A blessing, a curse and a blessing

A Blessing

I'm sure by now, we have all heard the benefits of having the internet, social media etc. and I having embraced the internet so tightly, I simply would not know what I would do without it. In fact the internet at my place was actually capped for 2 weeks this month,  so I ended up spending my hours and hours in the Monash Library. EVEN ON MY FREE DAYS! True story. Back to the point! The presence of the internet and social media has spawned giants like Groupon and eBay where you can buy things cheaply, and lets face it, who wouldn't want to save money in these tough economic times. But.....

A Curse

I feel that because things seem so cheap, people often buy more than what they need. I mean think about it, how many times have you bought things you did not need from Coles just because buying two gives you 20% discount? Or for you drivers, you try and hit the $30 mark for the petrol even though you only needed $28. That 4 cents per liter isn't even worth spending that additional $2! If you think about it, if things are could be bought for so much cheaper now, why are we in tough economic times? Its a curse I tell you! And yet....

A Blessing

this rapidly changing world is also an opportunity! With all this new means of doing things, there has bound to be new problems! Identifying these problems could be your key to a new business idea! Cheryl Yeoh realized that because so many people bought vouchers for various Groupon and Scoopon deals that she simply could not keep up with all her vouchers! Vouchers was becoming a currency itself! So she too up this opportunity and created an app that allowed you to keep track all your vouchers in 1 simple way and even set up an online market for you to sell these vouchers! Her full story is in the link above! 

I think what Cheryl did was just brilliant, and we should also make use of the rapidly changing technological advancements, especially on the internet to find new business models!!