Another low from YourStory

There are essentially four parties in the startup economy: 1. The Consumer 2. The Enabler(read, Startup) 3. The Service Provider 4. The Investor Now let's look at Game Theory motivations: 1. The Indian Consumer wants to minimise money spent per unit value extracted, the Western Consumer wants to maximise value extracted per unit money spent. (There's a massive difference.) 2. The Startup depending on the stage wants to maximise User Growth and Free Cash Flows. 3. The Service provider wants to maximise financial incentives. 4. The Investor is wants to maximise the XIRR of their fund. For this they need to reach a multibagger liquidity event. Now let's look at what happens when: 1. The Consumer gets f'ed over: The startup attains pricing power through deep competitive moats allowing for monopolisation. They can jack up the prices to ensure nice FCF, greater rewards for Service Providers and great returns to their investors. (Think, Uber can charge anything to you now) 2. The Startup gets f'ed over: The users get bang for their buck, the service providers get good incentives, the investors push for higher growth but unfortunately the startup does not have enough capital to service their Cost of Operations through their unit economics, so they will either run out of cash or investor patience. Either ways, they are doomed. (Think every legit startup that failed) 3. The Service Provider get f'ed over: This is the likeliest scenario as they have the least power in this dynamic. Rewards will be reduced over time or made harder to achieve. They have no option because they got no option for sustenance. (Think any on-demand service providing app) 4. The investor gets f'ed over: Now imagine there is a startup that can balance the act very well. They have a service that users are willing to pay a margin on. They pay their service providers fairly and have decent unit economics. Now, the investor will do halla about destruction of shareholder value from little growth. (Is this the case with BluSmart?) Maybe that's why building in India is tough.

Uber , AirBnb , SWIGGY, Zomato etc are "Comission" or "Bicholia" Companies. Why do they keep losing money? They should make money even if they are to provide attractive offers to drivers/delivery guys etc Is it because they spent too much "Growing" and its impossible to make the money back? How did this happen.

https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/swiggy-zomato-delivery-agents-earn-more-than-fresher-software-engineers-check-out-their-surprising-income/articleshow/111898007.cms

I tried Ola ebike service for commuting a short distance ~ 5km. The experience was good and the fare was also cheap(50 Rs.). I spoke to the driver about earnings and whether he has to give EMI for the OE bike. Then he showed me the below table - how his earnings are calculated. I got shocked at seeing the high earnings amount - upto 4.5K daily which amounts to 1.35 lac monthly! He told me that Ola ebike is for short distances only - Upto 7-8 kms. And he is able to get average 3-4 rides in 1 hour, and he also doesn't have to pay for the vehicle rent. The Charging is also free at Ola Chargers. I couldn't help but wonder how can Ola sustain with this much spending. If they're giving upto 1lac to every driver and charging the user very less, that's a lot of cash burn.

A famous food delivery start up in Bengaluru lost its best CTO and someone like local politician SvP made it to the top. Many of us not feeling ok to work due to political nature and way the review meetings conducted. Favouring some group and condemning other group to the core. What would you do?

Swiggy is slowly becoming unusable. They have already increased minimum amount in Instamart for free delivery from 99 to 149 to 199 now. This is really becoming a problem. Is there any other alternative to this? They are slowly showing their true colours now that they are aiming profitability.

https://youtu.be/q1jRx6VzzhI?feature=shared Recently, swiggy started penalizing delivery executives by stripping them off health insurance if certain quota isn't met. Now, i don't advocate for a socialist utopia here but how difficult it's for the government and employers to ensure affordable healthcare. Most of the gig workers are living hand to mouth, only difference between them and a bonded labour is one getting paid in peanuts and free(theoretically), other not being paid but provided with food and shelter. Both can't afford healthcare and quality education. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/swiggy-changes-worker-insurance-policy-based-on-driver-delivery-performance-report/article68078555.ece