Time to decode the ‘Social’ in ‘Social Commerce’

“If I had to guess, Social Commerce is the next area to really blow up” – Mark Zuckerberg

‘Social Commerce’ or more simply ‘Social Payments’ has been a relatively new concept to come up in the last few years. And in most cases, it remained like the early days of big data – easier to toss around but not presenting a clear picture. I believe the vagueness gets accentuated by the fact of the word ‘Social’ being a part of it. This is what leads a whole set of audience out there, to think that just latching on to or simply appending a ‘pay’ option inside a social network makes up for the concept. Nothing could be further from the truth. The true meaning of the word ‘Social’ in ‘Social Commerce’ is actually the full context of your real life use cases where any social activity is involved. For example – a dinner with your friends, an act of planning and sharing cost for a gift, so on & so forth.

don't keep calmIn fact, if you actually ponder, you would perceive that the real driver of this phenomenon has been something else entirely. It is the proliferation of ‘shared economy’ lifestyle that makes these social use cases so prominent and common for us.  Also your payment instances and touch points intersect across the whole matrix of these use cases. Traditionally, the process has been pretty fragmented with the social & fun experience never coming across in those payments you made with your friends. Until now!

And the reasons are plentiful. Let’s start from why social commerce has not worked with the incumbents (your digital wallets) –

  • The pain of uploading money first from your bank account (because come on, you don’t keep large amounts of money in your mobile wallet)
  • The limits of sending money to another wallet (You can’t send more than Rs. 10k at one time as a normal user!)
  • The charges and time delays on withdrawing my wallet balance into my bank account (They are charging you for transferring your money back to yourself!)

And I am sure you must have realized that the arrival of our own stack – UPI is the one of the key turn arounds (the ‘Paypal moment’) for Indian ecosystem, especially in terms of enabling ‘Social Payments’ as a category to exist independently in a big manner. UPI has brought about 10X the simplicity and 10X the speed which is a core pre-requisite for situations where you need to share money with your friends without any awkwardness. Now imagine adding all your social use cases on top of this beautiful and secure base of UPI. As you may have realized by now, that not only does it create a completely new paradigm but also increases the value by an order of magnitude (because of the network effects). 

Once the wheels of motion start on any evolutionary path, it becomes almost impossible to stop them. The natural extension is that this category is bound to grow in India as well both in numbers and value (give the fact that it has already reached to 10s of billions of dollars in the west (US) with Venmo and the east (China) with WePay). The key thing to remember here is that in any new economy, it requires a fresh approach and outlook since the positioning is different from traditional P2P players and hence the product delivery and experience also needs to be different for the user. There have been numerous examples around the world with large social networks trying to add a basic P2P payments functionality and hoping it to take off in a big way. But it has not worked that well numerous examples like Snapcash (P2P payments via Snapchat in US).

sharing moneyThis brings us full circle to the two golden philosophies that have stood the test of time again and again –

  1. The products that work on the premise of ‘this thing/activity can be done here too’ never make the cut. For example – ‘You can send money on Paypal too!’ is NOT what a Venmo user is thinking.
  2. Once a consumer associates a product with a certain repeat and high frequency use case, it becomes nearly impossible to change his habit and perception for that product. For example – Messenger has traditionally been a place for sending messages and that is what a user thinks of when he recalls that app (and not for sending money).

This is where the formidable advantage of having a clean slate comes in –

  • Tailoring the product design around your real world habits when it comes to splitting, collecting, managing and tracking all your payments with your close contacts
  • Ensuring that the experience is insanely fun so that it takes away all the awkwardness that traditionally accompanies any monetary transaction with your friends
  • Ensuring that the product caters to all your use cases to such a minute detail that even you get surprised when it comes to the features!

Needless to say that I am more than excited about how the Indian market is evolving in the fin-tech domain (especially with the Indian government supporting it at an awesome level). Look forward to continued awesomeness and magic along the way.

Cheers, Rohit Taneja, Mypoolin

Freedom from fragmentation! Welcome to the ecosystem

The emotions of independence and freedom are flowing around in our hearts; hence it is befitting to discuss the same in a domain where most people haven’t pictured these yet. Let us talk about the product that is eating the whole world – yes, we are talking about the world of ‘Software’ after all. Even the people who are new to this part will notice the sheer amount of change that has come around in the world economy, labour markets, currency valuations and more, solely by the influence and discretion of software prowess. However, what becomes hard to notice for many people is that there is a silent revolution underway in this whole domain. What we are talking about is the shift from a fragmented approach to an integrated one.

Before you start thinking about the questions (like what is the need? Why is a change required?), let us consider a very simple real life example. Take the following phrases and see what comes to mind while thinking about them – ‘Discover what is happening around me’, ‘Chat with my group of friends’, ‘Discuss and plan for a group activity’ & ‘Split and share money with a friend’. If you look closely, these 4 action aspects pretty much sum up your daily social lifestyle, especially considering the complicated lives that we lead nowadays.

 

However, interestingly the legacy platforms and systems that are prevalent have been mostly confined to 1 vertical in each of these cases. For example, you have ~2 apps in your phone for checking out the movies and events running in town, then there would be ~3 different apps for checking the best restaurants to go to and the deals to avail, and furthermore, a plethora of apps to chat with your group of friends. Now, each of these apps perform specific functions suited to their use case, however, in a dynamic and real time social scenario, you will find yourself juggling between multiple apps / web pages, taking screenshots / copying text and then performing the desired intended series of actions. Isn’t it?

Now, think is this really a smart way to go about it? Do we REALLY need so many apps? Keeping the subjective part aside, let us take a look at some hard numbers. Consider this fantastic report compiled by TheNextWeb on the fragmented Android market or this detailed analysis by ContractIQ on the vendors and variety of software suites out there. Well, things get clear, don’t they?

Fragmentation

Welcome the ecosystem approach

In light of the above, ask yourself, why should we remain limited to the old approach and use up more time in juggling between different apps and systems? Why not go for a more advanced ecosystem style approach (something like what Facebook messenger is bringing around now in terms of allowing you to book an Uber and more directly from the chat window). This is the approach that precisely a lot of new age products advocate (including ours) in terms of the complete flow. Not only does this approach help you save time (that we all value so highly) but also maintain just one point of contact in terms of the interacting system (Comp. Science geeks and service guys will understand the enormous value of this).

SweetspotGetting back to the phrases we discussed earlier, let us combine the vertical sections of the app market into 1 and perceive the awesomeness that we get –

  • Discovery of events, activities, restaurants, deals and more
    • Exploring the best movies, events, deals, restaurants and outings around you
    • Also checking out the details required under one neat and seamless flow without jumping between multiple apps
  • Discussing, planning and chatting
    • Choosing whatever activity you want to go for, after checking what’s trending, what is recommended, what do your friends like & much more, all at one place
    • Inviting your group of friends to add them to the group to discuss and plan together. Chatting together to see who is in and who is out
  • Splitting and sharing money from any account
    • Splitting the costs for your activities (whether before or after) and everyone can put in their own share directly using any means linked to their bank account.
    • Avoiding the hassles of making excel sheets / notes and even setting reminders. Letting the single solution handle everything is the ultimate nirvana mode.
    • Not only that, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the app didn’t even require you to share any account details (like account number, IFSC code etc.) with anyone!

I am sure you will find that the old fragmented apps scenario pales in comparison to this integrated solution when it comes to seamlessly navigating your social lifestyle. For those who have not explored yet, come and check out the magic that happens when all these touchpoints come in one trajectory under one roof at Mypoolin – https://mypoolin.com/mobile-app.php

Time to say ‘ahoy’ to freedom and welcome this silent revolution towards an integrated future!

Guest Post by Rohit Taneja, Co-Founder at MyPoolin

What it truly means to be a full stack company

There are several different types of organizations out there, and the ones that are the leanest in terms of size are mostly product companies. Within the product companies as well, there is a lot of variety in the approach that they take for delivering the desired consumer experience. Some opt for just 1 tool and focus on that (Desktop downloadable products— like early days of Norton antivirus), while others go for emphasis on the consumer touch point rather on the device choice.

We @Mypoolin perceive our product company as a growing tree which can deliver the desired fruits (experiences and outputs) to the customer through its numerous branches. Some of the branches appear to be similar in nature while other vary wildly in size and distribution. The things that bind them in common are the huge trunk as well as the root at the bottom level. The trunk of which we talk about actually refers to the main base (or the core of the application from software standpoint) and the root refers to the stack on which everything gets built from ground up (Sorry, we don’t believe in outsourcing :)). These two unifying factors are what make sure that the multiple touch points are aligned by a common sense of purpose


In line with the approach, it is important to highlight the reasons why we perceive and develop the company in this manner. Every consumer has its own preferred of looking at the product from the outside. And at the same time, the customers fall across various age groups, not to forget, they have even different choices and preferences among the same age group as well. Let us take a look at the end points of the branches, shall we?

1. Native Mobile Apps

I think it is a plain enough truth that nothing beats mobile as a device in today’s age both in terms of the time spent as well as the utility value. The type of person who goes for this device as a major investment of his time can be described in general as — curious, young (at least in his state of mind), likes to follow at least some topics around the world, and likes to be in the midst of the society.

As is evident, this covers a lot of the people out there and hence, the rate of increase of mobile adoption has surpassed all tech inventions to date. And mobile apps are making sure that this will continue to happen at least for the next couple of decades (typical growth cycle of any new technology in the ongoing century). Don’t forget there are players like Samsung and others who are trying to make headway for their own operating systems as well. That will make the play even more interesting.

2. Websites and Micro-sites

Even though the majority of the generation has adopted mobile as their go to devices, yet there are a LOT of people out there who simply can’t or won’t adopt it. In some cases, they do come on board but perform rudimentary tasks like calling and texting, while in some cases, they are simply not too excited as they don’t see value in investing time on a new device! I am sure we all know a few in our own circle and once you add up the numbers, you can see how large it becomes on its own.

Our policy goes in line with Apple’s in this regard, which is to never fear cannibalization. Of course, there might be some people who would keep transacting on the web initially, however we need to ensure that the product being used for that particular use case is ours. The idea needs to be to drive the users gradually to the native app (obviously for a more omni-present and better experience) rather than completely obliterating the web presence.

Since the overall goal is to serve the customer at the right place and the right time, hence micro-sites and embedded plugins (in our case, split payment options present on multiple partners like MakeMyTrip and more) become quite an important factor. As a customer who is in the process of transacting anywhere needs to see his intent transform into action in the most simple and direct way possible.

3. Bots, Watches, Glasses and more!

While the above two end points are absolute necessities (the way we believe), this one falls in the more fantastic range of product delivery as of now. Notably, while still nascent in the present stage, these technologies end points will achieve their full blown growth cycle towards the end of this decade.

This is the precise reason why we are launching two of our bots on Messenger and telegram platforms respectively. These bots will of course be quite naive to begin with, but will be learning along the way, ensuring that our goal of making ‘Payments’ fun and social reaches its pinnacle. For those of you who are keen to explore how peer to peer payments and group payments can happen simply with a text command, welcome to the future!

Remember, this is just the beginning in this category and we will continue to ensure that these end points converge in the purest and simplest form into our goal of making ‘Payments’ fun and social.

Wish to work with some of the best hackers, programmers and designers in the country? Wish to join one of the fastest growing ventures in the intricate, growing and powerful domain of fin-tech? Look no further. Ping us directly at [email protected]. Guest blog post by Rohit Taneja

Leading the fintech revolution | The humane approach

Let’s start first with the elucidation of a buzzword that is floating around a lot –‘fintech’. In very simple terms, it refers to new technology that aims to change the existing models (and/or processes) of the financial industry. Considering that financial industry by itself is huge and everybody is a part of it directly or indirectly, it is quite logical that the tech and business community is extremely interested in being a part of it.

The good part is that this domain is complicated and definitely tough to crack. Now some of you might be wondering that how exactly is this good?! And the answer for that is as per my opinion, the harder a problem is to solve, the better the solutions (and even more original) are, that come forward for it for the long term. This is enforced even more when I look across other sectors – viz Rocket technologies, Transportation, Artificial Intelligence and so on. Remember we are talking about products & services that aim for the bigger picture and not just stay for a short while.

The second aspect that gets everyone excited is the potential impact that this has on the complete economy, be it in a funnel up fashion or the typical trickle down manner. Being deeply linked with the pockets and spending behavior (in general) of the people, the growth levels in fintech sector tend to have a very deep correlation with the elusive economic development at a global level. So far so good, but is the current pace really radical and path-breaking or is it simply incremental? The answer varies but involves a very important element…

As part of our product development and iterations here @MyPoolin, we have come to appreciate something that many of the fin-tech players intuitively know (but don’t directly implement) – ‘the humane touch‘. We don’t really mean touch in the physical sense (as most of the solutions that we refer to are mostly software level to the tune of 95% or more) but in the sense of user experience for the end consumer. The primary aspect that makes this so significant is because in the past, the banking solutions have seemed too complicated and aloof to majority of the people. That is the main reason people still spend hours in their respective bank branches per week!

PictureforblogHence, our principle is simple – “Let people come in for the utility. Present it in the simplest manner. And let them discover the power of a humane touch”. 

Cheers to making amazing things happen in the financial world that actually seem a natural part of our daily lives, making them all the more beautiful ….

P.S. MyPoolin is a mobile peer to peer and social payments network. It is changing the way we all plan and share money with friends and colleagues.

Guest Post by Rohit Taneja, MyPoolin