Idea: Intelligent LED lighting deployment for corporate workplaces. The smart lighting system can automatically adjust the intensity of light depending on the time of day and the number of people in the specific space. Where 30% of an office's energy consumption comes from lighting, similar solutions have been able to reduce lighting costs by up to 90%.
Problem: The international community is targeting 100% LED light sales by 2025. The EU has been working on this for decades and will be 100% LED by next year. Existing buildings will need to eventually have their fluorescent lights replaced, and are already under pressure by corporates to reduce their carbon footprint. Although smart lighting has existed in the consumer market for years, offices have been slow to adopt the technology, leading to significant energy wastage.
Insight: Most companies have made a commitment to being carbon-neutral within the decade, and they will eventually be held accountable for the office spaces that they are using. This will include the lighting, and cooling solutions. Building owners will be under pressure to provide carbon neutral spaces, and need to start preparing.
Validation method: Validating this idea would involve selling intelligent lighting to building owners and developers. You would need to research, develop a sales deck, and pitch to the building owners, and developers through LinkedIn, or cold emails. This would help validate demand for the technology. If possible, I would try to experiment with different markets. Singapore may already have smart lighting in many of the buildings, so KL or Jakarta may be markets that are worth experimenting with too. You could also reach out to co-working spaces, factories, and other corporate building to validate their demand.
Notes: Once you get market validation, you would need to consider how you want to procure smart lights to sell. China has some great smart lighting solutions that are far cheaper than the Western alternatives. So spending some time testing and procuring in China would not be a bad idea. Over time, you could build your own IoT infrastructure and vertically integrate the business.
Why am I doing this? I’m an innovation consultant who helps businesses build new products, and ventures. And I want people to see how easy it is to build, and validate an initial business idea. Hopefully inspiring them to start their own business.
Am I worried that people will take the ideas? I hope they do. These ideas will hopefully make the world a better place. Just remember, “Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything”. What’s most likely is that within a month of testing the idea, the idea would have completely pivoted, but this is a starting point.
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