MIT Solve

Solution Overview & Team Lead Details

Solution name.

HustleTrail - Business Community Platform

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

HustleTrail was a community platform for business owners, more precise for a small or medium business.

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

In this age of internet era, small medium business (smb) was one of the groups that has been underserved in terms of community platform. Compared to big business and other startups, there are plenty of community platforms that they can join. This has led to huge unexplored business information. As A result, many business owners are being scammed by “gurus” out there.

Other than that, most smb also apathy when choosing the right tools for their business. Most of them were using decade-old technology. This will block them from growth when most of the customers are using the newest technology. All the problems that have been listed, were from my own observation in my country, Malaysia.

What is your solution?

Solution that I will present was a community platform for small medium business owners. This platform will be available through website and application. Users for this platform will be able to communicate, discuss, mentor, and few other related activities to business things. Features can be expanded to a few other things. But, most importantly, main features for this platform was enabling users to connect with each other even if they were miles away.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Main target group for this solution was small medium business (smb) owners. Other than that, people who want to venture into business are also welcome. In this platform, users will be able to communicate, discuss, and other few things safely and securely without being afraid to get scammed. Smb also can improve their technologies use capabilities through selected tools offered, reliable with their industries.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Most of the ideas, planning, concept and development was my job. I won Gold Medal in Project Innovation at IT Department stage and 2nd place in overall student back then when I was student at Politeknik Kuala Terengganu. I was the project lead and project developer in that competition. In terms of development, I was helped by a bunch of google content, StackOverflow and some random Youtube guys. But, for this project, I was looking to expand into a much more structured organization to make this project able to reach many more smb owners out there.

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

Solution for the problems has come to my mind when I have talked to many business owners in my network. Some of them have said they have joined the marketing class that costs thousands in return they only earn a few hundred. This has led me to think about building a curated platform for certified gurus. At the sametime, I was doing some freelancing jobs to smb. Most of them ask me what current business tools have been used to improve business growth but I couldn't answer all the questions since some of them were related to certain industries that I have never been before. This situation has brought me to the new idea, community for small medium business owners where they can discuss with each other in their industries.

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Other: Addressing an unmet social, environmental, or economic need not covered in the four dimensions above.

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model

In what city, town, or region is your solution team located?

Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Muhammad Amin Rossaidi aka myself

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website or an app, provide the link here:

https://hustletrail.com/

What makes your solution innovative?

Community platforms have become part of our life. It can be found everywhere on the internet. But most of the community platform was focused on the tech sector, big business, and startups with bulk cash on table for them to share valuable information. This trend has lived since the early era of the world wide web. To transform this trend, HustleTrail was developed to bridge the gap for business information and business communication between small medium business owners (smb). It will encourage smb to share information that is related to their industries.

What are your impact goals for the next year, and how will you achieve them?

My main impact goal for this solution, small medium business (smb) owners can feel safe to communicate and discuss anything that is related to their industry. Other than that, smb owners also can find the right tools to use in their business without headache. To achieve this, the medium that I use to connect with target users is to contact them personally, host an event about how important are the right business tools to use in business, and through content building on the internet.

Describe the core technology that powers your solution.

This solution has been made available through web based platform. The UI was developed using HTML, CSS and Bootstrap 4 Framework. Meanwhile, for backend it was developed using Php as scripting language and Mysql as database. I also use Javascript in this platform. All stack that was used is only the basic level. I use this stack to develop the MVP since it was the only stack that i know how to use. But for future and full scale production, I was looking to use a high efficiency level of development stack such as Laravel, MEAN stack, and much more.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks
Software and Mobile Applications

In which countries do you currently operate?

Malaysia

How many people does your solution currently serve, and how many do you plan to serve in the next year? If you haven’t yet launched your solution, tell us how many people you plan to serve in the next year.

Currently, i have 0 users since this platform was still in development. But right now, I was planning to achieve at least 10,000 daily active users on this platform before the end of 2023 and 20,000 daily active users for the next year.

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year?

Main barrier to making this solution a huge success was in the technical part. This happened because I was only able to develop a small system without huge traffic using basic stack such as Html, Bootstrap and Css for User Interface, Javascript, Php as scripting language, and MySql as database. Lacking a high efficiency stack doesn’t stop me from building the mvp for this solution. But, right now I am in the process of learning a new development stack such as Laravel, React, etc for making this solution much more scalable. Any help that is related to advanced technical skills are most welcome.

Other than that, financial also was one of the main issues since hiring top talent required huge money. Huge infrastructure is also needed to support a large user base that can cost thousands.

Your Team

Business Model

What is your business model?

Customer Segment
1. Small Medium Business Owners.
2. Professional Service Provider.
3. Software Provider.
Value Proposition
1. Providing a safe way for small medium business (smb) owners to communicate.
2. Enabling smb owners to grow following the economic and technology growth.
Channels
1. Directly through the website.
Customer Relationship
1. Event hosting.
2. Social connection.
Revenue Stream
1. Sponsorship.
2. Commision Cut.
3. Subscription.
4. Event Hosting Fee.
Key Resources
1. HustleTrail Platform.
2. Premium content research.
Key Activities
1. Platform Maintenance.
2. Creating High Quality Content.
3. Curating the best service and software provider for smb owners.
4. Helping service and software providers find the right client.
Key Partners
1. Software Provider.
2. Professional Service Provider.
3. Government Agencies.
Cost
1. Development and infrastructure cost

What is your path to financial sustainability?

There are few way for this platform to generate revenue:

Brand Partnership / Sponsorship: One of the most common monetization strategies. This platform can provide a value for software providers in finding their next client through network effect. Software providers can pay for direct exposure to the target market through content creation.
Professional Service Commision Cut: When one business is created, there are many things that business owners need to do. There are legal things, marketing, market expansion, financial and a few other things. Sometimes, this becomes a headache for some business owners. This platform will curate selected providers to provide the best and affordable solution for our users. By that, we can take a percentage cut from what deals have been made through our platform between providers and our users.
Paid User: Users in this platform can access extensive research content in a certain industry by subscribing to a paid plan. This monetization strategy will help this platform sustainability in creating valuable content for users to consume.
Event Fee and Sponsorship: Other than work as a platform on the internet, I am also planning to host a real life event for a certain industry. Real life events were one of the most impactful strategies to strengthen the relationship between users / participants. Software and service providers can take this opportunity to get closer with target customers by sponsoring the event.
There are other monetization strategies that can be applied on this platform. But for now, my main monetization strategy was stated above. Other monetization strategies can be applied following how this platform grows in future. It depended on how this platform was us