Pooja Venkatraman

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Making Memories with the American Girl Company
Pooja Venkatraman
Last modified on December 9, 2015 at 11:05 pm
The American Girl company is in the business of magic, memories, and new best friends.

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On December 14, 2015, Pooja Venkatraman commented on Slacking Off to Get More Done :

Super interesting!

Do you think Slack is a serious competitor to Outlook? Will it be adopted by larger and more established corporations, or will it only be used by newer technology companies? My company tried to adopt it, but we struggled because we couldn’t get IT to allow us to use Dropbox. We still had to use Outlook to send documents, and Slack was basically a no go after that. (Employees over 30 also couldn’t figure it out, which didn’t help.)

On December 14, 2015, Pooja Venkatraman commented on Blue Bottle Coffee: Managing Expectations for Rapid Growth One Cup at a Time :

Great post, Rafiq! I’ve never been to Blue Bottle or tried their coffee but this makes me really want to try them out.

It seems like the experience they’re selling in cafes is very specialized. It seems like customers would have to be pretty knowledgeable to appreciate their nuanced coffee products. And the no wifi/no computers rule really surprises me. A lot of people use cafes as a workspace, and that totally turns the typical model on its head.

It also seems like they have to make pretty significant investments for each location they open, with the local roasteries and the extensive employee training.

Do these factors put a ceiling on their growth potential? Will they always be a niche product?

On December 14, 2015, Pooja Venkatraman commented on Yesterday’s News: Can Jeff Bezos Save The Washington Post? :

Great post, Rachel!

As newspapers struggle to remain profitable and potentially begin to go out of business, who will step in to provide investigative journalism and serve as a watchdog against vested interests? The only players in media who seem to be able to generate profits are TV stations and new media sites like Buzzfeed. Are either of these well-positioned to take on a watchdog role?

As all media organizations become increasingly desperate to attract viewers and clicks, my fear is that they will shy away from difficult and complicated but important issues for fear that traffic will decrease. Is there any way to combat this trend?