Two by Two (Private)

Ola Electric's woes just don’t seem to be stopping.

From angry customers to its mercurial CEO getting into online spats as pressure mounts, many of its problems stretch seemingly beyond its control today for it to make a quick turnaround and change the narrative. And this is hurting its valuation significantly, both in the private and public markets. Just this week, Ola Electric's price fell below its listing price.

Ola Electric can and should take credit for making EV two-wheelers common on Indian roads. It achieved this through rampant marketing, getting the word out about its product, and eventually delivering its products to eager customers as well. These did yield results in the short term as well. At its peak, Ola Electric’s vertically integrated ecosystem was a big pull, which, along with its marketing efforts, allowed it to gain nearly 53% market share in the EV two-wheeler segment.

But the strategy of moving fast and breaking things that startups usually apply to press an early mover advantage has now started to backfire, as angry customers take to social media to express their frustration with the longer wait times to get their vehicles serviced and working again.

These kinds of troubles tend to happen with startups. But when the situation is such that you can’t just fix things as you would do in an app, and you are under the scrutiny of the public markets. The need to deliver becomes absolutely detrimental.

In this week’s episode, host Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan try to understand Ola’s recent history, how it fared after listing on the Indian bourses, the troubles it has faced, and what the future holds.

Joining them for the episode are Jinesh Gandhi, Research Director at Ambit*, with over 20 years of experience tracking multiple sectors, and Narayan Sundararaman, an accomplished leader with over 28 years of experience in marketing strategy. Narayan has worked at Cadbury, Star TV, and was the ex-CMO at Bajaj Auto.

Additional reading:

How Ola Electric blew its lead

Ola Electric wants to take on Hero’s Splendor. But e-bikes are not e-scooters

The real reason behind Ola Electric slashing its IPO valuation in a booming stock market

You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free!

*Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the analyst and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ambit Capital Private Ltd. The analyst does not hold any financial interest in the securities discussed in the podcast, nor do their relatives. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. It is essential to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.

This episode was produced by Hari Krishna. Mixing and mastering for this episode is done by Rajiv CN. Write to us about what you thought of the episode at [email protected].

What happens when the government plays the role of regulator, policymaker, and operator?

The government has played a pivotal role in establishing and promoting Digital Public Goods (DPG) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in the past decade and a half, and there have been a few which have been integral in our daily lives in more ways than one.

The reason why these solutions exist is plain and simple: There emerged companies which disrupted the landscape of finance, commerce, mobility and a whole lot of other aspects of our lives, but as they gained prominence, they also started to play by their own rules.

The regulator was not able to act fast enough in most cases to keep things in check. So the government intervened and helped establish and promote solutions which would keep things in check and protect the interests of all the parties involved.

Some solutions literally changed the way our day-to-day lives are, and created businesses which are built on top of these solutions. Think UPI, ONDC or Bharat Connect (formerly known as Bharat Bill Payment System).

In addition to creating and shaping these systems, frameworks, or protocols, these government-backed players, or GBPs, as we referred to them in this episode, also became competitors in what they had helped build, which begs the question: What kind of system does this shape up to be?

In episode 15 of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Anupam Manur, Professor of Economics at The Takshashila Institution, to break down the interventionist solutions championed by the government. From UPI and ONDC to the Unified Lending Interface.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday, a short, storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

Additional listening:

Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable

Additional reading:

You need to download Digiyatra again. But it’s less about a tech upgrade and more about a scam

RBI is competing with its regulated entities — and killing competition

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This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected], and tell us what you thought of the episode.

Ola and Uber are in a “late stage duopoly”.

After spending billions and billions of dollars, they have finally secured pole positions in ride sharing in India.

Both of these companies together control 70% of the market and they have created network effects that make it much harder for anyone to enter and compete with them.

However, this particular situation is facing some new challenges and just like how Uber and Ola conquered city after city using a disruptive model and technology, the same thing threatens to happen to them.

Ola and Uber are facing structural disruptions from multiple fronts in India.

And in today’s episode hosts, Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar try to answer how the disruptors are getting disrupted by upstarts who are coming in with both business model innovation and newer fleets which offer a significantly better experience, which was the original promise of Ola and Uber as well.

So what is the next stage of disruption in ride-hailing look like in India? Is it EV fleets? Is it democratized tech-enabler platforms like ONDC which enables platforms like Nammayatri? Are we looking at the return of local taxi operators? 

And most importantly, what should Ola and Uber do to defend their position as new incentive models are introduced for both drivers and passengers?

Welcome to episode 14 of Two by Two.

Joining the hosts for the discussion are Nilesh Sangoi, CIO of Fincare Small Finance Bank, previously CEO of Meru Cabs; Pradeep Puranam, Head of Revenue and Operations at Yulu, ex-Udaan and -Uber; and returning guest Professor Srinivasan R, who teaches Strategy at IIM Bangalore.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday a short storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

Additional listening:

Will Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe becomes Flipkart?

Additional reading:

Rapido rips up the Uber-Ola playbook for cabs

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected], and tell us what you thought of the episode.

If you are a Product Manager, especially in India, you’re probably going through a crisis of faith and existence.

As a career, Product Management in India has gone through multiple eras — in the early days, PMs struggled to explain to people what they actually did. Think about all the people you’d imagine who work at a software company. Marketing. Engineering. Sales. Analytics. Design.

You can explain what they do to your grandmother. However, the one exception to the rule is Product Management. It’s the only function where the people who do it struggle to explain to their parents what they do.

Then, suddenly, there was a gold rush when everyone wanted to become a Product Manager. And now, there’s an existential crisis — partly driven by the reduced funding and attrition, the rise of AI, and the changing nature of products themselves, more and more leaders are asking the question: Do we even need Product Managers?

In today’s episode of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan interview two accomplished product leaders in India. First, there’s Chandrashekhar Vattikuti (CPO and SVP at InMobi, ex-Yahoo, Microsoft) and Shreyas Srinivasan, Chief Product Officer at Paytm*, and also founder of Paytm Insider. During the discussion, they trace the origin, the evolution and the crisis that Product Management as a career faces in India. They try to figure out why and how Product Management became a science and stopped being an art.

They try to answer what makes a great product manager and how to find one.

And they also ask the question that CEOs and Founders are asking themselves — do we even need Product Managers at all?

Welcome to Episode 13 of Two by Two.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday, a short, storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

(Listen to the free highlights only episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts)

Further reading:

Product Managers used to be creators. Now they are mostly bureaucrats

Who killed the art of Product Management in India?

Who made the Frauduct Manager?

Episode referenced:

Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable

New episodes are released every Thursday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show. You can write to us at [email protected].

*Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken.

Ather Energy is the third largest seller of electric two-wheelers in India. Founded in 2013, Ather Energy is known to have kicked off the electric two-wheeler wave in India. They came in with a great product which offered the best of software and hardware on a two-wheeler. And over a decade of its existence Ather has delivered on its promise of a great product which will create a “magical experience” for its customers.

Ather spent years building their own electric two-wheelers from the ground up. They built their own batteries, their own chassis, their own electronics and powertrain, and even their own software. 

But in the process, they lost the opportunity to become the  market leader, a spot that was filled by Ola Electric, a much later entrant.

On September 9th this year Ather filed its draft red herring prospectus as it plans to go ahead and list on the Indian bourses. And as hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sat down to discuss and understand what the market looks like for electric two-wheelers and how Ather will fare in a market it kickstarted and popularized. They also got two great guests to discuss this.

First is the co-founder and CEO of IPO-bound Ather Energy Tarun Mehta himself and the second guest we had was Professor Rishikesha Krishnan, Director of IIM Bangalore, and a professor of Strategy.

It’s not often that we have the co-founder and CEO of a company heading for its IPO discussing its strategy with the director of one of India’s most prestigious management institutes who both studies and teaches strategy.

And over the course of 90 minutes, they discussed the strategy and vision Ather Energy is going ahead with into the future and how they intend to keep innovating on their product leadership while also stepping up and getting on the front foot to improve their market leadership.

Welcome to Episode 12 of Two by Two.

This is shorter version of the episode which highlights some of the most interesting parts of the discussion. The full episodes are available to Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken app and Apple Podcasts.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday short storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

Write to us at [email protected] and let us know what you thought of the episode.

Netflix is trying hard to crack the Indian market. Ever since the US streaming giant entered the country it has been hard at work to make an impact. And over the years they’ve learnt a thing or two about how the Indian streaming space functions.

Netflix is also not shy about expressing how it sees India as its last growth market. Most of the other geographies it has saturated its reach to a large extent, but India has always been a pain point for it to get a leg up on. So much so, that the then CEO, Reed Hastings expressed his frustration about why they weren’t able to crack India during an earnings call in 2022.

But from then to now, Netflix has managed an interesting turnaround by climbing down the pricing ladder on its subscriptions in India, even as it raises its prices in North America, and throwing in a somewhat limited regional and diversified slate of shows into the mix.

But Netflix is clear on one thing, it sees India as its last growth market and expects to add 100 million paying subscribers in the country. But for that to happen it has to put in a lot more work and now it faces the added pressure of competing with the merged entity of Jio Cinema and Disney+ Hotstar which would create a mammoth of a content library stacked with regional content, endless range of movies and prestige television,  and the massive distributional heft Jio brings to the table.

All of this begs the question, given the situation, how seriously is Netflix looking at India as its last growth market?

To discuss this, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar are joined by Kunj Sanghvi who is the Content and Creative Head at Kuku FM, and Nishad Kenkre, who presently is an Operating Partner at Verlinvest. Nishad has previously worked at Swiggy and was also Director and Head of Strategy at Disney.

Welcome to episode 11 of Two by Two.

Two by Two is also a newsletter, where every Friday short storified version of the latest episode is sent out to subscribers for free. You can sign up for the Two by Two Newsletter here.

Further reading:

• Netflix house will let you experience your favorite shows, movies in real life
• Netflix climbs down India’s ladder

Further listening:
Why couldn’t Stripe become the Stripe of India?

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and tell us what you think of the show.

The fastest growing segment of insurance in India is individual health insurance. It’s growing steadily at a, well, healthy pace of 20% annually. 

But scratch just a little beneath the surface and things don’t appear so rosy. Of the 20% annual growth in revenue, nearly 15% comes from medical inflation. Meaning, existing customers paying higher premiums each year because the costs of treatments are going up.

The growth in the number of customers each year is just around 5-6%. 

Health insurance in India is broken from top to bottom. 70-75% of Indians have no health insurance. Of those who do, the largest chunk have free or low cost insurance provided by the government, followed by usually employer provided group insurance. Less than 10% Indians have their own health insurance. 

Scratch that. It’s more accurate to call it hospitalization insurance, not health insurance. Because the industry has developed in a way that incentivizes catastrophic illnesses and hospitalization and treatment, not health. 

Why, you wonder? 

Because much of the industry wrongly incentivizes, for legacy reasons, all the wrong things. Like, large groups that make lots of claims. High commissions to distributors. Expensive procedures. Expensive premiums. 

Instead of incentivising the right things. Like, getting the young and healthy covered early on. Insuring blue collar workers. Building products customers actually want. And most importantly, staying healthy.

So when hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar sat down to discuss this complex topic, they decided to invite two guests who had the experience and candour to tell them what needs to change. 

Our first guest is Viren Shetty, the Executive Vice Chairman of one of India’s largest hospital groups, the listed Narayana Health. was our first guest. Viren has also been spearheading Narayana Health’s foray into providing its own health insurance, built to address many of the gaps I spoke about earlier.

Our second guest is Shivaprasad Krishnan. Shivaprasad currently runs an investment banking firm, Kricon Capital, but was a part of the founding team at ICICI Lombard, one of India’s first private health insurers. He also has over 3 decades of experience in finance and management.

This episode of Two by Two was researched and produced by Hari Krishna. Sound engineering and mixing is by Rajiv C N.

What you just listened to were just some of the highlights from an almost 90 minute discussion that Praveen and Rohin had with Viren and Shivaprasad. You can listen to full episodes either with a Premium Subscription to The Ken or by subscribing to Two by Two Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Of course, you could also wait 4 weeks, because we do make full episodes available for a while after that.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode of Two by Two or have some thoughts that you’d like to share with us you can always write to us [email protected]. We’ll be back next week with a new episode for you.

It seems like ‘invite only’ is a rite of passage for Stripe. If Stripe entered India with an invite-only step, then it seems reasonable to assume that it’s leaving India on the basis that it’s doing invite-only again. Over seven years, Stripe, the world’s mightiest fintech, currently valued at $70 billion (and at $95 billion at its peak), could not make a dent in India. It had a great product, a massive untapped opportunity in India, and didn’t have much competition. And yet, it failed. Why? 

There’s an internet quip that was quite popular until recently. The Amazon of China is Alibaba, the Uber of China is Didi, and the Google of China is Baidu, the Apple of China is Xiaomi. In India, the thinking was : Amazon of India is Amazon, the Uber of India is Uber, the Google of India is Google, and the Apple of India is Apple. In today’s episode of 2x2, we are going to discuss why Stripe couldn’t become the Stripe of India.

And to discuss this, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan were joined by two guests.

Arundhati Ramanathan, Deputy Editor at The Ken. Arundhati is India’s preeminent Fintech reporter, and she’s demonstrated it over a career of 8 years at The Ken.

Our second guest is Vikram Bhat. Vikram is one of India’s most accomplished Product leaders, he was in product leadership roles at Myntra, Abof, Ekstep Foundation, LendingKart, Capillary Technologies, Goodworker, and most recently CPO at Setu, which is a fintech company that enables API-based infrastructure for financial services.

Welcome to episode nine of Two by Two, The Ken’s weekly podcast that asks the most interesting and often uncomfortable questions on topics we all want to know more about. And we do that through the lens of a 2×2 matrix!

You can listen to the full conversation on The Ken App or Apple Podcasts

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Anushka Mukherjee. Hari Krishna is the lead writer and researcher for this episode. Rajiv C N, our resident sound engineer is the audio producer.

Please rate, share and follow us on your favorite streaming platform. It helps more like-minded people like you to find out by Two by Two.

12 years of schooling is losing out to private coaching as entry into India’s colleges gets increasingly centralized via entrance exams. 

School education is a fundamental right in India. An average Indian child spends 10-12 years in schools. And for most parents and families, the money they spend on educating their child is one of the largest over time.

And yet, school education is slowly becoming (or perhaps being made) irrelevant in the next step that comes after that: college.

The schools-exams-college “chain” is broken. Perhaps because it is now the schools-private-coaching-exams-college chain. And your school education is not going to cut it for you to make the cutoff as millions line up to clear the exam every year.

Private coaching is how you manage to get into the school and your actual schooling is just a condition you have to fulfil to sit in for the exam. It plays no part in preparing you for the entrance exam.

Private coaching, estimated to be a $25 billion industry by 2025, is becoming the determinant of a good quality education. Not schooling. Thus, as entrance exams get centralized, and private coaching becomes the most reliable way to clear them, the results are only accentuating numerous privileges and biases, including central boards like ICSE/CBSE, bigger cities, boys, and families with higher incomes.

12 years of schooling – one of the biggest spends for families – is becoming disconnected from college education and jobs.

And to discuss this, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan were joined by three guests.

Maheshwar Peri, the founder and CEO of Careers 360, a company that helps hundreds of millions of students each explore career plans. Mahesh has been an investment banker with SBI Capital Markets, then was with the Outlook group for 17 years, including heading it for more than 10 years.

Sumeet Mehta, Co-founder and co-CEO, LEAD School. LEAD School offers school edtech solutions across 8000 schools in India, which in turn touch 3.5 million+ students.

Nitin Pai, our third guest and the co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution,  an independent think tank and school of public policy based in Bengaluru.

Additional references:

How fair are entrance exams?

Welcome to episode eight of Two by Two, The Ken’s weekly podcast that asks the most interesting and often uncomfortable questions on topics we all want to know more about. And we do that through the lens of a 2×2 matrix!

You can listen to the full conversation on The Ken App or Apple Podcasts

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Anushka Mukherjee. Hari Krishna is the lead writer and researcher for this episode. Rajiv C N, our resident sound engineer is the audio producer.

Please rate, share and follow us on your favorite streaming platform. It helps more like-minded people like you to find out by Two by Two.

Google Pay is India’s second largest UPI app with a market share of 38%, with 500+ crore transactions a month. It’s one of the world’s mightiest companies, and yet, we argue that it’s possibly in a vulnerable, strange position. By this, we don’t mean that it will disappear overnight, but that all kinds of competitors are coming for it. Already it’s market share has declined from 44% to 37%. It’s an outpost of an empire that’s fighting a global war. And most importantly, the first wave of UPI is over, and the second phase is starting. UPI itself is changing and going through some transitions, and there are questions on whether signs that Google Pay won’t be able to keep up.

Joining hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar in the discussion were two guests with incredible experience in the area of UPI and payments – Abhishek Madan, Vice President of Product at Paytm and Vasisht S Ravichandran, COO at Pop, a new UPI app which is inverting the way we’re looking at UPI and commerce. Vasisht previously also had a stint at Flipkart where he was Senior Director of Customer Loyalty and Retention before leaving Flipkart to start Pop.

And while the conversation was centered around Google Pay, the discussion also went in the direction of understanding the infrastructure on top of which most of India’s most valuable fintechs are built upon – UPI.

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Anushka Mukherjee. Hari Krishna is the lead writer and researcher for the episode. Rajiv C N, our resident sound engineer is the audio producer.

P.S. The Ken podcast team is looking for a talented podcast producer and an audio journalist. If you fit the bill or know someone who does, you can apply here.

[You can listen to the full episode on The Ken’s app or on Apple Podcasts, with a paid subscription! You can, of course, still listen to a 30-minute free version of this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts]

What did you think of the episode? Write to us with your thoughts and things we should improve at [email protected]. We’ll be back next Thursday with a new episode.