Q] How is Mitron differentiating itself from the various video-sharing platforms today?
As a company based in India, we offer the entire Indian market a platform to express creativity and participate in entertaining and engaging content. We have observed incredible traction with over 35 million downloads within three months of launching. Our vision to create a world-class product will be the driving force behind this company’s success.
Q] Industry experts believe the acquisition of users has become easier for Indian start-ups following the ban of Chinese Apps. However, their ability to stay will depend on the features and user interface of the apps. What is your view on this? Where do Indian apps stand?
Within one month of the ban, more than 9 billion videos were viewed on Mitron which was beyond our expectations.
Our goal at Mitron is to build a short-form video app which reimagines digital entertainment and engagement while respecting the local cultural norms and regulatory framework. Mitron clocked 10mn downloads even prior to the Chinese app ban, proving our value proposition.
Q] Experts say that Indian tech is now finally waking up to the market, earlier dominated by the Chinese companies. But does India have a deep understanding of technology?
India has great talent in technology that’s capable of building world-class products along with venture capital to build and scale in India and globally. The start-up ecosystem in India is rapidly evolving, producing great companies and talent of high quality.
Q] How do you think people view Indian brands? And do they trust Indian apps?
With more than 9 billion video views acquired recently combined with over 35 million downloads since launching, the stats are clearly descriptive of the trust which consumers have put into the brand. An average user is viewing more than 80 videos per day that indicates that users not only trust Mitron but love the experience.
Q] How is Mitron working towards issues like user privacy, data integrity and localisation?
We are completely aligned towards data privacy and security and have taken several measures to make sure that it is reflected in our product. We ensure that all our users’ data is stored on Indian servers and are accessible only by Mitron servers running on Indian data centres. Users have control of their data and can choose to delete any content uploaded by them.
Any user specific interaction is performed with a signed token which is issued and verified by our servers so that user behaviour cannot be mimicked. We are also building privacy/visibility control for users where they will be able to control the visibility of their videos.
Q] Mitron has raised seed funding after having gained scale. What is the way forward for the app from here?
At present we are a team of 15 people at Mitron in the engineering and operations field. Last month, Mitron raised a small round of seed funding from 3one4 Capital as well as Arun Tadanki’s private syndicate on LetsVenture. This funding will be utilised towards hiring key employees to help us grow Mitron further. In the next three months,
we are planning to hire an additional 40 people which will include top-notch product and engineering talent and a small team in the field of marketing, partnerships and growth. We are also expanding our operations team for content moderation.
Q] Are you also getting content creators and influencers on your platform?
At Mitron, we believe that the greatest reward for creativity should be the creation itself. The rapid growth and mass adoption of Mitron has given not only us but also the creators a huge validation that the audience believes in the quality of the content on Mitron.
The viewership of 40 million videos per hour has shown that there is a great opportunity for influencers and content creators on our platform.
Q] What is going to be a key focus for the app going forward?
The Mitron team has been adaptive and super agile with the fast-paced growth of the product. We are focused on rapid product improvements along with giving our creators the tools needed to build high-quality content.
About Mitron
Launched in April 2020, Mitron is a short-form social video app that allows users to create, upload, view, and share entertaining short videos. It is founded by Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal. Both founders previously worked together at MakeMyTrip, and are Computer Science engineers.
