The Human race has witnessed three great transitions, the first one was when our race moved from foraging to horticulture, the second leap was when we jumped from horticulture to agriculture and the last one was when we leaped from agriculture to industrialization, where machines took over the muscle work. Each of these led to massive changes in the way the society and business operate; amenities and life got upgraded, propelling our human race forward.
Today, we are on the cusp of an unprecedented transformation again, advances in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another. Confluence of these, is laying the foundation of a revolution never witnessed by the human civilization before. The World Economic Forum in 2016 summit at Davos, dubbed these changing times as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, recognizing for the first time that an era of disruptive transformation is in the making.
In the near future, the business models of many industries will undergo transformation and emerging technologies will enable almost anyone anywhere in the world to invent new products quickly at a fraction of the current price. Starting from the realms of Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is getting democratized across the world, the cost of entry for new ventures has dipped; bringing the young, fearless youth to lead the innovation tribe and disrupt the bigwigs of the industry.
Through 1001 Startup Ideas, YoStartups wants to share startup ideas with entrepreneurs and students so that they can connect with like-minded individuals globally to launch ventures for shared and prosperous future. In this first blog of the 1001 Startup ideasseries, we will walk you through one opportunity segment each time…this week it is ‘organically grown healthy nutrition food for expecting mothers’. Here’s unfolding the segment from idea to business opportunity stage.
What is the idea?
The startup idea is to provide every expecting mother with organically grown healthy nutrition so that her baby’s development is as healthy as possible. This business will cater exclusively to the pregnant women only.
Market Definition
The organic food market is growing strongly at 25-30 per cent rate, and will become an INR 10,000 crores by 2020. The opportunity is staggering going by the fact that organic food consumption is still at 0.1 percent of India’s gargantuan $300 billion yearly food market. Due to increased awareness about potential life threatening health hazards because of consumption of pesticide and chemically contaminated food, increasingly people in Indian metros are switching to organically grown food. The income levels in the metro cities are higher than the other cities, so the additional cost absorption is not a challenge.
Competitor Analysis
The organic food segment is nascent and fragmented; it is plagued by inconsistent delivery and lack of trustworthiness. Some of the early startups like Joybynature, Naturally Yours, Farm2Kitchen, and Living Green organics are leading the race by setting better standards for the market segment. All of them are catering to the whole market without specializing on any one-consumer segment. The biggest advantage that the early starters have is their supply chain mechanism to procure the organic food items.
Pain Point & Target Audience
The targeted customer market for this business is the “Urban health conscious expecting mother”. The targeted consumer can procure different items, however lack of extra care and expert advice for an expecting mother is missing. Pregnancy period is laced with food cravings and having an expert nutritionist who can supply healthy chemical free food is missing.
Value Proposition
The subscriber for a monthly fees will get access to the entire supply of organically grown food items, ready to cook meal kits and once a day cooked meal. They will have access to an expert panel of qualified doctor/ nutritionist to answer any doubts. All incoming supplies should be screened for chemical contamination.
Business Model
The business by the means of an app and e commerce store on Amazon provides organically grown uncooked food items and ready to eat healthy snacks. The customer has access to expert & qualified nutritionist for advising them on healthy diet during each trimester. The subscribers pick one of three-subscription plans for the period of the pregnancy offering them a range of options from organically grown and sterilized veggies, fruits, ready to cook meal kits and once a day cooked meal. The products are delivered to the home or office as per their needs. The app acts as a tool to sync delivery timings and the place or to connect with the in house expert nutritionist. For the last mile delivery start with an in-house team and then tie up with hyper local delivery providers, for you want to get feedback straight from the horses mouth, trying doing few rounds yourself every week.
Way to market
The biggest chunk of targeted customers is in the knowledge workers/ IT- ITES segment, start by approaching the company HR leaders for proving healthy food options for expecting mothers on their campus. At one campus you can get multiple orders, building up your initial customer base. The second channel is tying up with gynecologists in the city, who can recommend your plan to their patients.
Milestones
The first step is to identify the sources of supply or see how you can create more supply; ethics is an issue so it may a good idea to procure chemical testing machines to check 100 % of incoming material. These handheld devices are readily available in the US market.
Investment Needed For Prototype
For testing & building the prototype, pitch for raising 50K USD from angel investors or incubators like Nasscom 10,000 startups. There should be no office rentals or salary payout; the entire budget should be apportioned for customer acquisition and technology.
Team Capability
You would need to have a Doctor cum nutritionist, preferably a female as a co- founder, a marketing wizard and a food tech expert who is a graduate from agriculture stream as your partners.
Investors / Expert Take
Considering the lucrativeness of the organic food market and that India has one of the youngest citizens in the world, who are of marriageable age, investors have been funding companies in this segment. Sprig, based in San Francisco recently secured funding of $45 million; it focuses on delivering affordable organic food. Existing set of investors in the health food segment include the likes of Mumbai Angels, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund, The Hero Group’s younger scion- Abhimanyu Munjal, Amit Gupta of the Indian Unicorn – InMobi, SahilBarua, co-founder of Delhivery, Mukul Singhal from SAIF Partners &TracxnLabs.
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