What Product or Features Should You Develop Next?

I have been reading a lot about feature prioritization and attracting newer audiences, and I want to put what I have been learning into practice, which is what motivated this post.

If you have never heard of Dunzo, here is what it does:

It’s a delivery service app, meaning anything (legal) you need delivered to you, right where you need it. Dunzo made waves because of how good it is, but also for being Google’s first direct investment in a startup in India. It’s also backed by Blume ventures and Rajan Anandan, among other big names.

Now that you know what it does on a surface level, let’s jump into what I think, as a company, Dunzo could do next.

Before we dive into what, I think it’s also important to look at who. Currently Dunzo’s customer base is 18–30 year olds. While there is a lot of potential to serve to this target group, I’m going to suggest a slightly older market.

WHO?

50–60 year olds that are:

1. Open to new technology.
2. Use WhatsApp frequently and Google things in full sentences i.e. — “How to do this task on my phone?”
3. Find it a little difficult to get things done, beyond the realm of the neighborhood stores.
4. Can book cabs but are slightly confused why map location is always showing the backyard of the house.
5. And their most important need: The ability to call someone slightly younger to “Dunzo” something for them or get a task done.

WHY THEM?

• Brand loyal.
• Agnostic to external environment.
• Underserved, but easy to retain.
• When you look at this target group with the AARM framework, while Acquisition and Activation are difficult, Referral and Monetization (the two solid pillars for a product like Dunzo) are easier.

WHAT, NEXT?

Here is a list of features or directions I feel they could pursue:

1. Prescription Medicines:

Right now, on the apps, you can buy certain medication without adding a prescription, but most need prescriptions.

What if instead of the prescription being added via gallery, you asked to schedule a call with a physician? Depending on how the feature is performing, you could increase the doctors, you could start with popular areas, and then extend services. Do a one-up if the medicine needs refill, allow an option to automatically have it delivered at that time, or place a call for the customer with the same doctor.

**2. Build a web app: ** A lot of apps have gone this route and succeed to get market share they thought they didn’t even have. Here is how Uber did it.

When your key metric is number of orders and revenue, why play only on mobile? Especially for these customers, that probably are new to the experience of Dunzo and don’t want to commit to giving you an app share on their device. Why fight something that doesn’t contribute to the core of who you are? While I suspect you may have this in pipeline, I hope it sees the light of day soon.

3. Ride with ‘em:

While this post sat in my drafts, Dunzo has already launched the “bike ride” feature. However, this seems great for testing the feature out, but I think what will truly disrupt it is if on the rider’s side, every Dunzo partner was made available but their destination was to where they had to make a delivery and you could ride with them, if the place was close to where you needed to be. Think Quikride but with Dunzo partners and higher revenue (because two birds with one stone?!).

4. Geni(ous) Feature:

Genie by Mayank Khandelwal

Add this like a search bar feature, where the users simply give the task and trained, street smart Dunzo heroes figure out the solution for it. For example, a query could be: “Laptop not working, screen gone. Pls fix it for me.” There is no added information or store mentioned, when the Dunzo person receives this order, he accepts the task, figures out how to get it done and is compensated with some formulae involving his time, competency, distance to deliver the task. This will change Dunzo from just a delivery app to an everything app for this customer base. This Dunzo meets Just Dial meets Google Search.

FUN FACT : Before Dunzo became an app, I think they offered delivery via WhatsApp, at the same time, there was another Whatsapp group doing the same thing, I had met the founder to tell him how I thought it could capitalize on the market, he didn’t follow through and soon shut shop. Perseverance my friend, gets it DUN ;)!

If you think this makes sense or doesn’t, I’d love to know! Let’s chat :)