Idea Generation Assignment

Group 23*1

Team members:

Lokesh Joshi
Ch. Ranjana
Shubhangi Sinha
Balkeerat
Vishal Gupta
Karmanya Aggarwal
Parv Bharadwaj
Rashik Gupta ( MBA)

1
Table of Contents
Ideas 3

Decision Matrix 4
Factors Involved In The Decision Matrix 5

Pair-Wise Comparison Analysis 6

5 Questions for Idea Evaluation Framework 7

Small batch material Supplier 7
Video Analytics and targeted online advertising platform 8

Conclusion 9
Ideas
Our team brainstormed ten ideas and used a Decision Matrix, Pair-Wise Comparison
Analysis and The Idea Evaluation Framework in order to narrow them down to a single idea.
The ideas are as follows
1. An organization that implements home automation with an emphasis on making
houses and buildings greener (More energy efficient)
2. A Video Analytics platform that offers media companies and advertisers to detect,
and automatically tag the content of videos that the advertisements are attached to,
giving advertisers finer tuned controls for platforms like YouTube, Facebook,
Twitch.tv etc.
3. 3D Printing Services that offer high end premium services to designers, sculptors and
artists whilst also offering cheaper customized prosthetics for the disabled.
4. Sports Analytics and Prediction for tertiary sports (sports with lower popularity) such
as Kabaddi, Mixed Martial Arts etc.
5. Automated detection of spam and fraudulent images in email messages.
6. Personalized Credit Card Logistics - acting as a supplier to firms like MasterCard,
Visa and Rupay in order to provide better services for delivery of new debit/credit
cards to bank end users
7. Retrofitting of monuments to make them easier to clean and energy efficient
8. Advertisement boards that are able to attract and kill mosquitos, thereby controlling
the spread of mosquito based diseases
9. Investment Management As a Service - Algorithmic Portfolio management, so that
common investing procedures can be completely automated.
10. Small Batch Material Supplier - Radioshack, but for materials required in mechanical
engineering projects by students and small research based startups and firms.
Decision Matrix

Initial Ease of Marketabi Competi Product Rate of

Factors Total
Investment Operation lity tion Differentiation Return
Weights 5% 15% 25% 10% 25% 20% 100%
1 3 4 8 4 5 7 5.8
2 8 3 8 3 8 9 6.95
3 4 8 4 8 8 4 6
4 5 8 7 3 7 7 6.65
5 6 4 3 2 7 10 5.6
6 5 4 6 8 3 7 5.3
7 5 3 3 6 3 6 4
8 6 4 8 4 4 6 5.5
9 6 7 8 4 4 9 6.55
10 3 6 9 7 9 6 7.45

Legend

Idea Name

1 Energy Efficient Home Automation

2 Video Analytics and Targeted Online Advertising Platform

3 3D Printing Services

4 Sports Analytics for Tertiary Sports

5 Detection of Image Based Spam

6 Personalized Credit Card Logistics

7 Retrofitting Monuments in order to make them energy efficient

8 Mosquito Killing Advertisement Boards

9 Algorithmic Investment Management as a service

10 Small batch material supplier

Shortlisted Ideas
Factors Involved In The Decision Matrix
The group chose the following factors as we believed they were the most relevant to our
ability to successfully create the ventures. All the metrics are rated on the scale 1-10
1. The Initial Investment Required and how difficult it would be to raise the required
funding
2. The Ease of Operation - accounting for Entry Barriers to the industry, Government
Regulations for the business and other macro factors
3. Marketability - accounting for the Total Market Availability, the size of our potential
market share, etc
4. Competition - accounting for how strong the competition is, how competitive the
market is and similar factors
5. Product Differentiation - how different our solution is to the competitors, what is our
MVP.
6. Rate of Return - how quickly can the business break even and become profitable.
Pair-Wise Comparison Analysis
From our initial ten ideas, our team narrowed it to the best 5 and used the comparison matrix
to eliminate further.

2 3 4 9 10 SUM
2 2 1 -1 -1 1
3 -2 2 1 -3 -2
4 -1 -2 -2 -3 -8
9 1 -1 2 -3 -1
10 1 3 3 3 10

Legend
2 Video analytics and targeted advertising platform
3 3D Printing Services
4 Sports Analytics for Tertiary Sports
9 Algorithmic Investment Management as a service
10 Small batch material supplier
Shortlisted
5 Questions for Idea Evaluation Framework
Our team picked the two best ideas from our pair wise comparison and used the Idea
Evaluation Framework in order to finalize to a single idea.

Small batch material Supplier

Q1. What Important Customer Problem Will You Solve?
Ans. For Mechanical Engineering Students working on projects or small mechanical
engineering based startups, getting the raw materials to quickly prototype their designs and
iteratively develop better solutions is incredibly difficult. Today, in order to acquire parts or
materials one either has to traipse through local markets or sweet talk manufacturers to get
a small volume of parts. Thus we would adopt a model similar to Sparkfun or Digikey for
electronics components.

Q2. How Are You Going To Do It?

Ans. By negotiating deals with suppliers in local markets, stockpiling commonly used
materials and parts in warehouses and providing overnight shipping of materials

Q3. How Many Customers are Willing To Buy From You?

Ans. By most estimates, India graduates approximately 1.6 Million engineering students
every year. If even a fifth of those are mechanical engineering students, all of whom are
typically given multiple projects to complete every year, we have a vast untapped market.
Further small mechanical engineering startups in the country would also be clients,
especially those collaborating with foreign founders, whom show distaste for sourcing parts
from local markets due to the lack of documentation.

Q4. Why Can Only You Provide The Solution?

Ans. Our Group members have a lot of experience negotiating with local market dealers in
order to source parts for our own projects, having organized group buys and the like in the
past. Additionally, our group would have first mover advantage as no such platform currently
exists.

Q5. How Can You Defend Against Others

Ans. By entering into contracts with local suppliers, as their ability to use unorganized supply
chains to quickly source parts is unparalleled.
We shall also offer timely shipping of products, and great customer service.
Video Analytics and targeted online advertising platform
Q1. What Important Customer Problem Will You Solve?
Ans. Advertisers today are leveraging direct advertising on web platforms. However, they
have very little control over which sorts of content their advertisements are placed on. Major
media companies all employ proprietary algorithms to place ad content with minimal
supervision from the advertiser. We would seek to rectify this, in order to let advertisers
choose to a fine grain of detail what sort of content their ads are placed against.

Q2. How Are You Going To Do It?

Ans. By employing a machine learning tool that tags content by genre, nature and
objectionable content (if any) and crawls the media companys websites in order to ensure
that the ads arent placed against objectionable content. We would further offer a dashboard
to advertisers so that they can choose what sorts of content they are placing their
advertisements against.

Q3. How Many Customers are Willing To Buy From You?

Ans. Companies spent approximately 60 Billion Dollars on online advertising last year, of
which Google and Facebook alone accounted for 65%. By offering a dashboard for
advertisers we can get slices from both proverbial pies, revenue from advertisers who are
disgruntled from seeing their ads next to objectionable content and from media companies
like Google and Facebook. Finally having an efficient algorithm will allow us the possibility of
an exit strategy wherein we get acquired by these companies.

Q4. Why Can Only You Provide The Solution?

Ans. Our Group has experience in machine learning and deep neural nets, an essential tool
for the success of this product. We also have content recognition as our core competency,
unlike large conglomerates like Alphabet and Facebook.

Q5. How Can You Defend Against Others

Ans. By iterating our algorithm and improving it faster than our competitors. Since we
already have first mover advantage, the time lapse required for competitors to catch up with
our technology gives us time to improve and iterate further. Leaving us perpetually one step
ahead.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our group evaluated both ideas and decided upon implementing the materials
supply business for the future. The video analytics platform, while compelling, offers a high
amount of technical risk, as well as has a large drawback, wherein our biggest clients double
up as our biggest competitors in order to provide similar services in house. The materials
supply business model is proven, reliable and in our opinion, most likely to succeed. This is
due to its favourable cost and revenue structure - by buying at wholesale rates, selling
higher we have a safe revenue stream. Also, since the mechanical engineering materials
tend to have a long shelf life, wastage of unsold materials will be minimized. Finally, by
entering into exclusive agreements with local suppliers, we can create a unique, supply
chain that will be difficult for any competitor to match.