divyaagarwal's Profile

I’ve been interested in how Stripe operates differently – thanks for your thoughtful analysis!

I find it really interesting that American Express and Visa would invest in Stripe considering that they’ve been pushing their own payment processing pretty hard. Similarly, it is curious that Stripe would accept funding from these two sources. What is the benefit to Stripe? It feels to me that AmEx and Visa are really trying to push their own payment processing which, considering their scale, could make Stripe obsolete. Does Stripe feel that the benefits they’re providing to their customers extend beyond payment processing? How do these partnerships help ensure Stripe’s long-term success?

Lindsey – I think that this is a great article and I agree with you that it follows in the fitness trend that we’re in.

My biggest concern with Daily Burn is how sticky they are with consumers. Do you know what the churn rate is? Personally, I’ve downloaded Daily Burn but unfortunately never used it! I recognize that I could be the outlier here.

I think that Daily Burn should focus on integrating the app into as many aspects of a consumers’ life as possible. Similar to what Hyperadapting has said above, are there opportunities for Daily Burn to partner with other companies? For example, it would be amazing if they could partner with Nike and a company like FitBit. I imagine that for consumers who would be interested in a service like Daily Burn, they would also be users (or interested users) of other wearable technology. By partnering with one of these companies, Daily Burn could help themselves become even more integrated into people’s lives instead of just relying on their app.

Even though I’ve been a victim of my fair share of parking tickets, I think that this is a great idea.

In addition to the privacy issue you’ve raised, I’m also concerned about accuracy. Right now, the process sounds fairly automated – Arvoo finds that a car has been illegally parked and automatically sends the registered driver a parking ticket. Because of how fast this process is, is there a human somewhere in the chain that is confirming that Arvoo is correct? Given that it’s a startup, I think they should take extra preacautions as they scale to ensure that, if mistakes are made, Arvoo can be ahead of them to avoid a PR nightmare. They could do this by perhaps having a dispute hotline or weekly ridealongs/tests.

Rivigo sounds like an amazing and necessary innovation. It’s making the lives of customers and clients better – what could be better?

How do you think that existing competitors will respond? It seems like they’re creating a solution that relies on their ability to process big data and their scale. But, if existing competitors can do the same thing, does Rivigo have long-term viability? I can see a world where one of the existing trucking companies acquiries Rivigo – is there another scenario where a competitor creates the same service for their customers / drivers and Rivigo continues to survive?

Operator really sounds awesome and has tapped into 2 trends that we see in the startup world: personalization and communication via text messaging.

This service seems like, if it focuses on the US, it competes with Amazon for non-basic items. I’ve noticed lately that when I’ve shopped on Amazon, they are trying to push me to a curated page where they pull together recommendations for well-designed items, instead of your everyday purchases that most people make on Amazon. What they’re lacking and what Operator seems to have achieved is the credibility (from a design perspective)n to make recommendations and an easy to shop interface. With the text messaging feature, Operator has really tapped into a trend that will make on-the-go shopping even easier (especially during the holiday season).

This is so interesting, Smitha!

I would be interested in understanding whether more water is used in the farming input, or during the manufacturing process for the beer itself. As AB works to make it’s internal water use more effective, it would be interesting if they also explored changing beer preferences that use more water. As we look towards craft breweries, we find that they’re delivering a higher alcohol content in a smaller size. If AB could tap into this market, they could reduce their water consumption simply by changing their customers’ preferences given their size.

That being said, I think they will still have to follow your recommendations and explore decreased and more efficient water usage in their manufacuring change since it will be nearly impossible to change consumer behavior completely.

This is a really interesting article!! I, too, love oysters and would be extremely sad to see their extinction.

I think the point of genetically modifying the magnesium levels in oysters’ shells is an interesting one. My impression is that Hog Island Oyster company is small and would not have the margins from their oysters in order to invest in the R&D required to do the research that tests the efficacy, impact on taste, and FDA testing that would have to accompany these new oysters. Because of that, I also feel like if they were to raise money to do so, they may not be incentivized to do so given the free-rider problem that comes with being the first mover.

Because of this, I think that Hog Island will have to focus on other measures to combat climate change, such as forming a collective with other oyster companies to pool resources together to do this research or identify a way to do farming on a larger, more sustainable scale.

Great post, Paul! While Apple’s carbon footprint is large in their manufacturing, are they addressing their footprint with their employees?

As of 2013, Apple employed over 80,000 employees. I imagine that many of these employees drive and do not use public transportation, given the location of HQ and the suburban retail locations. Apple could benefit from reducing it’s employees footprints by considering bus transportation (a la Google and other tech companies) or encouraging their employees to think before they drive. Additionally, they could encourage telecommuting for short periods of time (e.g., 1 day / week or 2).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273439/number-of-employees-of-apple-since-2005/

Super interesting article!

One question that I have moving forward about the impact of climate change on Cooke’s operations are rising sea levels and the unpredictability of weather patterns. As we know, storms are becoming much more violent and difficult to predict. While Cooke’s salmon will be in the ocean and should be unaffected by weather, is there any infrastructure in Cooke’s operations and in salmon farming that they will need to protect? Because Cooke’s operations take place in a tumultuous location, they should be wary about protecting their farms.

This is a very well-structured argument on how the cruise industry can stay afloat (pun intended) in the face of climate change. But, I think that the risks to the business outweigh the potential benefits.

As the public becomes more educated on the impacts of climate change, they are recognizing that the extreme weather patterns (such as Hurricane Matthew that you cited) are the result of our changing climate. I imagine that as the public becomes even more educated and weather patterns (or lack of patterns) persist, people will become wary of sea-voyage for vacations.

I think Royal Carribean and other cruise liners should focus on preparing themselves for the decrease in demand rather than only contingency plans in the face of these changing weather patterns.