A few divisions - Taobao (B2C marketplace), Tmall (High-end B2C marketplace), Alibaba (B2B marketplace, Cainiu(logistics)..
1) Let's talk about how Alibaba has achieved the holy grail of big data - a holistic view of the consumer - through a plethora of product offerings and investment.
This is their overarching moat. And Amazon's got nothing on them.
A few divisions - Taobao (B2C marketplace), Tmall (High-end B2C marketplace), Alibaba (B2B marketplace, Cainiu(logistics)..
Also the promotional strategy is weird, In the lead-up to singles day, half the time they were promoting some cat rearing in-app mini game.
Wtf?
The meta-data from all of this is staggering, but they aren't done yet
Enter the mini-games.
There was never a quicker way to find out who loves you enough to be cats with you
Enter two more important players in game - Ant and Weibo.
Former subsidary Ant offering payment, credit, insurance and asset management, but the payment data is the real gold.
Ideal customer to offer high price items and credit products to.
Or maybe I'm only saying that since I've developed a major Taobao habit.
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🚨 192% Growth SPAC 🚨
💸 Katapult provides leasing solution for e-commerce websites
🔥 It enables non-prime customers to lease durable goods online
🚩ALL founders left and $CURO owns 50% of Katapult
⁉️ What is hidden behind the $FSRV SPAC ⁉️
Here is an EASY thread 👇
Katapult was founded in 2012 and was initially called Zibby and operated by Cognical
💸 By 2015, it had raised $ 10m in equity and debt from VC funds such as Tribeca Venture Partners and Blumberg
Cognical was founded by 👇
Brandon Wright - a Cornell MBA who later founded @payfully
Ashutosh Saxena - a PhD in AI from Stanford (awards: https://t.co/YfViWWXqru)
Chinedu Eleanya - a serial entrepreneur who later founded @GetMulberry which sells extended warranty to shoppers
Zibby was a “Lease-To-Own” service designed for durable goods & products (furniture, appliances, electronics)
1️⃣ When customers purchase an item online, Zibby retains the rights to this item
2️⃣ Zibby rents the item to the customer
3️⃣ The customer can decide to purchase the full ownership rights of the item at any time
This model proved successful and Zibby was incubated by Cornell
💸 Katapult provides leasing solution for e-commerce websites
🔥 It enables non-prime customers to lease durable goods online
🚩ALL founders left and $CURO owns 50% of Katapult
⁉️ What is hidden behind the $FSRV SPAC ⁉️
Here is an EASY thread 👇
Katapult was founded in 2012 and was initially called Zibby and operated by Cognical
💸 By 2015, it had raised $ 10m in equity and debt from VC funds such as Tribeca Venture Partners and Blumberg
Cognical was founded by 👇
Brandon Wright - a Cornell MBA who later founded @payfully
Ashutosh Saxena - a PhD in AI from Stanford (awards: https://t.co/YfViWWXqru)
Chinedu Eleanya - a serial entrepreneur who later founded @GetMulberry which sells extended warranty to shoppers
Zibby was a “Lease-To-Own” service designed for durable goods & products (furniture, appliances, electronics)
1️⃣ When customers purchase an item online, Zibby retains the rights to this item
2️⃣ Zibby rents the item to the customer
3️⃣ The customer can decide to purchase the full ownership rights of the item at any time
This model proved successful and Zibby was incubated by Cornell
A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
Useful concept: the media stack for content creators
— balajis.com (@balajis) January 20, 2020
- Spotify, iTunes for podcasts
- Descript for podcast editing
- Figma, Canva for graphics
- YouTube for video
- Twitter, FB for distribution
- Substack for newsletters
- Makerpad for nocode
- Ghost, Medium for blog
What else?
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
Introducing "The Balloon Effect"
Many businesses & creators have experienced a similar pattern of success.
From @MrBeastYT and @MorningBrew to @oatly and @Rovio.
Let's break down what "The Balloon Effect" is and examples of it in real life.
Keep reading 👇
1/ What is "The Balloon Effect"?
It is a particular pattern of growth.
It is not Instagram's growth trajectory.
It is not https://t.co/5axsTUKek6's growth trajectory.
"The Balloon Effect" is defined by several years of hard work & grit complemented by slow, linear growth.
2/ And then one day, one month, or one quarter...everything changes.
A business hits a tipping point and its trajectory shifts entirely.
Gradual growth turns to exponential growth & your brand and your size explode.
Like a step function.
3/ Now, you're probably wondering.
Why is it called "The Balloon Effect"?
Because filling/popping a water balloon follows the exact pattern I just described (and so many businesses experience).
Long unsexy slog 👉 Exponential tipping point.
4/ Initially, you turn on the faucet & water takes up space in the empty balloon.
Through effort you open the faucet, yet the results are unexciting.
But it's what must be done for water (or growth) to happen at all.
It's not sexy, but it's necessary.
Many businesses & creators have experienced a similar pattern of success.
From @MrBeastYT and @MorningBrew to @oatly and @Rovio.
Let's break down what "The Balloon Effect" is and examples of it in real life.
Keep reading 👇
1/ What is "The Balloon Effect"?
It is a particular pattern of growth.
It is not Instagram's growth trajectory.
It is not https://t.co/5axsTUKek6's growth trajectory.
"The Balloon Effect" is defined by several years of hard work & grit complemented by slow, linear growth.
2/ And then one day, one month, or one quarter...everything changes.
A business hits a tipping point and its trajectory shifts entirely.
Gradual growth turns to exponential growth & your brand and your size explode.
Like a step function.
3/ Now, you're probably wondering.
Why is it called "The Balloon Effect"?
Because filling/popping a water balloon follows the exact pattern I just described (and so many businesses experience).
Long unsexy slog 👉 Exponential tipping point.
4/ Initially, you turn on the faucet & water takes up space in the empty balloon.
Through effort you open the faucet, yet the results are unexciting.
But it's what must be done for water (or growth) to happen at all.
It's not sexy, but it's necessary.
1/An interesting thing happened tonight. I was scrolling through clubhouse and found WileyCEO, Godfather of Grime (kicked off Twitter in July for antisemitic tweets) speaking. So I tweeted this (and included a screen shot, later deleted as I found out TOS don't allow it ...
2/ ... and several folks also asked me to remove it which I promptly did afterwards).... Coming into the CH room, I fully intended to confront him about how hurtful his comments in July were. But as I listened to the folks in the room, I decided to go a different direction ....
3/ the conversation jumped around, covered many topics and there were between 8-14 people up on stage. But a recurring thread was discussion of racism, bigotry, comparison of it in the US vs UK vs elsewhere.
4/ when I got a chance to speak, I had 5 bullets written down: a) we should harness technology and capitalism to make reparations for what America did to Black people. I gave https://t.co/SlrW8zCd58 (a project a couple friends co-started) as an example) ...
5/ b) capitalism and product know-how and technology can be harnessed for social justice c) historically oppressed minorities need to stick together and lastly, d) "Wiley, how could you say such hurtful things about Jews as a people?" That's what I had ready to say, anyway.
2/ ... and several folks also asked me to remove it which I promptly did afterwards).... Coming into the CH room, I fully intended to confront him about how hurtful his comments in July were. But as I listened to the folks in the room, I decided to go a different direction ....
3/ the conversation jumped around, covered many topics and there were between 8-14 people up on stage. But a recurring thread was discussion of racism, bigotry, comparison of it in the US vs UK vs elsewhere.
4/ when I got a chance to speak, I had 5 bullets written down: a) we should harness technology and capitalism to make reparations for what America did to Black people. I gave https://t.co/SlrW8zCd58 (a project a couple friends co-started) as an example) ...
5/ b) capitalism and product know-how and technology can be harnessed for social justice c) historically oppressed minorities need to stick together and lastly, d) "Wiley, how could you say such hurtful things about Jews as a people?" That's what I had ready to say, anyway.
