The Crooked Economics of Esports Modern MBA 2024-09-01 | Visit https://NetSuite.com/ModernMBA to sign up for their one-of-a-kind flexible financing offer!Esports sold itself as the sport of the future - a world where video game tournaments would surpass the NBA and NFL, where anyone could grind from amateur to superstar, where gaming would be a viable profession, and stadiums would be packed with thousands of fans. All this value in theory would be captured by new teams and leagues who could monetize these eyeballs through tickets, merchandise, and media rights - the same way that the NBA, NFL, and Premier League have each used viewership to rake in billions over decades.There was so much hype that everyone expected the economics to solve itself over time. Brands jumped in to sponsor. Even the billionaire owners of traditional sports joined in, enticed by the prospect of owning the next Dallas Cowboys or Manchester United. With the media and Wall Street all heralding esports as the next big thing, this future seemed certain.Fast forward to 2024 and esports has fallen apart. Many teams have shut down having run out of money or been sold for parts. Viewership has declined and questions have been raised on whether this audience is valuable when Twitch itself can’t turn a profit. Publishers have cut support and shuttered leagues. Many pros have exited esports, channeling their starpower into more sustainable streaming careers or leaving gaming behind entirely. The fall of esports has never been covered by mainstream media. As a result, the industry remains rife with con artists, scammers, and shell companies who continue to run the scene with little scrutiny. The pump-and-dump has continued and the people running esports these days make even the most delusional Silicon Valley venture capitalists and founders look like saints and angels. In this episode, we’ll break down the fraudulent business of esports and analyze 8 different teams across NA and EU, 4 publishers, and 2 middlemen.☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba0:00 Bang & Whimper3:20 Sponsor Break (NetSuite by Oracle)5:25 Mutual Dependence10:36 NA Corruption 22:21 EU Idealism33:59 Pointless Middlemen
The Dirty Business of Weight Loss Modern MBA 2024-10-06 | Go to meetfabric.com/MODERNMBA and start investing in your child today.Losing weight is mental as much as it is physical. But now, with a single injection, anyone can drop weight without having to change what they eat or how they live. With seemingly minimal side effects and impressive testimonials, weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Zepbound, Wegovy, and Mounjaro have become all the rage. Just like how tech startups have hitched their wagon to AI, drug manufacturers have hitched their valuations on obesity. But despite their altruistic missions and manufactured nobility, Big Pharma through history have demonstrated that they’re not to be trusted. As the opioid epidemic showed, if you give pharmaceutical companies an inch and they’ll take a mile. In their world, drugs are the hammer and everything is a nail. Their goal is to get as many people on as many drugs at as high of a dose and frequency as possible to keep profits up. If Big Pharma succeeds in classifying obesity as a disease just like Oxycontin once classified pain as a disease, they would be able to monetize the greatest patient pool in the world. As the testimonials have continued, the world has also forgotten that the manufacturers of these weight loss drugs are the same companies who endangered millions and killed thousands over decades with insulin price-gouging. In this episode, we’re diving into the dirty business of Big Pharma and weight loss drugs from the perspectives of the two biggest players, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba0:00 Unprecedented Virality3:01 Sponsor Break (Fabric by Gerber Life)5:00 Big Pharma Deconstructed14:37 Eli Lilly25:01 Novo Nordisk
The Booming Business of Boba Modern MBA 2024-09-22 | 👉🏻Register for the ChatGPT & AI workshop for FREE: https://link.gs.ht/MMB👉🏻:100% Discount for first 1000 peopleReshare this with your friends who will need this👉🏻:Join the Growthschool’s Top1% AI Community for regular updates: web.growthschool.io/MMBWBubble tea is the hottest food & beverage category of the modern age and has been growing non-stop across the West since the early 2010s. Unlike past fads, bubble tea has established its staying power as both a product and business. Bubble tea was introduced in the U.S in the 90s by Quickly and Tapioca Express. Starbucks, Dunkin, and Jamba Juice had shown how to snowball momentum from a single store into a franchise empire. New brands like Gong Cha and Happy Lemon emerged across Asia, looking to replicate that success in boba. By the 2010s, competition had intensified across China and Taiwan with each new entrant adding their own spin. But as legacy coffee giants have stagnated and Asian-American culture has grown, bubble tea in the United States has become a gold rush. What was once a low-margin, niche business in the 1990s is now a high-margin, high-cash-flow business.As the birthplace of boba in the U.S. and home to the largest population of Asian-Americans in the country, there are more bubble tea shops in LA than anywhere else. Los Angeles represents the forefront as consumption and standards are years ahead. Innovation is a prerequisite to survival. In this Modern MBA exclusive, we’re going on the ground to understand the booming economics of bubble tea and what it takes to win in this world from the lens of 3 different shops. 0:00 East to West Gold Rush3:23 Sponsor Break (GrowthSchool)5:09 From Goliath to David21:51 Taiwanese Vertical Integration 34:08 Community-Led Growth🧋 7 MILES TEA LAB (Hannah)instagram.com/7milestealab2010 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025🧋 ODD ONE OUT TEA (Ron & Pat)instagram.com/oootea.us11301 W Olympic Blvd UNIT 124, Los Angeles, CA 90064🧋 HEY HEY (Chris)instagram.com/heyheydrinks1555 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba
The Shrinking Business of Sneakers Modern MBA 2024-08-18 | Visit https://NetSuite.com/ModernMBA to sign up for their one-of-a-kind flexible financing offer.5 years ago, Nike and Adidas were at their peak. These legacy brands had evolved from low-margin apparel into high-margin footwear. Sneakers became assets with unprecedented appreciation and resale value. Brands earned record profits as stores were crowded, social media went wild over the latest drop, and pairs sold out within minutes. There was no rhyme or reason behind this craze. With so much money at stake, low interest rates, and insatiable demand, no one stopped to question why. That was, until people stopped buying.Media dinosaurs and content farms have attempted to explain the fall of Nike and Adidas through age-old business tropes and boomer interviews for easy clicks. They push low-effort analysis that it’s because Jordans and Yeezys are unfashionable or that Nike simply made too many shoes. What these amateurs get wrong is that revenue is a lagging indicator - not a leading one. The sneaker industry is a modern case study on not just how fast consumer markets can change, but also the importance of adaptation and expertise in business. If we truly want to understand the business of sneakers - we have to go into this world and see the hustle of the few who are left. 👟 LEO LUinstagram.com/909sellinstagram.com/courtsidehollywoodyoutube.com/@UC69MwYEv3rREvDGNd150FDA 📍 COURTSIDE HOLLYWOOD 6801 Hollywood Blvd Fl 2, Ste 277 Hollywood, CA 90028👟 JUSTIN ASHBYlegacy-ny.cominstagram.com/legacy.newyorkcity📍 LEGACY BOUTIQUE1 W 34th St. Frnt 1, New York, NY 100010:00 Rise of Sneakers2:58 Sponsor Break (Netsuite)4:40 The Young Gun23:13 The Grizzled King☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba
The Rigged Economics of Airlines Modern MBA 2024-07-28 | 📦 Save time and money when you ship with Rollo. Use code MODERNMBA1 to get $10 off your first shipment. rollo.com/modernmbaThe American airline industry is a highly competitive yet heavily regulated battlefield No airline has greater than a 18% market share in the U.S and any M&A deal that would bring that number to 20% or higher is automatically blocked by the Justice Department. All this made the emergence of low-cost airlines like Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit, Frontier, and Alaska in the 2010s all the more impressive - as they consistently outperformed the old-school legacy carriers in profitability and loyalty with fewer planes and marketing spend. Across universities and the private sector, these low-cost carriers were celebrated as leaders in strategy, innovation, and culture. But fast forward to the 2020s and this low-cost future has not materialized. The low-cost carriers are all struggling, some on the doorstep of bankruptcy, and the legacy carriers are back on top both in earnings and valuations. Is the airline industry really rigged? How exactly did the legacy carriers reclaim market share in such a short period of time? In this episode, we’ll dive into the American airline industry and the territorial battlegrounds through the lens of 7 different carriers - United, Delta, American, JetBlue, Southwest, Frontier, and Spirit.☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba0:00 Stalemate of the Skies5:07 Sponsor Break (Rollo)6:28 Legacy Fundamentals15:00 Low-Cost Model22:50 Timing & Territory
The Territorial Business of Tacos Modern MBA 2024-07-21 | 🌱 Click here to how you can join in a tastier, healthier future: abovefood.com/investors Above Food is a revolutionary company that's not just feeding us, but also fixing our food system and healing our planet. From seed to fork, they're reinventing how food is grown, made, and enjoyed. Los Angeles is one of the most competitive markets in the world as home to over 7,500 restaurants and 4,000 street vendors. When measured by volume, the city is second only to NYC. But of the many concepts and cuisines within the LA restaurant scene, Mexican is the most competitive. On every corner, in every neighborhood - you’ll see a taqueria or a truck or a stand. The LA taco scene is unlike any market in the world where despite the saturation and overwhelming supply - the competition is always increasing, demand never wanes, and concentration of alternatives means that no business can really corner the market. The only way to compete is through innovation or territory. In this Modern MBA exclusive, we’re going on the ground to see this market from the perspective of 3 owners who have each carved out their own niche with 3 different strategies. One is a humble family man who serves his neighborhood, one is a serial businessman looking to upset the status quo, and one is a 2-sister team whose ambition have fueled their 17-year-long territorial conquest from one stand to one of LA’s biggest taco empires.Los Gatos Tacos (Jorge): instagram.com/tacogatoscarbMideast Tacos (Aram & Armin): instagram.com/mideasttacosTacos La Guera (Rosio): instagram.com/tacoslaguerala☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba0:00 Peak Saturation4:05 Neighborhood Icon13:29 Fusion Perfectionism 26:13 Ruthless EmpireThis YouTube video was conducted on behalf of Above Food Ingredients Inc (NASDAQ: ABVE) and was funded by Outside The Box Capital Inc. and/or affiliates after Modern MBA was engaged by Outside The Box Capital Inc. to advertise for Above Food Ingredients Inc (NASDAQ: ABVE).For our full disclaimer, please visit:bit.ly/4fbnRYj
Why AI Is Techs Latest Hoax Modern MBA 2024-05-26 | Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to http://kajabi.com/modernmbaTech is a sector unlike any other - it’s an industry where individuals can turn into billionaires overnight, ideas supersede fundamentals, and leaders are rewarded for showmanship. In today’s Silicon Valley, innovation is crowned and not earned. Venture capitalists and founders are symbiotic. Unprofitable companies are kept alive with injections of capital, gamed valuations, and manufactured hype with the goal of surviving long enough to IPO. Starting in the early 2010s, Silicon Valley had championed big data as a revolutionary technology that could unearth deep insights, hidden patterns, and innovation from massive amounts of data. Yet the market started to question in the early 2020s if any of these promises had even been real as nearly all consumer and SaaS startups were still bleeding nearly a decade later.Out of nowhere, ChatGPT was released and AI became Silicon Valley’s next big thing. Every tech company is now an “AI company”, every Fortune 500 needs an “AI strategy”, VCs are only investing in AI startups, and every product is an “AI” product. This is a deep dive into how artificial intelligence is just the latest tale spun by Silicon Valley to sweep prior failed trends under the rug, keep valuations high, and outlook positive. Before AI, there was crypto, web3, blockchain, virtual reality, big data, IoT, and wearables - all supposedly revolutionary technologies that have never lived up to the hype. In this episode, we’ll dive into the market dynamics that push companies and individuals to jump headfirst into tech trends, how this all started with big data, and why AI is ultimately just another pump-and-dump.☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba0:00 Modern Silicon Valley6:42 Sponsor Break (Kajabi)8:29 Post Dot-Com Beginnings17:22 Data-Driven FOMO28:19 Shovel Economics
The Evolving Business of Donuts Modern MBA 2024-05-12 | Visit https://NetSuite.com/ModernMBA to sign up for their one-of-a-kind flexible financing offer.Get 20% off DeleteMe US consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/ModernMBA and use promo code MODERNMBA at checkoutDeleteMe international Plans: international.joindeleteme.com, coupon MODERNMBA Donuts are a multi-billion dollar industry fueled by insatiable demand. The United States is the battleground between chains and mom-and-pops. It’s on the West Coast where the market has gone through the greatest evolution - donuts here are a canvas for gourmet ingredients, unorthodox flavors, and elegant decorations. In this Modern MBA exclusive, we’ll break down the business of donuts from the lens of the biggest chains in the world in Dunkin’ and Krispy Kreme. We'll then dive behind-the-scenes of 2 West Coast shops looking to disrupt this status quo. Mikiko Mochi Donuts is one of the hottest donut shops and a pioneer of mochi donuts in the state of Oregon. Owner Alex McGillivray is a progressive owner who is as much a donut connoisseur as he is a shrewd restauranteur. In 4 years, Mikiko has gone from an idea to the leading shop in Portland with a second store underway in Beaverton. instagram.com/mikikomochidonutsAs the doughnut capital of the USA, Los Angeles is where the opportunity is the greatest. In LA, desserts like cupcakes and donuts have been elevated into upscale indulgences. Owner Peter Womack has just opened Lola's Doughnuts - selling artisan yeast donuts with organic gourmet ingredients and elaborate toppings. Peter makes everything from scratch by hand, every morning at 3AM. He uses the recipes he’s honed over the years at various shops around the country. instagram.com/lolasdoughnutsEven in the world of donuts, product is not everything, passion is no indication of success, hard work is not a moat, and being good at your craft and being good at business are two different things.💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 Make Today Special0:41 Sponsor Break (NetSuite)2:26 America Runs on Dunkin'8:12 Japanese-American Fusion19:44 Handmade Artisan Luxury30:47 Sponsor Break (DeleteMe)
The Secret Business of Nightclubs Modern MBA 2024-04-06 | Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to http://kajabi.com/modernmbaEvery city has nightclubs - social venues where people can mingle with strangers, dance with friends, and escape the monotony of life in an environment of darkness, music, and chaos. As businesses, all nightclubs face the same challenge every week. If you’re a club owner, how do you make your nightclub desirable? How can you make your nightclub pop on a regular Thursday, Friday, or Saturday without headliners? The answer is promoters. Promoters are the invisible men and women who work tirelessly to turn clubs from slow, empty venues into packed, exciting destinations every week. Cities are defined by their nightlife and Chicago is home to some of the best clubs in the world. In this Modern MBA exclusive, we’re diving deep into the secret world of nightclubs and club promoters. We’ll ride along with 3 of the city’s leading promoters in Derrick, Jay, and Eric, observe their hustle, and learn the strategies that they use to throw the hottest parties in Chicago.Eric Boss: instagram.com/ericbosschicagoJay Birt: instagram.com/Kidj8yDerik Epling: instagram.com/Mr360amn🙏🏻 Thank you to William Sumner Noël for making this episode possible. If you're looking to go out in Chicago: instagram.com/Noeltookit💬 Join the Modern MBA community: reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 Laws of Nightlife1:39 Sponsor Break (Kajabi)3:25 Principles of Promotion12:51 Designed for Scale23:27 Clubs Over Tables
The Wild Economics of Online Gambling Modern MBA 2024-02-28 | Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business if you go to http://kajabi.com/modernmbaIf you’ve watched any American sports game recently, there’s a good chance you were blasted with an ad from FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, WynnBET, Caesars Online, and various online casinos promising free money and million dollar jackpots upon signup. Historically, sports betting and gambling in the US had been heavily restricted where you could only legally play offline at isolated places around the country like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. But in the past 5 years, the landscape has evolved dramatically as venture capitalists have invested billions into mobile-first gambling startups like FanDuel and DraftKings. But despite the relentless advertisements and celebrity endorsements, online gambling and sports betting is nothing more than a wild west where no one is telling the truth. It’s a market so new that everyones boasts that they have the greatest market share, the best apps, the most users, and the fastest growth. In this episode, we’ll unmask the wild wasteland of online gambling in the US, the economics of traditional casinos, the political dynamics behind this market, and what FanDuel and DraftKings are really betting on as they pursue adoption at every turn.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 The Business of American Gambling1:15 Sponsor Break (Kajabi)2:54 Traditional Vegas Giants17:21 Short-Lived Digital Gold Rush24:20 Casino or Bust30:53 Gambling as a Virtual Commodity
Why Taco Bell Got So Expensive Modern MBA 2024-02-10 | Use code MODERNMBA50 to get 50% OFF First Box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at bit.ly/3QtRqdt!Taco Bell is an extraordinary outlier by every measure. It’s a fast food chain that boasts a deeply passionate fanbase, enjoys a reputation for reliability, speed, and accuracy, and when it comes to business - Taco Bell has grown at such a breakneck pace over the past 20 years that it outperforms giants like McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC in per-store earnings. The Mexican chain is so popular that it’s one of the few companies whose per-store earnings have stayed ahead of inflation. Remarkably, Taco Bell boasts some of the highest ever profit margins ever reported in not just fast food, but also in the restaurant industry. Taco Bell’s renaissance is a miracle in an era where fast food chains all follow the same cookie-cutter playbook of cost-cutting and international expansion to cover up domestic decline like KFC, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Business is a zero-sum game where every decision is connected, every action has a cause and effect, and the rise of one brand contributes to the fall of another. In this episode, we’ll cover the rise of Taco Bell, their strategy that’s made them so successful, and why Taco Bell is the missing puzzle piece behind the downfall of KFC and Pizza Hut and how their struggles in fried chicken and pizza have molded Taco Bell to what it is today, for better and for worse.Deposit and get up to 15 stocks + 5.1% pay & 3% booster for 3 months after activation on uninvested cash: https://j.moomoo.com/00BVtk💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 Think Outside the Bun1:36 Sponsor Break (Factor Meals)4:08 Geopolitical Liberation20:25 Non-Replicable Blueprint31:24 The Goose from Mexico41:18 Sponsor Break (Moomoo)
The Flashy Business of Hollywood Movies Modern MBA 2024-01-14 | Thanks to Storyblocks for sponsoring this video! Download unlimited stock media at one set price with Storyblocks: storyblocks.com/ModernMBAThe movie industry is dominated by the “Big Five” of Paramount Studios, Universal, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Walt Disney Pictures - who eat up over 80% of the box office. But in a era where awards are meaningless, streaming has replaced DVDs, and talent no longer moves the box office - the Big 5 movie studios have become conservative. Hollywood has devolved into non-stop superhero movies, nostalgia-centric remakes, and formulaic sequels of existing franchises where the ROI is safer and risk is much lower than any real original endeavor. This gap has enabled smaller studios like MGM, Lionsgate, A24 and streaming services like Apple and Netflix to thrive with independent titles in this ever-competitive landscape. As consumers, we see the trailers, suffer through terrible movies, and are now being funneled to streaming services. Yet the industry has rarely, if ever, been covered from the perspective of the studio. Instead of covering one of the Big 5 major film studios where the movie-making business is insulated, we’ll look at Lionsgate - one of the few remaining independent studios whose survival depends on making successful movies and TV shows. Lionsgate is best known for franchises like the Hunger Games, Now You See Me, The Expendables, Saw, John Wick, Step Up, Divergent along with solo hits like La La Land, Knives Out, Hacksaw Ridge, Mad Men, and Orange is the New Black. In this episode, we’ll cover the business and transformation of the movie and greater motion picture industry over the past two decades through the lens of Lionsgate.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 The Land of Dreams4:43 Sponsor Break (Storyblocks)7:48 Hollywood Featherweight 18:00 Box Office Supremacy26:50 Shooting for Starz
The Chilly Economics of Canada Goose Modern MBA 2023-12-29 | Puffer jackets and the broader outerwear market are a competitive billion-dollar market that's been historically dominated by legacy brands like The North Face and Columbia. But in recent years, there has been a strong push towards luxury with the emergence of Canada Goose and Moncler. 10 years ago, spending $100-300 on a winter jacket would have been considered to be a top-of-the-line investment. Nowadays, that price-point sits over $1,000. If you look at famous luxury brands like Hermes, Gucci, Prada, Versace, Rolex, Hugo Boss, or Dior, they all built up their clientele and prestige through many generations. Yet luxury outerwear is remarkably young. Canada Goose and Moncler have been around for decades, but their evolution and success has only been very recent, making them truly modern luxury brands - and not the old money brands of the past. While the rapid rise of Canada Goose and Moncler is well understood, the economics and market dynamics of outerwear have remained unexplored. Do Canada Goose or Moncler make more than mass-market brands? How different are their strategies and results? How did Canada Goose and Moncler establish themselves in less than 10 years? In this episode, we’ll cover the business of outerwear and the various approaches to building a brand through the perspective of The North Face, Columbia, Canada Goose, and Moncler.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 Modern Luxury Brands3:56 Wholesale vs Direct17:40 High Canadian Fashion
The Absurd Economics of Wish, AliExpress, and Temu Modern MBA 2023-12-24 | Save time and money when you ship with Rollo. Use code MODERNMBA1 to get $10 off your first shipment. rollo.com/modernmbaTemu is everywhere, promising that you can shop like a billionaire buying $10 wireless speakers, $12 sneakers, $20 drones and other cheap gadgets, clothes, backed with the promise of free shipping, 90-day returns, 30-day price adjustments, and deliveries within 2 weeks. But Temu isn’t the first to sell generic, unbranded, mass-produced Chinese products online at radically low prices. Before Temu, there was AliExpress and Wish - who both went to market decades ago with the exact same value prop, unbelievably low prices, and wacky advertising. Wish was the earliest entrant into this space and the SF-based startup was once one of Silicon Valley’s darling unicorns. It all begs the question - how exactly do these companies stay alive selling $5-10 items online? In this episode, we’ll cover the business of selling cheap Chinese-made junk online through the rise and fall of Wish, the persistence of AliExpress, and the sudden emergence of Temu - and how all of this ties back to greed, growth and Silicon Valley.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 The Dollar Store Platform8:20 The Rise & Fall of Wish16:32 Irresponsible Burn30:50 Fool Me Three Times
The Exorcism of Papa John’s Modern MBA 2023-11-19 | Use code MODERNMBA50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3QtRqdt!For a business about making and selling pizzas, Papa John's has gone through non-stop drama, infighting, and controversy in recent years. While every company has its problems, Papa John’s takes the cake with the founder trashing his own company in public. But when a founder says a racial remark in a recorded business meeting, it’s an offense so great that no company could sweep under the rug. Companies rarely go to war against their own founders. But the timing, evidence, and volume of media covering John’s misconduct was so sudden, strong, and overwhelming that it was no coincidence. The Board wanted to bury John. It would not be enough to exile the founder and former CEO. John was an evil spirit and what Papa John’s needed as a company was an exorcism. Since his removal in 2018, John has climbed out of the dirt and gone on a high-profile, mud-slinging, counter-offensive rarely seen in usually tight-lipped corporate America. Was John Schnatter actually a good CEO or was he an egotistical founder holding his own company back? How could a pizza company have so much drama? Was John the victim of a scheme by his former best friend? What were the strategies before and after John - and how is Papa John doing now without him? In this episode and business case study, we’ll cover the exorcism of Papa John’s in its 6 regimes.🐮 Earn 5.1% APY on your cash and get 15 free stocks with moomoo: https://j.moomoo.com/00BVtk0:00 Better Ingredients, Better Pizza4:57 Sponsor Break (Factor Meals)7:49 Rise of John Schnatter21:54 The Invincible Reign32:30 Overthrow of a Dynasty43:30 Sponsor Break (MooMoo)
The Extinction of GoPro Modern MBA 2023-11-05 | Go to kajabi.com/modernmba to get your 30 day free trial!In the 2010s, there was one startup who by the measures of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, seemed destined to be the next big billion-dollar consumer brand. That company was GoPro. GoPro took the world by storm with its game-changing cameras. With radically compact design, tiny form factor, high portability, rugged waterproof exteriors, and reasonable picture quality - GoPro cameras were able to capture never before seen action and perspectives. GoPro was category-leading and category-defining - the company had effectively created and owned an entire category of cameras. It was the pioneer, golden standard, and household name as GoPro was not just the name of the product and company, but also became the unofficial label for any small, portable, action camera on the market.Yet fast forward to present-day in 2023, less than a decade later, and GoPro’s stock has dropped 95%. How could a company who had all the right ingredients from the measures of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, squander it all in such a short period of time? How could having a market-defining, category-leading product be worth so little? In this episode, we’ll cover the rise and fall of GoPro into 3 eras, their failures in strategy, and how the company’s collapse serves as a crucial lesson on the importance of knowing your market.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 Be A HERO4:18 Sponsor Break (Kajabi)6:06 The Golden Age18:20 The Era of Doom29:03 Dead Brand Walking
Fried Chicken Wars: The Curse of Popeyes Modern MBA 2023-10-08 | For a free strategic alignment guide with evolved SWOT analysis, visit Organizational Physics. Click here: organizationalphysics.com/strategic-alignment-guide-modern-mbaPopeye's chicken sandwich is one of the greatest modern business phenomenons. For years, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and other leading brands have given up on innovation and instead lean on nostalgia to breathe life into stagnant menus and hide one dimensional cost-cutting strategies. These brands have all deprioritized the United States in favor of international markets. Dollar menus have been eliminated, consistency is now as rare as quality, and Americans have gotten used to getting the short end of the stick in fast food.All these factors made the Popeyes chicken sandwich in 2019 a miracle in itself. The sandwich was so unexpectedly exceptional in quality and price that customers waited hours to experience the viral sensation. The sandwich was groundbreaking in demonstrating that even in a market as mature as fast food, businesses ultimately compete on merit and that customers will always reward innovation.As we covered in the Burger King episode and Under Armour episode, private equity can have disastrous consequences on businesses. Yet the Popeyes chicken sandwich came from the same private equity owners that had been running Burger King into the ground. What managerial lessons can we draw from Popeyes’s success, what exactly made such innovation possible, and what is the company's strategy today 5 years after the chicken sandwich? In this episode, we’ll cover the rise of Popeyes and the present-day aftermath of this fast food miracle.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 Love That Chicken9:12 One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure19:51 Choices Comes With Consequences29:06 Contemporary Deja Vu
The Dying Business of Roller Coasters Modern MBA 2023-09-03 | If you’re struggling, consider therapy with our sponsor BetterHelp. Click betterhelp.com/mba for a 10% discount on your first month of therapy with a licensed professional specific to your needs.The amusement park, like the shopping mall and movie theater, was once an indispensable establishment for every major metropolitan. Before the Internet, the amusement park thrived as a provider of affordable recreation. Yet fast forward to present day and amusement parks are a dying breed in the modern age. With the emergence of the Disney adult, consumers all around the world have shown a preference for IP-based theme parks like Universal Studios and Disneyland. The themed concessions, branded attractions, exclusive merchandise, and trademark characters of theme parks have elevated customer experiences to the point where amusement parks can no longer compete with generic foods, mascots, and rides. In this day and age, customers have demonstrated through virality, spend, and popularity that they’d rather make a special trip to Disneyland or Universal over the local / regional amusement park. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of roller coasters through the lens of Six Flags, the largest operator of amusement parks in the world and the strategies that the company has leaned on to differentiate itself in this ultra-competitive business market.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 The Thrill is Calling12:18 Roller Coaster Tycoon23:09 Post-Bankruptcy Stress Disorder34:10 Don't Look Down
The Rise & Fall of Under Armour Modern MBA 2023-08-20 | In the 2010s, there was one tiny American brand doing what no one else had been able to do for decades in sportswear. It had grown sales in North America at double digits every year for 13 years, taken market share from Nike, and leapfrogged Adidas as the new number #2 athletic brand in the United States. It was an upstart with a passionate fanbase, competed on quality over price, and backed by some of the most celebrated athletes in the world. This was Under Armour.In the eyes of the media and investors, the fast-growing Under Armour was the closest to a Nike slayer that the industry had ever seen - and that enormous potential was quickly priced into the stock. Yet fast forward to the present - just a few years after the hype and my own experiences, Under Armor is a shadow of its former self and is worth only a little more than a penny stock. Declining sales, executive turnover, failed pivots, expensed trips to strip clubs, and federal investigations into dodgy accounting have plagued the company year after year. Under Armor these days lags behind not just Nike and Adidas, but also New Balance, Puma, and Lululemon. Even the collaboration with Steph Curry, once a rival Nike’s billion-dollar Jordan product line, has fallen short. While Air Force Ones, Yeezys, UltraBoosts, Air Maxes, Blazers, Converse, 574s, and Jordans dominate footwear, Under Armor has remained non-existent on the field and on the street. How could such a a promising brand with athletes like Steph Curry and Tom Brady collapse in such a short time? In this episode, we’ll cover the 4 eras of Under Armor and how their rapid downfall is a timeless case study on governance, tech, and the unspoken dangers of founder-led companies.0:00 Earn Your Armor14:17 The Nike Slayer Era26:50 The Icarus Era30:29 The Band-Aid Era💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree
The Invincible Business of Diners Modern MBA 2023-08-13 | Build wealth better with your own dedicated financial advisor and try Domain risk-free for 30 days: dmnmny.co/modernmba Fluffy pancakes, sunny-side eggs, crispy bacon, golden hash browns with buttered toast and coffee. For decades, diners have specialized in serving not just the hearty American breakfast but also classics like burgers, waffles, milkshakes, soup, and pie. Due to their sustained popularity and depiction in TV & film through generations, diners have become so ingrained into American culture that they’ve become iconic establishments over the world.While every industry is evolving, diners are the rare example of a business that's been invincible to change. While the restaurant industry has gravitated towards off-premise dining, originality, and automation, diners have remained consistent since the 1940s with huge menus, staying open 24/7 or into the late night, traditional service with pen and paper, simple comfort foods, and an accepting atmosphere.At a diner, there are no reservations, no VIPs, no private areas, no policies, no minimums, and no judgment. In this episode, we’ll cover the invincible business of the American diner and analyze the 3 biggest chains in the world - Denny’s, Cracker Barrel, and IHOP - who each have their own strategy and go after customers in different ways.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 A Culinary & Cultural Oasis6:43 America's Diner15:50 Old Country Roads21:35 Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity
Western Union: Banking & Finance for the Poor Modern MBA 2023-07-09 | Banks make money by lending out the money that you deposit. The more cash you put in, the better you’re treated - transactions take priority, fees get waived, interest rates are higher, and a personal banker is assigned. On the flip side, the less money in your account, the more fees you pay, and the further back in the line you start from. Banks chase affluent accounts who bring large balances and high cash flow. But it’s not just banks - every business aims for as many high spenders and wealthy as possible. Yet there are 2 companies - Western Union and MoneyGram, that have gone in the opposite direction in providing financial services in peer-to-peer money transfer (international & domestic) to a population that banks deem to be too poor and too low-value.Migrant workers and the poor are left out of the global financial system for similar reasons: they have too little money, their employment is volatile, their earnings are inconsistent, there are significant language and cultural barriers, they lack documentation, etc. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of Western Union and MoneyGram, how these companies drive economic growth in developing countries, and how the market is pushing their evolution into a bank for the poor.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 Sending Money for Better7:49 Distributed Systems19:54 Banking the Unbanked
The Dominant Business of Axon Modern MBA 2023-06-26 | 🚀 Download HubSpot's FREE Business Startup Kit: clickhubspot.com/pak 📈 Download HubSpot's FREE Product Marketing Kit: clickhubspot.com/5gkIn America, the police are a $100B annual business. Modern policing can be seen in the stream of viral police body camera footage that lands the Internet. Look at the top right corner of those videos and 10/10 times it will say Axon, the one company that has made this revolution possible. In business theory, some say that companies are not about flawless execution or perfect prediction. They suggest that the most important ingredient to success is picking the right space. You tread water, develop expertise, and even make mistakes - but once the market moves in your direction, you can snowball that momentum into billions of dollars. In the 2000s, Axon was a struggling startup. Then in the 2010s, tailwinds propelled Axon, who had been building wearable cameras and software, into prosperity. Now in the 2020s, the company is a powerhouse where every single interaction with law enforcement every day is recorded with an Axon body-cam and stored in Axon’s cloud platform. In this episode, we’ll cover the three eras of Axon and how this company in two decades transformed from a directionless startup into a hardware and software essential for revolutionizing law enforcement around the world.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 Capture Truth, Protect Lives5:11 The Era of Blunders15:56 The Era of Prosperity23:28 The Era of Dominance
How Cruises Make More Profits Than Airlines Modern MBA 2023-06-11 | Go to our sponsor aura.com/mba to get a 14 day free trial and see if your personal information has been leaked online.In the world of travel, the destination matters far more than the journey. The travel industry has adjusted to this as resorts, tour guides, agencies, hotels, and airlines now compete on how fast they can get you to where you want to go. Yet there remains one business who insists that the journey is just as important as the destination. That is the cruise ship. By the numbers, cruises are very much an American phenomenon. Cruises boast restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, water parks, Broadway musicals, basketball courts, golf, comedy, waterfalls, pools, rock climbing, ice skating, casinos, theaters, go-karts, spas, nightclubs, and arcades. Throw in unlimited alcohol, bottomless French fries, and endless pizza, it makes sense why cruises lean on spectacle and excess for appeal. Industry insiders push every year that cruises are a fast-developing, under-penetrated market with significant growth potential. Cruises are an oligopoly run by three players - Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian Cruise Line. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of cruises and dive into these 3 companies who each have their own strategy and go after travelers at very different price points.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA and unlock additional content and exclusive essays - patreon.com/modernmba🔎 YouTube is full of outstanding creators, but high-quality content is often hard to find. Favoree lets you explore, rate, and review YouTube channels. Discover their new website - bit.ly/favoree0:00 The Sea is Calling6:01 The Fun Ships15:07 Feel Free22:25 Where Extraordinary Happens
Why Starbucks Must Crush Unions to Survive Modern MBA 2023-05-14 | Starbucks has been a mainstay in business school literature as a role model for innovation, branding, vertical integration, and corporate social responsibility. The impact of Starbucks is well-known - the company repositioned coffee into a mainstream drink that people consume these days for taste and aesthetics as much as function. Thanks to efforts from its CEO, Howard Schultz, Starbucks has carefully crafted a uniquely respected and celebrated image in academia, business, political, and investment circles. Starbucks is not some basic coffee retailer, but instead a forward-thinking, fast-growing, innovative, socially responsible company that always does the right thing for customers, employees, investors, farmers, and environment. This makes it especially ironic that Starbucks, the poster child of corporate social responsibility and model employer, is now waging such a high-profile, visible, ugly war with its baristas across the United States - using every trick in and outside the book to crush unions and squash any labor progression efforts before it can form. While union efforts are also happening at Apple, REI, Walmart, Target, and Amazon, none of these corporations have followed the scorched-earth approach of Starbucks. For a company that makes billions every year selling syrup and microwavables, surely the profits must be high. Can Starbucks really not afford to pay a few more bucks to its retail workers? In this episode, we’ll dive into the business of Starbucks, strip away the corporate marketing, and uncover why the company’s image as a dominant, fast-growing, business depends on successfully crushing unions.☀️ Morning Brew is the leading business newsletter read by millions of people every day covering headlines from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Morning Brew has recently launched a new daily podcast show, @MorningBrewDailyShow which runs down the most important and interesting business stories you need to know every morning. Check them out right here on YouTube at youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba0:00 Nurturing Human Spirit9:03 The Legend of Howard Schultz16:43 Dwindling Growth Narratives 22:51 Investors Optics Against Unions Economics
How GameStop Fell Apart in 5 Years Modern MBA 2023-05-03 | To some, GameStop is a relic of the glory days of gaming before the arrival of the filthy casuals where true gamers would line up passionately at midnight in the cold and rain to get their hands on the next AAA title. To others, GameStop is a painful reminder of deep losses and a timeless example of the institutional market manipulation between hedge funds and stock brokers. And to a faithful few, GameStop is the superstonk and hodling is the best way to fight back against a game rigged against retail investors. But the real question with GameStop that no one has answered is that beyond the headlines, daytrading, and memes - is there an actual business? In this episode, we’ll cover the three eras of GameStop - from its dominant control over gaming in the mid 2000’s into an overextended mess throughout the 2010’s and finally to the present day, where the company is deep in a last-ditch-effort to reinvent itself as a tech startup and restore relevancy: diving headfirst into every trend - Web3, blockchain, and NFTs. The fall of GameStop is as much a story about strategic mistakes as it is about market disruption and abandonment. GameStop enjoyed its most dominant era from 2004 to 2012. From Gears of War and Twilight Princess in 2006, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Wii Sports in 2007, Super Smash Brothers Brawl and GTA IV in 2008, Modern Warfare 2 and Uncharted 2 in 2009, Halo Reach, Starcraft 2, Black Ops in 2010, Skyrim and Dead Space 2 in 2011 are just some of the titles in that 6 year span helped pull gaming into mainstream attention. GameStop was a beneficiary of this golden era, where video games shed their stereotype as obscene, time-wasting button mashers for solitary male teens and into mainstream, mature, cinematic, and interactive entertainment that anyone could enjoy. In the 2010’s, GameStop entered into its second era - a 6-year plunge downwards of struggle and strife from 2013 to 2019. In response to seeing the studios and publishers moving against them, the company opted for rapid diversification through M&A. The blunder that GameStop made was that all of the companies it acquired (Kongregate, Simply Mac, Cricket Wireless, and various AT&T resellers) were all equally fragile middleman businesses facing the same pressures that were happening in gaming (Adobe Flash games, wireless cellular services, Apple products).Free of bloat and with a return to gaming - GameStop would now enter its third and present-day era of Web3, led by retail investor cult hero Ryan Cohen. The fundamental problem is that GameStop’s NFT exchange is just one of hundreds floating around these days. New exchanges pop up every month, with some pushed by organizations with greater relevance and penetration than GameStop - like OpenSea, Blur, Reddit’s Vaults, NBA Top-Shop, NFL All Day, Magic Eden, and Rarible.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🧑💻 Special thanks to Sly, Moose, Kilim for review.0:00 Power to the Players1:32 The Golden Era12:05 The Struggle Era24:39 The Moonshot Era
The Bait & Switch of Home Security Modern MBA 2023-04-23 | Get a 14-day free trial with our sponsor aura.com/MBA and see where your personal information has been leaked online.In America, burglaries and home invasions are highly publicized crimes that surface regularly in fiction and media. Turn on the news, and it seems like just about every week, someone nearby is getting robbed - whether it’s shoplifters at retail stores, burglars who steal valuables, or viral footage of opportunistic creeps caught on a Ring doorbell camera. Many companies have popped up over the decades with a variety of solutions to help people better protect their homes - private patrols, panic rooms, burglar alarms, and DIY wireless cameras. In the world of home security, there is no company more famous than ADT. ADT and its iconic blue signs are plastered over many lawns and commercial buildings. ADT was the first to turn home security into service - a company that would come to your house, install a custom security system, setup burglar alarms, and then “watch” your home 24/7 365 for a monthly subscription. Through the high-crime and low-tech era of the 80s and 90s, ADT was seen as a necessary investment for homeowners. Yet as we dive deeper, the fundamentals reveal the opposite. In this episode, we’ll cover ADT - a troubled company who with even the highest market share must rely on multi-year contracts, lock-in, hidden pricing, and aggressive sales in order to cover up a fundamentally flawed business and the sobering reality that no one makes money in home security.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock additional content, exclusive essays, and Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Always There, Always On6:00 Home Security As A Service13:56 Your Monthly Payments Are Our Priority20:32 All Cash, No Bite
The Resurrection of Abercrombie Modern MBA 2023-04-19 | Start your business today with a free trial of Shopify - go to shopify.com/modernmba to learn more.From the 80’s to 2000’s, Abercrombie was the prom king of American fashion - the cool and preppy brand of choice for teens and young adults. You couldn’t miss when someone was wearing Abercrombie. While wearing Abercrombie was a statement, going into Abercrombie was an adventure. To impressionable adolescents, Abercrombie stores were uniquely alluring with dim lighting, musky cologne, blaring music, and floor-to-ceiling wallpapers of sculpted men.Yet as the shopping mall died, e-commerce grew, social media helped widen perspective and styles, competition intensified with fast fashion like Uniqlo, ZARA, H&M, Forever 21 and athleisure like Lululemon, Athleta, Nike entering the scene. Controversial statements from the CEO only reinforced the perception of Abercrombie as an outdated, exclusionary, over-sexualized brand built on teenage-angst. In less than a decade, Abercrombie went out-of-style. The PR crisis, widespread disapproval, and declining consumer popularity had many predicting the death of Abercrombie. Yet instead of succumbing to what would be a fatal strike for any company, Abercrombie has reinvented itself to record success - reaching levels of income and profits that the company has not experienced since 2012. In this episode, we’ll break down the business mistakes that led to the company's initial downfall and cover the winning strategy that has made Abercrombie cool once again.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Boldness in Conservatism 10:11 Fueled By Fantasy20:51 Leaving Fablesphere26:45 Reinvention of an Icon
How Burger King Lost to Wendy’s Modern MBA 2023-03-01 | Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://www.masterworks.art/modernmbaPurchase shares in masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. How Masterworks works:- Create your account with your traditional bank account- Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio- Invest, hold shares in works or trade them in our secondary marketplace “Net Return" refers to the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs, calculated from the offering closing date to the date the sale is consummated. IRR may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. See important Reg A disclosures: Masterworks.com/cdWhen it comes to fast food, McDonald’s is unrivaled in scale and success. McDonald’s has held onto its crown, selling more fries, burgers, nuggets, and apple pies every year than any other fast food chain. There is no challenger to the Golden Arches whether that’s overseas or on home field. In the world of burgers, the fight for the top spot is futile. While the fight for first place is non-existent, the battle for second place in the burger wars is vicious. For decades, Burger King held second place with its signature flame-grilled Whopper, onion rings, and French Toast sticks. Burger King and a little red-haired girl by the name of Wendy’s have been in a constant battle for the number two spot behind McDonald’s. While the King and the girl have traded places over the years, Wendy’s these days is the clear number two burger chain despite having significantly fewer locations and resources. Burger King’s fall is a timeless story of what happens when private equity takes over and over-simplifies business into a short-term, soulless optimization of numbers and shareholders over products and customers. In this episode, we’ll cover the toppling of Burger King and the rise of Wendy’s as a modern tale of David versus Goliath and how important vision is for all businesses that even burger flippers live or die based on their strategy.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Battle for Second Place4:22 The CFO Who Would Be King16:59 Dawn of Private Equity26:31 Have It One Way34:51 Youth Wasted on The Young43:12 Deliciously Different
The Timeless Business of Steakhouses Modern MBA 2023-02-09 | Start your business today with a free trial of Shopify - go to shopify.com/modernmba to learn more.As restaurants go, there’s Italian, Mexican, Chinese, American, Japanese and so on. But there is only one type of restaurant that is considered to be the most lucrative and makes up over half of the Top 100 highest grossing restaurants in the United States every year. That is the steakhouse. In America, the steakhouse is as much a cultural rite of passage as it is a fine dining establishment. When people go to a steakhouse, it’s for the experience as much as the food - they dress up, they expect quality service, and the meal serves as a platform for business or celebration. All steakhouses offer standard fare like New York Strip, Porterhouse, Filet Mignon alongside mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, Caesar salad, and chocolate cake. While most restaurants aim to specialize in certain foods or offer unique items for differentiation, steakhouses thrive in conformity. Their goal is to serve tried-and-true classics with good ingredients, good execution, good service, and good ambience. The focus on ingredients, service, execution along with a high-end target market make steakhouses difficult to scale as there are few ways to automate a business that requires so much human capital. People don’t dine at steakhouses every week which means demand can be met with a handful of establishments in any given area. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of steakhouses and cover the strategies of the 3 biggest chains in the world who each have their own strategy and go after diners at very different price points - Outback Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse, and Ruth Chris.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Edible Opulence 3:32 High-End Sizzle 15:14 Legendary Price19:36 Going Outback
Why Uber Fails to Disrupt Modern MBA 2023-01-25 | Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://www.masterworks.art/modernmbaPurchase shares in masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. How Masterworks works:- Create your account with your traditional bank account- Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio- Invest, hold shares in works or trade them in our secondary marketplace See important Masterworks disclosures: masterworks.io/about/disclaimerAirbnb disrupts hotels because it doesn’t own real estate. DoorDash disrupts food delivery because it doesn’t own restaurants or drivers. Uber disrupts transportation because it doesn’t own any cars. As a ride-hailing service, Uber is divisive - to riders, the cheap fares, upfront pricing, cashless payment, and on-demand pickups are upgrades over taxis. To others, Uber is a public nuisance that causes greater traffic congestion and pollution. For some drivers, Uber is a useful gig where they can work flexible hours. For others, Uber is an exploitative middleman who has lowered payouts and provides inadequate benefits to drivers as independent contractors. The purpose of this episode is not to rehash Uber’s checkered past but instead to assess Uber’s profitability. As the most prominent, well-funded company in the past decade, Uber is the largest living embodiment of Silicon Valley. Uber is the only tech startup in history to raise over $25 billion and still not turn a profit after 13 years of operations. If the most well-funded startup in history during the greatest bull market can’t turn a profit, then no one can. Since Airbnb, DoorDash, and other B2C tech companies are based on the same on-demand, sharing economy platform business model - if Uber can’t hack it, then neither can they. It’s not just the future of transportation, but also tech that rides on Uber’s profitability. In this episode, we’ll cover Uber, it’s strategies, and how far away the company is in its desperate march to profitability.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Why Uber Matters6:38 Sponsor Break15:20 Manifest Destiny22:27 Scale or Die33:15 Inevitable Economics
How Self Storage Thrives Off The American Dream Modern MBA 2023-01-09 | Start your business today with a free trial of Shopify - go to shopify.com/modernmba to learn more.Self-service storage is an American phenomenon. While self-storage facilities exist in Europe and Asia, the business overseas does not come close to the scale and demand in the United States over the past decade. Self-storage is a direct monetization of American overconsumption so any bet on the industry is a bet that Americans will keep buying so much stuff that they’ll always need to rent extra space to store it. In a time where the economy is contracting, institutional and retail investors are looking for defensive businesses that deal in essentials. Self storage companies have become attractive as stable, recession-proof, operationally lean lean real estate businesses where cash flows in every month, overhead is minimal, and the customers literally do all the heavy lifting themselves. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of self storage, how the industry’s success rides on the death of the American Dream, how it all relates to skyrocketing home prices, wages stagnation, inflation - and how one company has remained the uncontested industry leader since the 1990’s.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 More Space for Life8:06 The American Dream11:55 Supply-Side Economics15:58 Sponsor Intro17:42 Sponsor Break19:07 Leader in Fragmentation23:40 A Lean Real Estate Startup28:04 Big City Money
Why Football Is Bad Business Modern MBA 2022-12-17 | public.com/ModernMBA - A free stock once you open an account & up to 10,000 when you transfer your account from another brokerage. Cash bonus terms can be found at public.com/ModernMBA Football is the beautiful game that brings in billions of dollars every year as the world’s most popular sport. There’s been no shortage of controversy with the World Cup in Qatar. Yet most people learn and follow football through leading clubs like Liverpool and Manchester City in England, Juventus and AC Milan in Italy or Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain.It is these clubs that make the spectacle of football possible. On the outside, the biggest football clubs seem successful - they win trophies, pay high salaries, play on the biggest stages, and sign the best players. As these clubs achieve success on the field, their brands get stronger, which grows the fanbase, and fuels revenue. The business seems simple enough. And with so many famous clubs all over Europe, this flywheel must work.But in reality, football clubs are businesses that are barely cash flow positive and bankrupt themselves to sustain on-the-field success. They say that if they keep winning, money will materialize in the future to offset costs today. Or these clubs operate at losses with the goal of one day flipping the team for billions in appreciation. Whether they’re run by corporations or sheiks - a successful football club, simply put, is an unprofitable one. In this episode, we’ll look at the problematic business of football clubs through Manchester United, Juventus, and Barcelona - and how it is only a matter of time before every successful football club is run by a rich oligarch looking for their latest passion project.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 The Beautiful Game6:01 Glory Glory Man Utd12:55 Atoms For Sale17:29 Storia Di Un Grande Amor23:32 Barca, Barca, Baaarca!28:50 A Virtuous Cycle
A Tale of Greed: How 4 CEOs and $5B Failed Twitter Modern MBA 2022-11-22 | Established Titles is running a massive Black Friday sale plus 10% off any purchase with the code MBA. Become a Lord or Lady today, support global reforestation, and help preserve the natural woodlands of Scotland at establishedtitles.com/MBA! The first 200 people who purchase a title pack with our link will be effectively next to our plot.Twitter has a new owner and his presence is sinking in. Regardless of whether or not you think Elon Musk can save Twitter, the reality is that Twitter as a private company under Elon can’t get any worse than the Twitter that has existed for the past 9 years. Twitter has struggled with declining users, engagement, turnover, innovation, infighting, losses, and vision. Twitter burned through 4 CEOs and 5 billion dollars in 10 years - regressing further away from being a viable business or attractive product. Twitter is not just a case study of business mismanagement and poor strategy, but also a story of betrayal, ego, and greed. Since its founding, the company has been like Game of Thrones, plagued with politics and schemes. At the center of Twitter’s story, there is a founder, whose desire to be seen as a spiritual, futuristic genius was so important that he would do everything to achieve this recognition - even if it meant backstabbing friends and undermining his own company to do so. In this episode, we’ll cover the death of Twitter, how the once-promising social media platform deteriorated to the point of an Elon Musk takeover, the schemes that brought each CEO to power, and an evaluation of their tenures, strategies, successes, and failures that have led Twitter to where it is today.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Fly High, Crash Hard7:49 There Are No Saints18:29 The Noose Tightens21:43 The Plot Thickens35:25 The Knife Sharpens41:38 The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back46:43 Best Served Cold54:43 The Prodigal Son
How Online Dating Apps Make Billions Modern MBA 2022-10-30 | Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://masterworks.art/modernmbaPurchase shares in masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. How Masterworks works:- Create your account with your traditional bank account- Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio- Invest, hold shares in works or trade them in our secondary marketplace See important Masterworks disclosures: masterworks.io/about/disclaimer💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf🎞️ Video Editing: XantiDating is an activity where people around the world have enthusiastically adopted technology, embraced software over traditional face-to-face methods, and where venture capital and subsidies have played a small role in its mainstream acceptance. No longer are you constrained to the people you meet at school, on your commute, at work, at the grocery store, coffee shop, or on a night out. With dating apps, you expand your options from a handful of static possibilities to a dynamic pool that spans hundreds of miles at the tap of a button anywhere you go. Dating apps eliminate the risky, emotionally-intensive, in-person cold approach of traditional dating in favor of a casual and detached game of swipes. Through photos and bio, you create a digital representation of yourself on dating apps. You get to showcase yourself, your personality, hobbies, interests, finest moments, and physical attributes so that potential partners are always seeing you at your best. Dating apps are more lead generators than they are matchmakers. They provide potential partners, but it’s up to you to qualify and nurture these prospects into real dates. While Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, and Grindr are the most prominent ones today, new dating apps come out every year. Most industries are duopolies where there are 2 leaders and many small players. Markets naturally transform over time, which grants smaller players the opportunity to unseat incumbents in a constant cycle of evolution. Yet online dating is a monopoly. Modern apps like Tinder, Hinge, Meetic, The League and legacy websites like Match.com, OK Cupid, and Plenty of Fish are all actually owned by the same company. In this episode, we’ll cover not only the Tinder monopoly, but also the psychology and technology that have made online dating so popular and such a lucrative billion dollar business around the world.0:00 Swipe for Love5:10 Gamification of Dating11:13 Seductive Optionality15:20 Multi-App Journey19:02 To the Victor Belongs the Spoils
Fried Chicken Wars: The Fall of KFC in America Modern MBA 2022-10-10 | Kentucky Fried Chicken has long dominated fried chicken around the world with legacy and scale, but its relevance and popularity in America has been declining for years. As the Colonel has weakened, longtime rivals in Popeyes, Chick Fil-A, Bojangle's, Jollibee, Bonchon, and and others have all laid claims to the chicken throne. The popular narrative amongst Americans is that KFC’s drop in quality over the years is the result of cost cutting from out-of-touch executives who wouldn’t know good fried chicken if it hit them in the face. When you look at KFC in America, it’s an outdated, run-down, uncreative chain with a boring menu and terrible food. But around the world in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, KFC is a star brand known for quality chicken, great service, and unique offerings. So how is it that the same company can be so great internationally and so poor in its own home country? In this episode, we’ll cover the fried chicken wars, the strategy and missteps that have brought KFC in America to where it is today, and how legacy and brand power can be just as much a curse as it is a blessing in the world of business.💬 Join the Modern MBA community for bonus content and discussion - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock exclusive essays every month, regular Q&A, episode credits, and more: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf 0:00 The Colonel Under Siege 3:47 Evolution of Fried Chicken7:51 Bewildering Dichotomy13:56 Legacy with a Side of Nostalgia17:58 A Failed Turnaround 23:47 Behind the White Suit
Buy Now, Pay Later: Echoes of the 2008 Recession Modern MBA 2022-09-19 | Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://masterworks.art/modernmbaPurchase shares in masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. How Masterworks works:- Create your account with your traditional bank account- Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio- Invest, hold shares in works or trade them in our secondary marketplace See important Masterworks disclosures: masterworks.io/about/disclaimer💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmbaAffirm, Klarna, and Afterpay - in just 5 years, these 3 companies have popularized a new form of consumer spending called Buy Now Pay Later. BNPL is a type of short-term unsecured personal loan where instead of paying the full price upfront at checkout, you can defer the cost of any item by splitting the payment into smaller installments over time. If you want to spread payments out over a longer period of time to make the installments even smaller, you’ll have to pay interest. And if you miss a payment using BNPL, there are penalties with late fees, collections, and lowered credit score. What Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay have done is they’ve broadened the purpose of short-term unsecured personal loans from large one-time essentials into everyday, impulse, and splurge purchases. They’ve made it easy for anyone to borrow money, simplifying a historically opaque, time-consuming process of applications and manual underwriting into a scalable UX that provides instant credit in just a few taps. Most of all, there’s instant gratification. With Affirm, Klarna, or Afterpay, you get your order delivered right away on or before your first payment. Putting aside fundamentals, BNPL itself is controversial. To critics and regulators around the world, it promotes irresponsible spending and enables overconsumption. In this episode, we’ll explore the business model of BNPL, its eerie similarities to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and why that matters now more than ever in the coming recession.🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing Credits: Sonalf 0:00 The Rise of Buy Now, Pay Later6:01 Generational Tipping Point11:58 House of Mirrors19:32 Castles in the Sky24:12 The BNPL Flywheel30:43 Of Their Own Accord36:47 Boiling Frogs
The Dreadful Business of Balding & Hair Loss Modern MBA 2022-08-28 | Here is an 8-month update on the hair transplant with photos and additional commentary - reddit.com/r/modernmba/comments/11ma1c6/hair_transplant_8_months_laterBalding is a personal and emotional process that 85% of men will experience in their lives. 70% of men suffer hair loss by 35. Male pattern baldness accounts for 95% of cases worldwide and is the most common form of hair loss. Like Thanos, male pattern baldness is inevitable. For some men, male pattern baldness starts as early as the teens. For me, I started balding in my early twenties. And it sucked.With so many possible treatments with different degrees of effectiveness and cost, hair loss is a global billion dollar market with ties not just into big pharmaceuticals, but also the medical tourism of developed countries like South Korea - the cosmetic surgery capital of the world. In this episode, we’ll navigate the business of balding, the different treatments available, the companies behind those solutions, all through my own personal experience / transformation from medication to hair transplant at a prestigious clinic in South Korea.If you're interested in Dr. Kim Kyong-Bok & Moment Clinic, you can get in touch with him via email: momentclinic@naver.com or check out their new English website at momentclinic.com/en/. For fastest response, they suggest directly chatting with the clinic at http://pf.kakao.com/_AkGxkb/chat but that does require signup and mobile download of KaoKaoTalk (which is South Korea's app equivalent of Facebook Messenger / SMS).💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Male Pattern Baldness3:07 Wigs, China, and Halloween7:33 Controversial Medication 11:18 Corruption of Big Pharma 15:02 No Beauty Without Pain19:05 Journey to the East
Why Avocados Will Forever Be Expensive Modern MBA 2022-08-14 | Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: https://masterworks.art/modernmbaPurchase shares in masterpieces from artists like Pablo Picasso, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and more. How Masterworks works:- Create your account with your traditional bank account- Pick major works of art to invest in or our new blue-chip diversified art portfolio- Invest, hold shares in works or trade them in our secondary marketplace See important Masterworks disclosures: masterworks.io/about/disclaimerAvocados have become one of the world's most popular foods in the past two decades. Americans these days eat 9 pounds of avocados annually and that’s a huge leap compared to 2001, when the average American only ate 1 pound a year. As domestic consumption and global interest have soared, so have production and prices. Yet as prices have reached to all-time-highs, demand has not stopped. Whether it’s avocado toast or guacamole in a Chipotle bowl, consumers continue to pay the premium for this fruit in the name of taste and nutrition.These twenty years of appreciation have turned avocados into a multi-billion-dollar industry where farmers nickname the fruit “green gold”. The avocado industry is so lucrative that it’s become a target for organized crime, leading people to label avocados as modern day blood diamonds. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of avocados, the major players, and how this simple fruit is at the heart of the political and economic relationship between the US and Mexico.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Green Gold6:11 The Golden Hass Standard13:12 Farm to Store Supply Chain15:57 Breadth vs Depth20:12 Billion Dollar Oligopoly
Real Estate Tech: A Crumbling House of Cards Modern MBA 2022-08-01 | In 2014, there was one Silicon Valley startup that was widely applauded for its ambition to revolutionize a massive high-stakes industry as old as the Middle Ages. That company was called Opendoor and their idea was to make it possible to buy or sell a home in just a few clicks. OpenDoor in 2014 was the perfect mix of all the hottest Silicon Valley trends from the 2010s - online to offline platform businesses, data science, machine learning, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation applied to the old-fashioned world of real estate.OpenDoor was not flipping homes, instead, in their own words, they were a once-in-a-lifetime quote on quote market maker that could transform the American residential real estate. As OpenDoor built up hype, industry giants like Zillow and Redfin started to worry that they were missing out. This ushered in the “Instant Buying” or iBuying phenomenon, where Zillow, Redfin, and OpenDoor burnt millions of dollars flipping thousands of homes across the country based on algorithms. Fast forward several years to 2020 where iBuying has revealed itself to be a short-lived fad. Zillow, the company with the biggest market share, presence, and pockets, terminated its iBuying business as a high-profile failure, laying off thousands of employees after losing over half a billion dollars. In this episode, we’ll explore OpenDoor, the iBuying business model, and the long-running misconception that computers make better decisions than humans and the crumbling house of cards that is real estate technology.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Buy & Sell Homes Online 12:55 Convenience and Liquidity with a Cost 19:49 Financial 3D Chess 26:58 iBuying Moats & Demise of Zillow Offers
DoorDash & The Myth of Profitable Food Delivery Modern MBA 2022-07-11 | Food delivery is a simple business. While the market today is dominated by DoorDash, Uber Eats, Delivery Hero, and a few others, back in 2014, food delivery and the gig economy were just emerging in Silicon Valley. Back then, the barriers to entry were so low that anyone could open up their own food delivery business in a matter of weeks with just a few thousand dollars and a website. Food delivery seemed such an obvious million dollar business that as a starry-eyed 20 year old at the time, I left college to start a food delivery company, joining many others in the gold rush. The market in 2014 was wide open for the taking. DoorDash had not yet become a household name, UberEats was just spinning up, and GrubHub was used for looking up restaurant menus online.6 years after my startup, it’s been interesting to see the continued hype of food delivery companies around the world even though everyone knows that the unit economics just don’t work. When you have to rely on tips to pay a livable wage to drivers, it’s obvious that there is something fundamentally broken with the business model. In this episode, we’re going to look at the four biggest food delivery companies around the world from DoorDash, UberEats, Delivery Hero, and Just Eat. What are the strategies that these companies believe will lead them to profitability? Are these just fantasies spun for investors and which companies have made the most progress?💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Delivered to Your Door4:40 Once Bitten, Twice Shy7:46 Hard Truths Cut Both Ways 9:03 DoorDash, Dashers, & Unit Economics14:19 Unorthodox Measures of Profit19:17 Frequency, not Margins23:14 Same Tide, Same Boats
How Adidas Caught Up to Nike Modern MBA 2022-06-29 | It’s 2014 and Adidas is struggling. The once-dominant sportswear company is now lost and directionless suffering through declining revenue and profits three years in a row. Outside of football, consumers don’t care for the brand, retailers are giving their most valuable shelf space to Nike, new products are flopping, and activists are threatening a hostile takeover if the CEO is not replaced within the year.In this episode, we’ll cover Adidas, the fatal mistakes that its former CEO made which toppled the German brand to a distant third behind Nike and UnderArmour, sparked an investor battle, and ultimately cost him his job. We’ll also cover the winning strategy that revolutionized Adidas and the new CEO’s moves which have since taken the company to new heights.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Impossible is Nothing6:47 A Global Multi-Brand Portfolio9:37 Ascent Before Misfortune12:32 Fabled German Efficiency 16:07 Another Doomed Five Year Strategy22:47 The Beginning of the End26:55 Hainer's Redemption Arc35:49 The CEO Who Was Promised
Tree to Box: The Billion Dollar Cardboard Business Modern MBA 2022-06-06 | The world runs on cardboard. Produce, snacks, electronics, beverages, merchandise, household goods, everything is shipped in cardboard. Cardboard can be made into different properties, strengths, and shapes - everything from heavy-duty bins that can hold watermelons or merchandise, trays for fresh produce, food-safe boxes for pizzas, candy boxes that double as in-store displays, to Amazon boxes tough enough to survive the back of a Fedex truck.International Paper and WestRock are two biggest players who have taken a lion’s share of the American cardboard market in the past decade. The next time you come across a cardboard box, take a second to flip it over and look for a logo at the bottom, and you’ll likely find that it came from 1 of these 2 companies. International Paper and WestRock are massive business empires hidden in plain sight whose products not only enable American commerce, but also extend into the political landscape and shape foreign countries. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of cardboard, how it’s made, and the contrasting strategies of these 2 cardboard giants.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 The World Runs on Cardboard Boxes5:07 Forests as Natural Resources8:05 How Cardboard is Sold11:50 The Slow King15:50 Shaping Brazil & Russia18:02 The Nimble Heir
Unfinished & Unstable: How SaaS Changed Video Games Modern MBA 2022-05-21 | Modern software is about rapid continuous improvement. Speed is the priority even at the expense of stability. Updates are constant and features are regularly introduced. You can see software as a service in nearly every facet of modern life with Netflix, Spotify, and many more. But what most people missing is that while SaaS is becoming more popular, the standards and quality of software itself has been declining. The “ship fast, fail fast” attitude has meant that SaaS products often launch way before they’re ready with severe bugs and broken functionality. There is one particular industry that has taken advantage of the declining standards to deliver aggressively monetized yet progressively worse, unfinished, buggy SaaS products (also known as "live services') for maximum profit year after year after year. That is the gaming industry.This episode dives into the traditional video game business model and 3 very different gaming companies (CD Projekt Red, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive). We'll look at how SaaS has influenced these companies and how each of them have evolved their products, strategies, and business models over time.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: SonalfChapters0:00 Software is Eating the World10:39 The Isles of CDPR17:28 The Curse of Square Enix22:09 I Never Asked for This28:05 More Money, Less Titles
Why Funeral Homes Are Vanishing Across America Modern MBA 2022-04-30 | The funeral industry in the United States is worth $20 billion dollars annually with 2.4 million funerals taking place every year. With death and taxation being the two certainties in life, funeral homes have a long-standing reputation for highly resilient and stable businesses. Everyone dies. If there’s any business that should stand the test of time, it would be funeral homes and cemeteries. But when we look at the numbers, the surprising reality is that it’s not actually true. For 2 decades, average funeral home revenue has been declining every year. The number of funeral homes has been shrinking every year with more and more closing their doors. Today, the American funeral industry is significantly fragmented, seemingly unscathed by the M&A of corporate America. There are roughly 18,800 funeral homes in the United States. There are about 1,000 crematoriums and 115,000 cemeteries. Service Corporation International is the largest public funeral home corporation today, operating 1,471 funeral homes and 488 cemeteries across 44 states. The company has 16% market share by revenue and 11% market share by the number of funeral homes under its ownership.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 The Timeless Business of Death4:52 Two Decades of Decline6:16 Ashes to Ashes12:58 Funeral Homes vs. Cemeteries17:02 Billion Dollar War Chest19:24 Dust to Dust
La Croixs Succession of Coca-Cola & Pepsi Modern MBA 2022-04-18 | Soda consumption has substantially declined in the past two decades. Consumers worldwide have become more conscious about what they eat, what they drink, and the consequences of those choices on their health. By 2017, soda consumption had plummeted to a 30-year low. If soda wasn’t selling anymore, juice was out of fashion, bottled water was commoditized, and premium water was never able to outgrow its niche, the beverage industry was faced with a big question. Who would be the successor to Big Soda? What drink could directly replace soda? What company could take over Coke and Pepsi’s multi-billion dollar market share? In 2016, a small beverage company that had been under the radar since 1991 suddenly exploded in mainstream popularity and record sales. The Chosen One had seemingly arrived, boasting growth rates, unit volume, revenue, virality, consumer excitement that the beverage industry had not seen in decades. La Croix, a fruit-flavored sparkling water brand, owned by National Beverage Corporation was suddenly the hottest beverage in town. A fizzy seltzer that was once laughed at as a Midwest mom’s occasional indulgence seemingly overnight became the primary drink of choice for millennials.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Big Soda At Work5:42 Triumph of Science 10:00 The Industry's Reckoning 12:45 The Chosen One15:51 Long Way Home18:47 New Players, Same Threats19:18 A Future of Known Unknowns
Why Airbnb Fails to Disrupt the Hotel Industry Modern MBA 2022-04-09 | Cost is the biggest barrier to scale in the hotel industry. It takes on average 2-3 years to build a hotel. The upfront cost for design, permits, and construction can range from $30M to $130M, depending on location and category. These estimates don’t even include the cost of the land. Since these numbers are publicly shared by nearly every hotel giant, it’s no secret how cost prohibitive it is to grow market share in the hotel industry.Airbnb’s innovation is on the supply side. Anyone can list and monetize their room, apartment, or house with a few steps on Airbnb. The company’s business value is to serve as a trusted platform between travelers and hosts. Discovery, communication, and transactions between both parties all occur on Airbnb. Hosts set their own prices for their listings, provide service, and accept travelers in whatever way they see fit.So why aren’t hotel executives scared of Airbnb? Are Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt executives all just pretending not to care publicly but freaking out privately in boardrooms? Are the hotel giants just too stubborn to evolve?💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Intro3:38 Hilton (Overview, Portfolio, Performance)4:55 Marriott (Overview, Portfolio, Performance)5:44 IHG (Overview, Portfolio, Performance)6:14 Hyatt (Overview, Portfolio, Performance)7:01 Wyndham (Overview, Portfolio, Performance)7:50 The Rise of Airbnb 16:38 Why Hotels Don't Fear Airbnb22:46 Platforms of Future Past
How Dollar Tree Conquered Low Income America Modern MBA 2022-03-26 | From the outside, Dollar Tree is a fun, harmless store to buy random, gimmicky, short-lived products for a buck. But go inside, and Dollar Tree is a ruthless business empire who knows that its best customers are low income Americans. The company will do everything it can to suffocate the competition and be the only store physically available in low income communities, small towns, and rural America. So poor Americans keep buying Dollar Tree no matter how flimsy or low quality its products are, because there’s no other store that they can afford or is available in their neighborhood. Retail, at the most abstract, is the heartbeat that fuels daily domestic consumption which in turn drives the American economy. But what happens when that consumption, spending, and money printing finally catches up? 15% inflation. The highest increase in prices since the 1980s. $8 a gallon for gas. Shipping delays. Supply chain problems. Labor shortages. There is one Fortune 500 corporation that despite the supply chain issues, labor shortages, inflation, gas costs, is so committed to giving you a discount that it puts it in their name. That company is the Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree doesn’t rely on any of the traditional retail playbooks. No flashy white lighting or minimalism decor, no modern sans-serif branding, and no marketing to millennials. Dollar Tree’s vicious conquest of low-income and rural America has been so successful that the company has found itself in hot water. Cities, small towns, and rural communities in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Birmingham have united to ban Dollar Tree from opening more stores in their neighborhoods.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Deceiving Appearances 3:42 Store Design & Pricing Strategy6:16 Shopping Experience7:23 Conservative Nature 9:06 Family Dollar10:57 Comparison to Walmart & Target11:40 Advantage Over Heavyweights13:41 Speed with Scale
Facebooks Collapse & The Metaverse Crusade Modern MBA 2022-02-23 | This year, everything is changing. Facebook stock dropped by 26% in a single day, wiping out 230B in its valuation after its 4Q earnings announcement. The company goes through a new crisis every month. Employees are stepping out as whistleblowers, political pressures are growing, but most damning of all - consumers are now spending significantly less time on Facebook. For the first time ever, Facebook announced weaker ad impressions, fewer daily active users, slowing spending by advertisers. And while the world is still very much stuck in COVID, there are enough signals to suggest that it’s not just you and me - lots of other people are simply getting tired of Facebook. The golden era of seemingly endless growth is now over.Facebook in a single month has gone through a complete rebranding and is now pounding the drum for a flashy new vision about metaverses, digital frontiers, and innovation - things that companies only do when they feel they have no other choice. So what is Facebook’s new strategy to combat this slowing growth? And why exactly does Zuckerberg think future growth lies in the metaverse?💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: SonalfChapters:0:00 A Company's Arrogance 3:15 Digital Stickiness5:15 TikTok & The Changing Winds7:09 Snapchat & The Copycat Playbook10:13 Text to Photo to Video11:50 Software Without the Hardware14:45 iOS 14's Privacy Changes16:20 A Forced Evolution17:17 Winning the Personal Device of the Future
The Extraordinary King of Luxury Fashion Modern MBA 2022-01-18 | To outsiders, luxury fashion is a curious industry where consumers seem to irrationally shell out hundreds and thousands of dollars for sneakers, handbags, wallets, or T-shirts. But take a step inside, and you’ll find the world of high fashion is more like Game of Thrones with Italian, English, and French houses like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, YSL, and Balenciaga fighting to be the king. For the houses that get to sit on the throne, they don’t last for long. A brand who only sells its products to a carefully curated list of only its highest spending customers, takes no preorders, refuses to expand inventory, or scale production. A brand whose products are so elusive that they appreciate thousands of dollars and are often resold for profit. A brand that does not allow returns, refunds, or exchanges. A brand who has remained independent, manufactures by hand, spends the least on marketing, and yet grosses close to what Gucci makes every year. That brand is Hermès and they are the current king in high fashion. Hermès operates their business with a playbook and style that no other brand can even come close to emulating.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: SonalfChapters:0:00 Playbook of High Fashion Leaders4:28 YSL's Traditionalist Approach5:30 Moncler's Small Player Resurgence6:10 The Magic of Hermès7:35 Tradition & Craftsmanship Above All9:18 Expensive, Elusive, and Exclusive10:15 A True Test of Loyalty
Palantir & The American Military Industrial Complex Modern MBA 2021-12-30 | Palantir is one of the newer sweethearts of WSB, Reddit, and retail investors worldwide and with good reason - a polarizing, highly secretive, niche business whose majority of market share comes from selling software to the governments, defense, and intelligence sector. But beyond these memes, let’s take a look at how Palantir operates as a business. Along the way, we can also learn just how much money there is to be made selling to the CIA and the greater American military complex. Palantir is riding on the big data trend just like Snowflake, but what’s unique to Palantir is that the company rides on bigger winds based on macro geopolitical trends. Despite intense public scrutiny, Western governments have continued to actively promote and invest in tech-driven governance with items such as preventative policing, public surveillance, and facial recognition.💬 Join the Modern MBA community - reddit.com/r/modernmba☕️ Support Modern MBA on Patreon and unlock bonuses like additional content, exclusive essays, and regular Q&A: patreon.com/modernmba🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf0:00 Walled Gardens of Tech4:10 Comparing to Data Companies5:37 How Palantir Relates to the Military Industrial Complex9:10 Average Sales Cycle Selling to Governments
