Talking puppy tells tall tales

Three years ago, when I was trying to build a company (a sort of euphemism for not having steady income), some well-meaning folks sought my advice on the strategic direction for a fledgling startup.

- SUVEEN SINHA

This startup, they said, wanted to make a media splash about delivering groceries and other stuff in 10 minutes. Was a 10-minute delivery of much use to anyone? Can besan, banana, or bread be really the thing you would need or want in an emergency?

Since this was an informal chat and I had no skin in the game, I decided to have a bit of fun. Think about it like having a talking puppy, I said. Would it be of much practical use? But boy, won't it be great to have one! It will become a huge talking point and probably make me rich.

This was not an original thought, "inspired" as it was by Chandler Bing in Season 6 Episode 14 of Friends, the one in which Joey tries to make Chandler cry by imagining a threelegged puppy begging for help.

The 10-minute idea appeared to be original, but not hugely impressive. As Scene Unseen has written before, startup founders should focus on solving critical problems.

As it turns out, the views of a newspaper columnist are not very consequential. It seems to be a good thing that quick commerce is not trying to solve a big problem.

The new consumer

Rahul Taneja, partner, Lightspeed, sees this as "building on top of an existing user behaviour of ordering from the corner shop or kirana store, and combining that with changing user habits". What was done earlier on a phone call is now being done on an app, but more efficiently.

"In a way, this is not about behaviour change as much as behaviour adaptation," Mr Taneja told your columnist.