Gaurav Chawla's Profile

Interesting post NR!
I see the expansion of this ecosystem by other cool gadgets coming our way – like photography through drones and wearable camera. Intel is doing some interesting work on smart glasses (lie google glass). Though it’s not clear yet if they will focus on photography or tech in general.
Blincam is one such startup building a product that can be attached to any eyegear and clicks a picture with a blink. More here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKul4f239z4

That was quite a ‘yummy’ post 🙂 and on a less talked industry when it comes to digital transformation. Domino’s has clearly outpaced its competitors in delivering the core value – good quality pizza with a good consumer experience in terms of ordering and delivery. It will be interesting to see if Domino’s takes it to next level by further leveraging on the data collected to recommend users the pizza flavors (and sides) that they might like or introduce new pizza flavors backed by data analytics.

Thanks Ge! For sure, Audio books (and courses) market is still untapped and has huge potential. It will be interesting to see how users who are fond of reading, respond to audiobooks. One value that reading provides (and audio does not) is that it helps a person to concentrate on the book and disconnect with other thoughts for that duration. I am not sure if it would be feasible with audiobooks which actually helps you multi-task (like driving while listening), which is another kind of value creation though.

Thanks for your comment!
I would say the market has evolved from: print books- store pickup –> print books- ecommerce –> ebooks –> e-books on e-reader –> ecosystem of reading with multi-device access, audiobooks, self-publishing. Hence, I would see the decline of e-reader is a testimony of evolution of this ecosystem.
I agree with your concerns on content quality with ease of publication. I guess the social cataloging websites like goodreads will grow stronger with time as they help to classify the content based on reviews, ratings, quality etc.

Interesting post Ge! Quite an unexpected insight. Although the numbers presented clearly support the argument that smartwatch industry is growing I wonder if the growth is due to the ‘real’ added value or because of the status / ‘tech-savvyness’ label you enjoy when you own a cool smartwatch as you mentioned in one of your points. Despite being so highly priced, I feel the perceived value of these watches is even higher and usually get compared to owing a luxury traditional watch – which is even more expensive which makes it a product of desire. As a user of apple watch, I struggle to find tangible value in the product, rather feel it as an extension of features from pocket (phone) to wrist. Moreover, the low battery life (as touched upon by NR) leads to frequent charging that makes it unavailable for you when you just need to grab it and get out of the house. I second the comment as mentoned by others that smartwatches definitely need new innovative features (tracking health is one good attempt) to sustain the growth beyond just marketing and branding.

Great thought! I can’t agree with you more. There is a clear tangible benefit of using less paper, ink, logistics etc. that helps the environment – thus making it as a winner. However, I don’t think this gain can be ruled out because of our addiction to screen as I would argue there are better ways of avoiding screen than by not reading books which is a great source of knowledge and fun. We are living in a world where using screen (laptop/smartphone) is inevitable and I see reading online as one of the best use of these devices. What do you think?

Thank for your reply. There is definitely a similarity between the shift that we see in books or music or videos. One thing that I personally feel differentiates books from the rest is that more people still ‘feel’ for books and like to have a hard copy as a collection than the ones who like to keep physical music or video library. So I don’t think we will ever 100% move from print to digital.
As far as decline of bookstores is concerned it is due to 1) shift of printed books sale from stores to online followed by 2) shift from print to ebooks (that obviously don’t require a store). Barnes&Noble tried to adapt to this change by providing a reading experience within the store (through instore seating and starbucks) and launching Nook but it is still struggling hard to compete with this whole digital shift and the accompanying concepts (like audible and goodreads) that readers enjoy by shifting to digital book.

Great post Ge! No doubt platforms like edX are one of the greatest innovation that brings high quality education closer to the masses. Not only it’s affordable, it’s equally immersive and disciplined in its approach. Another way I see edX can create value in future is by going beyond the course. It can form a community of people/students with shared interests where people can continue to expand their knowledge based by sharing and discussing with each other even after the course ends. It can be an advanced form of discussion forum that they currently have on their portal which is only active until the duration of the course. This way doing a course on edX will just become the beginning of the plethora of knowledge one can gain in the field of interest.

This is quite interesting. A simple solution with a great impact. However, I can see a direct competition with fully automated apps like Babbel which are much cheaper and more convenient to use. Although the big differentiator here is face to face tutoring but I am not sure if this factor would be good enough for parents to enroll their child in this program which although affordable but still costs a big chunk of money.

Built on the principle of 3R (Reduce-Resue-Recycle), the app clearly has a great social and economic value. The idea of using “Little Red Flowers” is also impressive – this would allow user’s focus more on sharing and helping than monetizing. Another way I can think this platform can capture value is monetizing on promoting companies’ sustainability initiatives like ‘buy back’, ‘recycle programs’ etc. on the platform and target the potential customers based on the exchanges they make on the platform (For ex. if someone has bought a printer, the next obvious step is to propose the customer to buy recycled paper from a featured company)

I agree that keeping the users active on the platform for years (or even months) is definitely a big challenge for any such platform despite continuous differentiation or creativity. However, TikTok does have, what we can call a second mover advantage. They have seen what doesn’t work and that’s priceless for any startup. The features like ‘swipe’ for next video, user-friendly interface and easy editing of videos are a notch above what Vine or musically had. Moreover, TikTok breaks the expectation of being exceptionally good in terms of idea and execution for a content creator as it was for Vine. The app markets itself as ‘come as you are’ which makes people comfortable to upload silly or casual videos that are funny and entertaining. This greatly expands the content creators pie for TikTok which is a huge advantage and a major driver for future growth.