Once Charlie Munger said, “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”

Such a short and simple sentence, but the meaning here is deep. In business, we often do the opposite. We complicate our business idea with lots of features just to satisfy our ego. For example, if we decide to start a pizza shop, we won’t just focus on crafting one great pizza. That’s gonna sound weird, right? I mean, just one variety of pizza? How’re we going to impress our customers and friends? So, instead, we want 10 varieties of pizzas with add-ons like 5 variants of coffee, 7 variants of soft drinks, and what-not. This is the opposite of what Charlie advised. And then we wonder why our pizza shop isn’t doing well.

But in 2010, Nabula Mourid from Adelaide, Australia, had a simple idea and took it seriously. She started an Instagram page named Supermarket Swap where she shared healthier grocery swaps. So, a healthy grocery swap is like replacing a regular grocery item with a healthier option. For example, replacing the regular butter from a popular brand with a healthier one. By healthy, I mean grocery items free of chemicals and harmful artificial ingredients.

And guess what?

Her Instagram page went viral. People were waiting for someone to curate healthy grocery options in one place. Within months, the followers climbed to 100,000. Right now, the page has over 450,000 followers. Note that the Instagram page only shows grocery swap options from Australia.

Yes, I don’t find a reason this simple idea won’t work in other countries. People everywhere these days are looking for healthier grocery options. Of course, the reason is obvious.

Now, you must be wondering why people cannot simply Google and find out healthier alternatives? Why visit an Instagram page? Well, that’s a brilliant question. The thing is, this Instagram page saves people a lot of time. It’s like offering curation as a service. You don’t need to waste time by searching the web or reading product labels. The best part? Supermarket Swap’s Instagram page isn’t just about showing healthy grocery swap options but also about saving money.

Let’s continue the butter example. Let’s say you saw a healthy butter option. But what if this healthy butter is pricey compared to the normal one? Yes, money does matter, doesn’t it? So, the Supermarket Swap Instagram page was, and in fact still is, a great source to find when there’re discount deals running on healthy grocery items.

Seeing the success of her Instagram page, Nabula did something smart. She launched the Supermarket Swap website and app in 2021. This was a game-changer.

So, the Supermarket Swap app’s idea was the same as that of the Instagram page, helping people find healthier grocery options. But the app took the idea further with some awesome user-friendly options like search and filter.

Note that they still don’t sell groceries. It’s just a discovery app that pulls products from popular Australian supermarkets. When you search for a grocery product (say, a cereal or snack), the app shows healthier alternatives with fewer preservatives, chemicals, or artificial colours or flavors. The app also lets you set discount alerts. This way, when healthier products go on discount, you get notified.

Now, don’t get confused. This app isn’t a supermarket aggregator app that you see everywhere. You can’t buy anything on the Supermarket Swap app apart from some recipe books, aprons, and bags. To buy products, you still need to visit the supermarkets where they are available. Yes, the app shows the supermarkets and the price at which the healthier options are available. Right now, they’ve around 2,500 products catalogued on their app.

If you ask me about my favorite feature of this app. It’s their “add to cart” option. No, as I said earlier, you can’t buy anything on the app. The add to cart feature is for you to save products you like and use it as a grocery list. Cool, right?

I’m also impressed by the way this app is monetized. They’re making money through premium subscriptions. The core features of their app are free, but for premium features like a full product catalogue, additive database, weekly specials, and add to cart, you need to pay around $50 to $60 a year. They claim on their website that 80,000 people have downloaded their app. Assuming a conversion rate of around 20 to 30%, I won’t be surprised if they’ve around 20,000 paying members. With each paying $50 a year, this is easily a $1 million business in revenue.

The reason people are paying for this simple app is that it’s a no-brainer. I mean, for $50 a year, you get access to a curated database of 2500 healthy products. Since health is wealth, the return on investment here is huge.

Now, you must be wondering why supermarkets cannot have this feature embedded into their own apps or websites. They cannot do this because doing so will crumble their business model. Look, supermarkets aim to maximize their revenue and profit by selling all kinds of products. Some healthy some not so healthy. They don’t curate. They’re shopkeepers not nutrition experts. Also, if they nudge their customers to buy one set of products and avoid others, it’ll be a conflict of interest. Also, it might destroy the relationship they’ve maintained with their suppliers over the years.

Talking of ideas, here’s what I think might work. A supermarket with only curated healthy products. I don’t know if something like exists anywhere. But I cannot think of a reason this won’t work.