Idea 459 of 500. Cluster 24: Proof and trust, as a business
A website where every open tender is listed in one place, so a small firm can find it and bid
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
Every idea in cluster 24 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Choose one district and, for one month, collect every public tender notice you can find in the newspapers, on notice boards and on official websites, then record the winner and the price when each is awarded. Put them in one spreadsheet and share it with local journalists and business groups. The proof is how many people use it, and a contractor who pays for alerts.
- Who pays first
- A small contractor who misses tenders scattered across notice boards, and pays for alerts because one contract won covers years of the fee.
- What leaves today
- Nobody can expect public contracts to go to the best bid while nobody can see them; one published list of tenders and winners is that proof.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. SixThe Fridge by the Road
The fridge by the road: proof that the rules hold - Ch. FifteenThe Odds
13 of 101 countries made it, and what Singapore's prosecution cost
More from cluster 24
- 451A verified-review platform for Sri Lankan businesses where the reviewer is real and the review cannot be bought
- 452Escrow services for transactions between strangers, so that the money moves when the goods do
- 453Published price lists at the tourist sites and in the taxis, with a complaints line that answers
- 454A landlord and tenant rating service, since neither can currently check the other
- 455Contractor registries with completed jobs photographed and clients named
- 456Independent building inspection, so that a buyer abroad knows what was actually built
Idea 459 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.