These are the voyages of an IMD start-up group. Its ongoing mission: to explore the strange new world of entrepreneurship. To seek out new challenges and opportunities. To boldly go where few others have gone before.
‘Real Learning. Real Impact’. If any of us were in any doubt about how seriously IMD takes that statement, those doubts were put to rest when we received our start-up project assignment. No tests, no marks, no theory. Real practical work, where a pass or a fail depends on whether you have actually made a meaningful contribution. It doesn’t get more ‘Real Impact’ than that. Keeping this in mind, for the past few months we’ve been knee-deep in the brave new world of on-demand delivery, with our start-up company, ‘Luckabox’.
Luckabox aims to solve the billion-dollar problem of instantaneous last mile delivery. Or to put it simply, it asks one exciting question: “Wouldn’t you like to receive your online shopping shipped in under two hours?” Luckabox exists as a broker between online retailers and courier companies to ensure that for paying customers, the nearest courier on their system can pick up the online order and deliver it to the end customer in under two hours. Using software as a service, Luckabox wants to tap into this new and growing market for instant delivery.
For the past few months, we have been working towards understanding this market and the potential opportunities therein. We’ve been getting in touch with retailers across Switzerland to understand their pain points and the value proposition that Luckabox could potentially bring. This has involved tapping into the vast IMD alumni network, and at the same time making cold calls and finding people through LinkedIn. At the same time, we have prepared our extensive customer survey to help us better understand customer needs.
If anything, the past few months have taught us that the life of an entrepreneur is very much like that of an MD student. One is passionate, always working and more often than not, sleep deprived. On the eve of our final presentation to a jury of venture capitalists, our hope is that all our work is well received. More importantly, we hope that we have managed to bring some real value to our young start-up. Isn’t that what ‘Real Impact’ all about?
(Luckabox team from left to right: Sakshi, Alberto, Mathieu, Fabiana, Ignacio, Anish)
Anish
