Sam Blumenthal

Earlier this year, Wei, known as Viya, used Taobao to sell a commercial rocket for 40 million yuan, or $5.6 million. The hashtag #WeiYaSellsARocket went viral on the Chinese social platform Weibo after the incredible feat.

Livestreaming as a medium is a conflation of a product as well as as a distribution channel. It exists on a spectrum of being pure entertainment on one-side and a new go-to-market strategies on the other, with different kinds of monetisation models for each side. While western startups have centred around the 'livestreaming as product' theme,... See more

Successful businesses end up gaining market traction with paying customers, and then get on the radar of dashboards that measure visits, sales, upsell and cross-sell, Nour said via email.  That’s when the rollup or aggregator companies, which have assembled deep domain expertise in merchandising, branding, packaging, scale, supply chain and... See more