From an innovative idea to great implementation: Case study of ‘backpack’

The world we live in today is the sum of many great ideas implemented with bulldozing force against all odds. Human civilisation has experienced marvellous progress in last few centuries, thanks to many technological advancements and the creation of applicable knowledge, much of which seemed out of place and often downright crazy at the time of occurrence. Take computing for example: hundred years back, Charles Babbage's difference engine could only tabulate polynomial functions. And only a small number of intellectuals in the US and Europe had access to the construction and results of this machine. Now people from the remote corners of the world can get a cell phone (which is essentially a powerful micro-computer, far more sophisticated than Babbage's difference engine) and google whatever they like and get results that require millions of computations to be performed in a fraction of second. This tremendous advancement has only been possible because of a few who were brave enough to not only conceive the ideas but also implement them with great dexterity.
Ideas are interesting affairs. They have null diminishing property: once you have an idea, you cannot just get rid of it or make it go away. They also have null zero-sum property: if you possess an idea and you give it to someone else, you don't consequently have less of it. Ideas can also be quite valuable given the size and gravity of the patent industry.
However, ideas are worth nothing without implementation. At the time Google was conceived, many other companies were focusing on search, including giants like Alta Vista and Yahoo. But it was two college graduates who came up with a great implementation, backed by their genius technical insights that changed the game for search engines completely.
Case Study of 'Backpack'
Backpack, founded by two 21-year-old Bangladeshi college dropouts Fahim Aziz and SakibSauro, is a Silicon Valley based startup that has grandiose vision to connect the entire world physically, through products. Although less than a year old, Backpack has managed to have profound impact and even greater promise in democratising the world of trade and commerce.
Backpack is a peer-to-peer platform that connects shoppers and travellers worldwide. Travelers from all over the world carry foreign products for shoppers who request them. Shoppers pay a less amount of fee than that of conventional international shipping to compensate for travellers' service. Such peer-to-peer sharing economy schemes provide handy extra income for travellers who "rent out" their luggage space and can be less costly and more convenient for shoppers who want to get foreign products. The principle behind this idea is that Backpack connects owners of underused assets with others willing to pay to use them. No different from other intermediaries, Backpack can be seen as a platform that facilitate matchmaking and reduce transaction costs for both sides.
Despite its tremendous success, Backpack has quite a humble beginning. Fahim and Sauro started out thinking that it would just be a weeklong project. They thought of coding a simple web-app where people could connect and get products that they couldn't get in the past. From those few lines of code, Backpack has become one of the most successful startups from Silicon Valley in just a few months. In Fahim's words, "looking back, it's been a magical experience and we have come far from where we have started but looking forward, it's clear that the journey has just begun."
In Backpack's philosophy the secret behind their success, be it building a great product providing the most seamless user experience or attracting the smartest and most valuable investors in the world, consists of 3 things: an urgent reason, few great people and a grand vision.
The Reason
Backpack was created out of the necessity of people from over 80 countries. Their necessity was urgent enough to cause 70,000 visits on Backpack's site over in just a week after Sauro and Fahim made the site live.
In Sauro's words, "We were always talking about making big impacts in the world, theorising a lot of stuff, when we realised we're not actually building anything. Desperate to hone our skills, we started off working on a weeklong project that'll allow people to purchase products from overseas, a problem we faced from our childhood. We knew this platform would resonate with a few others, but little did we know that tens of thousands of people from over 80 countries would visit the platform within just a week from our launch."
The People
It is indispensably important for a startup to be successful to have intelligent, ambitious and hardworking people behind it, who are life-long learners and pathologically focused towards the vision. Backpack is also hiring the greatest engineers, warriors, artists, trailblazers and pioneers to be part of this journey. A brief look at their hiring process demonstrates how much they value the people working at Backpack. To get hired by them, one may have to face 6 short interviews which can have coding and design tests that are harder than anything one has done in your lifetime.
The Vision
A strong vision is the key to take the hyper-drive to building a company that genuinely changes the world. These young entrepreneurs see a world that is truly connected, not just virtually via the internet, but in real life. We spend majority of our disposable income to consume products and it's unfortunate that this significant aspect of our lives lacks global inclusivity and cognizance. We always ask our family and friends to bring products whenever we get chance but we're bound by where they're travelling from. Hence, the world needs ventures such as -Backpack; but not just in idea form, we need them properly implemented.
Ideas are ubiquitous now but what's missing is the commitment and drive on the entrepreneurs' part to implement them. We can see in the journey to Backpack's growth, the culmination of strong reason, great team and grand vision to pave the path to success. In a country like ours, where endless problems are making life increasingly more difficult, we need young entrepreneurs to step forward and commit to creating value and the examples are right in front of our eyes.

The writer can be reached at : hishamuddinkhan@gmail.com