The Next Big Idea is to do with quality of life

Whatever the next big idea is, it is not about cloud, mobility, big data and social media and what may lay in their intersection. These technology ideas are not what you would get a customer to pay you big money for; these are merely approaches. While conjuring the image of the next big thing, quite often, we think of technology first and then get caught in it; we hope that by playing with technology, something useful may come out and become the next big thing.

After writing my latest book “The Elephant Catchers”, I have been to 10 tier II cities to talk to entrepreneurs on how to build companies that scale. In the course of that journey, I met with hundreds of young entrepreneurs who are thinking of gaming and social networking, building yet another low- cost ERP and this “catch-all” phrase called “building apps”. It is the same situation even in a city like  Bangalore. Entrepreneurs are placing technology before life and living.

To me, the big thing for India and for the world has to do with explosive growth in our cities. It is a given.

Very interestingly, all cities in the world, more or less, deal with same or very similar problems. In that sense, anything we do to solve problems people face in cities, becomes globally scalable. If it works for Bangalore, chances are, with minimal localization, it will work for at least half a dozen cities around the world. So the question is what will the city of the future need and how do we locate opportunities to create goods and services that make people happy, so that they pay for them and come back for more.

People will need safety; both physical and mental. People will need intimacy. People will, of course, need food and shelter. People will want to save time for everything they do and be fresh to work and be fresh after work. People will need to care for their near and dear ones, whether it is for sending their little ones to school or for taking care of the elderly. People will need affordable health care. They will need relaxation, entertainment and recreation in order to revive.

If we decode some of these, the ideas that arise from them, literally explode.

The trick is to find a niche around these ideas and then deliver a product or a service using technology to serve the customer efficiently. In choosing that niche, one must look at the intersection of one’s love and competence. If you love the idea and have the competence to build something around it, the enterprise is bound to scale.

Bangalore has the perfect mix of a cosmopolitan culture and a technologically savvy eco-system.
In that sense, it is a great place to build the next big thing and if it works here, chances are big that it will work elsewhere. That has been the Café Coffee Day story and the Biocon story and that is the Hibiscus and Rage Chocolatier, Teleradiology, Flipkart and the Narayana Hrudayalaya story.

The next big idea is actually closer to you than you think! And remember, Java is only as good as the coffee and the holiday destination you and I really want to visit.

Subroto Bagchi
Chairman, Mindtree