AGARU

Adrian Marquez, Anthropologist, Sommelier. 20+ years  in hospitality trade trade.  

Grew up in Mexico City, in a family of entrepreneurs. Immigrated to Canada 23 years ago where he learned the value of work, and the sad reality of the lack of opportunity for people in developing nations.  

Lifetime entrepreneur (4x) with international business experience in east Asia (Japan, Singapore).

Mr Marquez was the spark behind stardust@home, a successful crowdsourcing program in space exploration training crowds to use simple tools in a semi supervised environment. 

Mr Marquez is also part of the founding team of Charlies Burgers, a 'one of the best food and wine experiences in the world', at par with the best in the business. Part of his contribution was the initial marketing that went viral. 

Mr Marquez is also a graduate of Founder Institute, based out of Silicon Valley, an accelerator with a very challenging program.

Customer satisfaction is the lifeline of any business. But this requires staff. Who can deliver? Solving the lack of recognition for skills that are considered 'soft' and 'unmeasurable' but that are crucial to  hospitality services. 

 With a record of vocational ability, (with  time, place and person) we can create access to opportunities based on talent. With this record enterprises can get better customer feedback and manage staff better; staff can have access to opportunities beyond politics, age, gender or seniority at work; customers are rewarded for their participation.  We believe this is a win-win-win and the way of the future.

Ultimately we think that Meritocracy, not politics, should make the difference between rich and poor. We will bring hard working people everywhere what they deserve: Respect and dignity.  Cannot be bought or sold. It will be built by the talent and effort of the individual. We will make it tangible.

1 in 10 people around the world work in hospitality. All affected by the same issue: expertise cannot be quantified or measured because the skills necessary are considered 'soft' and 'unmeasurable'. Without a tangible record of performance staff is at a disadvantage when asking for better wages, promotions or simply recognition of their efforts. 

Many factors contribute to the problem, but mainly the lack of transparency and metrics that determine vocational aptitude. There may be a lot of talent in the field but it is subject to politics at work, and many biases along the way. Without a way to prove skill and effort, staff has little feedback to improve on, little dignity and a sense of meaning in their work. 

Current approaches (like LinkedIn or Tripadvisor)  only benefit the enterprises or the recruitment agencies, not the staff directly. Nobody cares what happens to the staff after they leave the company.  Talent, attitude and aptitude will be  the point of differentiation instead of the many 'isms' out there.  Our job is to help people help themselves.

Our approach is simple, based on direct customer voting.

Customers vote on any service interaction, creating a record of the quality of the customer service interaction. This vote is recorded on a database creating a record or added to an existing. 

We work on a web browser so that there is no need for software, nothing to download, simple to use. All we need is the place and name of the customer service / hospitality staff and the rating. 

We provide enterprises with an aggregate of the staff performance on a daily / weekly / monthly basis to create customer satisfaction metrics. With this record vocational aptitude can be spotted, and those lagging behind trained or monitored closely for improvement.  The staff owns the data and can always opt out. We provide individual scores for the staff, aggregates for the companies. 

Our consumer contributors also receive rewards for their participation. 

We also send physical letters to those voted into our system, sending them a 'good job' note and encouraging them to continue their good efforts. Their management gets also a letter indicating the same, with the objective to bring the talent into the spotlight. 

We target Frontline Hospitality staff in particular, but the reach can be anyone involved in customer service interactions, or even within organizations.  Frontline staff of enterprises have little resources when they change careers or need verification of their talents.

 We are inspired by a famous researcher that lived with crack dealers in El Barrio to understand why would anyone do it. Its dangerous, pay is terrible, stressful. Turns our that they do it for one thing: Respect. Money was fine, but the respect of their peers and society is what the dealers really wanted. Isn't that what we all want?

We work closely within the industry, with our funder having been in hospitality for over 20 years now. We understand well the challenges, frustrations, and similarities of frontline hospitality work everywhere. 

Our solution  will open opportunities that were simply not possible before; by having a record of skill (vocational aptitude) staff can prove their talent and have a measure of feedback that doesn't exist now.  By having proof of employability this can open doors to loans, credit, further training or better jobs. Even more: it will give respect and dignity to hard working people everywhere.

Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind

A tangible, third party validated record of their skill (job aptitude) means giving people the equivalent of a college education at 1/10th of the price and in a format that is  more appropriate and accessible to everyone. A record we can attest of the aptitude and attitude of the person towards work, their ability to learn + adapt,  therefore future employability and income potential. While money is one proxy for respect, to have respect and recognition from others based on skill and talent is far superior for self-satisfaction. 

My background is in Anthropology. At U of Toronto 10 years ago I learned about a famous researcher that lived with crack dealers in El Barrio to understand why would anyone do it. Its dangerous, pay is terrible, stressful. Turns our that they do it for one thing: Respect. Money was fine, but the respect of their peers and society is what the dealers really wanted. 

And isn't it what we all want? Its universal. 'How' is the challenge.

So what if we could offer people a way to show they are someone and that they are good at something in a more meaningful and positive way? 

Combined with 20 years experience in hospitality I came to realize that one the best ways to help people is to help them help themselves through the quality of their own work. 

One way is offering them a tangible record of their abilities, something that is considered 'intangible and unmeasurable' as far as hospitality work goes. By bringing the abstract ('soft skills') into the real (a verifiable record) we can do for staff what LinkedIn or facebook does for people elsewhere: a sense of belong, a way to demonstrate and validate their work. 

I come from a family of entrepreneurs, with the most influential of them being my grandmother,  definitely an inspiration in my life. I was an entrepreneur from a young age too thanks to her and my mother, and I haven’t stopped (4x). Thanks to them and watching people hustle everyday to make a living gave me a particular perspective on the value of work, and the sad reality of the lack of opportunity for most people in developing nations.  Honest, hardworking people there have little chance to climb up with honest means and effort. 

I have been penniless and homeless before in Canada, and I have devoted myself to make sure that never happens to hardworking people anywhere for any reason. There is a lot of natural talent out there that is unrecognized and I think that wasted talent is a morally wrong. 

There is also first hand experience in how difficult it is to hire, manage staff while being objective and finding a job in a field without formal training or requirements. Most of the current approaches are based on hunches and guesses. Yet trillions of dollars ride on these assumptions.  There has to be a better way. 

With over 20 years of living and working in the hospitality industry we have developed a excellent understanding of the issues and worries that both staff an enterprises face everyday. With the background of our funder in Anthropology we can understand the cultural factors that limit and shape the outlook of people that work in the trade. It also brings us the advantage of abstraction necessary to see the bigger picture in the interactions between customers, staff and enterprises.
Combined, this gives us insight of a process and a solution that has not been done before. There is nothing in the marketplace like what we are doing, leaving us with a green field, full of possibilities.  

OUr experiences with other very successful projects that were crowdsourced, like stardust@home and Charlies Burgers lead us to believe that with the right amount of capital and team we can reach a very large, involved audience with very little actual budget spent.  

With a ever positive and can do attitude we think we can learn as needed, make as needed and adapt as needed. We are very resourceful, and can bring a message that will resonate with the target audience effectively. 

I do not have the full technical or financial ability to get this project where it deserves. But I have lots of life experience that show me the way. After my overseas venture failed  it was a very hard lesson but I learned a lot in the life of a product and company (from raw material to customs, labelling, to direct sales).

 I came back to Canada broke and technically homeless; But thanks to my reputation in the hospitality trade I was able to find a job, a place to live and pull myself up. Life has thrown me more challenges in the last few years since, but I have learned that with continued effort and good attitude things can change, and with a meaningful project living below your means is not a big deal. My finances are just enough to keep me afloat now, but not enough to get the project kickstarted.  Now I am focusing on giving as much as I can, to as many as I can for as long as I can. 

I am not a technical person but I can explain and direct well what needs to be done and why. 

In every restaurant I have worked I have managed to convince people to adopt more efficient and effective processes not necessarily being a manager or supervisor. I have been able to change bad habits of staff and management into better and simple solutions by showing logically, patiently and with examples why things should and could be done in a different way.

 I don't think leadership is shouting at people from the rooftops what to do, but giving them the tools they need to do their job better, improving their lives in the process. 

Current solutions:

+ In-house databases (silos, not transportable)
+ Certifications by institutions (rarely recognized internationally, cost $$)
+ Word of Mouth (biased, unreliable) + LinkedIn  (biased, hard to prove claims)
+ Government records (do not reflect vocational aptitude)
+ Resume (hard to prove claims, notoriously easy to fib)
+ Recommendations (hard to prove claims, risky)
+ Feedback from management (biased, cant see all, cannot be quantified)

LinkedIn - online resume; can be biased  www.linkedin.com
Pluggd - focused on chefs   www.pluggd.work
marketforce -- benefits companies not employees .    www.marketforce.com

IN COMMON: data is Isolated and OR Unreliable. Nobody focuses on the benefits to the staff. Nobody rewards staff participation on platform. 

Our solution:
Transportable and third party vouched (provides metrics)
+ Based on customer votes (crowdsourced), unbiased by politics at work
+ Can offer proof-of-location
+ Simple to use, simple to implement  (Appropriate Technology)
+ De-risks hiring, and simplifies onboarding of future staff
+ Offers feedback for staff
+ Requires minimal effort from staff, customers and enterprises 

+ Quantifiable customer satisfaction metrics. 

In addition, we will share up to +80% of our profits with the participants (customers and staff) to fuel the growth and encourage fair participation in the value of the platform.

Our founder's background is in Anthropology. At U of Toronto he learned about a famous researcher that lived with crack dealers in El Barrio to understand why would anyone do it. Its dangerous, pay is terrible, stressful. Turns our that they do it for one thing: Respect. Money was fine, but the respect of their peers and society is what the dealers really wanted. 
And isn't it what we all want? Its universal. 'How' is the challenge.

So what if we could offer people a way to show they are someone and that they are good at something in a more meaningful and positive way?  Combined with 20 years experience in hospitality we came to realize that the best way to help people is to help them help themselves. One way is offering them a tangible record of their abilities, something that is considered 'intangible and unmeasurable' as far as hospitality work goes. By bringing the abstract ('soft skills') into the real (a verifiable record) we can do for staff what LinkedIn or facebook does for people elsewhere: a sense of belong, a way to demonstrate and validate their work.  With a tangible record staff can consider themselves a professional, instead of an employee -- a major difference in agency and self esteem. 

We interviewed many people in the trade in Canada, and while the idea has had a lukewarm reception, it was vey well received in Mexico by staff and union officials. the major hurdle has been changing habits to participate, but users that are engaged have been very responsive. 

We have had zero dropouts to the platform, on over 500+ records, so that indicates to us that there is interest, if mistrust in the platform. We have increased visitors (10,000) to date and more contributors every day. With network effects this can grow on its own quite well. 

Given the novelty of the idea, and need for large sets of data for it to be a dominant player, we expect breakeven by Y5 at best. 

Currently have served over 500 staff across 9 countries 
We are aiming to serve 5,000 staff this year

We are aiming for exponential growth with a little capital influx, within 5 years we hope to have reached 100 million at least Given the nature of our product and the lack of comparables it is very hard to estimate how many people it could potentially impact.  We are focusing on grassroots growth, which would be also hard to predict, but the effect is hard to measure. 

We seek to become the reference for anyone working in hospitality and customer facing roles, wherever they may be. Ideally we would be part of everyday consumer interactions, seamlessly and with long lasting benefits for all participants.  Over 700 million people work in hospitality, with an unknown part in the informal economy. We would love to help 'the unbankable' have a reference for work, credit worthiness and personal development all in one convenient package.  Next year To achieve our adoption we need change of habits of consumers, and we suspect it will be easier to introduce this broadly in developing nations, where the poor rely on traditional networks of relationships and F2F connections. Our project is not far from that, we are digitizing those interactions and processes in a way. We have to show people the advantages by championing and rewarding in some way those who are great at their job.
We think that offering those 'superstars' access and benefits above and beyond the current (nothing) and using their social media channels will help spread the use. This can transcend cultures and places, especially with the younger generation that needs to prove themselves in the workforce. 

5 years out
Our system can be replicated easily into any language, and requires minimal hardware mobile capability. Down the road we'll be able to offer access with voice or other means of ID, to simplify onbarding of the less tech savvy.

BARRIERS Financial
Currently bootstrappable nearly indefinitely, but growth will be a very slow pace, perhaps too slow. Pilot programs on offer, but no resources to execute now. 

Technical Need a more robust ledger solution, not a technical founder, so technical debt.  Need to develop a dashboard solution for clients instead of emails, workable, second step. 
Transition to a distributed ledger. technical debt there. Some aftermarket solutions out there, trying for partnerships with companies in the ecosystem. 

Legal No barriers, but IP protection would be good. Patents of budget right now. 
Will register trademark in USA and Canada, perhaps Mexico as well, given the reasonable cost. 

Cultural 
Hard to instil new habits on users, needs repetition and constant reminding. Otherwise most are onboard, contributions coming from random sources and referrals within industry. We hope the trend continues and peer pressure helps develop things.  

Market Barriers
Biggest barrier is reaching all the potential users, very broad demographic, geography and language. Having support in-market in some way, be it government or NGO's would be ideal. 

Financial Barriers

Seeking aggressively Social Impact investors, grants, loans and will try a friends and Family round again Technical Try to find talent in schools and referrals, difficult and slow process. Trying for partnerships with companies in the ecosystem.  Learning as much as possible on own, online courses and asking for help. Solve community could help here. 

Legal Will publishing whitepaper and just using trade secrets to operate, given current status of IP law and amount of patent trolls. Anyone could try to copy us, but the biggest hurdle is mass adoption (and incentivizing participation). 

Cultural  Referrals within industry to increase, lean on network and 'cool kids' to make it happen. 
We have nothing to lose, so we are willing to give everything to participants (hence our generous profit sharing scheme). Nobody else will do that, and that will be our difference. 

Market Barriers 
Hiring translators and minimal staff overseas, piecemeal work and putting everything online should help minimize the need for staffing beyond 5 -10 people at the most, globally. Subcontract everything else, keep things for the locals to run as they would know the market better and faster than we ever would from outside. 
Marketing itself is not so expensive so can boostrap that for a long time. 

Not Yet available 

We provide enterprises with an aggregate of the staff team performance on a daily / weekly / monthly basis so that talent can be spotted, and those lagging behind trained or monitored closely for improvement. We provide a daily email with the content. 

We charge these enterprises a recurring monthly fee depending on the size of the team. 

We are pre revenue, but we are confident in the potential. Our rates start at $20/mo for small SMEs and larger as the team number increases.  Why its needed?
There isn't currently anything comparable in the marketplace to our platfrom, but there is huge amount of money and businesses that depend on data currently not tracked or measured. 

For financial sustainability we will:

+ sell our core service to SMEs and enterprises for a recurring monthly fee + Minimize staffing as much as possible as long as possible + Applying for donations and grants to kickstart the project further + Raising Social Impact capital, in as many markets as possible 

our expenses are minimal and can be covered by bootstrapping nearly indefinitely 

Nothing, all bootstrapped

Seeking $ 200K in seed Social Impact investment 
Hoping to close ASAP

Use of proceeds:

Marketing, contests and branding 40%

Database Dev work 25%

Legal and IP 20%

Full time director salary 10%

Office space 1 year 5%

Any unused funds will be saved in war chest to bankroll next year of operations 

Marketing and branding $25,000 

IP and related $5,000 

Trade shows and promotions $10,000 

office space $5,000

I do not have the full technical or financial ability to get this project where it deserves.

 My finances are just enough to keep me afloat now, but not enough to get the project kickstarted to get mass adoption. 

Where I need MIT expertise is in helping connect with institutions and people that understand the value of a record of vocational aptitude, and the difference that can make on people's lives around the world. If we can plug this solution into broader networks, I think it will be adopted faster and easier than me alone trying to win hearts and minds. 

The product works well enough right now, and I am getting users, but I need more reach to find the mass that will make the project valuable to buy in by enterprises.
A more robust ledger will be necessary when interacting with banks or other creditors on behalf of users, and I cant build that now
With a system where everyone can participate we can create something interesting, big and that will help potentially billions of people around the world.
With the right networks and a little funding I can do miracles, as I have done with other projects that went viral.
Finding the right staff would be great too, I cant do everything alone

More importantly, wasted talent is a moral shame. Lets help people help themselves.

Consensys -- leaders in the field of distributed ledgers, have the expertise and personnel to help make a major impact (help develop ledger)

FOAM -- they are currently building an alternative for geolocation that doesn't depend on GPS, and yet can protect privacy (this will be needed for integrations)

James Beard foundation -- leaders of culinary and professionals on the field of hospitality to develop adoption and legitimacy 

MIT -- any branch or program that deals with Social Innovation, Social Impact with aims to developing nations help and development