Our Investment in PopXO, India’s largest digital community of women

A Shining Light in Dark Times

Ashamed of his terror, while Beregond of the Guard thought first of the captain whom he loved, Pippin… peered out. At that moment he caught a flash of white and silver coming from the North, like a small star down on the dusky fields. It moved with the speed of an arrow and grew as it came, converging swiftly with the flight of the four men towards the Gate. It seemed to Pippin that a pale light was spread about it and the heavy shadows gave way before it….

‘Gandalf!’ he cried….

But now the dark swooping shadows were aware of the newcomer. One wheeled towards him; but… he raised his hand, and from it a shaft of white light stabbed upwards. The Nazgûl gave a long wailing cry and swerved away; and with that the four others wavered, and then rising in swift spirals they passed away eastward vanishing into the lowering cloud above; and down on the Pelennor it seemed for a while less dark.

Pardon the geeky start to this post, couldn’t resist.

We announced our investment in PopXO a few months ago. I did not write about it till now as I wanted to spend a bit more time with the team to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and vision. But I thought no better time to write out a positive note than now, as we go through the Dark Ages in Tech this week. Right from the day I saw their product (more than a year ago), I fell in love with what Priyanka Gill and her team were building for the Indian women.

India has long been a patriarchal society. We have so much baggage from all the way from horrendous social issues such as Sati, Dowry, and Domestic Violence to much deeper psychologically engrained issues such as women safety and workforce participation. Its hard for these shackles to be removed completely, I am not even sure whether things are starting to change because I have seen some of these social issues unfold right in front of my eyes. And these problems exist to an even larger extent in the Media industry. Media and Fashion industry has always treated women as objects. Our movies and TV serials are full of sexism where women are taught that their place in the world is at home, in the kitchen, behind the stove or in giving birth and then taking care of the kids.

Along with the current social standing, in the last decade or so, the younger generation has really opened up to westernization. Indians, at least in the top metros, are traveling internationally and exploring the world. They are coming back to the country and starting to shape a similar environment back at home, which is great. Our cities are getting westernised, much more open, and I try to believe that the societal gap between men and women is decreasing in the metros. But this same culture is not spreading to the smaller towns yet. What a girl sitting in a small town in India is seeing on Facebook on her best friend’s wall who moved to a big city lately, is probably not the same as what she faces day in and day out at home. While the guys in the same small town see the same pictures on Facebook and because they can’t live the same lives they end up resorting to eve-teasing, vulgarity, and overall inappropriate behavior. And even in the big cities, the society has not come to a point where a girl can be completely open with her family. Obviously these are just examples, there is much more to why society gets shaped the way it does, but I do feel this is part of the problem.

The solution to overcome all of this lies in my eyes in two things: bringing the women together (shorter-term) and better grassroots education (longer-term). PopXO is obviously going for the former by building a women-only community. United we stand, divided we fall. And what better way to unite people than by leveraging technology and simply creating an open, transparent, and unadulterated network of women who understand each other, listen to each other and support each other through these tough societal changes. We really don’t need a male baboon (read Donald Trump below) to come in and spoil this support system by passing a sarcastic or snide comment. No, it needs to be restricted to a strong community of women, and none of the western social platforms bring that with them. Because they were not developed in a country with the same social problems.

So how does PopXO build this community? PopXO has a simple way of achieving it. Bring them in through content and keep them there for the community. Keep them there for the support system. They already reach out to 10 million women in India through their personal and user generated content, and get over 100 million engagements on their content every month (yes you read that right).

Do we need to retain all these content readers? Probably not. With a reach of 10 million women already through its content, even if 10% of them stay on to help each other, it is a battle won already. It’s enough to kickstart strong network effects that will last for long with far reaching consequences. The PopXO product is already solving so many problems by simply creating a new-age forum where it’s ok to ask questions on socially Taboo topics such as:

Female Hygiene

(think menstruation, UTI, etc)

Sex

(think protection, one-night-stands, etc)

Relationships

(think live-in, infidelity, etc)

Or even normal topics where you’ll find a much more sincere answer than in a typical social network:

1. Fashion and Beauty trends
2. Best friend gossip
3. Understanding your Own partner and relationship better and deeper

PopXO World has been built to form a new age, digital, always-on magazine and I am already proud of seeing it evolve in the last 3 months. Male members are not even allowed to read most of the stuff on the product; I am trying to convince Priyanka to give my profile a female identity so I can explore the product properly :)

While other tech media companies in India are getting absorbed in sexual harassment scandals (TVF, ScoopWhoop) I am glad that we have a company in our portfolio which is a shining light in these dark times. While the whole startup world is being shaken by the truth coming to light in the recent cases of Justin Caldbeck from Binary Capital and Dave McClure from 500 Startups, this company keeps on building a product of women, by women, for women.

Not to ignore the fact that I am proud that the PopXO team is 95% women last I counted. Everything from the product to sales to finance is currently being led by women, and the company was started by two female founders. Even the board is a 50–50 split between men and women with Vani Kola from Kalaari Capital the seniormost board member. So save me your stereotypes of women being better at marketing rather than tech, this company proves day in and day out that women can do everything as long as you give them a chance.

It’s high time that we wake up and start opening our eyes towards the existence of a gender gap in our society and start actively fixing it. If we don’t, we are no better than animals driven by our genes. We are evolved animals, we evolved a conscience. It’s high time that we start using it.

P.S. I am still shaken by all that has happened in the last week in the tech ecosystem and this post probably showcases it. A lot is being spoken about ways to solve the harassment and gender bias problems and I am still thinking through all of them to find the rights problems and solutions for myself and the firm. I have already written about what GREE Ventures has done for increasing diversity in its portfolio. But here’s something else that I am personally going to do from TODAY. I usually get 100s of messages on LinkedIn every month and I only reply to 1 or 2 of the more interesting ones to take up a meeting. I now will reply to every message sent by a female entrepreneur to me and take time out for a meeting if there is a need to, regardless of fund fit or not. I hope this will have a tiny impact on when they go out fund-raising and meeting other investors. So if you are a female entrepreneur reading this and need any help whatsoever during your startup lifecycle regardless of funding or not, please reach out to me on LinkedIn, and you will find open ears, an unbiased mind, and a genuine soul waiting to hear you out.