In Dzongkha, the word “laktaa” contains dual meanings: parcel and gift. We chose this name because it fits squarely with our vision. In building a not-for-profit logistics brokerage, we want to move packages reliably and cost-effectively and do so for the benefit of Bhutan’s most remote and disempowered citizens.
We started this conversation years ago while working to move twenty tons of ginger from Chuzagong, Bhutan to Watsonville, California. The easy part was moving freight from the Indian border to California’s Oakland port. All we did was find a recommended freight forwarder. But getting it to the Bhutan-India border was surprisingly hard. Here’s a short list of some of the problems we encountered: we couldn’t find cold storage providers, we had to coordinate informal pools of truckers, and we had to transfer freight from smaller trucks to larger containers. In the end, Thinley spent two weeks living in southern Bhutan and personally coordinating the packing and shipping process to make sure the delivery went smoothly.
Why are logistics in Bhutan so challenging? To be sure, many factors complicate that undertaking: poor roads, lack of population density, and inclement weather. Clear obstacles discourage the formation of logistics organizations. They’re capital intensive, they’re difficult to scale, and in turn, they’re not promising businesses to build.
We’re taking a different tack. A hodgepodge of contract drivers, public buses, and SMEs already provide informal delivery services for individuals looking to move goods across the country. We think we can build up and around this eco-system in a way that doesn’t necessarily replace, but rather augments, existing networks and makes them better.
Over the past few months, we’ve been lucky enough to chat with a multitude of friendly strangers, comprised of academics, supply chain experts, startup founders, tech non-profit founders, and funders. We’ve been offered advice, introductions, document reviews, interview assistance, and free labor — and we are so incredibly grateful.
What have we learned thus far?
Fundraising:
Fundraising is hard. Do everything, and see what sticks. Also: do everything, but be judicious. If the time investment to output ratio is less than 1 hour to $500 of funding, it’s probably not worth — especially as a project grows.
Every tech non-profit founder finances differently in the beginning. A few used graduate school grants for the first few years. Another dipped into savings. Another did a number of back-to-back incubators that provided simultaneous funding. Another did everything for free on Tuesday nights with a group of friends until things took off after a serendipitous forum post.
Here’s our compiled list of seed-stage funding sources:
Grants: D-Prize, The Awesome Foundation, The Pollination Project, undergraduate and graduate university research grants (e.g. Stanford Medscholars)
Competitions: Tulane Business Model Competition, BASES Challenge, Huld Family Foundation Big Ideas, Global Social Venture Competition
Tech non-profit accelerators: Blue Ridge Labs, AT&T Aspire, Uncharted, Visible Connect, StartX, YC, MIT Solver, FastForward
Free Stuff:
A number of colleges host “tech for social good” student engineering groups who will code non-profit projects for free. We’ll be working with UCSD’s “Triton Software Engineering.” Other groups include “Harvard Tech for Social Good,” Stanford’s “CS+Social Good,” Caltech’s “Techreach,” and the intercollegiate “Develop for Good.”
“Google for Nonprofits” offers a suite of different free resources for registered 501(c)3s: a free Google Workspace, Ad Grants of up to $10,000 USD for in-kind advertising, the Youtube Nonprofit Program (anywhere cards, giving features, and Creator Academy), and Google Maps Platform credits.
Operating with an MVP:
There’s a lot of resources out there on how to build a minimum viable product, but not a lot of information on how to implement it programmatically.
For location-based apps, on-the-ground events can draw critical user mass in a given area. In two-sided marketplaces, different users have different incentives to onboard; figure out the two sets of tangible incentives that can be dangled in front of them. Finally, sidestep payment-based processes in the beginning with real-time cash exchanges.
Unexpected Learnings:
One of the best questions we asked tech non-profit founders was what they wished they’d known when they started the journey. Here’s what we heard:
· Most ideas spring from an anecdote; you see a problem you want to solve and you build up an idea and an organization around it. But thinking deliberately from the start about what market you want to be in, what type of organization you want to operate, and what type of geography you want to operate it will be key in shaping later success and personal fulfillment.
· Financial futures don’t necessarily become more predictable as you grow as an organization. At some point, you have to take a leap of faith and commit, trusting that more money will come in to support your work.
· There is no substitute for building a team thoughtfully and deliberately in local contexts and aligning them around a core set of values and culture. (Throwing money at problems and hiring a bunch of expats both proved bad ideas.)
We’re excited to get going and to post more here soon!
