Decisions we made
WhatsApp, not an app#
487 million Indians use WhatsApp every day. Artisans already know it, so there's nothing to download and no password to remember. The bot works in eight languages.
Trade-off: WhatsApp's Business API charges per conversation, and we don't control the interface.
Add our costs on top; never take a cut#
The artisan's price is protected and never deducted from. Kaari adds shipping, operations, marketing, the cluster head's commission and payment fees on top, and the buyer sees the split. The artisan's 70% is fixed in the code.
Trade-off: Prices can look higher than mass-market goods, so the story and the breakdown have to do the selling.
Cluster heads on commission, not salaried staff#
Costs grow only with sales, and each cluster gets a local job worth roughly ₹3,000–8,000 a month once it's busy.
Trade-off: Quality depends on finding good cluster heads, and founders have to do the job themselves at first.
Co-operative principles without co-operative paperwork#
We studied the co-operative model and chose not to copy its governance; artisans told us they wanted orders, fair prices and a platform they could trust, not board seats. So fairness is built into the rules: fees fall as an artisan sells more, and surplus is split 40% platform growth, 30% back to artisans, 30% to a welfare fund.
Trade-off: Artisans don't formally own Kaari. The rules have to earn their trust.
No GST barrier#
Many small producers aren't GST-registered, which keeps them off the big marketplaces. Kaari is designed so they can still sell.
Trade-off: More compliance work for the platform.
Start where we already know people#
Three Andhra Pradesh clusters we'd already worked in, with the founders acting as cluster heads for the first months.
Trade-off: Slower to scale, but the first orders go right.