Lal Chand Bisu and three batchmates from IIT Jodhpur started Kuku FM in audio in June 2018. Almost everyone wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the press, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay for content, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. Kuku TV — its microdrama app — was the #1 app on India's App Store for 30 straight days. And on May 8, Kuku is releasing its first theatrical film, Indian Institute of Zombies. MS Dhoni is the brand ambassador.
Bisu is also just not the kind of founder who walks around telling you any of this. He grew up in Bathoth, a village in Rajasthan; studied in Shekhawati until Class 10; did his +2 in Hindi; only switched to English at IIT. He thinks in Hindi. He's deeply uncomfortable performing.
This is the full, uncut conversation. Two hours, no edits, no breaks.
Chapter list
- 00:00 — How old is Kuku FM, and what Bisu was doing before (Easy Prep, two and a half years at Toppr)
- 00:02 — June birthdays for Kuku, Bisu and his wife Hansa. "I believe in luck. Most things are out of control."
- 00:04 — The three pivots: podcast aggregator → UGC → PUGC. What killed each one and what was kept constant
- 00:09 — Why vernacular audio IP didn't exist, and why Kuku had to become a studio rather than an aggregator
- 00:14 — January 2021: cutting the free tier and charging ₹399 a year. The investor pushback. Why no ads, ever
- 00:23 — Rich Dad Poor Dad in Hindi: 40 million listens. What that number tells you about the listener that English-first publishers have been missing
- 00:27 — How Kuku's content mix has shifted from entertainment to educational and inspirational
- 00:30 — Audio first, then video. Why audio is roughly 50x cheaper to produce and 50x cheaper to stream
- 00:33 — AI in the marketing pipeline: 500 ads/month → 5,000 ads/month, same cost
- 00:42 — The competitor we don't name. What being the also-ran in the press for years actually cost — in hires, in partnerships, and inside Bisu's own head
- 00:45 — The fundraising history: ~$156M raised, the Granite Asia round, and how much of the last cheque is actually still untouched
- 00:50 — Biggest learnings from unsuccessful fundraising. Why nos are usually the harder, better answer
- 00:55 — Kuku TV: from launch to #1 on India's App Store in four months. Microdrama, the ReelShort wave, MS Dhoni
- 01:02 — Indian Institute of Zombies: why theatrical, why in-house, why AI in the pipeline
- 01:08 — "Your vision grows with you." How the original vision changed from "premium storytelling for Bharat" to something larger
- 01:10 — Bathoth → Shekhawati → IIT Jodhpur → Bandra. Studying in Hindi until Class 10, then +2 in Hindi, then English at IIT
- 01:18 — The discipline of saying no. Why nos require more work than yeses, and why nos are usually the better answer
- 01:19 — "The full equation." Why CAC alone is meaningless; why Bisu tracks revenue, CAC, LTV and cohort profit together. The two real metrics he watches: equation health and engagement
- 01:21 — Numbers beyond a limit give you an illusion. "Don't go deeper in the data — keep your life simple."
- 01:21 — Co-founders, span of control, and how the four-way role split actually got sorted
- 01:22 — How Bisu learns: most of it from doing and iterations; books help him articulate what the iterations have already taught him
- 01:25 — Pet phrases at work — "build it like a business, not a startup" — and what management style his colleagues would say he has
- 01:28 — Biggest value add as Bisu, not as CEO. The Uber-power-user analogy
- 01:29 — When Bisu changed his mind about managing people. Going from technical-first to people-first
- 01:34 — Hiring: the open-ended questions Bisu actually asks when he meets potential leaders
- 01:36 — What motivates and drives him on a daily basis
- 01:42 — Family, parenting, and the village memory of his grandmother telling stories by oil lamp in the evenings — the original storyteller in his life
- 01:45 — The personal questions: which morning of the week, how he spends weekends, what a productive day looks like, sleep
- 01:46 — On a scale of 1 to 10, how Bisu rates himself as a CEO
- 01:51 — The closing thought. Would the average Kuku FM subscriber actually want to listen to a two-hour interview with the CEO of Kuku FM? "We live in a bubble. The startup ecosystem feels that the world thinks what we think. It doesn't."
- 01:53 — Goodbye
Things mentioned
People
- Vinod Kumar Meena and Vikas Goyal — Bisu's IIT Jodhpur batchmates and Kuku FM co-founders
- Hansa Bisu — Bisu's wife
- MS Dhoni — Kuku FM brand ambassador
- Kunj Sanghvi — Content Head at Kuku, previously on Two by Two and Zero Shot
- Hussain and Abbas Dalal — script of Indian Institute of Zombies (also of Brahmāstra and Farzi)
- Gaganjeet Singh and Alok Dwivedi — directors of Indian Institute of Zombies
- Nandan Nilekani / Fundamentum — turning-point investor
- Bisu's grandmother — the original storyteller in his life
Companies & investors
- Mebigo Labs (the parent), Toppr, Easy Prep
- Pocket FM (the unnamed competitor)
- Granite Asia, Vertex Ventures, Krafton, Bitkraft, IFC, 3one4 Capital, Shunwei, India Quotient, Fundamentum
Content & references
- Rich Dad Poor Dad in Hindi — 40 million listens on Kuku FM
- Ankur Warikoo's Hindi book
- ReelShort and the Chinese microdrama wave
- Kuku TV
- Indian Institute of Zombies — Kuku's first theatrical, releasing May 8
Concepts that come up more than once
- the full equation — Bisu's name for treating CAC, revenue, LTV and cohort profit as one calculation, not separate metrics
- build it like a business, not a startup — the operating principle that shows up in almost every chapter
- content is the only product
- vision grows with you
- most of my learning comes from iterations, not books
Correction: During the conversation, Bisu mentions that the total amount of venture capital raised by Kuku is $170 million. The company has subsequently clarified that the correct figure is $120 million.
What is First Principles?
First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder.
From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.