They need repeat custom.
The payments wars in Japan are heating up and one of the battlegrounds is convenience store coffee.
“Coffee? What does that have to do with payments?” I’m glad you asked.
They need repeat custom.
The price point is $1 to about $2.
But the coffee is not very defensible
Enter payment apps.
And since booze and tobacco can’t meaningfully be used...
Family Mart has a closed loop store value app called Family Pay. It is a barcode based payment and does basically what you expect it to.
It is also a coupon platform, and will sell you an anywhere-in-chain “11 drinks for price of 10.”
App tracks progress. 6 more to go!
(I cropped the screen to avoid giving you a barcode that would let anyone snatch my coffee.)
Automating all of this and having funds flow go Corp -> franchisee not F>C>F ameliorated problem.
More from Patrick McKenzie
There are a *lot* of software shops in the world that would far rather have one more technical dependency than they'd like to pay for one of their 20 engineers to become the company's SPOF expert on the joys of e.g. HTTP file uploads, CSV parsing bugs, PDF generation, etc.
Every year at MicroConf I get surprised-not-surprised by the number of people I meet who are running "Does one thing reasonably well, ranks well for it, pulls down a full-time dev salary" out of a fun side project which obviates a frequent 1~5 engineer-day sprint horizontally.
"Who is the prototypical client here?"
A consulting shop delivering a $X00k engagement for an internal system, a SaaS company doing something custom for a large client or internally facing or deeply non-core to their business, etc.
(I feel like many of these businesses are good answers to the "how would you monetize OSS to make it sustainable?" fashion, since they often wrap a core OSS offering in the assorted infrastructure which makes it easily consumable.)
"But don't the customers get subscription fatigue?"
I think subscription fatigue is far more reported by people who are embarrassed to charge money for software than it is experienced by for-profit businesses, who don't seem to have gotten pay-biweekly-for-services fatigue.
On a serious note, it's interesting to observe that you can build a decent business charging $20 - $50 per month for something that any good developer can set up. This is one of those micro-saas sweet spots between "easy for me to build" and "tedious for others to build"
— Jon Yongfook (@yongfook) September 5, 2019
Every year at MicroConf I get surprised-not-surprised by the number of people I meet who are running "Does one thing reasonably well, ranks well for it, pulls down a full-time dev salary" out of a fun side project which obviates a frequent 1~5 engineer-day sprint horizontally.
"Who is the prototypical client here?"
A consulting shop delivering a $X00k engagement for an internal system, a SaaS company doing something custom for a large client or internally facing or deeply non-core to their business, etc.
(I feel like many of these businesses are good answers to the "how would you monetize OSS to make it sustainable?" fashion, since they often wrap a core OSS offering in the assorted infrastructure which makes it easily consumable.)
"But don't the customers get subscription fatigue?"
I think subscription fatigue is far more reported by people who are embarrassed to charge money for software than it is experienced by for-profit businesses, who don't seem to have gotten pay-biweekly-for-services fatigue.
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
If everyone was holding bitcoin on the old x86 in their parents basement, we would be finding a price bottom. The problem is the risk is all pooled at a few brokerages and a network of rotten exchanges with counter party risk that makes AIG circa 2008 look like a good credit.
— Greg Wester (@gwestr) November 25, 2018
The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.
This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.
The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."
This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
More from Finance
THREAD: Who are the rising stars of Chinese elite politics in the central Party-State bureaucracy?
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing
TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year
All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress
Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)
https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2
Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office
He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022
Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)
Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office
He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years
Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)
Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012
Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
1/ I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my new website, a one-stop shop for all the content I'm creating.
There you'll find links to all my podcasts, the TTMYGH newsletter, and other exciting future projects.
2/ In 2020, I reignited my passion for interviewing brilliant people by launching The Grant Williams Podcast in various forms, including The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, and The Narrative Game.
3/ Starting February 1, I'm taking the bold step of moving these podcasts completely behind a paywall.
For the very affordable price of only $10 a month, listeners can gain access to the Copper Tier of https://t.co/fxUfH8maI4, which includes all current & future podcasts.
4/ Why am I doing this? First and foremost, I aspire to create VALUABLE content. By definition, if something is priced at $0, it isn’t valuable. The time, effort and creativity that goes into these episodes is substantial. To keep doing them properly, they can no longer be free.
5/ I also strongly believe content creators should be able to make a living creating content. If everything is free, that’s not possible. I never seriously considered accepting outside sponsors – complete integrity is too critical to me.
There you'll find links to all my podcasts, the TTMYGH newsletter, and other exciting future projects.
2/ In 2020, I reignited my passion for interviewing brilliant people by launching The Grant Williams Podcast in various forms, including The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, and The Narrative Game.
3/ Starting February 1, I'm taking the bold step of moving these podcasts completely behind a paywall.
For the very affordable price of only $10 a month, listeners can gain access to the Copper Tier of https://t.co/fxUfH8maI4, which includes all current & future podcasts.
4/ Why am I doing this? First and foremost, I aspire to create VALUABLE content. By definition, if something is priced at $0, it isn’t valuable. The time, effort and creativity that goes into these episodes is substantial. To keep doing them properly, they can no longer be free.
5/ I also strongly believe content creators should be able to make a living creating content. If everything is free, that’s not possible. I never seriously considered accepting outside sponsors – complete integrity is too critical to me.
Ok here is the explanation. Grab a cup of coffee and read on. If you have not read/noticed this, you will see intraday options movement in a new light.
Say we have two options, one 50 delta ATM options and another 30 delta OTM option. Normally for a 100 point move, the ATM option will move 50 points and the OTM option will move 30 points. But in a high volatile environment, the OTM option will also move nearly 50 points
To understand why this happens, first understand why an ATM option is 50 delta. An ATM option has the probability of 50% of expiring as ITM. The price just has to close a rupee above the strike for the CE to be ITM and vice versa for PEs
Now think of a highly volatile day like today. If someone is asked where the BNF will close for the day or expiry, no one can answer. BNF can close freakin anywhere, That makes every option of an equal probability of being ITM. So all options have a 50% probability of being ITM
Hence, when a huge volatile move starts, all OTM options behave like ATM options. This phenomenon was first observed in the Black Monday crash of 1987 at Wall Street, which also gave rise to the volatility skew/smirk
In a high IV environment or when the market is very volatile
— Subhadip Nandy (@SubhadipNandy16) January 21, 2022
" OTM options will behave like ATM options", one will get almost the same delta movement
Say we have two options, one 50 delta ATM options and another 30 delta OTM option. Normally for a 100 point move, the ATM option will move 50 points and the OTM option will move 30 points. But in a high volatile environment, the OTM option will also move nearly 50 points
To understand why this happens, first understand why an ATM option is 50 delta. An ATM option has the probability of 50% of expiring as ITM. The price just has to close a rupee above the strike for the CE to be ITM and vice versa for PEs
Now think of a highly volatile day like today. If someone is asked where the BNF will close for the day or expiry, no one can answer. BNF can close freakin anywhere, That makes every option of an equal probability of being ITM. So all options have a 50% probability of being ITM
Hence, when a huge volatile move starts, all OTM options behave like ATM options. This phenomenon was first observed in the Black Monday crash of 1987 at Wall Street, which also gave rise to the volatility skew/smirk
