1001 Startup Ideas - Provding Storage Facilities To Households

 Competitor Analysis

 There are various startups which are providing similar services across the globe in different cities. There are Makespace and UrBin in New York; Boxful and Spacebox in Hong Kong and Spaceship in Singapore. This space has recently gained attention in India, and there is only one competitor ‘Box My Space’, which is operating in Mumbai. 

 Pain Point & Target Audience

 The target audience for this website would be “a person who has extra possessions lying in his house”. Indians have a special place in their hearts for their possessions and do not tend to sell or throw their old items. Now, with a large chunk of people moving to metro cities, there is a space crunch, and the apartments and houses are becoming smaller. Most Indians have items that they do not use or would rarely use or would like to keep them because of the memories associated. Therefore, the metro cities in India serve as the prime market for this idea.

 Value Proposition

 Unlike the USA, India does not have storage facilities or at least they are very few. The space in houses is decreasing, and Indians need areas where they can store their extra stuff or the stuff that they rarely use. Plus with the increasing number of hours that the professionals have to spend in the office, it is only convenient that someone offers to collect the extra stuff from home and delivers it when needed. The income levels in India are increasing, and people spend for comfort and convenience. This makes it the best time to launch this kind of a startup in India.

 Business Model

 The business model is very simple. A customer can order a box for storage from the startup website for a small sum. Once the box is delivered to the client, he shall put all the storage items in that box and inform the startup about the box being ready for collection. The startup will send a delivery boy for the collection of the box. The delivery boy shall make a checklist of the items and seal the box in front of the customer and then take it to store in their facility. There should be a proper facility for purchasing insurance for all the items, which will take off some liability off the promoter's shoulders and give your customers a much-needed peace of mind.

 The customer will be charged at all the following stages:

1. Delivery of box for the first time;
2. Collection of the box;
3. Storage of box (rent per month); and
4. Insurance Charges
5. Delivery of the box to the customer for any subsequent use.

 Way to market

 The way to market will be to launch this product in one city at first. The product could be launched in one of the metro cities, preferably Mumbai or Bangalore. These cities have a lot of space crunch and are filled with professionals who would be open to the idea of storing the unused products at a storage facility. The product would need to be tested and refined and launching it in one city makes it easier. The startup would also need to rent a storage space. It is advisable that the founders start with storing the boxes at their home for the first few customers to streamline the whole process of collection and storage in a proper manner. This would also help in saving the initial cost of renting a warehouse. Once, the startup gains traction, a warehouse can be rented to store the boxes.

 Milestones

 No startup or company succeeds without the hard work and attention to detail by the founders. It would be necessary that the founders put in the extra effort in streamlining the processes at the very beginning. The founders would also need to spread the word on the services offered by the startup. As marketing takes a lot of budgets, initially, the founders will have to go to companies and organize small 10-minute workshops and give corporate discounts to get first customers. The startup should streamline the processes with the first 100 boxes and then target storage of at least 5000 boxes in the first one year.

 Investment Needed For Prototype

 For testing & building the prototype, pitch for raising 50K USD from angel investors or incubators like Nasscom 10,000 startups. There should be no office rentals or salary payout; the entire budget should be apportioned for customer acquisition and technology.

 Team Capability

 You would need to have a supply chain expert and a viral marketing expert as co-founders. The supply chain expert would be hands-on on setting the initial processes right, and the viral marketing co-founder would be needed to make the idea popular.

 Investors / Expert Take

 The self-storage industry is new to India and would attract a lot of attention. There could be a lot of interest from VC funds like, which look to fund market-disrupting startups. In addition to this, the more successful counterparts, which are situated in other countries and have raised funds, may look at this opportunity to test and enter the Indian markets through young startups