That is… till the innovation of the chain contraption whereby a person needs to slot in a dollar coin before the trolley could be removed from the trolley chain.  To retrieve back the dollar coin, the shopper will need to chain back the trolley.  The dollar coin was used as some sort of a deposit to incentivize shoppers to return the trolley back to its original holding location.

Some might feel that a civil conscious Singaporean would have returned the trolley to its rightful position without the need of such contraption.  But, maybe instead of overly relying on the innate good naturedness of human beings, it is time for us to start thinking about creating systems with the incentives aligned towards our objectives.

Apparently, since the system is working:

Benefits of a shopper using the trolley > Inconvenience of the shopper in returning it to the trolley queue

Morale of the Story:  By aligning the incentives of the system to the desired outcome/objectives, we can more easily achieve our goals.

But seriously, why not just hire another staff (let’s call him the trolley man) to help return trolleys back to the queue.  It might increase costs slightly.. but the increase in costs might be insignificant if we divide the wages of the trolley man by the number of purchases (as in the case of our endless queues at the checkout counters in NTUC).  Hmmm… besides.. it helps with unemployment… 

Seriously, a trolley man might be the best alternative.  Some people will see the chain contraption as a cost savings to the organisation.  But simply looking at the problem that way would have ignored the fact that the trolley man provides a service far superior to a mechanical chain, i.e.  what if the shopper did not have a dollar coin to spare?  what if the shopper needs to rush off somewhere else and that 2 minutes of fumbling for coins and returning the trolley to its rightful location is just… too costly?

Basically, if

Inconvenience of the shopping using and returning the trolley > Wages of Trolley man / no of trolleys returned per month

Then an optimal system will be to hire a dedicated trolley man to take charge of the returning the trolleys….

Morale of the Story:  Success of a system should always be based on the actual benefit and cost analysis across many different stakeholders.

Hmmm… which makes me wonder… as companies replace phone receptionist with automated answering machines that tells you to….

Press 1 if you would like to speak to sales…. Press 2 if you……

Are they really running their Customer Management System in an optimal way?  If you ask me, I think I would prefer to pay a couple of dollars more for some better service over the phone…

Not sure why I did it that way.  I guess I was just bored… tired of doing the same thing over and over again…  Well, today while I was going through the book:

It turned out that …  writing when done in an innovative way.. those have a big impact on the mind’s retentive ability… and surely.. one of the most important principles of proposals writing is to stand out amidst a crowd of mediocrity….

Below is a snapshot of some Head First Principles… click on image to expand…

The coffee costs my 14 bucks (got 2 cups.. one for me another for my girlfriend… ) and yes.. I am perfectly happy with the trade.  I guess this means that I had derived far greater utility from the trade then the 14 SGD, i.e.

Utility(ambience) + Utility(latte)  >> 14 SGD

resulting in a very happy trade.

Then I recalled the times when I would go to the starbucks at fusionopolis (which is really near my office).  I would again buy 2 cups of starbucks cafe latte and bring it back to the office.  However, somehow, that hurts a little.  Paying for coffee to bring back just dun seem to be worth that much.  Being a rational consumer, that probably means that the utility from the trade is just slightly higher than 14 SGD.

Utility(latte) > 14 SGD

Ah.. that is because this time round.. I am no longer consuming the ambience of the place…  Hmmm.. if I am feeling like that, wouldn’t that mean that a lot of other latte lovers will be feeling the pinch too?  I believe a large costs of the latte business lies in the rental of the premises itself.  (I did read an article that the raw materials to make a cup of starbucks coffee costs less than 10 cents…)  So why not:

Offer a lower price for latte take aways?

The latte take aways will have a much lower costs to produce (as it does not consume retail space) and so it will be feasible to be implemented at a lower price.  Consumers will also be happy since they are just paying for what they are consuming, i.e. the latte without the ambience….

The rationale for businesses to bill in the costs of retail space has been around for a long time.

I believe the restaurants charge corkage fees for customers bringing in their wine bottle is because the customers are consuming the valuable retail space while slowly enjoying their wine.  Surely, businesses need to see the other side of things, i.e.

providing a lower price for consumers who do not consume your valuable retail space!

Hmmm.. maybe its time for the remaking of some new rules in the cafe industry. 

Recently, due to my failing memories, I lost my phone.  The result was that I got myself a new android and new iphone.

And I was thinking to myself… why do people need to hail a cab through the traditional phone line?  Surely, it is much more convenient for someone to just whip out their i-phone/g-phone and click on the option to say that they would like to hail a cab and have their whereabouts information effortlessly integrated to the Taxi reservation system?

It is a win-win for both sides.

Consumers.. no longer need to specify their location (as the phone GPs can do the work for them).   They save big on both time and mobile charges.

Taxi Companies … no longer need to spend money on telephone receptionist to handle the calls. The system can automate the entire cab hailing process.

Hey.. in the future, it might even give rise to paid hitch hikers.  I remembered once when the government actually made it mandatory for all cars entering the CBD to have 4 passengers… there was actually a central pick-up point for people to gather.. so that cars with insufficient passengers can just load up these strangers….

Surely, a driver who is on the way to Clementi wouldn’t mind stopping by and picking up a passenger who is going there for a few extra bucks?  Win for the driver (money), Win for the hitch-hiker (cheaper ride) and win for the environment (less CO2)!  A triple win-win-win!

Anyway, I should be writing something like this soon.  I find it exceedingly irritating to keep typing in the small Android keypad to sms my customer.  I need a more efficient messaging platform.

http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2009/04/23/social-email-campaigns-to-increase-nearly-400-in-2009/

I find it quite interesting, as recently, I was exposed to CNI business school who were willing to pay 1-2k for a solitary blast to eHoteliers database.  I guess.. this shows the importance of a targeted group of clientele.  I think Social Media.. might be the next easy thing to get a targeted group of clientele.  Provide something useful.. and sure.. people should flock there.

Was thinking of Cinema timings and locations.  Why not build a site that allows people to very easily locate the nearest cinema showing their favorite shows?  Currently, the navigation is pretty unfriendly… On top of it, maybe we can leverage on Facebook for dissemination of the app.  The app can also let people review the movies really easily.. and surely.. we would much prefer to read our friends’ reviews over those posted by some crap people. 

Anyway, started getting my intern to GeoCode the cinemas in Singapore….  

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/19/reid-hoffman-my-rule-of-three-for-investing/

Got some really interesting insights from my good friend who started StreetSine.

——————-From StreetSine———————

Bro,
I understand what he is saying and agree to it if you’re building the next facebook or flickr. Macham like whatever Google does, it must scale WORLDWIDE.

But building something for niche areas and niche customer segment is a different ballgame altogether. Especially in the Asia Pac region. The geo-political situation, data representation, culture and needs are completely different in each country. There is no economies of scale for your web app. You need to customize it to serve a relatively small population. SG is a small place, and so is Malaysia, or Thailand or HK or even Australia, etc…

When the potential audience is small, the focus will be fundamentally different.

——————-From Me———————

Hmmm… so you are saying… that the business model right from the start one… is only relevant for Singapore Start Ups?

While for the states… community and users are all that matter?

BTW, facebook is still bleeding and is in need of funding… despite over 400 mil revenue.

——————-From StreetSine———————

Business models are far more important in SG (or more accurately, if you’re starting up something niche either in geographical or services sense).

2 things don’t change. One is a company closes down due to negative cashflow or being out of capital. Second is, assuming that the the business finds a sustainable business model, it is often different from the original one that is envisage.

If you put the 2 things together, funding takes a very critical role. Its a fact that the business will have to lose money on a constant basis until the business model is found. So the qn is, how long do you’ve before you will be forced to abandon it?

How long depends on (a) the development cost and burn rate and (b) the confidence of the investor to continue putting money. Now, if you compare SG and Worldwide, the development cost per potential customer is significantly higher due to lack of economies of scale. To put things worse, the confidence of the investor is also lower (or investors are more impatient) due to the smaller potential.

(Note that investor can be anyone, including ourselves)

Bottomline is, niche has far less time to play with compared to facebook. So if you assume business model change takes the path of A (initial conception) -> B -> C -> D -> E (right one), then you had better start with C or D in SG because you don’t have the luxury of waiting for the right model before you’re forced to close down. (Note: business model experimentation and changes take as much time whether you’re creating facebook or SG services)

Therefore, IMHO, getting the business model approximately right (rather than precisely wrong) is far more important in niches where there is no economies of scale.

That’s my thesis

Date: 16 Apr – 21 Apr

Traveling overseas

The key idea is basically:

Share Advertising

Sticky Content to get recurrent visitors (by pulling relevant data)

Easy to Use

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/03/24/netflix-creeps-into-facebook-with-netflix-updates/