Daybreak The Ken

Demand for high-end living is on the rise and Nobroker's subscription plan just doesn't cut it anymore. So it introduced a new postpaid plan to entice wealthy property owners. 
Funnily enough, the way it works is pretty much how traditional brokers earn their brokerage. This goes against the basic premise with which Nobroker was started almost a decade ago. 
So why has Nobroker switched up its strategy? And why is it going down the road it was so fundamentally against? 
Tune in to find out. 

When it entered the quick commerce scene for the first time in 2021, Zepto was a disruptor. Now, it is the third largest company in the market after Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart. Recently, it secured its biggest funding ever at a US$3.6 billion valuation, mainly from its existing investors.

Venture Intelligence, a data provider told The Ken that the US$660 million funding is largest bet made by VCs in Indian startups this year. And now, The Ken's sources say that Zepto is planning to raise another round from “top-tier global VCs” at a US$5 billion valuation.

What did Zepto do to get all this attention from investors?
Tune in.
Also listen to:
Daybreak: Why we date, marry, or breakup with Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, Zepto & BigBasket
TFTY: How to get people to listen to you when you have no authority or title?

Four years, 15 cohorts, and roughly 1,500 students later, Stoa School has shut down. The poster child for alternative business-school education in India is no longer accepting new students. 
What went wrong? And what does it mean for India's altMBAs? 
Tune in to find out.
P.S. While you are here, check out the latest episode of The Ken's careers podcast The First Two Years, where host Akshaya Chandrasekaran delves into how to build trust with colleagues who don't trust you. 

The pandemic, as brutal as it was, forced a lot of businesses to double down on convenience and accessibility. Whether it was your online education or quick deliveries or at home blood tests. Just to be able to skip that dreaded visit to a hospital or a diagnostic centre meant so much to most people.
Accredited labs popped up all over promising to come right to your doorstep and collect your samples from the comfort of your home and that too for super affordable prices. Healthians, a testing lab startup has seen bookings triple since the pre-pandemic era. Now, the company handles 12,500–13,000 bookings daily, with nearly 75% of its business coming from home collections.

But while home tests are gaining popularity, whether you can trust them 100% is still under question. Phlebotomists and runners hold the keys to a sample’s fate and accuracy.
Tune in.
Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On June 3, about 200 employees of the American management consulting firm Bain and Company’s India division received a rather ominous calendar invite. 

They each would have a 10-minute meeting with HR. But no one, other than the heads of the regional offices and the head of HR, knew what the meeting was about. 
During the meeting, they were all told they were being laid off. The layoffs took the consulting community by surprise, because it just wasn’t a very ‘Bain’ thing to do. 
What's going on? Tune in to find out.
P.S. While you are here, check out the latest episode of our careers podcast The First Two Years, where host Akshaya Chandrasekaran delves into how to build trust with colleagues who don't trust you.

Nothing about Nykaa is strictly its own anymore. 

Back when it went public, it had no real rivals in the beauty space. But since then, things have changed. 

Last year, India’s largest retailer, Reliance Retail, officially entered the beauty space. It launched an omnichannel beauty retail platform called Tira
Reliance isn’t playing around. In the last year, it has made one thing clear: it wants to completely shake up the country’s  beauty segment. 

But even the Reliance legacy to back it up, Tira’s success in this space isn’t a given.