After Twitter's Parag Aggarwal, a new Indian CEO will sit on YouTube's throne!

The aviation industry is ruthless. Since its inception in 1938, the government of India had a strong hold on the space with Air India. But, in 1994 things changed. The regulations were repealed and private players could enter the market.

This change allowed full-service airlines like Jet Airways, Kingfisher, and Sahara, to make their entry. At that time, air travel was considered a luxury. But, with the entry of low-cost carriers like Indigo and SpiceJet, air tickets became more affordable.

In 2005, two such players entered the market at the same time - Indigo and Kingfisher. But, while Kingfisher crashed and burned, Indigo soared!

In the first couple of years, both players were making losses proportional to growth. But, during the financial crisis when markets crashed and fuel prices skyrocketed, Indigo turned profitable. Kingfisher, on the other hand, 5x its losses & eventually closed operations in 4 years.

Indigo pulled this off using their "sale and leaseback" strategy. With this strategy, Indigo bulk orders aircraft from Airbus at a discounted rate. Then, they sell these aircraft to a lesson like BOC aviation. And, then they rent back the same aircraft for 5-6 years.

But, that's not it! Indigo's operations are highly efficient. They started with a ONE configuration model and reduced their charges by only providing travellers with a seat and leg space. On top of that, their fleet has only 1 kind of aeroplane which reduce their maintenance cost.

When you combine all this, you get a highly efficiently run company that was able o produce profits for 10 years straight!

Amazon made $469B in 2021 & it's now worth $1.42 trillion dollars!

Guess who Amazon's biggest rival is?
Walmart? eBay? Target? — Nah!

It’s the 2006 startup, Shopify, that even now makes just 1% of Amazon's revenue! But, how? Well, let's find out!

First, let's understand the difference between Amazon & Shopify!

Amazon => Retailer (wholesale products) + Marketplace (3rd party sellers)
Shopify => It is a platform that allows e-commerce companies to go online

Amazon has complete control over the marketplace, while Shopify simply facilitates contact between sellers & consumers
But, Shopify makes $4.6B in revenue, that's 100x less than Amazon's revenue.

Let's break down their GMV to figure out why Shopify can compete with Amazon:

GMV => Gross Merchandise Value => the sum value of all the products & services sold by a particular platform.

Amazon's total GMV in 2021 => $610B

Out of this
a) Amazon Retail's GMV => $220B (36%)
b) Third-party GMV => $390B (64%)

Now, Shopify's GMV in 2021 => $175B

If we just consider third-party sales, then Amazon's GMV is twice as large as Shopify. So, clearly, Amazon is in the lead.

But, the insight is not in the numbers, it's in the trends.

Shopify's GMV was 45% of Amazon in 2021. Only 3 years ago it was 25%.

So, Shopify is growing & that too, quickly!

The trend shows that traditional marketplaces are not the only option for merchants anymore.

The D2C businesses are also a viable option in 2022.

Amazon also has other problems. But, it's never wise to underestimate Amazon.

Now, in the past, Amazon has tried to buildd a startup similar to Shopify, but both times it failed. It has now acquired Shopify's competitor Selz! So, let's see how things go!

When Tobi Lutke moved thousands of miles to Canada to be with his future wife, he couldn't get a typical 9 to 5 job. So out of his love for Snowboarding, he decided to start selling Snowboards online.

After trying many online store buildders, Tobi felt frustrated because of the lack of good software to help with his problem. So he decided to build the software himself.

Eventually, when his store went live, he realised that the software he had built had more value than the actual online business. That's how Shopify got started.

Now, what exactly is Shopify? Well, Shopify basically integrates all the elements needed to start an e-commerce business.

Initially, Shopify was a simple tool. But, very soon, it was developed into a full-fledged platform where developers & the larger e-commerce community contribute to buildd products that work as solutions for e-commerce related problems.

Shopify essentially makes money via two means — the subscription plans & the merchant solutions. The subscription business accounts for 30% of Shopify's revenue, while the merchant solutions account for 70%!

After 10-15 years of operation, Shopify saw tremendous growth during the 2020 Covid 19 pandemic. This was largely because of the lockdowns & the influx of mom & pop shops setting online stores on Shopify.

Shopify's sales during this time increased by 86% & the number of merchants doubled to 2M! In 2021, Shopify's revenue tripled to $4.6B compared to 2019 revenue!

Tobi Lutke's persistent effort to help merchants eventually made him a billionaire!