder of Pocket Aces and Loco, underscores the harsh reality of entrepreneurship. It’s a reminder that survival and success are not givens, but outcomes of relentless effort, strategic pivots, and often, a bit of luck with timing.

Anirudh Pandita is the co-founder of digital entertainment company Pocket Aces and founder of India's leading game streaming platform, Loco. An ex-investment banker with an engineering degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from Wharton, Anirudh transitioned to entrepreneurship, building Pocket Aces to a company reaching 70-80 million people weekly and reportedly in the ₹100-200 crore revenue range. Loco, after being spun off, raised over $50 million ($9M seed and $42M Series A), and its earlier trivia app avatar was once the fastest to hit 1 million daily active users in India.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• The Accidental Entrepreneur: Anirudh initially had ambitions to start a business but no clear path or family background in it, leading him through Wall Street to understand how businesses are built before taking the entrepreneurial plunge.
• Pivoting for Product-Market Fit: Pocket Aces started with an idea for films but quickly pivoted to digital content for mobile-first Indian youth upon recognizing the slow pace of the film industry and the shifting media consumption habits.
• Experimentation and Virality: The success of FilterCopy came from a culture of experimentation which helped identify what content resonated with audiences, while the initial version of Loco as a live trivia app achieved massive virality due to a unique interactive experience.
• Building a Moat with Community: Loco's shift to game streaming was driven by the insight that gaming was becoming a massive content category, and the strategy focused on building a strong community of gamers and streamers, an area where global players like Twitch were perceived to be weak in India.

Chapters:

• [01:29] From Wall Street to Digital Entertainment in India
• [06:59] The Birth of Pocket Aces: Pivoting from Bollywood Dreams
• [18:03] Cracking Viral Content: FilterCopy, Dice Media & "Solving Boredom"
• [22:43] Funding Pocket Aces & The Frugal Startup Mentality
• [28:01] Loco's Origin: Acquiring Showtime & The Trivia App Craze
• [30:41] The Big Pivot: Why Loco Ventured into Game Streaming
• [47:13] Understanding India's Gaming Community & Twitch's Gap
• [56:21] Monetizing Gaming in India: Ads, Microtransactions & Future Vision
• [58:45] Raising $50M+ for Loco: Pitch, Execution & Global Ambitions
• [1:04:00] Anirudh's Advice to Founders & The Power of "Just Doing It"

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