Talk about coincidences.
The original brain behind Zumba, the world-wide exercise routine was built around a set of dominoes that started tumbling in Cali, Columbia.
A city familiar to most people who watched the Netflix series, Narcos.
Cali was the capital around which Escobar's empire grew.
But the first Alberto, or Berto was a 15 year old dance instructor in the middle of the bedlam. Dancing away and making others dance to his tune.
Zumba began with a mistake when Berto forgot the regular dance routine tape and improvised with his class to do a high-energy combo the class loved.
The name Zumba was a play on another dance form Rumba, which is now more famous as the robot vacuum cleaner
On a trip to the US, he decided that he wanted to find fame and fortune.
He sold everything he had and then moved to Miami. Where the second Alberto came into the picture and was the one networked to gyms
But the third Alberto taught the first one English because that was the condition investors placed - that the Zumba instructional video should be in English
And then, the wave of Zumba instructors just lined up for classes.
Be in several places at the same time
Architects may have multiple projects underway.
Even if things slowed down dramatically during the pandemic
Openspace AI enables them to supervise several sites at one time without actually being present
Anyone on site can walk around with a camera on the helmet and a 360 degree view of site progress is captured and transmitted to the cloud
The architect or project managers involved can track construction activity without being physically present.
Time and geo stamped, mapping the stages of the project as an overlay over the previous capture .
Over time, the changes in the site can be relayed to assess and monitor progress as per plan.
It won't eliminate the need for personal site inspection altogether.
On the Openspace Ai capture, annotations can be made of the view obtained and sent back to site for making the necessary changes.
Architects can also use it to brief clients and document project progress, since it reduces the frequency of visits required.
The traditional ways of managing construction with site visits may soon get to be the exception rather than the rule.
Little by little, the physical spaces we need to inhabit by compulsion is shrinking
Not just because of the pandemic.
What exactly does bootstrapping involve?
It's what startups do before they raise money. Or get customers, for that matter.
Investopedia explains 'It became a metaphor for achieving success with no outside assistance'.
People know Zappos as one of the largest online shoe stores.
But what was the starting point?
The excel sheets and market reports point to the size of the market and year on year growth. But for every company trying to establish a base, figuring how to attract customers is the biggest issue.
So what did they do? One of the founders walked across to shoe stores in the vicinity of their office and snapped pictures of shoes on display.
That went up on the site as inventory.
If they got an order, they simply walked to the store, bought it and shipped it off to customers.
What they were testing was whether customers would buy shoes online because until then, no one had ever done it.
There was no playbook or guide to fall back on. It was learning by doing.
Any business idea can only be evaluated by one parameter - do customers exist and are they willing to pay the price you're asking?
The rest are assumptions, not business plans for success.
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