Having secured a seed funding of $200,000 from a Singapore investor for its mobile-first entertainment app, which is focussed on light content, Myanmar’s MoMoLay is probably in the right place at the right time.
MoMoLay’s head of product Soe Lin Myat, 28, says, “The changes (in Myanmar) are dramatic. We want to part of the change.”
Myat, who finished his masters in computer science from the National University of Singapore, says, “There are limited channels for entertainment in the country for the people – either it is browsing online or finding places to go out in Yangon. We want to create a space for online content that is light and entertaining.”
MoMoLay has already seen 340,000 downloads and has an average of 100,000 monthly viewers, its founder told DEALSTREETASIA, in an interaction where he emphasised the need for an online entertainment channel and its growth potential in Myanmar. Edited excerpts:-
How did you manage to raise capital from a Singapore investor?
We talked to some investors and the main point we mentioned, is the number of users for our app and the website. We started in February 2015 and we happened to talk to the investor in July. He agreed (to fund the site) by the end of July.
By March 2015, we had about 40,000 active users, with about 37,000 downloads.
Till now, our android app has been downloaded 340,000 times and we have an average of 100,000 viewers per month. The viewers for our website is much more than the app with about 400,000 viewers per month.
What is the USP of MoMoLay?
MoMoLay is for entertainment, like websites such as Buzzfeed. The demographics that we target are people in the 16-32 age group. Our content must be entertaining as well as educational. For Facebook, that is popular in Myanmar, users will use it not solely for entertainment but also to chat with friends or see posts from friends.
MoMoLay app is aimed at those who want to find an entertainment value during their leisure. We have three main categories: Jokes, knowledge/information and quiz. Under knowledge or information, there comes football, beauty, fashion.
We categorise content according to the interest of the demographics. For men, the interest is mainly in football featuring predictions, results and other news. For women, beauty and health are the things that are most interesting.
We plan to add more content on entertainment on actors or actresses that most women prefer. We mainly focus on content that is light and even if our content is about news, the perspective would be entertainment.
How do you attract users with your style of content?
Our focus is on writing short paragraphs, with an average of around eight sentences with pictures. Our target is for the readers to be able to consume the content in a minute. Another form of writing is in the form of a list, such as 10 popular menus in town. With pictures, the readers can finish (the post) within a minute. In journals, reading entertainment news can take longer.
Tell us about your team
We have a development team of five that mainly handles the android application. We have nine members in our content team.
What is your assessment of the online media market?
The number of mobile phone users has soared with fall in SIM card rates. For instance, in 2007, the price of SIM card could be up to K4,000,000 (about $3100), which came down to to K200,000 (about $150) in 2011, and by 2014, it fell to K1500 (about $1).
With the entry of mobile operators like Telenor and Ooredoo, we hope that the internet prices will also see a decline and we will have better connections.
The changes are dramatic. So we want to be part of the changes. There are limited channels for entertainment in the country for the people either browsing online or find places to go out in Yangon. Therefore, we want to create a place for online entertainment with content that is light and entertaining.
We will be emphasising on the growth of the viewers to reach up to 500,000 and will continue work on the business model for our app.
How will you deploy the capital raised?
We will be using it to expand the content and development teams and for marketing. The user base of MoMoLay is an average of about 100,000, far less than about 6 million Facebook users in Myanmar. There is a need for MoMoLay to grow and also focus on the development of quality content to be more entertaining for readers.
How do you view competition?
Some sites that are quite similar to us are Yoyarlay and Pho Thu Daw. However, we have an advantage of having an android app. With the app, the retention rate is higher. If downloaded, there is much more possibility that user will prefer the app rather than the website.
Would you look at expanding to other areas?
Right now, we are testing the MoMoLay point system, which will provide a kind of insurance for the both the buyers and the sellers in the online shopping business. The buyer can purchase MoMoLay points as an insurance for any purchase for the online business that is connected to us.
Currently, we have talked to about 20 shops. This is just in the preliminary stage of implementation and once functional, it will be an app which can be used by any buyer or seller.
Source: Deal Street Asia