Podcast: Building consumer brands in India
Liked the honesty on the P&G vs Unilever angle, innovation in FMCG vs Tech companies, diminishing brand loyalty and the importance of building partnerships in the D2C ecosystem. Felt that the podcast should have delved deeper into what would make a D2C brand successful in India.
The interview touched upon certain segments that are likely to see strong consumer spending - education (parents seeking the best for their children), value-added health services (spas, leisure centres etc), personality product (that reflect your personality), geriatrics (service centres that take care of aged) being few of them.
A community club is another service that springs to my mind that the aspirational young people of India would increasingly seek out. Being a member of a group that helps them broaden their horizons and network, forge real connections, serves as a sounding board for personal and professional issues, facilitates opportunities for collaboration, connects them with like-minded individuals, etc. It can be lonely at the top. Over the past decade, new-age communities like "Offline" and "The Quorum" have been launched to address the aforementioned issues. Still, there is a certain level of exclusivity attached to these private clubs. Over the next few years, we could see a significant growth in the number of community clubs catering to the demands of the burgeoning class of successful Indians,
Article: Writes and Write-Nots: Thinks and Think-Nots
Try writing couple of paras on a random topic, if you haven’t written in a long time (not referring to email or text correspondence). You will realize how difficult it is (as I am experiencing it at the moment).
As Paul Graham mentions in his article, writing can be difficult because it forces you to think clearly and thinking clearly is another hard task.
One of my favourite founders, Jeff Bezos, banned PowerPoint in executive meetings at Amazon and replaced it with memos to encourage deep, critical thinking that would lead to well-structured, tighter narrative and better problem solving. Read any of his shareholder letters and you will end up marvelling at the clarity in his thought process.
So what happens when you use AI to don off your thinking hats? Diminishing of thinking and analytical capabilities. A population that cannot think is a population that can be easily manipulated and controlled.
As one of the memes said, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes”