MIT researchers suggest how to design a product for Indian micro entrepreneur

A new study by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology find that micro-entrepreneurs in emerging regions such as India is largely untapped market. MIT study suggests designing a product and selling that to Micro-entrepreneurs in emerging markets can become successful, if that product helps the small businesses owned by families to earn money. In countries like India, there are plenty of micro businesses having a staff strength of less than five, researchers at MIT suggesting ways to tap that community. The release from MIT on this subject says "Rising economies like China and India represent potentially massive emerging markets, a large portion of which are made up of small “micro-enterprises” — informal, mom-and-pop businesses of five or fewer people that generate limited income. " “If you can convince them you can make them money, you’re most of the way there to selling them your product,” says Jesse Austin-Breneman, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It seems obvious, but if you look at a lot of products out there, they’re not really doing that.” Solar lanterns/lights, cookstoves, drip irrigation systems, and a line of Nokia mobile phones are the products identified through case studies by Austin-Breneman and Maria Yang, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering ...