Rishi Taparia - Issue #88
This week we explore the tech and people that power Swiggy’s delivery service in India, Venmo pushing a credit card (really…), the cost efficiencies of renewables, pigs coming back from the dead (well, sort of) and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
The tech that makes Swiggy tick — and what’s coming next
Swiggy is the Uber Eats of India, a startup valued at $3bn, live in 100 cities, getting hangry customers food in a few clicks. This is a terrific read on the company and how they have managed to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. Unlike most other food delivery apps who outsource the delivery side, and thus outsource their customer experience, Swiggy built their entire logistics team in house. With over 5,000 employees they can now get food delivered within 32 minutes, and have built a massive data and analytics team aiming to create the food graph - relationships between users and the foods they order that will drive better recommendations, faster order times and shorter delivery times. They are also now getting into retail, allowing customers to directly from Swiggy. For anyone interested in logistics, commerce or customer experience and the technology that supports it, Swiggy is definitely one to watch.
To Woo Shoppers, Stores Are Accepting Competitors’ Returns
Sometimes the enemy turns out to be your friend, and a little healthy coopetition is good for everyone. Retailers are now partnering with one another, accepting returns from other stores and brands as way to drive foot traffic (and hopefully dollars). Walgreens and Nordstrom are leading the effort, as “Walgreens will start offering package pickup and returns at more than 8,000 U.S. locations to partners such as Levi Strauss & Co. and Urban Outfitters Inc., which owns Anthropologie and other chains. Nordstrom will test doing the same at seven stores in the Los Angeles area with a group that includes Cole Haan, said the companies.”
The Logistics of Girl Scout Cookies: Suitcases, Pallets, Mom’s Garage
It takes a village to sell a Thin Mint. Parents and girls manage a feat to distribute 200 million boxes as sale moves into its frenzied closing days. An interesting, behind-the-scenes look at the torrent of Girl Scouts that occupy every street corner, parking lot and office listserv for a 4 month period, and how even Girl Scouts the have had to transition the way they sell to accommodate the changing times.
American retailers already announced 6,000 store closures this year. That's more than all of last year
America has too many stores, at least based on the opinion of consumers and major retailers. While I’ve previously discussed how store closures are being offset by store opens, particularly from outlets like Dollar General, the data still holds: this year, US retailers have announced that 5,994 stores will close which already exceeds last year’s total of 5,864 closure announcements.
FinTech
Venmo’s Latest Effort to Turn a Profit: Credit Cards
Venmo, having reached verb status, the pinnacle of branding and awareness, is now pushing the limits when it comes to financial innovation for their millennial customer with…a credit card? Really? Apparently execs at the company have been meeting with banks since last year to discuss issuing a Venmo-branded credit card (which, mind you, will be separate from the already live PayPal credit card). Why, you ask, would Venmo be looking to issue a credit card?
With its credit card, Venmo hopes to squeeze more revenue from the many young consumers who use only its free service. Roughly one in five consumers between ages 20 and 24 surveyed by 451 Research last year said they had made a Venmo payment.
Shocking. In all seriousness, I wish that the company would really try and innovate on what the future looks like and focus on customer value instead of shareholder value. PayPal has made some smart moves of late, and I for one think they should use their positive momentum to try and reestablish themselves as a driver of innovation instead of being content ceding that role to the likes of Square, Stripe, Ant Financial et. al.
India expected to surpass the UK for second place in payment card fraud
Thanks to an economy expected to grow larger than the UK this year, a growing middle class, and continued government efforts to digitize the country card penetration has continued to skyrocket in India. However, that penetration has come without an comparable increase in security. Bad actors on the dark web recommend India as a target, with shoddy ATM security and “because most Indian banks don’t employ modern anti-fraud systems, Indian payment cards are also in hot demand, as they can be easily cloned and cashed out en-masse.” Time for the banks and payment infrastructure to step up its game,
Climate and Energy
The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be the Most Disruptive Yet
The mass market availability of renewable energy has arrived. This piece by Ramez Naam describes how policy and subsidies drove the cost of renewables down to a point where it is now cheaper to build new renewable power plants is more capital efficient than the continued operation of already established gas and coal plants.
Wall Street is reckoning with the risks of climate change
Over the last few months major investors have been spending time examining the potential impact of climate change on their asset base, both seeing the vulnerability and a major opportunity to profit.
Watch Lil Dicky's 'Earth' Video, With Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio
In advance of Earth Day this Monday, rapper Lil Dicky released what he calls “his most important work”, a song and video called Earth, featuring featuring everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio to Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Halsey, Bad Bunny, PSY, Zac Brown, Miley Cyrus, Sia, Snoop Dogg as animated animals coming together to save the planet How did this guy manage to create a music video that rivals this year’s Coachella lineup, recalling the infamous ‘80s supergroup that also hoped to heal the world with song? A long story that started with an ad man turn joke rapper talking about his girlfriend’s ex.
Random Tidbits
Pig Brains Partly Revived By Scientists Hours After Animals Died
Maybe the saying “When pigs fly” needs to be updated to “when pigs come back from the dead”? This week scientists at Yale discussed research that showed the ability to restore some function in the brain of pigs who had been dead for a few hours. The cells regained a startling amount of function but, to be clear, the brains didn’t have activity linked with consciousness.
The implications of this study have staggered ethicists, as they contemplate how this research should move forward and how it fits into the current understanding of what separates the living from the dead.
There is definitely a horror movie starring undead pigs somewhere in here…
Why LBJ Biographer Robert Caro Still Writes 1000-Page Books by Hand
Robert Caro is an indomitable figure, his remarkable work documenting political power, first with Robert Moses and then LBJ, are must reads (granted, it will take you some time to get through it). He has taken a break from his 5th LBJ installment to write Working, a collection of stories and memories on his creative and literary process. Be it a Smith Corona typewriter or Chopin, thick pencils or a classic Buick, for the lionized biographer of LBJ, every thing has a purpose (and a story). In Working, like with everything else he writes, Caro draws you in and doesn’t let go until long after the last page.
Michael Lewis Enters the Podcasting Game With ‘Against the Rules’
I have long been a fan of Michael Lewis, a master story teller who’s books I generally devour. This week I found Lewis has taken his talents to audio, releasing a podcast that examines our relationship to authority and to regulation — our mistrust of them and, in some cases, our full-throated hostility toward them. I’m through the first two and in true Lewis form, he doesn’t disappoint. Take a listen.
Quote I’m thinking about: “Don’t count the days, make the days count.” - Muhammad Ali