3 Boxes to Manage...

Vijay Govindarajan's HBR interview mentions three boxes that a CEO needs to take care of. I just loved this idea, and this picture says it all:

Try it !

ITE - Laundry Services at Tourist Locations

This one may be micro-enterprise.

Doing your laundry is a basic requirement wen you travel for more than few days. Laundry charges are very high at most hotels, sometimes more than the cost of the garment itself. You have a choice to buy new pair of garment but then carrying them is a constraint. In fact if convenient and reasonable laundry services are available, most travelers would travel far lighter than they do now.

Idea is to put a small washing machine at a convenient place, where people can go and do their own laundry for a per load cost. A dryer would be an additional help as would be an ironing board. The total cost of equipment can be around 20-25 K and the minimum can be 10 K. The constraints that you need to figure out is that of space and water availability. 

My hunch is that people would be willing to pay something like Rs 100-150 per load of washing, but this of course needs to be validated. Idea is small and can be easily tested a couple of locations. Long term travelers would love this. 

Analysis & Growth

Roger Martin in an HBR article says that 'You can not analyze your way to growth'. Basically he is trying to say that you can not predict growth based on the past data. More often than not past data will predict incremental growth only.

For defining exponential growth, you need to have a sense of the customer and an appreciation for what he needs. He gives examples from the FMCG space where exponential growth was achieved by launching new products that made life easier for the user.

I think analysis is a bit over-rated. While data can give you insights, it can give you only what is available between its blinkers. For new insights you have to depend on your instincts and interactions with your customers. There may not be any data to back up your new insights and that is why the element of risk is associated when you go on to address these insights.

ITE - Bill Management for Households

There are 10-15 monthly bill items that an average middle class household has to pay. Most of these bills land up at different points in time and have different due dates raging from a 1-3 weeks time after the bill is delivered.

Can someone develop an application where I can put all my monthly bills in one basket and pay at one go. There are a couple of ways this can be done:

1. Service provider can have a pre-paid option where I put an approximate amount for my total monthly bills. I upload information about all my bills at the beginning with an option to add / modify / delete. The application pays my bills as they come and uploads the receipts in my account. I do not have to bother about individual bill payment. I may choose an option to get every bill in my e-mail box to validate it or may be authorize it to be paid. 
2. The application should work out 1 or 2 dates which are most appropriate for me to sit and clear my bills for the month. 
3. Application can also work with my bill payees to send all my bills between my chosen dates and then collate them for me to pay.

A detailed study of this need, needs to be done. I think there will be a market for this service as people often forget to pay some bills unintentionally. With the traveling and mobile populations, paying the bills becomes even more tough, specially some bills like electricity bill that can not be paid electronically. It would need tie with regular bill sending agencies.

My laundry list of monthly bills to be paid is:

1. Mobile Bill for each family member
2. Electricity Bill
3. Water Bill
4. Gas Bill - for piped gas users
5. All Credit cards
6. DTH / Cable service
7. Maintenance of the building
8. Rent ( in case you live in rented accommodation)
9. School fees 
10. Membership fees for clubs 

Other optionals that can be explored are:

1. Newspaper bill
2. Milk Bill
3. Maid 
4. Driver
5. Dhobi

While the optionals may look difficult at the moment, I think that is where the real opportunity lies, specially with UID coming in and this can be the way to pay your support staff through a bank and force them to have an account.

If anyone wants to work on this, please get in touch with me.

Launching Ideas to Explore

During my numerous readings, during my everyday experiences, during my interactions with all kinds of people, often some thoughts and Ideas cross my mind. Some of them have the potential to be explored as potential businesses. For a long time, I kept the ideas in my mind thinking that may be someday I would work on them, but I realize that ideas also have a shelf life and if you do not experiment and work on them they either become obsolete or are done by someone somewhere.

So, from now on I want to post my ideas here, whenever I come across one, and they are openly available to anyone who wants to work on them. If you want to discuss them with me, I will be more than happy to take them to next level with you.

Tell me what do yo think about this. The first idea will soon follow.