This is issue no. 9 of 180. Engagement (clickthroughs) hit 39% for issue no. 8 with 15.85% of you clicking on this story about Postmates using the on-demand mCommerce subscription strategy that some of us have seen in the past.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, speaking to an adoring crowd of Tesla fans, pronounced the Model 3 a success upon its birth Thursday night at 11:30 PM EST. With over 200,000 pre-orders, Musk grossed $200,000,000 yesterday and over $8B in pre-orders in one single day. Pre-order here.
The Slack rocketship won't slow down. The business messaging startup has raised $200 million at a $3.8 billion post-money valuation, the company confirms. With bots being built by former mobile app-focused developers who love the product for it's platform effect, how long until we view Slack for what it really is? A new form of professional OS.
Sometimes, Apple still does cool things. Count this one in their "W" column. The self-aware Taylor Swift raps to the break out hip hop collaboration of 2015 - Drake and Future's "Jumpman." What makes this even more profound? It seems that Taylor is all about streaming music, these days. This is one complete 180.
Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice. With the influx of data and introduction of self-service analytics tools, we're going to need more people capable of communicating insights effectively. The next generation of data storytellers will not be limited to just analysts and data scientists. Everyone will need to know how to tell a story with numbers.
Only one year ago, Amazon's Dash announcement raised suspicions of April Fool's pranking. A physical button in your kitchen, bathroom, or living room? Now, Trojan's button has launch in one more sign that Dash is getting respect. More brands are devoting resources to Amazon's Dash program. Here's one for your night stand.
The guidelines restricting online marketplaces from offering discounts could also have a negative effect on the soaring valuations. The rapid growth of India's ecommerce industry--Morgan Stanley forecasts gross sales of about $119 billion by 2020--has been fuelled by billions poured into the sector by deep-pocketed investors. A large chunk of this money has been used on marketing and to fund discounts in order to attract consumers.
On 622,000 MAUs. Five years ago, Brian Lam created a website missing a key ingredient for running a media company: advertising. Now, the biggest names in online publishing are following his lead. A fascinating look at a copycat company that has gone all in on building an influential site to sell things.
Juicero, a food tech startup that makes Internet-connected kitchen appliances, raised $70 million in Series B funding in a round led by Artis Ventures. Simple enough, it is a compact compliance that makes juice easier and cleaner than anything on the market.
The rise of the citizen data scientist is a subject which is creating a lot of excitement at the moment. Put simply (and a bit bluntly) businesses, particularly larger ones with more mature Big Data analytical operations, are finding that it is too important to be left solely in the hands of the data scientists.
Bowen (CEO) believes that Oscar de la Renta’s e-commerce store will eventually become the brand’s biggest store in terms of sales. He said that the company will never have a physical store in every major shopping market. According to Exane BNP Paribas data, physical retail growth has dried up for luxury brands. Prada and Swatch, the two brands that expanded the most in 2015, saw the biggest drop in profit.
A last word: Steve is gone, long live Elon.
Let's be honest here, the innovative starship that was once Apple Computer is in a lull. It's not dead or anything, per se. It's actually a great business. But it no longer captures our imagination in the way that Steve Jobs did when presenting a PC that looked like a bubble gum vending machine or a pocket juke box or an in-pocket personal computer that made phone calls.
What many of us saw from Elon Musk's late night presentation was the type of subtle mastery that we wish that Tim Cook exuded. But he never will. And so, we should embrace the awe-inspiring, publicly traded, founder-led electronics company of our present rather than the one of our past.
