Friends, Recently been reading the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid by C.K. Prahalad. In his book, he argues that micro-entrepreneurship at the mass scale is the key to eradicating poverty through profits in countries like India. Came up with an idea that I wanted to give a reality dose through your feedback. Most localities in India are unhygienic, ugly and full of litter. House-owners associations are very ineffective because it is always a pain to administer them because no one wants to be the Secretary or President of that volunteer body and do all the work. Raising any more more than the pre-agreed monthly rate is also difficult and hence doing anything more than the bare minimum is impossible. The result is unclean neighborhoods. What if we do this? As a community, get together one time and create a set of advertising opportunities. E.g. - "No Parking" boards on the gates with a space to put an ad - Notice boards in community gathering place like Temple, Mosque etc. with opportunity to display an advertiser's flyer. - Permission to distribute an advertiser's flyers at people dense areas - Steel frame around roadside tree sampling with a space to put an ad. Get a local youth to take the contract to monetize that advertising space by approaching local merchants. The rates he charges need not be that high Rs.1000 per month etc. Lots of local restaurants, grocery stores might be interested in advertising here. In return he agrees to keep the locality clean by 1. Arranging waste collection 2. Roadside landscaping 3. Working with public works on mending roads, lights etc He gets to keep the profits that he makes from this. It is in his interest to sell more ads and at as high a price as possible. This is not about being a volunteer. He is purely interested in profits. If the concept is proved in a few localities, it can be scaled at a massive level across many localities. A firm can aggreegate all these and then provide a massive advertising opportunity to someone like Hindustan Lever. What would Hindustan Lever say for a single touch point advertising opportunity to display their ads in 1 Crore house parking boards and the ability to distribute flyers to 5 Crore population? When Hindustan Level becomes interested, advertising rates are higher and the whole program would make a lot more economic sense. In fact, the overall profit potential could be so huge that one company could orchestrate this from the start. What do you all think? Where is the Achilles heel? Bharthi
