I can’t speak to this product in particular but my experience at One Acre Fund in Tanzania was that it’s often just really hard to physically distribute products to rural Africa without super high costs or damage. The practicalities of distribution are hard to solve, which I guess is more what Nick is looking to do here. Once you find a way to get the product in front of users and it saves them money, they’ll often buy it, I agree that it might not need to be given for free (not withstanding another practical note: if you need to charge, that also generates a bunch of logistics!)
I have no particular take on LG, I was mostly focused on your question about the market failure. I’ve no reason to think LG couldn’t do a great job, this sounds very much like their area of expertise!
I can’t speak to this product in particular but my experience at One Acre Fund in Tanzania was that it’s often just really hard to physically distribute products to rural Africa without super high costs or damage. The practicalities of distribution are hard to solve, which I guess is more what Nick is looking to do here. Once you find a way to get the product in front of users and it saves them money, they’ll often buy it, I agree that it might not need to be given for free (not withstanding another practical note: if you need to charge, that also generates a bunch of logistics!)
Do you think Living Goods is well positioned to deal with those practicalities? If not, why not?
I have no particular take on LG, I was mostly focused on your question about the market failure. I’ve no reason to think LG couldn’t do a great job, this sounds very much like their area of expertise!