There are numerous applications which are developed to take advantage of mobile and SMS penetration in India. Vakow, SMSGupShup are just 2 such examples. All these entrepreneurs read blogs, industry data about how SMS is going to grow and mobile penetration is going to still grow. These blogs/industry experts give numbers like how many SMS delivered in a day, on particular day like festival, valentines day and all. They tell you how you can use SMS as content deliery channels to attract user base and create a killer startup with multi-million dollar revenues. All good, go for it. Before going for it think about what these blogs don’t tell you though. Does any of the blogs tell you how many people who use mobiles for voice communication extensively are not using SMS? I dont think so. Do they tell why they are not using it? Naah, they just can’t figure it out. It takes lot of evangelism to understand your user base.
One of the problems with web 2.0 startups that I recently talked to or I have seen mushroomed targeting mobile and SMS content delivery is, they focus on existing user base of these media. They are not putting lof thought about why lot of people are not using the media despite having access to it. If you are a budding entrepreneur then before creating your killer app consider these points that come up in this post. Its good to target a large existing user base and hey you got idea to get rich. But it will be better if you keep that scalability to your platform to reach non-existent user base and make sure your delivery channels reach them in short term OR long term future.
For example, SMSGupShup has lot of user base, market momentum and everything is good and they will make tons of money, or at least I hope they do as an entrepreneur myself. But problem is they are focusing too much on the Gupshup part of it. I recently developed similar app for a brokerage firm that wanted to use SMS as THE media of communication with its client base of 5000+ customers. Now I told them about SMSGupshup and they said they cant use something names so funny for professional purposes. Now I was trying to make them use it as I was not going to get paid for developing it as its my friends firm. Though he did send me Johny Walker Black Label 24 for my birthday! Why they did not want to use SMSGupShup, because its named Gupshup and gives impression that its for fun and ONLY for fun. So I think the brand does not have scalability, but that another post in draft about brand scalability.
Point I am trying to make is, think about existing user base of a media and think harder about non-existent user base and whoa you got yourself much better business model and hence more chance of making it big. Taking case of SMS channels for instance, can’t you reach to customers in villages/taluka places who have mobiles but don’t use SMSes? You can. I know you will say in comments section that these people can’t type SMS and literacy rates are low and every other problem. Instead think about can they read the SMSes? Yes they can, believe me I do lot of field work and I know lot of them (30% approx) can. So who can send them useful SMS which these people, like farmers, can use for there advantage? Traders. For example, Nasik exports grape to global market. Lot of farmers who export them are not literate but are rich and have mobiles. Now you can bridge these farmers in Nasik to exporters in Mumbai using SMS channel. How? Let me explain. Go to traders in Mumbai and see how they work. For every day they will call n differnt farmers telling them todays market price and if they want to sell for that market value. Otherwise farmers go directly to markets and sell it for available market price with out holding for better valuation for tomorrow (or is it always yesterday?). So you can help farmers get good pricing for there goods and you can help traders in managing there supply chain using SMS channels. Makes sense? I thinkso.
Though this audience is little harder to reach, but I think user base is so huge that once you penetrate in that market segment you are going to be rewarded n times for your hard work and evangelism. Educate people and wider audience about your platform while you are doing good job at reaching to existing customer base.
Ideas, Startup, philosophy
entrepreneurship, evangelism, innovation, internet, mobile, philosophy, SMS, SMSGupShup, social media, startup advice, startups, web 2.0
. Though I am not complaining or not even deeply sad about this. But seriously I want at least 3 hours of time where I can be alone and it has become increasingly difficult to be alone while logged on to Internet. Though I know its more of my fault and hence I will be working on this in 2009.