Developing a IT industry in Maldives

Last Few weeks was amazing, Met new Start-up IT guys with Great exciting new ideas.

I experiment a lot.  I do all sorts of things to find out what works and what doesn't work.  And due to that I always make different mistakes.At the end I just look at the Final Product and say, I have learned a lesson.

Today Reinvent Maldives is a growing company, I am faced with making tough calls & decisions. Meet New People. Apply New systems, find new way of doing things, standards and policies.  Not really to dictate everyone, But to make sure we follow the right direction.


Everything is not about money, I believe PR is very important for more socialized type of E-commerce business like us.

Here in Maldives,  most businesses consider everyone else to be  there competitors. But I don't think thats how it will works specially in the IT industry.Collaboration and sharing knowledge is very important for us to develop great products.

Since we don't have any way to get finance for a SMB Start-up.We cannot keep everything in our mind and think like Super Stars.

I think Super starts are those who share knowledge and corporate to help those valuable ideas that will come to reality, Rather than demanding for a Higher pay .
@reallynattu says ( Evaluating themself like NETGEO Photographers )

We do understand the Value of our work. But before Demanding we all need to learn and work together, to build a good portfolio and prove we deserve what we demand.

Let us all Work together and develop a Successful IT industry in Maldives. Forget about the Politics, and Stop blaming each other, let competition remain.

But we can still work together and share our ideas.

Cause we all can see it Happening at the end, We are the Future :)

Running a Business is not easy.

We started small, But it seems we are getting more popular. Recently there was a stage that we were unable to cater our customer with growing demand.

This means , we will get Complains, and Critism from few costomers as well competitors and Staffs who left us ( unhappy ) or Terminated for misbehaving.

Not a Problem at all, The Biggest and the strongest companies in the World does face the same problems every day over and over again. And Specially in the present day, with FREEDOM of Speech and the growing number of Social Media Channels , Customers are the Winners.
We learn new things everyday, and according to that we have to change our Policies. And improve how we deal with our customers and even our staffs.

Maybe our decisions are not right all the time, But we always Prioritize our customers, Value our Staffs and Vendors.

And We apply Some rules and policies to our Employees to improve our service. And it applies to everyone working for us . No matter he is a friend, related to directors or Sweet ones.
Thats, One main reason why, I keep my relatives away from the work we do, ( I don't want it  personal )

On the Next few days, We will try to figure out what are the internal problem, within our company. And how we can get full commitment from our staffs, and maybe introduce few systems which will value there hard work.

Customer Service from a Soletrader

There are so many sole traders shops around Maldives.
Cause its one of the  low cost investment to setup in Maldives.

With approx around MRF50 to 100 Thousand Rufiyya ( USD10.000 ) you can start a local grocery store and grow rapidly.

There business is mostly targeted on the population nearby the Store and few walk in customers  passing nearby.

The main challenge they face today are.
- Offering Huge Credit to Neighbors
- Competition due to growing number of small stores.
- Large Scale Retail Outlets originated or powered by Wholesalers
- Lack of Customer service
- Unable to identify the Right Products to the consumers.
- Careless Accounting.

 Personalised service and customer attention today is very important to survive in the growing socialized economy.
I tried to check it today. Just pretending i don't have one Rufiyya from a Local store i use to shop always.And I have never taken any credit from them.
The answer i got is ( don't know when u Will bring one rufiyya )

 I got really disappointed , I just canceled my order which is 45 and they loose a 44 sales from me and also my willingness to walk into that shop again.

Who in the world will like to loose a customer with a dispute of MRF1.
Wont a favor of MRF1give them Thousands of MRF sales ?

Can a Small business Survive in Maldives ?

Its almost a year  after we started Badhige.com delivery service.

Our low profile company is in operation with a huge support from our customers and Vendors.

We work with a very low Commission Rate plus a MRF10 ( Delivery charge )

The delivery charge is very low compare to the standard of service we offer. ( Multiple Restaurant Delivery Service )

We are just able to manage our Expenses, Staff Salaries and all overheads without much profit.

We used to have electric Bills of around MRF1500 Maximum,

But the Last Electric Bill is surprisingly MRF3500 + ( This is too much ) Which is almost 3 times higher to previous electric Bills.( its is said to be a bill generated with  the newly revised electric rates )

And in order to Survive and continue with our services, We are trying to find out a solution for this, in order to continue our service.

I wonder how a Small business like us can survive & Grow in a Economy like this. And what opportunities or offers we have ?

I just asked myself, Do they want us to be successful ? or They just don't want Us anymore ?

All I know is, we cannot just blame the government,
Huge companies can find solutions Maybe Like how Japanese CEO's Does.

But what about us ? How can we survive ?

All New Image

Its already been one year after we came up with the Idea of Badhige.

Well planned, and organized we OPEN our service to the public on February 2009 with only Few Restaurants as our Partners.

At the Beginning, it was not easy at all, Specially hard to get Well committed staffs.

Since then, we have been slowly been expanding, and experiencing new ways to Handle the whole operation fit to this Small Community.

From several so called Investors We have got Huge Offers, To move our A off from the small office space we use and Expand .
( but after all what we want is not just Expansion, and Bend to the Expectation of the Investor , finally ruining our Concept and Idea mixed with there Dictatorship )

After the bitter Experience with few investors, I prefer to grow slow, and run the business for long term.

This is about service, Customer Relations and public relations...
And we don't want to take huge Charges from our customers for Food ( basic Human Need )

Believe us or not, With the present Revenue. We are just able to cover our Expenses and Cost of operation. But IA we are still here to Serve you. ( working almost 15 hrs a Day )

We need to improve our service, We need to have special delivery equipments, we have so many plans ahead.

We have built a Online Database already with a Favorable Number of Fans and Registered customers.

We can do this with support from sponsorships

We plan to Outsource this rights to a any advertising agency interested.
To give us a New image.

When Small is Beautiful

When small is beautiful, like Mr Jack Ma from Alibaba.com says.
While we are heading for a Small and Bigger Project Compare to Badhige.
We need to think of the ways we can lower the costs, and Gain More reputation to Build a Community who support our Products.

At the moment, its going little bit slow, thinking about many things we need to Improve on it. Unlike Badhige we need to have a Website with

- More User Friendly Shopping Cart.
- Complete Images on the Site
- Complete Product description.
- More alternative Offers
- A Working, and Secure Payment Gateway
- More Security for Visitors and Our Database
- Get Listed on WorldWide Famous Shopping Directories
- Affiliate Offers

And more...

At present we are also doing few referral marketing via the Web using Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Youtube and other Social Networks. And the response and support to this project is not bad.

We are a Small Company, in a Small Country / Maldives. We don't have Venture Capital firms to invest and support our reinvented ideas. But we believe we can be Small and Beautiful.