Opportunity to create products is just about everywhere. If there’s respect and empathy for people, there are ways to solve their problem using the expertise one knows (for us it is creating softwares).

When we received an assignment to design a coffee table book, our first instinct was to decline since we were not into that kind of work. One of the reasons why we did take up the assignment was that we wanted it to get the treatment it deserved. But being a software development company, with a drive to do better we changed the way we looked at this problem. We could create a few design templates for the pages of the book, and let the software create and multiply the designs to give us the final book. This would also save hours of manual work on compiling the book and reducing its cost (if economy of scale is applied to this).

Similarly I recall a discussion with Prateek, where we saw another product being germinated.

Clothes many times come with spare buttons which are attached through small pouches. They are intended for the customers to replace the buttons in case it breaks or goes missing. We went with a safe assumption that these buttons don’t get used as much. We had fair reasons like, they don’t break often and people may not get to it when they need it most. If that extra button is not fulfilling its purpose then it ends up being an extra cost for the brand. What also adds to the cost are the additional tags with instructions that no one reads. All this also adds to the plastic consumption, an environmental hazard.

Now what if the brands added a scan code to replace all that jazz. Scanning the code could pop for the customers all the instructions and options to get the buttons or other help on-demand. This could increase customer interaction and ways to build further touch-points and save the brand some money.

Alright, maybe it may not make as much business sense as I hypothesised (maybe we will come up with a business plan for it someday). But the point of seeing the problem and contributing our expertise to solve it comes across as we continue to see our world get better through the lens of software.