Where do over 3 million Indian parents find the answers to their family problems?

Nitin Pandey has over 3,000,000 Indian parents as part of the Parentune virtual community. They are answering the need for a replacement to the village, and the traditional ways in which anxious parents could find answers to the problems facing their loved ones. We talk on the show about how he has built the platform,  how he solved the issue of experts and no patients, and the use of micropayments on mobile during COVID-19 to keep the community online.

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Nitin Pandey: 0:00

What we realized over a period of time, is there three things which are going to be important for a parent.First is they want to be in a safe space. Second was that parents are not looking for generalized content, they were looking at very personalized, relevant, specific content, which they could use to take a decision for their child or to raise their child. And the third thing was, parents were looking for support, not judgment.

Jim James: 0:26

Hello, welcome to this episode of the unnoticed show. I'm delighted to have Nitin Pandey, who is the founder of Parentune, which is an Indian parents network. Now it said that it takes a village to raise a family, but now we're living in nuclear families. We're missing the village. So parent, June has become a virtual village in India. Nitin tell us about parent June and how you're getting everybody noticed.

Nitin Pandey: 0:51

Hey, Jim pleasure to be talking to you today. And like you said, it takes a village to raise a child and what we've done over the years is be understood how parents look for information, advice to raise that child. At various stages while the become a parent to 10 rating, a giant, and then taking care of their family. And if you notice in that journey, how parents learn about various things is here's one in hand is when they are looking or searching for an answer or for a solution or to validate and information. And that is when they go or searching for it. And this is where they would. Typically find millions of solutions page one, two, and so on and so forth. Now the challenge for them at that point in time is what should I, what is relevant for me and what should I really trust? And that is when they want to validate. So the first part, when they get to know about parenting is when they actually find these results and they would find content to read from parents who are not Hooper. So that's a big use case. The second one is when the, for the one to validate that and they reach out to their friends, family on chat, on messaging, and then they say, Hey, look, this is what I found. What do you think? And then there is like my independent on the other side. And then they realize that it's actually quite tedious trying to, find people their time and all of that. And that is again when they discover parent too, because we are a network of parents in here. You can create your own network and the network never sleeps. They're always available to help you. And if you have like-minded parents, then they help you. So these are two big ways. The third one, which became over the years, bigger for us. And now perhaps is almost as big as search. Is when a parent shares out the content and that is where we are seeing now network effects playing the role wherein when a parent shares the content out, people find that content valuable and they come back, join the network, and then they add their own valuable content on the network to these three main regions.

Jim James: 3:02

Nitin and that's fantastic. So you're really benefiting from the Watts cascade effect, rate of content coming on, and then being shared. Just give us an idea of the scaleNitin of parentuneand also a little bit of the history.

Nitin Pandey: 3:16

Sure. So we started back in 2012 as an idea, and it was just idea in a box. there was nothing apart from a core insight that. Patrons need support and they need real time validated, trusted report, and they want to use that to raise the child. They don't want to take a chance. And given that families were moving into open nuclear setups back in 2012, this became more than ever, like an impending urgent thing. And I used to work in an education company. I had seen there a huge gap. So we started parenting as a part process. That we will become the trustworthy, real time advice center for a parent, but it was a long journey from the 2014 is when we started taking some kind of a ship. we'd done all the initial beta testing. You went online in 2013, but we started getting some initial results in 2014. And what we realized over a period of time, is there three things which are going to be important for a parent first is they want to be in a safe space. So they're almost don't want to be in a social media. They want it to be a closed network and their own network within the network, which is like a safe place. Second was that parents are not looking for generalized content They were looking at very personalized, relevant, specific content, which they could use to take a decision for their child or to raise their child. And the third thing was, parents were looking for support, not judgment. They were not looking to be told, Oh, this is not good. You're not a good parent. they knew that they wanted to do more and that is why they were looking for support. So one of the last things to do is, give them a report card, right? So these were three things which we realized. And on top of that, we started building the whole network of Barrett.

Jim James: 5:12

And how many parents do you have now across India? You're in the Northern part of India, you mentioned is this national. And also let's just then talk about language, because I know that in India, English is a, if a national. Language, but you have a lot of different dialects as well. I know from my PR work, we have many different dialects to deal with. Yeah. Can you just talk to us about the scale and how you're solving that problem?

Nitin Pandey: 5:37

Sure. So Jim, today we are a little over 5 million registered parents on Belgium. It's the most used parent's network in India, it's it's in ban and a network it's available on an Android app. It's available on a mobile progressive web app. And also on the website and mobile site. And you will find most of the parents close to 97% of the parents users on the mobile. And you'll find that the number of parents helping each other, again, majority of them have an impending worry, which can wait for ours at most. But most of the times on pain today, they find a solution in minutes. And coming back to the languages, the reason I talked about the importance of this time is also from the fact what you said, India is almost a continent by itself. So there are 27 massively spoken languages in India, out of which five are highly penetrable in terms of internet. Our internet penetration is upwards of 75% in these languages. And these are English in the Muraki. So we are available in these five languages today. And apart from this what's really interesting in India is you can use English, alphabets, and letters to speak or to type. In your native language. And that's something that we call English and that's all the Peter of what we've learned. So Ben tune, a lot of parents use it in their own native language with their own English alphabets, and that's really popular. And Jim, another thing which I wanted to share with you is why the STEM, we are largely in their base. We have around 11% of parents outside of India or using pet Intune. So every month, for example, we get around 25,000 parents from UK using parent too. And these are just not Indian parents. These are native, United Kingdom natives. And then similarly from Africa, from us Southeast Asia, so we do have parents now. proliferating informing small clusters and networks across the world.

Jim James: 7:48

Wow, that's amazing. And and I can really see having been a parent myself and a dad living in China at the time, looking for, experience and wisdom that in the past used to come from grandparents or parents, as you say, now we're separated quite from those people Nitin and in terms of the. The skill sets and the acquisition of the experts, because you've covered off neatly how parents are coming to you. they've searched and then got lost and then found one trusted place to, to gather. What about on the other side? Is it just parents talking to parents? Because I see on the website, you've got pediatricians, gynecologists education specialists. How are you reaching out to that community as well?Nitining.

Nitin Pandey: 8:34

I think it's two ways, Jim. And know, if you look at the expert panel on parenting, now those stands at double digit hundreds of export, right? And there, there are experts from UK and Australia and New Zealand and India. And these experts now are coming and joining us. But this wasn't the case initially. we initially reached out to top 20 doctors and experts in, in, in various spaces. I came in from medication. So I had that access and I had my own experience to offer. So education was always there, but we need to be, do traditions. We need gynecologic stuff. We need a developmental pediatrician. We need yet experts in areas like autism, ADHD, and special needs. Then looking at the needs for today, we need palynologist right. You need experts who are really they're up there telling people how to, stay safe from COVID. So all these experts in the beginning, we actually handpicked and we reached out to them and I think like they say quality begets quality. And that's the same thing that started happening with a bit of time. But quite frankly, it wasn't as easy as it sounds today, what happened was like three steps in the beginning, the questions, the experts, what their questions were not there, then the questions started happening and then experts could not answer the number of questions which are coming. So we needed to add more experts. So then we started reaching our, we experts and in that phase, We created a form, which was joined the expert panel and experts needed to know their details, CV their degrees, and, say why would they want to join us? And we just put it out there thinking that let's see what happens. And to our separates, as the network became bigger, that form field started happening on a daily basis. And today, every day we get two or three experts applying to be part of our plan.

Jim James: 10:28

And when you say you put it out there, can you just be more specific when you say you put it out there? Is it, on LinkedIn or Facebook or an education websites? how are you placing your expert panel application form in front of those experts?

Nitin Pandey: 10:43

But in the beginning, Jim, we put it out on LinkedIn and quite frankly, we didn't get much response. And then we put it back out to our own website and app. When we launched the app on the website, we've got some traction, but on the app we got more traction. And what we did was we linked the, the QA sections detail pages. We started putting links there, a small almost a B marker saying that. Okay. In case you are an expert in reading this and would like to join our expert panel, you can click here. And give us your details and do you get in touch with you? And then it started working better that isn't, and then, over a period of time, we ask our own experts to give us more recommendations and recommend an export. And I think that worked the best for it.

Jim James: 11:30

Almost a member get member approach interesting how you solve thatNitin, and let's just talk for a moment about the business modelNitin. Is this a free service on your website? You have aParentunee, plus for example, you can just take a, is it a freemium model, help us to understand.

Nitin Pandey: 11:49

You got it, it's a premium model, which has, the gateway to the network. To the safe place is accessible to anyone without having to pay anything. But yeah, you need to verify or account, you need to verify your details so that you get that tick Mark from the network saying that, yeah, you're a verified profile. And now we know that, we have, we don't have an email, a bot, but we have a real person and be known that who does your person? And so once you've done that, You are inside the network and then you can reach out to parents. You can ask a question, but your first question is on us. But the moment you have more than a question because you need to keep asking questions, clearing doubts with experts, or if you want to attend these workshops, which we do. So there are lives, which we do, which are free lives. And then there are paid lives. if you want to attend those paid lies, you want to ask more questions. You want 24 by seven export access, then you take a subscription. And again, you can take a subscription annually which is called parent plus, or you can take it even monthly. And in case you, you have a good experience, great. You renew, you keep increasing your subscription in case you don't have a good experience, you can stop and be refund. The rest of the value. So it's become also a very easy to use over the years and apart from trust, the fact that I'm using it as I need it is also available on that freemium model. So that works very well for a bit.

Jim James: 13:26

That's really nice. Nitin and just talk to us about how much we're talking about, because India is known for having some wealthy, but also many that are not. How do you get the pricing so that it's sustainable for you, but also serving what is obviously a genuine purpose around helping parents to remove anxiety through knowledge.

Nitin Pandey: 13:48

Absolutely. so one thing which is really been at the center of what painting has done is. How do you make export validated information accessible in across languages? So that is not paid. for example, that's accessible at any point of time. And just to give you an idea it's around half a pound, value, which you need to spend on attending a life or a workshop are sometimes. One pound, But if you want to take a whole monthly subscription and you want to attend all the lights, which are happening, all you pay is around three pounds for a month.

Jim James: 14:24

Wonderful. So really making it very accessible.

Nitin Pandey: 14:27

absolutely. And given that, India Right. now is going from COVID times, you've slashed it to one pound only during the COVID times you slash the monthly subscription to one pound. And the yearly subscription, which was around 12 pounds to 15 pounds. We've reduced it to just about five pounds for the whole year.

Jim James: 14:48

Russo really very affordable. And from a practical point of view, what do people use in India to pay cause bank transfer? These. It's not relevant. This is a micro payment. Really? Isn't it.Nitin What are they using in terms of payment methods? Mobile.

Nitin Pandey: 15:03

Yeah, there are more vial wallets. There are internet banking is now enabled by UPI. in India, it's become very easy and a lot of payment wanted, so mostly parents are using payment wallets. And for the parents who are outside India, they are typically doing this through their credit cards.

Jim James: 15:18

And do you have the same pricing regardless of geography? So maybe someone in a country like the UK or Singapore or Australia has a different economic profile to one in India. Do you have different pricing by geography or is it unit three pricing?

Nitin Pandey: 15:32

During the COVID times we keeping it the same. because I think it's really times of needs across. and I think we want to be as. Positive as possible during the, during this environment. So we are keeping the same, but yeah, you're right. pre COVID and then post COVID also you'll see that the pricing? would change in various geographies.

Jim James: 15:50

Oh, can you just share with us then about the promotion of parent June using, for example, social media. I know that in India, I think one of the largest user groups on Facebook is from India. What are your channels to reach out to new parents over and beyond this sort of member get member that you've explained is also working so well for you Nitin.

Nitin Pandey: 16:13

Jim, what would the years, search has been ready. Important for us, because if you see a parent's journey, soldiers, they important for them, and that's the first time they are looking for help you become you're expecting, or even before that. When you're looking to be a parent, want to know a little about it, for example, women want low no. About what is the fertility period, and, when is that we should look at conceiving, what should be my birthing plan, right? Where, which hospitals should I look at for my birthday? And. what doctors should be they're on my list, right? So you go online and you ask her, or you ask your friends and those two are very important for us. so search is is still continuing to be a very important part of our promotional or discovery of into the second is when they ask her out. And that is where Even if he were to spend money, if you would like to spend money where parents are asking, and that has been Facebook, WhatsApp becomes very important in India. WhatsApp is really popular being used across sites. So that is why you will find onParentunee. Everything is WhatsApp. You can just WhatsApp, right? so that's second Facebook and WhatsApp, but what we are trying to do now and trying to also find more. Peyton's to discover us are other platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram is something that we started working on recently. so that's there, but yeah, with the limited marketing dollars to spend or pounds to spend, that's how we're going about. would we like to do more? Yeah, definitely.

Jim James: 17:44

And it sounds like you've already accomplished a huge amount and this, and then final question with COVID obviously impacting pay people in India, are people managing to find some solutions on parent, June to COVID related questions?

Nitin Pandey: 18:01

yes. So I'm Parentune. If you were to look, even now, Jim would find something, but it's COVID 19 support. So we created a separate cluster. there's FAQ style questions that are videos, right from. Prone position, reading exercises, how to stay calm, how to know if your child is facing anxiety, what are the signs? How should you take care of your family? How to mask up out, create a facial at home to whatnot, right? You will find everything. And then we'll also find lives. Banking lives, which we do every second day. There's a COVID related area, which we cover in those one hour. Of QA stipend tonight. And then on top of that in ask export, you have all the experts, including pulmonologists who are taking these questions every day.

Jim James: 18:48

Nitin, and that's amazing contribution you making. How can people find out more about parents, June and nit in Pandy?

Nitin Pandey: 18:55

So what they could do is they could just go on a play store or Google and type in tune.com andParentunee is with a single team. So that's the easiest and the best experience of paying tune is on the mobile app. And unfortunately right now we are not on the iOS, but hoping to be there sometime soon, but on the Android, that's the best experience to get. In case you don't use Android, then you can use the mobile site, which is just going on mobile on the browser, Safari, Chrome, whatever you use and your type parentune.com and that's how you start using us. You will start getting into the safe space, start getting validated advice from experts and pets.

Jim James: 19:37

Nitin Pandey joining me all the way from Northern India today. Thank you so much for joining me on the unnoticed show and explaining what an amazing job you've done on getting parents. You notice

Nitin Pandey: 19:46

Thank you, Jim. And namaste to you and everyone. Who's listening to your show. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jim James: 19:52

my pleasure. I've learned so much from you today and obviously from all of us. Listening. We send our best wishes to all of you in India during this terrible COVID time. Thank you once again for joining me on the show and I'll put all of the links toNitins Parentune, and to his LinkedIn as well in the show notes. Thank you for joining me, Jim James, on this episode of the unnoticed show.