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:

• ₹100Cr+ ARR,
• growing 20% month on month, and
• managing 30 apps with a tech team of ~25 people.

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