AAP: The New Startup Venture

I must admit I enjoy watching the daily News Shows! Yes, Shows!  And for any regular News follower in India, it is impossible to miss the 'Aam Admi Party euphoria' these days - TV, print or social media. Everyone has - an opinion about them, expectations from them, suggestions for them and well all have predictions for them. I have a viewpoint, not on what would they do but about what they really are. 

I see AAP as a 'New Startup Venture’; well startups cannot just be business models!! AAP is a brilliant example of a text-book style 'Startup Venture', verticalized in an extremely different dimension - National Hope! 

For starters I am neither associated with any political party nor have anything to do with the Silicon Valley. However, I have a personal take on AAP and below is a 'lifecycle analogy' to any successful Startup Venture:

1.   Discover Demand - For any new venture to be successful, there has to be a demand for what you offer. Arvind Kejriwal with his extensive experience working in the domain (NGOs, RTI movements etc.), was able to Discover the right demand. In this case, Indian voter, or to say, 'consumer market' had a vacuum of not just a new 'political party' but also a demand of a new 'model to consume national politics' altogether. 

2.  Seed: Incept the New Idea - How many times have you seen the likes of Googles and Amazons come out projecting a product - far from current time reality, creating a surge of demand in the market and most importantly setting forth an exclusive ownership of the idea - Google Glasses, Google driverless car, Amazon Drone delivery etc.

There are hundreds of corporates developing some form of body wear electronics, military has been using drones for ages, FedEx and UPS have been developing new ways to deliver goods for years but for a common consumer - company which first incepted the idea in the public, owns the idea, totally! Interestingly, the company might not even have a working model, might not even know how to develop it but they have created an environment where the consumers want it yesterday and feel the product exists today. 

The entire Anna movement worked out to be the seeding phase for AAP. No body knew how would they do it, but the whole country was sold over the concept of a ‘corruption-free nation’.  There have been various political parties in the past with similar ideas but AAP was the first to strike the right chord and own the idea as if they were the only ones who thought about it.

All new successful ideas require a smart way to propagate the idea with minimal financial budget. Amazon didn’t spend a dime to advertise for Thanksgiving Sales or Black Friday offers this time, all they had to do was publish a crazy drone idea and they became the talk of the globe in hours. Amazon killed two birds - achieve higher thanksgiving sale targets and have a virtual patent on drone delivery. With the right amount of media coverage, social network reach-out and targeted audience, AAP turned out to be the Amazon in Indian politics.

3.    Beta Version for Early Adopters – I think Delhi has been an Early Adopter of the AAP’s offerings. Like any new Apple iDevice owner, Delhites just can’t just stop talking about their new toy. We have been flaunting our new possession to the nation while are still discovering new hidden features and glitches every day. There are high expectations from what AAP can offer, new markets have been waiting for a local release and I am sure AAP has been collecting all sorts of feedbacks and data for the final release.   

4.   Economics of Mass production – AAP has the momentum and demand to really translate into an economically viable mass-produced product. With the likes of Meera Sanyal (ex-CEO Royal Bank of Scotland), Gopinath (founder of Deccan Airlines), Balakrishnan (ex- board member Infosys Technologies) there is an insurgence of human resources and financial capital, from both - crowd sourcing and from large investors. Now with the backing of an interesting board of investors and expertise, all eyes would be on how they shape up nationally, survive the old school competitors and cater to regional demands.

5.   Sustain or get Acquired – If successful, one either sustains for the longer run or gets acquired by the bigger fish. It’s too early for me to comment on the last stage of the lifecycle for AAP. Although, many would believe AAP has always been working in tandem with Congress but only time will tell. All I can say today, there is a big setback to the whole Modi National Wave. I strongly feel BJP was merely banking on the Congress downfall and they themselves had nothing new to offer. Modi peaked too early and AAP has been moving forward with baby steps. Congress on the other hand, is more excited to let AAP win than lose to BJP!