Simplify: a B2B tea marketplace

Tea farmers in India are facing shrinking margins because of their lack of access to buyers and inability to leverage technology. Banks don’t extend working capital loans due to lack of credit history. Our family has been in the tea industry of 25+ years. Based on interviewing 100+ farmers, we have identified 3 problems the farmers are facing:

1. Lack of access to buyers due to no central marketplace

2. High brokerage fee paid to intermediate brokers

3. Long sales cycle of 21 days due to middle men

4. Lack of access to credit

Our solution is a online marketplace that directly connects buyers and farmers, charges a minimal fee, and shortens the sales cycle to 10 days. Based on farmer's transaction history, the marketplace will build a credit score, and extend loans.Similar problems are faced by tea farmers globally. Our solution will empower farmers, and in turn the laborers

The tea industry in India employs 1,160,000 workers with women comprising 60% of this workforce(Labour Bureau of India). India is the second largest producer of tea in the world producing 1.3 billion kgs of tea. Currently, due to the lack of access to buyers and presence of multiple middlemen, the tea farmers are facing shrinking margins, which is impacting their ability to pay the laborers.

Today when a tea farmer produces tea he sells it to a broker. The broker owns the buyer network. In most cases, the broker sells to middlemen who finally sell to tea packeteers. This causes the following problems:

• Farmers are not able to realize optimal price of tea as they accept the price their brokers pay. Without access to the true buyers, they are not able to gauge demand
• The presence of middlemen leads to a long sales cycle. Since they have to pay their laborers on a weekly basis, the farmers take working capital loans from brokers at a 24% annual interest rate
• The  brokerage fee is ~3%

The situation in India is representative of the condition in other tea growing countries like Kenya, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka

Our solution is a tea marketplace that directly connects tea farmers with buyers globally: https://simplifyb2b.com . Presently, it is a high-quality online platform with rich features and an inbuilt chat functionality where buyers can directly interact with tea farmers. It empowers the farmers to adequately gauge buyer demand, shorten sales cycle, and get access to working capital loans. By shortening the sales cycle, the platform directly reduces interest paid on such loans. The technology it uses is Angular JS, PHP Laravel, Amazon Web Services. It is also highly secure using encryption and SSL features.

We are now building a logistics backbone to directly ship from the farmers to buyers. We are also forging relationships with key tea transporters in India who can transport at economical rates. Since we are negotiating as a platform, we are able to get better rates. If we get funding through MIT solve, we will build our native Android and Mobile apps. The present web platform is optimized to run in slower internet bandwidth connections in India. However, India is a mobile first economy, and native mobile presence is key.

Our solution will directly impact the lives of 1,160,000 workers who are employed by tea plantations in India. Women comprise 60% of this workforce, thus tea industry employs 700,000 women (Labour Bureau of India). My family has been in the tea industry for 25+ years, and we have spent most of our time in the tea plantations. Thus, we understand the situation of the workers very well.

Our solution will help farmers with the following:

• Providing direct access to buyers, farmers will be able to realize optimal price discovery for their produce
• The shorter sales cycle due to removal of middlemen will empower farmers to save on working capital loans
• The platform removes the brokers from the supply chain

We are starting with tea and India, but we will expand to other agricultural products and countries. We have bold ambitions, and are determined to realize our dream.

Low skilled, informal workers are at the most risk of being displaced. Two-thirds of jobs are created by small and medium sized businesses. Our solution helps both low-skilled workers and small and medium sized businesses. The tea industry employs 1,160,000 workers of which approximately 700,000 are women. By empowering farmers to directly access buyers and providing working capital loans, farmers can realize better prices, shorten sales cycles, and save on high working capital loan interests. We are starting with tea and India. Our ambition is to expand to other agricultural products, and countries. 

It currently serves 100+ farmers. In 1 year, we plan to reach 300+ farmers. In 5 years, we plan to reach 50,000 farmers.

We have an engineering team of 8 people, a sales and marketing team of 2 people, a content writer. 

My family has been in the tea industry for 25+ years. We have a strong engineering team in India. From sales and marketing, we have a two person team who shares the vision.