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Top Ten Lamest Start-Up Ideas Ever
The foremost reason for any individual to invest his/her time, space, money and health on stating up a venture is to make money! To make profitable gains in the foreseeable future and even more with the distant future, is all that business-folk can think of. For us humans – sellers and consumers alike – life is a perpetual winter wherein we search for more and hoard more for our future and our future generations. Not that I condemn it or am judging the fact that we’re so caught-up in the rigmarole. Such reckless need to make money has driven us to the brink of starting-up enterprises that we either do not have a clue about or care for; as long as it does what it has to – fetch my money and in more measures! Here is a list of the lamest start-up business enterprises that I have come across. This classification is slightly subjective, based on a small research study (talk about small benefits of being a journalist!!). The reasons for them being the lamest wouldn’t surprise you either. Art or science? Is a question raised for any function of life. Marriage instead of being a sanctified act has become more a coupling of two machines in the most mechanistic manner. We are in the 21st century, for crying out loud! In the wise-words of Amir Khan (from the coke ad) “gone are the days when parents meet first, rather the kids meet and then the parents”. Isn’t that the stark reality? Is it easier to force two people to come together for life for a small price paid or trying to get one to choose from a whole lot of photos just so the “broker” could get a commission? If there is something missing in this start-up business, then I would call it the sheer dignity that has just dropped of the face of the earth! Wedding Planning 3.5 Billion turn-over industry in the US Market. 3.5 Billion! Lucrative – it is. Manageable? – In the US – Yes. India is a proud mother of 2 Billion children, in all shapes, colors and sizes and still growing. A country this big with a cultural heritage so rich that it demands respect and invitation card to every wedding and to every Uncle’s family, Uncle’s-Uncle’s family, Uncle’s Cousins, Aunty’s cousins, Aunty’s-Uncle’s-Aunty’s is not all that the invitation list ends with, rather leading to a minimum of 2000 people in the wedding hall gracing the (by-then poor) couple with their august presence! If a wedding is a small and private affair; with a few close friends and family members. Where the wedding is more a marriage of two-souls uniting for life, than the show of class; then a wedding-planner makes perfect sense, but with 2000 people of which at least 1000 are kids, it takes more than one wedding planning company to hold them in place! For a country as big as ours, wedding planning is the second-lamest start-up business ever. Lucrative? yes, but all the best if you live past the first wedding you had planned. Organic food stores In my city, I have visited at least 10 stores that claim to sell organic-food only – vegetables, fruits, cough syrup!, and everything else. What baffled me most wasn’t the fact that these articles were three-times more expensive than the normal food items that we find with other departmental stores, but of all 10 stores only one store had been duly certified by the FDA as a store that cultivates and harvests only organic food – no preservatives, pesticides or fertilizers. Having bought a jar of marmalade, I came back home and have kept it in my antique-rose-wood show-case! Why? Because, it was so expensive! Apart from the fact that just one place was certified; I bought a tiny li’l jar that cost me the same as three burgers, just to eat a slice of toast! And thus shall remain my jar of marmalade in my antique show-case, just to remind me that during such times of recession, spending is not the option. Maybe one day, when the market is better, I probably will take the jar out! Home-made beauty products I wouldn’t deny the fact being pointed out that people who own Shenaz’s beauty line or the VLCC products have created a niche for themselves, but what the new start-up business owners tend to forget is the fact that they had the money to spend to test their products for the desired results and have them properly approved. They have spent years in research, trying to find out what is required in the market and what is best needed by the people. They’ve become experts in their fields to tell customers as to what the customer’s skin care needs are! Now beat that with a new start-up. It’s not just about concocting a bunch of solutions and pouring it in a bottle, but takes the art to bring it together and sell it. Many a new start-up cosmetic companies have come up with ideas of various creams and lotions, but none has survived past the first week of launch and thankfully, no permanent damage left! (Remember, we as journalist also tend to lend a hand for being lab rats and this comes out of first-hand experience!!!) Play-schools India as a country, sad to say, once had educators! This is true. With the inception of concepts like the Montessori learning centers and international play school, our country has lost the touch for fine-education. This business is lucrative, if you have the right marketing and the right contacts, but with under-paid and under-qualified staff, who can’t say “appul” than apple, what kind of an education or a future are we securing for or future generations and what kind of an example do we set as educators? More expat children, put into more of these “international” play-schools, do make it lucrative, but what does boggle one’s mind is the question: Are these schools called international because they have international curriculum or is it because they have kids from all over the world? Kashmiri Boutiques How does a person know that a fast one is being pulled right over his/her own eyes? By blindly walking into a Kashmiri boutique. We are neither gemologists nor cashmere connoisseurs, we buy things from such wonderful business ventures with “blind-faith”, but do we really know if it is wool or silk? Amethyst or glass? Horse hair or waste cotton? Never, but these businesses still thrive. For a start-up, you better have a trusting clientele that will believe all your fast ones and still keep coming back to you. Else don’t even think about getting into this business! Theme (cheesy) coffee-shops For some reason (general), people prefer to walk up to a small hole-in-the-wall joint for a cuppa and a smoke than to spend a fortune on the same cuppa sans the smoke, sitting in a cold-dim-lit joint with garish walls that looks like a cross between a fake Van Gogh, a Spanish gore movie-set and a Renaissance bordello from a European village!!! For a start-up coffee-shop, people forget the primary need of the customers – simplicity and more simplicity. No more tacky names or colors are going to win the “theme” start-up coffee shops any benefactors. Au contraire, it would set them running and never come back. Networking sites Few networking sites have created a niche for themselves and no matter what, newer start-up businesses that target networking people based on profession, gender, interests, have lost its edge. It’s the same thing that the other older and more reliable sites have. So why would a person, in his/her right mind, keep jumping from one site to another. Just to make more friends? A friends’ list of 2000 odd people; with no idea of who these friends are? If it is a networking site that has nouvelle ideas and not some similar run-of-the-mill bore, then bring it on, but don’t expect much for too long! Independent financial advisors Ok dear readers, we are dealing with the most trying times of recession, where even a bottle of marmalade is a luxury saved for better days or for my kids’ wedding if the market doesn’t shape-up! What more could the financial advisors (independent or otherwise) tell us? That they have started an independent firm, and need more money to advise us on how not to spend our money, rather put it into their pockets! For some reason, this just sounds so lame that it’s not going to add-up, even after the recession for me! Regd. Pen-Pal Networking “Business” Hard to believe, but yes such a business does exist and tries to thrive in our country. I would call these “Registered pen-pal network business”, not just lame, but also corny, tacky, and most likely with a hidden agenda! Not sure if these business ventures do make money out of making people write to each other (unless they run a stationery store), but there does seem to be a classless side-lining of the objective of such businesses. Skimmed through the classifieds sections a few days back and was dumb-struck to note that many such a regd. Businesses are asking the readers to write to them to get in touch with college-girls, house-wives, and beautiful spinsters!!! (Still haven’t figured out if it is a sin to write to men, old or invalid ladies who can read or write!) Whatever is their agenda for this business, it sure is the lamest idea for a start-up business, unless you love the idea of the cops hounding you for posting such adverts. The right measure and the combination of spices make the dish, and to make your business think of something new, take a little bit of risk and add truck-loads of ethics to that work and with my magic wand and best wishes, you should do just fine!
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