Monki Tox

Indian children are getting cut off from their heritage due to lack of exposure to Indian culture and native languages. There are no concrete child-friendly resources to support them to gain this exposure. On the other hand, the exposure to western influences is steadily increasing. As a result, India has lost 700 native languages in the last 75 years and only around 100 are remaining. The Indian Government recognizes only 22 languages as official languages. Indian culture is one of the oldest in the world. Its folktales and poems have been passed on across generations verbally through stories and songs. Most of them are word-of-mouth and need to be documented. Documenting and broadcasting the Indian culture and promoting the use of Indian languages (that are steadily losing their original form due to westernization) in their classical form is the focus of Monki Tox.

It is important to exposure children to their roots because this helps them gain confidence about themselves. The loss of language leads to loss of history and native practices especially in the areas of medicine, science and astronomy. 

MONKI TOX exposes children ages 0 to 8 to Indian culture through stories in various Indian languages and English, thereby strengthening their connection to their roots.

The team scouts for stories from various sources like Indian epics and cultural sites and reaches out to people far and wide to capture folktales that have been passed word-of-mouth across generations. They are presented as engaging, value-infused stories to children. The art of storytelling is chosen as the tool to pass these values to children, as storytelling improves attention and creativity and enhances psychological well-being and cognitive skills. Research shows that exposure to ethnic cultures promotes a sense of belonging, increases self-confidence and problem-solving skills, and improves grades.

Monki Tox operates along three verticals through which the stories are transmitted to the audience: an in-house developed mobile application (Android and iPhone), books (hard-board, e-books), and in-person storytelling sessions. The mobile application is loaded with various well thought features.  

Through these stories, we allow Indian origin children to claim their heritage by exposing them to Indian culture and native languages. 

Monki Tox aims to cater to Indian-origin children from 0 to 8 years by providing them with child-friendly content in the form of stories. Based on customer survey it is obvious that Indian parents are constantly seeking opportunities to provide cultural exposure to their children. An average Indian origin parent in the US spends $500 per year per child to exposure them to Indian culture. This is a clear indicator of the fact that parents consider this connectivity to their roots significantly important and are willing to pay for the same. There are 112.5 m families with kids aged 0 to 8 within and outside India. This is the total market potential.

Monki Tox understands the needs of Indian-origin parents like no other offering on the market. Most of the competitors in the children’s audio market are heavily focused on western culture. The uniqueness of Monki Tox lies in curated content creation. The depth and rigor of its storytelling and its child-friendly, moral content put Monki Tox ahead of competitors who merely repeat existing stories or read out from famous books. It is also in a very advantageous position with respect to cost because the value and volume delivered for each $ are significantly higher in comparison to competitors. 

This exposure to culture allows Indian origin children to know more about their heritage and as a result they do not try to "fit in". The moral values in the stories ensures the construction of a well-rounded, inclusive, culturally knowledgeable generation. 

Founder Divya Iyer has been an orator and storyteller for the past 30 years and a 3-time Toastmasters Divisional champion. A speaker of 6 Indian languages and a Madhubani, Warli painting artist, she has significant exposure to Indian culture and folklore. She is deeply involved in volunteering, motivating, and mentoring underprivileged communities.Divya is currently pursuing a Masters in Engineering Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, employed as an Engineering Manager, successfully heading cross-border teams

The storytellers are stay-at-home moms who were waiting for an opportunity to bring out their talents, and they have been recruited and trained. Through this, Monki Tox is empowering several women and providing them with a platform to make their voices heard. The team reaches out to old age people in rural areas and scholars well-versed in Indian culture who are mostly in lower income groups to collect and validate content, thereby providing them with an earning opportunity. Every story comes from a mother’s heart making it 100% child friendly.

The team of musicians that created “Sleep Music” include highly talented visually-impaired artists. Apart from storytellers, special efforts are made to recognize art and artists of every form, especially artists from economically weaker sections and those with disabilities.

The strong exposure to Indian culture and the fact that most of the team members are parents of young children makes this a dream team to deliver Indian culture to young children. 

Currently the focus of Monki Tox is on Indian culture. There are many under-represented cultures in the world especially the cultures of developing countries. MIT Solve will be a great way to connect with Solvers from different cultures who want to make an impact in the lives of children from their cultures. It is important to give a voice to these underrepresented stories and through MIT Solve, this voice will be louder, when people from different backgrounds come together.

India is a huge market and high unorganized. Marketing needs to be done in such a way that the potential users get to know about us and at the same time the growth remains organic. MIT Solve will be a great place to learn about innovative marketing ideas and thereby help in growing the customer base.

The most valuable connections in the startup space and the mentoring that the teams can offer to each other are the key reasons that we desire to be part of this cohort. Pointers towards fund raising and other potential opportunities for growth would also help the team significantly.

Since our products are available across the globe, adhering the regulations across different countries becomes important. Guidance on legal regulations from Solve will be vital for us. 

Currently there are not many players in the Children's eductaion space who are looking at culture based alternative ways to educate children. Tonie Box, Tiger Box, Speaker Buddy, Saregama Carvan kids are the key competitors in the children’s audio entertainment provider space. Tonie Box is had a revenue of $270m in 2022. This indicates that the market demand is huge. Tonie Box, Toger Box and Speaker Buddy focus on western content. Saregama Carvan kids contains Indian cultural stories but only in Hindi and English. Other languages are not covered. Only limited content is available. 

Monki Tox is tapping on this gap and looking to exploit the lack of potential players in this space and providing a culture rich educative product to the huge Indian origin market. We are already reaching out to the target audience through Live storytelling sessions. Conducting competitions and workshops for children online and in-person increases involvement of children.

“Tell your story” segment encourages the audience to share their stories. Once this is selected, curated and published on Monki Tox, they can gain joy by sharing this in their social networks. This gives the audience a sense of inclusiveness and popularizes Monki Tox among a larger audience. 

Thus Monki Tox focuses on not just reciting stories but on building a cuturally rich community, value oriented community. 

There are 112.5 m families with kids aged 0 to 8 within and outside India. This is the total market potential. Capturing 1% of them as free users would lead to a user count of 1,125,000 Of the 112.5m families, 51m are in the middle and upper middle-income groups. Converting .5% of them into Paid Users would result in 255,000 users. 

• Our immediate plan is to do an impactful launch marketing and launch the app world wide to the Indian community
• By Q3 2023 we will establish the subscription option and start generating revenue through the app. Currently our users are using the premium version free of cost
• We also aim to reach 10% of our target users by 2023, 50% by 2024 and 100% of the target users by 2025
• Our book sales are catching up well. We plan to launch the second book reflecting Indian culture in Q4 2023 We plan to increase the live storytelling session to atleast 8 per month by 2024. 

We spoke to 62 parents directly and conducted detailed interviews. 573 potential customers were surveyed through questionnaire.

A soft launch of the app was done in November 2022. Word was spread through WhatsApp and Facebook groups. The app received more than 1000 downloads with 63% active usage. We have had over 17000+ plays of our episodes.

On surveying 310 users, 48% were ready to pay before using the app and after using 71% were ready to pay for the app. 83% of them were willing to recommend Monki Tox to a friend. The feedback has been exceeding our expectations. Children keep asking us for new stories. Parents share videos of children reciting stories from Monki Tox. Users request us to add their native languages. Such positive feedback is our motivation to scale further and fast. 

Some of the indicators by which we are measuring progress are 

1. Reduction in screen time

2. Improvement of vocabulary in local languages

3. Positive behavioral changes 

4. Impression about cultures

5. Impression about diversity and inclusiveness

6. Improved sleep patterns

These are assessed through surveying the parents and when possible surveying the child users too

Currently children's literature is widely influenced by western cultures. This in turn is making children from developing countries insecure about their backgrounds, native languages and even about their food habits. Moral values are also lacking in many stories.The change that Monki Tox hopes to bring is the change in the mindset and self confidence of the children through these stories(Dialogues: The Science and Power of Storytelling | Journal of Neuroscience (jneurosci.org)) Exposure to native languages has also been found to improve grades. Being a web-based based app, this also reduces the screen time which is seen as a foremost concern by parents. Story telling is seen as the best way to engage children and pass on information effectively 

(https://doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v6i1.p115-118)

It is found that 27% of the content that kids consume is not age appropriate as most of the applications push random content based on the algorithm. Monki Tox is customizable according to age groups. It is a closed space with 100% child friendly content. This makes it easy for the parents too because they do not have to keep monitoring every episode constantly for content related concerns. 

These make Monki Tox a very well received solution among our initial users. On a survey of 34 parents, 28 of them reported reduction in screen time since they started using Monki Tox. 

The Story telling is based on a mobile application that is currently available in Android and iOS environments. This app is similar to a podcast but contains many well thoughout features including language selection, customization according to age and Sleep music. 

Monki Tox strongly believes in inclusiveness. The Free version of the app aims to provide learning and value-building opportunities to underprivileged children all around India. Currently, Monki Tox is being played during evenings in 4 orphanages and 370 underprivileged children are benefitted.

The team of musicians that created “Sleep Music” include highly talented visually-impaired artists. Apart from storytellers, special efforts are made to recognize art and artists of every form, especially artists from economically weaker sections and those with disabilities.

The storytellers are stay-at-home moms who were waiting for an opportunity to bring out their talents, and they have been recruited and trained. Through this, Monki Tox is empowering several women and providing them with a platform to make their voices heard. The team reaches out to old age people in rural areas and scholars well-versed in Indian culture who are mostly in lower income groups to collect and validate content, thereby providing them with an earning opportunity.

Monki Tox not only educates children on inclusiveness but incorporates it in every way possible. Monki Tox will also financially support villages and individuals working on preserving Indian cultural artifacts and provide them the platform to share their stories to the world. 

The three verticals of the business model are : 

1) Radio App

•Web-based radio style app

•Available in English, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and expanding to other Indian languages

•Available in Android and Apple environments

2) Books

•Beautiful illustrations, great interactions

•Available as long-lasting, sturdy board books and e-books

•Second book currently in the publishing process

3) Storytelling sessions

•Live storytelling, both virtual or in-person on theme of choice with

•Min. 5 interactions per hour with the audience

•Average audience size 40 families

Monki Tox operates across three verticals.

• The app is based on a Freemium business model. After a 2 week free trial period, Premium users will be charged at $5 per month outside India and INR 50 inside India. On achieving our Initial target users in 2025, this would generate a revenue of $2.58m per annum via subscriptions.
• It is expected that $230000 would be generated through advertisements.
• Sale of books is expected to generate $60000 anually
• Live story telling session will generate $125000 anually

Our highest revenue is expected to be currently from Monki Tox app. Other segments also have the potential to improve further with story books in other languages and more storytellers performing live story tellings sessions. 

Monki Tox works on a remote model, which has made it possible to recruit talent from India, thereby reducing costs. The initial app creation is a one-time cost, though we will improve the design over time. Content addition and other maintenance activities are recurring costs. This significantly improves the cost vs. revenue ratio over the years. Projections show that by 2024, the venture will break even.