I realise that Dunzo and Urbanclap (and many other apps) grew in a particular way. Initially they weren’t sure of the exact problem that they were solving, and instead focussed on a particular “problem class”.
And then over time, based on pattern recognition and segmentation/cluster analysis of the kind of problems that people were using these apps to solve, they started providing more targeted solutions that made better business sense.
Dunzo started off as a “we’ll do anything for you” app. People making fun of the company would talk about a Dunzo executive who would come home, collect your bean bag, get the beans refilled and bring it back to you, and only charge for the beans.
I’m pretty sure that there were many other such weird use cases in which people sort of abused Dunzo in its early days. However, most of the users of the app, I’m guessing, used it for sending packages across town, and to fetch stuff for them from shops and restaurants. And now, four years down the line, Dunzo highlights these specific streamlined use cases in the app, and has figured out a good way of charging for each of them.
It’s similar with Urbanclap. While I didn’t use them in the early days, I used their competitor HouseJoy. I used the app to request for “a plumber”. A plumber duly arrived and did all sorts of odd jobs in our apartment building, some of which were dangerous. And then at the end we paid him in cash, and he told us that “if someone from the app calls, tell them you paid me only 200 rupees” (we had paid him 2000).
Soon, after being a marketplace for all sorts of odd jobs, Urbanclap and its ilk noticed patterns and started specific services. So last week we got someone from Urbanclap to “repair our water heater” (this had a fixed fee on the app). It is another set of such specific services that UrbanClap offers.
I may not have said much new in this post, but it’s basically a crystallisation of some of my thoughts of late – sometimes it’s okay to not have a particularly precise business plan as long as you know what problem class you’re tackling. If you manage to get funded and are willing to burn money, you can learn the best set of problems from the market (within your identified class).
It’s an expensive process for sure, since until you figure this out you’ll be spending a lot of time and money doing random shit, but if you and your investors are willing to bear this kind of expense, it might be worth it.
The worst thing that can happen to you, though, is that after you’ve burnt your company’s money in learning about the market’s precise problem statement, another well-capitalised firm moves faster than you to address this specific market. The question is how well you can put to use your learnings from the early period for later on.
That discovery vs execution challenge also extends to feature vs product. Even after they’ve discovered their market and are executing in it better than others, the risk always remains that their ‘product’ will appear as a ‘feature’ in a bigger company’s product.
This has created a well known dead zone around areas in which Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook operate. Someone can discover a market need, and execute in it like crazy, but no decent VC will fund them, because one of the big four will just add that as a feature and kill the startup.