Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Retail is broken. Apple’s Angela Ahrendts has a plan Vogue
Apple announced the departure of its head of retail, Angela Ahrendts. Her profile in Vogue came out before but it still quite revealing on Apple’s retail strategy. The company is doubling down on experiential retail. It’s a revealing article that explains their philosophy and vision about connecting people.
What Is the Future of Ecommerce? 10 Insights on the Evolution of an Industry Shopify
I loved these predictions on the future of ecommerce by Shopify. They are all spot on in my opinion. There are so many tidbits of wisdom that I recommend you read all the 10 of them.
Competitive advantage will not be had in the bits and pieces, but in delivering experiences of value across the customer journey.
D2C 2.0: The Rise of Infrastructure Hacker Noon
Along the same lines of the previous article, we are now past the emergence phase of Direct to Consumer. We are now in the infrastructure phase where it is becoming increasingly easier to build a direct to consumer brand across all areas of the business stack. What’s wild to me in reading this list is the depth of each category. There are much lower barriers to entry to building your own D2C company.
WeWork’s $47 Billion Dream: The Lavishly Funded Startup That Could Disrupt Commercial Real Estate CB Insights
WeWork was the butt of many jokes in 2018. Many “experts” predicted its demise and scoffed at its valuation. There’s been an increasingly contrarian view emerging, what if WeWork is not overvalued? CB Insights tears into WeWork’s strategy (now called The We Company). This interesting report explores how the company is de-risking its business, using data and technology and targeting enterprise companies.
Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play Stratechery
Spotify announced it was acquiring Gimlet Media, a podcast producer. For those of you that follow the podcast space, Gimlet has created some of the most popular podcasts in the space (and some of my faves). The move by Spotify is an interesting one. Why would a music streaming company go into the podcasts? Ben Thompson provides an insightful analysis using the lens of his aggregation theory. What I loved about his analysis is the prescriptive outlook on where the podcast is going. It might resemble online advertising
