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Super App Platforms are here to stay.

I have always been a fan of Makar Sankranti. It is one of the Indian festivals which follows solar calendar and thus is a more or less fixed event. Besides the food, the whole change related vibes associated with the festival makes it very relevant to me. It also brings very fond memories of both of my grandmothers who used to cook delicious Khichadi and load it with ghee coupled with other chutneys and til(sesame) based sweets. One of my favourite mythological reference in Mahabharta is Bhishma Pitamah’s desire to die only after Sun in Uttarayaan (essentially Makar Sankranti ) thus giving invaluable time to Pandavas to learn from him after the war had ended.

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Anyways, talking about Mahabharta also reminds me of the grey shades in its various characters unlike the black and white of Ramayana. All characters including those of Pandavas and Karauvas display shades of grey. I would definitely recommend series available on Neflix called DharamKshetra to explore some of these facets of human life.

हर आदमी में होते हैं / दस-बीस आदमी
जिसको भी देखना हो / कई बार देखना |

-दो-चार गाम / निदा फ़ाज़ली

Platforms or rather successful platforms are now combinations of multiple vertical services and/or products. If you have enjoyed reading this newsletter, please spread the word by sharing it on your social media handles

DTW

During the Week, we saw an outcry when WhatsApp updated its privacy policies and expanded on how WhatsApp partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company for its users. WA’s “Take it or Leave it” message was not liked by many users and we saw an exodus to alternate messaging platforms like Signal and Telegram.

anshulpunj @anshulpunj

When I opened #WhatsApp today morning WhatsApp be like..

WA’s action could be interpreted in many ways including attempts to integrate all the Facebook companies into one super ecosystem to thwart any anti-trust action in USA which involves divesting Instagram or WA from Facebook. If the services are well-integrated then FB can present a “Siamese triplet problem” to regulators and thus perhaps delaying the break-up. Other perspective , which is also the focus of this newsletter is to create a WA based SuperApp encompassing services across multiple domains like a WeChat in China. In my opinion, three clear domains for SuperApp are FinTech, Messaging/Social Media and Operating System (OS).

We have already seen rise of super apps in payment/fintech space. Alipay and PayTM are clear examples of ambitious FinTech players adding e-commerce, social messaging and social credit score mechanisms to create one-size -fit-all app. They are targeting each customer as a single market where super apps build a business model that is transforming lives in emerging markets. It takes multiple services and products to make enough ARPU for a self-sustaining businesses. Add the higher Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) in these emerging markets and it is imperative that the dominant/early entrants in these fintech markets try to be “everything to everybody”.

Second domain to begin your super app journey is social-media/messaging apps by creating a network effect amongst users. Once same side network effect gets you a critical base of users then you could use it to bring vendors on other side thus creating cross-side network effects. This is what WeChat has accomplished in Chinese market and WhatsApp may aim in other developing countries. WA has already started experimenting with WhatsApp Pay and limited access to businesses to communicate with customer. They even have a limited experiments in commerce in collaboration with Reliance Jio Platforms. I have written about Jio’s ambitions for being a super app here , here and here.

Third way to create a super app or a super subscription is driven by operating system ownership aka controlling the rails. Both Google and Apple by virtue of their OS ownership control customer relationship thus creating platform monopolies. They provide the five C’s of The Network Effects ladder as enunciated by Alex Moazed and Nicholas Johnson in their book Modern Monopolies. The Network ladders dictating the quality of platforms network are - Connections, Communications, Curation, Collaboration and Community. Both of them and Amazon have created, copied or captured products and services which offer these to their customers thus creating OS Super Apps.

CB Insights in one of its reports mention nine industries that Amazon could disrupt and completely re-invent in next few years. Super App are modern day conglomerates and they tend to be anti-competitive as well as inefficient. One big danger of super app is the systemic risk that comes with their failure or malignancy. One small disruption of 40 minutes on google services brought countless companies into complete chaos because they were unable to access the tools they needed for productivity. On a similar note, one super app and fight for its control between Jack Ma and the Chinese Communist Party has caused panic and distress amongst Chinese Tech entrepreneurs and multiple others who depend on them.

Cafe78 @chekwon78

@chigrl @skywalker_2k @SamanthaLaDuc @HenrikZeberg @supercatmy @MsResJudicata That's also raising concerns for Korea's largest payment service, which Alipay owns significant stakes

koreatimes.co.krChina’s crackdown on Jack Ma concerns KakaoPayChina’s crackdown on Jack Ma concerns KakaoPay

OTW

Over the Weekend, I listened to a new podcast 3 books with Neil Pasricha on my weekend long walk/run. Neil is a celebrated best selling author and writes multiple blogs as well runs a podcast where he talks about what else but books.

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... the man who never reads lives only one." -George R. R. Martin

Neil frequently talks about his 1000 months/1000 minutes philosophy. In simple words, we would live for approximately 1000 months and also each day has about 1000 waking minutes hence the idea is to accomplish as much as possible for the loved ones around us.

I Love You.

Shailendra

PS- MountainSpeak Season 3 Episode 8 was entertaining. Our guest was Sunil Menon who had quit his 17 years of IT career to start Menon Fitness Systems with a mission to Influence the right habits for an active lifestyle by providing Training & Nutrition plans, Safe and Natural Nutrition products, Healthy hacks for smart training and lead an injury free life. You can watch the latest recording here and register for the future episodes by signing up here for the next set of interesting conversation on Second Sunday of the month.

MountainSpeak is a Free-Form Conversation Style Platform for exchanging ideas about Multi-sided Networks, Business , Marketing , Endurance Running and Life in general !