Shomonnoy

I am Adib Ahnaf, a young innovator and entrepreneur whose works impacted thousands in Bangladesh. I have origins from Northern Bangladesh and I reside in Dhaka. I have innovated some national patents like fire fighting drones. I have assisted the growth of multiple companies. I own the largest drone manufacturing company in Bangladesh Rotor Solution Ltd. and the largest freelancing platform called Shomonnoy, creating working opportunities for millions. I am currently in my high school and has been dubbed as a prodigy by various platforms. My aim is to ultimately create a better future before my life comes  to an end.

My proposal includes the solving of global unemployment and the empowerment of women and youth. The project I put to the table is that of a local freelancing platform; or the platform with country based transactions. In all the developing/under developed countries the international transaction methods are not the most popular ones. For example, in Bangladesh; 22 million people use Bkash and 19,000 use PayPal. Shomonnoy capitalized the use of Bkash and upgraded the work from home terms. Moreover, most countries are being open-minded and allowing women in financial affairs. But it is often the social customs and household duties that obstruct their activities. Startup like Shomonnoy will eliminate their issues by creating harmony between work life and household duties. The effect is already evident with Shomonnoy having 62% female freelancers. Moreover, the easy transaction medium allow people of all ages to participate in freelancing. This will drastically reduce unemployment.

We tackle unemployment at its core and also empower women and youth through the process. Unemployment is on the increase in Bangladesh displaying a rate of 4.7% . To avoid unemployment, skilled individuals are entering low paying jobs. Bangladesh is quite progressive compared to many other Muslim countries; but women still face the coping of household duties and professional life utterly difficult. About 22 million Bangladeshi uses Bkash like most people of India uses RuPay. Internationally, it is seen that the number one hindrance to smooth freelancing is the sophisticated transaction system. It requires 1 minute or so to open a Bkash account. What we do is destroy the complications by making payment as traditional as possible. Shomonnoy has created a work from home culture in Bangladesh and in these few months; helped hundreds of businesses to rise. We get our job done on local budget with local tastes. That does not necessarily mean we obstruct international freelancing; rather we act as a bridge by performing a two step money transformation. We have empowered hundreds of women in this process. We are financially empowering individuals putting the financial freedom of them for grab.

Shomonnoy is Bangladesh's largest freelancing platform working with 17 transaction medium under Customer talent representative method. The platform like any other freelancing site helps freelancers accept short and long term projects. The organization does not allow independent job access but instead decrease the chances of error by having experts called CTR acting as bridge between the customer and talents. We empower people with skills by taking all inconveniences under our wings and thus allow them to focus on quality freelancing. We also have an extension where general people are taught skills for free. We also legally distribute Udemy courses to accelerate learning.We help the learner and the learned for the betterment of the world.

My project is for any skilled individual interested in freelancing. According to statista; the world consists of nearly 200 million skilled unemployed individuals. Our target is to financially empower these 200 million. Residing in a third world country, I realized how house hold duties may interrupt routine office for women. We created and successfully implemented the work from home campaign in Bangladesh. About 163 women are freelancing with us who are becoming self sufficient by the coming days owing to the freelancing opportunities provided by Shomonnoy. We have the goal for youth for youth as well with hundreds of youth doing freelancing here at Shomonnoy. We enjoy the diversity in our freelancers and clients. We have worked to suppress their every needs. We eased the process of freelancing in Bangladesh to the simplest way possible.In the same way, we understood the necessity of these platform to local businesses. Their needs include logo creation, taking their business online through website, making them more accessible by app and increasing exposure through marketing. We constantly provide freelancers to help these businesses boom.

We empower people financially, and have special considerations towards the women and youth. In Muslim countries like Bangladesh women are often revoked from doing jobs while jobs for youth are termed alienable to many. In Bangladesh, taking a job before university is taken negatively and is thought a greedy move. We want to break all these barriers.

January,2020; a tutor contacted me,"I have a great domain Ahnaf. It's called Shomonnoy (meaning unity). I am thinking of a mixed platform of agricultural goods." "Are you sure?", replied I. It was surely a messed up idea to mix hundreds of agro company in one platform. I wasn't sold at his proposal. Next day, he called back, "I give up. Most platforms didn't want to partner. Most ignored, ones that wanted to partner can barely function. Would you be interested in buying the domain?" 'Yes," said I; having no idea of what to do with it. I spent 10$ for the domain. I myself was a freelancer selling websites. I hated how tiring was the transaction process. I was tired by the competition and how miscommunication can cause bad reviews that can mess your freelancing career. One day I was reading on the gold rush of California. I came to know that the richest man of that time sold prospecting elements. Something changed within me; I won't dig gold; I'll sell shovels.I never had a habit of complaining but had that of solving. I took the decision to start this freelancing platform and it rose exponentially.

As said before, I was a freelancer. I started working at Upwork after setting a transaction medium through brokers. I saw the dreadful international competition. I saw how culture gap can cause so many miscommunication. I was never a man who would see a problem and never attempt to solve. I saw a skyscraper burning down; I made firefighting drones. I couldn't find medicines at 3 am; established a 24/7 online medicine portal. The passion for Shomonnoy is personal. I have seen my own cousins; graduating from the best universities with utmost skills and still ending up at a low paying job due to lack of experience. It personally hurts me when women are deprived from working due to household duties. A living example is my mother who was once the principal of a renowned high school but then retired at my birth due to responsibilities. If she had a work from home opportunity she might have still retained her financial freedom that she lost for me and my sibling. But most significantly, I am passionate about Shomonnoy because it is relevant and have potential to impact millions.

A baker is not necessarily the best owner of a bakery. But the best owner of the bakery with baking skills have advantages. I have worked with the freelancing industry for 3 years and I am 16. I have skill sets unrivaled on my position. I am good at corporate activities, closing and marketing. Besides, I did all the primary works of Shomonnoy including website and app development. I can develop apps on multiple platforms. I am admired for leadership as well. I lead a group of trusted employees and ensure the proper conduction of every task. Brick by brick I am breaking the walls of financial insecurity down. I have great command over Python and hence I develop complex algorithm in machine learning and AI. Even though I am skilled in mechatronics but that never proved relevant to Shomonnoy but helped me rise throughout life. I am fluent in English and can write engaging articles. I am not saying that there isn't anybody more suitable for the task than me. But you can trust me that I am a good fit.

Every source of my confidence comes from me thinking on my feet and staying calm in rough waters. I have had incidences with every company I ran from DronesBD to the non profit called 3Wishes. I will state an incident that happened in Shomonnoy few months ago at February,2020. I once helped a client in Shomonnoy setting his company called Jothil. It was an entertainment based company. Then I was told he was a venture capitalist. He offered to invest in Shomonnoy and demanded a refined product in 1 month. I had a refined website but he was expecting an app as well. This investment was a make or break for us. I didn't have enough budget to hire one of my freelancers develop the Shomonnoy app. But I had enough money for a Udemy course. I used the instances of Shawshank Redemption. I decided to do whatever is possible on my behalf. I took the Android Studio course by Tim Buchalka. People usually take this course over 6 months. I knew it was my only shot and hence 6 months became 15 days; 14 days 19 hours to be exact. I was ready with the app 2 days before.

Let me then tell the instance of my non-profit 3Wishes. I was disturbed by the unsafe menstrual practices in Bangladesh. I decided to distribute 1000 packets of sanitary napkins in the slums of Dhaka city. It was an amazing experience and the works I did was that of a leader. As the sole founder I had to create a voluntary base from scratch since that was our first task. I collected 100 volunteers divided them into teams, put them in different regions for distribution and I myself led a team. We put an smile in everybody's face from the distressed we distributed to; to our parents. We managed to commence the whole task in one day. It might not be the exact story of my leadership but of the co-operation of the amazing people back at 3Wishes. But I showed leadership to some extent.

My project may have derived from conventional freelancing but it made the process quite convenient. Specially, our introduction of national  transactions to freelancing allowed the emergence of manpower from every walks of life. Freelancing was still privileged for an upper class with credit cards or enough fortune to pay brokers for PayPal. We started freelancing through methods taking 1-2 minutes still not sacrificing the verification. We also started a new system called Customer and Talent Representative (CTR) where the freelancers don't directly contact clients. We use an expert to ensure their smooth understandings of demands and abilities.Often tending not to show lack of technical knowledge, clients are unable to provide their demands easily. Our experts extract the demands of the client systematically and then find freelancers more suitable. The searching and matching freelancers is of an algorithm I programmed that causes perfect client-freelancer fit; the holy grail of freelancing We, at Shomonnoy are proud of our innovative system. 

Our activities include accepting client demands, extracting their needs, finding the perfect Customer-Talent fit, ensuring proper completion and delivery of the project. They have impacts on various terms. Our ultimate impact is creating a more sustainable economy. On short term, we are reducing financial dependability of individuals, ensuring proper utilization of skills, inspiring women and youth to work, creating a positive working mentality. On a larger scale, this will reduce things like traffic jam, workplace depression and domestic violence as well; all of which are extremely high in Bangladesh.On an even larger scale, this will create a financially independent generation and a tendency of earning one's fortune from the very beginning. The elimination of complexity simplifies the path to change. We expect high impact by eliminating the transaction complexities. In the ultimate terms, we will end up with a financially independent generation in a more sustainable economy.

Shomonnoy is one of the fastest rising startup in Bangladesh with average monthly website visits of 30,000 people. We get at least 1000 leads every month. By now we have 278 freelancers working in Shomonnoy. They include people with full time freelancing professions or those using it as side hustles. We have completed about 2000 projects. With the end of the pandemic we expect the rates to be constant because even though we may lose full time freelancers, the offline marketing is quite fruitful here. We are expecting 500+ freelancers by February 2021 and have an expectation that the number will drastically increase to 10,000 when we move to India as well in five years. We aim to complete 10,000 projects by next year and 100,000 or more after expansion in 5 years. Sousing average family structure in Bangladesh now we are making 70 families sufficient but will make 2500 in 5 years.

By next year we plan to spread the spirit of freelancing throughout the country. We have an office in the capital but we have clients and freelancers from all corners of Bangladesh. We will put offices on several districts for better conduction. We aim to reach 500+ freelancer by next year and want to establish ourselves as the go to place for freelancing in Bangladesh. This will reduce transaction complexity and also strengthen our economy as businesses grow through skills of nation's individuals. Our goal for the next five years would include helping 1000+ business to grow from scratch. By next year we have planned some expansions. We believe in skill development for a better future and we plan to open Shomonnoy School, a free skill development site. We are already providing Udemy courses through national transaction as a pre-activity to this goal. We will also create a database of agencies and institutions that will act as a single freelancers in their dealings. Thus we plan to help at least 20 such agencies grow by next year. Our goals are planned and outlined, waiting for execution.

The first barrier is financial and this has to do with me being a student in high school. Even though I come from a well off family and my parents wanted to help me, I decided to start Shomonnoy from scratch. Soon I will be writing a book on it called ' 0$ Entrepreneur'. Moreover, in Bangladesh the local investors demands unrealistic returns; and the number of angel investors and accelerators interested in local ventures are really low. A legal problem that arose was the lack of trade license and inability to issue on in the pandemic. There were other barriers too like initial trust gaps and complaints of insufficient works in Shomonnoy. Many freelancer did not join doubting its potential which kept me shattered for a few days. There were barriers on equity as my tutor mentioned before came back and claimed an unrealistic equity with no valid reason. Without sheer passion and belief, I might have undoubtedly given up.

Financial barriers need a strong financial change for disappearing. I did various modifications to my model to suit everything up in my economic condition. I freelanced myself, sold drones that I manufactured and had to engage same enthusiastic people to multiple roles. Even now I am the CEO, a CTR and the CTO of Shomonnoy. Though, I got some angel investments in exchange of a favor from Netherlands (previously mentioned) I couldn't break through the reluctance of accelerators. To stand our legal grounds, I took a temporary trade license by permission with the signings for a Limited Liability Company by the end of pandemic. I had to manage each and every CTR; including working as one to finally close the trust gaps. I realized something that the demand of work is exemplary. I was  making efforts to gain freelancers when the truth is freelancers would move in with flow of work. I shifted my gear and started searching works at groups. I also kept posting there which worked as free promotion. Soon work started to flow in and so did freelancers.

We are not currently partnering with any organization. But we have plans for it. Specially Ingeniero and 10minute school for Shomonnoy School. We will be partnering with companies like Entropy Farm and Magnito Digital who'll act as a single freelancer. 

Value Proposition:

-Easiest Transaction

-Clear Demands and Service

-Best Fit

-Financial opportunities

-Less competition

-Culture relevancy

-Work from Home opportunity

Customer Segments:

-Freelancers of all ages,economical condition and gender specially women and youth.

-Customers seeking any of our 42 services from perfect freelancers

-Agencies providing services.

Customer Relationship:

-Digital and non-personal

Customer Channels:

-Website

-Mobile Application

-Podcast

-Social Media

-Call Centers

Revenue Streams:

-Commissions on every project

-Ad revenues

-Commissions from Partnering Agencies

Cost Structure:

-Servers and App Management

-Hosting

-Wages

-Advertising

Key Activities:

-Ensuring work inflow

-Managing CTR

-Ensuring Customer-Talent Fit

-Accepting works from freelancers on deadline

-Ensuring payments from customers

Key Resources:

-Website and Mobile Application

-Facebook Groups and Page

-Manpower

-CTRs

-Office Space

Key Partnerships(in future):

-Permanently hiring companies

-Edu-ventures

-Serving Agencies 

Revenue flows in Shomonnoy through multiple streams; however it is the commission at the completion of every project by freelancers that generates the revenue. The commission is basically the difference between the demands of the clients' budget and the freelancers' demands. Our commissions are negotiation based using AI and we don't take fixed 20% like every other freelancing sites. Our commission rates are flexible and on average lower. We have one of the highest visits in our site with average visits of 30,000 monthly. So we generate some decent revenues through Admob and Adsense. Shomonnohy has received one angel investment. Till now it is without any commitments towards investors.

Shomonnoy captured 60,000 page visits and 100 leads in its first week of launch. In the pilot program of 3 months ending April,2020 Shomonnoy amassed Bangladeshi currency equivalent to approximately 5600$ in profit. We have an estimation of monthly commissions worth at least 2 thousand US dollars in profit if present model continues. It is not impossible to increase this revenue exponentially in the near future through exposure. We have collected an angel investment from Netherland based venture capitalist Akash Dobber worth 10,000 $ ; however now we hold no commitments. We have earned 600$ in total from Advertisements displayed at our site and app. Some of them were google based while some we reached out. Above all, we are currently in a position to generate profit worth 24,000USD on average yearly.

Shomonnoy is in seed stage and requires intensive funding. For the proper regulation and advancement of this startup we need a seed investment of 200,000 USD. The amount can be intriguing but that is necessary for proper marketing, refinement and spreading. We can build it as one of the top industry in Bangladesh. We propose this investment as equity basis with 25% shares provided to the party in provision. Upon expansion, we will be creating an international corporation as we have plans to extend to India, Sri-lanka, Nepal, Bhutan,Maldives. This will require an expansion cost of 1 million USD on debt basis for 10% interests. We are completely confident and our 35% monthly growth rate provides evidence. 

The annual estimated expense will be on average 7000USD. This includes 100 USD in advertisement monthly. The wages would amount to 3000USD annually with current staff. The costs of website and app management would amount a little. Office Space, call centers, legalization and taxes amount to rest of the expenses. Now comes the cost of expansion which is estimated to be around 2000USD in 2020.

The Elevate Prize can be a door of opportunity towards the success of Shomonnoy. It can help in the barriers mentioned before through the following ways:

1) Financially Shomonnoy started with 0$ and is generating sufficient revenues. Still we will be needing seed funds and investments up to 1 million USD to impact the world by billions over a period of 5 years.

2)Even though I consider myself somewhat skilled and prepared, I believe the only way we grow is through learning. Gaining mentor ship from folks at MIT would be a privilege for me.

3)Elevate Prize may help us get the exposure we need to reach millions and empower them finally.

4) Attention of global investors and media would be beneficial to my mission.

5)Connection with influencers and leaders will help the project h=grow radically.

6)It can reduce the trust gap I plan to eliminate.

It is highly required for Shomonnoy to have financial strengths to move forward. We make people financially dependent without going the unnecessary miles; it would not be possible if we are weak in finances . We aim to partner with national money transaction systems as our venture helps them radically. This partnership will be of equity based monetary partnership. We would be interested in partnering with agencies and studios who would provide services as a single freelancer. The proposal theory is of win-win. Our extension to a skill based school would require instructors and we would be interested to partner with some educational institution.

Bkash,RuPay etc.:

These national vast money exchange chains are profited to the maximum extents as most of our freelancers use these services. We propose a commission from their behalf in exchange of exclusivity to their services.

Entropy Farm, Ingeniero,A&O studios etc.:

Our platform has clients demanding what these farms provide services of. We assign freelancers while they have employees. They can provide services to our clients in exchange of a higher commission than individual level.

Udemy:

We have plans to partner with Udemy allowing direct purchase through local monetary services.