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I've built startups both in the US and in an "emerging market", so I'll offer some of my own answers here. 1. Consumers are less tech-savvy, so having a single
by Ozzie_osman 4y ago
I've built startups both in the US and in an "emerging market", so I'll offer some of my own answers here.
1. Consumers are less tech-savvy, so having a single app as a starting point makes everything far easier than having to install many apps.
2. Brand is much more valuable. In emerging markets, with (overall) less regulation (and self-regulation) of markets, trust and brand carries a LOT of weight. If I trust company X with my payments, I'm also more likely to trust them with my transportation, my food delivery, etc (than having to verify/trust a new party). Having a trusted brand makes it very easy to expand into new verticals.
3. Regulatory clout. Once you have the scale (or political connections) to navigate regulation in one vertical, it's much easier to apply that to new verticals. You might "know the right people", know how to navigate the bureaucracy better... or in some cases, it's just easier for the government to trust you with a license than someone who's unknown to them.
4. Talent is more sparse, so clustering it in one place tends to make things more efficient.
5. Funding might be hard to come by, but existing companies either already have the cash or have connections to investors.
Overall, these things in combination just make it a lot easier for an existing company to launch a new vertical than for an upstart to do so. With time and as markets evolve, you'd probably expect more specialization to occur, but by then the super apps may already be entrenched enough to defend themselves.
For similar reasons, family-owned conglomerates tend to be very successful in emerging markets and span across a variety of unrelated industries. You just bought a place in a housing development built by a company owned by wealthy family X, then you go to the supermarket to buy some milk but you're not sure which brand to trust... Then you see the carton manufactured by another company from family X.
- brightball 4y agoIn the US the “super app” was probably AOL.
- GordonS 4y agoAnd perhaps Compuserve for the UK and Europe. Ah, makes me feel nostalgic, I loved Compuserve!
- signal11 4y agoFacebook is effectively a "super app" already. * Friends' posts * News * Pages (manage your business and engage with customers) * Discussion * Marketplace -- huge for some people * Groups -- huge for some people * Probably other functionality I've no idea about (Of course, I happen to think it does a terrible job of its original purpose, which is friends' posts, but clearly lots of users use it anyway...)
- tschwimmer 4y agoIt's not even close to these super apps outside the states. You can renew your drivers license in WeChat.
- p_l 4y agoIIRC You can sue someone in civil court, get through the whole process, get a sentence and get paid compensation when you win, all in WeChat
- bl0rg 4y agoSounds kinda nice when you put it like that.
- p_l 4y agoRead such an example from early in the COVID-19 pandemic, where a gym tried to bill someone despite rules that such bills had to be suspended during lockdown or something similar. I think the whole affair with court claim etc. was done over WeChat, I do not recall anything outside of it.
- signal11 4y agoThere’s no technical blocker about why this couldn’t be done in Facebook. Ultimately it’s a governance issue, about how much American/European citizens are comfortable funnelling processes like drivers licenses (or even court cases) through a private entity like Facebook.
- 4y ago
- dc-programmer 4y agoAwesome insights, thanks for sharing
- nilsbunger 4y agoOoh, I like the analogy to family-owned conglomerates. Also not something you see a lot of in the US because of the structure of US finance.
- vishnugupta 4y ago> span across a variety of unrelated industries Lippo group[1] is one such conglomerate in Indonesia. During my stint at a company of SEA we partnered with one of their subsidiaries, Ovo. At that time I wasn't aware of Ovo's parent company and the extent of their reach. A visiting exec said that Lippo group has enough businesses to cater to a person from birth to death. Later I found out he wasn't joking, they own hospitals as well as graveyard and everything in between. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippo_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippo_Group
- rippercushions 4y agoTo give some of Lippo's scale, they build their own towns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippo_Karawaci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippo_Karawaci And there are many other conglomerates of similar scale: Salim, Bakrie, Sinarmas, Astra, etc.
- bobthepanda 4y agoSamsung is probably the most famous family owned conglomerate in the world. In 2014, Samsung represented about 17% of South Korean GDP.
- lmz 4y agoAmericans may find the "Lippo" name familiar from the 1996 scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy#John_Huang_and_James_Riady https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fi...
- majormajor 4y agoI think the constant discussion and investor focus around stuff like "when will we get a super app in the US" is ignoring a lot of these factors that I think are pretty path-dependent. Once you build up the app/services ecosystem one way or another, there's a ton of inertia to overcome vs building this up from scratch in a new market.
- mannymanman 4y agoGreat points. Is there a book or some other resource that covers the differences in doing business between the US and emerging markets?