I read a 2009 book by journalist Stacy Perman on cult burger brand In-N-Out Burger. It is an enjoyable read. I shared a brief review of the book + what I found interesting from the book on LinkedIn as an article and Twitter as a tweet thread. I broadly lump what I find interesting into three buckets – car commerce, food tech and finally, franchising as the accompanying …
June 2021
What startups can learn from India’s fastest growing edtech startup, Classplus
One of the startups I lead, and manage, Classplus, has been on fire of late. It is seeing a lot of customer and investor love. I wrote out a tweet thread, to explain, their secret sauce; at the heart of which is an obsession with customer feedback, and ensuring everyone in the company is continuously talking to customers. Later, as the tweet got popular, I converted the thread into …
Unbundling Humans, or, Unbundling Human Creation
“There are two ways to make money in business: You can unbundle, or you can bundle.” – Jim Barksdale, cofounder of Netscape
As frameworks for identifying opportunities in startupland go, unbundling / (re)bundling is amongst the most seminal ones out there. Here is an example of how it works.
Visualize a product that helps you read (for a fee) any magazine / newspaper story – effectively you have unbundled or …
‘Exhaust Fumes’, or, Understanding Startup Valuations
“Early stage valuations aren’t really valuations. They are the exhaust fumes of a negotiation about two things – the amount raised and the amount of dilution.” – Fred Wilson; source.
“Those guys are morons,” says Palihapitiya of many value investors. The historic way of determining value by looking at balance sheets and discounted cash flow no longer works, he asserts. “Today, when money has no value, because we’ve essentially …