Persist, Pivot and Perform, don’t PerishPocket FM

Pocket FM Unfiltered Part 2: Prateek Dixit, Cofounder & CTO

Five years ago when Rohan, Nishant and I started Pocket FM, none of us thought of audio series — something that Pocket FM is known for today.

True, we wanted to redefine the non-music audio entertainment market. But, the focus was on user generated content (UGC) and podcasts. The decision to build an audio entertainment platform on the back of UGC and podcasts was based on our hypothesis that we came up with during our pre-setup days.

That was also the hypothesis that generated interest from the investor community leading to our first round of funding to start operations. We started off with full enthusiasm and rolled out Pocket FM just to realise that our hypothesis was either half-baked or drawn too quickly. Things did not work out the way we hoped. The response from users at large wasn’t as we expected.

For Rohan, Nishant and I, it was surely a setback that none of us expected this early.

We went back to the drawing board. We dived into a thorough post-mortem to figure out what might have gone wrong. Soon enough, we realised the need for change. We needed to pivot.

Truth is, each of us wasn’t ready to embrace that. Probably because we were too passionate, possibly too fixated, with our original idea. Personally for me it was the “make-or-break” moment.

At the same time, none of us wanted to “give up”. Our experiences of working across start-ups had taught us the value of change, the importance of pivots. Before starting Pocket FM, all three of us had our stints with start-ups at different stages, and we have had first-hand knowledge of similar situations. During the six-and a-half years at Hike, I had witnessed multiple moments of sheer disappointment.

We discussed the pivots we had seen, and how some start-ups were built on multiple pivots. Thus, we decided to pivot until we ‘find the right market fit’.

This shift required us to let go of certain strategies and investments we had made. But we never wanted to “give up”.

Instead of succumbing to these moments, we embraced them as opportunities for growth and learning. We decided to shift to audio series from UGC and podcasts. The idea simply was to reinvent the almost-forgotten audio drama — arguably the most successful form of non-music audio entertainment — in a serialised manner with necessary modernisation to align with the tastes and needs of today’s listeners.

With the pivot to audio series, we found the right product market fit which also gave the turnaround that Pocket FM needed. It is also an example of our readiness to embrace change and let go of approaches that weren’t yielding the desired results in favour of a more promising path.

In retrospect, our journey is a testament of our agility and adaptability. We were willing to experiment and pivot when needed, even when faced with challenges so that we always serve the market needs staying at pace with the listening behaviour of our users across the world.

There’s a saying: Success comes to those who work hard, lift heavy and never give up. Yes, we did it all. And the first time we felt the taste of success was when we realised that Pocket FM “is set to cross $100 million” of annual recurring revenue (ARR) towards the end of last year.

Truth is, the success of Pocket FM wasn’t accidental. The entire Pocket FM team worked relentlessly to ensure the best services for our users as we built a company that people love today and will continue to do so in future.

At the same time, each of more than 100,000 creators in our network has been generous enough to ensure that Pocket FM’s content bank is always flooded. The success of Pocket FM came on the back of diverse content offerings, differentiated pay-as-you-go model, library of relevant content for listeners across languages, AI-powered engagement, content recommendation and discovery, among others.

As we move forward towards the next phase of our growth journey, we envision Pocket FM as the undisputed leader in the audio entertainment category, setting new industry standards and trends. We will ensure profitability through innovative monetisation strategies and a loyal, engaged audience base.

At the same time, we aim to continue pushing the boundaries of technology and AI in audio entertainment while expanding our global footprint. The ultimate goal is to become the go-to platform for all forms of audio content, making it an integral part of people’s daily audio experiences across the globe.

As I wish “Happy Fifth” to each one at Pocket FM, I would personally like to thank each of our 100+ million listeners across the world for loving Pocket FM.

In the years to come, our goal is to establish Pocket FM as the ‘go-to platform’ for the highest level of audio entertainment, making it an integral part of people’s daily audio experiences on a global scale.

For us, the journey has just started. Stay tuned!

Pocket FM Unfiltered is Founders Special Series, curated in celebration of our 5th Anniversary! This blog is the second part of the series.