Tag: women centric content

  • Success Story of POPxo: Beauty, Fashion, and Lifestyle Community For Women

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by POPxo.

    POPxo is India’s largest online community for millennial women to read, watch, purchase, and hang out, which was founded in 2015. POPxo brings a welcoming and empowering environment that encourages women to live their best lives.

    POPxo is aimed to merge content and commerce, which started as content and eventually had its own private label brand. POPxo’s articles, videos, and social networking material are in six languages – English, Hindi, Marathi, Bangla, Tamil, and Telugu – which has attracted over 39 million monthly users who spend over 3 million hours across all of the company’s platforms.

    POPxo also partners with the leading companies to increase its reach and engage its audience. The whole platform runs on the basis of content that fascinates young girls. Furthermore, it also features on its website, Bollywood news, life hacks, retail listicles and more.

    POPxo was acquired by MyGlamm’s parent, The Good Glamm Group on August 7, 2020. The six-year-old company’s investors – Chiratae Ventures, Kalaari Capital, and Neoplux Venture Capital have joined the board of MyGlamm soon after the acquisition. Furthermore, Priyanka Gill, the founder of POPxo also joined MyGlamm as a cofounder. Here’s all about POPxo, its Founders and Team, Business Model, Revenue Model, Services, Funding, FAQs, and more.

    POPxo – Company Highlights

    Startup Name POPxo
    Legal Name Luxeva Limited
    Headquarters Gurgaon, Haryana
    Sector Beauty, Health & Lifestyle
    Founded March 2014
    Founders Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom
    Parent Company The Good Glamm Group
    Operating Revenue $1.61M in FY19
    Funding $12.4 mn (2021)
    Number of Employees 251 to 500
    Website www.popxo.com

    Popxo – Latest News

    January 24, 2022 – Popxo parent, The Good Glamm Group acquires Organic Harvest, a beauty and personal care D2C startup led by Rahul Agarwal.

    October 1, 2021 – Popxo enters the Indian cosmetic industry with a Makeup Collection from Myglamm.

    Popxo – About
    Popxo – Industry
    Popxo – Startup Story
    Popxo – Founders and Team
    Popxo – Mission and Vision
    Popxo – Name, Tagline and Logo
    Popxo – Business Model
    Popxo – Revenue Model
    Popxo – Services
    Popxo – Funding and Investors
    Popxo – Growth
    Popxo – Startup Challenges
    Popxo – Competitors
    Popxo – Future Plans
    Popxo – FAQs

    What is POPxo

    Popxo – About

    POPxo has been founded in 2014 as India’s largest online community for women that offers discussions, content, and products across a wide range of domains including fashion, beauty, lifestyle, work, and more. Founded by Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom, PopXo offers millennial women an excellent platform where they can read, watch, shop, and hang out. Along with exclusive products across brands, PopXo also offers text and video content in a manner that is accessible via social media on mobile and PCs across the web. PopXo has last reported having crossed the 9 million mark in terms of user acquisitions every month and has boasted of witnessing over 102 million monthly engaged content views.

    Popxo was acquired by MyGlamm in August 2020 and has since served as a subsidiary of MyGlamm, which eventually turned into The Good Glamm Group in September 2021. The Popxo parent, MyGlamm includes The Moms Co, St Botanica and Sirona, along with other content platforms – POPxo, Scoopwhoop, and BabyChakra, as per January 2022’s reports, and has already turned unicorn in November 2021, thereby being hailed as the first beauty commerce unicorn company of India.

    Popxo – Industry

    The Indian industry comprised of online personal care and beauty brands and products are estimated to reach $4.4 billion by 2025. There is also likely to be a 4X increase witnessed in the number of shoppers of beauty and personal care products online, which was last reported to be 25 million in FY20 and would be going up to 110 million in FY25.

    Popxo – Startup Story

    The Popxo is founded by two dynamic women – Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom. During 2012-13 there was no content platform at scale in English for women. So, this was the point when they thought of creating a useful platform for women and began Popxo in March 2013. Priyanka Gill first started Estylista in September 2013 in London for the NRI women, which is popularly known as the base of PopXo. For the first few years, the company started working out of London and raised its first institutional round of funding.

    Initially, Popxo created content that enthused women who love to delve into fashion, beauty, lifestyle, wedding, relationships, work, fitness et cetera. The most popular things that attracted women to the Popxo website are hair and skin protection, and other products.

    The greatness of the website lies in the production of 1500+ articles in six languages that the Popxo website was last recorded to be publishing every month. The team understood the audience well and presented articles in the same way, which lead to content creation to adding relevant videos. Today, the platform produces 60-70 videos a month and generates 100-150 million views a month. The duration of videos is between 3-7 minutes. Furthermore, they even produce web series.


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    Popxo – Founders and Team

    Priyanka Gill, Founder of PoPXo 

    Priyanka Gill

    Priyanka is the Co-Founder and President of MyGlamm and the Founder and CEO of POPxo and Plixxo. She lives in London with her husband and two children as a digital media entrepreneur and storyteller. She enjoys working with creative and entrepreneurial people, particularly women, and considers it a privilege to be in their company. She is now enrolled in a joint London Business School and Columbia Business School EMBA – Global program, said her Linkedin profile post dated May 24, 2021.

    Her passion for writing merged with entrepreneurship when she started her own site, Estylista, which is now known as POPxo. She returned to India in 2014 to create POPxo, envisioning her company as a safe and engaging community that helps Indian women lead their lives. Influencer marketing seems to be on the verge of breaking out in India. As a result, she began developing a tech-enabled platform to take advantage of this enormous opportunity. Plixxo was released in 2017 and is powered by PopXo. It was here that India’s first generation of influencers grew up. Priyanka Gill has experience serving as a freelance writer and editor and an investor and board member for several companies. She eventually served as an advisor at PolkaRare and a seed investor of Kalamint, a role that she is still continuing with. She co-founded The Good Glamm Group on Darpan Sanghvi and Naiyya Saggi in September 2021 initially with the merger of MyGlamm, PopXo, and BabyChakra.      

    POPxo’s Plixxo also joined MyGlamm, India’s premier beauty conglomerate, in 2020, marking a watershed moment and a watershed year. Three powerful brands merged to form one incredible enterprise that goes by the name The Good Glamm, the parent company of MyGlamm in August 2020 and since then, Gill has been appointed as the Cofounder of the latter.

    Namrata Bostrom was the co-founder of PopXo, who has also been the CEO of the company as well from the initial phase of the company and stepped down from the role in March 2017. Bostrom is an Economics student who has The University of Oxford and London Business School as her alma mater. Bostrom earlier served as a Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, and as a Sales and Product Strategist at EDITED before co-founding PopXo. After leaving the role at PopXo, Namrata joined Facebook, the company that she is still aligned to as the Product Management Lead.

    PopXo initially had a team of 15 people working together, which eventually grew to include more than 200 employees strong.  

    POPxo Founder and CEO – Priyanka Gill talks about POPxo

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    Popxo – Mission and Vision

    PopXo’s vision has always been “to build a content-community-commerce platform for women.”

    The mission of the company was to help the users find their inner natural glow. Now, as a part of The Good Glamm Group, PopXo’s mission is aligned with the mission of its parent, which aims to build the global Digital FMCG Conglomerate of the Future.

    PopXo Logo

    PopXo’s tagline has said, ‘Take it up a POP!’ – and we live and breathe it with everything we do.

    Popxo – Business Model

    Popxo targets millennial women aged between 18-35 with a range of products across diverse industries including fashion, beauty, lifestyle, wedding, wellness, and entertainment. The company has recently forayed into the cosmetics industry. The social community platform for women has entered the cosmetics industry, which is currently valued at $20 billion with a Makeup Collection by MyGlamm. MyGlamm has acquired Popxo towards the end of last year, and this development has come almost a year after that.

    This new makeup collection is termed POPxo Makeup Collection by MyGlamm and will include nail kits, face kits, eye kits, and lip kits in order to cater to all makeup needs. The entire range is reported to be priced under Rs 499 per product in an effort to stay within the affordable limits for younger women. The Popxo Makeup Collection powered by MyGlamm will be sold on the MyGlaam app and website along with being available at popular company stores and kiosks across the country.

    Popxo – Revenue Model

    Sponsored content is the initial source of revenue. The company approaches brands and claim to have a large audience. Popxo knows what people want and can assist you in selling. The company made content for them, including social media and video content. That comes first while influencer marketing comes in second. Ads come in third, and e-commerce comes in fourth.

    Popxo’s money comes from sponsored material, which accounts for half of our total. Influencer marketing accounts for 40% of income. They started selling online in the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year.


    Business Model of POPxo | Different Revenue segments of POPxo
    POPxo is one of India’s largest largest women-centric digital platform, they earn their major revenue from branded content. Find out more about it.


    Popxo – Services

    POPxo Services- Beauty, Fashion, Lifestyle, Wedding, Wellness
    POPxo Services- Beauty, Fashion, Lifestyle, Wedding, Wellness
    • Fashion– POPxo allows you to stay up to speed on the latest fashion trends by reading fashion articles and watching videos. Thefashion experts of the company provide the users with everything they need to stay on-trend, from styling advice to shopping hotspots and must-have items. The platform also offers the latest news on fashion in both western and Indian. It also provides the best tips and fashion hacks that suit you. This platform also offers the latest updates on celebrity attires (both Bollywood and Hollywood).
    • Beauty– The team of beauty specialists is committed to providing the users with the best services available in the industry. The beauty section has it all, from unbiased product reviews to makeup hacks to skin and hair care advice. The users get updates on skincare, makeup, hair, bath & body, nails, hair products, beauty products and DIYs.
    • Lifestyle– POPxo also offers related content from a wide range of topics. It provides the consumers with popular articles across all categories, from travel and education to sex and relationships.
    • WeddingWedding planning can be as stressful as you imagine, which is why Popxo is also there to assist. The wedding area keeps young brides-to-be up to date on the latest trends. POPxo has all you need to know about weddings, from bridal makeup to honeymoon ideas.
    • Wellness– Overall wellness, according to POPxo, is at the heart of a healthy lifestyle. So, if the consumers want to live a healthier life, check out Popxo’s wellness section which has articles on managing stress and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
    • Entertainment– Popxo will make sure the users get the best of everything from the comfort of their homes on laptops or mobile phones, from movie recommendations to what’s going on in the lives of their favorite celebrity.

    Popxo is home to all feminine things. POPxo’s online store, which includes items such as home decor, beauty, clothes, face masks, mobile accessories, stationery, rakhi presents, and more, is an attempt to make online shopping for women in India more enjoyable!


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    Popxo – Funding and Investors

    POPxo has raised a total funding of $12.4M in over 7 rounds of funding. POPxo is funded by 21 investors. Neoplux, IDG Ventures, Summit Media, Oppo, Kalaari Capital, STRIVE, Chiratae Ventures are the lead investors of POPxo.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Apr 25, 2018 Series C $5M Neoplux, Oppo
    Mar 1, 2018 Series B $750K
    Mar 16, 2017 Series B $3.3M Chiratae Ventures, STRIVE
    Nov 5, 2015 Series A $2M 500 Startups, Chiratae Ventures, Kalaari Capital
    Nov 1, 2014 Angel Round $500K
    Jul 1, 2013 Seed Round $300K

    Popxo – Growth

    PopXo grew considerably with a well-knit team of 33 people in its textual content team. Let’s look at some of the prominent milestones that PopXo managed to attain throughout the years:

    • It has drawn over 39 million users per month
    • PopXo has delivered content in over 6 languages
    • The startup has seen over 10.18 mn visiting its content across the mobile app in a month
    • PopXo claims to have 1.6 bn monthly social media impressions

    Popxo – Startup Challenges

    Founded by Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom, ideating, founding, and growing PopXo was difficult for two independent women entrepreneurs, which both of them managed really well, earning themselves quite a name in the industry. The first challenge for PopXo was to expand the content it produced and the kind of content produced by the website. The challenge that followed was the creation of an app. Even here PopXo absolutely nailed it. The website witnessed an overwhelming 500K initial downloads!  

    Popxo – Competitors

    Though Popxo, when it was launched,  was the sole platform focused on confident and educated women, which speak to them directly without taking down to them, PopXo has been a lot of companies competing with it once it started achieving milestones. Some of the PopXo competitors can be noted as:

    • ScoopWhoop
    • Polka Cafe
    • BuzzFeed
    • The Business of Fashion
    • nippon.com
    • Luxe Radio
    • The Canberra Times

    Popxo – Future Plans

    Popxo forayed into the beauty segment with POPxo Makeup Collection by MyGlamm, where both MyGlamm and PopXo are a part of The Good Glamm Group in October 2021 and is currently targeting a revenue run rate of Rs 100 crore in the upcoming 12 months.

    Popxo – FAQs

    What is POPxo?

    POPxo is an Indian online platform specially for women to read, watch, shop and hangout. POPxo covers content related to beauty, weddings, health and lifestyle.

    Who started POPxo?

    Priyanka Gill has founded POPxo in 2015.

    Who is the owner of MyGlamm?

    Darpan Sanghvi owns MyGlamm.

    Does POPxo creates videos along with content?

    Yes, POPxo is able to create over 2000 pieces of content along with 150 videos, 800 stories and a large number of social media graphics.

  • Why Streaming Platforms Are Focusing on Women-Centric Content?

    From the iconic and path-breaking ‘Mother India’  to the flashy and entertaining ‘Four More Shots Please’, entertainment industry in India has come a long way and along with that came the entirely new and engaging era of OTT platforms such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar and many more.

    However, this article is not about the success or the net profit generated by these streaming platforms every year. India’s entertainment industry is one of the most profitable industries with a revenue of over $34 billion, and recently, a fundamental shift has been witnessed in the industry as streaming giants like Netflix and Prime Video are targeting and expanding female audience.

    Women represent a key demographic for the Indian entertainment industry and thus the need of the hour is to have diverse cinematographers, storytellers, writers, directors, and actors share their unique perspectives in raising the bar of the entertainment industry by the increased inclusion of women-centric roles.


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    Streaming Platforms Are Focusing on Women Centric Movies

    Four More Shots Please! | Amazon Prime Video

    “More than half of Netflix films released in India this year have a female producer or director, according to Monika Shergill, Netflix India’s vice president of content. Netflix saw unique women visitors jump to 40% last year from 26% in 2018, according to Comscore data. The Los Gatos, California-based company is working with 30 women producers and directors besides a dozen women writers this year, Shergill said.”

    The fundamental shift in the industry has been viewed as a consequence that all of Amazon Prime Video’s six originals released in India this year had women in key roles while more than half of Netflix films had a female producer or director.

    Also, OTT players were keen enough to target female viewers as soon as the movie theatres were shut to the coronavirus induced nationwide lockdown. We witnessed a surge in women-centric content such as ‘Masaba Masaba’ and ‘Bulbbul’ on Netflix to ‘Pushpavalli’ on Amazon Prime.

    Still from Masaba Masaba | Netflix

    Bollywood industry which earlier relied on an A-list male superstar in lead to top the charts and become a blockbuster is now focusing on the push for equality by giving females leads the chance and choice related to the content targeted on them. According to data from Statista, as incomes rise in the $2.9 trillion economy, per capita spending on media and entertainment is expected to almost double to $35 in India by 2021 from five years earlier.

    Traditionally, watching movies and shows were considered as a group activity, however, with the surge in the use of smartphones and streaming platforms, people can watch what they want, where they want, and by themselves on their personal devices. Thus, content creators and streaming platforms are now able to provide target based stories and cater to niches.


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    A 2016 study by Google and A.T. Kearney estimated that Indian women’s share in overall online spending will jump to 42% by 2020 from 20% in 2015 whereas, a 2019 study by the Boston Consulting Group said Indian women are increasingly having a say in household purchase decisions.

    Creative Freedom

    Scene from Bulbbul | Netflix

    One additional benefit of streaming platforms is the prospect of less financial risk compared to contemporary ways. Thus, producers are also ready to take the liberty of creative freedom and experimenting with characters. Prominent examples of this, Netflix film Bulbbul, a supernatural film in which a woman is mistaken for a witch, Gunjan Saxena, a biopic about India’s first woman combat pilot who went to the Kargil war and Amazon Prime’s series Four More Shots Please, which openly addressed taboo issues such as female sexuality and homosexuality.  Thus, better access to the Internet is motivating creators to pitch stories that resonates with females.

    Also, India’s experience throws light on the worldwide trend in which more women are involved in the creation of streaming content directed toward women. Netflix had women helming 20% of its 53 original U.S. films last year, nearly double the rate of representation for women directors across the 100 top-grossing U.S. films of 2019.

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  • What is Pink Tax? – The Unbelievable Economy We Live In [Case Study]

    In a world where we want to believe we are marching towards gender equality, we many times have come across several disparities and unfair impediments that one gender encounters. Uh, no, that gender is certainly not the men. It has been implied that women, being inflicted with slangs of a weaker gender, and to go as far and call it the reproductive machine.

    Not long ago when I was a teenager, I came across the gender bias in my own household. Yes, gender disparity starts at home. Many of these disparities have been engraved upon us as little kids. But the sad reality is that as grown ups, independent adults, women still take this burden and are barely aware of it. Women have come a long way from fighting for an education to getting a degree and having a paid job.

    Women are executives, managing directors and CEOs. But little do we know that women, who are now making their own money are being extorted under the name of Pink Tax,  just because, we’re women? Well it’s not exactly a tax per se. It’s just another disparity women deal with.

    The Pink Tax
    The Period Tax
    Why do Women Pay the Pink Tax
    How can we Stop Falling for the Pink tax
    FAQ

    The Pink Tax

    There are navy, blue and black colored packaging for products traditionally marketed for men. Meanwhile it is hard to miss the pink, lilac, purple packaging for roughly the same products traditionally intended for women. Razors, face wash, Shampoos, deodorants etc. are essentials used by both the genders. So what are freighting about? One subtlety that we seem to ignore is the price tag.

    The products commonly used by men and women are differentiated based on an age-old PINK and Blue basis but its interesting (and disappointing) to see that these products, although being identical, are not priced equally. Women  products are charged higher than men products. This disparity, or the upcharge that women pay on essential products, is called the PINK TAX.

    In a study called Cradle to Crane, published by the Department of Consumer Affairs, New York, after studying 800 products across genders and their variations, it was found that women paid 7% additional costs on essentials compared to costs paid by men on similar products. This price difference grows higher to 13% when it comes to items of personal care.

    When observed, this price gap is evident in all the shopping categories such as 8% more on women’s clothing, 7% more for toys and accessories, 4% more for children’s clothing and other things that are intentionally marketed for women. Retailers have gone as far as pricing medicines differently just by changing the color of the packaging to pink and adding words like soft and gentle.

    Not just products, but salon services too, offer different prices for the same services. When enquired about the same, most salon owners have given ridiculous explanations such as women have longer hair, difference in salon training or simply “this is how it is”.


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    The Period Tax

    We have to talk about the tax levied on sanitary napkins and menstruation products when we talk about the pink tax. Menstruation is a natural phenomenon and products related to it have been categorized as luxury items. In the wake of GST introduction in India, the tax on sanitary pads was 12%, that’s more than any other essential item.

    In a report published by the NGO Dasra called ‘Spot on!’, it was found that nearly 23 million girls drop out of schools every year because of lack of access to hygienic menstruation facilities, including sanitary napkins.

     Only 12% women have access to Sanitary napkins in India
     Only 12% women have access to Sanitary napkins in India

    Even after an uproar by activists to cut down taxes on essentials such as sanitary napkins, things have remained the same. In an interview with the Indian express, Mrs. Funnybones aka Twinkle Khanna stressed on the importance of sanitary pads being tax free. “For some strange reason India has 12 per cent GST on sanitary pads. Which is shocking.

    Apparently, there are no taxes on brooms. I think they feel that women should keep their houses clean but it’s not as important to keep themselves clean.”, the writer said. She also pointed out that the lawmakers are 65 year old men who haven’t experienced menstruation and have absolutely no clue why sanitary pads should be tax free.


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    Why do Women Pay the Pink Tax

    Marketing geniuses believe that men are more rational buyers and women are more gullible and emotional when it comes to shopping. According to them, women don’t mind paying a little extra money for roughly the same products.

    Retailers have found a way to make things look exclusive for women by, well making them Pink. There is actually no difference, more or less, in the products marketed for both the genders.

    Pink tax
    Pink tax

    The vast disparity could also be seen when it comes to weddings. The amount of money that goes into the making of a bride, (wedding apparel, jewelry) is far more than what goes into making a groom.

    The retail market is hyper-segmented and wants to make profits at all costs. It is not entirely their fault since women are ready to pay these extra costs. Most of the active female shoppers are not even aware that they are paying more than their counterparts.

    How can we Stop Falling for the Pink tax

    One might say so what if women pay a little more for the fancy products they use? To those asking, the difference between a man and woman spending on clothes, cosmetics, footwear etc. amounts to $1300 dollars annually. That is a significant amount for any woman who is working hard to earn money.

    If we want to overcome this price gap, here is what we can do

    • Refrain from retailers who levy extra costs
    • Go for an alternative version if the difference is not huge
    • Support companies who are into gender neutral pricing

    FAQ

    Is the Pink Tax Ethical?

    No, Pink tax is not ethical because it is unfair.

    What does the Pink Tax include?

    Pink tax includes the extra amount of money women pay for specific products or services.

    How long has Pink Tax been around?

    Pink tax has been around for decades.

    Conclusion

    The pink tax levied on women makes it worse for them as they are already being paid less than men. Women are still battling the gender pay gap on all fronts. It is a fact that not all women are aware that they are being compelled to pay more. The pink tax hasn’t been a rage amongst working women as they are oblivious to its existence.

    This disparity has to be addressed and resolved because women are working as hard as men but spending way more than them. This imbalance will entail women being the weaker gender all along, which is not just unfair, but unacceptable.