The Business of Spirituality

Many a time, when I’m invited to speak at campuses, students ask me: Nandini Ma’am, we want to be entrepreneurs. Do you have any business idea that we can work on? Usually my answer is: look around you and you will find plenty of business ideas. Sometimes I list the domains where they could explore possible ideas.

Today it occurred to me that in India, the domain of spirituality is a big business opportunity. Possibly the biggest. So I wore my entrepreneur hat and started to analyze its business model.

As in many business ideas, the opportunity lies in a pain point, in a gap. It seems that we live in stressful times and climes. It seems that the traditional social institutions of family, peer group, workplace, clubs and friends are no longer able to provide us the succor we so need, when we need. May be everyone is way too busy, too involved in their own lives, to look beyond themselves. Maybe elders who earlier by virtue of their grey hair commanded respect have now been shown to have feet of clay. And may be that ‘valuelessness’ or ‘anomie’ that the eminent sociologist Emile Durkheim spoke about so many decades ago is rabid and rampant in our individualistic society.

This creates an opportunity for a social institution called spirituality. It is different from the typical religious institutions in that they don’t so much talk about God Up There (Hindi Ooperwala) as God In You (Sanskrit Antaratma). They democratize access to everyone and the void or chasm or emptiness in their lives is the currency that gains them membership to this institution, not religion. In fact, many of them take pride in showing you the religious diversity in their membership. And at the center of it all is a charismatic leader, a spiritual guru who in fact is my product.

Now that we have established the opportunity, let’s look at the business model, in terms of Osterwalder’s building blocks, focusing on some of the crucial ones:
  What is the product?  

My product is the spiritual guru who peddles self-worth. For some reason, we humans respect a person who not only shows us what is lacking in us, in our life, but shows us the way to bridge that gap. The business of spirituality sells us self-worth, injected with a rather strong dose of oratory, with a generous sprinkling of Sanskrit words, an occasional reference to our ancient philosophy, and packaged beautifully in pop psychology homilies. So as a spirituality entrepreneur, I will peddle how you should beautify and love the dog house you are in because that is where you were destined to be.

  Who is my customer?  

This is one business where customer discovery is the easiest. My customer is a woman, in her early forties to early fifties, reasonably educated, married into wealth, with a successful husband, two children who either have left for the US for higher studies or are about to leave, a house that is well-run, a full social calendar, regular overseas vacations and a candy floss lifestyle. Oh I forgot, and very very lonely, because neither husband nor children have time for her. And because all along she prioritized everybody else, she doesn’t know how to prioritize herself in her scheme of things! She might recruit her husband as customer too at some point, but she is my primary customer.

  What is my value proposition?  

My value proposition is simple. I will tell my customer that she has low self-esteem and I will tell her that she is not responsible for it as it is her past karma, but I will tell her that she is not alone and in bringing together people like herself, she can actually say good bye to her low self-esteem.

To my mind these are the three crucial building blocks of my business model canvas that I need to address. The rest flows and follows.

This is the most viral business and it does not even need digital media. All it needs is one well-heeled lonely woman who finds meaning in life by using my product. Before you say Jack Robinson, she will recruit hundreds, if not millions like her.

  What is our monetization model?  

I normally advise all my mentees and students that especially in internet businesses, they should have at least five sources of revenue. In the spirituality business, I can count countless!

The beauty of this business idea is that at some point, my customers become not only my brand ambassadors, but they also become my CMO, CEO, and COO! And given that they bring huge resources of both capital and network to the table, my business will grow with partnerships across geographies in no time at all.

  What should my branding be?  

I can choose the esoteric or the mundane.  I can choose lavish words to display my knowledge or ‘knowing’ silence. I can choose desi or videshi. I can massify my product by having our satsangs in my ashram or I can do it on QE II or an Alaskan cruise.

  What should my innovation pipeline be?  

Limitless. Even my lack of imagination cannot limit it.

Knock knock. Huge huge opportunity.  This is one idea which will pass my FSP test (feasibility, scalability, profitability) in flying colors.  Any aspiring entrepreneur out there, listening?

Nandini Vaidyanathan mentors entrepreneurs (www.carmaconnect.in), teaches entrepreneurship in premium business schools across the globe, blogs and writes on entrepreneurship and speaks on entrepreneurship. If that made you think she has no life beyond entrepreneurship, you think right!

Reprinted with permission from Business Goa.


Article by : Nandini Vaidyanathan
Chairman and Managing Director
Carma Venture Services