The next level of Entrepreneurship

At many of the start-up get-togethers, I keep hearing of other "entrepreneurs" talking about their ventures along the lines "We are making the xyz of India" where xyz is a popular/successful venture in the US/Europe, and their business model is to simply imitate the business locally.

The hottest among many "entrepreneurs" is e-commerce. Even for a person watching TV once in a bluemoon, I'm amazed at the new online retailing ads. Yebhi.com, yepme.com, jabong.com, the list is endless. The speed with which these dot coms are mushroming is scarily reminding me of the late 90s when there was a similar dot com hype followed by a bust. I am not sure if the founders an investors have applied their minds in finding out how they can be really profitable selling stuff at discounts without passing on investor money to customers as discounts. True, not having to spend on retail space will help to an extent, but the moment it becomes hugely popular, one needs to invest in large warehouses - the cost of operations will go high.

In my opinion imitating a business model tried elsewhere is just at the lower level of Entrepreneurship. What we need is the next level where we solve real problems, by using solutions invented here. I think every aspiring entrepreneur should read this article by Mukund Mohan, where he hits the nails by saying:

My humble request to Indian entrepreneurs is ‘Please dont build any more “I’m bored” apps’.
I am not trivializing the need for “fun” apps.
All I am requesting is that the highest IQ folks should be working on the highest impact problem areas to aid most humankind.

We need to look beyond the metropolitan cities and find ways to solve real issues that affect India.

Emtech India Conference 2010

I was a speaker at Emtech India Conference 2010, speaking about "Cash boxes for Rural India" as part of the Social Innovations session. The panel discussion was chaired by Prof Anil K Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad. 

Unfortunately I had to miss out on most of the discussions, needing to be back in Chennai very soon. Of the discussions that I could be part of, the talk by Dr Raskar (of MIT Labs) was very interesting, with the technologies that he demonstrated looking like straight out of a sci-fi movie. 

There was also a young asst. professor from IIT-B - Shashikanth Suryanarayanan fro Dept of Mechanical Engineering, giving a talk about decoupling decision making and actuation. He has a case study about an advanced 'power steering' also capable of independently steering the front wheels (like / \ or \ /). This talk was interesting from two angles - the innovative technology part, and more importantly, the feel good factor about having bright young talents as profs at IITs.

The other technology innovator I was impressed with was Kranthi Kiran Vistakula (founder of Dhama Apparel Innovations), who has made a light weight (600 g) 'air conditioned jacket' which uses hydrogen bonding (I couldnt understand how), powered by small batteries. The nearest competitor product weighs a few kilograms.

It was good to meet these innovators first hand. Suddenly it dawned on me that technology innovation in India is not merely about software alone and that these are capable of having a greater impact on Indian life than its software growth.

The talk given by me at Emtech (on 8th March) as well as launch of India's largest solar powered ATM roll-out by my company Vortex has been covered in DNA on its 14th March Bangalore edition.

Company Idea - Premium Servicing for Laptops

This post is the result of extreme frustration with the laptop service offered by most brands in India. The key aspect that all these 'great' companies fail to understand is that laptop owners have bought laptops because they need their data/software to move with them while they are on the move, so it is pointless to take away the laptop from them for a few days even for a minor repair.

Based on the above premise, I am putting forth a new company idea - a premium laptop service company, which will have tie ups with all major brands in India. Anyone requiring any level of repair for their laptops can come to this company, provide their laptop fault list and other details, and (here comes the most important bit) take with them a fully working laptop with similar configuration and the same data/software as their faulty laptops. When their faulty laptops are returned after repair, the data newly acquired while working on the spare laptop will be synced back to their own laptops. Of course, all this comes at a premium in addition to the warranty cost. Other services offered will be laptop pickup/return at specified address.


So much for the wishlist part. Now on to the operational part. To start with a customer base of 500 premium registered customers, this company would need at least 50 laptops. This 50 would need to have a decent split up with about 10 top end laptops, 30 medium level laptops, and 10 low end/netbook variety laptops. Capex would be about 40 Lakh rupees for the laptops alone. Additional capex would be incurred in office space, website, marketing etc. Opex would involve salaries payable to about 10 courier execs (for picking up/delivering laptops) and 5 technicians (who would do minor repairs and software/data transfers/backups). The same courier execs would in turn approach the branded laptop company's (2nd party) customer support in case of serious problems.


What are your thoughts on the available market for such a company, and its sustainability/growth? The target segment is senior company execs who wouldn't mind paying extra for laptop service as long as they remain connected to their data/software at all times.