Rishi Taparia - Issue #86
This week we look at McDonald’s focus on personalizing the store experience, Apple’s jump into credit cards, Paint-as-a-service, the day a meteor struck the Earth wiping out all life and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
McDonald's $300 Million Bet on Personalized Menus Makes Sense: Here's Why
This week McDonald’s spent $300m to acquire Israeli-based Dynamic Yield, a company building personalization technology. This is an interesting buy for a business that reached global scale on the back of standardization and consistency - two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese on a sesame seed bun is the same everywhere. The idea is to “personalize menus and the ordering experience across the company’s various order channels. Drive thrus are first, followed by kiosks and the McDonald’s mobile app.” And that’s not all - the company is spending a billion dollars to drive the “Experience of the Future” store. If McDonald’s is taking personalization this seriously with ~150 skus (which feels like a lot for them!), any retail not paying this much attention to creating unique experiences in store needs to seriously reconsider whether they’d like to be in business 10 years from now.
The Home of ‘Made in Italy’ Handbags Is Booming
Specialization is a beautiful thing, especially when you’re in the luxury business. Scandicci, a town outside Florence with a population of about 50,000, is quite a busy place. Gucci, Prada and other luxury brands are investing heavily. The draw: worker know-how. With manufacturing employment up 12% over the last two years, this little town certainly reflect the current state of Italy.
Yunji, a startup that enables social commerce via WeChat, files for $200M US IPO
Last year we talked about the meteoric rise of Pinduoduo, a Chinese shopping platform started by an ex-Google engineer that went public raising $1.6bn on a $30bn valuation just 3 years after founding. Now another Chinese e-commerce site, started the same year as Pinduoduo just filed to go public, looking to raise $200m in an IPO. Unlike Pinduoduo however, which is focused on ad sales (like Alibaba’s marketplace), Yunji generates revenue from selling direct to consumer (similar to JD.com). 7.4 million members who contributed 11.9% of its annual revenues and 66.4% of annual transactions - influencer marketing at work!
FinTech
The Apple Card, a Missed Opportunity
This week (as expected) Apple released their Apple Card in partnership with Goldman Sachs in a great example of what the company is aiming to do with their services strategy - bring the Apple touch to old, staid categories. Now, while the card has some tremendous features including activation via a tap onto an iPhone, no interest rates, virtual card numbers for online payments and more, Apple could have gone a lot further when it comes to disrupting financial services. As Nick Abouzeid aptly puts in this critique, “Apple could have built the Everyone Card, democratizing access to the financial privileges of the elite.”
The Credit-Card Kingmaker
Brian Kelly used to be just another HR employee. Now he’s a globally recognized figure, although he goes by a different name: The Points Guy. Started in 2010 as a side hustle, the credit card rewards cards review site now pulls in over $10m a year in banner ad revenue from banks alone and is among the top 5 sites where banks spend advertising dollars, and for good reason: not satisfying TPG likely means the billion dollar ad budget isn’t going to work.
JPMorgan's clampdown on data puts Silicon Valley apps on alert
Data access and ownership is a topic of constant debate, and bank account data is no different. Long-simmering tensions between the financial industry and Silicon Valley startups are erupting behind-the-scenes into a battle over the reams of valuable data held inside Americans’ bank accounts. Banks want to control who gets access to ensure safety and protection (as well as not wanting startups to compete away potential revenue). Startups, by way of consumers signing up and providing access credentials, say they should be granted free access to the information (because well, that’s key to the whole business model).
Technology
‘Avocado Toast’ Is Now a Paint Color
Paint-as-a-service? Why not. With over 5,000 paint colors offered by leading traditional sellers Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams, the only way to buy them being visiting a hardware store or big-box retailer, selecting from an color chips and then waiting while the paint is mixed by an employee, it’s surprising that companies like Clare and Backdrop didn’t emerge sooner.
Now you choose the paint online and have it shipped to your home. Say goodbye to testing paint on your walls, because now the samples are disposable peel-away stickers. Say goodbye, too, to choice overload, because Clare and Backdrop each offer a “curated” selection of about 50 colors.
Grab vs. Go-Jek: Inside Asia’s Battle of the 'Super Apps'
What started as a battle between ride-sharing services has escalated to an all out war across everything from groceries to mortgages for Southeast Asia’s middle class. Grab and Go-Jek have taken the idea of the ‘super app’ to another level using hyperlocal strategies in every market in order to try and attract users to their respective services while trying not to make price the differentiator. Originally largely staying out of each others’ way, the companies are now on actively competing on home turf in a two player Game of Thrones, with Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, and Cambodia the 7 kingdoms. Money has piled into the fight, with $8.6bn raised by Grab and $3.1bn raised by Go-Jek with more to come for sure. This look into the fight by Fortune is among the better I’ve read, well worth the time if you’re at all interested in Southeast Asian technology.
Lyft’s Shares Jump in Trading Debut, Cementing Rise of the Gig Economy
Lyft went public this week, the first in a wave of startup unicorns that will open themselves up to public market scrutiny this year. Shares jumped in early trading, up almost 9% from the list price as public investors clamored to back the gig economy and ride sharing. Congratulations to the company on a reaching major milestone.
Random Tidbits
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
Sixty-six million years ago an asteroid six miles wide hurtled towards the Earth at forty-five thousand miles an hour. The result of the impact? The total annihilation of life on this planet and the recreation of the world. This amazing long read looks at the work of a young paleontologist who made a discovery that could unlock answers to what life looked like at the moment of impact.
The Perfect Irony That ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Film Was Also a Real-Life Scam
As far as articles about the 1MDB scandal go, this one is among the most riveting, largely based on the insanity it describes. Kanye West, Leonardo Di Caprio, million dollar parties, The Wolf of Wall Street (both the guy and the movie)…the tale of Jho Low will certainly be turned into a movie one day and will make The Wolf of Wall Street look like an episode of Sesame Street.
Productivity Isn’t About Time Management. It’s About Attention Management.
“Time management” is not the solution to productivity. It may actually part of the problem.
Quote I’m thinking about: “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” - Abraham Lincoln