I saw this Instagram post from official Mark Levine and thought, “How much are the Amazon lobbyists paying our officials?” NYC continually over taxes our indie businesses and fines them—but we’ll build six marinas for Amazon? (Mark said three marinas, but it’s actually six marinas.) The main culprits behind this: Mayor Adams and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Jeff Bezos, the founder,...
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Lululemon is adding a paid membership service called Studio that offers access to digital classes and gives discounts on in-person classes and apparel. The apparel company suggests it may also offer member-exclusive events.
Companies are often taking this approach: offer unlimited access to a digital service, bundle in discounts and other peripheral perks, and charge a flat monthly fee. (Lululemon is charging $39/month.)
Many in the retail industry are seeking to launch a paid ...
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George Lois, the adverting icon, wrote Damn Good Advice for those in the advertising field. In one section, he encourages us to highlight a truth. This may even include an assumption about a perceived weakness. Following George Lois' advice, I came up with these two pieces of ad copy for Bridge:
We’re smaller than Shopify. And that’s why you get more with us.
Shopify watches its stock price. We watch our customers' needs.
Amazon issued a press release stating that it is fighting with 10,000 Facebook groups that sell fake Amazon reviews. It’s ironic, since Amazon has been a chief promoter of the avenue allowing this behavior: Section 230. Section 230 allows tech platforms to host and indirectly promote just about any type of bad behavior, including illegal behavior (fake review services and yes, human trafficking, murder-for-hire, etc.) and then say it’s just a community space and belatedly remove the ...
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The Brick report helps our company track our past and current progress. Our team can easily look back at the last 78 weeks and know what we did. (Most companies would be hard pressed to do this easily.) The Brick brings us together and keeps us on the same (web)page. Its success leads to me ask: “Could we have an approach that helps us look at our future?" I’ve sometimes thought about crafting a weekly 'Horizon Report' that would share what’s next for us.
Peloton’s new CEO, Barry McCarthy, was recently interviewed in the New York Times (Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/business/dealbook/barry-mccarthy-interview-peloton.html). The authors asked Mr. McCarthy if he thought that everyone who needs a workout bike already had one. They questioned where else a company making stationary exercise bikes can go (…an ironic question for a bike product that literally can’t move). The Times wanted to know what ...
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Last February e-commerce company Shopify Inc. replaced the “Ottawa, Canada” dateline that began its press releases and earnings reports with a strange new one: “Internet, Everywhere.” The geographical shift came at the insistence of Shopify’s founder and chief executive officer, Tobi Lütke, who tends to view such matters through the prism of cold, hard logic. In May 2020, only a few months into the pandemic, he’d made the early, seemingly rash decision to...
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Is your car becoming a giant App Store?
Today’s WSJ shares how auto makers see your car as an iphone and want to grow via software sales. Stellantis reports that software will makeup $22b/year in sales in 2030 and its making that happen by hiring 3,000 programmers.
In a related article, we learn that GM seeks to make $80b/yr by 2030 via software sales.
The goal of these companies—and their announcements: raise their stock price (often to compete with ...
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August 15, 2019
August 15, 2019
The status of some big retailers, per today’s WSJ.
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March 16, 2019
March 16, 2019
Today’s WSJ does a review of Sears’ downfall. In the same WSJ edition, we see how Amazon and Apple—two of the world’s most valuable companies—have had their stock price rise.
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December 21, 2018
December 21, 2018
Vietri table runner is back in stock priced at $69. Size 108x16
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