Loading ...Opportunity:
Senior Citizens need a variety of services. They have special needs and also control over their time. They can go for morning shows of movies or fill up happy hour slots at restaurants. They are large consumers of pharmaceuticals. They often need assistance and healthcare.
AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) is a pretty successful affinity group in USA. Anyone over 50 can join. Drawing from concepts around the world there seems to be a large opportunity to make lives of senior citizens in India easier.
What the Entrepreneur needs to do?
1. Prepare a business plan to be the #1 services destination for senior citizens in India . (Note a combination on online/offline/mobile may be needed). Business plan should have a 10 slide ( max) pitch and not more than a three page executive summary
2. Membership should exceed 1 million in 3-5 yrs. Revenue should exceed rupees 200 million in 3-5 years or in other words the ARPS ( Average Revenue Per Senior) should be rupees 200 per year or more.
3. Using own or friends and family money the entrepreneur should be able to get a beta site up and running with close to 5000 satisfied members. Service could be free to these members
How the Bhargava family can help entrepreneurs?
1. Mr. Harish Bhargava who is a very active senior citizen in Pune can help them with member acquisition
2. Sanjay & Sunil can become advisors/investors to the entrepreneur if required and can help in scaling the business including accessing angel/VC money. They cannot make the entrepreneur succeed but they can act as mentors and increase odds of success.
Next Steps
1. Send your plans by email to hbhargava@vsnl.com. We will keep plans confidential but will not sign non disclosure agreements etc. If you are not comfortable with this do not submit plans
2. If the three of us feel the plan warrants further discussion we will contact you
Criteria
1. The entrepreneur must have passion and integrity and the ability to execute the plan. The team that the entrepreneur can put together is very important.
Hi Sanjay,
I would imagine that the Net penetration among senior citizens in India currently to be quite low. While a Beta site with 5K members is not very difficult to put up ( we can always find 5K net savvy senior citizens in India ) , the online part of the model would be incredibly difficult to scale up.
Thanks
I think there is a great opportunity both in the senior citizen market as well as the junior citizen market - read the baby/creche market. With more and more working couples, more and more babies might need a creche. Actually the best idea would be to put up both of them together. My parents would love to take care of kids during their free time with my dad having turned 60 and me or my brother quite a long way away (2-3 years atleast) from having a kid. Retail creche chain maybe? and use the internet to support it.
Can the Seniors be engaged in rural education, and education of educators in rural areas? Similarly, can they be engaged to advice small-businesses run by uneducated people? Seniors could help them understand value of things like customer relationship / service more explicitely, ways to use technology innovatively, ways to generate funds (also given that microfinance is rapidly getting institutionalized), ways to manage assets, finance and logistics more efficiently, etc etc, and thereby enhance their businesses.
I think both these areas have extremely large void right now. At the same time, I think people on the frontline of such an effort would need to have tremendous poise and patience.
A few seniors in Pune got together and listed 19 areas of needs of which 7 were high , 11 were medium and one was low. Within a category there was no ranking.
They may get a much larger survey done which ranks these and measures diversity in views as well. Here is the list.
High
1. Residential Apartment Complexes designed for Seniors
2. Healthcare
3. Home Security
4. Handling of Financial Matters
5. Trust for Management of Investment & Property for Incapacitated Seniors
6. Reverse Mortgages
7. Insurance
Medium
8. Home Care ( caregivers for sick seniors)
9. Care Homes
10. Home Maintenance Services
11. Domestic Services
12. Meals
13. Outdoor Services
14. Care Taking during Long Absence
15. Transportation - Vehicles & Drivers
16. Travel
17. Work Opportunities
18. Personal Companionship
Low
19. Legal Aid