Published December 30 2023-January 1 2024
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Top 5
As 2023 comes to an end, it is time to do my annual reflections. (Here are my previous editions: 2022, 2021, and 2020.) For me, 2023 was about five big themes: the publication of my book “Startup to Proficorn”, a refining of my marketing ideas around Profipoly and Progency, planning for Netcore’s future post the pandemic era bump, witnessing the start of the Generative AI revolution, and Abhishek going to the US for his undergrad.
My Book: This was the year I became a published author, thanks to Jaico. The book has sold about 5,000 copies in the first five months, which by Indian standards is a good number for a non-fiction book. It has received very good feedback, and currently has 4.6 stars (on a scale of 5) from 90+ ratings on Amazon.in. Goodreads has similar numbers. I have done multiple talks, interviews, and podcasts (see the Entrepreneurship section) related to the book. I think the timing was good – with capital hard to come by, there is more interest in bootstrapping than at any time in recent years. The key is scaling – too many startups stay small or die. I am hoping the book’s success will push me to write more in the years to come!
Marketing: I have written almost 30 essays this year. The primary theme has been to detail out what the new world of martech should look like. Brands need to end their AdWaste if they are to improve their profitability. This means focusing on existing customers, rather than constantly acquiring new customers. A whole slew of innovations (Profipoly / Martech 2.0 Stack) combined with a performance-based pricing model (Progency) can help brands conquer marketing’s fourth and final frontier. It also offers an opportunity for martech platform providers an opportunity to move past the red ocean of features and limited budgets to the blue ocean of outcomes and unlimited spends.
Netcore 2.0: 2023 has been a challenging year for Netcore in terms of growth. Every time I have faced headwinds, I have come on the other side with a better business. I hope this time will be the same too. We have many growth opportunities ahead of us. The key is to solve marketing’s three zeros problems: friction, waste, and data. Brands face a $250 billion AdWaste problem even as customers face funnel frictions in their shopping journeys. Innovations like Inbox Commerce can help brands and customers create a win-win future. This is what we must bring to life in the year ahead.
Generative AI: OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT towards the end of 2022 has heralded a new revolution – the fourth in the world of IT in the past 50 years, after computers, Internet, and mobile. Gen AI will impact every business and every person. I use the Gen AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard) often in my writing. I have also created custom GPTs based on my writings to help me with the new essays. What we are seeing is an explosion of ideas and innovations, with talk of AGI (artificial general intelligence) and super-intelligence around the corner. What is going to be exciting is the application of the technologies underpinning Gen AI in different verticals.
Life without Abhishek (at home): In August, Abhishek left for the US for his undergrad in engineering, leaving a void and an adjustment to my life. I miss the nightly chats, his endless stream of “beautiful” questions, our Kitab Khana visits, and watching many OTT series together. But I also know that for him, like it was for me, these years living outside home will transform him for the better.
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Travel: Like 2022, this was a year of a lot of travel. I have spent 1 in 4 nights outside home. Multiple US trips, other international business trips to Bangkok, Singapore, Colombo, and Ho Chin Minh city, along with many domestic trips. I especially like international travel – they give me contiguous time to think and assimilate all my ideas. [I wrote about my long Feb-Mar US trip.]
Teaching: I taught an internal course to upcoming managers in Netcore called L.I.F.E skills, focused on Leadership, Innovation, Foresight, Entrepreneurship. I have a second round starting in Jan. I quite liked the experience – I too learnt a lot in the process. The series covered additional topics like decision-making, managing others, managing oneself, and execution.
Events: I attended multiple events this year – eTail West, SaaS Open, Shoptalk, eTail Boston, Google Next, SaaStr, MMA Vietnam, and Bangalore Literature Festival. The eCommerce events helped me understand the language that marketers speak, and helped me in framing the narrative for the new ideas.
Life System: I completed 100 parts of my Life System series, having started the year with 30 from last year. I loved writing this – sharing some of my habits and hacks. I hope they turn out to be useful for others.
Reading, Movies, and OTT: My reading continues – books are too numerous to list, and there is a wide cross-section across fiction and non-fiction. I watched many movies, including some offbeat ones like “Golda” and “The Holdovers.” I did do much more OTT viewing this year, especially after Abhishek’s departure for the US. I especially liked Lincoln Lawyer and Bosch – having been a great fan of Michael Connelly’s books for a very long time.
Health: Two changes I made to my health habits this year: starting gym and eating curry leaves (kadipatta). As I discovered, kadipatta has amazing medicinal properties, especially in controlling blood sugar. I still have my daily alarm set at 4:24 pm, and do my morning walk as often as I can. I have also maintained my breakfast + 1 meal routine.
Less India thinking: I have not done much writing on India this year, perhaps because I did have much new to say. I still think the Nayi Disha and Dhan Vapasi ideas are the right ones for mass flourishing, freedom, and prosperity in India.
Blogging: The one thing that continues is this blog with its two daily posts. Like I have said before, I write for myself – the writings help me think through issues and ideas. I am quite certain that much of the writing I have done about the new marketing ideas is quite path-breaking. I have also completed three years of “Thinks” which ensures the discipline of continuous reading.
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2024
I am not the one to hazard predictions for the coming year. What I can do is to write about some possible things I would like to see happen.
Proficorn: I want to see more startups believe that they can scale without raising capital. This means crafting a business with early profits which can be reinvested for growth.
Profipoly: I would like the idea of creating a “profits monopoly” to become more mainstream. My theory is that every industry has a finite pool of profits at a given point of time, and it is possible for companies to get a disproportionate advantage with the right set of strategies. Even as we help B2C/D2C brands achieve this, I would like to see Netcore to also become a profipoly.
Inbox Commerce: This is another phrase I had coined. It is getting some traction. With Email 2.0 and WhatsApp, the conversion funnel can be moved in-channel, removing the friction of going to a landing page. I think we will see much more interest in this idea as a way to reduce friction in customer journeys.
Progency: I hope Netcore can build a progency – combining the power of its martech platform with a thin layer of services (directly or with partners) to create a performance model for retention and growth.
Entrepreneurship@Scale: One idea I have been thinking about is how we can create the initial conditions for commercialising IP at India’s academic institutions to create entrepreneurship at scale – like what happens at many leading universities in the US and Europe. We need to think beyond the next delivery or gaming app to solve real problems. This is starting to happen – with exciting deep tech work happening in drones, robotics, and the space sector. Can this be expanded to other areas – energy, batteries, synthetic biology, and quantum computing? This will require IP from academia to be combined with entrepreneurs, money, and mentoring.
Nayi Disha for India: I hope the 2024 elections bring more freedom and prosperity in the years to come – and not just for the top 10%. It is in this context that Indians need more freedom and less government. Successive governments through decades have given us the opposite. India needs wise leadership for this to happen.
And then of course, there is Gen AI. We are living through this revolution. It is still early days. The pace of innovation has been astounding in the past year (just look at the quality of images produced by Gen AI), and we are just getting started. Like the Internet, it is the second- and third-generation of companies that will be transformative – with new technologies and innovations.
All in all, lots to look forward to. Wish you all a Very Happy 2024.