What Priyanka Gill teaches about brand purpose

Last year I read a hundred books in the year, this year I took a break but I'm almost convincing myself that I should probably read another hundred books next year as well. From fashion journalists to building possibly the biggest brand for women in the country now and an enormous community, it's been quite a journey. Give us a short glimpse of what that journey has been like from journalists to entrepreneur. I think it's been a very interesting journey to be on. In the beginning of

anything you don't realize where you'd be maybe four or five years later. So we complete five years now this March and we've celebrated what we now think was tiny milestones but at that time they were like so big. From a team of maybe three maybe four people we are now 170 people who work out of two offices and the sheer scale at which we can now impact women in India. I would never in my wildest of dreams have had thought of that number. So we have 39 million users across platforms. Our videos in a single month get over 150 million views. Over

300 million times does anyone engage with a piece of PopExo content every month. So the numbers are very gratifying and thankfully now we can see even better goals in sight. So it's going to be an interesting next few years as well. That's fantastic numbers and clearly a big brand and I know you're very obsessive about the brand which is how all good brand builders should be, brand owners should be. Is it a natural advantage or a differentiator to be a woman who's building a brand for women? Oh absolutely. I mean you should always do in life what

you know best and do something that comes naturally and that is not forced. So having a company that is run by women to build India's largest female brand makes sense. Yeah and that's a good segue because 101 marketing says that whatever brand you want to build externally you've got to start building it internally first. Oh absolutely. So talk to us a little bit about that culture, that ethos, the women who run the company, how sort of it reflects in the brand. So PopExo we are

68% female in the company. My leadership team is 60-40, 60% female, 40% male. The average age of our team member in the company is 24 and a half. 97% I'm taking a guess here right now are single and so yeah so you have this bunch of millennial women who are obsessive and passionate about creating content for women all over India and they seem to mirror the audience that we have as well. I know you've built a brand around great content and it sort of figures itself out because there is a company

which is writing content for its own avatar. But some statistics from Comscore's reports, from October 17 to October 18 the number of women on e-com platforms or retail platforms in the internet grew 70%. That's twice the pace at which actually the number of women in the internet grew in India. Is this the perfect moment for a brand in a business to be building an e-commerce platform for women? Yeah I think we actually saw that because we launched our own commerce platform

a few months ago right and we because we know the content that women like and the content that they engage with. We use that to create products that they love from phone covers to mugs to notebooks. We recently launched clocks and doormats and sweatshirts now. So I think being able to sell to your audience is the biggest plus that any media or digital media platform can have and we are beginning to realize that we already have the large audience that we do and it's time that we monetize by selling

to them things that they love based on information that we have on the content that they love consumers. So it's a lot of text, it's a lot of slogans that we women believe in and they're doing really well. So commerce, women online already exist right. E-commerce is built by men for men. If you look at it all engineers who run all our big e-commerce giants are men and the male user journey while shopping is very different from the female user journey while shopping. Just imagine yourself going to a mall you'll probably know

the exact white shirt you want to buy, you'll go to the store, you'll pick it up and you'll leave. If I were to go to a mall, at first go with a friend. We'd go to a coffee shop, we'd have some coffee. I'd probably want to buy a black dress. I'd walk into the mall and come out with a pair of heels. So the whole social aspect of shopping, the communal aspect of shopping is entirely missing from our e-commerce discussions today. I think that is where someone like PopXO who leads with content, who understands the

female psyche. We're really well placed to actually capitalize on this gap that we see in the market. And I think that's where the next exciting journey of what we do, that's what's going to lead us. I know you're very passionate about the brands and you probably spend a lot of time thinking about them and building in your mind what's going to happen next. But what's Priyanka like outside work? Where does the next big idea come from? I think it's a great question. I was just having this end of

fear conversation with myself and this year has literally been all about work. And because it's so much fun and I really enjoy it, I think I forgot to realize that everything else basically just kind of softly slipped away. So I think next day I'll tell you what am I like outside work. But fitness is my next passion. I really enjoy anything that kind of keeps me fit and also it gives me an escape from work as well. I had my moment with healthy cooking at some point in the middle of the year. My kids love

that. Reading is something that I do passionately. Last year, last year I read a hundred books in the year. This year I took a break. But I'm almost convincing myself that I should probably read another hundred books next year as well. So between all of these things, I think the day just goes. I'm