Building products when you know the need is hard. Building products which create a new market is harder.In the first case, you know a problem, you envisage a solution and you build a product which solves the problem. People start buying your product as they know they have a need for it.In the second case, you have to first convince the customers there is a need. You have to show them that things can be better. And only then will they start buying your product. It needs a lot of self belief to do this.Some examples which come to my mind are Harry Potter and Justin Beiber. Though J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter, there is a big machinery which runs behind which has created the need for more Harry Potter books. It is now a billion dollar industry. Same is the case with Beiber.
Coming to the tech world, in this series I would like to explore products made in India which have created a new market.
I will start the series with a concept that is very Indian in nature, missed calls.
Couple of years back, missed call market did not exist in India. People did not know you could make money out of missed calls. People may have been using missed calls for random jobs, but there weren’t any companies which were using missed calls to their full potential. It was during this time that Zipdial came into focus. They made the missed call, a call to action event. The systematic way in which Zipdial has created value for the end consumers and provided engagement for brands through a missed call is commendable. It is not just about the tech. It is about understanding the ecosystem. And Zipdial has been able to do that. Other players have also now joined the fray and brands are now willing to pay serious money for missed call services. In its basest form, a missed call is a form of communication and companies are now being created for providing this communication channel.To do this, it takes a lot of effort and money. Companies providing missed call based services demonstrated the great power of their product through a lot of free campaigns. They created the need. Then they reached out to companies to get them to use their product by showcasing statistics of user engagement. Through their sheer will they created the market.Hope these companies continue with their innovation and conquer other countries as well and create new markets.In the next blog post, we will look at travel.