Category: SEA

Lyft

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Was reading this about Lyft – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-18/leaked-lyft-financials-show-the-struggles-of-being-no-2-behind-uber.

Not such a great business it seems but a quick takeaway for me is how the hell do they compete with Uber when they don’t have a big international footprint?

This was also news to me:

Andreessen Horowitz is currently Lyft’s largest shareholder, according to one of the documents obtained by Bloomberg. The venture capital firm holds 12 percent of shares. Bloomberg LP is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz. Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten owns 10 percent of Lyft shares, and the Mayfield Fund owns 6.6 percent.

What the hell is Rakuten doing?

VOD – here come Asia!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

We all know VOD is big. Just check Netflix for reference. I pretty much never watch actual TV or cable – except for the news.

Normally I am watching HOOQ, HBO Now, or Netflix. Plus a lot of iTunes video.

Given all that it is no wonder that global VOD growth is gonna keep growing.

What is exciting is the Asia numbers:

The VOD market in Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is expanding at a robust pace and by 2020, the market is expected to reach $80.5 billion.

How do you like them apples?

Good times.

Grinding it out

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Day to day product stuff can be a real grind. Sweating out the details to eak some performance out by a mere fraction of a second, dealing with a partner who can’t code their way out of wet paper bag and pouring over printed contracts trying to make sure we don’t get screwed. You know, the fun stuff that no one ever sees but that make a world of a difference.

Given all that work this is one of those weeks that HOOQ can bask in the glory a bit…

Although the local trade rags don’t talk about us much, I think we raised too much money or something, the FT, my fav paper, mentioned us :: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fb11e7b6-7df4-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e.html

There is much to talk about the OTT wars. I am working on building my second one and as I always tell people it is a marathon, not a sprint. User signups for example don’t mean much when it comes to “revenue”, but all that being said – there are a few of us out to get the prize. One could even argue what the prize is but for me it is to build a real revenue business in streaming content to people in the emerging markets. It’s a tough problem.

I will speaking about it here :: http://www.ap.idc.asia/events/view/agenda/?event_id=612&loc_id=1151

I always mention how bizdev is a tricky beast for a startup – I have written about that before :: http://www.nokpis.com/2014/07/10/fear-bizdev/

Even with HOOQ I have been wary of BD due to the work it creates. For the last few months we have been grinding on this :: http://www.snapdeal.com/product/google-chromecast-hdmi-streaming-media/1709999463?offer_id=17&aff_id=14723&utm_source=aff_prog&utm_campaign=afts

How do you like them Apples?

BizDev is tough – be wary.

That being said we worked hard on shipping chromecast. It has been well received by our users.

Today we added one more thing – native chrome browser support for HTML 5 video. For the nerds – this is hard stuff that most common users can’t appreciate. Having to do secure video at scale with HTML 5 isn’t easy. We will fix the other browsers as soon as we can.

#productLife

More thoughts on transpo!

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

What we all really want is this right?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/googles-cute-cars-and-the-ugly-end-of-driving#.lc7Vy8RkM

Open an app, summon a car, go to my spot, get out and get billed. No driver in the car so we can carry on a normal family or private conversation. I don’t have to argue about the route, worry about traffic or smell a driver’s nasty foot odor. Yes – that happened the other day on Uber X. Won the lottery of getting a fancy weekend Uber X car but paid for it with a punishing smell of rotting old man feet.

Robotic fleet of cars is the answer to a lot of what ails a city. Bring it.

Lit up my stats the other day with this tweet – even garnered a few retweets from the pros.

But damn if I didn’t speak to soon.

Usually when I am in an Uber or Grab I quiz the drivers. I like to hear their stories, how they use the system and what they are getting paid. Like the last time I was in LA the driver picked me up in an Uber X and then based on when he thought he would drop me was logging into his Lyft app to hopefully bag a ride near my drop off point. Love how this economic model influences behaviours.

I noticed about a week ago I couldn’t get an Uber X in the morning – right around 6:50 is when I order one. But funny thing is I noticed some Grab cars lurking around me. So today there were no Uber X cars but yet my first pull on the Grab app netted me a ride on GrabCar. Lo and behold, yeah I remember every driver, I noticed a car that has picked me up before and the driver with his new blonde hair. Of course I dig in to learn that Uber has rules about appearance and on top of that he said the new 60 hour – 100 ride system is paying less than Grab unless you hit the kickers. So his calculated per hour rate is now down and he isn’t logging into Uber X anymore, thus he was available for a GrabCar ride. Hence I can get a Grab now but not an Uber.

Not sure this move is working out too well for Uber since outside of the city central I see less cars now but I will add when I see them I get one. Unlike the Grab system, where they inflate the cars around you and you don’t always get one.

Also many of the Uber X drivers I know on using the cars rented via the Uber system – wonder how this messes with that system?

Where will this end? My guess is both companies are bleeding money and if so this is a funding game to some extent. Good times.

Grab’s problem versus Uber

~ michael_msft ~ 11 Comments

I get in arguments constantly that I am an Uber lover and a Grab hater but most people won’t stop long enough to listen to my stance on it. I will say that after meeting an hearing Sacca I am even a bigger fan but I guess I was just super impressed with Sacca.

First off let me add that as Grab is a local I am constantly baffled and why they are not more local? They took forever to add credit cards, they have no loyalty program (huge mistake), and in places like Singapore their mapping and lack of using zip codes is comical.

On top of all of this the apps just suck – let me get detailed here:

– I will book a taxi. It is on the way. The app will crash. It re opens and it goes back to book a taxi mode. I have one on the way. Of course now I can’t contact the taxi because it shows I don’t have a taxi.

– This happened to me a number of times in Bangkok and since I couldn’t contact the taxi and they couldn’t find me they would cancel on me. I wouldn’t know this since the app thinks I don’t have a booking anyway.

– Other times I would re book only to find I would have two taxis coming. How would a system let me book two taxis? On top of this customer service would call me to inquire why I booked two cabs.

– Other issues like the timing mechanisms are totally broken and the app is just overly complicated.

However let me get to what I think is the core crux of why I don’t like Grab. It fails on the instant gratification scale that Uber absolutely nails. For example this is what I saw this morning when trying to get a GrabCar:

Untitled//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

To myself or my wife this would make it look like we have a chance of getting a car.

Wait for it – this is what almost always happens though:

Untitled//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

And happens and happens and almost always happens.

Why doesn’t it retry till I get a car?

Why does it show me there are cars around me but yet none accept the fare?

This is the part of Grab that lulls me into thinking it is just a booking app – like all other booking apps. Whereas Uber is an Instant Transportation Service living within my phone. If there are no cars available then it shows me that there are no cars. And practically every time it shows cars are available I am able to book one. Otherwise it shows no cars available. Or if really busy you see surge pricing.

I will take a surge price over hitting retry on Grab 100 times. Why? Instant gratification. I know I can book a car. With Grab. It is spray and pray.

There are those saying that Grab will just keep raising enough money to win. I think winning might be beating other regional players – Rocket already packed their bags. However Uber will win the ultimate battle due to the difference in how the core of their service works.

Grab could fix this but they don’t seem to be since the apps are as bad a they have ever been.

Koprol

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

I was sitting at a dinner with some VC’s and a LP talking about the region.

This came up:

https://www.techinasia.com/happyfresh-asia-funding-news/

I chatted a little about Yahoo and Koprol. How Yahoo totally blew it and this closing of Indonesia R&D was the signal for the slow, ever continuing downfall of Yahoo.

At the same time the Koprol deal kicked off the SEA deal making phase and created a group of techies that are slowly infiltrating the region working for startups or startung them. Or hanging at the mall.

I won’t try and list names. You all know who you are.

Congrats!

#SEArising

Can anyone run Yahoo?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Adding this for everyone :: http://thomasdiong.com/post/105578350652/marissa-mayer-is-doing-a-fine-job

The internet is all on fire with the latest article about Yahoo and the forthcoming book. It is too juicy of a subject not to talk about it. Here I go.

In case you are wondering I have written about Yahoo before – and normally these posts always make my top 10.

Starting from the most popular on down:

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this

What the hell happened to Yahoo! Messenger

Thinking about Koprol 2.0

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 1

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 2

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 3

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 4

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 5

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this – part 2 (#marissadidit)

What is happening with Yahoo?

That is my core 10 posts regarding Yahoo and they make up most of my blog traffic. I actually had another post on how Carol Bartz was the worst pick as a Yahoo CEO but I erased it one day, actually my first day at Yahoo, thinking that someone might read it and fire me. The rest of the posts were all written after I left Yahoo.

I get emails from people saying I like to bash Yahoo but I don’t. I loved working there, I loved Yahoo before I worked there and I still love Yahoo. I write about it cause I think about it. I do not intend to cause any harm to people working there even if I am sometimes accused of that.

Here is the new article on Yahoo :: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-when-marissa-mayer-tried-to-be-steve-jobs.html . It is a riveting read and of course the book will be a must read.

Nothing in the article is really news apart from the fact that it seems Marissa thinks a lot of herself and likes to be late to everything. I heard about the Ross story first hand and of course everyone knew Ross would quit right away. I personally think Ross should have had a shot at running Yahoo. He would have massively cut staff, it NEEDS to be cut, and he would have focused on the right bits. That would be a better course of action than doing nothing or trying to acquire everything. Yahoo could make money as a smaller, more nimble entity. Ross also wanted to buy Hulu but not sure that would have worked but I think trying a big acquisition is smarter than a bunch of small ones for the purposes of recruiting.

At first I was excited about the Marissa news but I had so many current and ex Google friends tell me what a mistake it was. In hindsight a lot of what they were saying was right. She is out of touch with reality, is not a great manager and is not the right fit for Yahoo. As I am in the States right now hanging with my folks, who use Yahoo religiously, I realize that people like my folks are Yahoo’s current target user base for the USA. Yahoo may not like that fact but it is true. They use Yahoo mail, front page, news, weather and the yahoo news digest app. They used to use messenger but let’s be honest – no one uses messenger anymore. It’s dead. Huge, huge mistake for Yahoo to lose out on the messaging craze. Huge.

Enter Marissa, a CEO who knows little about my parents. Marissa is too wealthy, sheltered and full of herself to ever understand my parents. Yes – I know a lot of tech CEOs are out of touch with my mom and dad but the difference is Yahoo needs turing around, Yahoo’s strength is folks like my mom and dad and it will take knowing them to serve them. I know Yahoo wants the young ones but that ain’t happening. In fact, I am not my parents or a young one but I don’t use Yahoo anymore either. That’s the problem really – no one is really waking up everyday and checking Yahoo like they used to.

On this point one has to hand it to Gruber for somewhat nailing the decline of Yahoo :: http://daringfireball.net/2014/12/yahoo_decline . I don’t disagree with him on what happened but I don’t think those mistakes spelt the end of Yahoo. What cooked Yahoo was years and years of not changing course.

Yahoo knew the old stuff was dying and the new web was taking over – but they didn’t respond to it at all.

They missed mobile, then they missed apps, they missed the emerging markets and they blew their Asian deals. Let me be clear here – Yahoo made money on both their Alibaba and their Softbank deal but what they never did is take advantage of those deals. They should have learned how to import stuff from Japan and China back into the States. They should have worked closely with Alibaba and Softbank on Southeast Asia, India and North Asia. Yahoo had huge leads in these markets and now they have virtually nothing. Korea closed. Yahoo Japan is not Yahoo. There is no Yahoo in China. They are dying in Southeast Asia. Properly executing in Asia could have done a lot for Yahoo in the big picture. They let it all die.

I agree with Gruber that a comeback is highly unlikely but along the way they could have fallen less farther than they did. As to now – I don’t know if it can bounce back. It may just be too late. Apart from Flickr I use nothing from Yahoo and they could spin that off if it were up to me. Their mail sucks. Their messenger sucks. I never hit the front page. The new digest thing was interesting but too fluffy and not customizable enough for my tastes. There is just nothing interesting about Yahoo and to top it off – I live in Asia – Yahoo in Asia is even worse than Yahoo in the States. 

Yahoo makes money. They have too many people. They still need to cut back and focus. Then they would make even more money.

As to a Yahoo/AOL thing. Kill me if this happens.

Maybe Alibaba or Softbank might try to buy them. At least that would be interesting.

 

Android first

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Marco is obviously a very successful guy but I think this is where he and a lot of people from the states and Europe miss the boat sometimes – they clearly don’t understand the emerging markets and the freedom developers have around Android when it comes to telcos and bizdev. Given this – for some apps going Android first may make a ton of sense.

http://www.marco.org/2014/11/07/business-insider-maintains-usual-level-of-quality

Amazing to see the depth at Google

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

https://www.techinasia.com/googles-lead-apac-product-manager-andrew-mcglinchey-speaks-on-how-the-company-picks-its-battles-in-asia/

Google prints money so it is not surprising they can afford to have resources for a product manager that helps to represent Asia. This is similar to what I was doing at Yahoo but of course we didn’t have this expansive of a charter.

I have to admit that Google is pretty serious about Asia. We are working with them at Spuul on some stuff and they devote ample resources, are very organized and run some strict deadlines.

As I hear about all the dismantling of Yahoo in Asia, I tend to think about what could have been but obviously wasn’t.

Google is not my favorite but I am impressed with how much money and effort they put into Asia.

Will write up another post about an interesting project they are doing with PWC in the region.