Do billions of users really drive US and Chinese tech titans’ big valuations? Will the prosperity of India’s nearly half a billion online users grow enough to make India the next big prize for digital dominance after China? In this video, Professor Tejpavan Gandhok, Clinical Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at the ISB questions these two common assumptions. So why do India’s leading digital players keep chasing mere user numbers growth, despite claiming hundreds of millions of users?
In the previous two parts of this series, the author critically questioned India’s digital start-up hype and a third key assumption underpinning this flood of questionable investment: the likelihood of “winner take all online platform” outcomes within India’s e-commerce and online cab-hailing.1
In the accompanying article, with a case study of India’s professional sports leagues and teams, the author illustrates an alternative digital value play through superior user engagement, beyond mere user acquisition.
1Gandhok, T., 2018. Digital Winner-take-all Platforms: Hype or Reality? ISBInsight, July 2018