It’s already been two years since the inception of Chingari, the journey from being India’s leading short video app to presently becoming the World’s fastest growing on-chain social app. The journey has been a roller coaster for many, from overcoming the ups and downs to celebrating every milestone along the way, the team has now become 150% stronger and is growing everyday. 7th July- Chingari’s 2nd year anniversary also now known as Creator’s Economy Day was celebrated with double the fun by the Chingari teams in Bangalore and Mumbai.

The team in Bangalore began their celebrations on 7th of July and had a time of their life at one of the best brewpubs in the city – Big Pitcher. The party kick-started with playing some fun and entertaining games that helped the team in warming up for the amazing night ahead of them. While a few were dared to do some push-ups, others danced their way hula-hooping while getting into the party mood. A dhol session during the party attracted many dancers to the center stage and was a delightful experience for all. Our Chingari Anthem also played at the party- energizing everyone around and allowed the team to meet & greet each other after months of remote working for some. 

With party props and great lighting, Chingarians went crazy taking selfies and clicking numerous group pictures. This was followed by our passionate leader Mr. Sumit Ghosh shared some passionate words of wisdom that motivated all.

Mr. Sumit Ghosh said “We are thrilled to have completed two years of Chingari. I would just like to thank our entire team for always supporting us and staying loyal to us for the last 2 years while helping us reach newer heights and shine brighter than ever. We have successfully become a global brand because of this constant support and hard work that our team puts in and enhances the working of this platform. We together look forward to working on many new and exciting projects that will help us boost the creators’ economy across the globe.”

The team in Mumbai on the other hand commemorated Chingari’s 2nd anniversary on 13th July at the most premium club in Mumbai- Dragonfly Experience. The nightclub had a spirited and dynamic aesthetics that attracted the team towards spending a celebratory night at Dragonfly Experience. 

The vibrant ambience and the grooving beats by the DJ made it irresistible for Chingarians to set the dance floor on fire. The lavish food spread by the chef and the exquisite drinks added to the festival of flavors for the pallets. This was followed by the leadership coming together to uncork the ceremonial champagne with a piece of delightful cake. All this buzz was instrumental in feeding the ever-growing hunger of Chingarians to create videos and capture the moments with lots of groupfies. 

Coming together of all the teams inspired and motivated all the Chingarians to achieve future milestones and prepare for exhilarating times ahead. 

Chingari powered by $GARI is not just a statement but a testament to the on-going growth of $GARI Social Token and the expansion of Chingari in the different markets of the world. The Social Token that started its journey officially in October 2021, has now become a global phenomenon within the span of just 9 months. 

Looking back at the roller coaster ride that the Social Token has witnessed in the last few months calls for a celebration and the honoring of the team behind the success of $GARI and the loyal community that has been constantly supporting the token and helping it grow globally. 

At a time when the sentiment around Cryptocurrency was very weak and the crypto market was crashing with some of the biggest currencies falling as low as 30%, Chingari’s Social Token- $GARI’s growth accelerated and how. The $GARI Mining reward program that started in June this year gave our Social Token an exceptional boost that was greatly appreciated amongst the creators and crypto community across the world.

However, like any other story of achieving great success, we too had an unseen roadblock coming our way. On 4th of July, $GARI witnessed a massive fall due to a Black Swan event (an unpredictable market event that was beyond our normal expectation of the situation and beyond our control.) Due to this $GARI’s value reached an all time low of INR 7 across exchanges. While this setback could have had a great impact on the team and community, we managed to look at the silver lining in this situation and continued on our journey of expanding $GARI & Chingari’s reach to audiences across the globe.

One of the best ways to reach out to global audiences and interact with them is through the blockchain and NFTs events that Chingari powered by $GARI has been participating in. After the success of the World Blockchain Summit in Dubai and NYC.NFT, $GARI participated in the Blockchain Economy Summit held at Istanbul, Turkey in July 2022. 

Blockchain Economy Summit @Istanbul is Eurasia’s largest blockchain event, which was a meeting place for the world’s top crypto companies and blockchain entrepreneurs. $GARI was the presenting partner for this event and had a huge booth setup at the event that helped us increase awareness of ChinGARI amongst crypto and blockchain enthusiasts.

In January this year, team Chingari powered by $GARI made the first move towards onboarding 1 million $GARI active wallet holders by introducing the Alpha-Version of $GARI Wallet on Chingari. The team integrated the wallet with the app in February and on 2nd of August $GARI successfully hit the 1 million active wallet holders milestone. In a record time of six months, $GARI has become the first Social Token in the world to breach the benchmark. We are the 2nd largest project on the Solana blockchain and the aim is to achieve 1 billion on-chain users in the near future.

So let’s move forward together in this journey of onboarding 1 billion users and making Chingari powered by $GARI a global sensation and the biggest Social Token in the world.

Have you met Chingari’s very own Bob the Builder- Mr. Shavinder Singh, Engineering Manager, Backend operations

When we started conversing with Shavinder, we discovered many new things related to the backend team and how do they work on any new product/ feature that is launched by Chingari, here are a few excerpts from our conversation:

Shavinder Singh manages the backend engineering team which lays the foundation as well as builds new products, features and updates that are released on the app. The 12 member team that Shavinder manages, works on 10-15 projects at a time making it possible for us to see so many new features and updates launching on the app every now and then.

Shavinder’s work routine starts at 9am every single day, as he prefers going to office before everyone else and chalk out the plan of action for that day. And once he is with the team, assigning tasks and taking updates on the ongoing projects becomes smooth flowing.

However, building a new feature is not as easy as it sounds. It is a long and tedious process that involves weeks, sometimes months of ideation, research and coding. And once the feature is built the team has to try and test it, check for bugs if any and update the feature accordingly.

“For the engineering team the quality of output matters the most and which is why they spend a large amount of time in research and coding”, said Shavinder. 

Shavinder enjoys the vibe of working in a startup ecosystem, and he claims to have worked on more projects in the last three months at Chingari than he did in the previous three years at his previous job (PayPal). He enjoys the fact that in a start-up, individuals can grow and innovate at a faster rate. 

When asked about how he manages the stress of working in a start-up, Shavinder said, “As I look at it, one needs to be smart about managing their work and work pressure while working in a start-up. And I also believe that if you enjoy what you are doing, then you will never feel stressed about your work.”

Shavinder loves to work in Chingari Villa and looks forward to the fun Friday evenings where the team comes together to chill and relax after a hard week of work. When asked to explain his job in a simple way, he said, “If every feature is a building, then the Backend Team is the foundation that supports it. I act as the interface between the Backend engineering team and the other departments. As an engineering manager for the Backend Team, I have to ensure that all our features are built with a strong foundation. We have to make sure that the features we ship out should not only work for millions of users today but should also work well even when we reach the goal of having a billion crypto users on Chingari App.

As a people manager, I also have to make sure that everyone in the team is happy and motivated.”

We also asked him to mention a TV serial/movie/web series / comic character that best describes his boss, to which he said, “I think Tariq is like Doctor Strange from marvel. He can see through millions of different paths and know which ones will lead to positive outcomes.”

And to end with here is the quote that has inspired him the most-

“You owe it to yourself to do something remarkable with your life”

Toh issi baat pe saare milkar bolo- Karke Dikhayenge? Haan bhai haan… :p

Mohit Gupta, Growth Head, Chingari App 

Performance Marketing can be a very powerful tool, when optimized in the right way, says Mohit Gupta, Growth Head @Chingari

In a candid chat with Mohit Gupta, we discussed some key functions of performance marketing and how it has helped Chingari & GARI grow.

Applying his 10 years of experience, Mohit and the team started working on the GARI wallet activation campaign by optimizing the tool of performance marketing. 

“Currently our entire focus is to increase the number of $GARI Miners across the world, and to achieve our target number we tried and tested many options in the beginning and by the 1st week of July, we had cracked the code.” 

“We started increasing our target audiences from India to the world and only focused on the crypto enthusiasts who would understand the concept of mining. Focusing on this international target pool in particular helped us achieve great numbers.”

“Like everyone else, we too had a limited budget for the performance marketing activities, however because of our knowledge and expertise in this field, we were able to save millions of dollars and avoided many fraudulent activities, while achieving the highest number of active $GARI Wallet Users and Miners.”

During the conversation, Mohit mentioned that they were targeting to achieve the number of 1M Wallet holders by 2nd August, and staying very true to his plan, that is exactly how the ball rolled. On 2nd Aug, we saw an announcement on Twitter by Chingari & GARI celebrating the success of activating 1M wallet users.

“We are attaining around 30-40k app installs on a daily basis due to the performance marketing plan that we have actioned since June. Out of these app installs, almost 60-70% of the users have activated their wallet and are actively mining $GARI on the app”. He further added, “We will soon become the No. 2 project on Solana and our plan is to become the No.1 project by end of this year, by beating the current project that has 6.1M wallet holders”.

We really enjoyed this conversation with our Growth Head, Mohit Gupta, and really learnt a lot of tricks of the trade. You can reach out to him as well if you too are interested in understanding the workings of a successful Performance Marketing Campaign and want to learn more about it.

1. Chingari, powered by $GARI, partners with premium OTT & Audio brands to upscale the content quality on the app.

Chingari powered by $GARI is growing every day in a new way and is successfully getting premium content on the app to enhance the platform for its users and providing them with a variety of entertaining content by associating with top OTT and Audio brands that help us upscaling our content.

With Disney+ Hotstar collaborating with us in May-June for their webseries Escaype Live for the very first time, we again associated with them in July for their new series Shoorveer. This time we curated an in-app campaign for them, wherein Chingari influencers & creators made videos using the #BeTheVeer to promote the show on the app. We also interviewed Shoorveer’s star cast for Chingari GupShupp and enjoyed fun and candid conversations with the cast.

Apart from Disney+ Hotstar, we have also associated with Dangal TV- a Hindi language entertainment channel that came on board to promote its 7 channels that broadcast original programmes along with shows of some popular channels. Due to its entertaining and relevant content, Dangal TV was the most watched Hindi language channel in the U+R category from week 13 in 2019 to week 26 of 2020. Chingari is currently helping them in promoting their latest show Bindiya Sarkar through an in-app contest for our UGCs. Users can view popular shows like Kahani Ghar Ghar ki, Nagin etc on Dangal TV for free. 

With music composer-singer Amit Trivedi’s new venture- AT Azaad, Chingari users can now access the brilliant songs that the composer releases under this label. AT Azaad is a music label launched by Amit Trivedi to promote his independent music. 

Amit Trivedi’s soulful compositions will be accompanied by FAB Market’s premium and entertaining audio content that will be available for Chingari users on the app. FAB Market is a subsidiary of HT Media Group and with this partnership Chingari users will have access to the world class content, curated by FAB Market. From comedy shows, Bollywood interviews to shows hosted by RJs, will be available on Chingari. Through the massive reach of Chingari, FAB Market’s content will be able to transverse across the globe. Apart from the humorous, Bollywood, and other RJ-led content, Chingari is also exploring opportunities for promoting mythological and regional content through this partnership. There are plans in place to add FAB Market’s Ramayan and Mahabharat audio stories, a special on Lord Shiva, and other regional content on the Chingari Audio rooms.

Going forward, the Chingari community will be able to get a variety of content to browse from only on Chingari powered by $GARI.

2. Its time to celebrate as Sumit Ghosh receives Economic Times- Business Transformation Leader Award

The celebrations for Chingari’s second anniversary were extended to July 14th, as our passionate leader Sumit Ghosh received the Business Transformation Leader Award from India’s top publication Economic Times – Times Group.

Recognising and honoring the champions, the Business Transformation Leader Awards 2022, was a unique platform aimed at underlining innovative business leaders from diverse streams and celebrated their success by honoring them at a physical event held at Four Seasons, Mumbai. 

Businesses play a major role in the growth of a nation and society in general. They drive the country’s economy and also generate multiple job opportunities for its citizens. Mr. Gulshan Grover was the Chief Guest at the event who felicitated the winners and congratulated them for their success. 

The Business Transformation Leaders initiative is a unique platform that aims to identify some of the most innovative leaders and entrepreneurs of our country and celebrate their success across diverse streams. These are individuals who have dared to be different and have trodden that path to inspire others. These business leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals are those who have made it big by walking the “hard way” and hence rightfully chosen as the Business Transformation Leaders for the year 2022.

The Guest of Honor of the event was former Minister of State for Housing, Member of Legislative Council and the Deputy Leader of Shiv Sena, Sachin Ahir. He also unveiled the cover page of the coffee table book featuring these leaders.

While felicitating the leaders, Grover mentioned that it is great to recognise the achievements of such distinguished individuals during difficult times.

“Each business leader has an inspiring story of survival in such harsh and difficult times of the pandemic which needs to be told to the younger generation,” he said.

A total of 22 business leaders were felicitated at the event

3. Chingari gives its creators a platform to showcase their talent, upskill the Chingari users and enhance their experience

On the occasion of World Skills Day, Chingari powered by $GARI, executed a campaign to motivate its creators and users to elevate their skills by constantly learning something new everyday. Through this campaign Chingari gave its creators a platform to showcase their art in the format of short videos and teach their followers these skills to equip them with the capabilities needed for employment, life development and entrepreneurship. World skills day was declared to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with important skills that will help them enhance their quality of life. 

For this on-going campaign the creators with different expertise are making videos showcasing their skills.  Starting on July 15th, this campaign banner was live for 1 week on the Chingari app, where we asked creators to participate and let us know about the skills that they would like to showcase and teach the users. 

The response was overwhelming as we received participation from more than 50 creators for this initiative. Amongst the entries that we received, we chose to highlight 6 creators from different regions to reach out to the maximum number of users in their local language. Under this campaign, these six creators speaking different languages are featured for six weeks. The creator will make videos showcasing their abilities. For instance, if the creator is skilled at creating mandala art, they may create a time-lapse video or a step-by-step video of the process.

Each creator will have a hashtag and a banner that will showcase their skill. For example, the first few banners that went live were #RockwithHarini, #DancewithVineeta, get #ArtsywithMonalisha and #StorieswithHarsh. 

Constant education and training is what allows us to improve our quality of life and keep up with today’s fast-paced society. Learning new skills not only helps us develop, but it also allows us to reach greater heights and explore new opportunities in our lives.

So, what did you learn today?

With the Live feature launching very soon, Chingari is set to open the gateways to many new opportunities for Chingarians across the globe.

The idea behind introducing the Live feature is to majorly focus on a building a self-sustainable revenue driven model that is not heavily dependent on advertising. Giving a platform to the creators to stay connected with their followers and   eventually to also have Live e-commerce taking place on the platform.

Entertainment, lipsync, Love and relationship, Astrology, Devotional spiritual, game shows and game streaming content segments are set to gain major traction on the platform. 

The best performing content in live streaming is the Entertainment category that includes dance, singing, comedy, mimicry, lip sync over which we have a strong hold. These categories will allow us to lead longer interaction and engagement periods from the users and will help the creators to build a stronger rapport with their followers by teaching them new skills, involving them in their daily routine, performing for them or just having a candid chat with them. A live streaming session can be for as long as 45-60 mins and that is the amount of engagement time that the app will garner from the users. This will also help the users and creators to further increase their contribution score and mine $GARI Tokens.

The Live Streaming feature will also give our users a platform to engage/ interact with their favourite celebs and artists that collaborate with Chingari. Edtech brands and influencers too can use the feature to teach a course to their students, making Chingari an infotainment platform in true sense.

The possibilities to explore great opportunities are immense, and hence we are looking forward to the launch of Chingari Live.

So stay tuned…and catch us LIVE only on Chingari powered by $GARI

In this segment, we would focus on upcoming and talented Chingari Creators who you must follow, the very first creator that we would like to focus on, is a lifestyle and beauty/fashion Vlogger based out of Mysore, Karnataka:

Name: Harini Doddamane

Chingari ID: https://chingari.io/anuoneness

Place: Mysore, Karnataka.

View best of the lifestyle, beauty and lip sync videos on Chingari brought to you by Harini, the 33 year old energetic, entertaining and very beautiful resident of Mysore. 

She can be an amazing influencer for brand campaigns that cater to the beauty, lifestyle, jewelry and clothing sectors.