We all love ads, don't we? ❤️

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Sep 25 Oct 8

Oct 1 2020

We all love ads, don't we? ❤️

#133:

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Ads ads ads... oh man. I was speaking to my sister over the phone the other day, cribbing that I miss going out to play football, ranting that I've gained so much weight this lockdown, asking for healthy meals to eat etc. etc.
She suggested I should try a Yoga bar and obviously exercise more. So, I acted super proactively (not!) on her recommendation and opened my Instagram.
To my surprise, or maybe not, the first ad I saw on Instagram was of a Yoga bar. Happens pretty frequently to us right? We talk about something and then suddenly it shows up on your phone?
The curious mind in me got me thinking - maybe it makes sense for larger companies such as Google & Facebook to drive up their revenues through ads, but is it practical for Indian startups to have an ad-based business model? With paywalls being placed by digital publication companies such as WSJ, The Ken, The Morning Context etc., it is clear that ads cannot be the sole source of revenue.
I called Rohit, a colleague of mine at Investopad, to discuss this in detail.
However, unlike the last call with my sister, following which an ad was suggested to me, this call was followed by Rohit penning down his thoughts on whether ad-based business models are practical in India?

Rohit and I would love your feedback and thoughts on this.
Also, our Newsletter will always be free (of ads too)! ❤️

ज्ञान

🙇‍♂️ How People Read Online: New and Old Findings

We’ve been saying this since 1997: People rarely read online — they’re far more likely to scan than read word for word. That’s one fundamental truth of online information-seeking behavior that hasn’t changed in 23 years and which has substantial implications for how we create digital content.

The reason why that finding (and others discussed here) is still true is because it’s based on basic human behavior. Even though massive technology shifts have changed some behaviors, many of our original findings about how people read online remain true, even after 20+ years.

👨‍💻 A Cheat Code for Startup Success

It’s a Silicon Valley truism that product-market fit matters most for a startup. A founder’s ability to achieve that elusive goal is what separates the mega-donkey-deca-unicorn success stories from the vast majority of startups that either die quick and sudden deaths or peter out slowly, unnoticed.

I’ve observed, both as a founder and in our conversations with startups, that finding product market fit is frustratingly vague: Everyone tells you you need it, but offer only hazy generalities on how to get there. Most guidance boils down to “listen to your users.” Good advice, but it still leaves open the question of how to get those critical first users—to say nothing of the people or capital needed to iterate.

💰 Cred’s Business Model

The secret to a better life, a better economy, and a better society is high trust in the humans around you. Cred wants to become a community of verified high-income individuals who trust each other. The business part will have all the key ingredients of any modern internet business, but there are parts that are still evolving.
Yes and No. Payment/repayment is an entry point. You got to start somewhere. It’s fintech today, ed-tech tomorrow, x-tech someday.
Cred is largely horizontal — so limiting it to a vertical is an exercise in futility.

💻 Remote work is a platform - Signal v. Noise

Back in the mid-90s, just as Netscape Navigator was giving us our first look at what the visual internet could be, web design came in two flavors.

There was the ultra basic stuff. Text on a page, maybe a masthead graphic of some sort. Nothing sophisticated. It often looked like traditional letterhead, or a printed newsletter, but now on the screen. Interactions were few, if any, but perhaps a couple links tied a nascent site together.

And there was the other extreme. Highly stylized, lots of textures, 3D-style buttons, page curls, aggressive shadows, monolithic graphics cut up with image maps to allow you to click on different parts of a single graphic, etc. This style was aped from interactive CD/DVD interfaces that came before it.

Elsewhere