A very close source tells me that “The Batman” (2022) starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne is a great movie though for me “The Dark Knight trilogy“ remains an all-time favourite. If I have to watch another caped crusader then I would rather go to “Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman”.
DTW
During the Week, BharatPe’s Ashneer Grover resigned capping a long saga of allegations and counter allegations. In a true Dark Knight style, he was a hero of Indian MicroPayments space till he was no more a hero!
"From being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship and an inspiration to the Indian youth to build their own businesses, I am now wasting myself fighting a long, lonely battle against my own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost of what is actually at stake — BharatPe."
This ugly episode has lessons for funders and founders. Also, a quick reality check for industry participants of reality television. I mean, not everybody could be as lucky (unlucky) as President Trump who actually had a more successful TV career than his full time real estate business or even US presidency.
Ashneer Grover’s BharatPe is an integral and early partner in India’s e-commerce especially micropayments. According to me, neighbourhood commerce is a three Legged Stool- Discovery, Payment and Logistics- and platforms have played an important role in its growth over last few years especially during demonetisation and covid19 pandemic.
In an earlier newsletter , I have written about Japanese philosophy of Ikagai and it can provide an understanding of passion economy and platforms. Intersection of two circles of ‘What I am good at’ and ‘What I love Doing’ result in PASSION. Next circle about ‘What the World Needs’ can be loosely translated into Demand Aggregation and ‘What You Can be Paid for’ can be seen as Monetisation Strategy. So, Passion along with Demand Aggregation and Monetisation Strategy provided by platforms can really make it work !
Platforms have been pathbreaking in helping us in discovery process for singers/chefs/writers/craft-persons /painters etc and all of us have an interesting story about finding our inspiration without even looking for it. For example, at Trice Community, residents in gated communities are glad to reach their favourite home chefs/artists/cause directly and vice versa.
In another recent newsletter on HyperLocal businesses and delivery ecosystem, I had talked about how in the era of hyper-globalisation, we crave for local connections. Location based platforms can help in finding the connections from your proximity.
Crowdsourcing of Assets unlocks extraordinary value for both suppliers and buyers. Retail Operations especially for the local street vendors have been extraordinarily helped by last mile delivery partners like Dunzo and ShadowFax. Some of them also provide warehousing, payment collection and reverse logistics.
Micropayments have been revolutionised by platforms mostly with the support of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) launched by National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). Launched in 2016, UPI has seen tremendous adoption during the immediate use case following demonetisation, further accelerated by the Covid-19 outbreak.According to the latest report,
In Calendar Year 21, UPI had processed more than 38 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 71.59 trillion. In 2021-22 (Financial Year 22) so far, it has processed more than 31 billion transactions, surpassing the transactions processed in 2020-21 (FY21).
Amongst others Jio with its PoS machine installed in Kirana stores, has a better visibility at stock and flow in the stores and thus would be in better position to provide credit facilities as well.
To conclude, more users are interested in local/niche products & services and neighbourhood commerce ecosystem should step up to serve this efficiently. Platforms like TRICE which provide discovery, payments and last mile logistics can play a pivotal role in bringing business and dignity to millions of street vendors across the communities.
So, next time you want to buy something, spare a thought for the local vendor and give your business to your friendly neighbourhood!
Put a Smile on their Face!
OTW
Over the Weekend, Ravindra Jadeja (175*, 5/41 & 4/46) completed a stupendous feat of scoring 175* Not Out and then being a major contributor to bowl out Sri Lanka twice in four sessions. What stood out during the third day of the match was “Sir” Ravindra Jadeja magnanimously giving up his chance of making history (century and ten wickets in a test) to let a fellow bowler get a chance to pick up some practice and perhaps few wickets. That’s what I think is a Royal Gesture coming from a Commoner who comes from Royalty.
Of course, Ravindrasinh’s journey has been nothing but inspirational. Being born in poverty and playing bat-ball to becoming one of the icons of the game is a fairy tale rags-to-riches story. But he is not done yet.
And then to round off the weekend, Indian Women Cricket Team won their first encounter of the 2022 Women's World Cup against Pakistan by 107 runs to start the tournament with a super win. More power to them.
I Love You
Shailendra
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OTM
Opportunities through MountainSpeak are available at TuniWash , an innovative social entrepreneurship venture based out of Hyderabad. Please get in touch if you would like to explore New Product Development and Promotion.
At Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation (CeDT) at the IFHE , we would like to document and share inspirational stories from street and street facing vendors. Do let me know if you would like to collaborate for bringing smiles to our friendly neighbourhood.
https://forms.gle/7hJC1BCHxEWy52zn9
Watch out for more by following #MillionVendorStories #MillionVendorSmiles