Fresh from China; A startup for selling dry fruits with minimal intermediaries

One of the concerns Internet purchases and sales , the matching of the product with the photo and its introduced features in the virtual space. This concern of customers in food products is much more than in electronic products, and many customers, if they buy a traditional product, accept a percentage of the poor quality of the product in this category of products, but if they order this product through the Internet, they expect nothing. They do not have the type of poor quality in the ordered product. On the other hand, farmers and suppliers of these products are often not interested in selling their products separately. In short, a specific standard has not been defined in this field like many other products. This issue creates challenges for online sellers of products that do not have a simple solution at first glance.

one of Startup active in the field of dry fruit sales, is a new startup in China. This startup has struggled with the above problems and has solutions to solve these problems. To learn more about this startup, we went to its founder, Mr. Hassan Mohed. In the following, we read the text of Ecomotivo’s interview with him:

Introduce yourself and tell about your experiences.

My name is Hassan Mohd. I have a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in computer engineering. My father was active in the field of photography and videography, and when I was a teenager, I took pictures with my father; After photography, I entered the field of software and web design and I have been doing the same until this age.

Of course, at the time I started working in this field, the term “startup” was not known as it is today, and I got to know the concept of startup and its field when the first Startup Weekend was formed, and at that time also Ideas In the field of congratulations, I implemented it in the form of a website.

Tell us a little about new China.

China just started working from the beginning with the slogan of “minimum intermediary”; I have sometimes come across businesses with the slogan of “removing the middleman”, but in my opinion, some parts need material processing, and this is practically not possible for us, that’s why we adopted the “minimum middleman” method. In order to implement this method in other cities, we had to expand our activity, but due to the lack of capital, with the method Niche Marketing We started our marketing; In this way, we created agencies in the whole country to guarantee quality and buy from farmers. We started working in Tuiserkan as the main representative with one type of product and then added products such as dried fruits that are produced in other cities.

How many people and with what specialties are the members of the new China team?

At that time, because I had failed several times in the topic of team building and partnership, I did not start China with a team partnership and was the only founder of myself; But after a while, I cooperated with people either in exchange for handing over shares or paying salaries, but I didn’t have a cohesive team from the beginning; In the field of accounting, I got help from my wife and in the fields of content and graphics production from other people. But the main founder is only me.

Do you have competitors in the domestic market? What is your competitive advantage?

In the field of buying and selling, there are many ideas in different fields, but often their store is different from ours in the type of product; Therefore, we are unrivaled in the field of dry fruits and product variety in this field, but to some extent we have a platform similar to Salam, with the difference that we have representatives in other cities.

Is there a similar platform overseas?

I don’t think there is a similar platform in this area in other countries; But there are platforms with different functions, as they generally buy, store, and package the product and send it to different regions; But we have agencies in different regions that produce and guarantee the quality of dried fruit and send them to other regions of the country.

How long did it take you to get to this stage of the business? What kind of platforms does New China currently have?

We did not invest in the “platform” from the beginning; Because I am a programmer myself, and contrary to the opinion of others, I believe that investing heavily in the platform does not necessarily make the business successful, and in my opinion, even without focusing on the platform, the path can be traveled more easily. We started our activity from social networks because it made it easy for us to reach outside the city; We started advertising on social media and when we got feedback, we launched the platform; Even though I had the ability to run the platform myself, we used ready-made WordPress to save time and money. Of course, the advantage of using ready-made WordPress is the ease of SEO, which reduces the initial costs. Currently, we have an application and our website is optimized for mobile phones.

Did you have a fundraising and acceleration process?

I think the new Chinese team needs training; But need to acceleration no Because Iranian accelerators They are active in the development of the platform. On the other hand, due to the fact that we are based in the city and we do not have the ability to travel to Tehran, it is not possible to join accelerators or attract capital, and we do not know much about how to communicate with investors. China is bootstrapping capital and not divesting any equity.

Are you in a situation where you think about closing your business?

Yes; After a relatively long period of activity and customer satisfaction, we encountered dissatisfied customers during a period of our activity, which brought a lot of psychological pressure, and I think that these issues are also caused by the lack of a standard and the existence of a series of cultural issues. Another problem arose in cooperation with producers and farmers, when we did not reach an agreement and because of these problems, we thought of abandoning it in some periods of our activity.

What challenges did you face and what did you do to solve it?

Our biggest challenge was showing the quality level of the product to the customers, which we solved by creating representatives with product warranty. Another issue occurred when the product was delivered to the customer and the customer requested to exchange the product; To solve this problem, we implemented the return guarantee option, which also received good feedback.

Are you planning to offer new services in New China?

Recently, China has requested cooperation from businesses with different products; But currently, we are only thinking of expanding the branches in the field of dry fruits, and after that, we intend to focus on increasing the quality of the product and its packaging.

What are your expectations from government institutions?

The support of institutions and the introduction of startups such as New China for farmers will eliminate redundant intermediaries. In addition to this cultural promotion by organizations, they can also help these types of startups by monitoring and implementing startups, so that startups do not have to incur exorbitant costs in this regard.

Despite many startups in the field of agriculture, none of the fields have a pioneering startup, what do you think is the reason?

Due to the low profit margin and the lack of standards in this market, less people are interested in these businesses, and I think that by clarifying the financial value of this market for investors, a trustee can be found for this business.

How can producers’ trust in startups be increased?

This issue includes three parts: one part is related to the subject of “capital”, the other is “market stability” and the third is “support of regulatory institutions”; If government institutions support startups, the trust of farmers will be gained. On the other hand, farmers do not sell their products to startups in bulk due to the possibility of price changes; And if investment is made in this field, it will lead to an increase in farmer’s trust in startups in this field. Last year, due to the sudden changes in the dollar, the prices of products in the market were also changed a lot by farmers, which led to the creation of margins and lack of trust.

Since the main headquarters of startups was in Tehran, what potentials are there in the cities?

From a young age, I wanted to enter the job market in Tehran; But it was not possible due to some issues. After some time, I came to the conclusion that in order to change, I have to rely on my own efforts to make changes in the city where I live. On the other hand, all the economic potentials and all the ministries are in Tehran, which, in my opinion, causes injustice to the people of the city. Even from a moral point of view, there should be a balance between the people of a society and it is necessary to form accelerators in the cities in order to exploit the potentials of the cities.

What advice do you have for new startups?

My only advice is that startups enter the business with planning and do not enter any field in this way and focus on one issue so that the result is of high quality; They don’t achieve success only by developing the platform, and marketing is more important than that. In the field of agriculture, they should enter with the aim of providing the product at the optimal price to the buyer and bringing more profit to the farmer, and it is necessary for these options to be among their concerns.