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Mission 2022: This Tencent-backed startup is aiming for a presence in 500 districts across India

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Mission 2022: This Tencent-backed startup is aiming for a presence in 500 districts across India

Launched in 2018, hyperlocal social media startup Lokal has been steadily making inroads into India. The app is currently active in 180 regions, claims to be profitable in 40 regions, and plans to operate in 500 regions by the end of 2022.
When Jani Pasha and his co-founder Vipul Chaudhary started Lokal in 2018, they wanted to deliver hyperlocal news and developments to their non-English speaking user base.

The app works with a network of 250 field reporters, stringers and field sales teams. It provides hyperlocal news on topics ranging from agriculture and politics to daily information on necessities including food and gas prices.

The Bengaluru-based startup initially attracted users through advertisements on different social media platforms, but much of its user acquisition is organic and through word of mouth.

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This pattern is more or less suitable for them until the app users go a step further. In addition to using the app for hyperlocal news, people in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have also started advertising.

Lokal offers classifieds for local businesses and individual sellers, marriage ads, job openings from delivery executive jobs to government jobs, and content on life skills like finance, education, farming, and health tips. Advertising is free in regional languages ​​such as Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, and the app is widely adopted.

As of June 2020, the app, launched in 2018, has 6 million downloads and a 4.5 million user base from more than 25 territories in three states.

But the COVID-19 pandemic quickly led to changes in user habits that affected how Lokal was used.

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Consumers locked at home need content more than ever. According to the State of Mobile 2022 report by market research firm App Annie, consumers in the top 10 global mobile markets spend a staggering 4.8 hours a day on mobile devices.

Until now for posting business-related ads and reading news stories, Lokal has become the go-to app for posting medical and food-related requests during the COVID-19 pandemic. A news article posted on the app about needing open-heart surgery helped save the life of a four-month-old baby in the meantime
“Our user base is growing so fast; it’s still growing,” Jani Pasha, co-founder and CEO of Lokal, told YourStory in an interaction.
Lokal’s user base has grown 8x from March 2020 to December 2021 and is expected to grow at least 9-10x in 2022-23.

Complete News Source – YOURSTORY

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Laid stars Stephanie Hsu and Zosia Mamet reveal the worst gifts their romantic partners gave them | Exclusive

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Laid stars Stephanie Hsu and Zosia Mamet reveal the worst gifts their romantic partners gave them | Exclusive

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Stephanie Hsu and Zosia Mamet talk about their new series Laid, and some of the horrors of dating as millennials.
Imagine a scenario where anyone and everyone you have ever been intimate with begins to die one by one. Is it a curse? If yes, then who is cursed? These are questions that Stephanie Hsu‘s Ruby battles with in the new zany comedy, Laid. Ahead of the show’s release, Stephanie and co-star Zosia Mamet spoke exclusively with HT about their roles, the show’s unique premise, and the horrors of dating as millennials. (Also read: Dune: Prophecy star Emily Watson on working with Tabu: ‘She is a true treasure’)

Stephanie Hsu on her character’s flawed morality

Laid, created by Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna, is the story of Ruby (Stephanie Hsu), who discovers that all her sexual partners are dying one by one, and she must warn them. Helping her in this unique quest is her best friend AJ (Zosia). The fun thing about Laid is that the protagonists are not the usual likeable characters. “She is totally an anti-hero of our story. I really love that,” says Stephanie, referring to Ruby’s moral greyness. “I am not a perfect person and I love playing flawed characters. But it was difficult. The creators told me that she is a total narcissist. But narcissists don’t think they are one, so I had to figure out a way to love her. For me, playing Ruby was about getting into her psychology and finding the innocent part of her – which is that she just wants love,” the actor adds.

While sitcoms usually add the best friend as the voice of reason trope, Laid diverges from that, with AJ even zanier and more morally ambiguous than Ruby. Talking about playing such a colourful character, Zosia Mamet says, “When you play not-so-likable or zany characters, people don’t believe they are that way. I don’t think AJ wakes up every morning and thinks, ‘I am absolutely crazy’. It’s about trusting the writing and finding an organic way into these characters to make them seem grounded, real, and relatable.”

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Stephanie, Zosia reveal the worst gifts they received from partners

In Laid, Ruby gives the gift of death to the men she is with, even if that is inadvertent. Ask the women about the worst ‘gift’ a partner has ever given them, and the discussions veer into the unusual horrors of modern-day dating. “I got a vintage wooden duck decoy from someone. It was broken, and I thought, ‘What does this say about our relationship?’. They didn’t know me well enough to know if I’d want this but also that they gave me something old and ailing,” Zosia says with a laugh.

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