Tier 1 city and B2C Products

Lately there's a lot of negativity in general with layoffs, funding winter etc. PM as a function is one of the roles that's faced the brunt of it. So this post is just to share our appreciation towards any product based out of India that we used/using daily to just create a bit of positivity in this environment. Let me start with 1) Porter - Had to shift recently. Wonderful experience managing the whole process through the app. 2) Urbanclap - Seemless process from booking a house cleaning service till the final rating and closure of request. 3) Yulu - Was stranded in a metro station with no Auto or bike taxis accepting my ride of 2 km. This came in as a savior with the app guiding a first time user to use a bike without breaking sweat. Do share yours as well!

Uber designers (or PMs) why are you trying to get rid of the ride search cancel button? Found a ride faster and cheaper ride on Namma Yatri but can't cancel until Uber decides it's ok to do so! Won't be surprised if this leads to accidental bookings and shifting the onus on the rider to pay a "cancellation" fee. Why chase vanity metrics at the expense of the user experience? Switchers gonna switch.

- Rapido, the bike-taxi startup, has reached a $1 billion valuation, becoming the latest Indian unicorn after securing $120 million in a Series E funding round led by WestBridge Capital. - The new funding highlights Rapido's growing influence in India's mobility sector, challenging the dominance of Uber and Ola, and aiding Swiggy in its competition against Zomato in the food delivery market. - Rapido's focus on two-wheeler transportation has allowed it to overcome challenges faced by traditional cab services, leveraging the widespread use of motorcycles and scooters in India's congested cities. - Swiggy, which led Rapido's previous funding round, has found a valuable delivery partner in Rapido, enhancing work opportunities for Rapido's drivers and planning to increase its stake post-IPO. - Rapido's latest funding round also saw participation from Khazanah, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, marking it as the third Indian startup to achieve unicorn status this year, following Perfios and Krutrim. Source: Techcrunch

Lately Ola's founder Bhavish has been discontinuing their dependencies on foreign products ranging from their own cloud servers to their own GPT's which people are specualting is just a wrapper over ChatGPT and lately launched their own Ola Maps which is itself a wrapper over OpenStreetMap. Will this benefit Indian Companies to compete with the global ones or will it just die down eventually. Ola folks can shed some light on it. 😁

Damn, let me tell you how Ola has messed up the auto rickshaw industry! They came in acting all fancy, promising convenience and fair prices. But what do we get? Overcharging like crazy! Their surge pricing during peak hours is a complete rip-off. They take advantage of our desperation and squeeze every penny out of us. And who suffers the most? The hardworking folks who rely on auto rickshaws every day. But it doesn't stop there. Ola's profiteering tactics have destroyed the earning potential of auto rickshaw drivers. They used to have control over their fares and make a decent living. Now, Ola dictates the prices and leaves the drivers scraping for scraps. It's just not fair! They've disrupted the whole system, and not in a good way. The drivers are struggling, and we passengers are getting ripped off left and right. Ola, you've turned a once reliable and affordable mode of transportation into a nightmare. Shame on you!

I am at my wits end. It takes 20-25 minutes just to get someone to accept my booking only for them to cancel. Almost roz ka hai! Bluesmart mein kabhi slots hi nahi milte! Ola, Uber, Rapido toh 20-25 min tak search hi karta rehta hai. Namma Yatri toh aur bhi hopeless hai! Please koi hack batao 🥲🙏🏻

Bit of a rant and a solution. I have worked for close to 18 years now lived in various part of country like Noida, Pune, Hyderabad and off course Bangalore. Additionally lived in eu for 5+ years. I feel post return to India I see the population has in general become more uncivil and rowdy. With useless apps like Swiggy/zomato/ blink it there is a splurge of stupid drivers on street. Similar is situation with Uber/ola etc with them the density of village folks with no road sense have increased tremendously. They drive badly and threaten common folks at the blink of an eye even though they are probably driving on wrong side of the road. I feel common folks should be given gun license so we can protect ourselves as we have no other way left to save our family and kids from these animals

Have lately been exploring switching out from Uber to early stage startups. Exploring founding engineer roles / CTO roles with people I know well The worst of it has been just the fact that our salaries are hard to match (even with Cash + ESOP, no matter what you do) Like I know you need to be okay with less cash. But I now feel that it’s such a jump down, I wonder if it makes sense. And then this feeling forever makes me averse to trying out something big, risky, bold. It’s a catch-22 situation lol