How to make 40 lakhs per month with subscription model in India? | Level supermind IBP Ep 17
Executive Summary
Ganeshprasad sits down with Harshil Karia and Aayush Anand, founders of Level Supermind (co-founded with Ranveer Allahbadia), to decode how a mental-wellness app reached 1 million+ downloads and 75,000 paying subscribers - in a market where Netflix India has only about 5 million paying users - and got named Google Play's App of the Year in personal growth. The founding logic: meditation, yoga and mindfulness are categories where India has a right to win - 'we have the wealth of knowledge, we have the wealth of practitioners, and we have the ability to build great technology' - so build from India, for India first, then the world. The method is the episode's gold: skip McKinsey-style market research and make every member of the organization speak to five consumers every week; use the Mom Test (ask about their day and habits, never 'would you use my product'); discover the 25-minute content sweet spot from actual watch behavior; and validate with the PMF survey - 'how disappointed would you be if this app disappeared' - doubling down on the very-disappointed segment until 35 out of 100 say it. Then the build discipline: don't build an app first - prove the concept on WhatsApp and Excel, automate with Zapier and Notion, and only then budget Rs 5-7 lakh a month (roughly Rs 50 lakh) for real app development. Growth mechanics: Ranveer's creator distribution for the first hands, the RICE framework for feature prioritization, Google AppScale Academy's ASO playbook (icon, name, keywords to rank top-5), retention through features (streaks, tracking, gamification) plus retention through communication (email, social, notifications), monetizing the entire area under the curve with monthly-half-yearly-yearly journeys, and the referral-minus-churn benchmark they still chase. Their closing channel verdict: 'content and performance, that's it, rest all is noise.'
Key Takeaways
A right-to-win category beats a hot category
They didn't chase a trend; they picked meditation and mindfulness because India holds the knowledge, the practitioners and the tech talent - a structural advantage. Build from India, serve India first, then take it to the world.
Five consumer conversations per person per week
Every member of the organization talks to five consumers weekly. Not a research team, not a survey vendor - everyone. It creates a consumer-first mindset and surfaces what decks never do: first-jobbers in IT are their core users, and 25 minutes is the content sweet spot.
The Mom Test: ask about their life, not your product
Never ask 'would you use this?' Ask what time of day they'd make time, what competes for their attention. Level's real competition turned out to be Instagram and YouTube - the answers shape the product instead of validating the pitch.
PMF = 35% 'very disappointed'
The survey question: how disappointed would you be if the app disappeared? Early on, most pick the softer options; the job is to double down on features and communication for the very-disappointed minority until 35 out of 100 say they'd be very disappointed - and let their frequency table write the roadmap.
Don't build the app until WhatsApp proves it
Start with an Excel sheet and a WhatsApp group, automate the repetitive parts (Zapier, Notion), hire a person to do it manually before writing code - and only with a firm hold on the concept commit Rs 5-7 lakh a month to real app development.
Prioritize with RICE, not opinions
Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort: score every feature (their example: podcast topics differ in reach, so ask volume changes the ranking) and execute the laundry list in order. Finite coding capacity makes prioritization the whole game.
Content and performance - 'rest all is noise'
Their channel verdict after trying everything: content builds credibility and makes the market hot, performance converts it, everything else is noise. Retention runs on features (streaks, tracking, gamification) plus communication (notifications, email, social), and monetization means capturing the whole area under the curve with tiered subscription journeys.
The Conversation Breakdown
The gap: India's mindfulness for the world
⏱ Untimed topicHarshil's 'India to the world' theme, Ranveer's first-podcast connection, and why meditation is a category with a right to win - knowledge, practitioners, technology - with Aayush's intern-to-co-founder arc defining the product.
Research by conversation, not by deck
⏱ Untimed topicThe five-consumers-a-week rule, the Mom Test in practice, first-jobbers in IT as the discovered core user, the 25-minute sweet spot borrowed from sitcom behavior, and competing with Instagram for attention, not with Headspace for features.
When to build - and what it costs
⏱ Untimed topicExcel and WhatsApp before an app, manual-before-automation, Zapier and Notion as the cost-effective stack, the Rs 5-7 lakh monthly (roughly Rs 50 lakh) app budget reality, and the PMF survey with its 35% very-disappointed threshold steering the roadmap.
Growth machinery: ASO, RICE, retention, monetization
⏱ Untimed topicRanveer's distribution for initial hands, the RICE prioritization framework, Google AppScale Academy's ASO layers (icon, name, keywords), AARRR metrics by company phase, premium DAU, retention through feature and communication, and monetizing the entire area under the curve.
Channels, AI and the ecosystem ahead
⏱ Untimed topic'Content and performance, rest all is noise'; 1.2 million YouTube visitors; AI-driven notification journeys personalized to user behavior; the digital-FMCG vision of trainers, psychologists and doctors as distributed retailers; the CA-exam user's thank-you visit; App of the Year - and an open call for collaborators.
Core Frameworks & Ideas
The five-a-week consumer muscle
Institutionalize empathy: every team member, five consumer conversations, every week. The cadence turns 'consumer first' from a value into a data stream, and the roadmap writes itself from recurring signals.
PMF survey and the 35% rule
Ask users how disappointed they'd be if the product vanished; segment by intensity; pour development into what the very-disappointed love and what the somewhat-disappointed lack; 35% very-disappointed is the product-market-fit threshold.
RICE prioritization
Reach (how many users), Impact (how much it moves them), Confidence (weighted team belief), Effort (cost) - score, rank, execute in order. Converts opinion wars into an ordered laundry list when coding capacity is finite.
Manual before app
Prove the concept with the simplest tools - WhatsApp, Excel, a human doing the task - automate the repetitive parts second, and build the app last. The signal for app-time is a firm hold on the concept, not available budget.
Actionable Next Steps
- ✓Aspiring app founders: run the WhatsApp-first test - build a group, deliver the service manually, and only budget for app development after the concept holds without code.
- ✓Product teams: institute a five-conversations-per-person-per-week rule and review the frequency table of what you hear before every roadmap meeting.
- ✓Run the PMF survey on your user base: if under 35% would be very disappointed, double down on what that segment loves before adding anything new.
- ✓Marketing leads: audit channels against the Level verdict - content for credibility plus performance for conversion - and cut what produces neither.
- ✓App builders: work the ASO basics before paid growth - icon, name, keywords - and prompt reviews at the user's happiest moment.
Notable Quotes
“this is a category in which we have a right to win”
“the organization has to speak to five consumers every week”
“monetize the entire area under the curve”
“rest all is noise for us”
The One Thing to Remember
Level Supermind's playbook in one line: talk to five consumers a week, build for the ones who'd be very disappointed without you, and don't write app code until a WhatsApp group has already proven the concept.