It is now just over 20 years since Amazon had its IPO, setting it off on the path to e-commerce dominance and well over $500b in market cap. In these 20 years, Amazon, and its peers expanded across categories, from books and electronics to fashion and even grocery. And in parallel, a ruthless focus on shaving off delivery times and cost ensued, helping reduce buying friction and making online buying …
Sajith Pai
About Sajith Pai
Posts by Sajith Pai:
The Guardian and the Membership Model
Recently, The Guardian, that long-struggling liberal newspaper of record, stated it has ~500,000 members and digital subscribers[i]. Not to mention another 300,000 one-time contributors. This is quite impressive. What is more, the rapid increase in members and subscribers is projected to help The Guardian cut losses to £25m this year (£45m last financial year[ii]), putting it on course to break even by 2019.
What is …
A (Very) Brief History of Drinking at Work
Bira91, an Indian brewing co, recently launched its new light beer.
Most light beers are aimed at women. And I expected the press release to confirm this, which it did, stating that the light beer will “hopefully give non-beer drinkers another reason to consider beers when they are looking for a refreshment” (Non-beer drinkers here is code for women). I was intrigued by the next line in the press release …
The Upstarts is Essential Reading for Product Managers
Why Does An Uber Driver Earn More Than A Starting Engineer In India?
Recently, Mohandas Pai, the Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services expressed his disquiet about the rather low starting salaries for engineering college graduates, accusing IT companies such as Infy, Wipro, TCS of conspiring to keep salaries of graduating engineers artificially low.
Mohandas Pai and Manipal Global have much to gain from higher salaries, for the promoters of Manipal Global also control the trusts that run Manipal University. Like several …
Google v Facebook India Revenues: What Explains the Gap?
Facebook’s India arm reportedly made Rs 177 crs revenue in FY16, the last year for which it reported revenues. In the same period, Google India made Rs 5,904 crs. Google is thus about 33x Facebook revenues in India.
For the year-ending Mar’17 we will very likely see a lower multiple, for Google may not grow as much as Facebook in India, given its higher base. Let us assume …
How To Think About Advertising
In 2017, Group M, a leading media agency, estimates that we will see marketing expenditures cross the $1 trillion threshold for the first time ever. This includes about ~$550b of advertising expenditure or ‘Above The Line’ i.e., print, TV, digital, radio, OOH etc., and balance ~$450b in marketing services, primarily ‘Below The Line’ spends e.g., direct marketing, events, activations such as tasting sessions within a mall as well as buying …
Building The Post-Amazon Bookstore
On starting a bookstore
Imagine that you have decided to set up a bookstore. It may be that that you are retiring and now you have some time and money to pursue your dream. Or you have won a lottery allowing you to quit your boring job and give in to that urge, that you have been nurturing since childhood. Either way, you are ready now to start looking …
Why Did Mint Go Broadsheet?
Mint, a financial daily from HT Media Group, went from a Berliner to the larger Broadsheet format today.
Why did they do this?
Mint’s Executive Editor R Sukumar explained the change here. In the article he cites only one reason; that the earlier Berliner format was better suited to carrying longer in depth investigative pieces (“more of less” as he calls it). Today, he says, consumers prefer to get …
Experiments in curation: a look at 3 new bookstores
Benedict Evans, tech blogger and VC with a16z, recently had an interesting series of tweets, polling his followers about their perception of various industry facts, such as android devices vs iOS devices, in an attempt to contrast the polled results with reality. One of the polls was about perceptions of Amazon’s share of the U.S. Consumer print book market.
…Perception: the correct answer is around a third, depending on definitions