What is Fleek?
Fleek is an online subscription management platform. It’s a one-stop platform where we can manage all their subscriptions through fleek, ranging from Spotify, Netflix to LinkedIn, upGrad, and more.
In an online world where people subscribe to a plethora of platforms, it gets challenging to keep track of them, check their expiry dates, and pay them on time. Each subscription would be using a different medium to renew, and it gets very messy after a certain point. This is where Fleek comes in; through Fleek, you can keep track of all your subscriptions, pay on time, and even split the bills with your friends.
Why Invest in Fleek?
Market
The market for Fleek is all the paid subscription users across India. A couple of years back, the thought of paying for subscriptions seemed impossible for the Indian market. The assumption was that the Indians were very frugal and that we would never pay for subscriptions. A large portion of the market still prefers cracked versions of apps, pirated streaming, and any particular method that saves them money. However, the hypothesis that the Indian market would not pay for subscriptions has been proven wrong at astronomical levels seeing the recent developments.
In 2020, the OTT sector in India witnessed a 30% rise in the number of paid subscribers, from 22 million to 29 million, between March and July 2020 alone. OTT platforms are also making a more significant chunk of their revenue from paid subscribers than ever before.
According to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2020 report, India has over 57 million monthly podcast listeners. In the Edtech Sector, according to Inc42 Plus, there are 10 million paid Edtech users, and it is predicted to grow to 37 million users by 2025.
Based on these numbers, it is clear that the paid subscriber market in India is on an exponential rise, and all of them are potential Fleek users.
Product
Fleek is a very intuitive app to use. The features are simple and easy to understand, and there isn’t too much content or complexity in the User Interface. They use a clean dark theme design for their app that is comfortable to the eyes, and their platform is easy to navigate.
When you get into their platform, they ask for permission to sync their platform with your SMS. Essentially, Fleek goes through all your SMS to determine which subscriptions you currently have, which works in India as we get OTP/SMS on our numbers for every payment. Privacy issues could be of concern to the user, and in that scenario, the user can manually add their subscriptions, payment plans, and deadlines.
The payments to the subscriptions through Fleek are made possible if the user inputs their UPI ID, and similarly, cancellations are also possible through the user inputting their cancelation details. Once Fleek has this data, the user can pay and cancel subscriptions with one click of a button, making it very convenient, especially for users managing many subscriptions simultaneously.
They essentially function as a CRED for subscriptions. While the App functions are already helpful, one of their main USPs is splitting payments with others. We all share our subscriptions with friends and families, especially when it comes to platforms like Netflix. So for those who share their bills, Fleek has made it convenient by providing a share bill option, and each of the users can input the share of the amount they pay, and Fleek takes care of the rest. This feature shows their clear understanding of the Indian customer base and their pain points.
Team
The Fleek Team is very talented and balanced. The CEO & Co-Founder, Aditya Uttaravalli, is an IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta graduate with work experience in top startups like Swiggy. The other Co-Founder, Arvind Eashwar, is an Economics graduate with experience in McKinsey and is a 2x founder of other startups. The rest of the team is also filled with stellar members, with tech members from different IITs, the design team from Shristi Institute of Art and Design, and more. Therefore, the team is a solid and balanced group with massive potential for growth, given their vast experience and expertise.
Revenue Model
As a very new startup themselves, Fleek is focusing on increasing its userbase first. Currently, their platform does not charge the users, as it is still in its early access phase.
One possible way of making revenue is by introducing advertisements onto the platform. While this would make it free for the users, the income achieved through advertisements is meager. As it is a subscription management platform, users would not need to regularly return to the app nor spend extended periods on the platform; thus, advertisement reach would not be significant enough for Fleek to make money through.
One other method is to make the users subscribe to Fleek for a small fee. Fleek will be charging a subscription for a subscription management app essentially. While it is feasible, the chances of getting enough paid subscribers are tough to estimate, and this may result in many users not trying the platform out itself.
Risks
The Fleek platform’s fundamental value proposition is in helping the consumers manage all their recurring subscriptions conveniently. However, from the 1st of October, the Reserve Bank of India’s new rules halted the automatic recurring payment system; now, every subscription has to be renewed manually every month. Therefore, the feature for turning on and off any subscription with a button has become redundant.
Yet this is not to say that Fleek itself has become redundant. Fleek’s usage might increase due to the new rules, as manually going to different websites to renew all the subscriptions will become too much of a hassle and inconvenience. Fleek helps renew the payments from one place for all platforms in a few touches.
My final take on this
Only time will tell whether Fleek will grow, and I would put a bet on their success. They are solving practical customer problems and adding massive convenience to all our lives.
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