iWorld
GUEST ARTICLE: How short video platforms are helping in local community building
Mumbai: The short video platform space has exploded and expanded in the last few years. It’s not the future. It’s the present. At present, most creators have embraced and explored in a way we haven’t seen before. It has also given life to many apps and platforms catering to the needs of budding creators. These are exciting times, and Tiki has been pivotal in this growth. Not just with the content but also by helping build a local creator community with the necessary tools.
According to a recent study, 59 per cent of gen-z use short-form video apps to discover things before exploring longer versions. The short video space has never been short of options, and there are many homegrown apps playing their trade too. The buggy UI, underwhelming experience, and lack of support for tier-II and tier-III city creators limit them to a small bunch of top-level influencers from metropolises. There has been a general lack of compassion on social media – a void Tiki aims to, and has somewhat, been able to fill quite successfully. Tiki offers an accessible platform for the creators to interact seamlessly online and help build on a community via offline meetups.
With these meetups, creators help each other understand the latest trends and techniques for creating quality short-form videos. The community brings them together and gives them a sense of belonging. It will help expand the creator community and give them opportunities to make a difference in society.
Through the meetups voluntarily organised by them, the creators feel:
A sense of belonging when they are familiar with other creators.
A sense of appreciation when they get recognised for their effort and achievement.
A sense of support when they know that they are growing as a creator and making an impact.
Tiki believes that a platform is only as good as its creators. These emotions help them find a home. Tiki is built on the collective power of its creators’ creative energy. To incentivize people to form and organise themselves into tribes, Tiki aims to tap into the intrinsic human desire to be recognized. The Tiki creator community allows the creators to represent the platform and be ambassadors for Tiki. In a span of six months, Tiki has gone from two meetups per month to over 700 by July 2022. All these meetups are organised through a structured process of event organisation, activity curation, and event documentation. Up until now, over 5,000 offline creator meetups in 22 states and 200+ cities all over the country have been organised. The idea of Tiki meetups was sown and germinated by the creators, and its positive results have been reaped by the creators. It’s an open, inclusive, and self-evolving community that also aims to give back to a larger community—our society. The Tiki community has made an impact in their real-life community and helped over 20,000 people in need.
These events are also an opportunity to identify leaders through the Tiki City Ambassador (TCA) program. Tiki provides financial and promotional support for elected leaders who promise to organise and bring people together. To date, 15 registered Tiki community ambassadors across the country are organising two grade-A events per month. Relationships are strengthened with every online and offline interaction, and the Tiki Family Guilds achieve an impressive 97 per cent day one retention rate and 90 per cent active participation rate. This is consistent even as the total Family G membership doubles in size every month.
This means that the community is achieving its objectives both in depth and breadth. Increasing creator stickiness while expanding its reach to cover new and aspiring creators.
The opportunities for creators exploring short video applications in India are endless. Tiki has created an atmosphere of inclusivity and uniqueness for the creator community that needs to be leveraged to achieve the larger goal of making India a hub of talent. Creators need to come forward and leverage new opportunities, as the future of Tiki will be led by the creator community.
The author of this article is Tiki CEO Ian Goh.
Gaming
Bluestone FY26 revenue rises to Rs 2,436 crore, turns profitable
Q4 profit at Rs 31 crore, full-year profit at Rs 13 crore vs loss last year.
MUMBAI: From sparkle to numbers, Bluestone seems to be polishing more than just jewellery this year. Bluestone Jewellery and Lifestyle Limited reported a sharp turnaround in FY26, with revenue from operations rising to Rs 2,436 crore (Rs 24,364 million), up from Rs 1,770 crore (Rs 17,700 million) in FY25. The company posted a full-year profit of Rs 13 crore (Rs 131.79 million), a significant recovery from a loss of Rs 222 crore (Rs 2,218 million) a year ago.
Total income for the year stood at Rs 2,486 crore (Rs 24,860 million), compared to Rs 1,830 crore (Rs 18,300 million) in the previous year, reflecting both topline growth and improved operational momentum.
The March quarter, however, told a more nuanced story. Revenue from operations came in at Rs 681 crore (Rs 6,814 million), down from Rs 748 crore (Rs 7,486 million) in the year-ago period, though higher than Rs 461 crore (Rs 4,613 million) in the preceding December quarter. Net profit for Q4 stood at Rs 31 crore (Rs 311.81 million), compared to Rs 68 crore (Rs 688 million) a year earlier, but a clear reversal from a loss of Rs 51 crore (Rs 512 million) in Q3.
Margins were shaped by higher input costs, with raw material consumption rising to Rs 2,204 crore (Rs 22,043 million) for the full year, alongside employee benefit expenses of Rs 282 crore (Rs 2,824 million) and finance costs of Rs 210 crore (Rs 2,104 million). Other expenses came in at Rs 371 crore (Rs 3,715 million), slightly lower than Rs 393 crore (Rs 3,938 million) in FY25.
On the balance sheet front, total assets expanded to Rs 4,961 crore (Rs 49,610 million) as of March 31, 2026, from Rs 3,532 crore (Rs 35,322 million) a year earlier, driven largely by a surge in inventories to Rs 2,672 crore (Rs 26,718 million). Equity also strengthened to Rs 1,803 crore (Rs 18,030 million), nearly doubling from Rs 911 crore (Rs 9,107 million).
Cash flows reflected the cost of growth. Net cash used in operating activities stood at Rs 199 crore (Rs 1,990 million), while investing activities saw an outflow of Rs 239 crore (Rs 2,392 million). Financing activities, however, generated Rs 497 crore (Rs 4,971 million), helping the company end the year with cash and cash equivalents of Rs 108 crore (Rs 1,075 million), up from Rs 49 crore (Rs 487 million).
Earnings per share for FY26 came in at Rs 1.10, a sharp improvement from a negative Rs 79.74 in FY25, underlining the shift from losses to profitability.
With revenue scaling up, costs still glittering on the higher side, and profitability finally back in the black, BlueStone’s FY26 performance suggests a business mid-transition less about shine alone, and more about sustaining it.
