The Branded and Gilded Life Connecting the not-so-obvious branding dots

He's known as 'Lipstick Brother' in China
In a pandemic, Li Jiaqi, sold $1.9 billion in goods on the first day of Alibaba’s annual shopping festival in August 2020
He tries on various makeup products on his show, ranging from brands from top companies including Sheshiedo Co lotions and Apple Air pods - though there's no make up connection there!
It's not as if he has an unusual format. 
The sales are more than what some profitable retail chains in the US would sell in an entire year.
He earned fame by starting off with 'lipstick marathons' - applying several brands of lipstick over several hours. Naturally, he's a Guinness Record holder for applying the largest number of lipstick options in 30 seconds!
Starting off in sales at a L'Oréal store, he developed his own unique style of describing beauty products. That lead to his trying out livestreams which got progressively popular, and he built up a huge following.
For the moment, he seems to have escaped the government's drive against 'effeminate men' The sheer volume of sales he generates on a single day is hard to replicate.
As dialog writers in Indian films have known for long, a single popular catchphrase becomes legendary and builds recognition.
Li's catchphrase is 'OMG sisters, buy this!' Now, that may not be seen as particularly creative but there's no doubt that it works.
On average, he makes about $10-20 million per month.
Making a personal connection with millions of women
And leaving a trail of luscious, glowing and smiling lips.
Which billion-dollar pool should you play in?
If you haven't heard of Anker, you will.
They started out making chargers for mobile phones.
Now, that's not a market entrepreneurs would enter instinctively. But Steven Yang, the founder and CEO saw the long-term potential of a fragmented market that would grow steadily over time.
Apple has now stopped including chargers with new phones. So has Samsung. And the EU has mandated USB-C chargers as a standard. That expands the market for third party chargers exponentially.
Anker has excelled at increasing charging power while reducing the size. They bet on Gallium Nitride which keeps the size small and multiple devices can be charged at the same time.
And they identified the pool they would play in.
Not in mobile phones, which is close to $500 billion annually and the largest product market.
The next is laptops and PCs, which is a $200 billion market.
Then come the tablets which are at $60-70 billion annually.
Followed by smart watches and headphones which make up a growing $40 billion market
So, the markets diminish to 10% of the size of the biggest ones in just a few steps.
But there are a lot of $3-5 billion dollar pools which will grow in future.
That's a great way to understand where the company's strengths lie.
And the options available there are truly widespread.
Plus the realisation that the company's structure is built to generate revenue from the smaller growing pools, not the monolithic ones.
That's the kind of clarity that helps companies and decide where they can play their best game and succeed.
It gives Anker pole status in the smaller categories - and that is a great place to be.
In a goldrush, sell mats
Yoga is getting traction worldwide.
From recommendations by doctors to expensive Yoga studios, it is growing exponentially not just in the US but China and Australia as well.
One of the biggest signs of it becoming a worldwide phenomenon is the number of variations that have been invented.
Superstar gurus wanted their auras to glow brighter and establish their own gravy train of followers.
Like Starbucks has multiple flavours, there's now Kundalini, Hatha Yoga, Restorative Yoga and the controversial Bikram Yoga which has even got its own scandalous Netflix special.
When a movement becomes a gold rush, there's another indicator of success.
The growth of accessories like Yoga mats.
They come in a striking array of colours, materials including thermoplastic elastomers, apart f

Or Korean, for that matter. Or even Russian.
The evolution of subtitles and dubbing in films is going in unpredictable directions.
Streaming services are running into problems with respect to dubbing and generating subtitles in multiple languages.
One runaway hit can change equations.
The Squid Game on Netflix was watched worldwide by audiences who didn't know a word of Korean. But Netflix found another fascinating detail hidden in the data.
People preferred the dubbed version of the film in their local language instead of subtitles. Makes sense because for some, subtitles are a distraction.
The problem is how this can be achieved.
Here comes AI to the rescue. A company called Veritone has access to petabytes of data from media libraries. That is being used to create a synthetic version of a familiar voice speaking a different language, keeping the same tone and emotion.
Nvidia is developing the technology to move lips of the characters to match the audio.
Right now, it is being used in short duration projects like advertisements to get the technology going and iron out the creases.
But in a few years or a decade, we'll probably have actors whose versions of their hits will have them speaking foreign languages as well.
Even if they don't have a clue as to what they're saying.
The translators and subtitling industries may become collateral damage,
But imagine stars who are truly cross border, speaking any language with perfect intonation and emotion.
Now that could create the first global superstar!
Rethinking QWERTY
It has resisted everything.
The so-called 'inefficient' placement of keys was the original design mapped to make typing slow. Created specifically so that they keys did not jam up in the manual typewriter.
Fast forward to the computer and innumerable placement options have been tried without success.
Keyboard design has remained, or at least imitates the original layout of keys.
The T9 that briefly dominated mobile phones in the early days of cell phones did not lead to a long-term change.
Even the 'soft' version on smartphones stays true to the original.
Why has this layout triumphed? One of the reasons is that early laptops may not have wanted to change a design people were familiar with.
Navigating a new paradigm was complex enough.
That's why Chara Corder is a complete rejection of the original keypad layout.
Like a gaming keyboard, each of your finger’s rest on a set of keys. It is supposed to make typing stupendously faster, once you master the basics.
The switches detect finger movement in 3D rather than along a single dimension.
It also looks completely unlike any keyboard you've seen so far.
Each of the keys can be programmed to operate four or more functions.
It looks fiendishly complex but apparently has found a sizeable audience willing to take the time to master it.
And once you do, they promise that you can type as fast as you can think.
It has been breaking all kinds of speed records. Sites like Monkeytype have banned Chara Chord because the speeds are completely off the charts.
Maybe QWERTY has finally met its match.
The shark discovers a whale of an opportunity
Mark Cuban is recognized more for his appearances on Shark Tank rather than his ownership of Dallas Mavericks, a major baseball team.
But his latest venture could impact more than sport.
He's waded into an area where health, politics and policy intersect.
Setting up an online pharmacy for generics.
The high prices of medicines in the US is an intractable problem. People with chronic conditions end up paying a fortune every month, just to get by.
There are currently about 100 drugs on the website and the price differences are revealing. 
The difference is as much as 90%. For a month's supply of Imatinib, the branded drug costs almost $10,000 dollars. He is supplying it for less than $50.
Now that puts him into a major confrontation with the whole ecosystem.
The patients are all going to be on his side because it directly impacts

It started off as a way of getting paralyzed people to walk.
Now, it has evolved into military, healthcare and industrial solutions.
The basic idea is to enhance human capacity for walking, carrying weights or doing repetitive tasks.
The Exoskeleton will probably transform more industries in future than robotics alone.
The number of applications being simultaneously worked on is staggering.
Helping soldiers manage everything from long tiring treks over harsh terrain to reducing joint strains and fatigue.
The same holds true in warehouses and manufacturing lines where the exoskeletons help workers lift massive weights on the assembly line, or manage delicate tasks which require limbs to be held aloft for long.
It reduces back strain by providing support even while the person is standing straight.
Robotics built into the suit work in tandem with the wearer and the result is fewer industrial accidents and prevention of long-term damage to muscles.
It's early days but there is a definite advantage to making people superhuman rather than have robots develop human capabilities.
That difference in perspective is helping to change what assembly lines look like and function - the idea is to make people manage working heavy tools and at dangerous heights easier.
Over time, as costs drop, they will become a common sight at manufacturing facilities worldwide.
Right now, the costs are quite high because the solutions are in an early stage of development.
But looking ahead, in everything from helping paralyzed people get around to long army marches and building new efficiencies on assembly lines, exoskeletons will become commonplace.
Wearable skeletons are the idea we didn't know we needed.
Corporate bonds you can eat
Paul & Mike make chocolates. World-class stuff.
Their chocolate concoctions win prizes at global competitions.
They have also demonstrated their ability to think differently when it comes to raising money.
Anyone who has ordered online from them in the past would have got a message asking whether they wanted to subscribe to 'chocolate bonds'
The offer is this.
Any customer (up to the first 500) can invest Rs. 5000 in the company. In return, they will get chocolates worth Rs. 6500 over one year.
Basically, the interest component is paid out in extra chocolates.
This will be in force for one year from the date of investment. Since the chocolates cost anywhere from Rs.250 to Rs 375 for a single slab, it means that customers can order what they like for Rs.6500, not including shipping costs and taxes.
They have also been upfront about the way the money will be used - to fund the upgradation of their facilities.
Now, this is a way of ensuring loyalty with an upfront payment - and for customers who are sold on the brand, an investment in pleasure.
The company gets the funding practically for free. The payout is only in the product itself and that means their profit margins may only have to take a small hit. For a short while on a fraction of the customer base.
Paul & Mike have also tied up supplies to these customers for the next 12 months. Now that's called predictable sales figures. And while it is small at the moment, they can go on to increase this over time.
From the comments on the site, it looks like their customers are well and truly sold on the idea.
The simple brilliance of Wordle
The man who created the game is Josh Wardle.
So, there's a bit of serendipity right there, apart from the fact that 'word' in the name already lets you know what you're getting into.
There are numerous word games on the net. So why did this one take off spectacularly?
Here are a few pointers.
First of all, five letter words are easy but not super easy. The UI is crisp. Six rows of five squares, with the keyboard at the bottom.
The second are the rules. You guess full words, not one letter at a time. You know the difference between letters in the target word and the ones that are wrongly placed.
And the ones that are not there in the wo

The tweet set off a firestorm.
Imagine printers not being able to recognise a company's cartridges!
We have all grown used to the cat and mouse games that printer manufacturers play.
Replace all the four-color cartridges even though only one of them is drained.
Having to waste expensive toners because all the cartridges don't get empty at the same time.
Users try and find workarounds or cheaper solutions.
Companies find ways to block them. 
And even though there are entrepreneurs who try to establish a market in the replacement market, they find it hard to succeed or scale.
So, it seems like poetic justice when companies have to deal with systems flagging  genuine cartridges as counterfeits!
This is the problem. A semiconductor chip was the one blocking duplicate cartridges from being installed.
The moment the printer came on, it would check if the cartridge was from the company and if it wasn't, the printer would no longer work.
Now that there is a chip shortage, the cartridges are being shipped without them. And there is no way to differentiate.
And Canon admits that the toner levels cannot be detected.
Here's the formal statement from the company: Due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor components, Canon is currently experiencing challenges in procuring specific electronic components that are used in our consumable products for our multifunction printers (MFP). These components perform such functions as detecting remaining toner levels.
Look for the 'counterfeit' market to be rubbing their hands gleefully while the shortage persists.
Getting rid of homelessness
As economies rise and fall, the hardest hit are people rendered homeless.
It could be for a variety of reasons.
Traditionally, the solution has been to provide temporary rooms or dormitories.
That creates another layer of management and oversight - and any funds allocated to these options gets lost in the maze of government spending.
It's also a sticky issue politically - the homeless living on the margins have to use all their wits to merely get through a day and they're political footballs passed around from one constituency to the next one.
Finland is simply giving people homes - no questions asked.
What takes on added urgency is that temperatures in winter drop to -20 degrees and being out in the open means that even survival is in doubt.
While the population is nowhere near as large as some of the developing countries, it is still a tall order to provide a home when necessary. But the effect has been remarkable.
The first goal was to create 2500 homes, but they went up to 3,500.
The number of long-term homeless people has dropped by 35% and there is only one 50 bed shelter that remains from the earlier network.
It's not just space to live - the government follows up with support services like education, training and work placement help. Apart from teaching people to cook and clean the homes.
It may not be the solution that every country can implement but it may be a far better way of solving the problem than anything available today.
The question is, will every country be able to afford it?
5G runs into an air pocket
In most cases, the rollout of a new generation of telecom technology is a highly anticipated event.
However, in the US, the launch of 5G has run into a major problem.
The FAA has warned of 'catastrophic disruption' at airports.
Apparently, 5G interferes with sensitive altimeters inside aircraft.
And for planes coming into land in bad weather or poor visibility, it's a dangerous problem to deal with.
As the wireless spectrum gets more expensive and crowded, we'll face more of these issues.
Technology has to keep pace with spectrum requirements from communication and broadband companies to military and aviation needs.
For telecom companies, the investments they have sunk into purchasing spectrum and upgrading customers will take longer to recover.
For airlines, it impacts bottomlines when flights have to be canceled owing t

Chatbots have to simulate human conversations.
And we think they're free flowing, the way dialogue is delivered in movies.
In real life, they are halting, awkward and filled with long pauses. Even between friends and colleagues, conversations dry up after the common subjects are exhausted or one of the people conversing loses interest.
There's a lot of 'ummm..', eh.....' and clearing of throats, apart from the same thoughts going around in circles.
At parties and networking events, people play out introductions and opening lines in their minds before actually speaking. Trying to sound friendly, knowledgeable as well as intelligent.
It's a hard act to keep up.
There are times when you know you aren't getting across to the person you are speaking with.
So, why do we assume that chatbots will be able to simulate human conversations without difficulty?
They may go through machine learning on millions of conversations and then reconstruct them for certain contexts.
But how people think and what they say is still unpredictable.
No machine can come up with all the branches of a conversation that humans explore in unstructured ways. Flitting from one subject to another. Starting off at random points and leaving things unsaid midway.
Intense exchanges followed by contemplation and thought.
Plus, no chatbot initiates conversations. It waits for you to ask the question to hopefully provide answers.
Even the most advanced program stumbles.
But then, so do humans!
The yoga in power storage
Compress. Decompress. Compress. Decompress.
The idea has been around for decades. Compress air into underground caverns and decompress when required to release energy.
The problem with managing electricity is that it has to be transmitted and distributed as soon as it is generated.
Storage was not given the recognition it deserved.
Now, wind and solar power generation have improved dramatically - but they're still unpredictable and the power generated needs to be stored, so that it can be supplied to the grid during lean times or when demand hits new peaks.
Hydrostor, a Canadian company has breathed new life into the storage idea.
Using electricity, a fixed amount of water is run through a complex system of pipes to compress air stored deep within the ground. When required, the water is pushed back through decompression and that generates electricity.
Several versions of the idea being tried out across the world, including in India but that's more on the lines of a closed loop power generation system.
This one focuses on compressed air generating power to be fed back to the grid.
They have built a 2-10MW hour project as proof of concept and it is already generating profits.
Goldman Sachs has invested $250 million into the company. The potential for energy storage is massive as the electricity market shifts to 'power on demand'. Optimizing that is only possible by building storage solutions that can tide over situations of alternating scarcity and excess.
Like yoga calms the human system through a series of breathing techniques, Hydrostor may be the answer to what future power markets need.
Deep storage.
VR programming for cows
Cows don't need multiple entertainment options.
Or role-playing games filled with fast-paced action.
All they require is immersion in a pasture.
In today's confined spaces, letting them out to graze is not an option.
They're lined up next to each other and even the space to move is limited.
A Turkish farmer came up with the idea of using a VR headset on a cow.
Imported from Russia, it puts the cow in a completely outdoor environment.
It does make a difference apparently - milk production is up and the cows seem happier.
There are a few tricky questions that come up.
When the cow sees grass and attempts to eat it, what happens? Has the farmer placed fodder in the right place, so when the cow goes for it, the assumption is that it is eating fresh grass?
Humans are harder to convince. They are far more finicky about

His name is Nasir Ahmed and it won't ring a bell.
But hang on a minute because it will all make sense.
He went from Bangalore to the US in the early 60s for higher studies and for his PhD, he came up with the Discrete Cosine Transform - an algorithm that would prove to be crucial to the future of the world.
It compressed images and later was applied to video compression as well.
The major use at the time was for defense. The military had a massive network but it was next to impossible to send images over it with limited bandwidth.
As the web took root, Nasir Ahmed's algorithm became the default for sending images.
It was built into browsers and email programs by default.
Users, of course were oblivious of how images were moved across the net. All they had to do was attach a file and hit the 'Send' button.
The man who made it all possible languished in complete obscurity. He was well-known in academic circles and the enormity of what he achieved came into focus during the pandemic.
Zoom or Facetime or Google Meet. None of these would work without deploying the algorithm.
His net worth is a micro fraction of the wealth these companies have amassed. But he isn't bitter about it, merely bemused.
He speaks of the scientists at the time who developed the base technologies that drive today's internet focused only on their vocation.
And he changed the world by making the real time transmission of images and video long before anyone had found widespread global use for it.
Was the makeover only for the cameras?
It's one of the popular sub-genres on TV, but not in India as yet.
In the US, home makeover shows are quite popular.
Practically every channel has a take on how to do home arrangements, or cut clutter or tips to modify the home.
But there appears to be a seedy side to the sub-genre where reality stops with showing what's good on camera.
The format is quite simple - a home or a room is chosen for a transformation and while the family leaves town for a couple of weeks, the makeover team arrives to work their magic.
It's supposed to be done for free and viewers think that the chosen family probably has saved a ton of money by being selected.
It turns out that the reality is not as rosy.
Buzzfeed profiles several makeovers that went completely wrong and the residents ended up with a huge cleanup bill after the camera crews left.
Some of them complained that the whole thing was more like a set with everything held together with staples and glue.
The problem is that most of these shows start off with good intentions. But then, every makeover can't be a repeat of a previous episode. They have to riff off the themes.
And the final result has to be dramatic enough for viewers to tune in week after week.
That's probably where the divergence between expectations and reality happens. 
And keeping TV viewers happy and coming back for more is quite different from making homes livable!
The soap, shampoo and toothpaste wars
In this one, the customers aren't involved at all. It's all behind the scenes.
The distributors of these products are the last place you expect an all-out flaming war.
For decades, they have followed a regular plodding cycle.
The distributor sends a sales team to collect orders, deliveries are made. Every year, the distributors and manufacturers haggle over the profit margin and compromises are made.
It was a system that sustained close to 600,000 distributors and the small shops they supplied to. 
Then came the disruptors with the big bucks. Udaan, Jio mart and Big Basket had the capital to strike massive deals with manufacturers and pass on some of those profits to small store owners, cutting the distributors out.
It would also make small stores dependent on the larger suppliers over time, given that once the power shifts, the small stores would have less bargaining power.
And the distributors have decided they will do all they can to make things difficult.
So, they issued ultimatums to the big manufacturers