Stationary Vendors Loc & Leg Plan (STAVEN)

Based on DANE Statistics, almost 50% of Colombia's workforce is concentrated in informal jobs and ever since the pandemic, this number greatly increased during the past 2 years, also, in Colombia, most of those workers are indeed the only source of income in their household, however, this information is well known by the government and they've been making efforts to legalize not only jobs but also their location since most of those vendors are located in residential areas which are illegal in Colombia, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Legalization is a must if vendors want to avoid risks like getting robbed, threatened by local people and/or criminal gangs, and even get a ticket by the police for illegal practices. Even though vendors are well aware of all the risks, most of them don't have knowledge about legalization and documentation process and this makes them unable to start, it is also worth mentioning that the government's legalization plans are very confusing with different prices and hard to fill documentation for the vendors.

Develop a website that allows stationary vendors to: (1) Self-manage documents needed for the legalization of their stationary spot, (2) help link with all possible local and new customers, making these able to visualize the vendor's menu as well as ranking and comments section, and (3) ease the legalization process of the spot to legal entities.

It would work for all stationary vendors that need it and will impact in a positive way on the worker’s economy.

Stationary vendors are the objective population that are located in zones where legally they can’t be and they are vulnerable because of the policies that the government has.  In which the solution will work through a website that simplifies the legalization of their spot so it cannot affect their quality of working. Additionally, this website will impact in a positive way on the worker’s 

Currently all members of the development group have access to a university campus that has many stationary vendors and we are frequent users of these. Additionally, our city "Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia" has 48.6% of informal vendors according to DANE, which has encouraged us to create a communication network and strengthen this union of workers. In order to get much closer to the workers and in the future to include them in the operational version, we have developed multiple surveys, connections with local representatives and are in constant communication with them, to better understand their work, related needs and in the same way, enrich our work through dialogue and user testing belonging to this community.

Although one of the main reasons for applying to "SOLVE MIT" is to obtain financing and guidance in launching our product to the market. It is even more important that the popularity of this program allows us to communicate our idea globally, because our solution is applicable in multiple countries, not only in Colombia. In such a way that our solution is a source of inspiration for other people and guilds.

Currently, Colombia does not have a platform for the registration of stationary vendors, this entire process is face-to-face and varies according to the municipality and the season. These characteristics cause customers to present misinformation on the subject. In this way, the implementation of our solution that has secure self-management models through virtual platforms will make the process easier and faster and will reduce the rate of informality in the country. This incentive will show the benefits that can be accessed starting with the greatest exposure and recognition of permanent positions through the app and with it, the knowledge of educational and social programs provided by private companies and the Colombian government.

Our impact objective for next year is to establish self-management for the legalization of "stationary posts" throughout Colombia and to have a first operational version of the final product.

Our five-year impact objectives are: (1) Add a virtual payment gateway to the marketplaces, (2) legalize more than a thousand positions through the application and consequently a dense content in our marketplace and (3) Expand the model of business to other areas of Latin America

Following the agile development methodology, we assign objectives, tasks and evaluations with academic peers from our institution and we are in constant communication with the union of stationary vendors. Therefore, indicators such as:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): All product development, legal research, and user experience. Evidence of the cost of the product and allows us to estimate the expenses by the client.

• Usage of the application in development (BETA): Using stress software, the estimated usage of multiple users is measured. In relation to DANE databases and private market research. 

• Average crashes in the app: Internal algorithms in the server and app, allow us to identify the frequency in which our application unexpectedly closes.

• Income per transaction: Determines the value of transactions made and data consumption through the application.

• Use of the application at launch:

  • Through CTR (Click Through Rate): It allows us to observe if the functionalities proposed in the solution are being used in the way that is required.

  • User Flow: It allows us to know the number of users that use the application constantly and see if we are having the desired number of users and how to adapt our application to such flow for optimal use.

  • Analytics Software: Software to analyze multiple metrics regarding development and to make changes and/or improvements to the solution.

Stationary vendors, seeing the ease of legalization through the application, are expected to adopt these good market practices and labor transparency, such as legalization of their stationary position, thereby also increasing trust in the platform and in the legal process. Immediately, peace of mind will be achieved for the owner of the position at the time of working. On the other hand, the marketplace encourages local commerce, it will help make new positions known and help consumers find what they need in real time. 

Since the economic situation in the country was affected by multiple causes and was diverted to the side of informality. The final solution is expected to contribute to the dignity of work and allow inclusion in basic services for all workers, such as health, pension and free trade. Since, in the current scenario this initiative is not supporting a minority since the target population is very close to the 50% of the country's population.

In our solution, multiple techniques are developed, such as web application development, as this is the backbone of our solution to help vendors in legal matters and also promote their business, in a social network model to allow constant interaction between customers and vendors, allowing the latter to increase their income, the solution has artificial intelligence to find patterns that allow improving the interaction together with the use of beacons in order to obtain information from the stationary vendor (IoT).

The approach to incorporate diversity in the project is through sociales relations in the website more specifically in the raking segment, because the stationary vendor can generate feedback through the website and the clients can see this ranking, to help know their products. To incorporate equity, is by giving the vendors more opportunities for being safer in their spots and showing their products, additionally, the website is going to have inclusive functions for people with visual disability and/or hearing impairment. Lastly, the incorporation of inclusion is going to be through the legalization, since every vendor is going to have access to this website in whatever device at their disposal and at whatever time.

We plan to generate income through advertising messages and collection for legal procedures associated with commercial procedures. We also planned to opt for government financing since this application facilitates the management of legal procedures and logistics in commercial places.

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