YourQuote: Share your feelings on the tip

This digital platform aims to build a mobile-based digital platform in both English and Indian languages

Everyone has a story to tell. A platform to express oneself in a language that one is comfortable with is key. YourQuote, a mobile-based and user-generated original content and digital community platform is serving the purpose.
 
Harsh Snehanshu, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company, sensed the dearth of a mobile-friendly content platform that allowed users to express themselves in their language. It led to the birth of Bengaluru-based YourQuote in August 2016. With friend Ashish Singh, he developed such a platform that placed the focus on self-expression through native short-form original content.

 
“YourQuote helps users broadcast in their mother tongue on the go, through text and video format. Most of the other platforms are web-first and help professional content creators mint recognition and money. YourQuote intends to reach the vast amateur audience and help them become more discoverable. And, later on, monetise their talents,” says Snehanshu.
 

YourQuote is a platform to share one’s thoughts in any form, he adds. The platform has garnered much pace, creating a highly engaged community of creative content creators and consumers. Recently, the company secured Rs 6.4 crore in seed funding. This was led by IDG Ventures India, with participation from Atul Goel of Essel City Group and Axilor.

 
Available on Google Play and AppStore, it has users in 90 cities through a rapidly-expanding digital community and a diverse assortment of short-form and video content in 15 languages, including English. Its 500 000 users come from both cities and towns. YourQuote is chasing the  vernacular mobile self-expression market (video and write-ups), projected to reach almost 400 million users by 2021. It aims to grow to 10 million user by 2020 and earn yearly revenue of $100,000 by the end of 2018.
 
A little more than 4.5 million posts have been made on the platform to date, growth of 20 per cent month-on-month. With 55 per cent of the content created in Indian languages. It’s revenue model is going to be mainly digital advertising, such as YouTube's or Instagram. Brands can create a profile on YourQuote and crowdsource content relevant to their positioning and marketing needs at an inexpensive cost; the content creator makes money. “We are making money already, through brand associations where influencers from our community come together to perform at a brand-themed event and the videos go on our YouTube channel,” says the founder. It plans  to raise a couple of more rounds and break-even by mid-2020.

 
It is also working on building an offline presence through community events and meet-ups. Its  community, to date, has  organised a little more than 300 events, bringing together content creators in different regions for open mics, stand-up comedy, and slam poetry sessions. Video is another focus area for YourQuote and the team is  building a video platform on the app itself, to enable users to upload and share videos of their performance. Around 70,000 users have subscribed for YourQuote videos and a little over 1,200 performance videos from YourQuote events across India have been uploaded, garnering five million views within 90 days of the channel launch, the company says.

 
The company has nearly 50,000 daily active users and monthly audience engagement stands at 34.1 million content views.
 
“We are confident they will be able to establish  YourQuote as the definitive mobile-first platform for original content in India, both short-form and video,” says Karan Mohla, partner at IDG Ventures India Advisors.