Learning in Public: 10/25/21
Bits and bytes
Links + Comments
Counting people
The devil is always in the details. Interesting thread:
We don’t have an accurate population count both at a local and national level - in the US nor really in any country.
When you look at vax coverage for a specific area — the percentage may not have significant meaning.
The strategic value of Anchorage
The aerial proximity of Anchorage to the world.
Sky Scans
Hit play on the first video in the tweet below.
I love it for the science and the data gathering.
Flight Simulators for Management Education
"The Beer Game"
I’m hoping to play the beer game in the next couple of weeks. What other business “flight simulators” do you know? I’d love a list to play both for fun and at the office.
Read the details of the game and the takeaways here: http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/SDG/beergame.html
Hyper-Local 15 Minute Delivery and Dark Stores
This is a detailed bull case for Jokr, one of the many 15-minute delivery services operating globally — and in the USA mostly present in NYC. These companies have raised significant capital and I’m fascinated to see if they are able to become viable businesses. Will we see a WebVan 2.0 OR something more akin to an Uber — a business that CAN operate profitably in certain markets — but that I believe (Uber) still operates at a significant loss. There are so many of these new 15-minute delivery services we will have to see significant consolidation. I’m mostly including this so that in a year’s time we can revisit and learn something.
One tidbit from the above:
CPG brands spend $500 billion on trade promotions every year. On average, manufacturers spend between 11-27% of their revenue on trade promotions,
Source: https://www.repsly.com/blog/the-amount-of-money-you-could-be-losing-to-poor-promotion-execution
So here again, as with Instacart and soon DoorDash, is the real business Advertising?
Digging out from the container backlog
Flexport continues to be an impressive and interesting company
Taco truck idea - such a great, low-cost way to create goodwill
Lots of interesting tidbits on the situation at the ports. For all the soundbites and articles about ships stuck outside the ports — interesting to learn where the real bottlenecks lie.
Read this second thread for more insight into the bottleneck
and how to re-prioritize such that the most capital intensive part of the operation line is the bottleneck
Streamer Home Shopping Network - China leading the way
Who: 2 Streamers in China that review and sell products in live streams.
What:
They sell everyday products (skincare, make-up)
Daily ~20M people tune in to watch their stream (This big sale a few days ago 200M showed up! Why? I think because it is the start of the big shopping week which is semi-equivalent to post-Thanksgiving shopping in the US)
They are popular because they are trusted — maybe equivalent to The WireCutter in the US.
Click the tweet above and read the whole thread. The bit they call out about how the internet and e-commerce are now so large it is impossible to know what is the best product or how well a specific product does its job. This creates the need for curation and shows the value these streamers bring in reviewing everyday products and in some sense negotiating an incredible deal for their customers (because they can push so much volume). There is a degree of Costco in here in so far as the Streamers aren’t trying to sell products with high mark-up — rather they win by helping users find great deals — and the OEMs love the extreme volume and prestige of being associated with the trusted streamer.
