Prashan Agarwal
CEO
Strongly believing that game changing businesses ought to address the customers’ demands by creating offline to online seamless experiences, Prashan Agarwal (CEO), oversees Gaana with a vision of creating services that will impact millions of Indians and make their lives better. Prashan in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights has elucidated about the journey, various business modules, the treasure chest of music albums and many other facets of Gaana that is giving the brand an edge above other music streaming apps in India. Here are the excerpts!
Celebrating eight years of presence in the entertainment industry of India, how has Gaana shaped itself through this journey?
Tobring legal consumption of entertainment for customers right across their desktops and mobile phones, the foundation for Gaana was laid in 2011 wherein the brand earned enormous fame in just few years due to its colloquial name 'Gaana' resonating among all the consumers. Post 2016, we witnessed a swarm of consumers who streamed music and
entertainment via internet due to the
then affordable data prices and seamless access. Undoubtedly, Gaana has reaped a faster growth in the past two and a half years and is currently eminent as the leading music streaming app in India. In the next 2-3 years, we expect that almost 30 percent of the population will start consuming entertainment legally across their devices.
"Gaana has reaped a faster growth in the past two and a half years and is currently eminent as the leading music streaming app in India"
With insights on diverse internet consumers, what are your strategies to deliver personalized music content to listeners over the Gaana app?
Professional experience in understanding the unique ways in which consumers are harnessing the content on internet has guided us in resolving the grave problems of Indian music streamers much better than any other player in the market. In fact, the experience we have gained from associations with consumer internet startups in the past 12 years is an added advantage for the same. Considering internet as a medium between us and our users, we have channelized our professional expertise into infusing a lot of technical aspects across our app. The unique user experiences that we fuse into our products is what our consumers like the most and is also the reason behind our highest rates of user engagement and retention in the industry.
In addition, the innovations ranging from transliteration to integration of Facebook’s new Timeline in the app, inclusion of a wide search feature, songs with videos and lyrics and auto queue recommendations has imbued a lot of affinity for our brand among the consumers. Coupled with user experiences, the exclusive content we built across Gaana Exclusives as well as original song tracks across Gaana Originals are the key differentiators that are embodying us as the market leader.
How do you present a wide spectrum of music content for the users and curate them in line with their interests?
Analyzing the history, listening behaviour and music consumption habits of our users, we realized that most of them are trilingual or multilingual and accordingly developed multilingual music content for them. On the other hand, we have also created more regional content in the recent years as it is
then affordable data prices and seamless access. Undoubtedly, Gaana has reaped a faster growth in the past two and a half years and is currently eminent as the leading music streaming app in India. In the next 2-3 years, we expect that almost 30 percent of the population will start consuming entertainment legally across their devices.
"Gaana has reaped a faster growth in the past two and a half years and is currently eminent as the leading music streaming app in India"
With insights on diverse internet consumers, what are your strategies to deliver personalized music content to listeners over the Gaana app?
Professional experience in understanding the unique ways in which consumers are harnessing the content on internet has guided us in resolving the grave problems of Indian music streamers much better than any other player in the market. In fact, the experience we have gained from associations with consumer internet startups in the past 12 years is an added advantage for the same. Considering internet as a medium between us and our users, we have channelized our professional expertise into infusing a lot of technical aspects across our app. The unique user experiences that we fuse into our products is what our consumers like the most and is also the reason behind our highest rates of user engagement and retention in the industry.
In addition, the innovations ranging from transliteration to integration of Facebook’s new Timeline in the app, inclusion of a wide search feature, songs with videos and lyrics and auto queue recommendations has imbued a lot of affinity for our brand among the consumers. Coupled with user experiences, the exclusive content we built across Gaana Exclusives as well as original song tracks across Gaana Originals are the key differentiators that are embodying us as the market leader.
How do you present a wide spectrum of music content for the users and curate them in line with their interests?
Analyzing the history, listening behaviour and music consumption habits of our users, we realized that most of them are trilingual or multilingual and accordingly developed multilingual music content for them. On the other hand, we have also created more regional content in the recent years as it is
the trending flavor of music besides English music, which has procured huge tractions even among the Tier-2 & Tier-3 towns. Our close networks with a gamut of music labels worldwide and regional labels have enabled us to present an entire repertoire of songs across our platform. Moreover, our adept curation team with multiple years of experience in all languages ensures to curate around 30 million songs enlisted in Gaana’s repertoire in tune with the individual user interests, deploying many back-end algorithms.
Kindly explain the avenues that you follow to ascertain uninterrupted and top-notch music streaming for the users.
Knowing the Content Delivery Network (CDN) inside out and leveraging the right technical infrastructure, we ensure that our users enjoy fast delivery of music content across their devices. To also impart top-notch quality in this content, we execute a lot of stringent checks, infuse high fidelity acoustics and personalize user experiences via Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and cutting-edge technologies.Further, our diligent teams formulate all decisions across each product or initiative by always placing customer at the crux.
Could you cast some light on your revenue models as well as your future plans?
With an ad supported model and paid subscription model for three months, six months and one year entailing ad-free & offline downloading of HD quality music, we expect to grow to 200 million users who will predominantly be from Tier-2 & Tier-3 towns, in the next two years. Due to our belief that most of these users will be first-timers, we are planning to invest heavily on voice-based search and ML to craft easy and seamless experiences for them.
Key Management:
Prashan Agarwal, CEO
A serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in all relevant aspects of consumer internet businesses and tangible business models, Prashan supervises Gaana in bringing multifarious entertainment legally across the PCs and mobiles phones of consumers.
Office:Noida
Offerings:Bollywood, Regional, International & Mood Based Music, Gaana Originals and Curated Playlists
Kindly explain the avenues that you follow to ascertain uninterrupted and top-notch music streaming for the users.
Knowing the Content Delivery Network (CDN) inside out and leveraging the right technical infrastructure, we ensure that our users enjoy fast delivery of music content across their devices. To also impart top-notch quality in this content, we execute a lot of stringent checks, infuse high fidelity acoustics and personalize user experiences via Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and cutting-edge technologies.Further, our diligent teams formulate all decisions across each product or initiative by always placing customer at the crux.
Could you cast some light on your revenue models as well as your future plans?
With an ad supported model and paid subscription model for three months, six months and one year entailing ad-free & offline downloading of HD quality music, we expect to grow to 200 million users who will predominantly be from Tier-2 & Tier-3 towns, in the next two years. Due to our belief that most of these users will be first-timers, we are planning to invest heavily on voice-based search and ML to craft easy and seamless experiences for them.
Key Management:
Prashan Agarwal, CEO
A serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in all relevant aspects of consumer internet businesses and tangible business models, Prashan supervises Gaana in bringing multifarious entertainment legally across the PCs and mobiles phones of consumers.
Office:Noida
Offerings:Bollywood, Regional, International & Mood Based Music, Gaana Originals and Curated Playlists