Muaaz Qadri

When Doordash started as an American food delivery service in 2013, Grubhub was already the market leader. By Mid 2018, Uber Eats had overtaken Grubhub in market share. But the Uber Eats growth fizzled, and Grubhub could never catch up. By 2021, Doordash controlled 56% of the US food delivery market; Uber Eats and Grubhub accounted for only 26% and 16%.  This begs the question: how did Doordash become the market leader by attacking a problem considered already solved? In this piece, we will first learn how Doordash differentiated itself to carve out a place for itself, see how Doordash has expanded...

With more than 2 billion monthly active users worldwide, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app. But Telegram, launched in 2013, around four years after WhatsApp, has been slowly and steadily covering the ground.  More than 550 million users were actively using the service as of July 2021, with users increasingly flocking to Telegram after WhatsApp announced a contentious privacy policy update, forcing users to accept the updated terms until 8th February 2021. Due to the public backlash, WhatsApp eventually decided not to enforce the privacy update. Still, this entire episode injected life into the debate around which messaging app — WhatsApp, Telegram ot...

In my opinion, Paypal's business is worth studying for two main reasons. First, PayPal is one of the oldest fintech companies to have survived to date in the post-internet era, so it has democratized innovations as well weathered competition from other startups since its founding in 1998. And Second, it was founded by the members of what is now famously known as the Paypal Mafia, a group of high-impact individuals like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, etc.   To add more weight to the two reasons stated above, what makes Paypal an even more fascinating business case study is that the...

Started 79 years ago, in 1943, IKEA has gone on to become the largest furniture retailer. And like any brand that goes on to become a market leader, IKEA pioneered multiple innovations in its industry. To add to that, IKEA, in recent years, has also adapted itself to stay relevant in the digital era.  In this blog, we will dive into the strategies that propelled IKEA to the top of the furniture industry, look into how IKEA has maintained relevancy in the digital world and understand IKEA's business model. IKEA Founding & Growth Story Like most entrepreneurs who impact the world, IKEA's...

Before one can understand backward integration, one must first understand vertical integration because backward integration is essentially a type of vertical integration. But just understanding Vertical Integration without learning about its counterpart strategy — Horizontal Integration — would be like solving a puzzle with a missing piece. So, to help you develop a holistic understanding, I will first run you through Vertical & Horizontal integration briefly before explaining Backward Integration.   Companies looking to expand their business generally employ either of the two strategies: Horizontal Integration or Vertical Integration.  Horizontal integration is when a company expands by acquiring a similar one in their...

Before we begin to understand forward integration, we need first to understand vertical integration because forward integration is essentially a type of vertical integration. But even before we dive into understanding forward integration, it would be good to a step back to understand Horizontal integration and vertical integration are two types of business strategies that go hand in hand. Generally speaking, companies looking to expand and grow their business employ either of the two strategies: Horizontal Integration or Vertical Integration.  When a company expands by acquiring a similar company in their industry at the same level of the supply chain, the...

Writing for Techcrunch in 2013, Aileen Lee, an American venture capitalist, coined the now frequently used word ‘Unicorn’. Unicorns, as we all know now, are companies valued at more than $1 billion. Similarly, Decacorns & Hectocorns are sister terms of ‘Unicorn’.  Decacorns are companies having a valuation of more than $10 billion. Hectacorns are companies having a valuation of more than $100 billion. As of 2022, only two companies — ByteDance & SpaceX — are part of this elite club of Hectocorn companies.  ByteDance, the parent company of Tik Tok, was the first company to become a Hectocorn after it was valued...

The goal of reaching a valuation of $1 billion, or in other words, becoming a 'Unicorn', is considered a milestone in the life of a startup.  But with more than 1000 unicorn companies as of Feb 2021 in the world compared to just 142 in 2015, the unicorn status has lost its charm. Startups are now setting their eyes on higher targets of becoming a ‘Decacorn’, Put simply, Decacorns are private companies having a valuation of more than $10 billion. Relative to Unicorns, Decacorns are a much more exclusive community, consisting of around 49+ companies as of 2021. Some familial...

If we look at it from a narrow lens, Shopify is in the business of making it easier for people without coding skills to launch an online business. But if we zoom out, we could classify Shopify as an upstart in the broader retail market.  Yes, it is primarily in the business of internet retailing. But retail is not limited to the internet. Selling online is a sister distribution channel to the traditional offline channel. The whole point of commerce is to be present where the customer is, be it online or offline, or both, in an integrated fashion.  Shopify now...

Before Adam Angelo started quora, he had a job that most engineers would consider to be a dream position: he was the Chief Technology Officer at Facebook. In a 2010 interview with Business Insider, almost a year after he had started working on quora in June 2009, Adam shared what made him take the decision to leave Facebook and start on his own, “I could make a bigger impact on the world by starting something new rather than just continuing to optimize Facebook.” But it wasn’t like there weren’t any Q/A answer sites when he started Quora in 2009. There was Reddit,...