A mid-summers afternoon, getting together to brain storm in
the shade of the Gulmohar’s didn’t seem like a bad idea for many, with the
entrepreneurial craving. The meet-up this time was around the ‘Lean’ strategy
and its payback in the projects. Ram, the founder of leanmantra.in, opined that
the idea of lean gives the abstract business idea, a concrete shape. A business
idea and the projections around it, by themselves are assumptions. And a lean
strategy can actually help prove or negate these assumptions. The idea is to
build a Minimum Viable Product with the minimum input. A minimum spent around data
collection, survey, resource, research, testing et al.
So while working on the business proposition, if it’s taken
for granted that we work on the Business model (one with 9 key components) -
then lean suggests us to innovate at least at any one step.
And an example to this kind
of local innovation is a project by Microsoft. The most sought after MS word
was just another software when launched. But MS went ahead and installed it
into the systems of the users, which hence made it user-friendly. And bang!!
The discussions then got into
brain storming and idea display of a plethora of new start ups, over ginger ale
and lemonade. Shravya and her cousing Dhruv are currently working on a
prototype of a food rating system. Unlike the current restaurant rating system,
this one would rate the very food. So next time you have a craving for Paneer
butter masala, you know where exactly to go to. While Vijay and his partner are
planning on a portal, which almost looks like an online store. This one, would help you find stores in your locality as
per your requirement. Then it was
Jignesh, who put in all his enthusiasm to pitch in for Dirt 9 and Krishi yatra.
He and a group of few other Mechanical Engineers have come up with an
intiative, where in, they designed a solar car to cover around 1600 kms of
rural AP. Their idea is to get inputs from the farmers and put it into socially
usefull projects.
With this we marched towards
the formal end of the meetup. However, no body can say ‘Stop’ to the 24
entrepreneurs gathered there - from meeting
new people and learning new things.
And as usual, the surprise
stuck at the end. The icing on the cake - WOW Dining cards, for everyone who
attended the meetup.
