Seeking folks for advise & support for new business venture

[Moeen Raoof]

My proposal is to seek funding and support for a new business venture that would bring global small and large business within reach of each other. Presently, businesses around the world are not directly aware of the requirements nor the types of differing products available.

Would like to set-up a central IT based intelligence tool for both vendors and buyers globally.
A vendor, in this instance a small farmer in Mozambique seeking to sell Cashew nuts at the best price possible can only rely on local information in terms of prices and need. Similarly, a chocolate producer in Switzerland seeking to purchase Cashew nuts can only rely on a procurement agent.

The problem, the vendor may not be getting the real value that would create wealth for him or his co-operative members.

The essence of this Web based intelligence tool would be to provide information on product, cost, delivery, quality, and most importantly, create fairer opportunities for all concerned. I believe that this would create opportunities for new business as well as entrepreneurs.

Would you kindly consider this proposal as I believe that it would go a long way in wealth creation and add value to a fairer trading block for businesses around the world.

As I will be seeking a venture capitalist for this, would highly appreciate it if anyone can and able to provide excellent support for the same.

I believe that we will bridge the gap for even remote businesses to start trading around the world, open new markets and doors if you will.

Thank you.

[Alexis Brion]

It's a powerful, interesting idea :)

[Moeen Raoof]

glad you think so, will let you know how it develops. Cheers.

[Kris Nair]

Interesting !

[Tara Kelly]

Sounds like a good idea. Have you given any thought to cultures which are non-sharing (or paranoid) in nature?

For example, I live and work in Italy and have had various clients refuse to post prices on their website because they were convinced that somehow the competition would figure out a way to steal their clients, or undercut them.

That might be an issue that you will need to address somewhere in the system.... just throwing an idea out there.

Good luck with it.
Tara

[Moeen Raoof]

Tara, hi, excellent comment.

Bullhorn is really aiming at a small farmer or manufacturer (vendor), say in a remote parts of Africa, Asia or South America who deals with local agents in terms of selling her/his products.

Bullhorn will be a for-Profit company that will enable that small business vendor to place products online for the rest of the world to see, especially in the West, to buy directly from that vendor.

In addition, Bullhorn will place world market prices for items on it's (future) website for all to see, this will provide opportunities for people even in the remotest parts of the world to get fairer prices for their products as well as open new markets for them. Creating wealth for all based on a level playing field.

Can you imagine the doors that Bullhorn will open for people who may not have thought that they could deal with companies and people globally, this would be wonderful and Bullhorn would be the gateway.

Are you in the procurement and/or vendor business, would be wonderful to share more ideas with you.

Cheers.

[Hasan Luongo]

thanks for reaching out, this sounds like an interesting idea, with many potential challenges. in many ways it sounds like eBay for the developing world and the folks at
Omidyar network may be a good group to connect with.

[seni thomas]

There are a few things to consider here:

1. The issue with small farmers is primarily their size. For example if I'm a small coffee farmer I have no bargaining power and in face the crops are presold before the harvest because the farmers have huge debt burdens. So, first of all you need to aggregate the small farmer so they can more power.

2. Many have no access to computers or internet infrastructure. Purhaps a system like the Grameen bank may work.

I think this is a great idea, but just knowing the prices of worldwide goods has no real effect. You need to get these people out of debt and consolidated. Then they can use the information to bargain for higher prices. Playing the devil's advocate here, but these are real issues that need to be addressed.

Seni Thomas

[Moeen Raoof]

Seni, thanks for your comments.

Devils Advocates always welcome, keeps me real.

Agreed, small farmers indeed face surmounting.

Imagine if you will, a Bullhorn Agent or Franchisee in, say Ethiopia, is contacted by a small Coffee Farmers Cooperative, who are sick and tired of the "middleman" paying very little for their coffee. The Bullhorn chap places their ad on the Bullhorn website and provides them with the prices of the world coffee in that week.

Now imagine if you will, you are a Coffee Shop owner, who procures 4000 kgs (4 Tons), of Coffee per-annum, you sales are rising and you buy regularly from a wholesaler whose "middleman" is the chap operating in Ethiopia.

Now both of you are on Bullhorn, you get in touch with each other, you both agree on the quality, quantity, price, mode of payment (Escrow Account thru Bullhorn), and delivery, and bang, there we have the start of a directly beneficial business relationship.

Can you imagine, you pay virtually the same prices for the coffee directly to the farmer that you would have to your wholesaler, the farmers cooperative cuts out the middleman fees and their cooperative starts to get out of debt.

It will work, all we need is a start, Bullhorn.Net is offering that start point. The rest is up to you.

Imagine.

[Connie Shaw]

Great idea. It sounds like you are pretty agriculturally oriented, but of course this idea can work in many arenas. So if there's any way for a book publisher to be of use within your concept, perhaps I can participate.

[Shishir Sharma]

This is an amazing concept... however, I have a question:

Does Bullhorn only plan to provide a platform for interaction, or do we also plan to provide logistics support.

As Bullhorn is mainly aiming at small farmers/manfacturers etc., the most important consideration (other than providing them a platform to interact) would be to provide the logistics support.

For large farmers/manufacturers, exporting their goods may be easy, but when it comes to small vendors, the whole idea of managing export may be overwhelming and may prove to be a roadblock.

Also, the export cost when added to the product cost may cause it to lose the cost advantage that we plan to offer.

You might want to consider this in the business plan.

Regards,
Shishir