Daybreak

Back in the late 2000s when Byju's was founded, it was best known for teaching students how to 'hack' competitive examinations like the CAT. They taught students how to work backwards from the answer and use a bunch of shortcuts to get the highest score possible. The art of 'hacking' examinations was something that the company's founder, Byju Raveendran, was the master of. Or at least that's how the Byju's origin story goes. 

It all started back in the early 2000s when Byju, an engineer from a small town in Kerala, began helping his friends with the CAT exam. Every time he would sit for the exam, he’d score in the 100th percentile. This was when he sharpened his ability to teach-the-test. The lore spread and Byju's was created. By 2022, its valuation hit $22 billion. The company was on a dream run.

The real trouble began when Byju’s began applying this hack method to its growth with unrealistic sales targets and billions of dollars in loans. 

Fast forward to now, on Sept 17 2024, the Supreme Court of India is going to hear a plea against the NCLAT's stay on insolvency proceedings against Byju’s. 

In this episode, we dive into the Byjus saga. How did it get here? And who is to blame? Hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Olina Banerji, who covers education for The Ken. Subscribe to her newsletter, Ed Set Go. 

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The real-estate market of Delhi-NCR is an anomaly. The Ken spoke to a bunch of potential homebuyers who are looking for premium apartments with budgets of up to 2.5 crore rupees.  Real-estate experts are telling them to give up on their dreams. Lately, the national capital has been facing an acute supply crunch of new housing projects, especially in the mid-premium segment (80 lakh to 2 crore rupees) depending on the city.   Delhi NCR has witnessed the sharpest fall in inventory in this segment in the last few years.   

Real-estate prices in turn have shot up far beyond the reach of most buyers. But it’s not like demand for housing has gone down because of these sky high prices.  People are still buying tens of thousands of these mid-premium houses in and around Delhi.   

So the obvious question then is: why aren’t more residential housing units being built? 

From listeners:
Praveen: Partner (2007)
Sravan: The Intern
Anish: Lord of the Rings trilogy

From hosts:
Snigdha: The Perfect Couple

Rahel: Call Me Bae

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "comfort food from your favourite spot in town."

India's tuition republic came into the picture to fill the gaps in the education system. First and foremost: they promise to get you into the college of your dreams. That simple but powerful promise has made this a Rs 58,000 crore industry. 

But there is a flip side to this. It puts traditional schools in a rather precarious position. Students start trickling out of the system after class 10. Their parents transfer them to junior colleges or schools with integrated coaching models so they can focus on cracking competitive exams. 

One school has had enough of this. It's tackling attrition by taking on these coaching centres directly. The first step? Hiring 200 IITians. 

Tune in. 

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On Independence Day this year, just six days after it went public, Ola Electric launched three new electric motorbikes. This was a bold move, especially considering that  electric vehicles haven’t really clicked with the Indian audience yet. 

The exception to that rule has been electric two and three wheelers, which had some unexpected success in tier-2 India. But motorcycles are not scooters. People still prefer their 125cc ICE bikes. So, it’s a difficult space to break into. But if there is one thing we know about Ola Electric, it’s that the company does not shy away from making bold business decisions. 

It has its sights set on becoming the next Hero Splendor. Has Ola Electric bitten off more than it can chew? 

Tune in.

If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you.

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Three days ago, Rapido, the bike taxi company, became India’s latest unicorn after it raised $200 million at a valuation of over $1 billion. The funding round which was led by WestBridge Capital also saw new investors put in their money into the company. In an interview to the ET, CEO Aravind Sanka said that the funds will be used to expand Rapido's newly launched four-wheeler taxi service, which competes with Ola and Uber.  

But here’s the thing. 

Ever since it started, Rapido has consciously stayed away from venturing into the cab business. Until last year was happy to stay in the bike taxi lane and beat Ola and Uber there even though that it managed to do it, often, at the expense of customer safety. Now it has forayed into cab-hailing but it is trying a different route.

Instead of commissions, its driver partners pay it a subscription fee.

Tune in.

If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you.

To apply for the latest job openings in The Ken's podcast team, click here.

"Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly."

Last month, Judge Amit P Mehta of of US District Court for the District of Columbia delivered a historic ruling against one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Google was accused of abusing its dominance by paying the likes of Apple and Samsung billions of dollars to make its search engine the default option on their smartphones and browsers.

It is being called the biggest antitrust case of the century. And this is only the beginning. The Google ruling comes amid a growing anti-big tech sentiment. The general consensus is that this tiny group of companies — Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft — have grown too big and too powerful.

These companies are deciding what we see on the internet — the news we consume, the information we have access to, what we buy and who we buy from. At some point, everyone got a little wary of these companies. They started seeing some real threats to their power in the form of antitrust lawsuits and regulations. Suddenly, their every move was being scrutinised.

Have we gone too far? Manjushree RM, Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, weighs in on the pushback against big tech, and how India is keeping up with it all.

P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.

Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Dunzo, the Reliance Retail-backed quick delivery company, let go off 75% of its workforce in fresh round of layoffs earlier this week.

But for the longest time, Dunzo has been an anomaly. Its a small company that has managed to make its name a verb. Like Google but Google is a giant.  Its revenue was just $7 million dollars in the year that ended in 2022. For perspective, Zomato made more than 70 times that amount in the same period,  But it did not matter.  Because it changed our lives and it became the kind of consumer brand that tech companies who do anything for.   

To understand the unravelling of Dunzo, we need to go back to two years ago when Dunzo was on a high. 

Tune in.

P.S Don't miss our brand new Thursday segment, DAYBREAK UNWIND, in this episode!

This week's recommendations:

From listeners:
Ashish: The Bear
Joy: Panlong aka Coiling Dragon
Ishan Sarkar: The Peanut Butter Falcom
Apurva: Blue Eye Samurai

From hosts:
Snigdha: Invisible Planets: 13 Visions of The Future of China edited and translated by Ken Liu
                The Worst Person in The World

Rahel: Sisters in Sweat

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and be a part of the Daybreak community. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "comfort food from your favourite spot in town."

There was once a time, not very long ago, when every company wanted to be a fintech. Food delivery, ride hailing, e-commerce – companies that you would not otherwise associate with financial services. 

And when you think about it, it does add up. A couple years ago, fintech was where the money was at. Indian fintechs received nearly 9 billion dollars in funding in calendar year 2021. It was one the hottest sectors in the country. 

The inside joke among venture capitalists was how founders could raise a round of funding just by mentioning “financial services” in their pitch deck. What were earlier standalone businesses would now exist as mere features on their apps. People in the industry came up with a catch-all term – fintech-as-a-feature. Take Ola for instance. 

Zomato seemed to be going down that path too. In 2022, it had applied for a non-bank financial company or NBFC licence with the Reserve Bank of India. 

But since then, things have changed. From 2022 onwards, the amount of money being raised by fintechs has dipped considerable. In 2022, they raised about 5.4 billion dollars, then in 2023, this amount fell to 2 billion. 

What's going on?

Tune in to find out.

P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.

Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last decade, the number of people covered by health insurance has more than doubled. 

Of course, big hospitals – both the state funded ones and the private ones that look a lot like five-star resorts – are making the most of it. They are really raking it in. 

But there is a sizeable chunk of the healthcare system that is left out. The small, private hospitals that make up nearly 85 per cent of the industry. This is the ‘missing middle’. It’s disorganized and severely underfunded. It’s also stuck in a bureaucratic maze of claims and reimbursements. 

The patients that rely on these facilities are  very often stuck between subsidised schemes and private insurance. But here’s the thing – where there is chaos there is also huge opportunity. 

Opportunity that a new crop of health fintechs have identified. Enter Gmoney, Digisparsh, Healthcred, and Carepay. All of them are waiting to disrupt the ‘cashless insurance’ space. 

They’re coming to the rescue with plans to connect the dots between insurers, hospitals, and patients. 

Tune in.

P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.

Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For a while now, some of the biggest players in India’s third-party logistics industry have been riding on the success of e-commerce unicorn Meesho. As of 2023, it accounted for over half of the 2.5 billion shipments that were being handled by third-party logistics players. Companies like Delhivery and Ecom Express happily rose to the occasion and partnered with Meesho to handle all its order deliveries. 

For logistics companies this was a dream come true because most of the other major e-commerce players in India – like Flipkart and Amazon – take care of all their logistics in-house. 

Now, Meesho has announced the launch of Valmo, its own in-house logistics arm. Naturally, third party logistics partners are nervous. But no one is more shaken up than Ecom Express.

Tune in.

P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.

Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.

Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.