Welcome! This is The 4D Pocket!
Your personal magical pocket that brings out extraordinary startup ideas and solutions to problems you never thought of!
Third time’s the charm as they say!
This time, we’re settling into a full-on festival mode as Diwali is here! Shall we begin? Of course!
The UniqON
DIWALI AT YOUR DOORSTEP
Diwali is a time for shopping! Years ago, this shopping, as we know, occurred by physically going out to stores and buying products directly. With our world moving to digital spaces, so have our buying habits. But there is one segment that we still feel off when buying online. What is it? The handicraft diyas, décor and so much more!
So many people believe that buying these items from smaller vendors and sellers is important to support economically weaker families that run their household by selling such handicraft items. So why not bring these very sellers to the e-commerce world in a sustainable manner?
The Product:
A location based online store to buy festive handicrafts and decorations from local small vendors.
Execution:
Start Hyperlocal
Connect with your local street vendors
Location based vendors make delivery much easier
Ultra Cheap for Customers
Eliminate middlemen by connecting customers directly to the artisans
Shorter distance means no delivery charges for customers!
Find Anything and Everything
Customers can satisfy most of their festival needs with rangolis, torans, diyas and so much more!
Encourage buying in sets for greater value and higher sales for the vendors
Business Model:
At first look, this looks difficult to make money from alright but look at the greater picture here!
Local artisans and stalls are a largely ignored section in e-commerce compared to how much trust a customer has in them vs online retail brands when shopping online. Not to mention the countless #buylocal trends that run during these festivals.
Your biggest bets come from corporate gifting! Companies in need of some goodwill can collaborate with your platform with mass orders for their employee gift hampers! That’s big sales, positive publicity and a product for the benefit of society. A triple win!
The A+inator
MathGPT
With semester exams approaching close, the biggest challenge that every student faces is Maths. It’s been a while, but I can still confidently say that this is a terror, students of the current gen still have! (I’ll never forget the moment I learned that double and TRIPLE integration exist!)
Every day before the maths exam, the same question is raised in thousands of minds, “Why did my maths teacher suck so much!” Some things never change. Luckily though, technology does!
With current advancements in document intelligence and generative AI, it is very possible to build something for helping with this scary subject!
Central Idea:
Develop an image, document and text based GPT specifically for Maths!
Novelty:
Unlike dependence on a general-purpose AI chatbot, you must focus completely on solving a section of Maths problems that is most relevant to the coursework you are planning to target.
The special quality with learning maths is that you cannot do it by reading a book, you NEED a pen and paper to practice! This practice is where most people struggle and need a helping hand. If it were as easy as uploading a pic from your sheet to the AI and asking questions, I guarantee you an A+ would be given for most students!
Execution:
A student snaps a picture of a math problem from their textbook, notes, or past exam paper.
They then select their university and specific course name (refine your model on the coursework!)
The AI instantly solves the problem, providing a clear, step-by-step breakdown using methods relevant to their curriculum.
The student can then ask follow-up questions like, "Explain the Inverse Laplace Transform again" or "Show me another way to solve this."
The system can generate a personalized quiz with similar problems to help them master the concept before their exam.
Future Scope:
ChatGPT has definitely revolutionized doubt solving in education, but maths still remains a difficult feat to overcome for education-based AI. If a model such as MathGPT is developed, it is certainly going to be hit for students! Not to mention the countless blessings you would receive from day-before-exam learners!!
TrendSurfing
THE MAKE IN INDIA SOFTWARE FEVER
The Trend:
While Make in India had been proposed quite a long time ago, recently, the race for Bharat-made software is heating up with Union Ministers and other high ranking officials publicly making a shift to favour domestically developed utility software as opposed to the offerings by the silicon valley giants. Another big jump on this train was the subtle nod to Mappls made by the government. All of this is signaling a massive boom in domestic software which could be a massive opportunity!
Why This Matters:
Made in India software not only give a chance to Indian Devs to develop and present their technical solutions first-hand to our people, but they are also currently being promoted and highlighted in media often in a highly positive light giving you an advantage over the same products made by international counterparts.
Opportunities:
Promote your own SAAS: The time is ripe for promoting your own SAAS that you may be developing under the label of Made in India software!
Desi Alternatives: While you may think there is no scope for developing common usage apps (such as WhatsApp clones, whatever) there is a very massive section of underutilized and unknown apps that would run extremely well in India. These are relatively easier to make as the roadmap is already there for you, if you know what I mean ;)
The Big Light
SHINY ENOUGH FOR 17000 CRORES!
The Idea:
Mithun Sacheti, hailing from a jeweller family, saw that the traditional gold-buying experience in India was pretty much out of sync with the modern woman. For generations, the process had been intimidating and opaque, centered around heavy, over the top designs, not suitable for everyday wear. He realised the core issue wasn't a lack of desire, but a significant barrier to access. Sacheti’s main concept was that to modernise this legacy industry, purchasing jewellery had to become as seamless and transparent as any other online transaction. Hence, this led to the creation of CaratLane, a platform designed to offer light, affordable, and certified jewellery, effectively removing the old obstacles with the simple click of a button.
The Timeline:
2008: Founded CaratLane as one of India's first online platforms for selling fine jewellery, aiming to make beautiful designs accessible to a younger, digitally savvy audience.
2012: Pioneered the "Try at Home" service, a revolutionary concept that bridged the trust gap of buying precious items online by bringing the showroom experience directly to the customer's doorstep.
2016: In a landmark move, Titan Company Ltd. (the parent of Tanishq) acquired a majority stake, validating CaratLane's online-first, omnichannel model and giving it immense credibility just before the peak Diwali season.
August 2023: The ultimate validation. Titan acquired the founder's remaining stake for a stunning ₹4,621 Crores, valuing the company at over ₹17,000 Crores ($2 Billion). This marked one of the most successful exits for a D2C founder in Indian history.
From the Toolkit
FREE PHOTO-EDITING ON THE WEB!
What we got out of the toolkit this week is PhotoPea! A surprisingly powerful online image editor that works right in your browser. It looks and feels a lot like Photoshop just without the price tag or the downloads. Whether you’re tweaking a social post, editing a PSD, or designing from scratch, Photopea gets it done.
Why you'll love it:
Nothing to Install: Just go to the site and start editing instantly.
Supports PSDs: Open and edit native Photoshop files (plus Sketch, XD, SVG, and more).
Full Feature Set: Layers, masks, smart objects, filters, they’re all included!
Free to Use: Great for quick jobs or full-on design work, all without spending a dime.
That’s it for this edition of The 4D Pocket!
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See you next week with the 4th Edition ;D
Happy Diwali <3
Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
Hope to see you again!
-The 4D Pocket Team