Joe Public gets a fair go

Sometime late last year, my co-founder Alan and I, conceived the product that will hit the market next week. Let’s refer to what’s coming as Ela-for now. It began with a dual problem. One, it is difficult for many people to find stable jobs as well as alternatives to jobs. They migrate-to cities, other provinces, countries. Then they send money home. They have a tough time getting anywhere close to a remittance counter, leading to what I call as transactional inequity.

You see, when we design cities, we seem to forget how much these places depend on a floating, migrant population. They make the place tick. But they have neither a place to carry out commerce(because they lack money, papers and approvals)nor quick access to places to encash funds or send money home(because they are mostly housed away from the city). The product was conceived on the back of these inadequacies. We had in mind, for example, the hawkers and the many prepaid airtime sellers whom you find on footpaths from Panama City to Dubai. These are foot soldiers of a city-this is where value lies untapped. Ela was born to thrive beyond the bright lights. Now we are bringing her to you this coming week.

The ability to create your own business from your mobile and then generate your own networks, lends scale to small business. Networks acquire a life of their own, giving tremendous advantages both to business owners and their customers. Let us take an example. One shopkeeper buys sugar. Then she sells drinks wholesale made from that sugar to a pushcart down the road, who services workers at a site. The pushcart man acquires size and employs three younger men with pushcarts to handle his growing business. They start selling fritters. One of them tops up prepaid airtime for the workers. Different products and services, different prices, different volumes and metrics.

These networks are embedded in the physical world and while they move in and out of the digital domain now and then(thanks to us), their value is derived from movement on roads, among buildings, between shops. Alan and I, with the support of Derick Smith and the rest of our group colleagues, are now planning to push the boundaries of what a transactional presence should be. The parallel I draw is with a MRT or Tube station. You want a station within 200 metres or so of your home. Well, we want remittance outlet density to approach that. I mean in every major population centre, worldwide. What about the real estate cost? More on that later. But suffice to say that the Ammbr mesh network will be a force multiplier here. That is distance and reach. We are also looking to change experience and that will be totally different from what we have done so far. Watch out. Our aim is to give the tree a good shake for Joe Public to have a fair go in life.

Until next week. Enjoy the soccer.