Legacy of Tony Hsieh, #2020Wrapped, and Netflix's StreamFest
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious - Einstein đ
BonjourâŚHelloâŚand Namaste !
Hiii, I am your host Nayanđ
Welcome to the 3rd issue of Curiosity Culture.
let me introduce Curiosity Culture đ¤ - A weekly newsletter about Marketing, Creativity, Business, and Culture with lots of curiosity.
The newsletter will hit your inbox every SUNDAY.
3 Rules of the club đ (For new people who have joined the club last week)
You should have âBoundless Curiosityâ
Remember the first Rule
We DO TALK OPENLY about Curiosity Culture.
On that note
letâs get started.
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Legacy of Tony Hsieh! đ
Tony Hsieh, bestselling author and former CEO of e-commerce pioneer Zappos.com, died at age 46Â on Friday. What a tragic loss!
Tony Heish built one of the best customer service brand in the world from scratch - Zappos!
Letâs take a closer look at how he built Zappos.
He described Zappos philosophy in his book âDelivering Happinessâ as,
Tony Hsieh was born on December 12, 1973. His parents, both Taiwanese immigrants, always gave importance to education, always pushing Tony and his younger brothers to excel in school. Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the very early days of the internet, he wanted to be a part of that world. He graduated in 1995 with a degree in computer science from Harvard University. As a first step, he accepted a job at Oracle as a low-level programmer.
But his ambition and creativity were not suited for the large corporate life. He left oracle with a colleague to build an âAd networkâ for the new world of internet advertising - And thatâs how âLinkExchangeâ was born.
Within 2 years, they had over 400,000 webpages. In 1998, just 2 years after starting the business, Hsieh and his co-founders sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million. In 1999, Tony Hsieh met Nick Swinmurn, the founder of Zappos, a company that wanted to sell shoes on the Internet. He left Microsoft and joined Zappos as its CEO.
With the dot.com crash, Internet business collapsed. And raising money for an internet shoe sales business was laughable. So, Hsieh sold his own real estate to fund the business. And thatâs how he became a true servant leader. He believed in an idea and people who were working on that Idea.
As Zappos grew, Hsieh focused on building a company he could be proud of. He prioritized people and a unique culture that embraced individualism. Zappos famously asked the question, "How weird are you?" while hiring new employees. By 2009, the company hit $1 billion in sales.
But âWhat made Zappos unique?â
Zappos is fanatical about great service â not just satisfying customers, but delighting them. The company promises free, four-day delivery. Thatâs pretty good. But most of the time it delivers next-day service, a surprise that leaves a lasting impression on customers: âYou said four days, but I got them the next morning.â
The company mastered the art of customer service - Itâs smart, entertaining, and full of empathy call center employees are free to do whatever it takes to make customers happy. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, no robots - Just pure human to human conversations and lots of legendary stories. And thatâs how you built a great customer service brand. One of Zapposâs employee narrated Tonyâs out of the box idea of bringing people together,
He would intentionally schedule back-to-back meetings that had no connection and overlap them, so the 3 pm meeting would arrive early and catch the end of the 2 pm meeting, and the 4 pm meeting the 3 pm, and so on, with the people from the earlier meetings sticking around, so by 6 pm there would be a large group of people walking around Downtown Vegas and sharing ideas.
After hiring employees and training them, Zappos gives this offer- If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time youâve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.â Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!
Philosophy - if youâre willing to take the company up on The Offer, you obviously donât have the sense of commitment the company looking for. ( I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.đ)
Tonyâs vision - How we could avoid losing a startup edge and how we could empower every employee to act like an entrepreneur. End of bureaucracy!
His book âDelivering Happinessâ has become a playbook for building company culture and delivering happiness.
"There is a big difference between motivation and inspiration: inspiring through values and motivation will happen by itself." - Tony Heish.
Tony Heish truly made a dent in the universe and his legacy will be how the new generation founders will look at company culture and customer service. RIP Legend!
#2020Wrapped đ
India ne 2020 me kya suna?
Revenue of the Indian Music Streaming market is projected to reach US$393 million in 2020. It is growing at a CAGR of 7.1% (2020-2025). India is in the midst of the internet revolution and Spotify is looking at India as its next biggest market.
In India, there are currently 743.19 million Internet users (which outnumber the populations of the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy & Japan combined ) at the end of March 2020 as stated in the TRAI report. You can clearly see the potential of the Indian market đ.
Spotify entered into Indiaâs competitive market very late. But due to its hyper-personalized approach, it is dominating the Indian market. The audio streaming platformâs personalized #2020Wrapped experience for listeners in India and all over the world. Well, Spotify stories dominated all social media platforms for a day.
Here are the Top 5 artists in India:
BTS is the only international act to feature in the top 5 artists on Spotify in India in 2020, which clearly indicates the increasing popularity of K-pop in the country. The 60% of the top 10 albums of 2020 on Spotify are by international artists, indicating the strong love for international music in India.
Podcasts grew popular in 2020, with the most-streamed podcasts on Spotify in India being TED Talks Daily, The Ranveer Show, and On Purpose with Jay Shetty. My podcast consumption has also increased this year, it is a different world altogether.
Here are the Top 5 podcasts of India:
Due to its strong focus on localizing not only content and curation, but also various other aspects of its business, Spotify has been able to become a market leader in the Indian music streaming industry. Now, only time will tell how the music streaming industry plays out in India.
Netflixâs âSTREAMFESTâ đĽ
NETFLIX IS FREE! NO CARDS..NO PAYMENT DETAILS.
Video-streaming giant Netflix offered free access to non-subscribers in India on December 5-6. Netflix gave a little surprise and returned for a second round. This time, the StreamFest would run from 9 am on December 9 to 8:59 am on December 11. By this newsletter hit your inbox, you would have watched lots of shows and movies.
Why Netflix did this?
In its Q3 2020 report, Netflix reported 195.2 million paid subscriptions worldwide. Netflix added 2.2 million paid subscribers in this quarter, its slowest growth in the year compared to Q1 growth of 10.1 million and Q2 growth of 15.7 million subscriptions.Â
So, the only aim of StreamFest is to keep Indian consumers hooked on the platform and giving them the best experience. This customer acquisition strategy is based on the behavior heuristic called âzero price effectâ studied in behavioral economics, which demonstrates that when the value of the service of the product is determined to be zero, the expected benefit is perceived to be substantially higher.
Netflix had been running a month-long free trial In India for a long time now. Instead of subscribing to the service, Indian users were making different accounts despite it required credit or debit card details (Just Indian things!). Netflix discontinued this offer and came up with this new strategy. letâs see how it plays out for them!
Weekly Recommendations đ
âś Tim Ferris Show - Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify
In this interesting episode of Tim Ferris Show, Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify shares habits, systems, and mental models for top performance. He talks about Spotify's company culture, his decision-making process, and his journey. Totally worth your time. It is an absolute treat to listen to him.
Here you can listen to this episode:
Threads of the Week đ§ľ
Handpicked by me. I am sure, you will love it.
âś The story of Asli Masale sach sach - MDH..MDH
You are not an Indian if you havenât sung the above line. đ
Last week, âKing of spicesâ - Dharampal Gulati passed away at the age of 98. We all have been watching him in all MDH ads. He has become the brand mascot of his own brand. Read this interesting story of MDH.
âś How to Invest?
We all know that investing is not easy and understanding personal finance and investing is the most important skill in todayâs world. In this thread, Ankur Warikoo shared his investing strategy. We can surely take inspiration from it and learn a thing or two. Fixed Deposit Ka Zamaana Gaya!
âś How brands differentiate themselves?
Positioning is one of the most important aspects of the brand-building process. The brand's aim is to achieve unique positioning in the market and it is a long-term process. This thread gives practical examples of how various companies have differentiated themselves over the years.
(Directly click on the tweet to read it)
Curiosity Shots đ¤
âś Itâs the Beginning of the End: India is recovering from the Covid-19 recession much faster than seemed possible a few months ago. GDP crashed 23.9% in the April-June quarter, among the sharpest falls in the world. But in the July-September quarter, GDP is down just 7.5%, a big improvement. A virus resurgence could yet upset the apple cart. And India has deep structural problems to tackle. But its resilience so far is good news. Read this interesting article by Swaminathan Alyar on âWhatâs happening with Indian economy?â.
âś How Netflix Reinvented HR: When Netflix executives wrote a PowerPoint deck about the organizationâs talent management strategies, the document went viralâitâs been viewed more than 5 million times on the web. Now one of those executives, the companyâs longtime chief talent officer, goes beyond the bullet points to paint a detailed picture of how Netflix attracts, retains, and manages stellar employees. The firm draws on five key tenets. Read this behind the scene article on how Netflix transformed the companyâs culture.
âś India's new farm bills: What's good, what may not be: Three farm bills, which have been passed by the Indian parliament, are expected to create a major impact on Indian agriculture and agro-trade. Will the new farm bills help Indian farmers? Or will this step be counterproductive? Are farm bills good or bad? What are the pros and cons of the farm bills? Read this article that shows both sides of the story.
Personal Update đ
First thing,
I am extremely sorry about not sending the newsletter last week due to some reasons. Didnât feel like writing it. I am good now.
I hope you enjoyed this weekâs issue. Please do explore all external links. I have carefully chosen the threads and articles that have some value in them.
I want you guys to fill this feedback form. So, I will know what I am doing good and what are things I can improve upon. ( It will take you less than 2 minutes)
I have spammed my Instagram stories last week with Spotifyâs #2020Wrapped. Here is how I listened in 2020. Also, you can consider it as my top 5 podcasts recommendations.
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Signing offâŚUntil next time with new stories. Take Care â¤