MicroFinance and Rural Development
When I first started writing this blog, I wrote a series of pieces on MicroEntrepreneurship. Today, as the world is making giant leaps in embracing the entrepreneurship potential buried in the lowest rung of the poverty pyramid, I want to showcase a few of those pieces for your reading.
Tier 4 Market Definition : I invited discussion on this thread, but at the time, I did not have the readership I do today. So I would like to reiterate the invitation, now.
Coke, Pepsi, and the Indian Heartland : An exploration of Coke’s marketing strategy in rural India through the eyes of a boy.
Tupperware Party Around the Village Pond : Similar exploration around P&G and others.
How Big is the Global Candle Business? : Example of a product in global demand, and that can be manufactured for pennies in rural India, rural Africa, elsewhere.
Sick of Campbell Soups? : The opportunity in packaged foods.
These are ideas that could actually broaden the scope of microfinance from microlending to microequity, as ideas like candles and packaged foods, and many other products could actually become large scale businesses.
I would like to hear from the entrepreneurs focusing on these opportunities.
[…] For those of you who have read my discussion with Prof. Raj Reddy at Carnegie Mellon, you are familiar with our debate over MicroFinance, MicroEquity and MicroFranchise. We continued drilling down on this topic last weekend, following Sequoia’s investment in Micro-Finance company, SKS. I also wrote a piece referring back to some ideas from 2 years back. […]