Nowism #11

After a few weeks off, something we should all do, welcome to the eleventh weekly edition of Nowism.

Instacart IPO on the way

Instacart’s eagerly awaited IPO is now en route , and will likely end up valuing the company at $12-15bn, a big cut in price from when Instacart was “worth” $39bn in those crazy mid Covid years. How long before we can buy their stock in Aldi’s middle aisle?

Instacart feels like a very modern day tech success story. It’s ostensibly quite a stupid company, which demands that not especially well treated people, drive to a store, go around aisles, to pick up products, stick them in a trolley and to drive them in a 2007 Corolla to the customers house, all just a few hours after other people have been paid to put them on shelves.? It’s a basic temporary tech patch on a system that really needs to be rebuilt differently ( more like Ocado [Robots] or Hema [Conveyor belts] )

It’s also one of those companies valued by Silicon Valley types with the expectation that what makes financial sense for time poor, cash rich folk, will slowly seep out into more rural and less privileged areas to maintain growth forever. Which as we saw with Peloton ( surely everyone can afford a $1,500 bike) and Lucid ( who wouldn’t want a $100k EV) , is based on ignorance about the reality of peoples’ lives. Turns out Stanford folks with Patagonia vests who spent their life staring at spreadsheets, not talking to people or leaving the Coast, have no idea what they don’t know.

Like other tech companies it’s not the “make it up in volume” story of 2001, nor the “make it up with data” story of 2016, it’s the “shift to advertising” 2018 playbook. While Groceries with Instacart typically cost 25% more than instore, the company can’t really make money selling stuff. In fact it’s entire shift from loss to $428m profit in 2022, comes from a $740m boost selling advertising.

Ostensibly the company isn’t really a retailer these days, it only sells about $29bn of stuff each year, making it about the 16th largest Grocery store in the US, far below H.E.B, Publix and Aldi by revenue , but it makes more than $100 per customer per year from advertising. In fact by some lose calculations, instacart makes more money from advertising per user, than any media company on the planet, and beaten only by Amazon ( whose ads constantly make me pick things that don’t fit the search criteria I used, and I’m forced to send things back )

A few questions emerge…..

1) Is retail media really a great idea? I’ve always felt that advertising these days was generally going closer and closer to the point of purchase, not necessarily because it “works" better there, but because it’s more easy to attribute at that point. Getting more immediate and trackable results is more compelling these days than getting better results.? At some point as companies like Yeti or Sonos or Belkin show, it may just be better to consider perhaps making something better, or put money into Brand advertising.

2) Is this one of those Companies desperately trying to pass the buck to shareholders? While the end of their growth story becomes harder and harder to maintain, or is this a new phase in growth where a company grows to dominate. I’d vote for the former.

4) Is this really a tech company? Back in about 1990 Tesco started eCommerce by having a fax machine in some stores and people could fax them what they wanted. It’s amazing how close to this we still are.

5) Is this really online retail?? At some point I’ll write more on this. But increasingly what “online” retail is makes no sense to me. What really matters isn’t whether the point of payment or decision was online, but the supply chain in getting it to you.

Best training program in the world launches.

I’d be remiss not to point out that my new training program is about to launch, with a cohort starting on the 18th of September, for 6 weeks.? I’ve even made some ads .

To kick it off, my training partner LXA is giving away a bunch of free copies of my book “Digital Darwinism” , click here to have a good chance of winning it. There is also a 10% off coupon available.

I’ll go on about it more over the coming months I’m sure, but for now find out more information on the course here or contact James Davis [email protected] for more info.

EV’s going nowhere.

Always a huge fan of moments where a large company CEO actually tries their own products. This time the unusually outspoken Ford CEO (Jim Farley) notices for the first time that the charging network in the US is absolutely awful. Something apparent to anyone whose ever rented a non Tesla EV

As a frequent renter of EV’s ( in America ) what staggers me most isn’t the dearth of fast EV chargers, nor the absolute mess of standards ( common for the early days of an invention, remember the “war of the currents ” or “mac vs PC”) , but that the Apps available to find chargers are so awful.

I recently had a 4 hour road-trip around Austin, not trying Barbecue food, nor visiting haunted hotels in the Hill Country, but trying to charge my BEV.? I tried 11, all with different issues, and then gave us.? The issue is seems is that EV chargers were placed in really dumb locations, never maintained, and all because they were built not to be used by people, but because regulators required them/tax incentives/corp policies etc. The customer was never meant to be us.

If EV’s are ever to make more than 10% of the market, not only will chargers need to be more numerous, but there locations need to be better, and we need better apps to find them. Grants need to be given on the basis of how many KW’s are delivered, not how many chargers are installed.? PS. How in the age of IOT is it not possible to know which chargers are ACTUALLY available?

( p.s This is a US centric view, in Europe charging apps are great ?)

Little Ones

If you ask me the great resignation was never really a thing, it was lots of people who’d normally quit,? hanging on. Then a release of the pressure.? Like almost every Covid trend, it was just pulled through or delayed demand. This piece doesn’t say that but the charts do.

Even more evidence that disruption isn’t really a thing, it’s best to be an old, massive, storied company.

It would be very interesting if Forever 21 started selling Shein goods, but sadly this isn’t happening, instead Shein is selling Forever 21 clothing online. When you are a marketplace the work required to sell anything on the planet is near zero.

Interesting old piece , why container ships won’t ever get bigger. Which it turns out isn’t about ships or canals, but ports.

Turns out IKEA shoppers, even in small stores, like shopping in a maze .

More evidence it’s going backwards and destruction that often create the conditions to leap forward.

Not the trolley problem but the lorry problem , turns out 1/3 are empty at any time. How can software solve that?

AI may be changing the world but I wish the IRS could get excited about email . As these shocking photos show. And yes, fax machines are everywhere.

Soon you can order a takeout by phone, hello 1972. But this time we’ve got AI

Me Me Me

These days I’m working flat out on some proper digital transformation for a really big car company, launching my new training course and speaking in Riyadh on the future of Construction and homes.

I’m in London on Wed 6th September too, if you fancy this thing.

And Euronews has asked me to Host a new podcast. I’ll need help with getting suggestions for guests. More on that next week.

And as always, reply to this email and I’ll do my best to reply.