If I had a million dollars....

Apart from all the usual, holidays, great food, buy a house etc etc...if I won a million dollars, I would love to set up some enterprise that does good in society - whilst still making a profit! I would love to develop a company in NZ that employs lot of people, especially people who need some support getting back on their feet...

I would also like to set up something to help families...similar to Plunket...

Which brings me to my latest scheme and that is setting up a service like one that exists here in Japan. You can sign up to a company called Benesse's service and they send a pack out each month to your house with toys, books, DVDs, etc for your child. The toys / books are all based around a character called Shimajiro and his friends. The packs also include advice for parents and I think this is what NZ needs more of.

The packs are really good, because you choose the level appropriate to the age of your child - so all the toys are age-appropriate, and the books etc introduce various skills that children can work on that suit their age. Benesse also makes excellent use of their database of customers for this service, by sending out catalogues / promotions etc for other goods and services. E.g. they also have a frozen food (mainly lunch-box contents) service that really helps out working mothers here in Japan.

Ever since I first saw the Shimajiro goods, I have wanted to start something similar in NZ - but there are a few barriers - namely, the market is much smaller in NZ, so the economies of scale are not as great (the packs in Japan only cost $15 - $30 a month - an absolute bargain for what you get). Plus, I am not a huge organisation like Benessse with 1000s of staff. I also don't have the skills (or interest in getting the skills!) to produce educational materials for children and parents.

I realised (yes, at 5am this morning), that a true entrepreneur would

A. Not wait until they had $1 million to do these things
B. ORGANISE people who have the right skills to produce the packs / do whatever is needed

In fact, in NZ, there are already many great groups that could work together to do this
e.g. Plunket / Treasures magazine / Tots to Teens / NZ Post / Children's toy distributors / the Warehouse etc etc

Lots of companies would be keen to sponsor it too...

So, now, instead of doing a PhD on learner autonomy (I'll just publish some small papers instead and do the conference thing)...I might do an MBA next year. I've always wanted to do one, but never really had a business idea to work on. Now I do.