Trestle

Rerouting Amazon sales to small local businesses during COVID-19

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Highlights

1
Have an immediate impact on helping small businesses survive the Corona Virus economy
2
The Technology/Systems are already in place, just adding new functionality - can be launched by April
3
There is currently NO way for small businesses to reach a large online consumer-base. We can change that immediately.

Our Team

Look - we either change large parts of our society or we stay on a trajectory that ultimately does not support human life. We know that non-profits and governments cannot handle these changes alone. We are determined to build the systems and incentive structures so for-profits can meaningfully address society's most pressing issues.


We are Powered by Trestle

We started in 2018 - and two years later, we're seeing how, with very little tweaking, we can significantly help small businesses survive the COVID-19 economy and beyond.

First - we had a vision. 

Back in 2018, while on a hike through the gorgeous trails of the Pacific Northwest, our team developed a vision. This vision was for a world where 100% of for-profit businesses meaningfully address some of society's most pressing environmental and social issues. With a background working in both non-profit and government sectors, Jennifer realized that there was a severe lack of for-profit business involvement - the sector with arguably the best and most resources for solving real problems. 

So, the team set out to build the systems and structures that would incentivize businesses to help solve real issues - through consumer driven demand and data & analytics. 

Trestle Cofounders presenting at the final round of a hack-a-thon in 2018.

We got to work

Over the past two years, we studied consumers, businesses, and started pulling together data on company operations. We did the unscalable work by hand to pull information, structure it, and test it with consumers. In Fall, 2019, we put it out to market through a browser extension on Google Chrome and Firefox.  Add it for free here


Good news! - Product market fit with the data! Consumers trust it, want it, and want more of it. This came through in every survey, test, input we have received from users.

Knowing the hand-obtaining of data was unscalable, we recruited a machine learning specialist who has significantly scaled our data collection efforts. Where it use to take 4 hours on average to research a brand, it now only takes our team 30 minutes. We're going to have it fully automated later this year! 

We then turned our gaze to brands. What value can we provide to brands who need it most? We asked them.  They need: being discovered by consumers, data/analytics about real consumer insights, and to sell products. So we added a feature: The discovery panel. It allowed consumers to see similar products at similar prices from companies who better match their values. The feature was launched Dec 2019 through a beta test with our first 7 paying brands. 

The Discovery Panel shows similar products at similar prices from companies who better match the user's values. Launched Dec. 2019.

The insights from this beta test were invaluable. We obtained rich consumer behavioral data, produced sales for our partnered brands, and validated our monetization strategies. 

Then, COVID-19 hit the world. The values we are helping to highlight are still relevant. However, we saw a desperate need to support small businesses survive this pandemic.  With very little updating to our technology, consumers choose "small business" as a value.

 

Now, regular consumers, like you and me, can do as we're already doing - shopping for products we need online, but in the process be given direct access to the small businesses we would rather support with our dollars during this challenging time.


Now we're poised to help small businesses survive COVID-19

Our tools are already out to market. Our lean talented team can have the Small Business feature by April and will then focus on user growth. We have already tested this with new users and they are already choosing small businesses as a priority for them. 

Small Local Company products pop up for similar products at similar prices on Amazon

If we can help reroute even a portion of the sales from Amazon directly to small local businesses who are trying to survive, perhaps we can have a real impact on one of the most vulnerable sectors of the US economy. 

From Founders to Investors - Thank you for considering solutions that support our economy during a time like this, including us!

Trestle Founding team at our office sponsored by Portland Incubator Experiment and Puppet in Portland, OR


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Overview