The Duologue is a concerted effort by Vivek and Bheem to make sense with a unique lens. This is part 2 of the anniversary that we are writing. Bheem wrote part 1, if you haven’t already read it. Now, on to the post!
Hey,
Update:
It's been a year since I first posted. Bheem already mentioned our intention behind this publication and how each of us covers different fields. So, I would not repeat it again but rather tell you about how this came up.
Bheem and I talk about a lot of things but more often than not we talk over each other. When it is in a chat format (Signal Messages), we neither get the coherent arguments nor the summary of the topic as we don't understand each other's domain really well. Ask Bheem about strategy and you might hear him say "Banks are following a bad strategy", nothing else. When I tell him how "Startups" are approaching a space, he just draws a blank- like a person who is trying to understand the CRED business model.
On the other hand, if you talk about topics like Monetary Policy, fiscal prudence, deficit, moratorium and macroeconomy, Bheem is talking to me whose understanding is rudimentary, at best. You get the sense, we needed to talk to each other better and understand what we do as work. Hence, began The Duologue with a 1-page note shared between us.
The Read Margin folks were an inspiration for our newsletter initiation and we tried to follow their footsteps. Only later did we realise that writing regularly is not an easy job. Mad respect to all newsletter writers who do it on an everyday basis!
We did reach your inbox on most months, sometimes 4 times and other times only once (except February, 2020 - We didn't have enough days to write one after realising we forgot to write one). Our Views are single digits on all days but we ended up with 50 Subscribers and one viral post on "Jio".
Moving on to the meta thread of my writings and themes over the last year and short update on them.
Relook
ZUCKERBERG
He became the protagonist of two stories that I wrote, the very first piece was on Libra. Libra was Facebook's push to build decentralised money on blockchain whose failure was evident as it was structured around the one thing blockchain was envisioned not be, Zuckerberg. I wrote why this is the case in "Libra: Single Point of Failure". Since then nothing much happened on this front until Shopify, the E-commerce company joining its board.
Shopify and Facebook coordinated to launch Shops. Adding to this, the focus on the payments has increased for WhatsApp. Clearly, outlining the direction that Facebook wants to move towards. It is an economy that is far bigger than most countries. Now, it wants to have a currency that is of its own.
Streaming: Default Consumption
I embarked on a 3-part series covering a wide range of topics surrounding streaming services. It started with the premise of Streaming Wars where I looked at multiple services and dissected their intent behind running a streaming service. Covid-19 has increased the adoption of such services with people staying indoors and looking to watch more content. The whole fallacy that having these many streaming services is not viable has been proven wrong as each service has its own strategy behind its existence, except Quibi. Will write about Quibi and a general update in future.
Next, I looked at the Indian market for OTTs and postulated how the sector grew in Shifting Contours. Telecom is the stone and will remain so. Also, the focus on OTT regulation will be another development that is something to look for in future.
I concluded the piece by merging all the different aspects and trying to piece all of it together in "Picking Winners". This one will need a closer look as Jio is poised to enter the fray, and as production schedules get disrupted causing most of the streaming services to not have enough content to tide the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food: We are not as hungry as the delivery Platforms want us to be
If you browse through the archive of Duologue, you might come to the conclusion that we are food delivery focused newsletter. I am certain that I will not stop writing about them as they are a unique set of companies that convey a lot of things about our current surroundings and economy. All the companies have realised their true purpose, Customer demand. With COVID-19, as the demand shifted so did these companies shift. Wrote all about it in Pandemic Lessons
I started with covering Zomato and it's perils where I outlined what Zomato is and why it was in a media storm. Since then, Covid-19 happened and I again did a brief overview of it in "Pandemic Lessons".
Zomato is alive and kicking. It recently claimed in its quarterly results to be close to profitability. Even taking that at face value, I am for one encouraged. 80% of demand dropped due to COVID-19 in food delivery, profitability is the only way forward for Zomato.
I covered the fundamental concept of Aggregators Vs Platforms as it irked me that the media was reporting these Food Delivery services as platforms. In this series, I also wrote about the "Fault lines in Food Delivery Businesses" which came into full fruition in the pandemic. When the Lockdowns hit after COVID-19, these companies quickly adopted what their customers need (groceries, alcohol and butler services) but not what their suppliers needed. In essence, a partner is a level below compared to the end customer. And the way out would not be paying up as I mentioned in the piece, but by embracing delivery as a service.
An interesting development as an unintended consequence of the China-India standoff at the border was the extra compliance for Chinese funds to invest in Indian Startups. With Zomato and Swiggy having Chinese funds as investors, future monies remains an issue to be resolved. Both have cut down staff and have extended their runways for the time being and started charging for delivery, FINALLY. The newest entrant, Amazon is trying to enter the fray and dip its toes with food delivery. Do not worry, I got this beat covered as I keep paying delivery charges now.
Revise
Staycations: Pandemic Flip
Travel, hospitality and tourism are some of the worst-hit industries due to the pandemic and I tried to cover its effects by focusing on one company, Airbnb. I wrote the before and after story of it in Stay: Redefined and "Launching Travel" respectively.
Prior to the pandemic, our OYO was facing some troubles itself which I covered in "OYO: Over your own". Post the pandemic, the media’s ire on Softbank and it's children have vanished. So, hard to give you an update on this. But, I am bullish on writing a piece that kind of sums up how Stay will develop in the post-pandemic world. More opportunities to develop and design businesses around new habits formed by people living through pandemic times.
Re-Learn
Jio had provided me with an opportunity to re-learn multiple things that I think one should brush up on: First mover advantage is a fallacy. Market rewards risk and ambition over coercion and cronyism. Every crisis should be taken as an opportunity. Thank you Mr. Ambani for helping me with these lessons.
I wrote when Facebook invested in Jio, "Opportunistic Deal" and then summed up the entire saga of fundraising in a subsequent post called "Self Reliance". You could give it a read and get up to speed if somehow you missed it.
Flipkart had to do its fair share of re-learning and is poised to strategically approach the Hyperlocal delivery once again. All its moves were covered in "Fill your cart"
Final Words
COVID-19 remains a distant relative who shows up at your doorstep unannounced and refuses to leave. I am worried about it but as the famous cliche goes "Business never stops" and so we move on to the next year of Duologue. We hope to be around to write a 2 year anniversary post.
Our Focus will remain to be consistent and thoughtful when we probe more on the topics that pique our interest. Yet, things have changed since we started and there are way more fellow writers that cover different aspects of business world. So, if you are here for hot-takes and analysis you should follow them as well.
Simplanations by Vivek Raju and Azar Jafri covers business topics, brand stories and concepts in a simple manner with easily digestible info graphs.
Tanvi Dessai writes a daily newsletter called Filter Coffee that covers the major news stories of the previous day supplementing your coffee time. She does a killer job with memes. Subscribe to be apprised of business moves and deals happening around you.
Vedica Kant and Anmol write at Hind covering the week's happenings in India. Vedica had written the most articulate pieces on JIO (1,2) which were quoted by both mainstream media and foreign writers like Ben Thompson.
Lastly, I would like to end this wishing you all a Happy Independence day 🇮🇳.
Thank you for being patient and continuing to read us.
Regards,
Vivek
The Duologue is an effort by Vivek and Bheem to have a dialogue about varying topics. If you liked what you read, you can subscribe to our newsletter.
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