[asterisk-biz] Dial a Meal

[Alex Balashov]

I believe it is a question related to the transaction of commerce 
("biz", as the kids say these days), if I had to put it in context of 
Thomas's few previous unanswered posts inquiring about good ideas for 
Asterisk-powered business models.

Thomas, as far as your question:  I don't know.  I submit that the 
reason that your previous questions about business models went 
unanswered is because there is no simple formula for determining whether 
a business proposal is viable.

If you are asking about technical viability, your suggestion below is 
possible to implement.

Whether it would work as a sustainable _business model_ that can grow 
and scale in a way that produces sound returns for you is an entirely 
different matter, and depends on many, many things.  A few off the top 
of my head, in a Business School 101 kind of way:

(a) Your location;

(b) The capital and operational cost basis involved relative to your 
prospective price point, including the scalability and dimensioning of 
costs at low and high volumes;

(c) Your price point(s) or ranges;

(d) The amount of capital you have to invest in marketing and promoting 
such a service;

(e) Size of addressable market given constraints of D;

(f) The demographic and/or social group such a service would be marketed to;

(g) The accessibility and return on investment of the demographic and/or 
social group to which you would market based on the constraints of A, B, 
C and D;

(f) Actual interest in such a service on the part of what you imagine to 
be the prospective users;

(h) The availability and cost of vendors and partners to help provide 
inputs to your product and meet your needs at the right price.


Despite no shortage of formidable attempts by large companies that do 
these things in a heavy-handed, management-intensive, capital-intensive 
kind of way to conduct expensive market studies and/or deploy focus 
groups, a lot of the demand side of this equation is likely to be 
something you can only discover by trying it.

That's the whole premise of entrepreneurship;  you take a risk by 
betting on something you think meets a need, and perhaps it works, 
perhaps it doesn't.

Perhaps it will turn out there is a lot of demand for it, but your 
execution is poor and does not actually fulfill it in a way that 
satisfies the customers.  Perhaps your execution will be excellent and 
your cost inputs viable, but there is no serious demand.  Perhaps there 
would be serious demand but you do not have the marketing capital, 
talent pool and/or facility to reach tap into it, or perhaps there will 
be little demand despite excellent marketing work on your part.  Perhaps 
there is no demand for it now because such a service has not been 
extensively contemplated, but you can help create a new market - and 
therefore, new demand - wherever it is you are.

These are all things you are in a better position to estimate than 
anybody on this list, and the exact same goes for any other questions 
along the lines of, "How do I make money with Asterisk?"

-- Alex

On 12/20/2009 03:47 PM, Robin Rodriguez wrote:

> do what? keep this list on-topic Thomas (hint: this is not on-topic)
>
>
> On Dec 20, 2009, at 1:13 PM, Thomas Perron wrote:
>
>> Would this work?
>>
>> 100 individual home owners make one meal per day.
>> Then people call for the list by zip code.
>> Then, they order the food through the IVR.
>> Cheap price.
>>
>> Comments please.
>>
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> --
> Robin D. Rodriguez
> Systems Engineer
> Ifbyphone, Inc.
> Phone: (866) 250-1663
> Fax: (847) 676-6553
> rrodriguez at ifbyphone.com <mailto:rrodriguez at ifbyphone.com>
> http://www.ifbyphone.com <http://www.ifbyphone.com/>
>
>
>
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-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems
Web     : http://www.evaristesys.com/
Tel     : (+1) (678) 954-0670
Direct  : (+1) (678) 954-0671