Platform to boost entrepreneurship?

Could there be a better way for a start-up to know about service providers than cold calls?

My entrepreneurial journey started two months ago, and I could not be happier or prouder of it. I have an idea, team and few pilot customers waiting for the service. What I don’t have yet is the funding or any interest to answer phone calls from service providers selling cellular phone -plans, insurances, web page designing -services, phone directory -services, accounting service to name a few.

Cold calls from service providers are irritating and time-consuming, I am sure for both parties. I understand their point; “hey, a new company, let’s make sure we are the first ones to offer our services and get the business before our competitors”. At the end of the day, when I had picked up the 8th phone call coming from an unrecognizable number, I simply said “thank you but not interested at this time!” without even taking the time to listen to what the other one had to say.

As efficiency and end-user -issues in everyday and work life are close to my heart, this made me start pondering, is there anything to do to make this process more user-friendly. Pondering this issue with a good friend of mine, we came up with the following idea.

PLATFORM FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS AND NEW ENTREPRENEURS

What if there was a platform that connected the new business owner and all active service providers, making the start entrepreneurship as easy as possible. Once the registration was completed from Finnish Patent and Registration Office side, the new company would be registered into the platform. The decision makers, number of employees, location, business area and other relevant information would be updated by the entrepreneur interested in receiving help.

The bravest service providers could design their business model so that they could offer for example a printer or mobile phone plan free of charge for the first 6-12mos. Later, they could then activate a subscription model for the entrepreneur, when the financial status is more stable. What a WIN-WIN -situation, don’t you think?

When all service providers and entrepreneurs are in the same platform, all could gain; the service providers could create actual business and make less cold calls, the entrepreneur can concentrate on planning and selecting the relevant services and not answering 10s of irrelevant calls per day.

I suggest that we make the life of an entrepreneur as easy as possible in the time when everything is unsure and new. All the help received from the beginning will be paid back many times over in the end.