New Raleigh startup is creating a marketplace of deals for small businesses

Serial entrepreneur Yasin Abbak has launched a new startup in Raleigh — on the heels of selling his last startup and moving from New York to Raleigh during the pandemic — with a goal of helping small businesses across the country save money.

The startup, called The Convoy, is creating a marketplace that pools together the buying power of multiple small businesses so that they can get better deals from suppliers.

Since most small businesses don’t have the economies of scale of chains or large corporations, they often have to pay full price for supplies and services, Abbak said.

But if those small businesses joined forces, they could get a better rate on services, like the accounting software Quickbooks, the video platform Zoom or email marketing service Constant Contact.

“It looks like we’re building a (business-to-business) group purchasing platform and we are,” Abbak said in a phone interview. “It is leveraging the group buying power of independently-owned businesses ... that just don’t benefit from the economies of scale that these larger businesses have. We want to make their jobs easier, because we think that their presence is incredible for the economy and for the community.”

The Convoy hopes to find small businesses to join its platform by partnering with business organizations across the country, such as chambers of commerce or accounting firms with hundreds of small-business clients.

Abbak said the influence of chambers is often overlooked, and that many of those business membership groups are looking for new ways to help members in the digital economy.

A membership to The Convoy, Abbak believes, could be another service that a chamber or an organization can offer its members.

“The pandemic has essentially changed the way that community organizations, like chambers of commerce and associations are doing business,” Abbak said. “The pandemic forced them to leverage technology more.”

The Convoy, for its part, makes money by keeping a small percentage of the discount it saves small businesses. If The Convoy negotiated a 22% discount on a product for its members, for example, then it might take 2%, the company says on its website.

While The Convoy is focused on finding deals on services and digital products to start, it eventually wants to work on providing deals on physical items as well, Abbak said.

Building a resource

Abbak said he wanted to create a buying platform like The Convoy after watching his parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey, run a restaurant in New Jersey.

The small business, which was a lifeline of employment for many immigrants in his community, struggled to compete with chains and national brands that got better deals on supplies and services, Abbak said.

“I’m building the resource I wish my father had when I was young,” he said.

After selling his previous startup, the fantasy-football-focused Fantasy Life App, last year, Abbak determined he was ready to go forward with The Convoy platform. In a small pilot program launched last year, The Convoy was able to save some businesses thousands of dollars, Abbak said.

The Convoy is launching with a pre-seed round of $1 million that Abbak says he will use to make the company’s first hires and move its marketplace past the pilot phase. The funding came from several angel investors, including Scot Wingo, the CEO of the Durham mobile car-servicing company, Spiffy.

Abbak said he expects to raise a seed round of capital later this year.

A move to Raleigh

Abbak is growing The Convoy from a Raleigh Founded coworking space in downtown Raleigh. The company has three employees, with more set to join in the coming weeks.

Prior to the pandemic, Abbak spent his entire career in New York City. But last year, he decided to move his wife and young child to Raleigh, which has been a magnet for new residents during the pandemic.

Abbak said Raleigh makes sense for people who are trying to start families, and most of the employees he’s hoping to recruit to The Convoy are getting to that stage of their life.

“We’re all at a point in our lives where we’re mature enough to want a city like Raleigh, which is a place to raise a family, and to build a tech business,” Abbak said. “We think the Triangle specifically does both of those things really well.”

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate