Hunting for business ideas? Look for
problems
If you are in the process of
brainstorming for entrepreneurial ventures, consider the following start-ups
that zeroed in on a problem and offered a feasible and scalable solution
Keen to start a business but can’t decide on a viable idea? One way out of this quandary may be to start looking at problems around you. Numerous start-ups have blossomed not because they boasted a revolutionary business idea, but because they managed to find an efficient solution to a problem that others had either ignored or were unable to solve.
Where’s the problem?
In one word, everywhere. Problems can be big or niche, personal, professional, or both. According to Gautam Gandhi, head of new business development for Google India and a serial entrepreneur, an open mind and communication are the easiest ways to locate a problem. “Ask people about the issues they face and see how many are affected by it,” he adds.
How to do it?
Here are some start-ups that grew by solving problems.
The Maid’s Company
This venture, set up by Gurgaonbased Gauri Singh in 2010, turned out to be a boon for households
looking for reliable help, and for domestic workers, who found a stable source of income. This was a corollary to another idea by Singh—Urban Mahila & Mazdoor Alliance, an organisation set up by Singh in August 2008, which extended financial and healthcare services to urban, poor women. Over time, Singh noticed that almost 30% of the members were domestic helps. “We researched this unorganised market and found that there was no standardisation of skills and wages,” says Singh. Her solution, The Maid’s Company, generated 3.5 lakh in the first year of operations and provides 250 maids as of now.
Easy Fix Solutions
When 25-year-old Shaifali Agarwal couldn’t promptly find reliable handymen—electricians, carpenters, plumbers—to fix the problems in her new apartment in Delhi in 2009, she spotted a glaring need for a venture promising a one-stop solution for home/office repairs. Two years later, in 2011, she set up Easy Fix Solutions, which posted a turnover of 80-90 lakh in its first year. Today, Agarwal has a team of nearly 300 people catering to the National Capital Region (NCR).
DeliveryOnCall
Founder Ankur Mehrotra has eased the way in which families shop for groceries and other monthly supplies with this 1.5 crore Delhi-based company. “The idea came to me when I was working in the corporate sector since I could hardly spend time with my family. The only day we had to ourselves, Sunday, went into stocking up. This is true of every nuclear family and I wanted to work towards saving precious time,” he says. He hit bull’s-eye with Deliveryoncall.com, an online and on-call facility for getting everything from grocery to pet accessories, even laundry service, at your doorstep.
Farm2kitchen.com
Seema Dholi launched this Gurgaonbased company in 2011 after the birth of her baby. “When I was pregnant with my first child, I was very particular about the food I ate. There was not even a single organic food supplier and hardly anyone knew what organic meant. That was the trigger for me,” she says. Today, the company has its presence in 262 cities across the country.
Look abroad for ideas
If you aren’t good at problem-solving, you could consider another fertile ground for entrepreneurial ideas: abroad. Gurgaon-based GS Bhalla did. During his foreign trips, he came across the concept of frozen yogurt, and decided to launch it in India four years ago. The result? Cocoberry, which has its branches across the country, has been making a 300% profit year-on-year since 2008. Similarly, Amit Kohli and Akhilesh Bali came across the idea of online food delivery, especially from smaller restaurants in the neighbourhood. “It works very well in several western countries. However, the restaurant industry in India is more fragmented and non-standardised. Hence, the need to adapt the business model to serve the small restaurants in India was crucial,” says Kohli. So they took a franchise for FoodPanda.com, which allows you to order food from a restaurant near you, in Mumbai and the NCR. The portal’s USP is that it brings restaurants and consumers together on a common platform.
How important is scale?
There is no getting around the fact that a stagnating business is doomed. “The would-be entrepreneurs need to develop a ‘life plan’ before they formulate a plan. If they are not clear about what they want from life, they risk starting a business that won’t be good for them in the long run," says Gandhi.
So how do you ensure you don’t get stuck in a rut after a few years? The answer lies in tweaking your product repertoire, as Farm2Kitchen did earlier this year. The company initially delivered fresh fruits and vegetables around Gurgaon, but now provides only organic food and pulses, and has begun to deliver all over India. In a similar vein, Agarwal has recently added packaging and moving around NCR to Easy Fix Solutions’ list of services.
Keen to start a business but can’t decide on a viable idea? One way out of this quandary may be to start looking at problems around you. Numerous start-ups have blossomed not because they boasted a revolutionary business idea, but because they managed to find an efficient solution to a problem that others had either ignored or were unable to solve.
Where’s the problem?
In one word, everywhere. Problems can be big or niche, personal, professional, or both. According to Gautam Gandhi, head of new business development for Google India and a serial entrepreneur, an open mind and communication are the easiest ways to locate a problem. “Ask people about the issues they face and see how many are affected by it,” he adds.
How to do it?
Here are some start-ups that grew by solving problems.
The Maid’s Company
This venture, set up by Gurgaonbased Gauri Singh in 2010, turned out to be a boon for households
looking for reliable help, and for domestic workers, who found a stable source of income. This was a corollary to another idea by Singh—Urban Mahila & Mazdoor Alliance, an organisation set up by Singh in August 2008, which extended financial and healthcare services to urban, poor women. Over time, Singh noticed that almost 30% of the members were domestic helps. “We researched this unorganised market and found that there was no standardisation of skills and wages,” says Singh. Her solution, The Maid’s Company, generated 3.5 lakh in the first year of operations and provides 250 maids as of now.
Easy Fix Solutions
When 25-year-old Shaifali Agarwal couldn’t promptly find reliable handymen—electricians, carpenters, plumbers—to fix the problems in her new apartment in Delhi in 2009, she spotted a glaring need for a venture promising a one-stop solution for home/office repairs. Two years later, in 2011, she set up Easy Fix Solutions, which posted a turnover of 80-90 lakh in its first year. Today, Agarwal has a team of nearly 300 people catering to the National Capital Region (NCR).
DeliveryOnCall
Founder Ankur Mehrotra has eased the way in which families shop for groceries and other monthly supplies with this 1.5 crore Delhi-based company. “The idea came to me when I was working in the corporate sector since I could hardly spend time with my family. The only day we had to ourselves, Sunday, went into stocking up. This is true of every nuclear family and I wanted to work towards saving precious time,” he says. He hit bull’s-eye with Deliveryoncall.com, an online and on-call facility for getting everything from grocery to pet accessories, even laundry service, at your doorstep.
Farm2kitchen.com
Seema Dholi launched this Gurgaonbased company in 2011 after the birth of her baby. “When I was pregnant with my first child, I was very particular about the food I ate. There was not even a single organic food supplier and hardly anyone knew what organic meant. That was the trigger for me,” she says. Today, the company has its presence in 262 cities across the country.
Look abroad for ideas
If you aren’t good at problem-solving, you could consider another fertile ground for entrepreneurial ideas: abroad. Gurgaon-based GS Bhalla did. During his foreign trips, he came across the concept of frozen yogurt, and decided to launch it in India four years ago. The result? Cocoberry, which has its branches across the country, has been making a 300% profit year-on-year since 2008. Similarly, Amit Kohli and Akhilesh Bali came across the idea of online food delivery, especially from smaller restaurants in the neighbourhood. “It works very well in several western countries. However, the restaurant industry in India is more fragmented and non-standardised. Hence, the need to adapt the business model to serve the small restaurants in India was crucial,” says Kohli. So they took a franchise for FoodPanda.com, which allows you to order food from a restaurant near you, in Mumbai and the NCR. The portal’s USP is that it brings restaurants and consumers together on a common platform.
How important is scale?
There is no getting around the fact that a stagnating business is doomed. “The would-be entrepreneurs need to develop a ‘life plan’ before they formulate a plan. If they are not clear about what they want from life, they risk starting a business that won’t be good for them in the long run," says Gandhi.
So how do you ensure you don’t get stuck in a rut after a few years? The answer lies in tweaking your product repertoire, as Farm2Kitchen did earlier this year. The company initially delivered fresh fruits and vegetables around Gurgaon, but now provides only organic food and pulses, and has begun to deliver all over India. In a similar vein, Agarwal has recently added packaging and moving around NCR to Easy Fix Solutions’ list of services.
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Milan Sharma TOI121105
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1 comment:
Once you’ve got a viable business model, and things are working, it’s time to scale it. Find new markets, amp up customer acquisition, and maybe begin rolling out additional products or services.
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