DoorDash

Strategy & Operations, Associate

T-Mobile

Product Strategy Intern

Outset

Outset is a digital wardrobe that uses machine learning and computer vision to digitize your closet enabling you to see what you own, value what you own & predict what you will own

Lead Strategy

Kahana

Risk Analyst Intern

HGS - Hinduja Global Solutions

Digital Transformation Intern

Picture this: Uber, outrun by Grab in Southeast Asia. 
McDonald's, outpaced by KFC in China.  
 
The irony? They were there first. 
 
What went wrong? 
 
One word. Hyperlocalization.  
They overlooked the unique, intricate needs of their local customers. 
 
The difference wasn’t a question of massive strategy shifts, but of subtle feature alterations based on customer feedback.  
 
Yet, these small tweaks made billions of $ of a difference.  
 
Remember Jeff Bezos's words? "We start with what the customer needs at Amazon and work backwards. The most crucial thing is to truly obsess over the customer." 
 
What didn't make 'the sell?':  
Applying a general strategy when entering a new market and underestimating the importance of unique needs, preferences of the target customer based on geography.  
 
Do you think this applies to B2B products as well?  
 
- - - - 
Liked this? 👍🏼 
Repost it :) ♻️

Prarthana Anand

What makes 'the sell?' | Strategy @ DoorDash | Duke

All roads lead to Patek Philippe:  
The most perfect form of a mechanical object that humankind has ever made.  
 
Pateks' success lies in the fact that they don’t exist in the past, present or future. 
 
They exist in all three times; they are incredibly proud of their past, obsessed with what they are doing now and highly focused on the future.  
  
Let’s talk about what is said to be one of the greatest marketing campaigns of all time.  
 
In the early 1980s Patek released long form texts of why they were the best in the world, why their craftsmanship is the best.  
 
They quickly realized people didn’t want to sit down and read a book about “why” something is the best, they just want to be told “why”.  
 
Emotion, they found was one of the best ways to do that:  
 
“𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗸, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.”  
 
Umm? Mic drop.  
 
This campaign transcended any and all other messaging, while also encapsulating Pateks' own brand philosophy of existing in the past, present and future.  
 
They did two other pivotal things in 1989:  
   
They wanted their watches to be treated like art:  
They held a public exhibition auction: No other watch company was doing it, it became a huge media event to watch these watches being sold at such extraordinary prices.  
 
They wanted to drill down on the exclusivity of their art:  
For the first time they introduced the concept of limited edition watches, and books that went along with why those limited editions were so special.  
 
Do you see the difference in the way they highlighted they were #1?  
 
In a very humble, subtle yet bold way.   
 
So, what makes ‘the sell?’   
 
How do you sell a $150,000 + watch when people can buy an accurate one for $10? 
 
By saying “My watch is the best, I spent 100 years making it.”?  
 
Is that going to make it the most coveted watch in history? 
 
Now, what if you said: 
 
My watch isn’t just a device for telling time. It’s an heirloom that you can give your grandson on his 18th birthday.  
 
The narrative changes, instantly.  
 
What is the emotion we can incite in our customer as a result of the product we are trying to sell?  
 
Fun fact: Queen Victoria bought a Patek in the 1850s, after which everyone in Europe wanted one. Call her the OG influencer of the brand! Good old Vicky.  
 
- - - - 
Liked this? 👍🏼 
Repost it :) ♻️

No alternative text description for this image

Coca Cola has the largest Beverage Distribution Ecosystem in the WORLD.

How have they used it to annihilate competition for the last 50 years? 

It’s important to note that ‘Coca Cola: The company’ only manages distributing the liquid concentrate & marketing , whereas the actual bottling and final distribution are outsourced.

Essentially we’re talking about a franchising, capital light business model. 

Why this has proven to be the #1 driver for their success? 

𝟭. Financial returns are higher for the Coca Cola company: 30% ROI vs the 10-15% ROI from the bottling and distribution business.

𝟮. The Circle of competence arc: Having 950 local businesses facilitates acute local GTM knowledge, greater innovation, understanding of changes in retail landscape and changes in customer taste.  

The feedback that bubbles up from these franchises is given back to the rest of the system, in fact, most of their innovation has come from borrowing feedback and transferring it across different markets. 

𝟯.This allows the central company to focus on overall strategy, adding beverages to the portfolio, supporting their growth on a local & global scale. 

They’ve created a symbiotic relationship with the bottlers & distributors by reinvesting 25% of sales revenue in marketing and brand advertising, building a moat around distribution and brand dominance. 

What can we learn about what makes ‘the sell’?

Remember Ubers’ failure to recognize hyperlocal needs in South East Asia? 

Coca Cola's system is a perfect fix to that issue.

If our product is going to be distributed across geographies, which part of its creation can we outsource in order to maintain innovation? 

Other examples of outsourcing creation to maintain innovation:  Apples app ecosystem, AWS for developers, Microsofts Imagine Cup.  

What do you think?

What makes the sell: CocaCola

What happens when you hand over restaurant operations to 3 MIT engineers?

They create an Operating System for a Restaurant. Duh.

This is the story of Toast, and its rise to absolute dominance in the SMB restaurant sector in the United States.

What did you learn from their story?

- - - -

Like this? 👍🏼
Repost it :) ♻️

What Makes the Sell: Toast

Priyanka Chopra  built the 2nd biggest celebrity beauty brand in the world. 
 
How did she do it?  
 
Recognizing an overlooked niche,  
 
and leveraging the sh*t out of it.  
 
Rewind to 2022: the beauty market was a bloodbath of celebrity skincare lines. Priyanka — with nearly 60 million Instagram followers could have easily become just another face in the crowd. 
 
But she saw beyond the clutter. She eyed a blue ocean opportunity. 
 
Internationally, Indian women are lauded for their beautiful, silky hair. Indian products are acclaimed for their organic, clean ingredients.  
 
Yet, the market was devoid of a haircare line that combined these two powerful elements. 
   
Priyanka filled this gap. With her distinct heritage in her arsenal, she developed Anomaly, a haircare product that embodied the best of both worlds. 
 
Here's where it gets intriguing: 
 
She sold each bottle for just $5.99 and secured an exclusive distribution agreement with Target.  
 
Her products were affordable and ubiquitous — a stark contrast to the steeply priced celebrity labels. 
 
By 2023, her haircare brand clocked in a smashing $542.7 million in revenue. 
 
So, What can we learn about"making the sell"? 
 
My understanding is that her success predominantly stemmed from effectively executing Marketing 101 principles (Segment, Target, Position): 
 
1. Smart Multi-Segmenting: Priyanka identified and targeted multiple market segments—culturally-aware consumers, budget-conscious buyers, and fans of celebrity-endorsed products 
 
2.Aligned Targeting and Positioning: Her targeting and positioning strategies were meticulously aligned with both the identified market segments AND her personal brand, creating a cohesive and compelling product offering. 
 
What do you think?
- - - - 
 
Like this? 👍🏼 
Repost it :) ♻️

1 New Notification from Kendall Jenner: 
 
“Hey, can I get some of your products?”  
 
How Triangl, the Bikini brand, got Kendall Jenner to advertise for them for free. 
 
The company, well established in Australia,  had set its sights on penetrating  the American market. 
 
Kendall Jenner — young, athletic, was  a perfect match for their brand identity.  
 
Buut they couldn’t afford her.  
 
So what’d they do?  
 
Instead of reaching out directly to Jenner, Triangl tapped into a powerful tool: the persuasive power of FOMO especially evident in female peer circles.  
 
They did some research and  sent their Bikinis to all of Kendall's friends, leaving her out intentionally. 
 
Imagine being Kendall — the most famous one in your group, and you’re the only one who didn't get the suddenly “coveted” Triangl bikini.  
 
She was like "what the hell, why didn't I get the bikinis?" 
 
She took matters into her own hands, emailing the founder to send her some.  
 
And then she posted about it, for free. 
 
After which, obviously every American girl wanted it.  
 
So, what made 'the sell'? 
 
A very targeted, out of the box, psychological strategy. 
 
Is there a feeling of FOMO we can create either via exclusivity or through a marketing campaign that would incentivize our customers to buy our product? 
 
What do you think?  
 
- - - - 
 
Liked this? 👍🏼 
Repost it :) ♻️

Remember in the movie Focus, when they got the guy to pick the number 55?  
What does that have to do with RedBull?  
 
In 1994, Red Bull was a no name energy drink that wanted to launch in  London. 
 
The market was over saturated, and they needed a way to stand out.  
 
So, they crushed thousands of empty cans of the drink and loaded garbage bins and began handing  out free samples to DJs and club owners. 
 
Every night, they piled up empty crushed cans outside bars, stations and near entrances of universities.  
 
People saw this can strewn everywhere and a LOT of times. 
 
It created a sense of curiosity while also creating a subconscious sense of comfort & trust due to repetition.  
 
The next time they walked into the store - the choice had already been made for them.  
 
Playing with these psychological phenomena of ‘priming’ and ‘mere exposure’ is extremely powerful. 
 
The mind is a creature of habit: It’s the reason brands spend millions of dollars on adverts.  
 
What can we learn about what ‘makes the sell’? 
 
How many times & in how many ways must we expose our product to our customer before we get to make the decision for them?  
 
What are some other companies that come to mind?

Who doesn’t love an underdog challenger story? 


How Grab used hyperlocalization to go on offense with Uber. 

In 2014, people were waiting for Uber to squash Grab, the same way they steamrolled EasyTaxi and Hailo (Never heard of them? Exactly.)

Uber’s momentum up to this point was thanks to a series of assumptions that had so far proven true for every market they’d entered: 

1. Everyone uses smartphones. 
2. Everyone pays with credit cards.
3. Cars are the only way to get around.
4. Passengers are comfortable riding with strangers.

These assumptions soon clashed against the on-the-ground realities in Southeast Asia.

Most riders didn’t have credit cards, so from the very start, Grab accepted cash. 

It took Uber two years to begin accepting cash in some parts of the region.

At the time, Uber’s engineering superiority gave them the ability to do things that Grab could not yet do, like charge the rider precisely the right amount once a trip had completed.

However, Grab’s hyperlocal perspective allowed them to re-frame this perceived disadvantage into a strength:

“For the longest time, the industry was based around pricing at the end of the ride, not the beginning of the ride. But a lot of the aunties and uncles in Singapore, culturally, were quite averse to that notion. And so we innovated with upfront fixed pricing.” (Ming Maa, Grab President)

So, what makes ‘the sell’?

If we commit to a hyperlocal strategy, we can rapidly adapt our offering to better meet market needs. 

Over time, these adaptations sum up to a defensible moat. 

This moat unlocks a part of the TAM that is inaccessible to our competition, allowing us to invest and execute with greater conviction.

What makes the sell: Grab

Swipe right? 
The rise of Dating apps in the 21st Century

What Makes the Sell: Dating Apps

I've found that the best advice is often the most simple:

Want to learn about what makes 'the sell'? 

Go sell. 😀

Also, 'The Almanac of Naval Ravikant' was a great read!

- - - -
Liked this?👍🏼

Check out my profile Prarthana Anand for more content on what makes 'the sell'?

Dominating a niche with Vertical Integration: 


Toast for SMB Restaurants in the US, Shopify for Individuals & Small Business Owners across the world. 

Their secret? 

Seamless, deep integration within their niches. 

They tackled the toughest problems first, then stacked solutions on top.

Interestingly, as they stacked deeper into their niche, their revenue began to come from the more advanced offerings.

What made 'the sell'?

Solving for the hard problem first, and then the next, and the next, to eventually become the go-to platform within their niche. 

What do you think the pros & cons of vertical integration are?

What Makes the Sell: Vertical Integration

Did Spotify *𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆* change the game ,or is it just another streaming service?

Let’s look at customer segments the way Spotify does: 

1.A Super fan: Characteristics: Pays retail for a product and has the energy to go seek the product 

2. A Casual fan: Characteristics: Lacks either one of the above; either won’t pay or doesn't have the energy 

3. A Non-fan : Characteristics: Ascribes zero or negative value to a product 

Next, the product to sell,in this case, music. We have two options: 

1.A la carte product → Target segment: Super fans 

Think Itunes: the traditional way of selling music- go to the store, pay $0.99 per song 

2. A bundled product → Target segment: Casual fans AND Super fans 

Think Spotify: $10 to listen to all the music you MIGHT want to listen to EVEN if you wouldn’t have gone out and bought it individually. 

So at one level, Spotify bundled together 99 cent purchases of music into a $10 offering.

Why this changed the game? 

1. From an economic perspective, it  displaced direct purchasing of music. Which was clearly a super-fan business. 

2. If we look at usage graphs for what people spend their time listening to: some of it is things they MAY have spent 0.99$ on but a large portion of what people spent time listening to are things they value but would not have met the super fan test for. 

So, what makes the sell? 

The way that  bundling produces value is not by producing more super-fans, it's by producing casual-fans and unlocking a much larger TAM.  

How may we apply this in our offering?

What makes the sell: Spotify

What I learnt from interviewing 50+ women 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘 their closets  
 
“I never have nice clothes to wear” said Susan, standing in her 400 sq ft walk-in wardrobe.  
 
We wanted to address this seemingly universal problem. 
 
We had an idea for a digital closet. But who would we cater the product to?  
 
Was our target segment wealthy working women that don’t have as much time?  
 
Or was it university students that have the time but not as much disposable income?  
 
We dove deep, interviewing both groups about their closets and outfit choices. 
 
We identified multiple bottlenecks and therefore features we could add. 
 
But which features would we prioritize?  
 
What if we prioritize too much, would we risk being an “everything for everyone” product?  
 
Creating a product sounds simple: find a problem, offer a solution. 
 
I’ve found, increasingly, that success lies in the nuances of:  
1. Accurately identifying a specific problem 
2. Validating that it's worth solving 
3. Becoming the best at solving it 
 
Summing up what I learnt:  
 
1.Women universally struggle with outfit choices.  
 
2. A lot of womens confidence comes from what they wear, there is a wealth of emotion attached to putting on clothes, and therefore potential for customer traction & retention.  
 
By 2030, the fashion industry is projected to reach $3.3 trillion. 
 
What’s going to make 'the sell’ here is capturing this sentiment and leveraging it, the opportunity here is exciting as disposable income in newer economies increases.  
 
What do you think?

Why do certain songs make us buy more? 
Music isn't just background noise. It's a powerful tool for influencing decisions. 
 
Here’s the trick: 
 
Fast beats = perception of passage of time increases = faster/impulsive decision making  
Slow beats =perception of passage of time decreases = slower decision making 
 
Ever noticed the loud, upbeat music in fast food joints or grocery stores? It’s no accident. They want you to speed up and get out. In contrast, upscale restaurants play softer tunes to keep you lingering. 
 
Shoppers in a wine store bought more French wine when French music played, and more German wine with German tunes. When asked, customers swore the music didn't influence them. But the numbers don’t lie. 
 
The psychology behind ‘the sell’:  
 
Music subtly shapes our buying behavior, often without us even realizing it. 
 
Next time you hear a tune in a particular environment, think about what it's nudging you to do.

Lady Gaga tweeted from hers. Madonna slept with one under her pillow. 
 
When he became president, Barack Obama fought tooth and nail to be able to keep his device.  
 
When Naomi Campbell lost her temper with a housekeeper in 2006, which household object did she choose to use as a projectile weapon?  
 
That’s right, it was the humble BlackBerry.  
 
Without any overstatement, they were everywhere. 
 
So, how’d they go from 20% market share to 0%? 
 
At their genesis, they did everything right:  
 
Value Prop: A phone that allowed push emails & messaging on BBM with internet data -a concept no one else in the market was selling.  
 
Target Segment: Business professionals, Corporate junkies. 
 
Marketing Strategy: Grass- root level approach, went to business conferences, found people with the bulkiest laptops and distributed the product for free  
 
After taking over the corporate world, the rage of the question “What’s your BBM pin?” allowed them to trickle into the normal world too.  
 
85 million BBM users! (and we’re talking 2006)  
 
Enter Steve with the Iphone in 2007.  
 
His slide deck had a side by side comparison of why the Iphone was better than the Blackberry.  
 
Blackberry got cocky.  
 
-They said the Iphones’ need really good internet which Telcos at the time couldn’t provide. 
-They didn’t believe the Iphone was solving for the business world. 
 
What can we learn from them about what didn’t make ‘the sell’?  
 
1. Apple opened up the app ecosystem to keep people engaged. 
2.They continually developed new models of the Iphone to incentivize customer  retention. 
3. They realized smartphone purchases weren't  just about the corporate world. 
 
When catering to one’s target segment, what is the level of innovation & novelty we can maintain in order to keep our poduct novel & differentiated.  
 
The cost of attention is only going to rise every year, how do we keep up? 
 
What do you think Blackberry could have done better?

Do you derive value from your LinkedIn feed?

How Comcast unfairly gets away with paying ESPN 20 times more than the History Channel: 

Marginal Churn Contribution. Heard of it? 

The History Channel and ESPN get about the same amount of usage. If you look at it in terms of time spent, rating points etc. 

Yet, History Channel makes $0.20 per month per subscriber and ESPN makes $5 per subscriber per month.

So, how’s that fair?

Shouldn’t the revenue from bundles be allocated based on usage?

Here’s the deal: If ESPN were removed from the bundle, 20 TIMES as many people would churn as if you were to remove the History channel.

Therefore they get paid 20 times as much. 

That core idea that bundles should divide up the revenue based on Marginal Churn Contribution  as opposed to usage, leads to a totally different way of thinking about the bundle & pricing. 

Think about this in the amazon or New York Times example. 

Which PRIMARY service are you paying for? And if it were removed how likely would you be to continue paying for the bundle?

What Makes the Sell: Bundling

Yoga Pants & a billion-dollar empire? 
Here's the scoop on how lululemon did it: 

𝟭. 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝗴𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗺 

Chip Wilson, the founder, noticed the nascent yoga participation craze in the US and believed it would become something much bigger than it was. (previously did the same thing with WestBeach, a skiing brand) 


𝟮. 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗴𝗮𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁: 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 , 𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗔𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝗶𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲’:
 
At the time people wore their least attractive, oldest T-shirts, sweatshirts etc. to work out 

The idea that athletic wear could be attractive, functional was pretty revolutionary. Lulu birthed ‘athleisure’ which, at that point, didn't really exist

Japanese manufacturing machines were used to create a flat theme, (combine two pieces of fabric without any pieces adding to the sides : which would create friction when wearing them during yoga) 


𝟯.𝗨𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲:

Adidas and Under Armour are very masculine in their branding and really about sports and achievement at a very high level

Lulu understood that a better way to reach women, when it came to athletics, was the self-empowerment message. 

They've been a grassroots community-based branding mechanism that sought out local, not celebrities, but well-known people within the yoga or other sports businesses and enlisted these ambassadors.


𝟰. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 & 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻  

Unlike Alo/ wholesale brands that sell through high-end department stores or in other specialty retail stores, Lulu, through its combination of community activations, store openings, community outreach has really been able to capture the consumer in a more significant and deeper way.

Even though it has expanded from an initial assortment around yoga, and more recently to mens fashion,  it has not really lost touch with its connection to the consumer about making fantastic, attractive technical fabric that performs. 

𝗦𝗼, 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 ,𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹’?
If we look at the Lulu success funnel:

1/ A combination of Coca Colas circle of competence arc,

2/ An understanding of women's’ needs as Toast did for restaurants, 

3/ Their loyalty to brand innovation and quality that has sustained Patek Phillippe come to mind. 

Maybe we are arriving at a success funnel formula across verticals?

Taplio

Prarthana Anand's Linkedin Analytics

Prarthana Anand

Prarthana Anand's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

.css-1jgreyo{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39,43,72,1) 0%, rgba(33,47,183,1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Prarthana Anand's Linkedin Analytics

Prarthana Anand

Prarthana Anand's Best Posts .css-qqfgvy{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);}(last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Prarthana Anand's Linkedin Analytics

Prarthana Anand's Best Posts (last 30 days)