Complete Tarabar business plan for investor meetings
A structured, presentation-ready memo covering problem, solution, market, revenue, unit economics, budget, team, hiring, financial forecast, KPIs, risks, roadmap and investment ask.
1. Executive Summary
Tarabar is a digital marketplace for international freight and transit. It unifies lane selection, indicative pricing, qualified carrier matching, offers, booking and tracking in one flow.
- The product is live; capital is for commercialization, sales and growth.
- Initial focus is on recurring Iran and regional corridors, then data/API and global lanes.
- Defensibility comes from verified carrier supply, lane-rate history, response quality and multimodal route intelligence.
2. Market Problem
Freight pricing is still managed through calls, messaging apps and spreadsheets. This creates slow, non-standard and hard-to-compare quotes.
- Lack of price and time transparency slows decisions.
- Carrier quality and response behavior are not measured.
- Rate and transit-time data is lost in fragmented conversations.
3. Solution
Tarabar digitizes the freight-buying workflow: select a lane, compare transport modes, send one request to suitable carriers and compare replies.
- Multi-stop lane selection for realistic routing.
- Sea, road, rail, air and multimodal estimates with blocked-route explanations.
- Carrier panel for coverage, tariffs, documents, team, offers and automated replies.
4. Product Status
The current product includes the calculator, global map, role signup, carrier panel, inquiries, offers, messages, notifications and administration.
- Production domain and Docker deployment are live.
- The estimator works as a benchmark and acquisition tool; final rates are confirmed by carriers.
- The architecture supports four languages and regional expansion.
5. Target Customers
The wedge starts with users who ship repeatedly, value time and need to compare multiple carriers.
- SME importers/exporters with 2–20 shipments per month.
- Factories and trading companies that need multiple rates for procurement.
- Carriers and forwarders seeking qualified, convertible demand.
- Later data customers: insurers, banks, logistics organizations and investors.
6. Market Sizing
The market is large, but entry must be lane-focused. Every lane is a small marketplace with its own supply and demand.
- TAM: international freight and forwarding services.
- SAM: Iran, Gulf, Turkey, Iraq, Central Asia, Europe and Asian port corridors.
- SOM phase one: focused lanes with repeated demand and reachable carrier supply.
7. Revenue Model
Revenue is staged: carrier subscriptions first, then booking fees, then data/API.
- Carrier subscriptions for verified profiles, more lanes, automation and analytics.
- Booking fee as a fixed fee or percentage of service fee.
- Inquiry credits for repeat shippers.
- Controlled promoted placement for verified carriers.
- Data/API for rate index, delay risk and aggregated lane prices.
8. Unit Economics
The business unit is an active lane, not a raw signup. A lane matters when it has supply, fast replies and booking conversion.
- Each lane needs 8–12 active carriers.
- Each inquiry should receive 3+ valid replies.
- Subscription revenue helps recover carrier sales CAC early.
- Shipper retention and repeated lanes are the core health metrics.
9. Go-To-Market
Growth is lane-focused direct B2B sales: build supply first, attract targeted demand next, monetize the lane after liquidity.
- Onboard carriers and forwarders on the first 3 lanes.
- Acquire repeat shippers through the rate demo and response guarantee.
- Convert successful inquiries into bookings, contracts, invoices and reporting.
- Sell data dashboards and rate APIs to enterprise customers.
10. Team & Hiring
The first team should be small and milestone-driven, not a high fixed-cost organization from day one.
- Initial core: CEO/Business, Lead Engineer, Full-stack, Sales/BD and Operations.
- After traction: Customer Success, Product/UX, Data Analyst, Partnerships and Finance/Ops.
- Every role must map to lane liquidity, replies, bookings or revenue.
11. 18-Month Roadmap
Each phase reduces a specific risk: liquidity, trust, contract/payment and data scalability.
- 0–3 months: multi-stop lanes, carrier onboarding, KPI dashboard and quality score.
- 3–6 months: standard contracts, booking, invoices, notifications and lane reporting.
- 6–12 months: rate API, data panel, reply automation and enterprise reporting.
- 12–18 months: settlement/escrow, insurance, partner integrations and regional expansion.
12. Use of Funds
Capital should build lane liquidity, B2B sales, trust operations and revenue-generating product, not broad advertising.
- 35% sales and market development.
- 25% product and engineering.
- 20% operations and verification.
- 10% legal, finance and contracts.
- 10% risk reserve and infrastructure.
13. Financial Forecast
The forecast is scenario-based: subscriptions create early revenue, then bookings and data scale later.
- Month 3: validate supply acquisition and first valid inquiries.
- Month 6: initial subscription revenue and first real bookings.
- Month 12: multiple liquid lanes, reportable GMV and retention.
- Month 18: ready for the next round based on data, revenue and regional expansion.
14. Investor KPIs
KPIs must be operational and extracted from the product database.
- Verified carriers, active carriers, active lanes and coverage rate.
- Inquiries, valid replies, response time, offers and successful bookings.
- GMV, subscription revenue, commission revenue, ARPA and retention.
- Cancellation, estimate-vs-final-rate delta, complaints, NPS and response SLA.
15. Risks
The core risks are market liquidity, trust, rate quality and operations rather than basic technology.
- Liquidity risk: fewer, deeper lanes first.
- Trust risk: company verification, documents, response history and quality score.
- Pricing risk: ranges and carrier-confirmed final rates.
- Operational risk: lane SOPs, manual support first and gradual automation.
- Regulatory risk: standard contracts, KYC/KYB and data policy.
16. Investment Ask
The investment conversation should be staged: first capital proves liquidity, the next round follows reply, booking and revenue KPIs.
- Suggested runway: 6–9 months.
- First capital milestone: active supply, valid replies, first bookings and subscription revenue.
- Next milestone: lane growth, data/API and recurring revenue.
- Meeting message: the product is built; capital turns it into a liquid marketplace and defensible dataset.