CRED, an Indian start-up with valuation worth Billions doesn't even have a business model.

Hear me out, countless start-ups don't have a business model but everyone can think of something that will be introduced and the most basic one is good and services in exchange of cash.

CRED, on the other hand, is popular primarily because it does not have a business model and hipsters are encouraging it because it is innovative to run without a business model.

I mean, I can't even... Damn this is beyond dumb.

Also, they only hire people from Tier I (IIT and IIM).

I once applied and got a rejection in literally 5 minutes stating that since I am not from top college, they are not interested in my profile.

I don't even know what to make of this. This boggles my mind.

For anyone interested, they were invite only and created a hype of waiting list, but then hipsters started inviting each other in masses so I guess they made it public.

https://cred.club

People think living off credit is a good thing. 🤦🏻‍♂️

@prodigy214 you are the exact target audience for Kunal.

What? It's in the list of top start ups. Didn't know this is the reality.

@Floydimus, their plan:
Once upon a time, there was an startup called '98cnts'. They had an app where every time you gave them 98 cents, they would give you a full $1! The app was stable, sleek, responsive and blazingly fast - 4.8! The service was reliable, you send in the cents and get your $1 instantly. The marketing began quietly, but soon there were thousands of people queueing for the beta
Surprising no one, a big American tech company invested billions in 98cnts.
And they spent big on lavish parties, powerful servers and the best programmers money can afford.
Then, there came the scandals, the exposé, the litigation, and finally and the CEO resigned over allegations of public douchness. The tool they got to replace him said the finances were crap and now the company would only give you 47 cents for your 98.
And just then they realized that the billions invested were spent on executive compensation, and suing for fraud would nuke the valuation.
They figured out the solution: IPO!

I literally told a tale like this (minus cussing) to my girls as a bedtime story.

😄😄😄😄

@true-dev001 This entire thing looks very cool on surface level and absolutely no doubt about that but when you start exploring the ice berg below the tip, that's where complexities arise. Why are they top? 7.5M people using CRED. That's 75L which is less than 0.9% of Indian population.

None of the Indian front page start-ups have ever made profits. They are top and famous amongst urban India aka Bangalore only. It's a monkey business dude. Most aren't even solving any problems but waiting for the west to do something cool and then they go CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

@prodigy214 it's not about what you have but how you think determines your actions.

@JsonBoa oh boy. We recently had India's largest IPO of a company which has never seen profit. The maiden day, they opened in discount and got fucked really bad.

What's more interesting is, they were a payment app which gave fuck ton of cashback. People are now happily joking that whatever they earned as cashback, they lost in IPO lisiting.

There's a short interview of the founder, a bloody cartoon show. Do check it out: https://mobile.twitter.com/i/...

Just check his attitude.

@heyheni I would love to read your opinion on design. They got famous primarily for their neumorphic design.

@JsonBoa 98cents, their actual business model was to loose 2 cents per transaction ? :|

@Floydimus So let's say I want to go for a good small company, just to make sure that I can learn and grow, I'm a software developer btw. How to know where to go? Seriously I was trusting these lists and I know these are based but literally what's the right way to find?

@ReverendLovejoy , sorta? their "plan" has four parts:

- Provide a service for an unrealistic low price, even if the only way to do it is operating at a loss. Uber, Moviepass, WeWork, it is an common story. To pay for the losses, use investor cash.
- Since it's such a sweet deal for the end user, you will expand *fast*, getting more and more users and increasing engagement of the existing ones. Use it as growth metrics to illude investors.
- When you get "unicorn status", live like a Maharaja - frequent and lavish company parties, the most expensive programmers, invest in sci-fi tech, anything to make it *seems* like you are about to *disrupt the industry*, whatever that means. Meanwhile, pay yourself and your cronies *huge* salaries. A good trick is to tie your compensation to growth, not profits
- Finally, get thrown off the company for any non-business reason. Douchness is in vogue. Make some popcorn and watch it all burn down from your rich dude bunker

@Floydimus LOL, loved it!

@true-dev001 the one that is solving a real problem AND has a business model or positive cash flow (the latter would be better because revenue isn't enough. Companies need to be profit making).

I'd trust a company that upfront charges a fee to their users for a product/service then runs on a free model (advertisements?).

Example would be Tidal vs. Spotify. Tidal has a smaller user base but actually solves a problem of making audiophiles get access to high res audio and charges a fee for it whereas Spotify's top paid version has shitty audio quality. And Spotify has ad version with larger user base.

Arguably, Tidal pays artists higher revenue share than Spotify so it is solving a problem for artists as well. With new upgrade to their business model, Tidal just won the heart of their users (though the MQA controversy stands). You can read more about it on the internet

All of this signals that leadership at their respective companies are aware of what's happening. Value over valuation

@true-dev001 hence, pick a company that has it's fundamentals sorted and clear over someone trying to figure shit out.

B2B is a space where many are clear on WHY to do. Whereas, B2B is fairly new to market to many are still figuring out how to sustain other than adverts.

With more awareness towards privacy and ad blocking, B2C will face huge losses in near future (and that's my subjective speculation). And those like Swiggy or Zomato trying to eliminate the middle man became an expensive middle man themselves, so I don't see their model being sustainable for linger term.

@JsonBoa pure cartoon show. Lmfao

@Floydimus B2C is fairly new*

@Floydimus Thanks man, quite insightful. I still need to develop my judgements about these as I am looking for good work now.

@true-dev001 you're welcome.

seems like they have standards. maybe that is their business model.

I've seen Cred adverts on TV and Youtube a few months back. I still don't understand why would anyone need a Credit Management app? Why use credit at all? Okay, home loans/Education loans etc are fine, but Cred does not handle these cases(AFAIK). Even if I wanted an app, say, to manage transaction limits, I'd use the bank's app/website instead

@Avyy , it's quite handy for people who have 5+ credit cards. And people collect cards when none would, individually, give you a high enough limit

@JsonBoa Those are credit cards, not pokemons. Why would you anybody need 5+ cards to increase their limit? That just screams "I don't have money and I'll borrow till I get into debt"

@JsonBoa I agree with @Avyy

Credit card is for someone who does not need credit. Also, more than 1 defeats the purpose of credit.

And if one is chasing reward points with multiple credit cards then they are falling right in the debt trap of consuming more than they can afford.

@Avyy , @Floydimus , you are both right - having many Poké... I mean, credit cards, for the sole purpose of obtaining more credit, is a terrible practice that puts people in the debt trap.
Good thing nobody ever falls for those traps, eh?

Many of those entrapped people report that one of their worse woes is scheduling - tracking bills due dates and balances. Merely tracking those better is no more than tweaking the CSS of a broken-backend app, but here we are.

So, yeah, many people are doing the wrong thing. And other people are selling them tools to do it. Capitalism!

>Many of those entrapped people report that one of their worse woes is scheduling - tracking bills due dates and balances.

An excel can solve that problem quite elegantly.

A CSS wrapper does not make much difference apart from giving people a sense of luxury and superiority (ironically?)

Capitalism. That's the word.

@Floydimus , you are right, again, on all counts.

Yeah, excel solves that problem quite well... for organized people. Not a lot of overlap between the set of organized people and the set of people with waaaay too many credit cards and problems keeping up with them.

@JsonBoa One thing I learned over the years, secret to being productive is being organised as that leads to efficiency.

Reminded me of George Carlin. "People spending the money they don't have to buy things they don't need". This guy was waaay ahead of his time.

@Avyy love Carlin.

Also Fight Club.