Kanupriya Poddar, CEO of MagickWorld on building India’s first travel platform for kids.
41m 18s
Kenneth Pryopod, CEO of Magic World, built a platform to help parents discover kid-friendly stays, experiences, shops, and enrichment services. Inspired by her travels with her daughter from infancy, she identified a fragmented market for family-oriented information. Co-creating the concept with her daughter, she soft-launched within two months, onboarding over 100 local businesses via a free directory to boost discovery and trust. Kenneth stresses launching an imperfect product to test demand and supply, drawing on her McKinsey and KPMG background. She prioritizes distribution and demand over a polished roadmap, using a top-down strategy. Bootstrapped for now, Magic World has attracted investor interest but waits for proven product-market fit. Her remote team spans India, leveraging young talent for tech and marketing. She chose Jaipur as her base for its strong hospitality sector, lower costs, and emerging tech scene. Kenneth balances startup pressures with a calm, structured approach, emphasizing clarity and execution over chaos.
[Music] One of the key things that I have learned in my McKinsey days and KPMG days is to not feed for a perfect product to launch. Raw is good, raw is great, get fuel time feedback. Do not spend a huge amount of amount building that perfect road. If you have a product out there, I think the focus should be in finding the business first. Is there actually a demand of what you are trying to create and if there is even a supply of what you are wanting to sell to the market. Cracking the distribution, cracking the demand is more important than having that very perfect road map. Hello everybody, my name is Neil Poussell. Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Indian Startup Show. My guest is Kenneth Pryopod, CEO of Magic World. She is building a platform to help parents discover kid friendly stays, experiences, shops and enrichment services across cities. So in this episode she shares how she launched Magic World alongside her eight-year-old daughter onboarded 100 plus local businesses within two months of soft-lunching and cracking the distribution model. She reflects on lessons from her McKinsey background, explains why she prefers top-down strategy over the bottom up execution and talks about bootstrapping, investor interest, the pressures of start-up life and staying grounded with advice from her father. And finally she shares must visit jipole recommendations, including places to see do and eat along with advice for anyone considering leaving a corporate career to build the start-up. And much much more. So please enjoy the show. Thank you. Hello, Kenneth Pryopod. Thank you for coming under Indian Startup Show today. Thank you for having me, Neil. Glad to be here. Please tell me what you're building. Okay, so we're building Magic World. World's first travel and lifestyle ecosystem made specially for kids. So we have a party which is to do with a can-book family-friendly holidays. Then we have a part with us called experiences where you can book your local experiences and things to do events, etc. happening within the city that you're traveling to or you're living in. And we have a very interesting part which is a directory. It is a plan in the directory of all kids-based products and services, again, local to every city and India. What are things going so far? Can you share some stats, please? It's been amazingly interesting. The kind of coverage we've gotten, the kind of enthusiasm we're getting at, it's tremendous. In fact, within the first two months of sort of soft-lunching the entire concept, we onboarded more than 100 plus homegrown businesses in the directory part. And we're growing at a very lightning speed. There's an enthusiasm from the tech world, from the investor world, from homegrown businesses as well as the parents. Awesome stuff. Yeah, let's go to the start then. Who came up with the idea? What was the sort of light bulb moment for you then? And follow the question, what problem were you solving? I ran a hospitality business while I was in Singapore and in India for almost like eight to nine years now. So I understand you nuances of travel or other hosting very well. But more importantly, I have a now eight year old daughter and I've been travelling with her ever since she was 35 days old. 35 days old, okay. Something early, something early. Really early starting really early. She's travelled across the globe. She's travelled quite well. But one pertaining problem as a mother or as a parent that I've seen paid and struggled to, to out, you know, irrespective of which part of the world I've lived in or whatever I've been doing with my child is, you know, every information and everything to do with the child is extremely fragmented. Really depending on the blogs, Instagram posts, WhatsApp, mom groups, etc. to find everything and nothing is available and then one one one stop job, right? So especially like since I've been travelling so much with my child, what I saw is like we already do spend a huge amount and I get nowadays, right? But irrespective of if I'm booking a large property or, you know, no matter what kind of property I book and I have to travel, I have to carry a lot of things when I'm travelling with my child, especially when they're younger. I have to constantly ensure how to keep them engaged, I have to constantly make sure that I'm keeping them away from the screen even when they're in holiday because they get bored so quickly. The properties are almost always catering to the adults in terms of the decor, etc. And the most, rather the biggest specative I have on all my holidays is irrespective of if you're paying, you know, 5000 rupees a night or 25,000 rupees a night. The kids, if they're sleeping in the same room, if you're not booking a separate room for them, which anyway is not possible for a lot of us, the kids are sleeping on a folding bed or mattress, which is such a horrendous sight. So this is where, you know, the kids hospitality, which is becoming a niche travel across the globe and it's already flying extremely high, doing very well the concept in the US and in New Europe. So we decided to bring the concept to India now. Let's go back to start day one. How did you get this off the ground? It was a very crazy night. I was up till two in the morning. My daughter, who I think is a mini entrepreneur herself, she was always building stuff and she came up with the idea of magic world because she was trying to build this hotel out of her magnetic blocks. So magic world is a term coined by her and since her name is Kaira, we decided to keep a K with magic. So it's image, I see K world. So one such night, I decided to bring kids hospitality to India, just went ahead and registered the domains online, started brainstorming of what I want to do. I think almost instantly, even with the structure wherein I did not want to just do hospitality, but I wanted to create an entire ecosystem. So from there on, I started brainstorming on the idea, crystallized it, believe it or not, a lot of brainstorming happened with my daughter and a lot of inputs helped me tweak the entire proposition. Once I was in a very fairly comfortable space, I went in to discuss it with my mentor. He challenged me on a few things, asking a few questions. First, surprisingly, I had, as he put it, near to perfect answers to all of the questions, gained a lot more confidence that this is making sense, started in a raw as possible manner, built a very demo version of the website of Goddadi, believe it or not. Which I built in a matter of half an hour or one hour coming from the tech background. And then I started testing the idea. That's where I started getting a lot of interest from the homegrown businesses. From there, I started discussing the idea, Jepur being the hospitality capital of India. I started testing it with a lot of friends over here who have a lot of multiple properties over here. They saw as a very good solution to the niche hospitality that we are trying to cater. How did you get your first customers? So we are pre-revenue right now. We are still building the entire model. Funnily enough, we have our offline customers not of the platform. We have the customers because we are already collaborating with a lot of properties which are converting their properties to make it a lot more kid-friendly. And given my hospitality background, I'm already connecting them to those properties, booking my customers to book those properties. I'm like a product roadmap. How do you know what to put in, what to take out? Obviously you can't put everything in there. That's literally what I've done my entire life. As a consultant at McKinsey, he was a product owner. I've launched digital banks, insurance companies, etc. That is one thing I know how to do extremely well. We have a very well-defined product roadmap. The MVP is almost there. We have already soft-launched the MVP. We have a phase two. We have a phase three and phase four planned already. In fact, with all the AI features we want to bring in all the. It is a complex structure when people initially first look at it. To be very honest, these structures are already existing in the market. For example, Zomato. Zomato is working on four verticals. It's things like a link kit or a Airbnb for that matter. All of them have multiple verticals. The product roadmap is very clearly put out over there. We want to ensure that the product market fit happens early on. Once that is done, we do have the roadmap where very sophisticated features will be plugged in. The entire four verticals.
focus is to ensure there is a maximum user experience, enhanced user experience, which makes it extremely easy and comfortable for parents to use, not just moms, right? Like, in India, I wouldn't talk for Europe, but in India, moms are always looking for the properties, but mostly the dads doing the bookings. The moms are always looking for the classes. The weekend plans are something which both mom and dads are making. So, if we're serving everybody, right? So if you're a parent, say 27-year-old or a 45-year-old parent, we have something for you. Awesome. So, yeah, so going back to the development, you've got experience in that. Just give our advice to our listeners then. What should they be doing? I believe like one of the key things that I have learned in my McKinsey days and KPMG days, is to not wait for a perfect product to launch. You know, raw is good, raw is great, get real-time feedback. Do not spend a huge amount of amount building that perfect road, perfect product out there. I think the focus should be in finding the, you know, the business first, right? Is there actually a demand of what you're trying to create? And if there's even a supply of what you're wanting to sell to the market. So cracking the distribution, cracking the demand is more important than having that very perfect roadmap. Have the basic features, have a very clear vision, work on Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3. And once you are done with your Phase 1, be very quick to implement the Phase 2. Yeah, okay. So you've gone from like a corporate world to a start at world. How's that to transition? Anything surprised you? Oh yes, there's a lot of interesting and surprising things. You know, I've always been in a professional world ever since I started my career, but I heal from a business family. So both the mindsets are very very different. And once I came back to this start of world, you know, very interestingly, the nuances that I got from my father, you know, he's a traditional businessman. All the nuances that I got from people doing businesses in Jaipur, they were surprisingly the most interesting ones. You know, one of the craziest thing that happened was me telling my father that this is the this is the idea that I'm working on. And him being him, he I thought that there'll be a lot of reservations because it's a long chart, etc, etc. To my surprise, he was like, this is the structure, you focus on one thing first, you go after it, you drill it down very well, you hire somebody, put it on autopilot, and then go after drilling your other verticals. So, so I would say like, you know, the start of world being very chaotic, all the all, every single thing that people keep saying, it's all about how clearly you define everything in your head, how you go about execution. The idea would be there, resources you can always gather. There are too many tremendous helps available now, be it the government aids, be it people mentoring, be it, you know, the resources you can pull up. It's all about how you structure and how you execute that makes the difference. Okay, so I'm alright, I think it's like a two-sided market place then. What the challenges around that then? The key things that we have, which is a directory, people often ask me why have I not make it a marketplace. It's a very conscious strategic decision for the directory, but for the rest of the part of the platform where we're talking about the stage and the experiences, and that's where we get our buyers and sellers. So what we believe is that our demand comes from people using the directory very often for all their requirements. And once they're coming on the platform, they are seeing that the events are happening, they're seeing that the properties are there, and that's where the demand keeps increasing. As for the supply, I think there is no shortage of properties in the market. Like every single person out there is now, especially if I talk about Jeppler or other touristy cities in India, anybody and everybody who has a place, they're trying to turn it into a hospitality business. But every single person is struggling with occupancy, with good, good guess. They want to cater to families. The families is literally the number one profile. So we had an interview with a lot of properties. More than 70% of them would prefer hosting families with kids. Because then they know that their property is being valued, it's taken care of, and they could treat us something in. Yeah, you talk about the directory. So it's free for local businesses to list. Some might say that that's leaving money on the table. What's the thinking behind that then? Okay, it was done very intentionally. You know, before starting Madagoyle, I had run a small I tried running a small business online, where I realized that, you know, discovery, getting discovered for small homegrown businesses is the most hercule in task. They struggle not because they're product is weak, but they struggle because discovery today is pay to play. Visibility is expensive. Algorithm is brutal. And it takes time to build trust. You know, it was often when, you know, it happens a lot of time when we go towards partners for the directory and we tell them that we are doing this free of cost. There is a sense of suspicion when they ask us that, you know, they don't believe when we tell them that it's we're not charging them anything. But it's a simple give and take. Right. It's a promotion, promotional platform for them to get discovered and for us to be known to the entire world through them. So it was a it was a very give and take model that we wanted to build. I couldn't have asked, you know, the small brands to page is to be seen. And especially in in in a kids category, you know, where trust matters the most more than the ads. I think it was only fair for us to be doing that, you know, we're choosing credibility before monetization. And it also lowers the barrier for the local businesses, you know, it gives them a lot of power visibility. And it allows the parents to discover them. So for us, it's like a win-win both ways, right? They get known through us and we get known through them. In terms of funding, are you bootstrapping this at the moment? How's that working up? Absolutely. We we are bootstrapping it currently until we hit a product market fit, though we already have a lot of investor interest wanting to fund. But I think we want to get to a position where we have proven the model fairly well. And that's where we would preferably look at going for fundings. Oh, okay. Is it you're having fun with this? Is it like pressure off or pressure on at the moment? It's still early stages, isn't it? Okay. I think this is one thing that my colleagues from all my 15 years of work experience with voucher. I cannot and I don't operate with a lot of pressure. In fact, I am known if that's the right word. I'm known to be one of those people that, you know, a bomb might be blasting just next to me and I would still be very calm in doing what I need to do. Yes, I am very structured. I know what I'm doing and then things are very planned. So yes, there's a lot of pressure to get the things right. However, there is the pressure is not to prove something to the world. You know, it's like we know what we're doing. How big is a team? Interesting. So one of the key features of my team, Sata, is it's spread across the country. Okay. I have a couple of consultants working for me based out of Delhi, about 12 of them. My tech team is based out of, it's about six of them. My marketing team and SEO team is based out of cheaper and daily again, out of four of them. So I noticed on LinkedIn, you got your hiring badge on the profile. What are you looking for? What are your hiring strategies then? Obviously it's remote first, but what specifically skills and people you're looking for? Yes, I think we are extremely interested in the younger talent because we wanted the structures in the market. We wanted the out of box thinking be it marketing, be it sales or be it the technology part of it. We're looking for people who do not come with preconceived notions of say for 10, 20 years of work acts in the industry. We're looking for people who can define the ongoing tech roadmap for just five years of work experience. I think they are the ones who would have the maximum amount of visibility in the future. In terms of tech technology roadmap. In terms of marketing, I think nobody understands it better than the young blood. We're looking for people who understands SEO, who understand the marketing language.
which the world can understand and covering all of them together. Right? And also we're also looking for people on the ground since we're starting with Jeopardt, who are very well-versed with the hospitality industry. So who can go on the ground tough to the properties, explain them the magic world concept, get them to agree to onboard on the property, make the changes, things like that. So yes, we're looking for, I'm looking for the heads of all the departments. So we're marketing or technology or ops for that matter. Now, no, it's on LinkedIn. You said moving to Bangalore, you're standing in Jaipur. Yes. Right in that post, yeah. Yes. So yes, I often ask that I get asked that question that, you know, you start up, you know, start up the obvious places for startups in India, say a Gurgao or our Bangalore for that matter. I know my home is Jaipur. I know I've seen people become millenies and billionaires sitting in this city and I know the potential. Right? So strategically, very evident place for a hospitality company to exist. Rajasthan on an entirety is a very tourist friendly state and sitting in Jaipur gives me access to all those properties. All the investors within Rajasthan or in Jaipur for that matter are based out of mostly based out of Jaipur or Odepur, which again, a lot of them come from the tourism industry. Right? Jaipur is growing at a lightning speed, be it tech talent because people are now wanting to leave Gurgao and move to Jaipur because of the air pollution there, etc, etc. So a lot of people are now beginning to settle down here. The costs are low. The living cost is low and the lifestyle is way better than it would be in a Bangalore or Jaipur or Gurgao for that matter. We recently had a Thai global summit in Jaipur where and people from Singapore to US to Europe. Everybody came down, right? So it is becoming a place where the entire globe is paying attention to this city. It is growing at a lightning speed, right? So from a statistical point of view, from investors to the properties to the tech talent, everything is available over here, beginning to get available. So I see Jaipur at the city which will tremendously go in the next five to ten years to become one of the biggest attraction in this space, right? Second most important thing for me of choosing, continuing to choose Jaipur is the parent community here, right? So parent community in a metro or a tier one city versus a parenting community in a tier two city are fundamentally different in a lot of fields. There is a mad rush happening in the tier one city where parents are trying to achieve with few things. Both the parents are most often working and you know, they're always just juggling between the things for the kids. Well in a tier two city, not always, but in a lot of time the mother is the one who's doing a lot of things because even though she might be working, her role may or may not be a very aggressive working role. So there's a lot of time that the mothers spend over their child doing stuff for their child. So that is the mindset. There are exact customers, initial customers would cater to for magic world, right? So from the supply, from the demand side of thing, this is the perfect community I would want to target. I've not been to Jaipur yet. Oh, you must need what, what, what should I be doing? What should I be seeing? Is it like a weekend thing? Or do I have to take a week off or something? You must definitely go and give me something to see and do. Oh my God. I cannot begin to tell you how obsessive I'm about Jaipur. In fact, I was, and you should definitely take four to five days minimum if you want to spend 10 days. Oh, yes. Oh, a bare minimum, right? I'm so obsessed with Jaipur. I was on a holiday in Ia, Greece, Centaurine with my friends. And we're like sitting on a cliff, having our drinks, etc, etc. And I go like, you know, this looks like Jaipur. So my friends wanted to throw me off the cliff. That's another story. But, but the city has to offer royalty. Find literally the most gorgeous palaces, properties over here, which are literally breathtaking. You'll find royalty in terms of, you know, stuff like horse riding, the palaces, so many other things you can do. You will find the countryside of it, right? We have places like Chokidani and other tourist places where they actually show you the raw Rajasthan. You know, what goes on in the countryside over here. You can actually experience the food, experience the culture, experience camel riding, horse riding, elephant riding. Jaipur has tremendously progressed in the most metro-ish way on the other hand, right? Where in the kind of dining, the kind of activities, the kind of places that are getting built over here literally at part or even better with things that are happening across the globe. And trust me, this is coming from the person who's traveled to 22 countries, lived across seven countries, etc. Right? So there's a lot to offer, a lot of fun things. The shopping here, the food, the culture, the places to see, the royalty. It's just endless. Well, obviously I'm a bit of a foodie. What's the food like? Because obviously you went to Delhi, you know, you know what you're going to get in Mumbai and go like, what the speciality food is the regarding Jaipur then? Okay. So I'll start with the absolute traditional food which everybody keeps talking about, which is Dal Bhati Churma. And it's essentially like, you know, there's dough balls, which you have with Dal and Churma has basically crushed a dough, etc. And with a lot of sweet in it, etc. Then we have a lot of millet stuff. So we have Bajrayka Kichori, the Jilli Bees are very popular. Oh, yeah. Very unhealthy as well, I think, I believe. Yeah, we do a lot of unhealthy stuff, but we balance it out with a lot of healthy stuff. So millet and oil, millet and oil are extremely healthy things on the globe. And just talk about yourself. What are your favourite experiences to do with your daughter stays for places and things to do as it were? Oh, so Kaira, she is a pretty, pretty girl. One of her most favourite things to do is to watch Shark Tank, believe it or not. At A.D. roll, she's talking about close margin, contributing margin, equity. In fact, she also has a visiting card which says co-founder Magic World. Wow. Yes. She is old. Not A.D. Yes, old, trust me. And when I got my visiting card printed with said founder Magic World, she questioned that why does it say founder and not co-founder because she has 50% equity in it. So, say yes. She is a very, very delightful girl. She goes for her horse riding classes. Hopefully she's learning how to play her piano, which is a keyboard. Very aggressive with her debates, public speaking, things like that. Very obsessive about food, extremely fond of trying new places, eating spots in Jaipur. She loves her adventure spots. She's probably checked everything around the city and she loves exploring it still. She loves going through these beautiful places. She calls it, I want, she gets attracted to these fans. She has hospitals, hotels, etc. That are there in Jaipur. She loves a meat. She loves to eat, try her non-veg. Every place which is offering a great non-veg, she would want to explore that. The hospitality in India in general, I've been to India quite a few times. A generally good experience in terms of hospitality, but what is hospitality like in India in 2026? There's still a long way to go. Obviously, compared to other western-nice countries, I've compared it to western-nice countries. That's a very interesting point. I think that's where my mind was racing too. I wouldn't compare it to the western world. I consider western world hospitality very transactional. It may be perfect in terms of the services that are given, yet that personal touch, that personalization or rather the warmth, until I'm not too sure. I think, and there's a very good hospitality. We know how to welcome our guests. We know how to take care of our guests. India gives very immersive experiences now. You talk about
the hotels and other per in Jaipur places in Mysore, in Kashmir, right? So throughout the length and the breadth of the country, you go to those places and the experiences over there are second to none, right? And I do have travel very extensively, stayed in the best of the properties across the globe. But I can do vouch for like apart from the properties, the way Indian hospitality is emerging, it is by far exceeding what the Western world has to offer. Yeah, you mentioned AI earlier. What are your overall thoughts on it? Is it negative or a positive thing in it? And how are you using it? I usually positive. Right. I think I love it. I think life is becoming so much better and easier because of it and so many things are getting faster. I do hear where people fear and they're scared of certain things, the jobs, etc, etc. But I don't look at it that way. I just see it as an enabler in anything and everything that they're doing. Right. For magical, I think one of the key things where we will be implementing AI is to make a recommendation, but you know, where in you know, parents, when they're planning, trying to plan certain things, when they're trying to plan certain things, they can do it of the recommendation engine. You just need to tell the bot, what do you want to do? Where do you want to go? No, so where do you want to go? So say that I want to travel with my son and my daughter to go on these in these days. My bot will come and tell you, how great so since your son, he loves doing this and your daughter loves doing these. So these are three property options. Your son is allergic to seafood. So you know, avoid this thing, but these are the restaurants you can eat at. These are the activities that they can do in the city, where you guys are there and these are the places you can stay, you know, things like that. So I think I think it's just one of the greatest creation of humankind that we are coming up with and if used wisely and timely, it is the biggest enabler for a great life. Last three questions then. Looking back then, would you advise other Indian professionals dreaming of leaving a corporate job to start their own venture? What's the one thing they should absolutely know before taking the plunge? More to go with your heart. So even though I was in the professional world for 15 years, I think in my heart, I always, always, always knew that I will be starting something of my own, right? Needer is better. What you like doing, what you wish to do is what matters. One thing that I cannot emphasize enough on is even though I knew that I would always start something of my own at some point in my life, every single thing that I've done in my life has is now proving to be extremely fruitful in my current startup. So things I've learned at McKinsey, things I've learned at Dell, things I've learned at the programmer, every single thing will be of use. Do what you're doing with all your heart. You will know when you're ready to switch and the moment you know that you are ready to switch, just take the plunge. You'll know, you'll figure it out. Take the plunge. What is the best thing you learn about working at McKinsey? The structure of thought, the structure of execution, the structure of questioning the correct way, structure of approaching things the right way. I think McKinsey enables you to simplify every complex situation in life. They know how to solve for the low-hanging fruit first, how to go about tackling the bigger mammoths elephants in the room, every damn thing. I think that is one of the biggest learning that I've had from McKinsey, which I cannot be grateful enough for. What was the biggest, biggest elephant in the room for you then? For a magical? Yeah. Oh, so many. I still have so many. So one of the key things is the entire tech part, right? Because at the end of the day, it's a tech product. The second biggest mammoth is actually coming up with a proposition for the property owners wherein they find it extremely compelling to be a part of this. A traditional approach to this would have been that we come up with a certain concept and we go on begging the properties that, hey, this will be a great product, trust us, trust us, come on board, come on board. That's what most people building an OTA like this would do is what I believe. I think the approach that we are taking is we are first cracking the distribution, which is the demand. And that is by bringing the entire parent community together. So the McKinsey approach is like first writing the problem statement, which we did. We identified the challenges around that problem statement for us, which we did. Then it was about defining the strategy. So the two strategies we people do, which is top down and bottom up, people often go bottom up, but top down again is the McKinsey way of doing things. So that's where we decided that at the risk of people finding this entire proposition very complex, we will be able to crack the distribution, which automatically enables and give the confidence to the properties to come on board. And hence the entire ecosystem goes into play almost instantly. Wow, that's very impressive. You guys like the gods of the consulting world, right? I mean, not. We're just joking. Listen, you know, the the the standing joke for us is McKinsey once said that the touch phones will never work. So yes, we take from pinch of salt, maybe where it goes both ways. No, but you know, the great part of being at McKinsey was part of McKinsey Digital Labs, which with a great focus on execution. You know, consulting world is notorious for building strategies, which people are not able to execute. But the McKinsey Digital Lab was specifically brought into execution to solve for this gap, wherein people would often complain that, you know, all the strategies you just make and you leave and we don't have to execute it. So we did the and so I was extremely fortunate to be a part of that. In fact, I was the first seven hires for McKinsey Digital Labs. Wow. And yes, we did this. We did the I've done a lot of executions. So so I think that's a great learning that we've had. Awesome. Who's helped you on your journey? Is anyone on the fact? Oh, yes. I think one of the key mentors for me, which I look at is a my father. I've seen him build business and his empire from scratch and not not a part of the family business or our generational world. So I've seen him work through it. I've seen his consistency even at the age of 71. I see him still learning, right? Like he would still he he can use Shadjipiti way better than I can use it. Trust me. Very curious soul. So his consistency, his systematic approach to things has been one of the tremendous, you know, inspiring things for me, where like I do consult with him almost every week to tell him how things are going, what are doing. Apart from that, one of the key mentors I've had on this entire journey, who's who's been one of the greatest validator of my thought processes is so he himself has built a unicorn in a matter of four years, a very sorted person extremely clear in this thought process again. The the the advantages like he does not come from the hospitality world. So I was challenged on a lot of things which otherwise I wouldn't have been challenged on. So that helped me understand my own perspective a lot better. Look at the entire structure of the things, especially, you know, once you start meeting the investors, the investors are quick to shoot down your idea, some of them. Some of them are quick to shoot down your idea or etc. So I think that validation from him that to see through that how meaningful how this entire journey or the entire structure is extremely meaningful, that has been one of the key motivators for me to continue doing this. Awesome. So yeah, last question for people who want more information on Magic World, what must they do? Please register with us. Go to our website, it's www.magicworld.in and the the magic is with the case, so M-A-G-I-C-K.
world.in. Please follow us on Instagram, our handle is magical in India. Ask us as many questions you want. Please refer to all your home grown businesses, friends who are running any sort of kids-based products and services. We would love to host them on our platform. Trust me, it is all absolutely free. There is no, there is no hidden charges whatsoever. And we're building a platform for everybody, every parent that would solve for all their problems ever since a child is born to, until they, you know, leave your shores to fly on their own. To be 16 or 17 years. You will find, you will find counselors, you want career counselors, you would find everything from a decorator for your child's birthday to a pediatrician to art and class workshops that you're looking for to any sort of dresses, shoes, whatever you want to buy. We would, we would have a directory for everything on our platform. Awesome. So, Karifriya, thank you for coming on the India Stop shot take. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much Neil. Likewise, it was a pleasure talking to you.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Kenneth Pryopod launched Magic World, a travel and lifestyle ecosystem for families, co-created with her eight-year-old daughter.
The platform includes bookable kid-friendly stays, local experiences, and a free directory of children's products and services.
Within two months of soft-launching, she onboarded over 100 local businesses by offering free listings, prioritizing discovery and trust over immediate revenue.
She advocates launching a "raw" product quickly to gather feedback, rather than perfecting it first.
Kenneth prefers a top-down strategy, focusing on demand and distribution before refining the product.
The startup is bootstrapped until achieving product-market fit, despite investor interest.
She hired a remote, young team across India, emphasizing fresh perspectives in tech and marketing.
Jaipur was chosen as the base for its hospitality ecosystem, lower costs, and growing tech talent.
Summary:
Kenneth Pryopod, CEO of Magic World, built a platform to help parents discover kid-friendly stays, experiences, shops, and enrichment services. Inspired by her travels with her daughter from infancy, she identified a fragmented market for family-oriented information. Co-creating the concept with her daughter, she soft-launched within two months, onboarding over 100 local businesses via a free directory to boost discovery and trust.
Kenneth stresses launching an imperfect product to test demand and supply, drawing on her McKinsey and KPMG background. She prioritizes distribution and demand over a polished roadmap, using a top-down strategy. Bootstrapped for now, Magic World has attracted investor interest but waits for proven product-market fit.
Her remote team spans India, leveraging young talent for tech and marketing. She chose Jaipur as her base for its strong hospitality sector, lower costs, and emerging tech scene. Kenneth balances startup pressures with a calm, structured approach, emphasizing clarity and execution over chaos.
FAQs
Do not wait for a perfect product; launch a raw version to get real-time feedback and focus on finding demand and supply first.
It solves the fragmentation of information by providing a one-stop platform for kid-friendly stays, experiences, shops, and enrichment services.
Her eight-year-old daughter coined the name 'Magic World' while building a hotel with magnetic blocks, and Kenneth decided to bring kids' hospitality to India.
It is intentionally free to lower barriers for small businesses, build credibility over monetization, and create a win-win where both businesses and the platform gain visibility.
She uses her consulting background to define a clear vision and phases, starting with an MVP and quickly iterating based on feedback to achieve product-market fit.
Jaipur offers strategic access to hospitality properties, lower costs, a growing tech talent pool, and a unique parent community, with potential for rapid growth.
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