|
|
|
|
|
|
by skdjksjdksjdk
3226 days ago
|
|
|
1) I remember reading about you some years ago. I think you were working on telling people/govt(dont remember which one it is), when water is being released. SMS based I believe. How did that work go? Was it profitable/scalable?
2) Can you comments on how profitable it is to sell data to Indian government organizations? Is it VC-level business or Lifestyle type of business
3) I believe you have to be in Bay area for 3 months as part of YC. For a business like yours(which requires on the ground presence), how does being in Bay area help?
4) Most important, how do you expect to take on politicians who control water mafia? |
|
|
At a high level, you're correct. For the past 6 years we were essentially selling water data to consumers, governments, and global brands. It was actually a profitable business but we decided to shut it down, not because we didn't have enough demand for water data, but because we were crowdsourcing water data and that was not very scalable or reliable. Back in 2011 IoT devices were way too expensive. When my co-founder and I noticed that devices were pretty cheap, we decided to start a company around water data again.
YC was great about us spending time in India- we split our time between India and the US because all our users were in India and they knew that. Honestly, to go after a big opportunity, sometimes it helps to be on the ground, and then step away and get advice/feedback from people who will listen to what you're saying and help you see the best way forward. That was how we used the time in the Bay Area, and found it very valuable. It was also useful for us because we were still in the launching stages. Had we been further along in the business, it may have been much harder to do what we did.
The water mafia question is definitely a super important. The only way we can see taking on the mafia is to add more water supply on to the market. The only way we can do that is to enable micro entrepreneurs to sell water. As you probably know, about 50% of urban Indians have their own borewell, but less than 1% sell water. Phase I is to aggregate water demand using our IoT devices, and Phase II is to enable hyperlocal selling of water.