Sandeep Murthy
20th March 2020
Rashmi Guptey
Tanvi Bhalinge
13th March 2020
29th January 2019
17th November 2020
1st January 2020
20th November 2017
16th May 2017
9th September 2020
3rd September 2020
6th September 2017
Sid Talwar
4th January 2017
16th February 2021
7th December 2020
20th January 2020
14th January 2020
4th February 2021
Karthik Jayaramam
30th May 2020
25th February 2020
Akshat Jain
12th February 2021
31st May 2020
16th April 2019
Atharva Purandare
9th August 2020
26th March 2019
2nd June 2018
19th June 2020
13th December 2019
20th November 2020
Shivani Daiya
20th February 2020
17th August 2014
18th July 2019
Maansi Vohra
28th January 2021
10th January 2021
31st October 2020
15th November 2014
8th March 2020
7th August 2018
27th December 2016
4th May 2014
29th September 2020
24th September 2020
26th July 2020
12th June 2020
15th October 2018
26th June 2018
13th June 2017
4th January 2016
According to Morgan Stanley, Global Recession in 2020 is a base case scenario. A recession is often defined as a period of decline in economic activity like trade, industrial output and consumer spending. As a recession is inevitable, we looked at the economic and financial downturns and recoveries in the past century to look for similarities with today’s COVID19 crisis.
What can we learn from the past recessions?
Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme”
On the back of COVID19 consumption habits have drastically changed thereby impacting even the best made business plans globally. Normal everyday activities that we took for granted like going to work, schools and entertainment venues have come to a standstill as these now posed a potential risk to life.
Given the new realities, companies have seen consumption going down, individual savings going up and supply of goods and services become uncertain due to global supply chain issues, all of which have led to an increase in insecurity amongst the various stakeholders in the economy.
What we have done here:
- Assessed this problem statement - COVID 19 has led us to a situation where we are in both a health as well as an economic crisis. Are there past recessions and crisis that we can look at to learn from?
- Analyzed the two recessions that occurred in the 21st century by metrics like the economic and financial factors - how the GDP Growth and Unemployment were affected, how the financial markets reacted and how the sectoral recovery looked like?
- Examined the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Roaring 20’s (a decade of massive expansion in the economy), and the Great Depression by metrics like the economic and financial factors
Our learnings:
Global
1. While, today’s healthcare crisis looks similar to the Spanish Flu in 1918, the current economic realities are similar to those going into the Great Depression in 1929. If the Great Depression is anything to go by the recovery will take a long time and a combined global effort.
2. However, unlike the Great Depression, the federal reserves and governments across the world have acted quickly with significant economic measures which has softened the blow to the economy from COVID-19.
3. While there will be unavoidable damage to our economies, certain sectors like the technology sector will help with recovering from the crisis faster and emerge stronger than ever before.
India
1. Given the Indian economy’s reliance on traditional sectors as compared to technology sector, we expect the recovery to happen at a slower rate than the developed economies.
2. This presents an opportunity for technology led businesses to drive adoption and grow faster. As individuals and businesses have been under lockdown, they have interacted with technology more than ever when it comes to consumption of all forms like education, payments, entertainment, etc.
3. Crises drive creativity and innovation. Past recessions have seen new startups emerge driven by technology globally and we fully expect that it to happen in India as well.
We have used this as an information tool to share our learnings from the past scenarios and given the current scenario
Hitendra and I discovered this opportunity through an iterative set of conversations that took place prior to funding the business. It was this deep engagement and exchange of ideas, even before there was an economic incentive that allowed for a strong relationship with an open exchange of ideas to develop.
Buying jewelry is as much about the experience of browsing as it is about the actual purchase. After the last year I’ve spent working with Melorra (coupled with 11 years of marriage) I’m slowly starting to understand this phenomena.
2014 was one of the most prolific years we’ve had in terms of the number of startups, fundings, valuations, and user growth in India. In 2015, we should see the fruits of that labor in several spaces – look out for many fledgling companies to mature and grow at a pace we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago, or even just a year ago.
How we see the market opportunity in India. Lightbox partners Sandeep Murthy, Sid Talwar, Prashant Mehta, Jeremy Wenokur, talk about fragmentation
Our summer '19 intern, Aryaan Dubash, investigates plant based alternatives in the Indian context
Neo Banking has been one of the hottest sectors in the startup landscape globally for a few years and lately in India as well. Over $5BN have been poured into this sector in 2019 globally. We put together some thoughts on this trending sector
Franchising revolves around duplicating the franchisor’s business blueprint across different locations. This means that as a franchisor, you need far less capital with which to expand and your risk is largely limited to the capital you invest in developing your franchise. This investment is often less than the cost of opening one additional company-owned location. As industries are forced to take a step back and contemplate their business models, what will the future of franchising look like?