AffinityGrowth - Keep People Working

AffinityGrowth is a platform for connecting business owners with associations/groups that will help them attain their goals.

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Inspiration

Covid-19 pandemic made me realize that it was time to purchase a medical cover. I went through different policies and realized that individual cover charges were higher than group charges. Something else I noted was that groups enjoyed the same cover as SMEs and corporations, benefits such as no waiting period did not apply to individual cover. I noticed that SMEs should have a minimum of 10 employees for them to get discounted rates on several insurance products. Next, I wanted to find out whether affinity groups add value to their members, so I called several friends who own small & medium businesses and they all told me that they find associations and affinity groups great for networking and acquiring new customers. One thing I noticed was that big associations either, did not have local chapters or had high membership fee. That got me thinking of the micro and small businesses that would have wanted to join an established association but could not because of high membership fee. I decided to come up with a platform that connects business owners with groups/associations that will help them achieve their goals.

It has been proven that groups/associations can connect business owners with networks, partners and customers they need to grow their businesses. AffinityGrowth's role will be to share resources and information needed by Groups/associations in order to succeed collectively.

Our goal is to keep small businesses working by providing them with resources they need to run their businesses.

Problems AffinityGrowth will solve

Lack of a portal that lists legally registered and causal affinity groups that targets small businesses.

Most established associations charge high annual membership fees which may not be affordable by small businesses. We will help businesses find groups/associations that fits their budget.

Solutions

  1. We will develop a platform (prototype) for listing associations/groups. We list the groups goals, mission benefits of joining.

  2. Provide our members with resources that will help them in growing their businesses.

  3. Come up with a job board.

  4. Partner with companies willing to offer deals to listed Group/Association members.

What it does

AffinitygGrowth's prototype allows users to; List companies helping Small business during this time of Covid-19 crisis, Search for groups/associations in a specific area, View groups/association’s details, View upcoming events, View a list of our partners and has a job board.

How I built it

I used JustinMind prototyper tool to come up with a prototype

Challenges I ran into

I did not manage to come up with MVP, I would have preferred to present a MVP.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Coming up with a prototype and an explainer video.

What I learned

I should always focus on adding value to others.

What's next for AffinityGrowth

Form a team that will develop and market the platform. Develop a platform that will focus on its user, example, offer helpful resources to the user and also have a simple interface that is easy to navigate. We want our partners to be able to post deals on the platforms. We want our members to be able to post job openings.

We also want to market AffinityGrowth. We will start with inbound marketing, We hope to attract customers by creating valuable content that will be tailored towards business owners, Associations and affinity groups.

Once we are successful with the groups/associations, we will list community service clubs.

Technological Architecture

Our platform will have two sub-programs running side-by-side. They are:

Client-side - This is code on the browser and responds to user's input. Server-side - This is code on the server and responds to the HTTP requests. Client side code will be a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Server-side code will be written using PHP or Python.

In order to avoid single point of failure, we will start with multiple Web Server, Multiple Database model.

MARKETING & SALES

We will start with inbound marketing. We hope to attract customers by creating valuable content that will be tailored towards business owners, associations, and affinity groups.

What differentiates AffinityGrowth from incumbents

We will find partners willing to offer deals to listed Group/Association members. Our platform will have a section that will allow companies post their deals.

PROJECT’S VALUE AFTER CRISIS

Platform will share resources we find helpful to small businesses. We will feature tools that small businesses can use so as to become efficient. Example, tools for working remotely, time management.

Our plan is to work with partners who will extend deals/discounts to members of groups/associations listed on our platform.

IMPACT TO THE CRISIS

Listed companies that are helping small businesses stay afloat during this time of Covid-19 crisis. Example, companies offering grants to small businesses and companies offering their platforms for free. Facebook is offering $100 million in cash grants and credits for up to 30,000 to small businesses while Hootsuite is offering free access to small businesses and NGOs until 1st July 2020.

Built With

  • justinmind
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