Inspiration
Through the team's journey of conducting market research, we identified that business owners suffered financial losses and psychological stress, inhibiting action and adaptation. Inspired by other social networking platforms, we recognized the power of connecting AAPI business owners together and catalyzing their journey toward building their own communities. Moreover, on a personal note, one of our team member's is the daughter of dry cleaners owners, and she had a personal investment in this challenge.
What it does
As a social networking platform, Quad will compose of four primary features: (1) Community - Communities of 3-5 members across industry, geography, and networks to share best practices and relational support, (2) Resource - Contributors support members with business growth resources and opportunities, (3) Market - A place for buyers and sellers to transact, (4) Gig Economy - An opportunity to find and vet staff within member's industry. For Phase I delivery of Quad, we prioritize the Community and Resource Access features.
How I built it
As a business model, Quad's features were created in response to feedback provided by AAPI business owners. Each component addresses a critical need in their business during the pandemic and post-pandemic.
As a product and service, Quad will be developed as an online platform and mobile app. The team has already sourced one potential vendor to build, deploy, and maintain, a graphical user interface (GUI). For the purposes of the demo, the team created a mock Wix webpage to demonstrate a proof of concept.
Challenges I ran into
Due to our 2.5 week time constraint, we were only able to contact ten AAPI businesses and two vendors. Some business owners were reluctant to share the extent of the difficulties they faced. Also, due to limited data on AAPI business owners, we had challenges in assessing the number of impacted businesses in the DMV area.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Our team is proud of the 2.5 week turnaround we had on accomplishing this project. We identified a critical gap and see great potential in bridging silos created by barriers to entry such as language, technology, and networks. The mission of this initiative is reflective of what our team hopes for in our AAPI communities, which is to empower AAPI business owners nation-wide to access their own community networks across language barriers and generations to access our best resource: each other.
What I learned
AAPI Business losses carry psychological stress, inhibiting action and adaptation. While under pre-pandemic circumstances this would be an obvious statement, we have come to learn that this pandemic will inevitably change the way business owners conduct day-to-day operations for years to come and that recovery will involve more than temporary assistance through loans and grants. There is a strong imperative for our AAPI business leaders to come and lend support to one another as a means to not just survive but thrive. Based on our initial conversations, there is a clear demand for additional networks, and for some, a willingness as one business owner stated, "Try anything, try everything just to make it through the next year."
What's next for Team Kimchi Mandu
In our long-term goals, our team plans to continue conducting market research and identify risks through a national survey; create a plan to raise $500K in capital; assemble contributors to list their services for resources and sponsored partners; select a vendor for platform development; and raise awareness in AAPI user communities in anticipation of launch.
In the immediate future, we anticipate conducting market research primarily in the DC-Maryland-Virginia metro area and assembling key stakeholders interested in pursuing this platform. After we secure seed funding, we will plan out with our selected vendor a phased approach for our first launch.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.