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PODCAST

Two by Two

The Two by Two podcast is a premium business podcast from The Ken that investigates, discusses and breaks down the most important business stories around you. Hosted from The Ken"s newsroom by business journalists Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, Two by Two will feature guests and experts from across the industry and academia to talk about issues no one else is talking about.

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All Episodes

11:07

The future was electric cars. Until it wasn't...

Two by Two ·

2025/01/09

In 2023, two-wheelers and three-wheelers in India experienced growth of around 37% and 66%. Electric four-wheelers also promised to go down the same path because in that same year, there was a significant increase in sales of electric four-wheelers, 113%.Now, of course, this is from a lower base, but the signs were clear.The conventional wisdom or the narrative has been petrol and diesel cars are going to become a relic of the past. And if you're an automaker and if you're not investing

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29:10

The mystery of usury (30-minute version)

Two by Two ·

2025/01/06

Fintech lending was supposed to be the bridge that would enable entrepreneurs, small businesses and even individuals across the country to get access to much-needed credit to build businesses. For millions of small and medium businesses, and even individuals seeking a personal loan, who’d otherwise not qualify for them (usually unsecured ones) from banks, these new-age financial institutions were the great hope and sources of credit.Then in October this year, the RBI, like it usually seems

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14:58

Are we past peak Amazon India? (10-minute trailer)

Two by Two ·

2025/01/02

Amazon India has fallen behind in the e-commerce race to Flipkart and now to Meesho as well, in tier-2 and tier-3 markets. It is the last large player to enter the quick-commerce race in India. Everything that made Amazon largely successful in the U.S. has not fully cut it for them in India, even though they understood India is a very different market and the approach they took in the U.S. might not work well for them here early onYet, they have missed out on capitalising on a lot of

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29:54

Marketing is eating itself from the inside (30-minute...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/30

Today’s episode of Two by Two is about how the marketing function has been eating itself from the inside.Historically, in companies, marketing has always been about the long term, while a function like sales was about the near term. Marketing owned the customer—what they wanted, their dreams, their fears, and their vanities. It was supposed to tell stories of customers back to the organisation and, in return, tell stories of the company back to customers.Today, in company after company, the

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55:57

2024 Year-end special

Two by Two ·

2024/12/26

Welcome to the year-end special edition of Two by Two.We’ve released 22 episodes of Two by Two since our inaugural edition in July. We’ve covered an incredible breadth of counterintuitive topics framed as, well, two by twos. Would Flipkart become Phonepe before Phonepe became Flipkart? Did Delhi prick Bengaluru’s bubble? Is the golden era of the software engineer over? Why is health insurance broken? How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? Why is Zepto behaving like a gold

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77:10

Dmart versus the challengers at the gate (Republished...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/23

This episode was first released on November 21, 2024, for The Ken's Premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms now.Dmart, the retail group in India, is absolutely number one on vision, execution, and consistency. Dmart opened its first supermarket in Mumbai’s Powai suburb in 2002. Like Walmart in the US, it adopted a deep discounting strategy, offering its customers low prices every

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13:12

The death of D2C (Highlights only)

Two by Two ·

2024/12/19

It’s time for us to retire the term “Direct-to-Consumer” or D2C. The phrase is, anyway, a bit long in the tooth, having been used since the days of the dot-com boom.D2C used to mean selling directly to end customers, rather than selling through retailers or other middlemen. In theory, selling directly to consumers would allow a company to offer both lower prices and maintain higher margins (since it didn’t have to pay commissions to middlemen), having better products sustained through a

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100:29

Can venture capitalists do no wrong? (Republished...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/16

This episode was first released on November 14, 2024, for The Ken's Premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms now.For the last 24 months, the default way in which startups were exposed to venture capital and its effects has been, in many ways, paused. There’s a slowdown. Venture capital funding for the first nine months of this year is down 7% over a similar period last year per

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11:56

AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/12

Artificial intelligence will affect all facets of modern-day business in some way or another. But it will most definitely go a few layers deeper with the type of companies whose job is to be a record of business’ today – SaaS companies.SaaS as a business model is investment-heavy in the beginning. It’s risky to build, it takes time to build, and it takes skill to build. But if successful, it is a cash cow. Think of the biggest SaaS companies – Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe. They spent

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90:52

What does Ola Electric's future hold? (Republished...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/09

This episode was first released on November 7, 2024, for The Ken's premium subscribers. We’ve unlocked it for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite podcast streaming platforms before it goes behind a paywall.Ola Electric’s woes just don’t seem to be stopping.From angry customers to its mercurial CEO getting into online spats as pressure mounts, many of its problems stretch seemingly beyond its control today for it to make a quick turnaround and

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18:09

The mystery of usury (Highlights only)

Two by Two ·

2024/12/05

Fintech lending was supposed to be the bridge that would enable entrepreneurs, small businesses and even individuals across the country to get access to much-needed credit to build businesses. For millions of small and medium businesses, and even individuals seeking a personal loan, who’d otherwise not qualify for them (usually unsecured ones) from banks, these new-age financial institutions were the great hope and sources of credit.Then in October this year, the RBI, like it usually seems

en

90:56

The relentless rise of the 'government' as a...

Two by Two ·

2024/12/02

We’ve unlocked this episode for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite streaming platform for a limited time.The government has played a pivotal role in establishing and promoting Digital Public Goods(DPG) and Digital Public Infrastructure(DPI) in the past decade and a half, and there have been few which have been integral in our daily lives in more ways than one.The reason why these solutions exist is plain and simple: There emerged companies

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15:04

Marketing is eating itself from the inside...

Two by Two ·

2024/11/28

Today’s episode of Two by Two is about how the marketing function has been eating itself from the inside.Historically, in companies, marketing has always been about the long term, while a function like sales was about the near term. Marketing owned the customer—what they wanted, their dreams, their fears, and their vanities. It was supposed to tell stories of customers back to the organisation and, in return, tell stories of the company back to customers.Today, in company after company, the

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36:47

Dmart versus the challengers at the gate (Highlights...

Two by Two ·

2024/11/21

Dmart, the retail group in India, is absolutely number one on vision, execution, and consistency. Dmart opened its first supermarket in Mumbai’s Powai suburb in 2002. Like Walmart in the US, it adopted a deep discounting strategy, offering its customers low prices every day. Today, it has 381 stores. In spite of offering its customers the deepest discounts, Dmart’s net profit numbers beat the best among its global peers.Yet analysts and investors have been becoming increasingly bearish of

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98:01

How will Ola and Uber avoid 'death by a thousand...

Two by Two ·

2024/11/18

We’ve unlocked this episode for our Basic and Free subscribers for a limited time. Listen to it on your favourite streaming platform for a limited time.Ola and Uber are in a “late-stage duopoly”.After spending billions and billions of dollars, they have finally secured pole positions in ride-sharing in India.Both of these companies together control 70% of the market and they have created network effects that make it much harder for anyone to enter and compete with them.However, this

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33:43

Can venture capitalists do no wrong? (Highlights only)

Two by Two ·

2024/11/14

For the last 24 months, the default way in which startups were exposed to venture capital and its effects has been, in many ways, paused. There's a slowdown. Venture capital funding for the first nine months of this year is down 7% over a similar period last year per Tracxn.There have been news stories about layoffs, company shutdowns, and downrounds at various companies from a time when unicorns were being born every three months or so.Capital is abundant. A lot of dry it remains

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101:24

Do we even need Product Managers? (Republished FULL...

Two by Two ·

2024/11/11

We have unlocked the full and unedited version of episode 13, which we released on October 10th for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s mobile app and Apple Podcasts. Now, you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts for free for a limited time.If you are a Product Manager, especially in India, you’re probably going through a crisis of faith and existence.As a career, Product Management in India has gone through multiple

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30:28

What does Ola Electric's future hold? (Highlights only)

Two by Two ·

2024/11/07

Ola Electric's woes just don’t seem to be stopping.From angry customers to its mercurial CEO getting into online spats as pressure mounts, many of its problems stretch seemingly beyond its control today for it to make a quick turnaround and change the narrative. And this is hurting its valuation significantly, both in the private and public markets. Just this week, Ola Electric's price fell below its listing priceOla Electric can and should take credit for making EV two-wheelers common on

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99:08

Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader?...

Two by Two ·

2024/11/04

We have unlocked the full and unedited version of episode 12, which we released on October 3rd for Premium subscribers of The Ken on The Ken’s mobile app and Apple Podcasts. Now, you can stream the full episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, Youtube or wherever you listen to your podcasts for free for a limited time.Ather Energy is the third-largest seller of electric two-wheelers in India. Founded in 2013, Ather Energy is known to have kicked off the electric two-wheeler wave in India. They

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3:15

Happy Deepavali!

Two by Two ·

2024/10/31

Happy Deepavali, dear listeners!On account of Deepavali, the Two by Two team is also taking a small break. But don't worry; we'll be back with our regular programming next week.Until then, you can always listen to past episodes of Two by Two that you haven't gotten around to yet. If you're a Premium subscriber listening to this on The Ken’s mobile app or on Apple podcasts, you can just scroll down and listen to any of our episodes in their full, unedited form. On the other hand, if you

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