Seems like there is growing interest in mobile information services for farmers. TCS has mKrishi, Intuit had another application to get mandi prices etc, and IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd has a mobile information business with Airtel… Looks like a great application area given the number of farmers out there. The notion also extends to other large occupational communities like dairy farming and so on.
Archive for the 'Ideas & Companies' Category
Mobile services for agriculture
Published by on August 25, 2010
in Ideas & Companies.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading ...How to Build a Great Company Facebook Page? (Wall Street Journal)
Published by on June 17, 2010
in Ecosystem and Ideas & Companies.
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5) Loading ...“Does your company have a Facebook page?”
In order to be truly successful in building a live and engaging community on the web, you need to have both a positioning strategy and an execution plan in place. To formulate a strategy for your online community, you need to answer a few critical questions before you begin.
Why should I create a community?
A community can serve multiple purposes and can be very powerful provided you have a clear objective. Some of the objectives for you to consider include:
- Brand building and promotion. Coke’s community on Facebook has more than 5.7 million members
- Customer feedback. Starbucks’ community has more than 7.5 million members and the community decides the flavor of the brand’s next coffee.
- Lead generation and online sales. Gunpowder restaurant in New Delhi does much of its table booking through its Facebook fan page
- Online reputation management. Dell’s Facebook page for small and medium-sized businesses is a great tool for the company to continuously strengthen its reputation as a brand that is committed to customer service.
Read complete article at Wall Street Journal.
Interesting business around creating content and answering questions regarding agriculture. I guess the kind of content people will find relevant and will pay for - check out aAQUA.org
Why Google will succeed where Microsoft failed
Back in 1997, Microsoft announced the acquisition of a company called WebTV. WebTV’s product was a set top box with a 100Mhz processor, 2MB RAM and 2MB ROM. Using a built in dial-up modem, subscribers could browse the web, watch TV as they browsed the web and record programs on the hard disk. Despite, Microsoft’s massive marketing push, the device never gained much popularity. Google is attempting an internet connected set-top box of its own. In the recent Google IO meet, Google announced the Google TV in partnership with Intel, Sony and Logitech. Google will provide the OS (Android), Intel will supply the chips, Sony will build the box and Logitech will build the remote. Here’s why they may succeed where Microsoft failed.
In some ways, the WebTV was ahead of its times. Without Broadband speeds, online videos and IPTV weren’t really possible and email was the predominant application. The TV is a very family device and users didn’t want to check emails on the TV. YouTube, IPTV services, gaming and internet based movie rental/purchase are gaining popularity and are already driving the need to bring the internet connection to the TV.
Another problem with the WebTV was that conventional CRT TVs had extremely low resolution. Web content, which was primarily text based at the time, couldn’t be rendered nicely on a CRT TV. With the rising penetration of the LCD TV, reading text on an LCD is much more acceptable.
Google’s Android App store means that the Google TV would replace a lot of different boxes in your crowded living room. Using inexpensive Apps, ranging in price from free to a few dollars, you could use Google TV to stream/rent audio and movies from the Internet, display content stored on your Wifi connected Hard Disk and even replace your gaming consoles. Live feeds from Facebook and Twitter could be the ticker on the bottom of your TV screen. Beyond the multimedia applications, hardware developed to connect with Google TV could let you use the TV to monitor and control your home automation and surveillance systems or even an automatic vacuum cleaner.
Why would Google’s apps succeed where others have failed before? The answer lies in Google’s open source approach. The Google TV is not just one box built by Sony. Google’s open source approach means hundreds of companies could launch set top boxes of varying configurations. Potentially, the Satellite TV set top boxes and LCD TVs could start to use Android for their OS, allowing users to run Android Apps on their TVs. The open Android App environment means content in the form of multimedia and games could be developed and distributed by virtually anyone for a very large market. The open framework could spawn a market for other consumer electronics devices which use the set top box and TV as accessories to reuse processing and display hardware thus reducing costs.
What Google is launching goes beyond a single set top box to an entire eco-system and it could change the TV experience in much the same way as the Iphone changed the cellphone business.
Dotcom has Enabled ‘Choice Entrepreneurship’ in India (From WSJ)
Published by on May 26, 2010
in Ecosystem and Ideas & Companies.
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5) Loading ...
It was September 2000 and I was waiting for my U.S. work permit to join one of the big five consulting firms. Obviously, I was excited and had already started dreaming the American Dream.
Interrupting the day dream was a call from one of my Indian Institute of Technology batch-mates – “We are opening a new company tomorrow. Would you like to join us?” asked Kapil Nakra.
I was shocked and I asked him to give me a few days to respond. A few minutes passed and I received a second call from another batch-mate, Purvesh Sharma, and he demanded, “Are you joining us or not?” I’m still unsure of what went through my mind, but I suddenly found three letters coming out of my mouth Y. E. S.
It’s now been 10 years and I have not recovered from the shock of that visceral decision. I am still riding the entrepreneurial wave I jumped on, a decade ago.
Read complete article at WSJ’s India Chief Mentor.
WSJ - iPad for Small Businesses in India
Published by on May 17, 2010
in Ideas & Companies.
(2 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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(2 votes, average: 3 out of 5) Loading ...I penned some thoughts on how iPad kind of device can be used to create SAAS offerings for SMB customers in India, across healthcare, hospitality and other sectors. The ease of use led by touch interface, the table top usage scenario, bundling hardware with software and service, and disconnected operations could be some of the driving factors. I do find the consumer market a little harder to reach on this kind of a device - seems there might not be enough lead adopters willing to fork out the change from their pockets (rather than their company paying for it.)
Full article here.
Would love to get thoughts,
Potential of Mobile as a platform for new ventures
Published by on May 13, 2010
in General and Ideas & Companies.
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5) Loading ...In December 2009, mobile data traffic (surfing the net, checking email, exploring social networks etc.) officially exceeded the volume of voice calls across the world’s wireless networks for the first time. Global data traffic has nearly tripled in each of the last few years with some 400 million mobile broadband subscribers generating more traffic than 4.6 Billion voice subscribers. Mobile data usage has been primarily fueled through the increased market penetration of smartphones which increased its market share from 11% in 2008 to 17% in 2009, and the rise in social media access via mobile phones. 3G phone ownership increased from 32% to 43% from 2008 to 2009.
As expected, Indian and Chinese consumers are expected to lead growth in this sector, with mobile users in India expected to increase from 600 Million to over 1 Billion by 2014. Even assuming a modest penetration of 15% for smartphones in the Indian market by 2015, that would mean 150 Million mobile subscribers eagerly consuming data traffic. Worldwide mobile data usage is expected to double each year as better smartphones become available and better networks are built and it should be no different in India. The fact that more Indian mobile users are likely to embrace mobile as a platform for uses beyond just making phone calls, opens up a great number of venture opportunities. To me, the mobile platform offers the same type of opportunities to businesses that the internet provided in 1990s. It has the potential to spawn new businesses and differentiated business models, open up new channels for web services, online, as well as brick and mortar companies and could provide huge efficiencies and improvements in business operations and employee productivity.
Here are some thoughts. There are opportunities for greenfield mobile product startups that make everyday life easier for people on the go – read iPhone or Android apps. One could also think of a mobile centric product strategy for web services and online internet based businesses leveraging the true potential of the mobile platform (location based services, push technology, availability of mobile storage space etc.). Mobile could be used as a platform for brick and mortar businesses – e.g. online coupons, mobile marketing for retailers and CPG companies, mobile payment platforms etc. By no means is this an exhaustive list, but the key point here is that there is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to create a new ecosystem of businesses using mobile as a platform. The infrastructure (3G) is being built, the market exists and consumers are asking for it.
Would love to hear your thoughts on venture opportunities in the mobile space in India - what ideas will work, what won’t and why? Have a great weekend.
DreamCatchers! Call to Action
Published by on February 23, 2010
in General, Ideas & Companies and News/ Events.
(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...I am very grateful to you all for the response to my previous article: Funding for Real Innovation in India ! Unavailable. Many of you wrote to me as well as extended action/offers to the DCE AUV team. What was however in my opinion the best outcome, happened right in the beginning: Bharat (Delhi/VIN Industries) and Sameer (Mumbai/Nomura) reached out quietly and fast and helped the team with what they needed - a small cash infusion and a 15 day marketing outreach that brought up a sane view of where the vehicle would make commercial sense - and all of that without any contract, without a termsheet! I understand now that the DCE team, very depressed, when I wrote then, is again energized and for that let me take back the last word in that headline! Hats off to you Bharat and Sameer. What I gained during my three trips to DCE so far is an enormous amount of goodwill, a deep sense of personal aha and a large number of new friends and fellow travelers!
We need a billion entrepreneurs. One of the things we discuss often in forums of young IITians like me is the idea that we must act on an issue if we are able to act, as the capability for action is a responsibility.
One Billion Minds is not a VC firm and I am not an Angel Investor. But when I spoke to some of you who wrote to me, I realize there is a need for a tier of support specially designed for early stage innovators. This tier is not about funding. It is more about helping them because we can. We brainstormed about young entrepreneurs like Bharat and senior executives like Sameer to come together in a group and help early stage innovators in small, simple ways without looking at returns at the start and in the typical way.
I have now spoken with a few friends while in Delhi and Bangalore and we are putting together DreamCatchers - a fraternity of entrepreneurs who would help early stage innovators with mentoring, access to funding and more importantly, a pilot client, working within and beyond the DreamCatchers network.
What is an early stage innovator? A simple qualification - a team that can change the way we work or live and is less than one year old as an entity.
Some of us are meeting early stage innovators in Bangalore between March 1 - 5. If you are one with a dream in your eyes email me: sanjukt.saha@onebillionminds.com
If you are an entrepreneur or senior executive and wish to join us and have fun, write to me and let us start a fire. Remember, make your money elsewhere!
Interesting concept here - www.growvc.com - entrepreneurs can now raise money from the community, kiva style. And they can invest their money into other startups to diversify their risk. With some strong on-ground facilitation (and an incentive model for the same) this can work…
Thoughts?
Building the Green Entrepreneurial Ecosystem city by Indian city
Published by on February 3, 2010
in Ecosystem, Ideas & Companies and News/ Events.
(3 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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(3 votes, average: 3 out of 5) Loading ...“The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. “ This is what President Obama said in his recent State of the Union address. Building the clean energy economy is not easy. Entrepreneurs have to start building businesses, investors will have to understanding them and professionals will have to get excited about the opportunities.
Transitioning to a cleantech economy means creating an entirely new entrepreneurial ecosystem. TiE Bangalore, CIIE and New Ventures India collaborated in hosting the Cleantech Mentoring Workshop in Bangalore, India’s original entrepreneurial city.
The workshop focused on helping entrepreneurs starting greentech companies connect with seasoned entrepreneurs who have invested in and built (mainly IT and consumer) companies and professionals who are getting excited about opportunities in start ups in this sector.
The first take away of the workshop was this: Innovative ideas in the greentech sector are around. The organizers had been careful in screening businesses that showed substantial traction and even then there were 17 companies who presented their business ideas to an audience of seasoned mentors and experienced professionals. The key sectors covered were renewable energy (solar thermal & PV biomass), energy efficiency, recycling, organic farming, water, micro hydro and green building materials.
Most gratifying, however, was the participation of professionals willing to help out greentech entrepreneurs. I counted more than 20 of them who came up to stage and introduced themselves. Given that it was Bangalore, there were several “start up” consultants who provided services around finance, accounts, IP and marketing and who had lots of experience in working with start ups. There was also one person who provided power point presentation training. But there was also participation from folks working in Wipro, IBM and Infosys who had come to understand how their companies and they themselves could plug into an emerging business. And then there were folks from India’s premier institutions – ISB and IIMs – who had come there just to volunteer their services to anybody who needed them.
And of course there were the investors and mentors Bangalore is so famous for. There was Mohanjit Jolly, Pavan Krishnamurthy and Anand Daniel, who has just joined the community. But there were others equally passionate about start ups: Murlidhar of Merittrac, Sathya of Collbrant, Nandini Vaidyanathan of Start ups, Rajeev Goswami of Shore Consulting, Pavan Soni of Wipro and “Kimi” Krishnaraj, who was already involved in mentoring one of the companies that presented.
Click here for more details
It looks like there is a momentum to build green businesses in Bangalore. But we have to do this city by Indian city. If you are a green business owner or an aspiring green professional please do send an email to sanjoy.sanyal@regainparadise.org and you can participate in one of the New Ventures India workshops.
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