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Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 111st edition of the quiz, we present issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.

What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs and innovators themselves actually did. Would you do things differently?

Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 355 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.

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Q1: The pet industry

The pet industry is rapidly growing in many markets, leading to a range of opportunities in this space. This includes segments like pet food. What are the other lucrative spaces in this domain?

Q2: Cyber attacks

Online scams are a huge problem and cause widespread financial losses to unsuspecting consumers. Some of them include spurious ads that lead people to click on them and become victims of fraud. What’s a solution to this menace?

Q3: Road safety

Road accidents lead to a heavy loss of life, a statistic which can be reduced if more people were to wear helmets. What can help reduce these fatalities, and what are some creative ways to incentivise people to be more safe?

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Q4: AI in retail

AI can help retailers improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and gain a competitive edge in a rapidly-evolving industry. Some use cases include visual search and chatbots. What are other ways AI can enhance the retail experience?

Q5: Urban traffic

A number of solutions have been proposed for tackling urban traffic jams, including carpooling, more public transportation, and dedicated lanes for buses. What’s another out-of-the-box solution that may work here?

Answers!

Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come–answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning – and happy creating!

A1: The pet industry

Pet products contribute around 20% to the pet industry market share, and include collars, leashes, beds, toys, and grooming products, observes Bibhu Mishra, Director, Global Education and Leadership Foundation. Pets are now considered an integral part of many households.

The pet services market encompasses grooming, pet-sitting and walking, and veterinary care, he says. Even within the pet food segment, there is a growing demand for premium and customised pet food products.

Read more about the pet industry market for entrepreneurs here.

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A2: Cyber attacks

Founded by Pratyusha Vemuri, Panoplia.io is an AI-based cybersecurity firm that seeks to protect users from online scams. It offers advanced real-time fraud detection and prevention solutions using algorithms, machine learning models, and real-time monitoring systems.

Whenever users land on a website through an online ad, they receive a pop-up alert if the content is suspected to be fraudulent.

Read more here about how the company aims to enter the B2B space to offer solutions such as phishing prevention and fraudulent website detection.

A3: Road safety

Raghavendra Kumar, better known as the Helmet Man of India, has distributed 56,000 helmets in Kanpur, Lucknow, Delhi, Meerut, Noida, and other cities. He founded the Helmet Man of India Foundation in 2020.

“I encourage young children to donate books and take a helmet as this new generation has the potential to bring about a change. If they take helmets for free, their parents can use them,” he adds.

Read more about Kumar’s inspiring journey here, and the feedback and support he has received.

A4: AI in retail

GenAI coherently brings together disparate customer insights, offering hyper-relevant retail suggestions to each shopper, according to Ankit Narayan Singh, Co-founder and CTO of ParallelDots. GenAI enables natural, relevant conversations, answers queries, explains products, and offers recommendations.

“Generative AI stands to revolutionise consumer interactions in physical stores as well by enabling retailers to make data-driven decisions when optimising store layouts and product placements,” he says.

Read more here about additional AI factors like respecting ethical and data privacy considerations.

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A5: Urban traffic

The ePlane Company, founded by Prof Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy, aims to alleviate on-road traffic congestion in cities by offering safe, sustainable and affordable flying experiences. The urban air mobility startup was incubated at IIT Madras.

It has received Design Organisation Approval from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Read more here about its four prototypes—e6 or Atva; e50, a mid-sized cargo variant; e200, a full-sized airplane; and e100, a cargo variant of the passenger flying electric taxi (e200) that can ferry up to 100kg payload per trip.

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).