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Hello reader,
I often reminisce about some of the good times I had in my younger days: spending late nights with my friends, doing silly things together, training hard every weekend for upcoming competitions, you name it.
But one thing I did that makes me cringe – I’m sure everyone has these moments – was being a little too caught up in the prevailing trends of the day so that I could fit in.
Even now, it’s a little too embarrassing for me to share what those trends were. All I’ll say is that I ended up trying to like certain types of music or bands, even if I didn’t really care about them.
Eventually, I found my own way after learning to be honest with myself and figuring out what I truly enjoyed. I also learned how important it is to do what you think is right for yourself rather than what everyone else is doing.
This seems to be the case for the company in today’s premium story. Amid an intensely competitive ecommerce market, Sendo had to find its own path to profitability through a sea of rivals.
Today we look at:
- How Sendo found its way
- A new AI firm launched by an OpenAI co-founder
- Other newsy highlights such as new banking services on Grab Indonesia’s app and a potential new tax in Vietnam
Premium summary
Sending it on groceries
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Southeast Asia has a ton of ecommerce marketplaces, and Vietnam is no exception – Shopee, TikTok Shop, and Lazada all having a strong presence in the country. With such stiff competition, ecommerce retailer Sendo has had to look for a magic ingredient – could groceries be it?
- Been around the block: The platform has raised US$130 million over the last decade. However, its market share still falls behind foreign players as well as its local rival, Tiki.
- Finding the spark: While other ecommerce players have been focused on acquiring customers for their marketplaces, Sendo has concentrated its efforts on expanding into the online grocery segment, which CEO Tran Hai Linh believes is a “blue ocean” market.
- Nah I’d win: During the pandemic, Sendo launched Sendo Farms to provide fresh food and other necessities to its users. Now, the service is starting to experience hockey stick growth in its number of customers.
Read more: Vietnam’s Sendo bets on groceries to revive ecommerce fortunes
Ilya Sutskever’s new groove
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