Entries For: September 2007
2007-09-25
Back from India: Trade-offs on Product Design & Batteries
There is nothing like visiting your customers to set you back on track. After India, I’ve returned to the office with a dozen new product ideas and half as many redesigns. However, as a start-up, d.light faces some serious time constraints and tradeoffs. One big one is time-quality-cost. Right now our mantra is Faster faster faster. Thus - We are looking to hire you if you are a brilliant product designer ready to go from concept to manufacturing in 2 months or radical sales and marketing guru with deep rural experience and a penchant for speed. Email me please!
It’s amazing to think that we just had several employees in China setting up our manufacturing, and twice that many visiting 8 states in India! Wow. The tough part comes now – the trade-offs in product design. How to synthesize everything we have collectively learned and still stay true to our mission and values for affordability and quality. We want to make the best products possible – and yet we have to make tradeoffs between cost, quality, brightness, feature-set, etc on behalf of the predominately rural populations we supply.
A classic case: The distributors (and to some extent consumers) we meet are constantly demanding quality. They want products that can withstand repeated drop tests. We respond that the thickness of the product is quite linearly related to the price of plastic and therefore final retail price. More expensive = tougher = less interest from price sensitive customers. Similarly, 100% of the people I talk with want lights to be ‘brighter.’ Nobody says brighter than ‘what,’ they just want it to be brighter. And of course, less expensive. Always less expensive. Tricky proposition when pennies matter. We spend hours debating decisions that impact our manufacturing cost by 5 cents.
Meanwhile – there is one other big trade-off – namely battery technologies. All the wind and solar and other renewable energies, not to mention cell phones and computers are powered off, or charge, batteries. Almost all cars and motorcycles and all solar home systems use lead-acid batteries and they have by far the highest recycling rate globally. This rate is only getting better as lead prices go up up and up. Meanwhile, most electronics are using nickel metal hydride or lithium ion systems and we are constantly pressured to move to these extremely expensive alternatives. Our customers in rural Asia and Africa will inevitably dispose of their products behind their houses or in their fields. What I need is some way to quantify whether it is better to have a battery that will 100% guaranteed be recycled (because it has a value of $0.10-0.25 used) but will most likely be recycled in a less than perfect conditions - OR - is it better to have a battery that will not be recycled, has no end-value, and is safe unless it splits open and work its way into the soil and water tables around residences? How do I weigh short term impacts of lead recycling with long term impacts of millions of lithium ion batteries littering the countryside?
Any quick thoughts on this dilemma would be appreciated. I'm ignoring the implications of a li/ion battery catching fire in a mostly grass and flammable hut right now. I also have no idea if it is going to be easier to improve the existing recycling system and provide take-back programs for lead-acid, or to build out a new network for other batteries that is currently non-existent.
2007-09-09
India after 10+ years away
There's plenty of budget airlines and a quarter million cell phones being made a day. India is 'calling all entrepreneurs.' And yet its not that easy. Razor thin margins, an older bureaucracy, whole neighborhoods of C&D (copy and develop instead of research and development), and the little things - like trying to get a cell phone present constant challenges. I was shocked by how demanding the Indian consumer is - requiring high quality, low price, and service guarantees even or $10 purchases. If we can crack this market - we can crack any.
- find a local friend to buy your cell phone before you get here (and get one with low roaming charges b/c when you leave the city it starts roaming and each state has a different SIM)
- buying a wireless card for your laptop will be well worth your while!
- There is a serious talent crunch. There is lots of great talent but it is all being snatched up immediately. Give yourself plenty of time to recruit the best! (in fact, if anybody knows any amazing candidates for VP Marketing & Sales with 7+ years of experience with rural marketing in
India is also on the move. Screaming horns, fried snacks, and truck loads of goods grumbling by every second. Plenty of Chai! to keep you awake, Paneer! to make your mouth water, and Masala! to spice it up. I am very optimistic and love being here. The wholesale business is mind boggling in size and everybody is trying to penetrate into the huge rural markets. This is it – potentially the toughest most competitive market to serve in the world – and we are wadding in with one purpose – to provide better products for underserved customers. Onwards! Onwards. Onwards!
