The Financial Express
Venturing out with his friends, Birma Ram upstarted BabyG, a full-stack platform that teaches first time parents everything they need to know about raising a baby till the age of three, along with Priyanka Zaveri, Apoorva and Anish Mulani in Mumbai.
Born during the pandemic, in August 2020, BabyG hosts activities that parents can learn and then teach their toddlers, chalks out meal plans and even has bedtime audio stories, among others that help in the initial brain development of the baby. Everything offered on BabyG is personalised for each baby, based on milestone reports that the company generates after an initial survey. To be clear, the app is meant only for the parents’ use and the baby has no screen time.
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So far, BabyG has seen 0.25 million app downloads and has about 35,000 monthly active users (MAUs). More than 80% of BabyG’s growth in user base came in the last year alone, primarily through word of mouth— which is helping it add about 15,000 users each month. The strong endorsement from parents also helped BabyG earn a mention in Google Play’s list of best apps and games of 2022 in India.
“When one wants to lose weight, they go to Healthifyme, when they want mental peace, they go to Calm or Headspace but when someone becomes a parent, we want them to come to us. That’s it, that’s our aim,” Ram said. While BabyG allows adding two baby profiles, Ram added that 80% of its customer base were first time parents only. But in markets like the US, UK, Canada and Australia, parents returned even for their second baby. In all, while regions outside India accounted for 25-30% of BabyG’s user base, they were responsible for about 50% of the company’s revenues.
“Parents in India feel there are certain phases that my baby will definitely go through and as they see that play out, they rarely opt for services the second time. But parents outside India return for the second and even the third time because they know the importance of their child’s development during the initial three years,” Ram said. The company’s current revenues were negligible as it started tapping into revenue streams, like subscriptions only around two months back. It has also raised just $200,000 and plans to scoop up an additional $1-2 million as it aims to add Spanish, Korean and Hindi languages.
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BabyG is also entering into partnerships with children’s hospitals and paediatricians in Dubai to grow its business. “We’re associating with the medical fraternity a lot more to push our app to people in their networks. We want to become the go-to platform where people get answers to queries on everything, babies, instead of them seeking help on WhatsApp groups,” Ram said.
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