Adithya Venkatesan
@adadithya
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Building Brands 🖖 Sipper of fine whiskies. True blood hedonist. Cenosillicaphobic. Logophile. Curious. Scuba diver, paraglider, adrenaline junkie 😊
Joined April 2010
Startups who don't have the budgets for branding, here's what you can do 👇🏻.
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Dear Strbucks, there's literally no ajji in god's green earth who'll approve a filter coffee for 290rs +taxes. 🙏🏻
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Decathlon is the adult version of a stationery shop. 😊.
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Update: I'm looking for a trainer. They have to pay me 10L. If i reduce weight, increase muscle, I'll pay 20L after 3 years as a one-time payment. Update: I'm also looking for a pastry chef. They have to pay me 5L. If i increase weight, I'll pay 10L after 3 years. Lesssggooo.
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Hard truths: An entire generation is studying for jobs that won't exist.
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Modern Love Bangalore doesn't exist because he's at Bellandur, and she's in Whitefield.
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Ashneer Grover legit had the gumption to post this 😂😂😂. He's Rahul Yadav on steroids 😂
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PSA: A 12yo whisky does not become an 18yo because you kept it in the bottle unopened for 6 more years since you bought it. 😂. Whisky ages only in a wooden cask, not once it’s bottled.
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So, the CEO of a listed company wants a comedian to service thousands of substandard Ola bikes. Funny indeed.
We have enough programs for our customers if they face service delays. If you were a genuine one, you would have known. Again, don’t try and back out of this. Come and do some real work rather than armchair criticism.
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I went on a date with someone who quit her job because, 'people were not taking her seriously', 'she was not getting promoted' only because she didn't have an Ivy League degree. She quit, got that Ivy degree, & joined THE SAME startup at 2.5x her previous pay. 🤺.
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I was today years old when I learnt Titan is a joint venture between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu government. 🤯. This is because in the pre-liberalization era, the TN Government held the licence to manufacture watches.
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Name any employee-friendly policy in your, or any other startup/large org, that's super helpful/really cool. Ex: Unlimited sick leaves, work from anywhere, No meetings on Fridays etc. .
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What you're seeing is a myosin protein (or possibly kinesin) dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex which creates happiness. Happiness. You're looking at happiness. ❤❤❤
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TIL: Tata has invested $2 billion in Neu; their SuperApp. Does anyone here use it? 🙃.
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Making WFH bearable - #Bangalore sunsets 😍. (Also, never ending search for a flatmate has resumed 😋)
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Apparently a family went into Byju's office and took a TV after they got no response for obtaining a refund for an unused tablet and a learning program. The customer pain at Byjus is another story entirely, and only heaven knows how deep that rabbit hole is
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Can't wait for Infosys/TCS to develop the government digital currency on the blockchain. 😋.
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TIL: Nearly half of India is Vitamin B12 deficient. Fixing my B12 intake has been critical for a whole bunch of things, eventually aiding in better sleep.
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Rapido has to be the most underrated success story, especially for an org that started much later than its peers. Quiet, hard work at play.
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Swiggy FY24 operating revenue: $1.36 bln.Zomato FY24 operating revenue: $1.46 bln. Swiggy net LOSS: $283 mln.Zomato net profit: $42 mln. Swiggy monthly actives: 12.7 mln.Zomato monthly actives: 18.4 mln.
How and why has Swiggy lost ground to Zomato?.
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My Uber driver has biscuits for strays and he feeds them during breaks 🐶😍
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The difference between Uber being valuer at $6 billion (pre-IPO) vs $53 billion, hinged only on one aspect:. Storytelling. Here's a breakdown on the importance of brand building, and narrating compelling stories when you're a startup 🔥👌🏻
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TIL: Titan’s pursuit to create the world’s slimmest watch back in the 2000s laid the foundation for Titan’s precision engineering division. They now supply industrial automation solutions, aerospace and defence industries to the Israeli Aerospace among others. 🔥🔥.
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A friend told me she switches on the lights only 5 minutes after entering her home, because she doesn't want people to know which apartment she stays in. I couldn't empathise then. And as I read the pages of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, I realise what she truly meant.
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🤣 No Dmart stores in South Bombay. I wonder how many dark stores are in South Bombay, and what the average revenue per store is.
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Despite sharing pictures of raw food, Swiggy didn't do anything. As a platform, it has enough power to hold restaurants to a better standard, but it chooses to penalise customers instead 😳. I get that cash is tight, but the quality of their support has degraded steadily.
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TIL: Sachin Bansal owns a 97.39% stake in Navi. 🔥. Gearing for an IPO now. ✅.
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I don't trust a single protein or health supplement from India. Sad, but I'd rather not take that risk.
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Blinkit's last quarter numbers are kind of mental. - Their average order value jumped from 582rs to 625rs in a year. - Each store earns 10lacs a day vs 6lacs a year back. (The top 50 stories earn 18lacs a day!!).- The QC business is now 40% of food delivery
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What a line by Robert Downing Jr in Oppenheimer - . “Amateurs chase the sun and get burned. Power stays in the shadows.".
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Pune startup scene reminds me of 2015 Bangalore. Small, but gathering steam. ❤. Also, open cafes, FTW.
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So basically, as a Bangalorean, if you want. Good butter chicken - take flight to Delhi.Dosa, idli - take flight to Chennai.Burger - take flight to Goa.Mutton curry - take flight to Mumbai.Waffles - take flight to Pune. Dammit. 😒.
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#TIL: Zoho earns only 4.5% of its revenues from India. Another lesser known fact: Sridhar Vembu, the CEO, owns only 5% of the company. His brother owns 35.2%, while his sister owns 47.8% 👀.
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How Bangaloreans book a cab on Friday nights:. 1. Open Uber, book a ride. Minimise. 2. Open Ola, book a ride. Minimise. 3. Open Rapido, book a ride. Minimise. 4. Open MYn. Regret, close. 5. Open nammaYatri, book a ride. Minimise. Wait. Cry. Cancel plans. Stay at home.
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Take a drive for 3-5km today anywhere in Bangalore; there'll be no other glowing testimonial for how much this city's infrastructure has regressed. Modern day loot is predicated on taxpayers and silence.
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8 hours of sleep. 1 hour of exercise. The two most insane life-hacks that'll compound dispassionately to help your personal & professional life. (And yet, the majority will fail at it) 😉.
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Really *really* liked this podcast on Bajaj Finance. Also, TIL: Bajaj Finance is Salesforce's second-largest client worldwide! And. Salesforce has a separate database entirely for Bajaj Finance. This is specially done ~just~ for Bajaj Finance. Super interesting data points.
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This has gone so crazy, my dad's staff in Kushalnagar (Coorg) has alerted my father of my shenanigans. 😿
Dear Strbucks, there's literally no ajji in god's green earth who'll approve a filter coffee for 290rs +taxes. 🙏🏻
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And. DONE. Maps ❤️ Lego
Took a while, but me has finished 25% of building the Lego world map. Therapeutic AF 😊
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Shashank from The Whole Truth has a fantastic post on why the "packaged food" category rarely scale beyond >100Cr rev and have <45% margins. Status signalling for protein bars is hard 😉
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Incredible stats: . The income of 84% of Indian households declined in 2021. 😔.The bottom 50% of our population has just 6% of the country's wealth. 😱. In the same period, we added 40 billionaires who have a combined fortune of $730 billion - more than 40% of India. 🤯.
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Every Bangalore WhatsApp group I am part of eventually boils down to the most fundamental request. "URGENT: Looking for a 2/3bhk in Indiranagar/Ulsoor/Koramangala, please help".
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Uber does not show 'The black Rabbit' in Indiranagar, Bangalore, because it shut down a while back. Ola maps shows it, because it's still in 2021.
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After 13+ years of experience, I've come to the annoying realisation that i can get the work done, but struggle to, "manage stakeholder communication". And I've also come to the stark reality of how much the latter matters in India, and the former is mostly unimportant.
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A big triumph for India's IT sector: creating a cartel by maintaining pay at 20-40k/month for engineering graduates. It's a whole other thing that they proselytised the normalisation of this salary structure. 👏🔥.
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Does anyone know why FIFA declined Byjus' acquisition offer though?.
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Twitter kids, read fiction. Reading Naval and Atomic habits all your young life might make you a productive machine, but also a boring lifeless one. Pick a thriller, feel the adventure 😜.
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Some of India's finest fictional writers are on LinkedIn. 😜🏃.
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One of my goals for 2024: Sleep within 5 minutes of head hitting the pillow. Give me tips, tricks, reading material et al. Need to fix sleep.
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If you're planning to head to Coorg for a vacation. Don't. There's a traffic jam for about 7km apparently, and it's getting worse.
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KarnatakaA not Karnatak. KannadA not Kannad. Kerala no Keral. Jesus, really ain't that difficult tbh. 😏.
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How does it matter who has the highest share on UPI? There's no money to be made here, so why are fintech folks fighting over this number?. What am i missing? (Genuine Q, because i don't get it. Or is this just signalling on brand value?).
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All I'm saying is. LET'S PUMP YES BANK'S STOCK FOR NO REASON AND WATCH TV CHANNELS GO CRAZY WHO'S IN? 😂.
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If you think @unacademy @dream11 @CRED_club and the lot are burning money by sponsoring IPL, you don't understand how brand marketing works.
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Bangalore be wild. You book a Dunzo order to list your name in Toit for booking a table. 2 hours later, you get one.
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Bangalore has to be the most 'connected', yet lonely city in India. Not a day goes by when there's a new WhatsApp group to just talk and hang out.
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Someone used Stable Diffusion to re-create assets in the iconic Age of Empires game. Absolutely stunning 😍. (Btw, who still plays AoE 🙋♂️)
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Laapataa Ladies was. ok. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong. It's just that Bollywood has served such abysmal mediocrity, this stands out, and gets spoken about. Malayalam cinema has been dishing out far more nuanced cinema like these for more than a decade now.
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Banning TikTok in India was one of the best decisions of 2020. ✌️.
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Startups - we want to change the world. Also, startups - *70% discount. *upto Rs. 25.
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I'll never get over how Swiggy is touted to IPO at half of Zomato's valuation, despite pioneering food delivery, being valued twice as much few years back, and got into QC early. There is such a thing as executional excellence. 🤌.
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TIL: The largest grocery brand in India is Aashirvad Aata (sold by ITC), and is ~$1 Bn in an industry size of ~$550bln. Private labelling groceries is a high-margin, super lucrative business.
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The tide is turning. For the first time in 20 years the largest 50 companies in India are being run by people who don't have a IIT/IIM, or foreign university degree.
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Covid killed Uber/Ola pool - what a fantastic product that could've been. Took a lot of shared rides, & the Uber algorithm in particular was really good. Cheap rates, met some fun people, & reduced traffic congestion for sure. Now, 1 car, 1 person. Ugh.
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We need to talk about Falguni Nayar. - India's second richest self-made billionaire (inevitable post IPO).- Started Nykaa when she was 49yo. - Gearing up for an IPO with a $3 billion valuation.- OWNS OVER 50% OF THE COMPANY 🔥
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If BMW bike sales plummet after this, they better sue. I'll never buy a damn BMW bike, that brand is forever tarnished in my eyes 😂.
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Got to spread the word on this. McKinsey culture kills people.
They named him and the colleges he attended. But not the company. So let us name that too (looked up via LinkedIn): he worked for McKinsey.
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PSA: Get a food intolerance test done, helps you identify the kind of food you should be avoiding. Has been insanely helpful for me.
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I was today years old when I realised the chairman of ICICI stepped down and started HDFC when he was 66 years old. 🤯. A year later, he went on to convince his nephew, Deepak Parkeh to join HDFC at a 50% lower salary. 🤭. The rest is history. 🔥.
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Yes, Zomato makes no profit.Yes, Zomato's revenues have declined.Yes, their MTUs have declined. Yes, you can question their long-term model. But today is not that. Many (including me) were sure no Indian startup would list in India. That changed today - with 0 hiccups no less.
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There's a wave of Indonesian startups hiring from India now. Move over Valley, Bangalore will soon be the prized tech capital of the world. Even by sheer volumes, it'll trump every other geo.
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*Rating some of the whiskies I've had. If anyone has recommendations, please reply below. *I don't like smoked whiskies. So as much as Talisker is a crowd favourite, I don't like it.
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TIL: The louder a restaurant’s music is, the more likely customers are to order unhealthy foods, possibly due to increased stimulation and stress.
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Name change. UPI needs better representation and recognition. eth people 👎🏻👎🏻
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😂😂😂😂. The Founder of BaharatPe thinks 'engineers' are lazy and not 'evolving themselves' if they don't become Product Managers. 😂. Your can't make this up. 😂.
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Blinkit has 639 dark stores - as of Aug 1. Swiggy has 523 dark stories as per their latest annual report. Before: Build a house on the land you bought. Now: Lease it to a QC player for a dark store. 😝.
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Pen. Paper. 30 minutes of no distraction. You'll be amazed at how creative you can get.
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Something i've reiterated to content folks in my team:. If you're not earning more than 1cr p.a in 5 years, you haven't justified, or pushed yourself enough to write engaging content. Anyone reading this: if you're up for this challenge, i'll take care of the rest. (I'm hiring).
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Work update: Going to be helping build @meeshoapp's brand. 😊. There's so much to learn with 'social' commerce and how Meesho has managed to build a strong proposition right under the noses of some bigwigs. 🔥.
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The most fascinating bit about Zomato's latest quarter is how Hyperpure is more than half of Zomato's food delivery business. Yet, not much is spoken about it. It has doubled revenues YoY and don't think Swiggy has a b2b supplies business, right?
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I absolutely loved reading this book on all things design. It's given me a vocabulary, opened new insights into the thinking of well-designed products, and its astonishingly incredible ramifications. Highly recommend you pick this tour de force.
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Fun fact: Out of the 36 companies listed in 2017, (the most IPOs until this year) only 8 have beaten the index. In fact, 1 in 4 companies that went public in 2010 don't even exist anymore 😳🙈. Investing for IPO gains is a tricky business.
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