This week I worked on the value stream of LUVwater. A value stream is essentially a roadmap of how things are going to get done in an organisation. It made me think at first from an overview of the operations and then after breaking it down from a very detailed level as to how the venture would operate. This was a great exercise to do and I would encourage every entrepreneur to do it as it makes you think of the finer details of the operation and where problems could occur that you previously never thought of. It gives you an idea of what resources you will require when and gets you thinking as to how you would acquire them. Also a good thing is you can also have a lot of fun with it but figuring out new and novel ways to explain a complex procedure in a very simple way.
There were quite a lot of things that got me thinking on LUVwater's value stream. Who are our prototyping suppliers (who will supply us the UV-C LED's at the prototyping level, who will manufacture final prototypes for us and who will test them out)? Well this actually requires thorough research on which companies currently operate in that sector and who would be the most beneficial to us. We will have to decide if we want the same partner to assist us in scaling up later or do we even want someone with those capabilities for now?
Another aspect of the value stream I had a hard time figuring out was the service aspect of the venture.The product will contain cleanable filters. Weather these filters are cleaned by the users or they are replaced over time is a design decision we are going to have to take which will affect how servicing plays out. I reached out to our professor Tim Zak with this issue and he said once you choose the right market you can figure it out yourself which made perfect sense. So I know I want to start this in India as thats the market I know best. Now, I did some research and I came across this interesting statistic from the unicef website which says "Sixty seven per cent of Indian households do not treat their drinking water, even though it could be chemically or bacterially contaminated.". I found that unicef spends about $47 million on water projects every year alone. A lot of the water diseases in India boil down to the fact that children get affected more adversely and more children die every year which is why unicef is doing so much in India. Figuring what kinds of organisations work in India can lead me to more research on how they operate and probably figure out if we do need a service component or it could be handled directly by the organisation that bought the product.
I was also thinking about how the backend of the system will work. Who will be handling finance and IT and the website? I would also like an app for our customers to be able to track the products they leave behind and how many people they are able to affect and save lives of. I have to figure out at which stage that app has to be developed and by whom. Of course these are questions that have to be answered later and that there are more important things to be focussed on now.
These and many other questions about the value stream I have can be answered by better understanding of the market and doing more through research. I am starting to talk to certain charities and aid organisations in India and I will figure out the best strategy in the coming weeks.
There were quite a lot of things that got me thinking on LUVwater's value stream. Who are our prototyping suppliers (who will supply us the UV-C LED's at the prototyping level, who will manufacture final prototypes for us and who will test them out)? Well this actually requires thorough research on which companies currently operate in that sector and who would be the most beneficial to us. We will have to decide if we want the same partner to assist us in scaling up later or do we even want someone with those capabilities for now?
Another aspect of the value stream I had a hard time figuring out was the service aspect of the venture.The product will contain cleanable filters. Weather these filters are cleaned by the users or they are replaced over time is a design decision we are going to have to take which will affect how servicing plays out. I reached out to our professor Tim Zak with this issue and he said once you choose the right market you can figure it out yourself which made perfect sense. So I know I want to start this in India as thats the market I know best. Now, I did some research and I came across this interesting statistic from the unicef website which says "Sixty seven per cent of Indian households do not treat their drinking water, even though it could be chemically or bacterially contaminated.". I found that unicef spends about $47 million on water projects every year alone. A lot of the water diseases in India boil down to the fact that children get affected more adversely and more children die every year which is why unicef is doing so much in India. Figuring what kinds of organisations work in India can lead me to more research on how they operate and probably figure out if we do need a service component or it could be handled directly by the organisation that bought the product.
I was also thinking about how the backend of the system will work. Who will be handling finance and IT and the website? I would also like an app for our customers to be able to track the products they leave behind and how many people they are able to affect and save lives of. I have to figure out at which stage that app has to be developed and by whom. Of course these are questions that have to be answered later and that there are more important things to be focussed on now.
These and many other questions about the value stream I have can be answered by better understanding of the market and doing more through research. I am starting to talk to certain charities and aid organisations in India and I will figure out the best strategy in the coming weeks.
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