MarketConnect

Client Info

• Business Type: Startup
• Product: B2B Marketplace
• Industry: Procurement
• Stage: Pre-seed
• Funding: Bootstrapped
• Tech stach: bubble.io
  

Background

When large corporates want to expand into South East Asia, specialist consultancies help the corporate identify which local contractors can help them execute on the ground, from construction to infrastructure and beyond. The projects are complex, with specific local expertise required.

MarketConnect founder Michell has deep experience of this process, with senior roles at some of the region's leading consultancies.

The Problem

The process to identify the right set of contractors for each project is highly manual, with a huge amount of data collected and managed via excel sheets. The founders lived this problem and wanted a better way. They identified the following challenges:

1. Keeping each contractor’s information up to date was extremely time consuming, both for the consultancy and the contractor  
2. Comparing contractors across a number of inconsistent spreadsheets was impossible
3. The large amounts of unstructured data meant that filtering contractors based on requirements was a lengthy, manual process

After finding no appropriate off-the-shelf solution, Michell approached a technology partner to develop a custom B2B marketplace to allow consultants to quickly source the right contractor for the job. They were quoted more than $100k for the first version, and nearly gave up, until they found Blue Mongoose!

MarketConnect’s Priorities

1. Allow the contractors to self onboard and update their information, with their data comparable and filterable
2. Protect highly confidential contractor data
3. Launch as quickly as possible, whilst minimising ongoing manual processes

The Approach

1. Focus on one side of the marketplace first (the contractor)

• The initial priority was uploading as many contractors as possible, so we built the contractor facing functionality first and deprioritised the consultancy side of the platform
• We integrated a 3rd party data visualisation tool (Power BI) to provide an off-the shelf filtering solution for the consultant whilst we built it into the core solution

2. Design and build a comprehensive contractor onboarding flow

• The last 5 years of financials, safety records, industry classifications, and lots of dependent dropdowns; the dataset was large and complex
• The data needed to be searchable and filterable, with a smooth UX so the contractor finished the flow

3. Robust user access management portal

• Multiple users within the contractor needed to complete the onboarding flow. The data we collected was sensitive and non-public.
• We designed and built an admin-facing user access management portal that allowed the contractor to add and remove users as necessary, automatically flagging any suspicious email addresses

The Results

1. Launched on time, within budget

• This helped Market Connect to onboard live contractors, resulting in successful demos to contractor groups within 10 weeks of kickoff
• We executed the project more than 6 times cheaper and faster than the lowest quote

2. Integration into Market Connect’s project management software to automate processes

• Market Connect are a small team, our integration with Notion allowed them to manage the platform without additional hires

3. Profitable business from day 1

• This allowed Market Connect to continue to grow and develop without needing VC funding