Okay, consider this. Your friend shares a WhatsApp status about trendy socks, you click and make a purchase. Your friend earns money, the brand gets a sale, and you discover something you want. 

This isn’t social media marketing as we know it; it’s digital word-of-mouth at scale. That’s the reality Ishan Mohammed and Harsh Vardhan Sharma have built. 

Katha Ads is a startup that’s quietly revolutionising how brands reach consumers. In two years, they’ve created:

1. A network that reaches 6 crore people,
2. Distributed 4 crore rupees to everyday users who share brand content.

From news to ads: the Katha evolution

The journey began during the COVID-19 pandemic with a simple frustration. Ishan was an avid newsreader. The constant stream of tragic headlines drew him into negativity.

I had a very low phase, consuming all the news. I couldn’t control reading, but this was just pulling me down every day.

That’s when Ishan and his cofounder launched “Nalla Katha”. They rewrote the news in a non-negative way using AI. This was before ChatGPT made such tools commonplace. They partnered with 50+ regional news channels. Reached 30 lakh Malayalis daily and technically became the third-largest news distributor in Kerala.

But the real breakthrough came when they shifted focus to advertising. They realised their distribution network could do something powerful. It could make brand recommendations feel like genuine suggestions from friends.

How does Katha ads actually work?

The platform operates on two fronts:

• Ignite:  An influencer marketing platform that helps small, upcoming creators grow and earn. Katha Ads focuses on budding nano & micro-creators with 2,000 -100k followers. Brands get access to highly curated creators who pass a four-step selection process. The selection criteria are so stringent that they reject 95% of applicants. So far, they have selected 3,500 creators from 70,000 applicants.
• Unizone: A WhatsApp-based ad distribution network. Users sign up, receive relevant ads, and share them as their WhatsApp statuses. Each share typically earns 300-400 rupees monthly. The genius? It achieves 92% referral growth because the product itself demonstrates what they’re selling.

Platform	Reach	User base	Earnings
Unizone (WhatsApp network)	5-6 crore people	1M+ users	₹300-400/share
Ignite (Instagram creator platform)	Variable	3,500 creators	6k-50k/share

The strategy flips conventional wisdom. Instead of one celebrity endorsing to millions, they deploy 500 creators with 10k followers each. 

When you’re looking at a creator with 30k followers, whom you’ve seen grow from 2k/5k and you know that he loves ice cream and gadgets because you’ve been following his content. Now even when he says a car is safer, it has an impact because you feel like you know this person and can trust him.

What makes Katha different?

Katha Ads built something more sophisticated: an AI that matches a brand’s personality with a creator’s tone and emotion. It also factors in audience demographics and how viewers feel when they see that creator’s content.

They’re developing technology that predicts content impact before it goes live. 

Most AI content creation helps you make videos. We’re at the other end, our AI predicts what impact this content will have on audiences.

The company maintains an 80% brand retention rate and achieves 90% average view rates compared to industry standards of 30-40%. When they ran a campaign for Maruti with 800k combined followers, it reached 2.2 million people and almost 300% view rate.

The founders behind the vision

Ishan’s path to startup success wasn’t linear. He was born in Kasargod and did his early education in Kasaragod and Thrissur.. Later, he entered BITS  Pilani, where he met his current co-founder and the seeds for entrepreneurship. After graduation, he attempted the UPSC exams twice before co-founding his first startup, munshiG. After a two-year learning-filled journey at munshiG, Ishan joined Park+. He scaled operations from the first car to 50,000 cars served monthly in just six months. At Katha, Ishan handles people, culture and external relationships.

His co-founder, Harsh, provides the perfect complement, self-contained and tech-focused.

We often say we’re like two people entering a battlefield, each facing a different direction, with blind faith that the other has their back.

Early Validation and Scale

The numbers tell a compelling story. Katha Ads has completed 46 crore impressions in WhatsApp statuses across Kerala. That means the average smartphone user has seen an offer about 15 times. They’ve grown from 18 employees to 60 in the last 6 months while maintaining profitability.

Major national brands, including Maruti, Hero, ITC, and TATA, keep returning for more campaigning. They recently completed a 500-creator campaign for BGMI across four states in just 17 days. The company has distributed 50 lakhs to Instagram creators in just the last three months through Instagram campaigns alone.

The Bigger Picture

Katha Ads sits at the intersection of several massive trends. HUL announced plans to increase its influencer spend by 40%. The global creator economy is projected to be worth more than 1 trillion USD in the next 7 years. 

Their expansion timeline is aggressive, with plans to go pan-India by mid-next year. After that, they aim to enter Southeast Asia, South America, and GCC markets.

The ultimate goal? Distribute one billion dollars to our creators across the globe in a year.

The startup has stayed bootstrapped and profitable. It has only raised money from friends and family.. They are now considering traditional VC funding to accelerate growth. Inspired by Zepto, which managed 2.5x growth over a 4000 crore revenue base, through fresh capital.

What started as a solution to negative news has become a platform that could redefine digital advertising. Consumers are increasingly tuning out traditional ads. Katha Ads makes brand messages feel like recommendations from trusted friends. That’s exactly what they are.

Why does this matter?

Advertising is moving away from polished billboards and celebrity endorsements. It’s moving towards something far more personal, recommendations and intimate conversations. When your friend shares a brand on WhatsApp, or a small creator you trust recommends a product, it feels more like a personal suggestion. Katha Ads is formalising that instinct into a scalable business.

If the company succeeds, the future of ads may not be on giant platforms or TV spots, but in the hands of millions of everyday people.

Watch the full episode with Ishan Mohammed. It’s a conversation where he discusses his journey, background, and vision for Katha Ads.

You could learn about them on their LinkedIn, Instagram and Newsletter.

Katha Ads is featured in The First Brick series. The series highlights promising early-stage companies.

What are your thoughts on Katha Ads by Ishan and Harsh? Tell us in the comments below.

Did you read last week’s article on andwemet, a WhatsApp dating community by Shalini Singh? Read it here.