Pune Metro First Impressions

Pune Metro has two routes: Aqua Line running East-West from Ramwadi in East Pune to Vanaz in West Pune via Ruby Hall Clinic in downtown Pune. As of now, this route is operational between Ruby Hall Clinic and Vanaz, with the Ramwadi-to-Ruby Hall Clinic section expected to be commissioned by the end of the year. … Read more

Minimize Churn In SAAS With Lean Onboarding Wizard

Imagine that you just placed an order for a SAAS software. You receive the username and password to access the software. You head over to the app’s website, enter your credentials and log in. Boom! You see a forest of links and buttons. You’re overwhelmed and feel like tearing your hair. Back in the days … Read more

Maslow’s Subscription Pyramid

The hierarchy of human needs goes through five stages, as depicted by the famous Maslow’s Pyramid. In this post, I posit a similar hierarchy for subscriptions. Given below are examples of subscriptions: Social network e.g. LinkedIn Premium Digital media e.g. Wall Street Journal Streaming video / OTT e.g. Netflix Hosting service e.g. Hostgator SAAS software … Read more

Unpacking “Embedded Finance” From Consumer POV

Whenever a new term enters the hype cycle, it’s fashionable for people to bandy it about all the time, sometimes correctly but most of the time loosely. Embedded Finance is one such term. In this post, we will unpack the term, specifically from the consumer point-of-view. A consumer goods retailer in India offered installment purchase … Read more

Copy-Paste Of Western Business Model Works

The founder of India’s largest discount brokerage Zerodha recently sparked off a debate on social networks by declaring that copy-pasting business models from USA and other countries does not work in India because there are many differences between the two markets. @Nithin0dha: India is unique. Copy-pasting models from the US, etc, has hardly worked. Paytm’s … Read more

Musk Twitter Will Take Per Article Sales To The Next Level

In Why Publishers Don’t Sell Individual Articles, we saw how readers want à la carte (buy individual articles) but publishers offer only buffet (all-you-can-eat subscriptions). (While this post can be read independently, it will make more sense after reading the previous post.) Of late, some publishers are not even offering one-month subscriptions. Either their minimum … Read more

Seven Reasons Why Resellers Are Still Around In Today’s Digital Age

It might seem ironical that the IT industry, the torchbearer of digital transformation, uses reseller networks in today’s digital world instead of selling to its customers directly. As we saw in Are Resellers Required In Today’s Digital Age?, the basic tension in the direct-versus-reseller debate can be expressed as follows: Why can’t customers be allowed … Read more

Economic Times Publishes My Take On Play Store v. App Developers Controversy

Google Play Store provides the following services to Android app developers: Listing Discovery Distribution Commerce platform Training Google does not charge any fixed fees for these services. Like most companies in their early days, app developers are short of funds when they start out. While they have aspirations to build for the world, do marketing, … Read more

Why Publishers Don’t Sell Individual Articles

When it comes to per article sales, everybody points to ready demand, takes supply for granted, and focuses on the fulfilment, mainly micropayments. This has been going on for years during which many micropayments have come and gone, demand has skyrocketed as more and more media outlets have put their content behind paywalls, but per … Read more