A Startup Idea for Coffee Lovers and Entrepeneurs (GRANO)
One product that is commom in every office and houses around the world is Coffee. More than 2.25 billion cups are consumed daily 🤯 and one third of these coffee is produced in one single country (my birth place) Brazil.
1. Problem indified
Talking with a friend, that was a commodities broker for Santander bank in countryside Sao Paulo (one of the places with more coffee farms in Brazil) he told me how that the farmers are tottaly dependent on big middlemans (companies); this middlemans buy the coffee than sell to another middlemans (trading companies) then this one sells to North America and Europe where we have the roasters. Farmers in Brazil know that they are in hands of these middlemans but they have no option because: They can not find the roasters to sell, do not have export expertise, and they need safe on payment process.
One the other side, I`ve be living two years away from Brazil, most of the time in Europe, and I started to daily go to coffee chops and coffee roaster to undestand more about how they work, what I found out is: roaster also have problems to find good and reliable farmers that could send then samples for quality test and always be able to supply the beans.
2. Startup Solution
Analyzing this situation I thought on a platform that would be a inverted marketplace, connecting farmers to roasters based on the demand. GRANO
Normally on Amazon you publish your product and then wait for demand to come and you to sell. A inverted on GRANO would work the inverted way, because speciallity green coffee do not have to much difference on photos and descriptions is more about the bean.
So the processs would be:
a) Roasters post how much, when and what type of coffee that they need , then
b) The algoritm will choose the best 5 farmers option that has coffee available based on price, type of coffee and time of arrival.
c) The roaster will make contact an ask for test sample.
4) The farmer would have tech, translation and shipping support to send the sample.
5) After the sample is analyzed they will make the order.
6) The farmers will need to have support by GRANO in shipping the order and dealing with export bureaucracy.
7) The payment is done by the roaster and would be available to see on the platform.
3. Biggest blockers
- Facilitate shipping (will need to have direct contract with international shipping companies to export).
- Facilitate bureaucracy. (find a easy way to deal with import and export taxes).
- Payments security bring confidence to both parties.
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