Tina Tan

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Venmo: harnessing social network for online payments
Tina Tan
Last modified on December 10, 2015 at 12:01 am
Venmo leverages the social network effect and aligns their business and operational model to create a new "social" payment

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On December 14, 2015, Tina Tan commented on From Pinkberry to Crackberry: A success story :

Pinkberry is great, thanks for a fun and informative read! I’ve always been curious about the gender breakdown among consumers. Heck, the title even has the word “pink” in it, yet you’ll find people of both genders frequenting this store!

On December 14, 2015, Tina Tan commented on Chipotle: How non-real Mexican food became so successful :

Yes, please bring Chipotle to campus! Great post Rafael 😀

On December 14, 2015, Tina Tan commented on Softbank Robotics – World’s First Consumer Humanoid Robot “Pepper” :

Thank you writing about one of my favorite robots, Satoshi! I was very excited to read about the great alignment between Softbank’s business and operational model to bring robots one more step closer to becoming a household staple. I’ve always been fascinated by how some companies are better than others at capturing value of new technology for consumers. Robotics has always been a sexy field with lots of promises for the future, but (as you mentioned), it is actually still very far away from commercialization due to its prohibitive pricing. Companies like iRobot have taken a more incremental approach and introduced “mini” robots such as the successful Roomba, with very specifically defined singular function, as an approach to ease mass adoption. Pepper appears to be the first commercial robot to offer consumers the full “robotic” experience, but at a feasible price. I’m very excited to see where Pepper will go in the world!

On December 14, 2015, Tina Tan commented on Etsy – An Artisanal Marketplace for Millions :

Thank you for the great post Campbell! I’ve always loved Etsy both from a consumer perspective as well as a business perspective. There are many online marketplaces out there (Ebay and Amazon are top of mind examples), but Etsy has carved out a niche for itself and is really a great example of correctly aligning its business model with its operating model to build a special brand. I think you touched on a key aspect of the operational model, which is Etsy’s focus on its “supplier” relations as well as its customer relations. The unique types of suppliers and customers that Etsy attracts is essential for its brand, so it is a positive loop wherein the better they are able to serve their clients, the better off they are as a brand and business!

On December 14, 2015, Tina Tan commented on Eventbrite: A foolproof service for the event-organizing layman :

Great job Felix! I’ve always viewed Eventbrite as the “professional” counterpart to other event planning services such as Facebook (similar to how Linkedin is the formal counterpart to Facebook’s social network feature). Eventbrite does aim to create buzz around events by harnessing the network effect, but in a more formalized manner through email. For example, I may get an email that reads “Felix Jiang is attending an event on Eventbrite tomorrow.” This is consistent with their professional imagery, but I am curious to find out whether Facebook plans to enter into this “merchandising” aspect of event planning–it certainly has the capability–and what that might entail for both Eventbrite and Ticketmaster.