Hi stranger 👋

We've killed this project

TL;DR

We saw many Indian creators complain about newsletter tools, which sparked a 3-week user calling sprint. We understood the key pain points.

Then we sketched an MVP idea and a pricing model, and the creators we spoke to said yes!

Sadly, we couldn’t see the scale. The number of newsletter creators in India is too low.

Outside India, the pain points didn’t exist in the tools available. Hence, we closed this project.

In detail:

“We saw many Indian creators complain about newsletter tools, which sparked a 3-week user calling sprint.

I spoke to creators who had 20k-160k Twitter followers and active newsletters. After 5 such calls, which lasted 40mins on average, and online research – we had the top pain points drilled down.  They were very specific to the use of these tools in India.

Our tech team had email tech down very well for over a decade now, so I knew we could do this. 

We sketched an MVP, floated it to a few creators and asked if they would pay for it. They said yes. So far so good.

Next was scale, this is where the effort vs reward calculation failed for us. We couldn’t see the scale in the number of newsletter creators in India.

Outside India, the pain points didn’t exist in the current tools in the market. 

Hence, we killed this project for now and focused on our primary product, customer support and engagement for B2B companies. 

Feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss this.”

– Shubham Punj
Growth Marketer, BigRadar [email protected]

You can still have a look ↓

BigRadar for Creators

Indian creators are really frustrated with current newsletter solutions

We’re working to figure out why and solve it ten times over with our email marketing and newsletter solution.

See for yourself

Actual screenshots from Twitter

The top newsletter tools used in India are

After (actually) talking to creators we found these tools have critical problems.

The Crucial Issue - Payments

  • There are limited payment options available for readers.
  • All tools use Stripe for payments which supports only credit cards.
  • Your readers can’t subscribe and pay via Debit Cards, UPI, Paytm, Google Pay etc.
  • That’s a loss of 60-80% paying customers.
  • They also can’t pay with EMI.
  • Foreign tools have you pay Stripe charges at foreign rates i.e 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction, on top of their fee.

There's another huge kicker.

  • A loophole in Stripe’s 2FA verification with email allows people to steal content easily without finishing the transaction.

Another Question

Why aren’t creators
using WhatsApp?

Say your primary platform is Instagram and I as a follower uninstall Instagram for a week.

I miss all your updates, polls, and announcements – just because I didn’t see your insta story every day.

For demonstration purposes only. Not a real screenshot.

In whatsapp you can conduct polls, automations and send updates with action buttons within the chat.

  • Brings you closer to your audience (for those who opt in).
  • Send messages from your branding. Not ours.
  • As a follower, wouldn’t I love to see my favourite creator sending me a meme?
  • Untapped by most creators right now hence higher success rates

Question.

If we nailed Newsletters + Whatsapp Conversations. Would that be valuable to you?

If you said yes. Well, we have solved that and much more!

BigRadar's tool for creators has

  • Razorpay for payments ✅
    (yes, for subscription too)
  • Engagement Tools
    • Emails (Newsletter, Campaigns, Automations) ✅
    • Whatsapp ✅
    • Chatbot for your website ✅

Upcoming features

  • Your white label website with
    • List of posts ✅
    • List of workshops ✅
    • List of products/courses ✅
    • List of events ✅
  • Audience Data Platform ✅

Lastly, pricing.

The average cost of these tools for just 2500 users is Rs 3,500/mo.

For 10k users it's about Rs 8,200/mo.

If you want a paid newsletter via MailChimp, you need Zapier at an additional 4k-7k/mo. 

Our pricing

For 2500 users BigRadar's cost comes to just Rs 1800/mo.

Here’s a comparison table. 

Here’s a comparison table with pricing for 2500 readers highlighted.  

MailChimp

₨ 3850 Monthly + Zapier Cost
  • No Option for UPI, Debit Card, Google Pay etc
  • Rs 2,300/mo for basic email blasts for 2500 users.

    Rs 3,850/mo with automations (flows) & personalisation
  • Rs, 5,800 + 4k+/mo cost of zapier for 10k readers
  • No Paywall for newsletter.
    Needs another tool like Zapier.
  • No Whatsapp Automation

ConvertKit

₨ 3371 + 3.5% Monthly
  • No Option for UPI, Debit Card, Google Pay etc
  • 3.5% + Rs 3,371/mo Include automations, personalisation etc.
  • For 10k Readers costs 3.5% + Rs 8,200
  • Paywall for newsletter
  • No Whatsapp Automation

Ghost

₨ 3300 Monthly
  • No Option for UPI, Debit Card, Google Pay etc
  • Rs 3,300/mo for 2500 readers
  • Costs Rs 8,200 for 10k readers
  • Paywall for newsletter
  • No Whatsapp Automation

SubStack

₨ 1L Monthly
  • No Option for UPI, Debit Card, Google Pay etc
  • Charges 10% + 3.6% Stripe Fee

    Which comes to Rs 1L/mo for 2500 users paying Rs 400/mo (min amt)
  • Rs 4L/mo for 10k Readers
  • Paywall for newsletter
  • No Whatsapp Automation

BigRadar

₨ 1800 Monthly
  • Works with UPI, Debit Card, Google Pay etc
  • Rs 1800/mo for 2500 Readers
  • Rs 8,000/mo for 10k Readers
  • Paywall for newsletter
  • WhatsApp Automation
Winner

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