Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad Edition # 3

From the Jan-Feb edition of Harvard Business Review(New Business Models in Emerging Markets) as reported in the Wall Street Journal:

Chamak : A Laundry Service that is designed to serve those fed up with doing laundry themselves. Their current choices: A cheap but potentially unhygienic dhobi (washerman) or an unaffordable fancy launderette or dry cleaner. Both take several days.

From an economic standpoint, setting up a chain of self-service laundries was deemed too expensive to make a decent return.


Their solution: Portable, seven-foot-square kiosks with a front-loading washer and dryer, with an independent water supply, placed where there is most foot traffic. Customers drop off their clothes to be washed, dried and ironed in 24 hours.The company can charge 50 rupees (slightly less than $1) for a kilogram of clothing. And they'll SMS you when they are done! The service now has 5,000 customers patronizing 20 booths in Mumbai, Bangalore and Mysore.

ChotuKool  from Godrej & Boyce:  this little refrigerator, which holds just a few products and can run on a battery during power cuts

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