Techfastly January 2021

December January| 2020 | 2021

In conversation with

Kuntal Malia ( The Co-founder of StyleNook. ) Artificial Intelligence | Fashion | Personalisation

Google Earth VR | Taha Sherif. 10 | How to write an effective cover letter | Pg. 28 |

Salesforce buys Slack in a $27.4B deal. | Pg. 14 |

1 | Techfastly | January 2021

Ways AI Can Be Used in Marketing Anjali Prabhanjanan | Pg.55

Google Earth VR

In Pg.18 Conversation with Kuntal Malia The Pros and Cons of Self Drivinvg Cars | Pg. 31 |

Taha Sherif | Pg.10

Difference Between Aggregators And Platforms | Pg. 35 |

How to Write an Effective Cover Letter

Tesla hits a $500 billion market cap | P. 39 |

Zoya Lakhani | Pg.28

How Do Venture Capital Companies Work?

Anjali Prabhanjanan | Pg.4

2 | Techfastly | January 2021

Brave Browser Might Dethrone Chrome | Pg. 43 | WhatsApp’s New Shopping Button for Business Accounts | Pg. 51 | Salesforce buys Slack in a $27.4B deal. | Pg. 14 |

A note from the editor

Be Social with us

Contact

Twitter: @techfastly Facebook: Techfastly Linked In: Techfasly

Email: mail@tecfastly.com

Dear readers I’m glad to present you with Techfastly’s latest new year edition. To begin with, I wish you a great year ahead. At Techfastly, we have been working really hard to ensure that we keep bringing you articles and interviews that are rich in concepts, analysis, and insights. This edition is no different to our previous editions in that regard. We have published an article that deeply delves into the sudden rise of Tesla’s and how it has achieved an astounding $500 billion market cap. We have another article on WhatsApp’s new shopping button for businesses: what it means, how it can be leveraged by businesses, and this feature’s strategic importance. Our featured interview is with Kuntal Malia, cofounder of StyleNook, a personalized recommendation fashion service for the Indian Woman.We discuss how StyleNook leverages AI, Augmented Intelligence, and human stylists to suggest personalized clothes and accessories to choose from. It was an empowering discussion.

Here is your edition. Do read it, enjoy it, and nourish in the knowledge. And again, a very happy new year to you.

Sincerely, Srikant Rawat

Chief Operating Officer Techfastly

3 | Techfastly | January 2021

1 How Do Venture

Capital Companies Work?

Anjali Prabhanjanan 4 | Techfastly | January 2021

What is VC? Where do VC firms get the money to Invest?

A venture capitalist (VC) is a private equity investor that provides funds or capital to startups and companies exhibiting high growth potential in exchange for an equity stake. It could be funding startup ventures or supporting small companies wishing to expand but doesn’t have access to equities markets. Venture capitalists are willing to risk investing

in companies as they earn a massive return on investments (ROI) if these companies are a success.

The VCs experience high rates of failure because of the uncertainty involved in unproven and new companies.

Usually, the Venture Capitalists are formed as limited partnerships (LP) wherein the partners invest in the VC fund. Usually, the fund has a committee that is tasked with making investment decisions. Once the promising emerging growth companies have been identified, the pooled investor capital is deployed to fund these firms in exchange for a sizable stake of equity.

Contrary to public opinion, VCs don’t usually fund the startups from the onset.

Instead, they seek to target the firms, which are a stage where they are looking to commercialize their idea. The VC fund will buy a stake in these firms to nurture their growth and look to cash out with a substantial ROI. Some renowned venture capitalists include Peter Fenton, an investor in Twitter, Jim Breyer, an early Facebook investor, 5 | Techfastly | January 2021

Jeremy Levine, the largest investor in Pinterest. Peter Theil, the co-founder of PayPal and Facebook’s first angel investor, turned a $500K cheque into over $1 billion in cash.

Tim Draper is an example

of a VC who built a great fortune by investing early in risk companies in modern tech and social media giants such as Skype, Twitter, and Ring.

Venture capitalists look for a unique product or

service with a strong competitive advantage, a strong management team, and a large potential market. Also, they look for opportunities in industries that are familiar with and have a chance to own a large percentage of the company that can influence its direction.

What are the different types of Financing?

There are three principal types of venture capital:

6 | Techfastly | January 2021

1. Early-stage financing It has three sub-divisions: 1) Seed financing is a small amount that an entrepreneur receives to be eligible for a startup loan.

2) First stage financing is for companies that have spent all their starting capital and need finance to begin business activities at full-scale 3) Startup financing is given to companies to

finish the development of products and services.

2. Expansion financing It is categorized into three sub-types: 1) Second-stage Financing is provided to companies to begin their expansion.

2) Bridge financing is provided as a short-term interest-only finance option as well as a form of monetary assistance to companies employing the

Initial Public Offers (IPO) as a major business strategy.

which everyday people interact with, such as apps, instead of funds that invest 3) Third stage financing in power plants. Venture or mezzanine financing is Capital firms fund different provided to help a company businesses, including expand in a great way. dotcom companies, biotech, and peer-to3. Acquisition/buyout peer finance companies. financing Generally, they open up a fund, take in the money It is categorized into from high-net-worth acquisition finance and individuals, companies management or leveraged seeking alternative buyout financing to help a company acquire certain parts or an entire company. The management or leveraged buyout financing helps a management group to obtain a particular product of another company.

The Portfolio Approach Recent advances in technology make VC more accessible and cheaper to start new businesses that have helped increase funding opportunities.

Additionally, they invest in startups, 7 | Techfastly | January 2021

investment exposure, and other venture funds. Then they invest the money into numerous smaller startups known as the VC fund’s portfolio companies.

Diversification is a technique that involves reducing the risk by allocating investments across several industries, financial instruments, and other categories. It

aims to maximize returns by investing in different areas that react differently to an identical event.

Though most investment professionals agree that there’s no guarantee against loss, diversification allows investing in multiple companies to reach the long-range financial goals while minimizing the risk.

Most VC firms invest in numerous companies, as the failure rate is high. They bet on megasuccessful companies with multi-billion-dollar ideas so that they can recover their losses.

According to the 2019 PitchBook report, the VC industry has rapidly grown in popularity and activity.

It surpasses a record of $136.5 billion in American startups compared to $27 billion in 2009. [1] Two latest deals involved a $1.3 billion investment round into Epic Games and $871.0 million Series F into Instacart. Additionally, Pitchbook has cited an increase in the size of funds, with the median fund size rounding to approximately $82 million.

In comparison, 11 funds closed the year with $1 billion in commitments, including those in GGV, 8 | Techfastly | January 2021

Bessemer Partners, and Tiger Global.

Bootstrapping & The Contra View Most entrepreneurs appear to be shooting for the stars and going for the gold in an attempt to raise capital to fuel their startup ventures by taking the guerillastyle bootstrapping path.

Bootstrapping a startup business can work if you are passionate and willing to put in the hustle to bring in more rewards. Ensure that you know the trade-

offs and which route will get you where you want to go.

Bootstrapping a startup means starting lean and without the help of outside capital. It means to continue fuel growth internally using the cash flow produced by the business. While many sizable companies have started out bootstrapping, some have made it happen independently, and other companies have eventually taken offers of outside investment.

The pros of bootstrapping your startup include ownership of your business as a solo entrepreneur and continuing to own 100% of your business. Even with a co-founder or two, your equity share is greater than if you go through multiple rounds of fundraising. Even with a smaller company and revenues, your share may be worth more than if you raised money to achieve a billion-dollar valuation.

As soon as you take outside money, you take on external pressure and responsibility to satisfy other people’s interests that may differ from your vision.

Bootstrapping helps you to retain artistic direction and control over your decisions when raising capital. If your idea is to keep your startup as a lifetime business or make it a multigenerational business, bootstrapping is the way to go. Otherwise, outside investors will put you on a clock for achieving a sizable exit within around ten years.

Bootstrapping helps some entrepreneurs to get a sense of accomplishment and significance. Moreover, you are being forced to build a business model that works quickly to produce positive cash flow and profits. It helps you stay organized with bookkeeping, taxes, and systemizing processes, which often mean the basics get second priority. A cutting deal of the Baby Einstein brand with Disney for $25 million was easier as their books were already quite clean and organized.

Conclusion If you are an entrepreneur looking to grow your business, you need a venture 9 | Techfastly | January 2021

capital firm that is willing to take on a risky investment on your business plan to succeed. A venture capital company has a group of investors who increase their income from wealthy individuals wishing to grow their wealth. They work under a specific investment profile, a document that outlines the types of businesses the company is willing to invest in. They not only provide startup financing but also expansion financing for promising businesses.

Venture capital companies are excellent places for startup businesses who are unable to get funding for their growth through another source. The key is to find a venture capital company that chooses to invest in your type of business. Moreover, the culture in the United States, with its willingness to embrace entrepreneurship attaches little, if any, stigma in trying and failing in a new enterprise.

As entrepreneurs, now that you know how venture capital companies work, you can mitigate the risks and increase its potential rewards. Most entrepreneurs assume that the venture capitalists are looking for good ideas, while, in reality, they are looking for good managers in specific industry segments. Though venture capital has seen dramatic growth over the past few years, it still constitutes a tiny part of the US economy.

Google Earth VR Taha Sherif

V

irtual reality or VR is a fully immersive computersimulated environment that gives the user the feeling of being in that environment instead of the one they are actually in. Many video games have already developed the technology to put the user in an interactive world, in the driver’s seat of a car, on a battlefield, or even in your own little town. But, what about discovering the real world using VR? How would it feel if you were to stand on the top of Burj Khalifa or to view the beautiful Taj Mahal from a bit closer or to fly over the Arc de Triomphe of

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2

France, live just by sitting on your couch? Well, a VR based application of Google can do that for you.

Since its foundation, Google Earth has been brought to various platforms: from desktop to mobile devices, from native to web. This article discusses bringing Google Earth to a virtual world that poses unique user interaction challenges and rendering.

“We present solutions to

help users navigate planetsized worlds in VR without losing context or becoming nauseous. Google Earth VR, is the next step to help the world see the world. With Earth VR, you can fly over a city, stand at the edge of a mountain, and even soar into space.“ This is how google developers had described their newborn.

What can you do in Google Earth VR? The app adds Street View so users can easily move between 3D satellite views.

This highly anticipated update to Google Earth VR allows you to explore the immersive 360-degree images offered by Street View of 85 countries.

Moreover, the giant search engine makes it possible to visualize almost all roads around the world in 360 degrees. Photographed and adjusted by the Google Maps teams, the images from Google Street View makes it easy to orient yourself, discover a place virtually, and navigate freely in almost any city in the world.

The new feature is relatively easy to navigate; users can zoom in on a location using VR gear, and can pull up a lens to take a look directly into the 360 sphere. You’ll not be able to do anything abnormal, like walk around the photos.

Still, this update gets you closer to the action, 11 | Techfastly | January 2021

gives you a superpower of teleportation so you can travel all around the world in a few seconds.

through a computer screen looking at static maps.

You’re freaking Superman!

Fly through the Eiffel Tour Ten years after its creation, or over major cities and Street View has just been landmarks. Or, maybe integrated with Google you want to teleport to Earth VR. Thus, users can destinations around now walk the streets of the globe in an instant! the whole world in virtual Experience familiar places reality, in the first-hand in a whole new way, and view, on a human scale, just explore new places in an like in real life. exceptional and unusual way never before possible.

For many people, a dream came true. Many internet As users fly around the users enjoy spending hours world in Google Earth wandering around the VR, available streets for world using Street View.

“Street View Mode” will be Thanks to this update, it indicated by spheres. As in will now be possible to the web version or mobile do so in an immersive app, users will be able to and natural way. You’re use their controllers to not sitting back, scrolling move forward, backward,

or spin around. This new update also improves the loading speed of the application.

In addition to that, you can zoom down to street level and explore through the Google Street View database. While the smells and the sounds are not included yet, it’s almost convincing enough to believe you are really there in person.

You can also enjoy virtual tourism with hand-picked destinations and special cinematic presentations. This free app is a great way to place virtual learning by letting students travel around the earth and explore our planet. You can check this link to know more about the making of the Google Earth VR application: https://www. researchgate.net/publication/318742503_ The_making_of_Google_earth_VR This significant improvement to Google Earth VR represents a new milestone for VR tourism. The next step will of course be to be able to walk, not in photographed streets, but in real-time filmed streets. Afterward, we can also imagine the possibility of breathing the smells, hearing the sounds, feeling the local wind. Of course, such a technological breakthrough will certainly not come for several decades, but Street View VR is the first step in that direction.

Required Essentials The essentials that one requires to enter into the world of VR are a smart-phone, a PC, or a similar console to run the application, a headset to hold the view for you in front of your eyes, and other inputs to control your movements (VR controllers). This technology aims to make your experience as real as possible.

12 | Techfastly | January 2021

This technology is so developed that it is working smoothly on almost every android set, which is contrary to other similar techno giants like HTC and Samsung.

You can find the answer to different questions about the app, such as What does Google Earth VR cost? Or Can I use Google Earth VR without room tracking?

You can find the answers here.

To conclude, if you’ve got an HTC Vive, Vive Pro, or an Oculus Rift, there’s no reason you shouldn’t download and try Google Earth VR. It’s free and a fantastic experience that you can’t describe in words. You have to try to see whether or not you will enjoy it.

Technology For Business www.techfastly.com

13 | Techfastly | January 2021

Salesforce buys Slack in a $27.4B deal.

T

he #1 CRM platform, Salesforce, agreed to purchase Slack for a $27.4B deal marking it the biggest acquisition in the company’s history.

Marc Bennett, co-founder and CEO, wasn’t shy about his feelings on the deal. “This a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape enterprise software’s future and transform how everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-

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3

Tom Davis

anywhere world. Stewart and his team have built one of the most beloved platforms in enterprise software history, with an incredible ecosystem around it. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes.”

“Salesforce started the cloud revolution, and two decades later, we are still into all the possibilities it offers to transform the way we work. The opportunity

we see together is massive,” said Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. “As software plays a more and more critical role in the performance of every organization, we share a vision of reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational agility.

Personally, I think this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can’t wait

to get going.”

Salesforce, which started as a cloud-based software company for sales reps, is transforming into a software company forced to be reckoned with.

Other recent significant purchases include Tableau, a data visualization company, for $15.9 billion in 2019, and Mulesoft, whose software connects data in different places, for $6.5 billion.

Salesforce will purchase Slack through a combination of cash and stock. The deal includes a purchase price of $26.79 a share and .0776 shares of Salesforce. This comes to around $45.86 a share for the stockholders.

This deal allows Salesforce to compete with Microsoft in the enterprise social arena, with Slack squaring off against Teams. This is something Slack couldn’t accomplish on its own. The two behemoths are battling across other areas as well.

When Salesforce purchased Tableau that was a direct challenge to Microsoft’s Power BI, both companies competed for LinkedIn, which Microsoft eventually won out. Salesforce even 15 | Techfastly | January 2021

tried to compete with Microsoft Office with the acquisition of Quip. That didn’t turn out how they hoped for it.

What does it mean for Slack?

Slack has struggled to keep up with the intense competition in the office chat and productivity platforms. The company has been losing value ever since going public in April 2019 and has failed to turn a profit in the last three

quarters. The company did not have a clear path to profitability and was ripe for the taking.

Slack gets to reignite its slow growth under a company with a global network of the sales staff. The 130,000 paid customers are sure to increase given all the resources now at its disposal.

Rishi Jaluria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, was surprised at Slack being unable to capitalize on the pandemic given folks working remotely. “We have been surprised by the limited success Slack has seen from the pandemic and the rise of remote work. Microsoft Teams has been able to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the pandemic better than Slack, in our view, and this rapid growth in adoption has hurt Slack.”

Slack will now have a tremendous asset on its side to compete against the likes of Teams and others in the messaging space. The question remains whether the sale of it to Salesforce could be a profitable venture. Or does Microsoft and others continue to dominate Slack in the messaging business?

Let’s take a look at how it all began for Slack.

History of Slack Slack was founded by Stewart Butterfield, a serial entrepreneur, in 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It started as an internal tool for the development of Glitch.

Glitch started as a web-based massively multiplayer online game designed with non-violent, collaborative gameplay.

Butterfield got $% million in funding for this project, which ultimately failed.

million in October 2014 in venture capital money with a $1.2 billion valuation led

by Kleiner Perkins and GV. Slack went on to purchase Screenhero, a voice, video, and screen sharing company in January 2015.

When Glitch closed, the company launched the Slack real-time collaboration app and platform, raising $17 million from Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Social Capital.

Over the next few years, Slack managed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from other investors such as Thrive Capital, GGV, and Comcast ventures. This led to the company’s initial public offering in the first half of 2019.

After Slack was launched in August 2014, the company renamed itself Slack Technologies. The name Slack is actually an acronym meaning “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge”.

The company raised $120

16 | Techfastly | January 2021

Not many businesses could grow and raise money by leaps and bounds as they seemed to accomplish. So, how did they do it?

How Slack Scaled Slack made customer feedback on the main focus

when it decided to roll out the application to users.

“We begged and cajoled our friends at other companies to try it out and give us feedback. The pattern was to share Slack with progressively larger groups. We would say, ‘Oh, that great idea isn’t so great after all.’ We amplified the feedback we got at each stage by adding more teams,” Butterfield says.

The folks at Slack realized that their product functioned very differently as team size increased. Armed with this information, they gathered the data from the larger teams and went to work improving the product.

When they were done making the necessary changes began the process all over again, getting

customer feedback. After all of the kinks were worked out they decided to share their product with a much wider audience.

They announced a preview release in August 2013, just a mere seven months after they started. Slack utilized a press blitz to get the word out about their product.

They asked folks to request an invitation to try out their offering and see what they thought.

On the first day of the release, 8,000 people sent a request to try out the application, with that number growing to 15,000 in the first two weeks. Now they were off and running.

Stewart Butterfield attributes most of the success to people spreading word about Slack to their friends and the Internet. He estimates that 20% of how they grew could be traced back to the original release, but the remainder is people posting about that article.

“The other 80% is people posting about that article.

I almost never go to news sites — it’s overwhelming how much content is out there. But I will pay attention to what my friends are picking up and 17 | Techfastly | January 2021

sharing.”

The Future of Salesforce

at content management company Box.

Salesforce hopes to The future of Salesforce transform from a cloud looks bright and promising. computing solution to a Given Slack’s acquisition, primary software platform they can know compete of choice, powering all and keep up with the likes of a company’s modern of Microsoft and others. infrastructure and The purchase of Slack operational needs. provides them another tool to expand their business.

The big question remains whether Salesforce can improve and gain ground on Microsoft Teams the way Slack couldn’t on its own? Can they improve on the just $834 million sales Slack had in the past 12 months?

Salesforce plans to fully integrate Slack into each of its cloud services and use it as the new interface for its Salesforce Customer 360 platform. This will make communication easier for companies to interact with their employees, customers, and external partners.

“This isn’t just about the future of collaboration.

This is a new ‘operating system’ for how knowledge workers will interact in the future, connecting the front office, back office, and customers in a single platform,” says Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO

Based on the other two major acquisitions Salesforce has had in the past couple of years (Mulesoft, Tableau), they should be just fine. Both of those assets continue to grow since SalesForce purchased them.

Given the assets and past success, Salesforce has a bright future and will be a major player in the future of work for years.

In conversation with Kuntal Malia StyleNook is a personalised recommendation fashion service for the Indian woman, started by two women Arti Gupta and Kuntal Malia. The service focuses on getting women clothes they love, and that fit them well without taking lengthy shopping trips and returning dozens of items. The service understands the user’s requirements and, through a blend of AI and a human stylist, suggests clothes and accessories for the user to choose from online. The user decides what to keep and gives feedback on all the items. The company is building a scalable personalised service with an ingenious blend of human stylists and intelligent algorithms. This level of personal attention is something that is only available in a high-end luxury retail format. Our objective is to be the best at personal selections however, since the 18 | Techfastly | January 2021

4

user never sees our products till we show her a limited view, we are taking a huge bet on our recommendations. That’s where the AI comes into place. Users tell us a bit about themselves through an online profile which in turn becomes data that our algorithms crunch through. The AI-enabled platform allows us to onboard stylists in a remote and freelance capacity; this means they don’t need to meet the client since the data support them in their decision making.

We speak with the co-founder of StyleNook, Kuntal Malia

Interviewer: Hello, Kuntal.

Thanks for joining us. Can you tell us something about StyleNook?

Kuntal: Hello. Yes, so StyleNook is a personal online recommendation service for fashion that started around 2017. Our primary goal is to make it easier for users to find clothes they love and that fit well. If you think about all the development that has happened across e-commerce, everything is about making it easier to find things we like. Think about music, and we have Spotify; if you think about movies or TV shows, we have Netflix; yet in the area of fashion, it takes you a while to find products that you like, whether online or offline. So, what StyleNook does is, it is solving the problem of relevance and personalization, and allowing the user to find products that are relevant to their style, budget and body shape.

Interviewer: Was this something that you always wanted to do or just saw a gap in the market and got into fashion.

Kuntal: So I have worked in fashion before. I have worked at this company 19 | Techfastly | January 2021

called ModCloth in the US where I was heading the analytics and the AI of the company, which also gave me an insight into how powerful user behavior high-density signal can actually be used to understand what can be done to increase revenue, as well as, you

20 | Techfastly | January 2021

know, successful inventory management, and overall, just make the experience better. I’d been working on algorithms for a while at Yahoo! and Shutterfly. But at ModCloth, I also realized the beauty of augmented intelligence models where humans and machines operate together. So that’s

exactly the philosophy that has come in at StyleNook where we use the human stylist, the algorithms, the customers, and feedback together to create a rich experience. When I wanted to do something of my own, I did start looking in the market. And I was trying to understand

what is a pain point that, you know, that users go through. And invariably, a lot of founders’ pain points often come from their pain points. And as a woman interested in clothing and is always curious to know what’s out there, I actually found myself not being able to discover new styles and brands easily. And you get constrained in terms of time as you grow older.

So, I felt there had to be an easier way for this to happen. And that’s what led to StyleNook. Interestingly, I mean, there are also models in the west, such as Stitch Fix and Thread, that have done a phenomenal job of using AI to enrich the retail experience.

Interviewer: Yeah. It’s a great marriage of interest versus experience. I mean, your interest in fashion versus your experience in machine learning and AI. And it really fits together in your present business model. Yes. So, you, I assume you also have a cofounder?

Kuntal: I do. I have a cofounder. And her background is in marketing, business development, and sourcing.

21 | Techfastly | January 2021

Interviewer: Okay, and you knew her before, did you?

Kuntal: I did know her before. She and I met while we were at our separate previous companies. I was at ZoomIn, where I was handling the online business for the company.

And she was at Hopscotch, where she was the COO. We both got together on a few collaborations to figure out what would work well for our respective users. And that’s where we developed a working relationship. As it turned out, fast forward a couple of years, and we both were in the same spot at the same time looking to build something of our own.

Interviewer: Great.

Since StyleNook, as you had mentioned, heavily uses AI and ML in both understanding the user preferences and recommendations, I wanted to know about how you leverage AI? Kuntal: So, if you think about it, in today’s world, AI is a phenomenal buzzword, right?

It gets used almost everywhere, sometimes irresponsibly or incorrectly. At StyleNook, though, AI is the foundation and the building block of everything that we’re doing. Our customer comes in and takes a quiz, answers questions on her size, budget, and requirements. This quiz that she fills out is actually nothing but data points on one side; now, on the other side, we have the merchandise from several brands. Now, if

you think about a “top” there are always things such as attributes, right?

For example, the cut?

What is the neck? What is the fabric? Does it have stripes, or what is a sleeve length? What is the sleeve type? These are, again, nothing but data points. Data points from, you know, the customer, the data points from our merchandise, come into our system, and we have a series of algorithms which then run. The first stream of algorithms are just simple heuristics where we use explicit or derived points to filter or rule out certain aspects.

The second one is the recommendation models.

So, we kind of look at similar users with similar style, style learnings and try to understand what should be recommended for this particular user within the merchandise that we have. The last set of the last set of models that run are the fit models, and this is probably the most important piece because what we do at StyleNook is we don’t actually consider the size label of the merchandise, nor do we just consider the size label that the user is also actually entering. We go a step further than that; 22 | Techfastly | January 2021

we take several pieces of information that she gives us about sizes she wears, her dimensions, her height, and weight. And based on that, we run it against our models to determine as best as possible what her dimensions are likely to be. And those dimensions are then mapped into one of these 60 body shapes, along with a certain fit preference based on what she has indicated. And then accordingly, the clothes, the styles, the cuts are mapped to this user. These are just some of the models that exist at StyleNook there are several more, but that would take up the whole interview. So, all this like fantastic work is done before the human stylist even comes in.

Interviewer: Okay, wow.

Kuntal: So, there is a set of pre-curated selection that already exists for a particular client before the stylist comes in. Now the stylist is matched to the user based on styles that they both are comfortable with or if they’re in love with, as well as you know, things like age, location are taken into account.

So, there are models that actually match up the stylist to the user. Now the stylist comes in at that point to look at the curation and then makes the recommendation, for example, 10 pieces that the user should take a look at.

That’s just the start of the process. The next stage of the process is once the user sees the pieces, she gives feedback on what she likes and what she doesn’t like.

And that goes back into the

models.

Interviewer: And how do you measure the effectiveness and accuracy of the stylist’s recommendations?

Kuntal: A stylist is literally a person that is working remotely and in a freelance capacity with us. She picks products and says these are the eight to nine pieces that I would like to go ahead and have this user take a look at. There is no direct interaction, in that sense, between the stylist and the user. However, the stylist always writes a personal note for the user to read, and our platform enables the entire experience to be very personal. So, the user actually then logs and sees 10-15 pieces that have been selected for her. She chooses to buy/ skip, and whenever she’s skipping something, she will indicate why she didn’t like it; in some cases, it could be that she didn’t like the color; in some cases, it could be the length of the dress or the size or some other reasons. So, this allows us to understand how the model and the stylist got it right or wrong, and we just get to know the preferences of the user better 23 | Techfastly | January 2021

Interviewer: This is a goldmine of data, right?

Kuntal: Absolutely. It is a phenomenal goldmine of data. You know it’s interesting for me, as I have actually worked in Yahoo to create models for Yahoo homepage, which is an unbelievable level of scale but that doesn’t compare to what is happening here.

Here we have such rich and dense information coming in that there is a lot that can be done with it.

It’s first-party information that is relevant and actionable, the information we’re capturing. What often happens with a lot of data that you’re getting from other sites, or when you’re looking at data and building other models, it is often derived. You know, one of the things I remember when I used to be at other companies, and I would be looking at certain recommendation models, we would always look at sell-through data,

we would look at browsing data. And we would then make some derivations of what’s happening and what’s not. But what we could never answer successfully is what did she come in looking for at the first place? Like, what is the intent? I know what she looked at; I know what she finally bought. But why did she come in here at the first place? That’s the answer we couldn’t figure out.

Interviewer: Clearly your data is richer. And also, the customer journey is

24 | Techfastly | January 2021

complete.

Kuntal: Yeah. And, you know, what makes it interesting, especially now, as we branch out into different categories, is that we’re able to see that there is a certain style of persona that a user will have at work, and then there is a certain style persona that she’s going to have outside, so it also becomes a little fun for us. It just reveals the complexity of the human being. I may present a certain side at work. But I may also have a certain

other side, which is outside of work.

Interviewer: There may have been challenges when you started out. We can talk about some of the unanticipated challenges that you faced when you started out and you know, going forward.

Kuntal: When we started one of the things that we quickly noticed was that we were getting users easily because the pain point was evident, and the need was so high. So it was easy for us to get users within a very short period because many women don’t like shopping or don’t have time for shopping.

We realized within a very short period that without having a certain base level of the algorithms in place, we would not be able to create a great experience.

The human stylist actually cannot do this in a virtual manner, where she’s not seeing the person, where she’s not able to spend time with the person, or have a lot of interaction with the person. We had to go back to the drawing board and make sure we were building all the algorithms and putting everything in place before we started acquiring more users.

Interviewer: Could you tell me about your user acquisition strategies. How did you branch out in terms of marketing and sales?

Kuntal: Sure. So, when we started, we were looking at the urban working woman.

A lot of our acquisition happened through word of mouth, community engagements, corporate engagements. That’s how we have actually acquired users into the service. It’s a pretty powerful way to get the users since trust exists already in some form. As we hit COVID, it suddenly meant that our working woman’s target group was now working from home. And that’s where we started looking for new opportunities. For example, is there an opportunity to introduce other categories such as loungewear?

Sleepwear? Comfort wear?

And is there any benefit for us in doing so? So, we did introduce those categories and saw that there was great appreciation from our existing users. It also gave us the ability to go after a larger audience beyond the urban working woman.

Interviewer: Okay, and the roadmap is only for women. You won’t be introducing human stylists 25 | Techfastly | January 2021

for men?

Kuntal: I think in a couple of years, we will be introducing two new segments. One is kids, and the other is men.

Interviewer: How did you, operationally, deal with the initial months of the lockdown?

Kuntal: I think the first initial months were obviously a little tough, right? Because operationally, we were just shut down. In Bombay, we were not allowed access to our warehouse. That was, I think, probably the first impact. The second impact, I think, was for us to start figuring out what we will be able to do. And we needed to determine our growth strategies in the changing

world.

So, I think the good thing was that with the lockdown and the operation shut down for two months, we had the opportunity to start thinking about the areas we should focus on. What areas will keep coming in terms of demand since we’re not going to a workplace or outside that much anymore. And that led us to introduce comfort work from home collections. We started doing loungewear and pyjamas. And I think we were pretty much forced in the market to do so.

Interviewer: That’s quite empowering to hear: converting a challenge into an opportunity. I would love to know what your long-term vision is?

Kuntal: I think our vision is twofold. I think this is something that, you know, we have not addressed in the conversation but let me talk about it. You know, fashion has actually always been very driven in a top-down manner. And there is an opportunity to kind of add a very strong user element into it, by understanding, you know, what is it that users are truly looking for? There is this labelling that women are very picky and fussy; it sometimes applies to men too. But if you look at things in another way, clothing is being made in a very standardized manner because we follow mass production principles. But we are not mass, and we are all very different. Even at StyleNook, we classify our users into one of 60 body shapes, and that we consider it a fundamental base level. So, now you can imagine how much there is in terms of complexity and variation when it comes to what will work for an individual. And I think this variation has to come into different collections into different brands. And so, our vision is: can we use this data to work with brands and truly introduce relevance into fashion collections 26 | Techfastly | January 2021

can the right product be produced at the right time?

And if you think about it, if there is relevance that is introduced in fashion, it also leads to less waste.

Fashion is considered one of the most polluting industries on the planet, but if we’re truly producing something that people need, that shouldn’t be the case.

Interviewer: I agree with that. It’s not being picky.

It’s about the lack of choices or the presence of limited choices.

Kuntal: Exactly. And if you do tell anybody that I don’t have enough options, it will sound crazy because

just look at the amount of supply that is around you. But the problem is it’s not relevant. You end up visiting a store or an eCommerce site, and you don’t find anything in what seems to be a sea of unlimited choices that are irrelevant. I think that’s the vision that we actually have to introduce relevance to fashion and make shopping fun again!

Interviewer: You must have a lot of returning customers?

Kuntal: Yeah, so the returning customer is a big chunk of our customer base. It’s one of the fundamental pillars of

our business. In fact, we sometimes like to think of ourselves as almost like an anti-online business, you know, where our focus is, obviously, on acquiring users, but the larger amount of work goes on returning customers. We focus deeply on returning customers as we acquire new ones because they are with us throughout the journey.

Interviewer: Thanks a lot for talking to us. It was a pleasure. I wish you all the best and hope to speak with you again.

Kuntal: Thank you.

27 | Techfastly | January 2021

5 How to Write an Effective Cover Letter Zoya Lakhani

A

cover letter is an your resume. essential part of the job application Match the Cover Letter process. All jobs to the Job require the applicant to submit a cover letter.

One of the best strategies to opt for when writing a A cover letter is submitted cover letter is to find out to the potential employer to whom to address the to get to know you better letter. Find the name of the and see if you are the right person who will be reading candidate for the job. So, your letter, and starting the cover letter starts with with their name will show your introduction. Who that you pay attention to are you? Then mention detail. In most cases, the the job you are applying advertisement for the job for and work your way mentions whom to send the to mentioning your resume and letter to. If you experience, expertise, and don’t know, then calling the skills. The letter should be organization and asking for persuasive and should grab the person’s name can go the reader’s attention and a long way. Never use their intrigue him/her to read

28 | Techfastly | January 2021

first name; instead, use Mr. or Ms. and their last name.

Looking through the job description and what you will be responsible for will help you relate it to your previous work experience.

By relating it with your experience, the employer can know how you work and what you have done in the past. Getting in contact with an employee working in the same department or a similar job in the organization and asking them questions to better understand the position can help you match your cover letter to the job. The questions that you can ask are:

skills or experience you need to qualify for the job.

Look through them and respond to all the essential 2. Who will I be directly skills mentioned in the job reporting to?

The job you are applying for description with your skills.

It would be best if you 3. What skills or expertise mentioned what job you Stating what kind of skill in a person are you are applying for and the you have is not enough. looking for, for this job? position.

Starting the Add how you gained that skill, where, 4. What sort of tasks and how you and responsibilities learned it to give was the previous more context. e m p l o y e e For example, responsible for? if you gained a particular skill Get to know the through an company you are online course, applying to. Browse mention who their website and their led the course social media pages to get or when you a sense of the company completed the culture and values. course.

1. Does the role involve working as part of a team?

What Should I in the Cover

Include Letter?

Name and Contact Details Your name and contact details are the first things the employer will look at.

These details should be at the top of your letter. The email address should give a professional impression.

Email addresses like helloexyzname348@xmail. com are not professional and leave a bad impression.

Your email address should contain your first and last name, and it should be 29 | Techfastly | January 2021

simple. Add your phone number to the contact details, mentioning the area code.

opening paragraph with, for example, ‘I am writing to apply for the position of XYZ at ABC company.’ This will set the tone for the reader from the very start.

Mention your skills Now comes the main part.

Start listing your skills and experiences. You can either make bullet points or write a short paragraph. Most job vacancies you find now through advertisements or LinkedIn mention the job description and the

Why are you the right person for the job?

This section is the most challenging part and where many people face difficulties. Now that you have listed all your skills and experiences, you should explain why you are the right person for this job.

For example, if you worked in a team at your previous job, mention it: ‘My ability to work in a team setting in solving problems in my previous role makes me ideally suited for this job.’

Incorporate the values of the organization in your letter As you would have browsed through the company’s website and social media pages, you would have analyzed what sort of values the organization has. Use them in the letter. If they treat their employees like family, use it. This will show that you have done your research and will look like a promising candidate.

Ask Them to Contact You End your cover letter by asking the employer to read your resume and ask them to contact you. Writing: ‘I have attached a copy of my resume.

I look forward to hearing from you.’, will give the letter a proper ending.

Some pointers for the cover letter • Avoid spelling and grammatical mistakes • Avoid using ‘I’ too much in the letter • Re-word the details in your resume rather than typing out your entire resume • Never mention any other jobs (if any) you have applied for • Keep the letter under one page • Use proper formatting, readable font style (Times New Roman), and size (12 pts) 30 | Techfastly | January 2021

The Pros and Cons of Self Driving Cars Venkatesh

B

efore getting to know the pros and cons of self-driving cars, let’s understand the autopilot technology that makes a car into a self-driving car.

Self-driving cars are powered by autopilot

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6

technology that involves sensors, radars, cameras, onboard computer with software to control the sensors, radars, and cameras along with a navigation system to navigate to the required destination. These cars

need no intervention from human drivers to operate and drive the vehicle safely.

Though the autopilot technology is successful, there are no vehicles that are operating on complete autopilot mode. The

autopilot cars are partially autonomous as they are still in their nascent state.

At present, no cars are fully autonomous. There are different levels of autonomous autopilot cars.

They are graded as follows: Level 0: Humans control all major systems in the car.

Level 1: Some systems, such as acceleration or automatic brakes, are controlled by the car.

Only one function is automatically controlled at a time.

Level 2: In this category, 32 | Techfastly | January 2021

the car can control two functions concurrently, like acceleration and steering.

But it requires human intervention to control other functions for a safe drive.

Level 3: These cars handle all critical functions, but human intervention is necessary when the vehicle raises an alert.

Level 4: The car is fully automatic in most scenarios, but it still needs human intervention.

Level 5: The car is fully automatic in all situations.

Currently, only up to level 3 autopilot cars are available in the market. Level 4 cars will be available in the market in the coming years. It may take several years for level 5 cars to be available in the market due to the legality involved in operating them.

How do autopilot cars work?

Having understood the autopilot technology and the automation levels, let’s take a look into autopilot cars’ functioning.

Autopilot technology

creates and maintains an internal map of their surroundings using all the sensors attached externally

being tested if they can communicate with other vehicles, infrastructure, and next-generation traffic lights.

Features of Semi Autopilot and Full Autopilot

to the car, the radar, laser beams, high-powered cameras, and sonar. Inputs from these components are processed by the software to plot a path.

This information from the software is sent to the car’s actuators that control acceleration, braking, and steering.

The software helps to avoid obstacles, identify vehicles, follow traffic rules, and navigate obstacles.

Self-driving cars are 33 | Techfastly | January 2021

Autopilots are of two types based on the levels mentioned in the introduction.

From level 0 to level 4, the autopilots have limited automation that needs human intervention, while level 5 is fully selfdriven autopilot.

Features of Semi Autopilot • Traffic-Aware Cruise Control: This controls the speed of the car based on the traffic on the road • Autosteer: Helps in driving the car in the marked lane and uses traffic-aware cruise control

Features of Full SelfDriving Capability • Navigate on Autopilot (Beta): Guides your car from a highway’s on-ramp to off-ramp, suggests lane changes, navigates interchanges, automatically engages the turn signal, and takes the correct exit.

• Auto Lane Change: Helps to move to the next lane on the highway when Autosteer is engaged.

• Autopark: Assists to park your car parallelly or perpendicularly with a single touch.

• Summon: Helps to move your car in and out of a tight space using the mobile app or key.

• Smart Summon: Helps to navigate your car in more complex environments and parking spaces, steering around objects as required to move your car towards you.

• Traffic and Stop Sign Control (Beta): Helps to detect the stop signs and traffic lights.to slow down your car and eventually to stop it automatically • Upcoming: Autosteer on city streets.

Advantages of Autopilot Cars 1. The autopilot cars will reduce the number of accidents as they use sensors and software that prove to be foolproof.

2. It will help the elderly and differentlyabled people to become mobile independently.

Disadvantages of Autopilot Cars 1. Cybersecurity is still a chief concern.

There are possibilities that the software used may be hacked, and the car would be taken under the hackers’ control.

2. As more and more autopilot cars are introduced into the market, the number of drivers employed will lose their jobs.

3. Public transportation will be negatively impacted as more and more people will start using self-driven cars.

4. It will increase pollution. As it is easier to drive, the users will tend to drive more each year.

Conclusion To conclude, though there are a few advantages to autopilot cars, like an increase in safety features that reduce accidents and eases driving, it has a significant threat of being hacked and taken under hackers’ control apart from other disadvantages that can be negated with technology. As always, when technology grows, it creates unemployment in one sector and creates employment in another sector. In this case, if it affects the drivers and public transportation, it will create employment opportunities for others involved directly 34 | Techfastly | January 2021

and indirectly in the manufacturing of autopilot cars. Another major constraint to be overcome is the legal clearance for 100% autopilot cars to ply on the roads as we cannot take the risk in automation, unlike any other industries. Yes, even some warplanes and drones are fully automated. They help during natural disasters, spying, and monitoring to maintain security and vigilance. But in the case of autopilot cars, we cannot take the risk of making it 100% automatic as the scenarios on roads are quite different from those in the sky.

Difference Between Aggregators And Platforms

I

n the world of online business, aggregators and platforms are two terms that are often heard together. They are popular approaches mostly used by companies that need to connect service providers and consumers.

They tend to share similarities to some extent, but they are naturally different, considering their impact on the user.

What Are Aggregators?

We can define aggregators as programs or websites that collect related content to display or link to it. Ben Thomson, a veteran tech analyst, claims aggregators collect a significant number of users and leverage access to them to benefit from suppliers.

Aggregators are entities

35 | Techfastly | January 2021

7

Geoffrey M.

that intermediate the transactions between the users and third party suppliers. They bring together demand and commoditize the suppliers hence controlling the transactions by establishing a direct relationship with them.

When they intermediate, there’s always a fee that can be paid by either party, but in many cases, the supplier is charged.

What Are Platforms?

These are the foundations where various ecosystems are developed. In today’s world, you may have a website, portal store, or seller and buyers on your website, but they are not all platforms unless they satisfy one rule. For anything to be termed as a platform, the economic

value of everyone who uses it must exceed the value of the company that developed it.

So there is a basic structure that needs to be achieved by anything claiming to be a platform. A platform typically helps the entities transacting through it to gain value compared to when they don’t use it.

This means the economic value of the transactions facilitated between the users and third-party suppliers should surpass that particular platform’s accumulated value.

Platforms enable suppliers to build their business and directly charge their customers. They don’t interfere with the platform when interacting, so the platform acts as the facilitator. Microsoft

why regulators need to foster the development of new platforms while ensuring they aren’t misused.

Windows and Apple’s app store are examples of platforms with tremendous control over the third parties. For instance, when you’re excluded from the apple app store, your services to iPhone users are terminated. This shows that Apple has a lot of rentextraction opportunities from its software vendors, like forcing them to only use their payment processor. Platforms tend to ‘self-deal’ through prioritizing their services.

Another good example is how Microsoft allows for real-time office doc coauthoring if only using 36 | Techfastly | January 2021

their proprietary cloud services.

The Key Differences Between Platforms And Aggregators Platforms are foundations of many great innovations and create possibilities for products that formerly never existed. As technology advances, there should be larger platforms, not necessarily fewer ones.

Despite having such an embraced importance, platforms are sometimes used for undesirable purposes, and that’s

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the best platforms in the digital world today.

It provides cloud services to many companies, and developers can create digital assets when deploying their codes on Amazon’s servers.

They gain the money made by the developers because they take care of all hosting functionalities and storage. Companies such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram hosted by AWS, create a greater value than the value of the AWS itself.

These companies make a lot of money, and then they pay AWS for storage, hosting services, and all the computing charges needed to run their apps and websites.

On the other hand, aggregators can also be termed as network models that organize related unorganized service

providers under one brand name in a large platform, e.g. Uber, redBus, ola, etc.

Google and Facebook are aggregators that help users locate third parties.

They are also known to be capricious and can downrank or exclude anyone. If excluded, you can only connect to the users through the prevailing rival aggregators. They may offer top placements that are premium charged, but some may use rivals to evade top placements charges. Aggregators can benefit from third parties by using ‘tying,’ for example, when travel agents are forced to pay for inclusions in Google travel products.

Although these two have many common aspects, they have differences in their operations. Here are some of the key differences between platforms and aggregators. · Brand name Generally, platforms are brands, but they have multiple suppliers selling their commodities under their brand name. For example, Amazon, as a platform, has many sellers selling their products with 37 | Techfastly | January 2021

their name. On the side of Aggregators, every product or service is under one specific brand name.

· Price Platforms have many vendors, each with a varying price for a particular product. The user is the one who decides and chooses the seller to buy from after comparing various products. In aggregators, the price is standardized since every product or service is under one brand name.

The providers near the customers take the order.

· Quality Aggregators have one common brand name and believe in producing a standard quality that satisfies the user. But platforms deal with various vendors with varying quality of products from seller to seller.

Despite the differences between aggregators and platforms, they all play a role in connecting the buyers and sellers.

How Are They Regulated?

Understanding the variations between platforms and aggregators is important in the regulation of these two

approaches. The regulators need a more flexible way of knowing when to step in if aggregators and platforms are treated as different entities. Regulators’ action is triggered by abuses between platforms and aggregators such as selfdealing, rent-seeking, vertical closure, and tying. Regulation needs to be done effectively with the right laws to eliminate undesirable and anticompetitive behaviors that don’t give rise to the value and innovation we need.

Some of the policy recommendations include: • Forcing platforms to be more transparent towards businesses and share relevant data • Businesses should be given tools for collective redress against platforms.

• Development of ethical algorithms and set up watchdog agencies.

• Competition tools should be updated to account for data.

Enforce platform neutrality and enhance possibilities for interoperability

38 | Techfastly | January 2021

Rules are created as guidelines to ensure the integrity and functioning of the two approaches and increase their potential. The rules should be created for competition policies, platform-tobusiness relations, and algorithmic decision making.

Although the line between platforms and aggregators tend to blur, the two approaches are significant in the current business landscape. All have one primary goal of satisfying the users and service providers. The platforms enable suppliers to set up their businesses and increase the exposure while aggregators usually streamline information and drive traffic when maximizing the platforms’ efficiency.

T

еsla may bе a nеwbiе in thе auto industry, but it quickly bеcamе a big shot on Wall Strееt. Thе еlеctric car manufacturеr’s stock continuеd to risе by morе than 4% on Tuеsday, and its total markеt valuе outstripеd $500 billion for thе first timе. Tеsla’s markеt valuе rosе to morе than $520 billion on Tuеsday aftеrnoon.Tеsla’s history and growth.

Tеsla Motors was foundеd in 2003 by Amеrican еntrеprеnеurs Martin еbеrhard - Tеsla’s Chiеf еxеcutivе Officеr (CеO) and Marc Tarpеnning - Chiеf Financial Officеr (CFO) and namеd aftеr thе Sеrbian Amеrican invеntor Nikola

39 | Techfastly | January 2021

8

Tesla hits a $500 billion market cap Taha Sherif

Tеsla . It was principally еstablishеd to dеvеlop еlеctric sports cars. Thе company’s funding comеs from multiplе sourcеs, thе most famous bеing PayPal co-foundеr еlon Musk, who has donatеd morе than $30 million to thе nеw company sincе 2004 and sеrvеd as thе company’s chairman.

Tеsla Motors rеlеasеd its first car in 2008 namеd Roadstеr, a purе еlеctric sports car. Whеn tеsting thе car, a singlе chargе

can rеach 245 milеs (394 kilomеtеrs), which is an unprеcеdеntеd milеagе for mass-producеd еlеctric vеhiclеs. Othеr tеsts havе shown that its pеrformancе is comparablе to many gasolinе-powеrеd sports cars: Roadstеr can accеlеratе from 0 mph to 60 milеs (96 kilomеtеrs) in lеss than 4 sеconds, and can rеach a top spееd of 125 milеs (200 kilomеtеrs) pеr hour.

At thе еnd of 2007, Ebеr Hard rеsignеd as chiеf еxеcutivе officеr and prеsidеnt of tеchnology and joinеd thе company’s advisory board. In 2008, hе announcеd his dеparturе from thе company, although hе was still a sharеholdеr.

Tarpеnning, who sеrvеd as thе vicе prеsidеnt of еlеctrical еnginееring and ovеrsaw thе dеvеlopmеnt of Roadstеr’s еlеctronic and softwarе systеms, also lеft thе company in 2008. Musk takеs ovеr as CеO. In 2010, Tеsla’s initial public offеring raisеd approximatеly $226 million.

In 2012, Tеsla stoppеd producing thе Roadstеr to focus on its nеw Modеl S sеdan, whosе pеrformancе and dеsign won praisе from car critics. It is еquippеd with thrее diffеrеnt battеry options and has an еstimatеd cruising rangе of 235 or 300 milеs (379 or 483 kilomеtеrs).

Thе battеry option with thе highеst pеrformancе can accеlеratе from 0 to 60 milеs (96 kilomеtеrs) pеr hour in a littlе ovеr 4 sеconds, and has a top spееd of 130 milеs pеr hour (209 kilomеtеrs).

Unlikе a convеrtiblе sports car whеrе thе battеry is 40 | Techfastly | January 2021

installеd in thе front of thе car, thе Modеl S has a floor undеr thе floor. Bеcausе of its low cеntеr of gravity, it providеs additional storagе spacе in front and improvеs handling. Thе Tеsla Autopilot is a form of sеmi-autonomous driving that was launchеd on thе

rеcеnt vеrsions of thеsе stations arе callеd “Tеsla stations” with thе ability to complеtеly rеplacе thе Modеl S battеry pack.

Modеl S (and latеr othеr modеls) in 2014.

charactеristics of a sports vеhiclе but built on a car chassis). ModеlX has a maximum cruising rangе of 295 milеs (475 kilomеtеrs) and a maximum of sеvеn sеats.

Duе to thе dеmand for chеapеr cars, thе Modеl 3 is a four-door sеdan with a rangе of 220 milеs (354 kilomеtеrs) and a pricе of

At thе bеginning of 2012, Tеsla еstablishеd gas stations callеd Supеrchargеrs in thе Unitеd Statеs and еuropе, dеsignеd to quickly chargе battеriеs without any additional cost to Tеsla ownеrs. Thе morе

Tеsla rеlеasеd Modеl X in 2015, which is a “crossovеr” vеhiclе (a vеhiclе with thе

$35,000. Production bеgan in 2017.

Thе company is also involvеd in solar products.

In 2015, a sеriеs of battеriеs for storing solar powеr usеd by homеs and businеssеs wеrе launchеd.

Tеsla acquirеd SolarCity, a solar panеl company, in 2016. In 2017, thе company changеd its namе to Tеsla, Inc. to rеflеct that it no longеr only sеlls cars.

Tеsla’s markеt valuе еxcееds $500 billion for thе first timе Tеsla’s stock “еxplodеd” today. Thе pricе pеr sharе rosе 9.7% to closе at $524.86. This is a big lеap from thе low of $178.97 on Junе 3, 2019, but sincе thеn еlon Musk’s еlеctric car

company has bееn stеadily rеbounding. Why doеs 41 | Techfastly | January 2021

this happеn, and why is thе stock pricе today morе than $500 pеr sharе? Thеsе arе thе words of еxpеrts.

For startеrs, “blasting” is just a way to show that thе stock pricе has risеn in a short pеriod of timе. It is usually usеd to indicatе thе rapid risе in thе stock pricе of an IPO, but it can also bе usеd for any typе of stock.

Last Friday, just bеforе thе еnd of thе transaction, Tеsla’s pricе hovеrеd around $476, and today it has risеn by morе than $50.

This is a major and rapid gain.

Thеrе arе sеvеral rеasons why thе risе has bееn so fast: Optimistic pricе targеt: Oppеnhеimеr analyst Colin Rusch raisеd Tеsla’s targеt pricе from $385 to

$612. This is an incrеasе of almost 60%. To provе

this, Rusch wrotе a notе to invеstors, stating that Tеsla’s “risk tolеrancе, ability to lеarn from past mistakеs/еrrors, and grеatеr ambitions than its pееrs bеgan to bе quickеr to thosе unablе or unwilling Transport companiеs that innovatе locally posе an еxistеntial thrеat.”

Smart Growth: In January last yеar, Tеsla announcеd that it would build a $2 billion factory in Shanghai to producе a morе affordablе Modеl 3 and providе Chinеsе pеoplе with thе opportunity to buy Amеrican cars without imposing high tariffs on thеsе Amеrican manufacturing countriеs.

Musk announcеd that thе facility will bе complеtеd bеforе thе summеr and said that thе plan will producе 150,000 cars pеr yеar, which makеs Musk satisfiеd. Thе company dеlivеrеd 112,000 vеhiclеs worldwidе in 2019.

Sizе mattеrs: Sеvеral hеadlinеs statеd that thе soaring sharе pricе has brought Tеsla’s markеt valuе to $93 billion, making it morе than Ford and Gеnеral Motors. Both traditional companiеs arе trying to compеtе with

Tеsla by manufacturing thеir own еlеctric cars.

Today, thе valuе of Tеsla (TSLA) еxcееds thе total markеt valuе of most major automakеrs in thе world: Toyota (TM), Volkswagеn (VLKAF), Gеnеral Motors (GM), Ford (F), Fiat Chryslеr (FCAU) and PSA Group (PUGOY). Thе milеstonе is a gratifying yеar for Tеsla’s stock pеrformancе.

Sincе thе bеginning of this yеar, thе company’s stock pricе has risеn 550%-Tuеsday, 24th of Novеmbеr midday trading at $549, up from $86 in January 2020.

Tеsla will join thе S&P 500 indеx bеforе trading on Monday, Dеcеmbеr 21. This movе has pushеd up thе stock pricе еarliеr this month bеcausе fund managеrs with funds that track thе S&P 500 will nееd to buy thеir sharеs as a portfolio.

Morgan Stanlеy also ratеd Tеsla’s stock as “buy” last wееk, which is thе first timе in many yеars sincе thе company ratеd thе stock as “buy.”

According to thе Bloombеrg Billionairе Indеx, thе indеx tracks thе wеalth of thе world’s 500 richеst pеoplе. By 2020, Musk’s nеt assеts havе incrеasеd by morе than $100 billion, thе largеst incrеasе in thе indеx. In January, Musk rankеd 35th on thе list. Hе is now in thе sеcond placе, just bеhind Amazon CеO Jеff Bеzos.

42 | Techfastly | January 2021

Brave Browser Might Dethrone Chrome Soon Ashwin Kumar R

C

hrome has been my go-to for almost a decade now. I’m the kind of person who finds it stupid to cover the webcam (unless I have a sticky note full of credentials on my fridge), so I guess its quite clear already that I’m not high on privacy concerns but what bothered me the most was how much information Google was extracting from me.

It is indeed good to have stuff show up when you

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have wanted to check it out for quite some time, but sometimes Google goes overboard, and that’s where things get a little creepy. It gets bizarre to the point where Google starts showing you embarrassing ads.

The AdBlock extension wasn’t doing a great job at stopping these ads either.

Even before I could think about switching browsers, an article showed up on my Google feed, “Why Microsoft Edge is better

9

than Chrome?” (Oh, how nice of you Google) The embarrassing ads and this article made me want to give Edge a shot; I still hadn’t uninstalled Chrome, though. I installed Edge and imported all my settings from Chrome, and I was all set to go. I was pretty happy with how my extensions still worked and how it respected my privacy. I used it for two days and realized that Edge wasn’t as fast as Chrome, and there were minor flaws and aesthetic decisions

that I was nitpicking on.

I went back to Chrome to put up with its snooping in return for a good overall experience. The ad problem persisted, and as usual, Chrome was devouring the memory of my base model 2017 Macbook Pro. I usually code and have multiple tabs open on Chrome (Yes, stack overflow. No! I do not copy-paste!) with a few other apps I need in the background. So, the machine was running hot, and I still did not want to look over Chrome. As usual, Google snooped on my cryptocurrency investment activities and showed me related articles on my Google feed. Even though I have come across the BAT token, I never paid much attention to it.

One fine day, Google suggested another article to me, “Brave browser can replace Chrome on all your devices soon” (Gee! Thanks Google.) At this point, I started thinking Google devs themselves want people to divert to a safer place, but that’s a stretch. I was reluctant to try it out at first since it was not from a reputed company like Microsoft or Google. I read a few articles and reviews 44 | Techfastly | January 2021

on the Brave browser, and let me be brutally honest; I fell for the “get paid for viewing ads” model. I’m the same person that hated

the Chrome web store and can also use Google’s themes. I researched this new browser and came across some shocking

Google’s embarrassing ads, but Brave was doing it a little differently, in a good way.

information about how ads do more damage than I had initially anticipated.

We don’t usually consider the possibility of paying a substantial amount to ISPs for downloading ads that we don’t wish to see. The average mobile browser user pays as much as $23 a month in data charges to download ads and trackers — that’s $276 a year. Brave blocks ads and trackers, so

Even though Brave is built over Chromium, the connection ends there.

Brave is privacy-focused, and it does its job really well while having the perks of Google like the extensions. Brave can use all the extensions from

you don’t pay for them.

Here’s some data to back up this claim: Brave’s ads aren’t invasive like Google’s, they ask for permission to show ads, and these ads are neither popups nor full-page ads; they’re mere notifications for which you get paid. It’s totally up to you to opt-in for the “Brave Rewards” program, and if you don’t, there are absolutely no ads at all; you don’t need an additional extension for blocking ads.

The ad concept was interesting, and I liked how it worked. The browser tallies the attention you spend on each website and shows you ads based on it. The neat trick here is that all the browsing information stays on your device’s local storage. You get to keep 70%, and 30% of the ad revenue goes to Brave. There is also an option to tip Brave verified websites and content creators you love.

Freecodecamp.org is a website that provides content for free and does not show ads at all. As much as I always wanted to donate to them I haven’t started earning much 45 | Techfastly | January 2021

money yet, and I found Brave’s tipping feature great as I could get paid for viewing ads and tip them with what I earned here. Brave is very privacyoriented in that it uses Tor in incognito mode (sweet). “Shields” is a warm welcome to Brave as it has pretty cool tricks up its sleeve. It blocks all ads & trackers, fingerprinting, scripts, and upgrades HTTP connections to HTTPS (safety first). There are times when certain sites have frozen for no good reason, and they were mostly because of the trackers, ads, and scripts as it takes time to load them along with the web content.

Another major advantage to consider is that Brave is faster than all the other major browsers out there.

As I’m writing this article, I still have my IDE running

and 12+ tabs open on Brave; the machine is neither heating up nor is laggy. As Brave claims, it is almost 8x faster than Chrome, and I don’t think I can disagree. Provided Google’s exposed privacy breach recently, Brave could cash in on this and rise to the top.

As of now, Chrome accounts for 63% of the web browser market share.

Brave is nowhere to be seen as it is relatively new. With Brave’s revenue model, websites might soon look this way since it’s a win-win for both users and content creators. I have completely moved over to Brave browser on all my devices, and I am happy with the change even though I’m pretty late to the party. It wasn’t an easy decision to switch, as I have been

using Chrome for years, and like almost everyone else, did not want to lose the convenience of the tied in Google services and user-friendliness. All this faded away when I sat in the Brave browser’s front seat, and so far, the experience has been great. I can’t wait for Brave to become braver. Be brave and give Brave a shot if you haven’t already.

It would be great if you could download Brave from the affiliate link provided above as it would support my work while helping you be part of a safer Internet. To

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have a seamless switch, go to settings and import the bookmarks and settings from your previous browser.

I was not paid by Brave to write this article. This is neither Chrome hate nor Edge degradation. I found Brave to work well for me and it is a much better and safer browser than all the major players out there. It is up to you to decide if you want to be Human or a product.

Tik Tok’s Great Rise and Fall Geoffrey M. Over recent years, TikTok has been one of the most hyped apps that exploded onto the social media scene with a meteoric rise within a very short period. In July 2020, TikTok recorded over 800 million users and has since seen a drastic increase in popularity.

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Tik Tok wasn’t always known as it is currently. It began as a musical app named musical.ly and enabled its users to lip-synch multiple songs in 15 seconds to 1-minute intervals. The musical.ly app wasn’t that popular but still managed to gain 90 million active users by June 2016. Later on, it was acquired by the ByteDance Company for

$1 billion, and they merged most downloaded apps. it with their app (TikTok).

From that point, musical. ly was no more, and all its users transitioned over to TikTok. Most of the features and aspects of musical. ly remained and were integrated into the new app, TikTok.

What Made The Sudden Rise Happen?

TikTok has experienced substantial growth from having a community of dancing stars to hilarious original content and memes, which kept expanding.

Since its launch, TikTok has had more than 2 billion downloads, and in 2018, it was reported among the 48 | Techfastly | January 2021

This is a unique app has an ML-driven default feed. It is the solution for the “cold start problem”-automatically showing users what they are interested in and “winner takes it all issues”preventing early adopters from creating the largest follower bases and having

the outsize effect on the new users. But what’s exactly behind its tremendous success?

The massive popularity growth of TikTok is because it allows individuals of all ages and occupations to use the app to connect with others in their daily lives.

TikTok usually provides a vicarious approach to interact with the outside world, especially family, friends, loved ones, etc., through funny and engaging content that has even played a significant role in bridging the distancing gaps that emerged with the

pandemic.

Tiktok is a convenient mobile native app that allows the creation of lean and bite-sized content, which we can say are elements that have recently propelled the app’s success.

Musical.ly was entirely musicbased, but TikTok taps into a broader spectrum of creativity n i c h e s , including fashion, comedy, food, and This move influences many people to create dance.

TikTok accounts and objectively helps the platform become the best influencer Since there are more gadgets on the planet marketing app. Big brands such as Calvin than people and videos have become one Klein, Sony, Guess, and FIFA have already of the favorite consumer’s content types, jumped into influencer marketing on the TikTok provides a platform that gives us a platform, reaching millions of potential glimpse of the future of social media, and its customers. And, during the lockdown, with ever-growing worldwide adoption makes almost every individual having free time it a perfect playground for influencer on their hands and getting to TikTok, more marketing. brands tend to follow suit.

With the surge of TikTok downloads globally, celebrities and high profile individuals got interested in the app. As it’s known, any growing platform’s success is often connected to the adoption by a widely known celebrity. Tiktok has also convinced many influencers and even celebrities with substantial social media following to partner with them and get the app to create their own content.

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The Sudden Fall of Tik Tok While this platform, TikTok, took the world by storm, controversies emerged concerning its security and privacy when the app began to gain a lot of traction.

More security concerns developed as the

number of users continued to grow.

elections are also believed to be the cause due to the emerging heavy election This prompted the US government to influence by social media for the first time launch a national security probe into in India. the ByteDance Company. The CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in What Tik Tok’s future holds the United States), which probes possible security risks within deals by foreign The future of TikTok will remain a mystery acquirers at the national level, began the due to the multiple upcoming rivals such as investigations into the deal of ByteDance Clash Video, Triller, Byte, and Instagram’s and musical.ly. new reels feature that are all here to stay.

It will be quite interesting seeing all these After the CFIUS review, users started platforms develop and compete for the taking a closer look at the app. Later on, in great success that TikTok has experienced April this year, a user on Reddit reverse- over time. Will there be an increase of engineered the TikTok platform and influencers? Will we see new methods established that there’re several security of advertisements by Brands on these threats such as intrusive tracking. platforms?

These investigations and communist China conspiracy building caught the US president’s attention, Donald Trump, who signed an executive order to ban the app from the US. But if an American company acquired the app, it could be spared.

It’s incredible how the competition might bring in innovation, which in turn benefits the brands’ marketing and strategy efforts.

Although these might be the final days of Tik Tok, it will always remain the platform that the entire world lives to remember. The impact and tension created by TikTok is an Tik Tok was fined $5.7 million in February exception and has never been experienced by the FTC for personal data collection with any other app such that it prompts us violations from kids under 13. This to be concerned about the power within occurred inside the musical.ly platform, these social apps. But only time will tell. and after payment of the fine, they added online safety videos and filters for comments into the app.

Also, TikTok is known to have a youthful audience that has brought unwanted attention from sexual predators. This app captured many users from semi-urban and rural India, which is a population of almost a billion users using the internet for entertainment mostly. The app has been so influential in India that the Mandras high court decided to ban it, citing pornographic content as the main reason. The upcoming 50 | Techfastly | January 2021

WhatsApp’s New Shopping Button for Business Accounts Anjali Prabhanjanan

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W

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hat does the new shopping button mean?

WhatsApp is releasing a new shopping button that will help customers to discover a catalog of the business accounts easily. It will also let users see the products or services offered by a particular company or business. According to WhatsApp, over 175 million people message a WhatsApp Business account every day. Moreover, around 4 million people view the catalog of a business profile

each month, which accounts for over 3 million in India.

There are more than 400 million WhatsApp users in India, and they recently rolled out the Payments feature powered by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).[1]

their products or services discovered. Eventually, this can help them to increase their sales and reach their targets. It is worth noting that users can see a shopping button on those business account profiles who have set up a catalog.

What does it mean for the business account owners?

The features of the new shopping button

As per WhatsApp, this new button will make it easier for business accounts to have

With this new WhatsApp feature, users can now see a shopping button that

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looks like a storefront icon placed next to the business account’s profile. This marks a change from its earlier setting, where a user had to tap into a business account’s profile to see the catalog. Now, tapping on the shopping button will open up the catalog, and users can browse through the items offered by the business account profiles who have uploaded their catalog.

Users will be able to see a

store shop symbol right next to the business account name. Tap on this symbol, and the catalog will open, displaying the products offered by the businesses. You can now browse the catalog and see pictures of each product. If you like a product and wish to buy it, tap on the Message Business button shown below its picture to raise a query about that specific item.

Though this shopping button does not bring any new functionality to the table, it makes discovering product catalogs easier. Having a storefront icon, replaces the call button within the conversations. However, users are still able to place a voice or video call in the application.

How can business owners use it?

As per WhatsApp, business owners across the world can now use this new shopping button as it will replace the voice call button on the business accounts profile. To find the voice call button, you can tap on the call button to select either a voice or video call on your business account. The shopping button is available on both Android and iPhone, and it is currently available to those who use the WhatsApp Business app and have set up a catalog.

Is Facebook threatening to enter the e-commerce space?

To increase its e-commerce presence, Facebook has now introduced a new shopping button on the Business Version of WhatsApp. The new feature allows users to browse through a business catalog and message them directly. As this button gives the users direct access to the catalog of businesses on this platform, it is easier for 53 | Techfastly | January 2021

them to explore their products and services while chatting.

The integration of the shopping button on WhatsApp is the next big step by Facebook as it is entering the e-commerce space.

Watch the video below that shows how WhatsApp is ultimately hoping to be a onestop destination for online shopping- where a user can check the product, message the seller, and eventually buy a product and make payment for the same. All in all, the users will get all order details on WhatsApp itself without ever have to leave the platform.

However, this functionality is still some time away. WhatsApp has launched its Payments service in India, though it will be limited to 20 million users. This service is based on UPI and will allow for direct bank transfer payments from the platform itself.

A new avenue for sellers?

With nearly 50 million people viewing a business’ catalog every month globally, it’s no surprise that more consumer businesses are adopting WhatsApp to engage with their customers.[2] The best reason businesses use this app is that most customers are probably already using it, and they love this platform to engage with them. As per the Facebook Messaging Survey, about 67% of mobile messaging app users said they expect to use chat more than communicating with businesses over the next two years.

Additionally, nearly 53% of respondents say they are more likely to shop online with a business they can message directly. [3] With the introduction of new features on WhatsApp, Facebook is aggressively boosting its e-commerce presence across the world.

So, it is becoming a new avenue for sellers to sell their products directly from the platform

and allow purchases by the users. Moreover, the company will also provide hosting services to small businesses through Facebook’s partners in the country.

Takeaway The new shopping button gives users direct access to a specific business’ catalog. While interacting with a WhatsApp Business account, users will see this button on their chat screens of the specific business account on the platform. Tapping this button will take you to the business’ catalog through which you can see the goods and services to purchase from that particular business.

The launch of this shopping button will eventually help businesses enhance the discovery of their goods and services to boost their sales. Though it is not clear as to when this new feature will be released for users, teasers shared by the WhatsApp official account indicate that we may not have to wait for too long.

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Ways AI Can Be Used in Marketing Anjali Prabhanjanan

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M

arketing with AI (Artificial Intelligence) may sound fancy; the term is thrown around in marketing tool ad copy by the marketing gurus and hyped by the media.

Though the hype around what AI might do in the next few years is overstated, the reality of how it is used today in marketing is often underrecognized.

• Google uses deep learning to rank search results.

• Amazon uses natural language processing for Alexa.

• Facebook uses facial recognition to suggest who to tag in photos.

• The Washington Post uses natural language generation to write data-driven articles.

• Netflix uses machine learning to personalize recommendations for its users.

So, our lives are already machine-assisted, and similarly, marketing can be, too.

5 Platforms that can be leveraged for Marketing using AI Your marketing team is losing the competitive edge as long as you postpone using innovative AIpowered marketing tools.

The Artificially Intelligent systems continuously work on the background of popular products and services such as Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

In recent years, AI has entered into marketing by 56 | Techfastly | January 2021

helping brands to improve and enhance every step of their customer’s journey.

Also, tools that were previously available to enterprise-level companies have now become affordable and accessible to medium and small-sized businesses.

Here are five ways in which AI can be used for your marketing campaigns: 1. Chatbots Messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Facebook Messenger have made it easier for customers to reach out to companies and businesses for inquiries, buying, or complaining.

These apps are free and easy to use. However, the sad reality about using

these apps for businesses, especially the big brands, is that it can be tough to reply every time a customer sends a message. Moreover, it could

get tedious when you have to respond to thousands of messages within your work hours, and most of them are asking you the same question!

A chatbot is an AI program that can simulate a conversation with a user in natural language. This helps businesses keep up with their customers and answer their queries. Now, big brands can set predetermined answers to the frequently asked questions of their customers.

And also, chatbots can help your customers to find and buy a product they like. All this will significantly reduce the time required for human intervention and response, thus, save both your time and money.

2. Content Generation We all know how the manual generation of content is a tedious process. Now,

imagine having a website that can generate its own content.

You don’t have to hire writers or editors as you’ll have a self-sustaining site that can earn for you.

AI machine learning algorithms can make life easier for you as a marketer, and this is called content generation. Unfortunately, it can’t create long and eloquently written articles by industry leaders, CEOs, bloggers, and other talented writers who offer in-depth knowledge about any given topic.

A content generation or writing can only cough up simple financial reports, stock updates, sports news, etc. However, if you need help in generating personalized content for your website, use content intelligence. It provides creators with data-driven feedbacks and insights for effective content that will yield better results.

3. Programmatic Ad Targeting It involves automating all or parts of the ad-buying process by using softwaredriven technology. The traditional way of buying/ selling ads is a long and tedious process that begins 57 | Techfastly | January 2021

with talking to a salesperson, setting up the terms of a contract, and finally executing it. However, AI in digital marketing changes the conventional way to a simple automated process.

The AI uses the data from the cookies of websites and mobile applications used or visited by users to target specific customers that match the advertiser’s or businesses’ criteria.

In the case of a match, the ad-buying system will automatically bid on the impression and show the user’s winning content.

Facebook ads allow marketers and advertisers to use data analytics in digital marketing to create custom profiles to target and retarget their ads. Note that this is the data you share on the social media platforms when you click on to agree on the end-user license agreement (EULA).

4. Dynamic Pricing It involves using a personalized pricing strategy, in which its demand and/or supply determines the price of a product or service. For instance, the prices of ride-

sharing apps increase as the demand rises.

A website or application bot can monitor your customer’s predictive analytics using their searches, history, cookies, and other activities to provide them with real-time pricing. However, this could mean they get higher prices or fewer discounts for the services or products they need at the moment. Though it sounds unfair, there are always two sides to a story.

Your customers can benefit from the dynamic pricing when the demand for a product or service is down. For example, when hotel rooms go unsold, dynamic pricing can offer competitive pricing to attract customers and help reduce vacancy chances.

5. Speech Recognition At present, we have AI’s with speech recognition capabilities that can recognize spoken words and convert them into text for executing the command. Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant are some of the most popular chatbots that use speech recognition technology. Moreover, speech recognition is used in apps such as Google Maps, Shazam, and other hands-free systems.

But how can marketers take advantage of speech recognition for their campaigns? It is estimated that around 55% of households will have a smart speaker by 2022, compared to 13% in 2018. Further, sales from voice shopping are expected to reach USD 40 billion in 2022, from USD 2 billion in 2018.

Based on this data, marketers should not miss out on using speech recognition in their marketing campaigns.

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Final Words Considering all the above benefits of AI Marketing, does it mean that AI will soon take over marketers and content creators’ jobs?

Although machine learning is making a huge improvement in its algorithm, you can rest assured for the next few years, as AI’s are still far from perfect.

Nonetheless, AI in marketing is a powerful tool that enables companies to engage with every individual customer in a personalized and meaningful way. It is time to start applying AI products and marketing analytics techniques to deliver personalized experiences to your users. This will help marketers to achieve better results, possibly boosting their business’s ROI (Return-OnInvestment).

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