This blog is a response to a blog written by my friend Tiffany Chen.

I think that Snapchat turning down the 3~4 billion dollar offer from Facebook and Google was a ridiculously foolish decision on their part.

I read an article somewhere which was discussing about whether Instagram sold themselves short by giving in for a billion dollar offer. I disagree completely with this and think that Instagram made the right choice.

Although these app-based startups are starting to be valued more and more as we progress into the future, Snapchat being offered 4.5 billion is a ridiculously over-valued bid let alone Instagram’s 1 billion dollar offer by Facebook.

These huge bids are a result of the strongest ‘.com’ companies paying huge money for their dominance on the web. Neither Facebook and Google think that Snapchat is really worth as much money as they offered yet they felt that owning Snapchat would give them a slight stability in the industry of theirs that is dynamic to say the least.

Before we know it, Snapchat will be gone and another billion dollar idea is going to be in their shoes.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/tiffanyc/2013/11/17/snapchat-turned-down-billion-dollar-offer/

Louis, Tristan. “Snapchat And Other Best and Bungled Billion-Dollars Offers.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 16 Nov. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/11/16/snapchat-and-other-best-and-bungled-billion-dollars-offers/>.

This article focuses on the third Plenum that China just concluded. The most interesting point out of the reforms that took place was the loosening of the ‘one-child’ law.

I’ve got to admit, the Chinese government is incredibly inefficient. Compared to the Japanese government who couldn’t make any sort of pragmatic action because of the slight opposition from party X until Abe came along, the Chinese government’s been functioning well like a company, doing what it knows best for the majority of the people of China.

With the one-child law now loosened, China is trying to resolve the potential issue of a lack of supply of labour. With China’s labour force increasing, they can maintain their ‘USP’ as a production giant fueled by cheap labour.

What amazes me is how flexible they are about changing such a rooted legislation. According to one source, 76% of the people of China support the one-child policy.

It is also very interesting that China treats the one-child law like a tax policy. When the supply of labor starts running low, they managed to loosen the ‘tariff’ on having a child thereby incentivizing supply.

Nicely done China.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-15/china-plenum-outlines-ambitious-reforms-to-one-child-policy-banking-and-legal-system#r=nav-r-story

http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-11-15/1115_onechild_630x420.jpg

A former Ebay upper management, Kanishk Parashar, founded  a new company named Coin which is producing a universal credit card. They are being crowd-funded by interested customers who are willing to invest $50 in the development process of the product for a universal credit card post-launch. The product is going to retail for $100.

The idea of creating a universal credit card is brilliant as there’s a need for the product literally everywhere. Yet, there are some problems that Coin could possibly encounter.

Firstly, many people aren’t open to change especially if it’s something that might involve an unforeseen risk involving money. The universal credit card is very efficient but it’s only 2 or 3 cards thinner compared to what people already have. The current credit cards work fine right now so many people would be scared of changing to Coin, especially when the safety of their whole savings is involved.

Secondly, and connected to the first problem is that if they are not able to convince people that it is a hundred percent safe, they will have a hard time selling the product to customers.

With that said, I must say a universal credit card may be the next billion dollar idea that is simply an adaptation of what we already have.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-15/a-startup-thats-building-a-universal-credit-card#r=nav-r-story

http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-11-15/1115_Coin_630x420.jpg

We’re all familiar with the tablet market by now. We know that Apple sells the high-end iPad and it’s a Google (Nexus 7) vs. Apple (iPad mini) standoff in the cheaper tablet market.

There are (apparently) also players like Lenovo who are targeting a slightly cheaper segment but most of us don’t know about their activities because they failed to specifically target a unique segment. For example, if you are going to buy a $169 Lenovo tablet, you might as well buy a $200 Nexus 7 or an iPad mini.

When Lenovo and other’s presence in the tablet market seem gloomy, the emergence of a new $40 tablet named Aakash 4 with specs that are as good as Lenovo (and others) cheaper tablets pushes them further into the darkness.

The company planning to sell these $40 tablets is Datawind from India. Their business model allows them to earn profit from the sales of apps and this allows them to place themselves in an extremely cost-leadership position of the tablet market which is similar to Nexus 7 and iPad mini, except more extreme.

If this product launch is successful in the UK which is planned to happen in the next couple of months, the looming shadows created by Datawind, Apple, and Google will give no place to surface for Lenovo (and others).

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-super-cheap-tablets#r=nav-f-story

http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2013-11-14/tech_tablets47__01__630x420.jpg

This will be my first blog post on someone else’s blog and I decided to comment on my very good friend Brandon’s.

Reading the article, it seems like another good decision of Amazon’s to expand. Online grocery shopping is becoming more and more common while Amazon is finding it hard to increase sales by a significant amount so the decision seems almost natural. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Amazon’s dominant position in their industry can be explained by looking at how Amazon reinvests most of their gross profit into new projects such as SMILE. I also agree with the point that Brandon gives about Amazon having the upper hand in distribution scales and logistics.

However, I feel that Walmart has an upper hand in some aspects of this head-to-head battle for the king of e-commerce. With Walmart’s revenue topping $469 billion and Amazon’s revenue being only $61 billion, Walmart has more flexibility to invest in the battle against the world’s biggest online store. I feel that the area where Walmart needs to compete in against Amazon online is the sales of perishable goods. Although Walmart does not have as big a distribution capacity as Amazon, with the growth of online grocery shopping being +22%, they have a chance of beating Amazon in this battle.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/brandonkothe/2013/10/31/first-walmart-now-amazon-looking-at-buying-groceries-online-in-canada/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-launches-online-grocery-store-in-canada-1.2303320

http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/amazon-vs-walmart.png

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