“Mitron started with the idea of providing an Indian social platform for the Indian consumer, and to establish Indian app space in the large short-video entertainment ecosystem,” Shivank Agarwal, CEO and Co-founder, Mitron Television tells TheSpuzz Online in an exclusive interview. Shivank, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, launched Mitron along with former Makemytrip colleague, Anish Khandelwal in April 2020. What began as a 2-member group is now 40-member sturdy and expanding.
You can say the very same about Mitron, the app as effectively.
The journey, even though it was surreal, has been far from image excellent. Shivank and Co., have had a lot on their plates—and this incorporates a extended list of controversies. Right from its purported origins that linked it to Pakistan, to functional similarities with TikTok, to it getting pulled down from the Google Play Store, Mitron appears to have noticed it all in a really brief span of time. And however, it has championed on with a vision that has been dead-set on 1 aim. That, “Indian consumers should be served by Indian platforms, and Indian data should always be secured on Indian servers.”
We’re effectively into Mitron 2. as we speak. The makers have raised a funding of $5 million from Nexus Venture Partners and other folks, signed a licensing deal with Zee Music Company, and also launched Atmanirbhar Apps, a discovery platform for Indian apps. But are they also effectively previous the controversies? It is time to set the record straight after and for all. Excerpts.
Can you inform us some thing about your self and how Mitron was conceived?
I did my graduation in 2011 from IIT Roorkee in Computer Science. I met Anish throughout my stint with Makemytrip in 2016. Since then, Anish and I have been working collectively on diverse projects. We launched Mitron Television on April 11, 2020. Our aim was to make a mobile-focused content generation and consumption application. The notion of ‘Mitron’ got even stronger throughout the initial days of the (coronavirus) lockdown exactly where numerous of us had been getting techniques to be connected with our loved ones and be engaged via several capabilities.
We received an overwhelming response straight away following our launch. From a 2-member group in April, we have now grown to a 40-member group. Currently we have 3 significant departments, namely, tech and item, advertising and operations. Recently we have bolstered our senior leadership group by bringing onboard ex-OLX executive Chandan Chhabra, as VP- Operations of Mitron Nisha Pokhriyal, who served as Associate Director, VMate has also joined the Mitron household as VP-Marketing Ex ByteDance executive Shyamanga Barooah as Head of Content Strategy and senior journalist Biswarup Gooptu, who spent 10 years at The Economic Times, as Head of Partnerships & Policy.
Mitron, now in its version 2., also gives an enhanced user practical experience more than its earlier version. Our concentrate is to continue to make speedy strides in innovation and technologies.
Mitron has normally been known as a ‘desi’ TikTok option. The apps share numerous core functionalities. What do you have to say about these comparisons?
The sentiments have been mixed, nevertheless a majority of the time, they have been good and encouraging. We would not deny the truth that we have been compared to TikTok like all the other applications in the space. But that goes for each enterprise/service.
How is Mitron diverse from TikTok?
Whilst there are a lot of players in the industry who are focused on entertainment videos, we saw a lot of prospective in giving non-entertainment content as effectively. Apart from entertainment, we also have opinion videos exactly where folks speak about their views on diverse trending subjects. Mitron has designed more than 15 content categories, which makes it possible for customers to browse content primarily based on their selection. This has improved neighborhood engagement.
Mitron is a creator agnostic platform, providing possibilities to several talents to showcase their capabilities. We want to develop a platform for micro-entrepreneurs exactly where they can monetize as effectively as understand. We are placing significant efforts in developing regional stars. We will be giving several collaborative possibilities for their development through engaged communities of followers and brands.
Is Mitron—good friends in Hindi—name inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
It is undoubtedly inspired by his frequent use of the word. However, there had been a lot of other aspects that came into play. For instance, we wanted a name that signifies our nation, a social circle as effectively as aligned with the vision of our nation leaders. PM Modi has constantly addressed the nation with Mitron, signifying friendship and togetherness, which is the precise emotion we want our app to provide. A platform for 1 and all and effortless to pronounce.
Mitron was riddled with controversy quickly following launch. Can you inform us precisely why the app was pulled from the Google Play Store, and how did you come back?
We did not get any suitable communication from Google ahead of they took down our app. We had been only sent a regular e-mail following the app was taken down. We got in touch with the Google group and that is when they informed us that we will need to have a suitable mechanism to flag content. Subsequently, we constructed an complete funnel about it.
Secondly, we had to develop an exhaustive privacy policy for the app which was lacking till then. We have performed VAPT (Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing) for all the current APIs (information exchange) and created it component of the course of action for any new improvement. Additionally, we are developing privacy/visibility manage for customers exactly where they will be in a position to manage the visibility (public/private/good friends) of their videos.
So, technically, Google did not comply with the correct chain of communication? Why did you not speak about it openly?
It was incorrect on Google’s component to pull down our app without having any prior notice. However, back then we had been only a group of two folks and we had a lot on our plate. We believed that the appropriate way to manage the concern was to repair the trouble rather than receiving into endless procedural information.
Many Indian developers have expressed concern about Google Play Store policies. What do you have to say about that?
Definitely. We would appreciate transparent communication from Google. We want to continue working in very good faith. However, it would be complicated to do so without having getting clear communication.
What is your take on ‘desi’ app shops/discovery platforms?
We are 1 of the really 1st players in this domain to be present on Indus OS and Paytm marketplace. We have a really very good working connection with them. In addition, we have lately launched Atmanirbhar Apps, exactly where we are assisting folks learn Indian applications. We are getting an exceedingly good response, with more than 75,000 downloads so far. We also firmly think that as an alternative of competing with every other we must work collectively to market Indian applications.
You bought Mitron’s supply code from Pakistan-primarily based computer software building business, Qboxus. This raised a lot of concern—and criticism—around the app’s origin, format and functionality. What precisely occurred?
We bought the template from Envato, which is a massive marketplace. Even unicorn organizations buy templates and supply code from the very same marketplace. In a marketplace, 1 does not know the developer, as we rely on the high quality and trust of the business. We do not know who the finish developer is, nevertheless we relied on Envato’s assure and high quality manage.
Can you inform us how Mitron is making sure information privacy for its customers?
We have a total privacy structure in location. As a B2C business, the systems that we use are firewalled, which guarantees that the information can not be accessed from outdoors. We also have a program in location to disallow any cyber-attack. This suggests that a third celebration can not inject into our database. There are a number of safety levels that prohibit any unauthorized information access. There is a two-level authentication and token generation requirement for any access to user information. So even we can not access information without having suitable tokens.
We are utilizing Amazon Web Services (AWS) and a separate database player. All our servers, cloud and CDN are Indian.
As you stated there are stringent procedures to steer clear of information misuse. Can customers delete all their information and account totally from the servers effortlessly?
Users have to e-mail us for total removal of their accounts from the database. Users have manage of their information and can select to delete any content uploaded by them. If any user is constantly violating our content suggestions, we have a provision in location, to delete his or her account permanently.
Can you please elaborate on the content filtering aspect?
We are really diligent when it comes to removing inappropriate content. Whilst we have functions that can address difficulties like nudity, violence inbuilt in our app, we also have a flag selection. We take strict notice of any video flagged and straight away get rid of it from the app. We are consistently working on creating our filters greater and stronger.
Around 40-50 thousand videos have been flagged by our customers as inappropriate content till now. After scrutiny, we realised that 10-15 per cent of these videos violated our neighborhood suggestions and they have been removed from the app. We are consistently taking user feedback and working towards enhancing suggestions as per their preference.
What are your future plans?
We are at the moment working on building a sophisticated video editor to boost the high quality of the videos. The second critical issue that we are working on is a recommendation video. Also, from the operations side, we are focusing on developing a pipeline involving brands and creators.
We have set ourselves a 3-month target internally to commence monetizing our content. We are currently in talks with numerous brands and we are attempting to strike a deal which positive aspects all the 3 players, i.e., the brand, us and our influencers. Our program is to make sure that ads will be revolutionary as they will need to integrate the brand’s messaging and influencer’s creativity seamlessly collectively.