The new Bangalore international airport surely looks swanky and new age however the Airport has got mixed reviews from passengers.. The biggest issue being the time it take to travel from the Airport to Bangalore City. Bangalore is currently being dogged with problems with air pollution, poor infrastructure and a big traffic jams and the airport has made it worse. When I traveled for the first time to the Airport It was a short flight from Mumbai about 1/12 hours however to my surprise it took me about 2 1/2 hours to reach reach my hotel The Leela.
However the 2 1/2 Hour trip was well spent, I had a very good quality meeting with one of the founders of GoVasool.com a startup based in Bangalore. I think it was probably one of those rare moments where I could give my undivided attention to a startup and spend quality time discussion their plan and strategy. While the travel between Bangalore Airport and the City. Plus with various traffic problems is a real pain! giving some thought to it i believe We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as though situations. Ans thinking with my startup hat on I believe it can be a boon to startups and can lead to some interesting startup business ideas. Here are some of them :-
1. Meetings with potential Investors, Customers, Partners: The best thing is to track the people who want to meet and if you know they are traveling to Bangalore. Offer them to meet at the Airport and Drive with them to the city. This is gonna assure you 2 hrs of quality time with this person much more than what you could have got meeting him at their office or hotel lobby. 2. Bangalore Airport Traffic Tweets: A good way to get a lot of followers to your twitter account would be the start a twitter service updating you about traffic and arrival departure status. No one wants to spend 2 hrs going to the airport to find their flight is delayed! 3. Jobs on Wheels: Idea for Job Site idea of offering free transportation to someone working say in C++ for top IT Company.. he can board the bus for free in return you can get to interview him etc. get his profile etc. even organize candidate interviews with HR of hiring companies. 4. White Sale: Perspective customers with valid id cards of say top BPOs, IT Companies etc. can board a free bus where Mobile Phones, Laptop, Plasma TVs etc are on display and sale. Good way for you to get a customer on board. Plus people boarding taxis and other modes of transportation are giving product catalogs to choose items from and give it to their driver same items will be delivered to customers home.
5. Edu Jam: Great opportunity to start a training program on the GO taking advantage of the traffic Jams and distance to airport. Eg on presentation skills, Advance C++, Using Facebook effectively, Blogging etc. where the sessions is just 2 hrs with a on board faculty, TV notes etc. Idea is every time to take a ride back to and from the airport i can do a training program.
Any more ideas?? And if you question is if I will fund such an Idea... why not.. do a proof of concept and business plan it wont cost much. With many more airports moving far away from the city and the ever increasing traffic problem across India you never know this could lead to a big business opportunity.
PS if you do decide the use any of the ideas.. don’t forget the give me the credit line :-)
if you have the guts put my comment back!!!
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Vishal
I remember coming across the idea of a freight liner carrying fabric cloth, which has a onboard factory to create garments on the way from origin port to destination port. Basically the idea is to make use of transit time, and thereby combining transit and production time.
The idea is for a free bus ride service called as ”BusyBus”. Users looking for a free bus ride from airport to city need to register once, provide details of their skillset and fill in arrival date/time. The matching engine of BusyBus finds tasks which fit with your skillset and sends the task details to the user. If the user agrees to do the task, he she gets a mticket for the free ride. Companies add tasks, which they need to get done, with BusyBus and pay a commission for getting them done. Its only left to our imagination on what kind of tasks can be done on a two hour journey.
So please let me know when can I come to collect the seed money for the venture.