Starter Kit. Idea 300 of 500. Cluster 15
AI set up and looked after for small businesses at home and abroad: the booking replies, the invoices, the product descriptions in five languages, for a monthly fee
The mechanism, from the book
The proof exists in Malabe. What is missing is a thousand small versions of it.
The first step
Choose one small business you know, a guesthouse or a shop, and set up AI tools to answer its booking messages, draft its invoices and write its product descriptions in the languages its customers use. Run it free for a month and keep a log of the hours saved. Then offer the same service to five similar businesses for a monthly fee. The proof is two of them paying in the second month.
- Who pays first
- A guesthouse or shop owner who answers messages late at night and would pay a monthly fee to have it done properly.
- What leaves today
- Small businesses here and abroad will pay for help with these tools; a service run from the island earns that monthly fee here.
Ask first
- Data Protection Authority. Ask what care is needed when tools read and answer customers' messages for a business.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how monthly fees from clients at home and abroad are taxed and invoiced.
Check before you spend
Confirm each client's written consent for the tools to read and answer their messages, how customer data is stored, and who checks what is sent.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a small business pay each month for this service?
- How many hours a week does a guesthouse spend on messages?
- What do the tools cost per client each month?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.