Saad Hirani's Profile

It’s always incredible to me when a store is able to find sources of data in person to be able to improve CX! I still think they’re a little behind the other furniture stores like Williams Sonoma etc. who have done several AR / VR acquisitions to help customers plan their homes and shopping better, but also think that might be because of their customer base / demographic. I also wonder how much they are integrated the in-store experience with more targeted email campaigns (something along the lines of ‘we saw you didn’t check out the bed you scanned twice and spent 10 minutes looking at, what were you looking for / here’s a discount, etc.)

This is super interesting! I wonder if this has the bias of self-enforcing what you’re good at vs. what you want to do? If someone hates excel models but is really good at them, how does the algorithm balance agency in project choice / what they find interesting vs. what is necessary for the firm to succeed and what they are good at?

Thanks for this post Lina! I wish this existed when I was first an international student – i do believe the nuance between knowing English and speaking it in an “acceptable” or “understandable” accent is important to consider. I also wonder about whether “background” listening is something they have considered. I know there are ethical implications but my first thought was my own speaking would be slightly biased to the app (like how I speak in a different accent at HBS vs. with Pakistani friends).

This is such a great post, Irina! One concern that I saw against TGTG while studying food waste management was the effect that monetizing food that would otherwise not be sold has on charity – i.e. if you can sell the remaining 12 bagels for $2 instead of $6, do you take away from charities that would otherwise receive the still good but unsold food? I haven’t seen any data online to justify claims either way, but am always concerned about the impact of these apps on food banks / other forms of donation that rely on receiving free food!

This was super interesting! I also look at insurance from the flip perspective – their entire competitive advantage is leveraging the mispricing of assets to monetize incorrectly priced risk – but data is growing; risk is becoming (maybe?) more predictable – if that is the case, will insurance even be around?

Similar to Kate, I think that’s where Flexport has so much potential – as an OS system, leveraging various customers’ data with their permission to try to find efficiencies in supply chain / utilizing capacity is such a huge value add that they can do. It’s also incredibly interesting to think of that problem from a sustainability perspective 🙂

This is so fascinating – never thought about thinking of how songs have become shorter over time, but it makes perfect sense as to why! I am disappointed by their data use though – I haven’t found as much value in their recommendations, which is especially surprising given I’ve been a user for 10 years – but maybe that’s why this whole thing is so tough, music is so emotional and subjective 🙂