We might associate Spotify with music, but the company describes itself as a “seamless one-stop destination for all things audio.” This has given it licence to expand into podcasts and audiobooks, both of which are growing at double digits YoY.
Business & Brands
Stansted airport group makes more money from car parks and shops than it does from aircraft fees.
At any one time, Starbucks has about $1.8 billion loaded on to customers’ gift cards or its app. If Starbucks was a bank and you treated the gift cards as deposits, it would be in the top 10% by deposits of banks in the United States.
The Starbucks mobile ordering feature became so popular that baristas were unable to cope with the demand, wait times were longer, and the company reported that a ‘mid-teens percent’ of mobile orders went uncompleted. In short, it worsened the problem it was set up to solve.
In 1972, Steve Jobs’ curiosity compelled him to take a calligraphy class at college, despite knowing it wouldn’t count towards his final degree or thinking it would have any practical application. But his knowledge helped create the Apple Mac’s slick, user-friendly typography – an integral part of its mass-market appeal.
Employees of Stripe, the payments giant, initially needed to convince tech accelerators to use their platform. Rather than sending them an email, they’d sit there and help them install the software of their apps in person.
Swingers, the mini golf bar concept, wouldn’t exist with a healthy dose of ignorance. According to co-founder Jeremy Simmonds, “we were so naive and knew so little about the hospitality industry. We did not have a business plan, there was no spreadsheet or model. Nothing. I can’t tell you how many people who are so-called experts in this space warned us against doing all the things we did, that it couldn’t work.”
One evening, Leah Busque realised she had run out of dog food and was worried all the shops would be closed. “We were certain that there was someone in our own neighbourhood that would be willing to help us out, and it was just a matter of connecting with them.” A few months later, she created TaskRabbit.
TikTok has started to upload full episodes of TV shows. The pilot of Killing it, a new comedy show, racked up 4.5M views in 3 days. Is this TV in disguise?
Ben Greensmith, the UK manager of Tony’s Chocoloney, credits the brand’s growth to clever placement: in 2020 Ocado wanted to send a free gift to loyal customers during the pandemic and bought 400,000 bars of Tony’s Chocolonely to give out with orders. Before that “no one had heard of the company, and now 58 per cent of the UK population recognises our milk chocolate bars. That’s pretty incredible.”
Uber could have easily resorted to defining themselves as a taxi service. But they never wanted to limit themselves to moving people around in cars: Uber exists to “reimagine the way the world moves for the better.” This has given Uber a credible platform to provide services as varied as food delivery (Uber Eats), healthcare (Uber Health) and, more recently, travel services.
30% of Uber drivers in the US have never had a bank account, but they need a minimum of a debit card to get paid on the app. So Uber has allowed drivers to sign up for a bank account as part of the application process, and in doing so has become the largest acquirer of small business bank accounts in the US
Before Uber became mass market it was originally a luxury brand – targeted at wealthy professionals and positioned as ‘Everyone’s Private Driver’. It only allowed users to hail a black luxury car and the price was approximately 1.5 times that of a taxi.
In recent years, credit income has made up half of all income for the likes of Nordstrom and Kohl’s.
Roy Raymond founded Victoria’s Secret so that he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable buying lingerie for his wife.