StartUp Idea #5: Forms online

Back in Dec 2010, i have written few posts related to StartUp Ideas. It took me one year to write a new one. 2011 was a great year for me because I finally quit my job at Amazon and (re)started my company http://www.chennaishopping.com/

Let me write about the new start-up idea which i had been grinding in my mind. It may exists or may not. i am not sure. most of the ideas i have written are problems that exists currently.

Now,  Forms  Online

What are forms?

Forms is a document which you use to fill up with pen and apply form some thing. checkout out Forms at wikipedia. I am not talking about HTML forms here.

what is the problem?

The problem is simple. collect all these application forms and provide them as pdf downloads to get it printed or make an HTML form out of it and present a printable form with customer data in it. You can store customer data for later use.  This solves the following list of problems

• user will not type / write duplication information like name, address, phone etc etc etc.
• user will just type the “new-not found information” that are asked in forms.

This gives the following advantages

• user knows exactly the form to use to apply for certain things. need not search here and there.
• all forms at one location. saves time for the user.
• user is not frustrated to fill the same details, 1000 times.

Different types of Forms

I am going to list the types of application forms available in general public.

• School/College Application forms
• Government Application Forms
• Job Application forms
• Bank Application forms
• Applying for Gas connection, ration card, DL, passport
• so and so…. hell a lot of it.

School/College application forms:

there are around 1.6m schools in india as per SchoolofEducators.com. see if you can help these schools, get their application forms online for just download for that academic year.  some schools / colleges do make money even in these application forms. you can make a cut out of it.

Government application forms:

Hell a lot of it. just browse through various states respective .gov.in website and collect their PDF link and provide them for download at one location. provide a easier way to find and download.  I spent lot of time in figuring out marriage certificate registration form online. Even though i found the site, i am not sure whether it is updated or legitimate. if you can assure it, your website is a HIT.

Job Application Forms

I am talking about Non-tech jobs. Get the job application forms for non-tech jobs that comes in paper or what ever and get it filled

Bank application forms:

Check deposit slips pre-filled or what ever loan application or what ever. Do tie-up with major banks and get their forms in pdf format to be downloadable at your site. List it by category, banks etc.

Gas connection, ration card, passport, DL:

Just get the gas connection form online. or what ever it is.

Miscellaneous forms

• BB plan change letter for BSNL
• BANK letter format for update of any information to ICICI, SBI et all.

Note: Do add more in comments if you have any.

Hell a lot of forms:

There are lakhs of forms to be filled by a user. every time he/she fills the following information multiple times

• Full name – first, middle, surname
• DOB
• Father’s / Guardian name
• Permanent Address
• Residential Address
• PAN
• Passport

and many more

Privacy issues and Trust factors:

what ever the information forms online get its, it will be too personal information. one should take care to protect the user’s privacy and get user to trust the website. It’s very difficult to achieve the trust factor in short run. but overtime, if you provide good service, users will trust these kinds of forms service, because it saves their time.

Business model:

More downloads. More Users. Your traffic and download is your source for revenue. you can get sponsors for various form channels say bank or get the advertising revenue. You can also get a revenue share with school/college application.

You can add premium service by providing few forms at a paid price etc. may be this will work or not. not sure though.

Conclusion:

whether this idea will work or not, the problem of filling offline forms exists. the problem of searching forms to apply for certain things exists. You have million opportunities to solve for the main stream users….. do share your thoughts at the comments below.

Update 1: there is a startup nopaperforms.com which is trying to solve this. Do give a try.

Customer Service in India

I am being a customer / consumer using many of the services in the country. I have been doing lots of observations related to customer services in INDIA and i will be writing about them.

I have come across lots of services both online and offline. the moment you go online, there are different set of tools for customer services. In offline, there are different set of tools.

Let’s see what is customer service?

From wikipedia

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation

A Customer, always expects Value for Money or more for the money. For e.g. A Digit magazine associated with a Free CD / DVD.

Best Customer Service is one of the main reason in every successful companies we see. Providing customer care service is not that difficult. It is how we see it, matters a lot. When companies listen to their customers, they can build great products / services. Thats how many companies have become big and mints money.

Here are some of the questions i too ask myselves….

• How do successful big companies handle customer services?
• How are they able to engage with people?
• Are people sticking to these companies because they don’t find the better alternative?

I think there are lots of things like this if we want to discuss about customer service. Companies have to do lots of work if it wants to provide better and good customer service. Here is what i feel what a good customer services a company should provide to its customers.

• Respect and communicate to customer politely.
• Understand and listen to customer’s problems.
• Solve customer’s problems first than concentrating on the company revenue.
• Followup with customers with new services and value add services.
• Transparent in billing, update about new products / services.

our country is transforming into a consumer market, slowly i.e consumerism. we as consumers, need better consumer protections from companies who are cheating us. Going forward, i will write about companies in india and their customer service from my own experiences.

If you have any comments / suggestions, please write to me. Add your comments below too…

StartUp Idea #4: Touch based Landline Internet phone for home use

According to Communications in India wiki, India is marching towards billion telephone (landlines and mobile) subscribers. Even though the mobile phone connections are exploding like anything, there is always a need for landlines exclusively for Broadband connection. In India, wireless broadband has not yet taken off and the speed is very slow when compared to wired broadband connection.
The Internet Usage Statistics in India is 81,000,000 i.e 6.9 % and is expected to grow more. Also major telephone operators in the subcontinent are taking advantage of this growth.

Even though Mobile phones can act as a modem for connecting to internet, it cannot withstand due to following reasons
1. Lack of Towers and hence low coverages
2. Battery will drain out.
3. you need to charge every now and then.. etc

Need for the new device…
Communication became the important part of our daily life now-a-days. we communicate via Facebook/Internet, phone, voip etc. For each of these, we are using a separate device like laptop/desktop computer, mobile phones or internet phones specically. we also required modem to connect our laptop to internet.

why not have a single device which can do this all?
We cannot call that device as Phone. As per TheFreeDictionary.com

Telephone is an instrument that converts voice and other sound signals into a form that can be transmitted to remote locations and that receives and reconverts waves into sound signals.

Phone can refer only things which can transmit sound signals. But today, we are transmitting data (voice, documents, videos) as bits and bytes. Hence we can call that a communication device.

What feature it should have?
A new Integrated communication device should posses the following characteristics
1. Easy to use with Intuitive interface.
2. Always be connected with Internet i.e ADSL+ enabled or what ever the latest.
3. Camera enabled – Speak with your friends / families using Video capabilities.
4. Text Enabled – Send and receive text
5. 1-Touch Call
6. Voice Recognition
7. a Wi-Fi / LAN enabled to get our laptop/computer connected
8. Digital phone book
9. Built-in Bill Payment facilities for Phone service, Electricity etc
10. Mic / Speaker enabled. Support for headset should be also available.
11. Wireless Handset so that you need not be at phone while talking.

Basically, it should be a blend of
1. Today’s Smart-Phone
2. Skype
3. Landline
4. DSL Modem
5. Camera

Every feature i specified here decribes the funtionality it can do. Hence i did not explain much about the feature.

The Demand…
Airtel, one of the biggest private telecom operator in India is getting revenue 50-50 between voice and data. The demand for this kind of device will increase as operators are trying to give Value added services to their customers.
Landline phone is the easiest technology product that people have learned today even before mobile phones. Every body knows to dial and make a call. The reach to the masses will surely be achieved with this kind of integrated device.

Business Model
This will be a hardware business. To start with, a prototype should be made and demo it to the largest operator in the country. At-least they will do trial run at few places and would see the response for such kind of device. the cost of integrated communication device should be very low compared to the combined cost of phone + wifi / LAN modem or any internet phones. If it is being accepted, they it will sell like anything. Telecom operator can bundle the device along with the package which is sold now. You can take the share of every device sold.

Who’s the target audience?
This device is *not* for the techie people who already use / learned to use the device. This is a new generation device which will go mainstream like the normal landline phone we have now. Most of the people in India will be connected via this device.

Prototype

Integrated communication device Prototype

what do you think about this concept? comment about it.

Note: The mashup is created using GIMP. I took phone picture and icons from Google Images.

StartUp Idea #3: Book/Review/Rate Marriage hall services online…

I have been writing about the ideas related around marriages. Although the idea that i am going to write below might exist or can be considered additions to the existing ones in the market.

Hope you guys have heard of cleartrip.com, makemytrip.com which have refined the way we book air / train tickets and hotels. In the similar manner, we can also have a simple website wherein we publish all details about the marriage halls available in the city.

The simple website should do the following
For Marriage Halls
1. Ability to search marriage halls by cities, budgets, availability etc
2. Ability to block the hall by paying in advance if dates were not sure.
3. Ability to register / cancel the booking by paying online via NEFT / CC
4. ability to write reviews
5. Photo gallery of marriages, rooms, halls etc

For Caterers
1. Ability to search for Caterers by cities, budgets, availability etc
2. Ability to write reviews about their food preparation, servings etc.

Photographers / Video coverage
1. Ability to search for Photographers by cities, budgets, availability etc
2. Ability to write reviews about their albums work, DVD video editing etc.

Like above, there can be lot for some of the following things
1. Beauticians
2. Flower distributors
3. Music bands or DJ
4. For Hindu marriage, Iyer’s are needed.
5. and there should be many more….

Top sites already contain some of the information i mentioned above. Since they are all collected and organized by the site owners, they do not have reviews and ratings etc. A simple website which can have these information with the ability to search, rate and review, will be of great help for the general public.

Value & Experience :
People are(atleast i am) desperately in need of such sites and will be of great help. It will help me decide things based on the information i get from the site. Remember all information should be lively. otherwise, this website is no different from others.

Business?
India has 28 states and 7 union territories (federally administered). Each state should have enough marriage or events hall to cover the marriages. People searching for it will increase on the website provided they are lively and time will be saved. Transaction fee can be levied per booking or what ever applicable fees. But helping people to search and locate their liked stuff is more important and it will bring enough revenue later. you can look at example sites like 99acres.com or allcheckdeals.com which have exhaled in the real estate portal business i guess.

These services need not be restricted to marriage event alone. it will be helpful for other events such as
1. Birthday parties
2. Baby shower functions

I hope you got the idea….leave your comments…
bye for today!

StartUp Idea #2:Big Fat Indian Marriages and the opportunities around…

I have been doing some research on indian marriages and its economics.
I found the following information from www.businesseconomics.in

an upper middle class family normally spends 30 lakh on a wedding
an average of 10 million (or 1 crore) marriages take place in India every year.
conservative average of wedding expenditure to be `3 lakh i.e 3 trillion for weddings every year

In India, marriages are a big event for the family, relatives and kids. People come together during marriages, spending happens a lot from both bride and groom sides. Lets look into the place where spending and incoming happens and the enormous opportunities in those areas.

Spending
1. Brides and Grooms Dresses
2. Marriage Halls
3. Food
4. Flower Arrangements
5. Receptions (before or after marriage… usually happens during the evening)
6. Music bands or DJ

Getting a marriage hall within the city limits is the biggest issue. the halls are priced at a range from 50k to 1 Lakh. For Food, it comes to around 1 Lakh. Apart from these spending, money were also spent on Photography, Video coverage, Travels etc. There are only few wedding planners who are concentrating on high profile marriages where they earn in lakhs. Lets not think about them.

On a +ve note, think about the no. of middle class marriages who are also in need of some services which can take care of all the required stuff. so far, i have not come across any event management / wedding planner company which does concentrate on this category. If you are able to provide support for photography, video coverage, travel management via some premium services, it would be awesome for the family. Actually, people will appreciate such services. As days goes, it is becoming very difficult for people to manage things. Hence there is a huge opportunities in these areas.

Few additional things should be done for the following
1. Photography
Traditionally, marriage photographers take normal picture and take printout. In recent days, people learn photoshop and managed to do mashups with using most filters i guess. Photographers should learn more technique in photography and take awesome and nice looking photograph thereby showing the difference. it should be looking like portfolios. It should be looking like you are taking it for a celebrity. They can offer photos on cups, photo books and many more things which you can find in zoomin.com or picsquare.com

2. Video Coverage
Photographers used to hire few guys with a camera and they start recording things in the marriage hall. In the end, they will put them with effects, songs in the background and make a dvd out of it. This is what happening all these days. I would suggest that people should be creative in editing the videos. They could make a small movies about the brides, grooms and their families and how they united. they can get their friends/families talk about them and share about them and give a movie like starts and ending. It would be awesome. see the awesome original marriage video below from youtube

So far we talked about the things where money is spent. There is one hidden things that happen in Indian marriages, especially in South India which is nothing but things/money that is coming to the brides / grooms.

Incoming
People who are coming to marriages tend to bring either Gift / Cash in a post card cover.
1. Gifts
2. Cash

The opportunity here is you have a virtual terminal on the marriage hall where people can choose from the list of Gifts the couple wished for and pay for it via their Credit card / Debit Card / Net banking etc.
Same with the case of Cash. Instead of paying by Cash, they can swipe the CC/Debit card via the wireless CC terminal which can connect to credit card gateway for processing. A Fee per transaction can be charged for the customer or any other things which will work out.

Assuming so many marriages happening in a year, the volume of transactions happening through this section will be very much high. Also its a 3-4 hour job as marriage / reception takes only that much time to get over. Atleast, in a middle class marriage, these days we could see a transaction of 30k-50k by cash. This is only by the people who attended the function.

You can setup a online Gifting / Cash donation for the people who are not able to attend the event. they will be able to pay / gift online. This is additional assuming that brides / grooms friends live in various places now a days. This is possible because in our gang of friends, who ever got married, we used to collect money via Net banking and then deposit to that friend. This will work for sure i guess.

I hope when i get married, i will have the above options

thats all…
bye for today…