Arvind's Newsletter

1.Business model innovation in E-commerce: As Amazon and Flipkart are working overtime to break Meesho’s hold in the unbranded space, the young marketplace has entered the branded segment. It wants to push consumer brands to its aspirational user base and earn some commissions.

When SoftBank-backed Meesho pivoted from a reseller-based social-commerce platform to a full-fledged e-commerce marketplace two years ago, little did large e-commerce marketplaces know that it would transform into a multi-billion dollar business and a force to reckon with. With a million sellers and USD5 billion in gross sales last year, Meesho shook the horizontal e-commerce market even as India’s business world was crystal-gazing whether Reliance Jio would break the Flipkart-Amazon duopoly.

What sets Meesho apart from its giant competitors and helped it pull the rug from under their feet was its zero commission strategy. Small sellers flocked to Meesho ‘s marketplace, thanks to VC money that powered the startup’s technology and marketing. The zero commission also meant sellers priced products lower on the platform compared to other marketplaces.

Having won sellers, buyers and volumes by matching unbranded products in the low end it has tweaked its strategy by selling branded items at a commission’s to its 100 mn user base, a large part spread across India’s small towns.

Will this strategy work? Let’s wait and watch - at moment 90% of 2.5 mn daily orders are in the unbranded category but as its share of branded increases it will hurt Flipkart and Amazon.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/prime/technology-and-startups/meesho-takes-the-fight-to-amazon-flipkarts-territory-as-it-taps-brands-commissions-in-revenue-push/primearticleshow/101834614.cms?giftid=02q23a8ekdty0j2gcmrb5x19q6wu3l3a&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialsharebuttons&utm_source=clipboard_web

2.Commercial real estate is poised to take a $800 billion hit from remote work.

Having the option to work flexibly—whether that’s remotely, or on a hybrid schedule that mixes in-person and at-home time—has done a lot for employees. People who can work where they want say they’re more productive (pdf), more independent, and more content with their jobs. Less happy, though, are commercial office owners—and the companies currently leasing their spaces—who are sitting on empty buildings.

This week, a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute looks at how remote and hybrid work are changing real estate in the world’s biggest urban centres. Their projection: In nine global cities, remote work is poised to wipe out up to $800 billion of office value by 2030. And that’s just the moderate projection.

McKinsey’s report focuses on nine “superstar” cities—Beijing, Houston, London, New York City, Paris, Munich, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo—with a high share of the world’s urban GDP and GDP growth. Among its conclusions: Hybrid work is here for good, and investors need to adjust accordingly, lest they risk bigger losses for cities themselves.

3. Media and Entertainment industry continues to transform.

   Not only Star India, Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, is considering selling its linear TV business (anchored by the ABC network), though plans to keep the ESPN sports TV business. The linear TV business model is broken (leaning on carriage fees from cable companies where pay TV subscription is now down almost half from the peak), which is important context for the writers’ and actors’ strike. To recap for those who came late, linear TV is a traditional system in which a viewer watches a scheduled TV program when it's broadcasted and on its original channel.

4. Amazing but true: For over 10 years, millions of emails associated with the US military have been getting sent to Mali, a West African country allied with Russia, due to a typo, according to a report from the Financial Times. Instead of appending the military’s .MIL domain to their recipient’s email address, people frequently type .ML, the country identifier for Mali, by mistake.
   

   Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur contracted to manage Mali’s domain, tells the Financial Times that this has been happening for over a decade despite his repeated attempts to warn the US government. When Zuurbier began noticing requests for nonexistent domains, like army.ml and navy.ml, he set up a system to catch these misdirected emails, which the Financial Times reports “was rapidly overwhelmed and stopped collecting messages.”
   

   Since January alone, Zuurbier has reportedly intercepted 117,000 misdirected emails, several of which contain sensitive information related to the US military. According to the Financial Times, many of the emails include medical records, identity document information, lists of staff at military bases, photos of military bases, naval inspection reports, ship crew lists, tax records, and more.

5.Messi vs Ronaldo: measuring greatness according the FT Scoreboard of Financial Times, by Simon Kuper, sports journalist and author of Soccernomics (if you are football fan and not read this book you must).

With Lionel Messi moving to the US and Cristiano Ronaldo playing in Saudi Arabia, football’s most scintillating player rivalry is probably over at the highest level. As a new generation of goal-scorers lights up the sport, what is the legacy of Messi and Ronaldo – and can either of them claim to be the greatest.

The video is worth watching but at least read this transcript.

On June 3, Lionel Messi played his last game for Paris Saint-Germain against Clermont in France's Ligue Un. Now, with the 38-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo playing in Saudi Arabia, the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry, the best in the game's history, is probably ending at top level. But who won?

Goals seem a measure, but they're a good way to value forwards. Ronaldo leads slightly, but only because he scored more penalties. Messi is narrowly ahead on non-penalty goals after a shorter career. Add in assists, laying on goals for teammates, and it's clear, Messi is the greater player. Whereas Ronaldo is merely a brilliant goal scorer, Messi is two in one, brilliant scorer and brilliant provider.

Both sustained their greatness for nearly 20 years, which is unprecedented. They benefited from improved nutrition, training, and a crackdown on violent fouls. Messi has won more individual and team honours then Ronaldo, but we shouldn't over interpret Messi winning the World Cup, especially because Argentina has more than four times Portugal's population and Ronaldo was 37 in Qatar.

But note that Argentina is the only non-European country even to reach the podium, the top three places, in the last five World Cups. That's how special Messi is. He can beat the best Europeans. Had Messi and Ronaldo quit around 2019 their careers would still have dwarfed all their predecessors. In almost any other era Ronaldo would have been the best.

Lewandowski and Benzema also benefited from unprecedented longevity, scoring into their mid-thirties. Over their careers they too have now outscored all past greats. Mbappe and Haaland are rising, but the best young player ever was arguably Ronaldo Fenomeno, the Brazilian. True, he scored his early goals in the Brazilian and Dutch leagues, but at a time when those leagues were relatively strong. Ronaldo then suffered several serious injuries, which blighted his career. He still won a World Cup. Without injuries, could he have outshone Messi?onaldo – and can either of them claim to be the greatest?