Addiction - But I won't Complain !!

Oflate, am addicted to a practise - Whenever i come across any company that pricks my curiosity ( happens most of the time ), i immediately start clicking to reach the founder bio's !!! It's really an addiction !! But i don't plan to quit this anytime - i only seem to benefit from this :)

During one of these "trips" , i landed on the justdial page and happened to read about the company founder's bio - extremely impressive !! Someone like you and me going on to build a fabulous company !!

He started out with just Rs.50,000 and right now JustDial is valued at 500 Crore!!!!

What is even more impressive - He actually worked at one of the Yellow pages companies, which was rather a commodity market ( lots of directories providing the info ). He then thought of a more customer centric business model for the directories, which didn't exist then and relentlessly worked on executing it. Quite a learning on differentiation in a commodity space.

In or Out ?

Are the In and Out stores found in the petrol pumps - In or Out ?

While filling up diesel at the petrol pump yesterday, the sight of the well stocked "In & Out " store made me think. "In & Out" stores are the retail outlets in most Bharat Petroleum fuel stations.

Am thinking aloud here - Do let me know what you think.

If " In & Out " has to make money, the store has to bring people in. Obviously, the biggest target customers are the people who come to fill fuel. In the western nations, in the absence of a fuel pump attendant, the car drivers / owners fill fuel in their cars on their own and are forced to go into the petrol station office ( in all cases, a retail outlet is a part of the office ).

If we look at the Indian scenario, the petrol pump attendant fills fuel and the car drivers/owners pay cash near the pump and leave away from the station. Also, the space constraints limit the drivers from parking the cars and getting into these retail outlets.

The only time i went into the retail outlet was when a bunch of us were driving around at 2 am and were hunting for a non-alcoholic drink.

Unless customers are drawn into this store, this model may not work.

Would love to hear what you think about this .