People outside of India don't fully understand the โ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ญ" and how transformational that was (and will be) for ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐.
JIO is a telecom company that launched in 2016 and did something radical...
JIO gave Indians ๐ฎ๐ง๐ฅ๐ข๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐ญ for FREE.
So of course, Indians went crazy! They waited in long lines to get their JIO SIM card.
Around the same time, cheap mobile phones were also becoming available.
These two factors (๐๐ก๐๐๐ฉ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐ญ + ๐๐ก๐๐๐ฉ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐) brought millions of Indians online starting in 2016, including people living in rural villages.
Then starting in 2017, JIO stopped giving away data for free. They started charging for data, but kept data prices at an ๐ข๐ง๐ฌ๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐จ๐ฌ๐ญ (e.g. $3 a month for 50GB).
Indians had already been hooked to the Internet, so a majority of users continued to use it.
JIO went from having zero customers in 2016 to now having ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง subscribers.
And Indians have gone from consuming just 700 MB of data per month to 11 GB.
In 2020, India had nearly ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐ญ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ฌ and this is expected to grow to 974 million users by 2025.
Hence, the digital economy in India exploded.
The JIO effect immensely helped many Silicon Valley social networks as well.
For example, ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐๐ is now the de facto streaming service for Indians.
Indians love Bollywood (songs and films) and YouTube perfectly serves that need.
In fact, ๐-๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ (which is now India's largest record label) became more popular on YouTube than ๐๐๐ฐ๐๐ข๐๐๐ข๐ last year.
95% of YouTube content is India consumed in local languages, and now, ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐จ๐ฉ ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ข...
If we look at YouTube channels with over 10 million subscribers (ranked by country)
Another company to benefit from the JIO effect is ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐จ๐จ๐ค.
India was the ๐๐ข๐ ๐ ๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ ๐ซ๐จ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ก ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฒ ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฅ๐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ซ๐ ๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐๐ซ ๐จ๐ ๐๐๐๐ (according to call transcripts)
Facebook now has more users in India than any other country:
๐๐จ๐จ๐ ๐ฅ๐ also massively benefited from the JIO effect.
In 2016, Google reported in their call transcript that "๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ง๐๐ฐ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ฌ ๐๐๐จ๐ฉ๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ซ๐จ๐ข๐ ๐๐๐ฏ๐ข๐๐๐ฌ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฆ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ค๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ซ๐๐ณ๐ข๐ฅ."
Google and JIO are now working to jointly develop an entry-level affordable smartphone.
Google also plans to invest $10 billion in India to "๐๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ ๐๐๐จ๐ฉ๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐จ๐ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ฅ ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ฏ๐ข๐๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ค๐๐ฒ ๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐๐๐ฌ ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ญ"
Overall, the JIO effect which started in 2016 brought a majority of Indians online over the least four years, and has paved the way for a breakout decade for India.
โข โข โข
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There is a lot to admire about @Square's underlying business.
The company started off as a simple payments processor for merchants, but has continued to expand its TAM by also becoming a full-suite SaaS for small businesses, a bank, and a P2P payments app.
Square is essentially a full-stack payments ecosystem that aims to solves the entire chain of problems for sellers and users.
And best of all, each of these products reinforce each other.
In fact, a lot of their growth comes from this closed loop financial ecosystem.
Customers might start with just one product, but over time, they expand into other products. So their gross margins per customer increases over time:
Since the cat is out the bag: We decided to shut down TruStory and return the investor money.
Why?
TLDR; We came to the conclusion that TruStory is too early to market. The market is not big enough (yet) for what we want to build.
I will write and publish a blog post later today that explains the "why" in more detail.
I can't express in words how thankful I am for the investors who took a chance on us, the core team who worked relentlessly, and the passionate community who gave us a reason to keep going every day.
0/ I'm glad we started the debate on Bitcoin wealth disparity yesterday, because it got us one step closer to understanding the issue.
If you're open-minded enough to come on this learning journey with me, I'll share a summary of what I learned.
1/ If we look at the RAW numbers on @bitinfocharts, ~3% of addresses own 95% of Bitcoins.
But, this data is not ideal. Here's why:
2/ The first BIG problem with this raw figure is that exchanges represent the top wallets. Of the top 10 richest Bitcoin addresses, 7 of them are exchange wallets.