Inspiration
Being entrepreneur myself I realised that the events that happened in the past 2 months are unprecedented and it will most likely be a lifetime experience for many of us. Given that majority of entrepreneurs have never experienced such hard and challenging times, I realised what is most important now is to give hand to all small entrepreneurs and freelancers. Seeing some of my entrepreneurial friends closing their businesses or some being unable to understand the complexity of new regulations being imposed by government, I realised a huge need for a platform that would help all entrepreneurs to overcome some challenges and maybe even help them survive. This inspired me to start a project called digitalnedoma.sk (Digitally at Home in translation from Slovak language).
What it does
digitalnedoma.sk is an online platform that provides first aid for freelancers and SMEs via 3 main features:
- perks and coupons (selected global and local big corporations offering their products and services for free to save small business owners' money and ease their current financial situation). From free bank accounts to lower interest rates to free unlimited data, these are all perks that we are now on-boarding into platform with our partners.
- information resources (curated content about most pressing topics that entrepreneurs are facing served in an easy to consume way and updated on daily basis). Currently there is information overload and most of the entrepreneurs are having a hard time finding the right information or access legal documents quick and/or for free. Our platform will offer all of this right away.
- users directory (network effect via listing all registered users and categorising them based on their skills and location). Entrepreneur will have direct access to all other entrepreneurs from his location (if this is the preference) or with particular skills. The goal is to enable matching demand and supply between different types of freelancers and SMEs in a very easy and direct way.
How I built it
I connected with the right people, who have been building the solution with me. The solution consists of 2 parts. Part 1 is landing page that explains the solution and promotes the features in more details. There is a number of CTA buttons guiding user to register to platform. Part 2 is platform itself. Upon quick registration, user is taken into the platform where she fills out her profile (we only ask 4 things) and then she is all set. Right after finishing her profile, user can benefit from having full access to the platform and navigate through all the features.
Challenges I ran into
So far, I haven't ran into any challenge yet. Definitely something is going to come in following days, but I hope me and my time will be able to cope with it comfortably.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I’m very proud of the speed we managed to turn the idea into working prototype. I am also proud of all the people that have been putting on a lot of time and energy into this project and helping to bring it to its current phase. Last but not least I am proud of my country, how it managed to fight the crisis and encourage its citizens to be positive and patient.
What I learned
Team is everything. You can do miracles if you have right people next to you.
What's next for digitalnedoma.sk
Next week we plan to launch in public, get first traction and PR. As the time progresses and we onboard more and more users, we plan to expand abroad and spread our solution to as many entrepreneurs and SMEs as possible.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.