Startup Model – Online Learning Tool

THE MODEL: A app which lets users learn mainly languages with courses created by the community. The startup. The aim is to make learning lasting and joyful.

STARTUP: Memrise (British startup)

WHAT I LIKE

Core Idea – An app which makes online learning lasting and joyful.

The Fun Angle – The app turns learning facts and language into a game where you grow a colourful garden of memory. The more you learn, the more the flowers in your garden.

Scientific Learning – The startup focuses on the science behind learning and tries to use the best practices in ensuring that the learning is faster and more lasting. ElaborateCoding, Choreographed Testing & Reminders are used to ensure that users can pick up a language in the fastest time.

Community – Adding a community is a great as it helps in the following ways – users can compare their progress and great content gets crowd-sourced along the way.

CONCERNS

Competition – Online learning tools are in plenty. With some established apps already in this space, building a space for yourself in this market will be difficult.

Revenue – A lot of the competing apps are free and hence building revenues might be a problem for Memrise as well. Driving a business on investor money is risky and not very long lasting. A robust revenue model will need to built in.

Startup Model – Restaurant Discovery & Reservations

THE MODEL: A platform for users to find and reserve restaurants in a city. Restaurants profiles have complete details about it, its location, a reservation tool and reviews by customers.

STARTUP: Chope (Singapore startup)

WHAT I LIKE

Core Idea – A clear and simple solution for users, i.e. restaurant discovery and reservation tool.

Clean Interface – The app is extremely clean and easy to use. Discovery apps need to have an interface which is user friendly.

Successful Business Model – Chope has a business model which as been successful with other startups in this space. It charges restaurants a monthly fee for the booking software and also a cut for every diner sent through the app.

CONCERNS

Competition – Several startups in the same space with the same model have scaled up all over the world. Without a significant differentiator, the startup will face competition in scaling up in different geographies.

Startup Model – Online Food Ordering

The Model: A platform for listing the various restaurants, their details, their menus, any offers running, and for ordering online. Users also get to review restaurants.

Startup Doing It: Delivery Hero (German startup)

What I Like:

Core Idea – Foodtech is great and this is the most used and scalable model in it.

Ease of Use – User experience is key in this model and exploring and ordering has to be made as simple as possible.

Growing through Acquisitions – The business has grown by acquiring startups in various countries. Since establishing the backend is a lengthy process, acquisition seems like a good way to scale the business.

My Concerns:

Competition –There is a LOT of competition in this space.

Profitability – The road to reaching profitability is a long and expensive one.

The AAS (as a service) Model

I really like this model. It basically means that a system/product is developed centrally and a user can buy a right to use it rather than having to buy it.

There are some obvious benefits to this.

Cheaper for Users: Since they do not have to buy the product, it proves cheaper.

Easier to Maintain: Since the product is hosted at one place, enhancement and maintenance is easier to do and the cycle times are lower.

Easier Customisation: Most products developed are module wise, which makes it easier for the seller to customize the product for a user based on it’s requirements.

If you look at the overall picture, it makes sense to not waste time and resources in duplication.Creating, hosting and maintaining centrally creates economic value.

Issues in Online Classifieds

Online Classifieds has come into India in a big way. With some big players and a host of startups, we are seeing a lot of activity in this space.

Despite the increasing number of companies in this space, there is still room for new entrants as I see some issues which need to be addressed.

Old & Updated Posts: Beveragewala (my previous ecommerce startup) was closed down in August last year. 6 months down, the classifieds we had uploaded for it are still live.

Clutter: Owing to the innumerable number of posts, it becomes very difficult for a user to navigate through these to reach relevant and beneficial results.

Trust: Posts are not verified for accuracy and hence there comes a issue of trust or a lack of it.

New entrants should focus on these limitations in the current players and should try to address them to create a place for them in this fast growing space.

Business Model: Online Grocery Shopping

Online grocery has been one sector which has done very well in the last few years. It basically involves selling all grocery products online. It offers customers a wider variety of products to choose from along with the convenience of getting them delivered at your doorstep. With new hyper-local entrants entering this space, the delivery times have also reduced drastically.

Online grocery as a segment is very attractive owing to the following reasons.

Big Market Size: Everyone buys groceries.

Repeat Purchase: Groceries are bought regularly after a certain period of time.

Unaffected Growth: Groceries are and will continue to be bought with slight variations in value even during times of low economic growth in a country.

Having said all this, the vastness of this sector brings with it certain challenges.

Very Competitive: We tend to see a lot of players in this sector such as the big eommerce players, hyper-local ecommerce as well as offline players like the big modern trade stores, the local kirana stores  etc.

Low Margins: Margins are very limited and hence profitability tends to be a big concern for startups operating in this space.

New players looking at entering this space need to assess the above factors and analyse how they will compete with the existing players. Maybe not on the product front, there is a lot of scope for innovation in services around the supply chain such as delivery, order booking, customer experience, returns and so on.