Piles of Pets

One great thing I’ve seen a lot this spring in Beijing is people selling pets on the sidewalk. First, I saw tiny rabbits being sold outside of McDonalds. Then I saw more tiny rabbits being sold on a bar street in Sanlitun on a Friday night. Then one day I’m heading into the subway after class and a lady is selling 3 adorable little kittens in a bowl in the subway entrance. That same day I saw someone selling puppies out of a cart on the sidewalk. In TianJin last weekend, I saw this pile of pets on the sidewalk, followed by a large bowel of turtles. I’m sure one could find some problems with this style of pet-selling, but it sure makes my day when I get to see it.

A man poses with his new goat

I’ve recently learned about a fascinating Nepalese company that is making the most of the NRN population (Non Resident Nepalese- those living outside of Nepal). Most NRN have family back home they want to take good care of and so the company, Thamel, provides a way to send gifts and transfer money from abroad to Nepal. Some gifts are VERY local, like these gifts for the Tihar festival. You can purchase an online puja, but I’m not sure what that means (puja is a Hindu ritual showing reverence). I’m not sure if they still offer this, but originally you could purchase a gift certificate for your family to pick up a goat at the local market. Thamel had $30,000 of goat revenue the first year they offered this service. Some gifts are more universal, like holidays at resorts and flat-screen TVs. A newly added service allows you to arrange for financing of a home, a car, or an education in Nepal.

Most of their customers are Nepalese living in the US, Canada, and the UK, but there is a significant untapped diaspora population in both Hong Kong and Japan. Purchase of the items on the Thamel website usually includes delivery, which is provided by each specific vendor in their network. This allows Thamel to avoid a developing world issue of distribution with poor infrastructure and allow locals to take care of it. Thamel has become quite a local brand through marketing strategies like offering a picture of your family member receiving their gift. This helps to build trust in their service, which can be a significant hurdle for a service that is totally new. In fact, gaining the trust of potential vendors was a challenge when they were first starting. It is easier now because locals can see Thamel vendors are getting 5-10% of their revenue through the e-commerce platform – a number that rises to 50% during holidays and festivals. Thamel is profitable, with $1.3 million in revenue in 2004. The World Resources Institute/ NextBillion.Net did a case study on them, where I got a lot of this information and these fantastic pictures.






Thamel utilizes several of the characteristics of developing markets laid forth in The 86% Solution, which I’ve paraphrased here:

• Remember those who have emigrated
• Tap into regional communities to build your brand
• Build your own infrastructure
• Take the market to the people

Green Mango

I’ve decided to spend a couple of months working with Green Mango, a for-profit Hyderabad firm seeking to connect service providers, like tailors and plumbers, with customers using their pilot web platform (see screenshot below). The co-founders, who came from Women’s World Bank, saw that access to capital was not enough to get BOP entrepreneurs off the ground. They also needed access to markets and important information (like pricing). I’ll be working on their volunteer capacity, public relations, and other projects I’ll dream up. I’m excited to dig into an interesting problem and live in an up-and-coming city. Many of my favorite organizations have offices in Hyderabad, including Acumen Fund and Vision Spring, as well as some of the larger Indian microfinance institutions. It is also located in a region known for the level of spice in their food, so we’ll see how that goes.

In preparation I’ve been thinking about similar models where a business is built to connect buyers and sellers. Some examples I could think of were ebay, Kiva, TripAdvisor, craigslist, Angie’s List, and Innocentive, What do these intermediaries provide? One thing is a marketplace, a connection that these buyers and sellers might not have otherwise found. Where else are you going to sell your used TV other than craigslist? But in addition some provide information: ebay ranks buyers and sellers, TripAdvisor presents hotel reviews, and Kiva puts a face on microloans. Green Mango seems to be heading in the right direction, with user rankings and shopper networks already built into their platform. I am very interested to see how Green Mango applies lessons from these other models in the areas of revenue models, customer experience, and network effects in their unique environment, where their “seller” segment will not likely have internet access at home.

Innovation for the Subcontinent

Here’s a quick list of technologies and companies in India that serve the average Indian:

• A Little World/ Zero Foundation: This company and its foundation intend to use technology to bring low-cost solutions to the bottom of the pyramid. Their most recent success is Go Mumbai, a system they developed (and subsequently sold off) which uses smart cards to replace paper tickets for Mumbai trains and buses.
• Solar-powered Routers: A 31-year old Texan came up with the winning design in a recent Innocentive challenge sponsored by ASSET India, a non-profit using technology for children of sex workers to connect them to better opportunities. Zacary Brown’s Linux-based solution met all the challenge requirements, including using low-cost readily-available hardware. (I learned about this through the ThinkChangeIndia blog.)
• Drishtee Kiosks: Drishtree has been providing kiosks in rural India for 8 years. Current services provided include access to government records, spoken English training, youth education, certificate filing, banking, and reports of commodity prices at different markets, but I believe this is just the beginning of what could be offered through this platform. As for a business model, Drishtree has a fixed revenue sharing agreement with each kiosk owner and a variable revenue agreement with the service providers.

Proving You Exist

I’ve been spending some time at Aaramph, a non-profit focusing on education in slum areas. They are located in Navi Mumbai (or New Bombay), which is home to many different migrant populations who have come to the city seeking work. Aaramph provides education to children who, for many different reasons, are not using the formal education system provided for free by the government of India. One main reason why these kids aren’t enrolled is that many of them were born at home and don’t have a birth record. Mothers try to fix this by going through school or government officials to navigate the bureaucracy, but sadly this is often fraught with corruption and ends up costing upwards of Rs. 400 ($10 or a week of salary), with no guaranteed result. Aaramph has worked for years to set up a system, advised by trusted lawyers and recognized by local schools, that results in a birth record being obtained in a single day for only Rs. 40.

That’s just one example of the many things I learned while speaking with Shobha Murthy, Aaramph’s founder. I had never heard of this problem of birth records before, but it is a great example of both the trouble with informal systems and the disconnect between policies (like free education) and their implementation.

I found Aaramph through an Indian volunteer-matching website. In an odd coincidence, her brother works for a company in Minneapolis where I worked for 4 years, so she’s actually spent time in the town where I live. I’ve had a chance to tour Aaramph’s facilities and will be working on a donor’s report for them in the coming weeks.

Lessons from the Sam Walton of India

I am currently reading a book called “It Happened in India” by Indian entrepreneur

Kishore Biyani. Kishore started a company that later included Pantaloon, a clothing retailer, and Big Bazaar, a market-style hypermarket. I’ve only been to one Big Bazaar (pictured here in Trivandrum), but they are everywhere.

Here are a couple of things I have learned from this book:

• There is a viable consumer base in “third-tier” cities in India: The 1st tier are the big cities; Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata. The 2nd tier are up and comers like Nagpur, Surat, Vijaywada, and Indore. Kishore is referring here to small cities like Sangli, Panipat, and Ambala.
• Indian retailers have to respond to LOCAL requirements: India is a large country and local tastes vary dramatically. For a chain to survive, each store has to have a unique product mix. This also results in an organizational structure where decisions are driven down to the lowest level.
• Indian consumers have uniquely Indian ways of shopping: For example, Indian families shop together, so stores need to accommodate groups of people shopping, not individuals. Realizing that not all Indian families had made the transition to ready-to-wear garments, Pantaloons offered a pants kit that could be used to make pants at home.

Kishore is also keen to point out that he took a lot of inspiration from reading Sam Walton’s Made in America, but the Western retail model would not work in India. What he learned from Mr. Walton was how to re-invent retail to suit the current consumer.