In June of 2020 India’s IT department, in accordance with section 69 under the IT Act and Section 69 of the IT Act, blocked 59 apps, which included TikTok, ShareIt, UC Browser, Likee, WeChat along with Bigo Live. Since then the government has blocked a number of Chinese apps and cited international conflicts as the main reason and opening ways to allow Made-in-India apps to take the attention of those of their Chinese counterparts.
The ban caused a major gap, and millions of internet users in India, particularly in cities that are not metros-began searching for alternatives that would do the same job.
The Gurugram-based company that makes apps Appyhigh was one of the companies that chose to tap into the growing demand.
AppyHigh was founded with Aneesh Rayanchaand Venus Dhuria in the year 2018, AppyHigh was already developing utility applications designed for mass-user segments of the Tier II cities and further.
There was a huge gap that was not being filled, Venus says. We selected products that were in line with our DNA and were focused on efficiency as well as utility and massive user participation.
Between July until September 2020 The company released Share Karo India, Browser Go along with Scanner Go. These three apps boast an overall total of more than 136 million downloads by July 2022 and at minimum 20 million monthly active customers (MAUs).
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Like many others available on the Google Play Store two years ago, attempted to entice customers with logos, colours as well as a look and feel that was similar to apps that were banned.
When there’s a gap and people are looking for applications that worked on the market before. They always look for an identical item, Venus says.
Brands have invested millions of dollars on creating an identity for their brand and then getting users. Users are then able to connect particular apps to specific usage situations. This is similar to playing with perception, Venus says.
For instance, JioMeet looked similar to Zoom at first; Balaji Wafers uses similar colors to Lay’s.
In this instance, the number was so massive that no matter how much you put into it, you could not achieve that level of number of users. However, you can speed up the process of acquiring users with (letting users) be able to connect with products that are already well-known, Venus says.
That’s exactly what AppyHigh was able to do, building upon the work it’s been doing since the beginning of 2017.
Getting started
Venus is a graduate of PEC Chandigarh, as well as Aneesh an alumnus from IIT Bombay, met when they worked at Reckitt in 2012. They had a common interest in entrepreneurship, and decided to take the plunge in 2014 when the launch of Rutugo which is an outstation cab aggregater. They grew the service up to more than 20 locations before selling the company to Ixigo in the year 2015.
Rutugo was integrated with the online travel site and changed its name to Ixigo Cabs, which they led and increased to 10,000 daily bookings. The two companies worked together in conjunction with Ixigo until 2016 when the integration was completed.
The concept of Rutugowas an SkyScanner with cabs, but for SkyScanner. It also influenced their next concept.
People love productivity. People are enthralled by making time, and also saving the money they spend, Venus says. If you provide them with an all-in-one activity in their everyday lives, they’ll immediately utilize it.
The two left their job and went back to work. They released a number of consumer-facing applications, including jobs searches on AllJob and shopping-related browser Smartshoppr in the year 2017.
Aneesh and I have worked with interns/freelancers, or freelancers through a model of revenue sharing. We’ve never employed anyone until the eureka moment. Venus says.
The two had a difficult time trying to raise funds to fund Rutugo due to negative market mood. They were certain that they would not get capital out immediately during their second attempt.
We believed that we should first create a company, he says. Bohot ho gaya funding. Pehle dhanda banate hai. (Enough of capital. Let’s expand our business first).
Aneesh remembers that the eureka moment came in the year 2018 when the company grew and produced more than 3 million in sales. The founders of the company decided to incorporate the business and to hire the team.
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AppyHigh is currently a staff of 135 employees.
What does it do?
The creators employ an analogy to Maslow’s hierarchy to explain the concept ofto describe the apps and the audiences they create for.
The base of the pyramid is comprised of applications that aid in gaining users, and allows apps to check phones, scan them, lock phones, switch fonts and clear any residual data. In the middle, there are apps that let you browse, publish on social networks, and edit videos . The upper rung has applications that let users upload files and join social networks.
A majority of them — which comprise the productivity and utility creative and design as well as entertainment and discovery of content categories are products that are widely used.
AppyHigh is a company that aims to meet the digital demands of people in India It has released more than 20 applications that include AppLockGo, M Video Maker, SmartShoppr, Fonts App, QR Code Scanner, Screen Recorder, InStats, TV Lens, and Cleaner Go.
Its audience is people who first started using the internet in the past five to six years, and who are now looking to explore further. For instance, InStore allows users to upload videos, images and stories, receive caption and hashtag suggestions as well as create collages and grids as well as other kinds of content.
AppyHigh applications have downloaded over 500 million times. The majority of users are common across all apps, and the company claims there are around 55 million active monthly users.
The majority of the users are metros, while 53% of them are in the Tier II cities. The app company claims that 40 percent of the app’s users originates from states with a Hindi-speaking population: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
We are finding areas of need, looking for opportunities…and that’s why we’re launching our the products, Venus says.
AppyHigh is a company that aims to become the market leader in every one of these categories has launched a range of apps from eight to nine in 2020. They saw a greater acceptance from a brand new group of users, fueled by the epidemic.
Venus claims that its user base has grown significantly since the initial wave, and demand has increased across all apps, including those launched before COVID-19.
The company claims this users have increased 10 times since the pandemic.
He also cites the changing requirements to explain the increase in demand. For instance, banks began offering digital KYC in April 2020. This created an increase in demand for code and document conversion scanner applications.
The company follows the same model as TikTok owners ByteDance, Xiaomi, and Cheetah Mobile. The companies have established an ecosystem to draw masses of users. They added additional services after the adoption of their services, and then began monetisation.
AppyHigh is Growing AppyHigh
The founders of the company launched AppyHigh with an in initial investment of 5,000 and used the profits as seed capital for expansion. In the fiscal year ending in FY21 AppyHigh generated income that was $8.6 million (Rs 64 crore).
Since it was launched, the company played with a variety of apps before stopping the ones that failed to gain enough popularity or make revenue. They included AnyJob and an app for news aggregators, Samaachari.
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All AppyHigh’s applications are free It earns its money from advertisements.
At present, the majority of AppyHigh’s revenues come from the top eight of its apps, which comprise Share Karo India, Instore, BrowserGo, AppLock Go, Scanner Go, QR Code Reader as well as TV Lens.
It also generates revenues through in-app purchases right now.
We are also developing our data stream internally and categorizing users based on their actions and the metadata they provide, and will be able enhance monetisation in the future, Aneesh says.
In addition to expanding its range of applications, AppyHigh has since 2019 invested in over 75 startups in the early stages and has the average being 2.5 deals per month. Its portfolio comprises of Dukaan, Krishify, leap.club. Pankhuri and OneImpression.
It is more of an opportunity-driven corporate investment fund that offers partnership opportunities. 70%-80 percent of our capital is devoted to startups that we’ve collaborated with or are planning to partner with in the near in the future Venus says.
Our best practice is to start at an extremely young stage, based on our experiences.
The company reached the threshold of an annualised recurring revenue (ARR) in the amount of 10 million (about 80 crore rupees) in October 2021. Revenues grew more than 60% in 2021. In terms of impressions for ads the company is growing at a rate of 300%..
We are hoping to achieve one billion MAUs, which is a 20X increase in over the course of five years. Venus says.
