From Back Pain to Back Gain
The world of entrepreneurship has officially reached a point where even an itch can become a business opportunity. In Shenzhen, China, 32-year-old entrepreneur Zhang Xiaoqiao has turned one of humanity’s oldest and most frustrating problems—an unreachable itch—into a professional service. His company, Suma, reportedly charges customers around 300 yuan, or approximately ₹4,200, for an hour of professional itch-scratching, with two outlets together generating around 100,000 yuan, roughly ₹14 lakh, in monthly revenue. At a time when entrepreneurs are busy pitching artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics and other futuristic technologies, Zhang appears to have taken a radically simpler approach: find something people cannot do comfortably themselves and charge them for doing it. The result is a business model that has the startup world collectively scratching its head.
Scratch That Startup Idea
Zhang reportedly got the idea after watching a social-media video showing a woman scratching her husband’s back. The comments section apparently contained people saying they would be willing to pay someone to do the same. While most people would have laughed, scrolled away and forgotten about it five minutes later, Zhang saw what every entrepreneur dreams of seeing: market demand hiding inside a comment section. He decided to investigate whether people would actually pay for professional scratching, and the answer turned out to be a rather enthusiastic “yes.” His previous ventures, including cross-border e-commerce and online media, had not produced the success he wanted, but his latest experiment seems to have hit the right spot—quite literally.
The Itch Factor
The business is built around a surprisingly simple proposition. Customers arrive, lie down and identify the parts of their body that need attention, while trained staff use specially designed pointed nails to scratch those areas. The service reportedly costs around ₹4,200 an hour, a price that may make some people wonder whether they have accidentally walked into a luxury spa or simply lost an argument with their own fingernails. Zhang says the service is designed to help customers relax and sleep better, and some customers reportedly find it even more relaxing than traditional massage. The wellness industry, which has spent years perfecting aromatherapy, hot stones, essential oils, meditation music and elaborate relaxation rituals, may now have to confront an uncomfortable competitor: the humble human scratch.
When Life Gives You an Itch, Build a Business
The genius—or sheer audacity—of the concept lies in its simplicity. People have been scratching themselves since long before there were smartphones, spas or startup accelerators. But Zhang has taken an everyday activity and turned it into a structured service. That is essentially the entrepreneurial playbook of the modern economy: find something people already do for free, give it a professional name, create a pricing model and suddenly you have an industry. Coffee became a lifestyle. Walking became a fitness subscription. Talking became therapy. And now scratching is apparently preparing for its corporate debut. The next generation of entrepreneurs may not ask, “What revolutionary technology can I invent?” They may simply look around and ask, “What are people still doing for free?”
A Scratch Above the Rest
The reported customer base is around 70% men and 30% women, according to Zhang, and some customers have returned because they find the experience particularly relaxing. This gives Suma something every business wants: repeat customers. Most companies have to spend millions on advertising to convince customers to return. Suma may have a much simpler strategy. Human beings naturally develop new itches. The customer leaves satisfied, goes home, lives their life and eventually discovers another unreachable spot. Suddenly, the marketing department does not need to send an email. Biology handles customer retention. The itch comes back, and so does the customer. It may be the only subscription model where the renewal reminder comes directly from your nervous system.
Scratch, Repeat, Revenue
If the business continues to grow, the possibilities for loyalty programmes are almost irresistible. Imagine Suma launching a “Frequent Itcher” membership in which customers receive points for every session. Scratch five times and get the sixth one free. Premium members could receive priority access to their favourite scratcher, while Platinum customers could have their preferred itch zones stored in their profile. The ultra-rich could eventually demand a personal scratch consultant available 24/7. There could even be corporate packages for stressed executives. Instead of booking a massage after a difficult board meeting, the CEO could simply press a button labelled “Executive Scratch Emergency.” The employee wellness industry would never recover.
The Scratch Market Goes Global
Zhang reportedly hopes to expand the business to 100 outlets across China and establish itch-scratching as a recognised profession. That ambition could create an entirely new professional ecosystem. Training academies might offer courses in Advanced Scratch Management, Applied Itch Psychology and Strategic Back Navigation. Universities could introduce degrees in Scratch Science, while professional bodies could create certification levels for junior scratchers, senior scratchers and specialist itch consultants. Eventually, recruiters could begin asking applicants about their five-year scratching plans. The most prestigious qualification might even come from the Institute of Itch Technology, where students spend four years mastering the delicate balance between “too little” and “exactly there.”
Scratchonomics 101
Business schools could also find a valuable case study here. MBA students could analyse Suma using traditional concepts such as customer pain points, market demand, pricing strategy, service differentiation and scalability. Except this time, the “pain point” is not metaphorical. Zhang has discovered an actual point that customers are desperate to reach. Professors could put a diagram on the classroom screen and announce, “Today we are studying disruptive innovation.” The students would nod seriously while a giant arrow labelled ITCH-SCRATCHING MARKET points upward. Somewhere in the back row, a student who spent ₹20 lakh on an MBA would quietly wonder whether they should have just opened a scratching parlour.
Silicon Valley, Meet Scratch Valley
The story also provides a hilarious contrast with the technology industry. Silicon Valley has spent decades chasing unicorns—startups valued at more than $1 billion—while Zhang is building a business around something that does not require an app, an algorithm or a server farm. There is no need to train an AI model to understand a back itch. There is no complicated blockchain architecture involved. There is simply a customer saying, “A little to the left,” and a professional employee responding accordingly. In an age when technology companies are trying to teach machines how to imitate human intelligence, one entrepreneur has discovered that human fingers are still surprisingly good at being fingers.
The Next Big Scratch
Naturally, this business model opens the door to countless other possibilities. If professional scratching can become a service, what comes next? Someone could launch a premium company for finding lost spectacles—even when they are sitting on the customer’s head. Another startup could offer professional queue-standing for busy executives. There could be a subscription service for people who need someone to remind them why they entered a room. Perhaps there could even be an app that sends a human being to turn off the light when you are already comfortably in bed. The modern entrepreneur has one enormous advantage: almost every tiny inconvenience is potentially an untapped market.
Politics Gets a Little Itchy
Politicians, naturally, would not remain far behind once the scratching economy becomes sufficiently large. Election manifestos could promise subsidised scratching for senior citizens, free itch-relief sessions for low-income families and national scratch infrastructure. Political campaigns might feature slogans such as “A Scratch for Every Citizen” or “Development Within Reach.” Parliament could establish a committee to investigate scratching inequality, while opposition parties could accuse the government of having a “hands-off” approach to the itch crisis. For once, politicians from opposing sides might discover something they can agree on: nobody wants an itch in a place they cannot reach.
The Scratch Is the Limit
Beneath all the humour, Zhang’s story contains a surprisingly straightforward entrepreneurial lesson. His success did not come from inventing a technology that nobody had seen before. He noticed a simple human need, tested whether people were willing to pay for a solution and then built a service around it. His earlier ventures may not have worked out, but he continued experimenting until he found a niche with customers willing to open their wallets. The story is therefore less about scratching and more about seeing opportunity in something everyone else considers too ordinary to monetise. In a world obsessed with billion-dollar technology, sometimes the biggest business idea is hiding in the smallest inconvenience.
No Scratch, No Glory
Zhang’s ambition to take the business to 100 outlets suggests that professional itch-scratching may be more than an internet curiosity. Whether it becomes a global wellness phenomenon or remains a uniquely unusual business, the idea has already demonstrated one timeless truth about entrepreneurship: there is money wherever there is demand. The modern economy has monetised food delivery, sleep, fitness, entertainment, transportation and even personal attention. It was perhaps only a matter of time before someone looked at the human back and thought, “There’s a market waiting to be scratched.”
And so, while technology billionaires continue searching for the next unicorn, Zhang is quietly building something much more unusual. His company is betting that customers will happily pay for a service that solves a problem their own hands cannot. It may sound ridiculous, but then again, plenty of successful businesses sounded ridiculous before customers started paying for them.
The next time someone tells you that entrepreneurship requires advanced technology, revolutionary science or a billion-dollar idea, remember Zhang Xiaoqiao. Sometimes you do not need to reinvent the wheel.
You just need to find the itch nobody else can reach.
And if the business keeps growing, Silicon Valley may have to accept an uncomfortable new reality: the next unicorn might not have a horn—it might have fingernails.
Indian Editor – News With a Wink
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