Magic, America’s hottest startup, has a perfect business model for Asia

You may not have heard of Magic. After all, the American startup has been around just a few days. But it has already generated a ton of buzz (and a massive waiting list) for its impressively ambitious service: to deliver you anything you want (as long as it’s legal) on demand via text message. Want a sandwich? Text them and they’ll bring you one. Need an authentic Mexican wrestling mask in the next two hours? They can do that too. Here’s a video Wired writer Brent Rose put together as he put the new startup through its paces with a series of increasingly challenging requests:

Magic is, in essence, the ultimate O2O business: all you need is a phone to get anything you want very quickly. Needless to say, a service like this will be very difficult to scale. The company already has a massive waiting list, but whether it will ever get big enough to serve them is another question.

But imagine Magic in a major Asian city like Beijing or Jakarta. A deliver-everything-fast business model is ambitious anywhere, but in Asia there are some big reasons why it could work:

• Cheaper labor: in most of Asia, hiring the people to run around dealing with logistics and making deliveries would be much cheaper than it is in the US. That would make scaling easier, since the service itself could still charge a significant markup thanks to the “luxury” and convenience factor.
• Stronger demand: in many Asian cities, there are local logistical factors that would make something like Magic even more appealing. In China, for example, Magic could presumably do the haggling for you on any item you want to buy, saving you significant time and hassle. In Jakarta, Magic would allow you to stay at home (or work) and wait for the item you need, rather than having to brave the city’s brutal traffic jams yourself.
• The personal touch: Magic takes and manages its orders via text message, not some slick app. That may seem low-tech, but it would actually be an advantage in many Asian cultures, where a personal connection is often a big part of the shopping experience. Being able to text directly with an actual human at a Magic-style startup would help assuage the trustworthiness concerns that keep many Asian ecommerce and O2O startups from taking off.

I wouldn’t count on Magic coming to Asia anytime soon, though, so if you want to feel the Magic this is one startup you might have to do yourself.