DJ Song's Profile

Great post! I think airbnb can still allow for experiences in the “world” through other means. Youtube is one option with a video chat “guide” (or either of these as stand alone experiences), but it might be interesting to partner with a VR company or product like minecraft where a virtual version of the existing world has been created. Would this be a viable platform for hosts to provide a cooking class or tour of UNESCO sites for instance? Would this mean that airbnb would be in the rental business for VR sets instead? Not sure if this falls outside airbnb’s scope but perhaps the sets could be insured like shared bikes, where there is a large safety deposit for use that is returned to the user afterwards.

A second aspect which I find very interesting is around buying property and becoming asset heavy. I’m not sure airbnb is best poised to evaluate and purchase properties as their expertise is focused on not just the property but also the service associated with it. That being said, it could provide a new business arm much like Netflix creates its own movies and shows, airbnb can create its own hotel, apartment community, or house.

Interesting post Elisa. This industry was hit really hard and you’ve made some great insights into Zola’s positioning in the market. Since this is a registry for physical goods as well as services, I’m wondering what it means to be “go-to wedding destination to plan every step of the wedding, from the engagement to the very first year of marriage” when COVID-19 is framing what these norms are. If 10+ people weddings are no longer an option and across-world travel honeymoon locations a health risk, couldn’t a wedding could look like a multitude of things? While the company is currently doing damage control with existing clients, in looking towards the future, my question is- should Zola dedicate resources to weddings in COVID-19 times or weddings pre-COVID-19 times?

Great post Nicholas! You bring up some really great ideas of how Disney can pivot into more digital products. I would love to understand a bit more around how the bail outs (for instance the US and a lot of cruise lines) might help cushion Disney’s losses. Additionally, I think there is a large focus on the US arms of the Disney experience but was wondering if there are differences in the international spaces. What do streaming services look like in China for instance? Do domestic regulations impact/improve Disney+’s market share in certain regions and if there are promising markets how can Disney+ create stickiness for other Disney digital solutions?

Thanks for sharing this post/company! I think there’s an opportunity to try and sustain a few favorites here too. If you liked a particular wine (including the year), you could market it as being within x degrees of that wine. Additionally, it would be interesting to see how this impacts the culture of sommeliers (like in certification tests and also wine “rankings”). Is there a lot of differentiation from models used in other agricultural sectors? If costs of adoption are high would this be an alternative exit strategy/partner that Palmaz should consider?

Great article. I agree with a few other points around data privacy issues. In addition, I wonder what kind of redundancies lie for airlines that do this along their own supply-chain/operations as is. I assume there’s a fair amount of this within a company with a delay, food preparations, staffing, passengers, as well as expected problems that might come up like baggage mishandling etc. I’m not sure what interoperability would look like for each company but having airbus be the gatekeeper to this information would be a strategic move and could change the role they play in the industry. Very cool.

Great post and this was my question as well. What does use of this app and continued and/or sustained weight loss look like after 13 weeks? This is especially sensitive for those with diabetes since what and how much they eat impacts insulin levels.

The other question I had was around ability to tie into medical devices that track your insulin levels. If this is really catering towards those with diabetes it would be valuable to understand the integration aspect and if this is a redundant product for that demographic (effectively, do diabetes apps have dieting offerings like yes health).

I agree with this comment. Having exclusive agreements with airbnb etc could disintermediate boatster as we saw with amazon and xfire but perhaps long term agreements would help manage this threat. Creating add-on services for boat owners could help new boat owners but existing owners likely have their own management so another partnership possibility is to use boatster as a way to sell to renters who then become consumers.

Great article. What are your thoughts on dealing with competitors like Grab that is also a superapp with similar offerings and membership structures (gold/platinum and ) and have government support in other asian countries in the area including indonesia. As you mentioned, there is a potential market cap in indonesia and limited penetration outside the country due to the inherent localization of services and being one of first to market in indonesia. They could expand to new markets but has the time to strike passed?

Thanks for a great post!

“Drizly can use its deep knowledge of drinker preferences to curate recommendations and orchestrate the most seamless, user-friendly in-app experience. All of that is difficult for an upstart to copy.” This is a great point and beer-advocate has a similar play for tracking taste and also possible recommendations. I’m wondering if an aspect to expand beyond delivery (and possible competitors like amazon etc) is to partner with restaurants/places with exclusive access to leverage suggestions that are outside of their delivery model.

Thanks for your thoughts. I’d like to follow up on a few things you mentioned:

I see your point with Tonal and I think a lot of what will make Mirror more capable will be on the software side-being able to execute on feedback that is not reliant on actual instructors but rather automated feedback (ai). That being said, I’m assuming that the data in order to get to that point is not something that Mirror has yet. They’d need to be collected from users. There are some targeted data files that have athlete data in Asia for instance but I’m not sure that could be applied for lay people or would be applicable to folks in the US. So in the meantime instructor led classes would be worthwhile with the ability to get feedback via the camera/speaker and added knowledge to the user by self-assessment through the reflection during that feedback.

The Peloton app is also a great idea but largely limited by the hardware that displays information on such a small scale; it would be interesting to see if Mirror has a play as an app hosting product that would be integrated much in the way that alexa/googlehome are.

We shall see how it pans out!

I agree with a lot of your points! I do wonder if there is a space that venmo is not capitalizing on and that is around charitable giving. From your post and my understanding venmo is largely free to use c2c but costs businesses about 3% off customer payments. With a large majority share of the marketplace in the US for c2c transactions it may not be necessary for venmo to tackle this charitable giving transactions in order to remain competitive but i would argue that this type of transaction could be a new market for venmo as the demand for smaller contributions to these causes could go up with venmo’s platform (and perhaps increase stickiness of venmo in multiple types of financial transactions). The current business model is an issue for lean, non-profit, organizations that may not want to loose on donations at such large margins. The other thing that would be interesting to understand in global market is how foreign transaction fees and/or exchange rates would come into play.

Mobile money continues to grow especially in emerging markets. This app is great because it simplifies the process of connecting funds across countries from different parties and as I understand, would still work as a delivery model to those with mobile phones (that aren’t smart). I wonder about two things 1. how this might be helpful on the b2b or b2c level and what kind of tax implications there might be and 2. is there a way or a reason to penetrate the non-smartphone mobile user market? If non users bought a phone could it be assumed that they would get a feature phone instead of a smartphone? I wonder what the upside would look like with changes in these factors.

Entering the grocery market was an interesting, and as you pointed out, strategically complementary move to their existing offerings. One aspect that I’d be interested to know more about is how this offering could play out in international markets. Amazon made a bid to buy Deliveroo which operates in 14 or so countries (like France and Australia) but since “food delivery” encompasses both delivery of foods from restaurants (where competition is already high) and grocery stores, would this change Amazon’s “winning” model?