crox111's Profile

Awesome post! I think you’re right to point to the examples of Uber and Blackberry as a warning that the threat is very real. For further research, you should look at a company called onefinestay (where Phil worked) that does Airbnb for the ultra high end luxury market and provides the guest with hotel-like amenities and concierge service. I think they might pose the greater threat to the corporate travelers that are the lifeblood of the hotel business. However, given your point that it’s the lower-end hotels that have been most hurt by Airbnb, I am not sure. On the rewards point – I agree with your concern. I think this is something that Airbnb could easily do.

Awesome post! I am a HUGE fan of Headspace. I do not think meditation and mindfulness is a trend – it seems here to stay. I’d like to know more stats about the business – number of paying subscribers, etc. I am concerned that we’re living in the YouTube world as a result, asking someone to pay for this kind of guided meditation is challenging. For example, I do all of my yoga just based on YouTube videos. I think they need to continue to evolve the service to provide value added offerings that simply can’t be found on YouTube in order to make it a viable business.

My main concern with the New York Times is that charging for the subscription has only compounded the reality that the NYT is losing influence and mindshare to online and mobile-first publications like Mic, Vice, and even Buzzfeed. The internet has democratized and commoditized, as you point out, news and I feel that the NYT and WSJ are losing its positions as voices of authority. Furthermore, more and more people are consuming news on social media – through Facebook, Snapchat, etc. How does this effect their advertising revenue if the particular article is in front of the pay wall? I am not sure. If I were the NYT, I’d look to acquire one of these more innovative, digital native news publications to diversify the business.

I agree with JAH that in many ways, this turned out to be more of a marketing move than anything. Do we know anything about how successful this has been? To me, it seems like the main value Amazon might get from this is actually enhanced consumer data it can sell back to the brands (or keep for itself). In my mind, this only marginally enhances the buying experience for the consumer – Amazon already has one-click ordering so this really does not change my buying habits all that much.

Really interesting Raphael. There is also a service that does this for classical music performances, and digitization is also disrupting the live music industry as well. My comment would be that they also think about expanding the product offering from just recorded performances to live streams of shows with value-added enhancements – for example, integrating Virtual Reality so it actually feels like you’re there. I think the sell to the producers is that they are currently limited by the capacity and locations of the theaters. This allows the performance to reach an incremental audience that otherwise wouldn’t have attended, and thus is not cannabalistic.

This was a really thought-provoking post. I had never before considered the amount of waste produced in film production due to the temporary nature of the work. I appreciate your point that increased costs should be shared by the union and the production company, but I think this will be extremely challenging to implement. Production companies and films are already being squeezed on both the cost and revenue sides of their business. Furthermore, I am not sure that convincing a union to bear such costs is at all feasible. That said, I really like your suggestion to add an environmental incentive to all the other incentives offered to production companies to shoot in various locations across the country. I think working with carrots rather sticks might work better in this case.

Awesome post! I think you rightly distinguish between the impact that climate change has on Starbucks inputs – the coffee supply – but also what is being done at the store level to reduce GHG emissions. Has Starbucks stated why they don’t have fully recyclable or compostable cups? This seems to be low-hanging fruit…

Dan – enlightening post about the impact of a health-based business on climate change. The fact that almonds consume 10% of California’s water supply is staggering. I think you’re right on in your suggestions. All things almond have begun a craze, but mono-crop farming isn’t sustainable. The reality is that quality dairy substitutes can be made from any nut or plant-based fat (avocados, coconuts). Califia needs to expand to be the brand to be focused on all plant-based alternatives, not just almonds! In any event, the impact of almond production is still not as bad as that of cows and dairy production.

Awesome post highlighting the tremendous impact that the meat industry has on global pollution. You mention scalability as a key concern. I completely agree, but also think, on a related note, getting their costs down is going to be absolutely critical success. It will be hard to convince people to eat a more sustainability “burger” if it is way more expensive than a conventional one. Furthermore, I am concerned about their distribution strategy. How are they going to evangelize this product around the world? Right now they are limited to partnerships with extremely influential, high-end chefs in American urban markets. What is the goal? To sell in every grocery store? To be on the menu at Applebee’s? To be sold at McDonald’s? I think having a clear sense of mission and purpose will be critical for the company as it starts to expand its distribution.

A very enlightening post! I agree that it is important to understand that this isn’t just done for the sake of the environment – it ultimately comes down to protecting the future margins of the business. The question for me becomes how do you make consumers care? Is sustainability part of your consumer-facing value proposition or just part of internal business operations? Is it that by offering a transparent and in some cases, lower prices, consumers who don’t care about sustainability are somehow converted to the brand? I think figuring out how transparent pricing and sustainability fit into the brand message is critical to adoption.