I'm Arjun. This is my digital garden.

Happy entrepreneursary to me! Ilipsis Digital was founded one year ago today. A train of thought that had been frustrating me for many previous years was the lack of qualitative, noise-free insights that were being afforded to early stage companies. I started Ilipsis with just one broad purpose - Help them solve real, tangible problems. In the last one year, I've got a wonderful opportunity of working closely with founders and their teams to do just that, and I am very grateful for it. This day last year also happens when I applied for the PGPpro program at Indian School of Business . I got in and what a ride it has been! I'm thankful to my wonderful peers who have always encouraged me in my endeavours. I've tried to not err on this side, but I think I'm going to give myself a day off today. Because I can :) [Originally posted on LinkedIn]

[ Originally posted on LinkedIn ] But is it? Is McDonald’s in the real estate business instead of fast food? I don’t think so. What McDonald’s does (as beautifully explained in this post, and in the film “The Founder” before it) is tweak its leverage. Fancy financial jargon but it’s not very uncommon in servicing companies known to have reasonably high volatility and paper thin margins. Airlines do that all the time. Ask southwest or indigo. Now, are they in the business of buying and leasing planes? Again, I don’t think so. Companies are in the business of serving their customers. I don’t remember the last time I went to McDonald’s and ordered a happy meal of 25 square feet of property. I said “I want chicken nuggets and yes, I’ll have fries with that”, and that was it. McDonald’s is a burger flipping company that hires smart accountants to make it look like a real estate company. If there’s no Big Mac, Ronald’s real estate is going to be very lonely.