B2BQuotes Connects Your Business with Qualified Professionals Quick

It is more important than ever to be hiring qualified companies or people to help grow your business. B2BQuotes is a Montreal-based company that connects you to highly qualified professionals in all aspects of a business. This week we speak with co-founder Mathieu Plante all about the platform. Transcript: Marc Aflalo: On the line with us is the co founder of a very cool company based in Montreal, called B2BQuotes, Mathieu Plante. Welcome to YourTechReport. Thank you so much for being on the line with us because during this pandemic it's fun to speak to people, quite honestly. Mathieu Plante: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Marc Aflalo: Tell us about B2BQuotes, because this is a company that was brought to my attention by one of the PR agencies that we work with, and of course, I went on the website, I did my research, but I always love hearing about the company from the people who created it. You being a co founder, there's obviously a reason that this site was created. I'm curious, what was that reason? What was that defining moment that said, "Hey, we should create something that connects people here"? Mathieu Plante: Well, me and the other co founders, we've had businesses in the past and it's always a struggle to prioritize the different challenges and projects that we will do during a year, whether it's web or marketing challenges that we have. Are we going to do it in house? Do we have the right people to do it? Are we going to be hiring a referral from our friend, but then we don't know if it's the best match for our industry, our budget and everything like that. Then we can always go on Google, but then there's thousands of results and everybody you'll be speaking to, they'll always say, "Well, we're the best fit for you," but in the end we know that it's not the case. Mathieu Plante: In order to be able to navigate all of that, we decided to create B2BQuotes, which is a web marketplace that helps businesses get in touch with the most relevant suppliers for their web and marketing needs. Marc Aflalo: How do you define that? How do you define most relevant for their needs? Mathieu Plante: Right now we have 2,500 curated suppliers on the platform, 80% of them are agencies and 20% are freelancers. And then we have this algorithm that really helps us get the most relevant ones. There's a point system that we have in place, there's a thorough qualification that we do before onboarding suppliers. Only two out of three can actually get activated in the platform because of all these filters that we have to make sure that we really have good companies. And then they're able, in their accounts, to really get those hard filters, again, about the dual localization, the language, the services, the budget per services and all of that. Mathieu Plante: Now, the most important part really is the quality of the work they've done on the platform and with actual customers, and this will really bring their global notes up. Then we send the projects to the suppliers that are relevant, but also have the best quality score to the businesses. Marc Aflalo: Obviously there's two sides to this. There's, as a supplier or a freelancer, let's start there. I'm a supplier, let's say I'm a website designer or some kind of marketing agency. When I sign up for the service, what's the experience like? What kind of questions am I going to be asked that help qualify me? Mathieu Plante: Well, some of the questions are exactly what I just said, about what kind of services you're doing and all of that. Afterwards, to subscript to the platform, it's absolutely free of charge, and then you start seeing business needs that are relevant to whatever you're doing. You don't need to accept any of those, but at some point you'll say, "Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. I already have customers in that industry. I can really be of good value to them." Then you can accept the actual project. Mathieu Plante: The business model, how it works for the business, it's always free of charge, there is no engagement so that we can help them. Now for the suppliers, they pay us a referral fee in order to have access to qualified projects. Whenever you decided, "Well, this is exactly the kind of client that I can help," you accept it. Then there's up to four suppliers that can accept a project, in order for them to have a good chance of getting the deal, but also for the business so that they're not overwhelmed and flooded with 50 people wanting their business. That's the promise that we do. Marc Aflalo: That's impressive. Is it hand curated? Are there physical people who are going through every different bid, or is it all AI or algorithmic-based? Mathieu Plante: That's a really good question. We started doing everything personalized with actual humans, and then we added the filters and all of that. Right now we're part of an incubator called Next AI in Canada, that is helping us integrate AI also, just to, I guess, empo...