So far explored Mortgages in a bit depth & these are interesting ideas:
- Digitalized Matching for Mortgages (Ringkas, Aagey-like)
- 10x Potential: High approval rates via precise matches could streamline the mortgage process for underrepresented buyers. Growing need as more first-time buyers emerge in Tier 1 and 2 cities.
- Challenges: Scaling trust and credibility; regulatory compliance with data-driven, digital models.
- Gig Economy and Flexibility for Loans
- Assist beyond bank hrs from 6pm to 11pm to apply for mortgages via college kids & bank employees (under 30 yrs) who are tech friendly
- Do Meesho for all kinds of loans. e.g peer to peer where we provide financing to enable people to give loans. business loans, consumption loans etc all kinds
- 10x Potential: Extending service hours and peer-to-peer financing addresses flexibility and accessibility issues in banking.
- Challenges: Maintaining quality and regulatory compliance when utilizing gig workers; scaling operations effectively without compromising the user experience.
- Building a DSA Network| Be Largest National DSA
- Leveraging higher margin by registering as a national player (1.5%) and offering DSAs to use our code & do what they are doing but earn more.
- Economies of scale - because we’re big, we get bigger margins from Banks, we can share more to DSA, more DSAs join us, we get bigger
- 10x Potential: Leveraging economies of scale
- Challenges: Requires substantial marketing to recruit DSAs, plus effective onboarding and tech tools to handle the increased volume.
- Loans for Niche Economic Activities
- Sending money at scale to create new source of income
- Loan for farmers- to grow high value crops
- Loan for extra room construction for AirBnB (hill stations)
- Loan for electric autos ownership (people pay amount equal to value of new vehicle as rental in 1 year)
- Phones for content creators- partner with creator teaching agencies?
- Laptop for becoming coders- partner with edtech tutors like Masai?
- 10x Potential: Micro-loans for specific, high-ROI activities (like electric autos, Airbnb rooms, and education loans) could be life-changing.
- Challenges: Monitoring credit risk for borrowers in non-traditional sectors; navigating partnerships with relevant service providers to verify that loans lead to actual income generation.
- Alternative Financing Models (Co-buying, Rent-to-Own)
- 10x Potential: These models align well with India’s growing middle class, helping more people become homeowners with reduced risk.
- Challenges: Needs education to shift cultural attitudes around co-ownership and managing shared investments.
- International Investment Platform for investors
- Get investors from Developed Nations to invest in Developing nations like India, SEA via our platform. We help them invest in NBFCs for better returns.
- Can expand to become 1-stop-shop for investing in foreign nations:
- Personal loans via NBFCs, Real Estate via REITs, Index Funds via Mutual Funds etc.
- Build, invest & manage international investments portfolio- diversify risks.
- 10x Potential: Many developed-market investors would be looking for better yields, and India’s infrastructure needs align with this capital. But cross-border investments are never straightforward, specially for smaller token sizes.
- Challenges: Compliance with international regulations; building trust with foreign investors; currency risk and political stability factors.
Challenge
- The above are all potential 10x options in financing- need to be tested.
- YC: Build something people want.
How we know people want it? When you test it in a small market today, you get a very large chunk of it. And expect the TAM to grow very big in next 10 years even if it’s very small / non-existent today.
- Testing it via the YC approach takes +3 weeks per idea. That’s close to 9 months of testing as we have about a dozen niches above, need to prioritize based on some parameters. What should those be?
- The financing space is still big & exciting, with clear way to make money (mostly a small % of the transaction we facilitate).
- NOW, we should jump & test them OR we should explore options beyond financing? [Athena hypothesis of- take few months to decide what to work on because you gotta commit 10 years to it]
- Finance, real estate, mortgage etc. feels comfortable (something i can work in for yrs) to me. But, of course, it doesn’t feel like a very strong deep WHY? Though I believe it would evolve over time as we facilitate funds for more people, connect with them & their stories and feel the tangible impact that finance & credit has in people’s lives. Theoretically, it will be life changer for many. And as that impact becomes tangible, the deep feeling of WHY it is important- will evolve.
- OTHER SPACES of interest
- Can we increase average lifespan of people by 10 years (it’s only 65 in India). Specifically, can we reduce the biological age of people in 50s to 70s age? They have money, feel deteriorating health, & can see & feel the improvements faster.
- Even if they have money, they may not always WANT to spend on themselves- saving for the next generation. That’s a culture in Asia & around.
- xxx Global AI SaaS xxx: AI Chatbots, AI for Content Creation, AI for marketing, AI employees etc.- Super exciting & comfortable space. BUT the reminder from Sam Altman stops from proceeding: “In the year Instagram was born, there were 1000 other img sharing apps. But not enough solving important problems like nuclear energy.” It seems the same now, for each of these ideas there are 1000’s of startups, dozens of funded startups too- yes there will be some huge successful outcomes but it’s probably not worth it to invest my 10 yrs because many are working on the same thing & plenty will solve it.
- Eternal problems: Abundant health? Abundant energy? Abundant access to capital resources, opportunities? What else? Let’s look at World Bank’s SDGs.
PS- I find abundant energy very important & if some interesting opportunity comes- would love to contribute, but don’t think the current state is close to it- renewable energy is inefficient & energy source to physical energy conversion systems (like combustion motors) still feel far from ideal. I feel the world will change if we can have infinite + clean energy small systems- something akin to having may be a box of 1 meter cube that can power a spacecraft, instead of having 100k to millions of liters of fuel! Refined version of nuclear energy systems might be the key. But not diving into research. Rather if someone has researched, would be excited to collaborate & take it forward in the world.
World Bank’s SDGs
I think there are broadly 3 buckets for me. Finance & related ones (what I’ve been exploring), Health (the one I’m considering to explore), Many others which I don’t see myself investing next 10 years.
1. Finance
- SDG 1: No Poverty – Eradicate poverty.