Lokalista.net

Enabling seamless connection between customers and local tradesmen

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Problem Statement:

How easy is it to look for skilled tradespeople when you need to carry out maintenance or repair work in your homes?

As a tradespeople, how difficult is it at this time of the pandemic to look for a customer? How do you expect your business thrive?

Given these challenges, how do we address the needs of customers and local tradespeople during this pandemic?

Challenge areas:

  1. Job loss in millions
  2. Restricted mobility
  3. No digital platform to bridge tradespeople with their prospective customers

Inspiration

For our team, the motivation is personal. When the pandemic brought tremendous losses to our own businesses, we were forced to think of ways to address our need to thrive in these difficult times. As tradespeople ourselves, we know we have to adapt or perish. Knowing that other tradespeople must feel the same desperation as us, we started exploring ideas to bring customers to traders.

Facebook remains as the most popular communication channel among Mindanaoans, but the marketplace is teeming with food products only. We saw the need for a separate platform for tradespeople. Thus, Lokalista.net was conceptualized.

What it does

Lokalista.net gives the public quick and easy access to tradespeople who have undergone a vetting process:

1. Search

2. Contact

3. Leave a review

For example, it can provide invaluable contact information about available skilled resources when one is faced with a car malfunction in the middle of nowhere. It delivers a relevant service to customers in a direct and time-efficient manner.

For tradesmen, the website will provide job opportunities to more than 20,826 tradesmen in Mindanao. Phase 1 roll-out alone can provide an earning potential to 8,114 tradespeople. This is an invaluable opportunity for tradespeople who lost their income during the pandemic.

How I built it

Methodology:

  1. Survey - Phone in survey with acquaintances and existing network.
  2. Interview - Interviewed tradespeople and professionals on their current challenges in service delivery.
  3. Data Gathering - Gathered baseline information on existing solutions.
  4. Platform - From our end we had to act fast and look for a platform that is easy for us to manage and can integrate with our skills thus we landed on using Wix.com.

(data gathered from May 25 - June 5, 2020)

Challenges I ran into

  1. Technical - Being the only technical person in the team, it took Rhian two weeks to fully understand what Wix.com can do. The programming language itself using corvid, which is similar to C, gave him a few fits but in the end, he was the victor. Wix.com is the right choice for us and it is giving us room for further improvement. Like all platforms, there are always challenges but there are also workarounds.

  2. Team dynamics - creating a positive group dynamic was a challenge at first. The team members have different backgrounds, thus they approach issues differently. Everyone was working remotely and had separate day jobs, conversing only via Messenger and meeting via Zoom from time to time. It takes a team who mutually understands and trusts each other to come up with this project.

  3. To get our first sign-up, we followed Jack Ma's advice and avoided close friends and relatives who are the hardest to sell to. As a team, we had to dig deep in our network to get people on-board with our vision.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The website was initially conceptualized at the end of May 2020 and we got it up and running by 5th of June. That alone is a major accomplishment. With the help of Wix.com platform and the different technical expertise of the team, here we are in the soft launch stage.

What I learned

Don't quit when you have the skills - Rhian

In this world, you have to be fast or be last. Build your prototype quickly, you don't need a full product to test it's value. In a team, you don't always need the brightest people, you need the right ones - Vanessa

In this pandemic crisis we cannot turn back the time, but we still have time - Gilbert

What's next for Lokalista.net

I. IT Infrastructure

  1. Website API Upgrade
  2. BCP/DRP
  3. Mobile App

II. Manpower

  1. R&D Team
  2. Training/Recruitment Team

III. Pilot Run Timeline: Month 1 Pilot area: Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines Specifics: Deploy 10 agents + 1 Team Leader to fill 20 trade categories. Minimum target per agent: 20 tradesmen. Agent will earn a minimum salary upon hitting target + incentive for additional sign-up.

IV. Phase I Timeline: August - December 2020 Target Area: Region 10, Caraga, Davao, Zamboanga, SOCSARGEN

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