Starting a business is exciting, but it requires capital to get off the ground. While there are various ways to finance a business, two common options are having a silent partner or seeking an investor. Both options can bring in the necessary funds but have different implications for the business' ownership and management. This article will explore the key differences between a silent partner and an investor, including their roles, responsibilities, and expectations. By understanding these differences, a business owner can decide which funding option is the right fit for his or her business and associated goals. Who is a Silent Partner or Sleeping Partner in a Business? A silent partner, also known as a sleeping partner, is an individual or entity that invests money in a business without actively participating in its management or operations. In other words, a silent partner provides capital and shares in the profits or losses of the business but does not take an active role in decision-making or day-to-day operations.  Silent partners are typically passive investors who are looking for a return on their investment, and they may not have any expertise or experience in the industry or market of the business they are investing in. While they do not participate in the management of the business, silent partners may still have some rights and responsibilities, depending on the terms of the partnership agreement. Read More: What to Consider Before Investing in a Startup or Company? Differences Between a Silent Partner and an Investor Although a silent partner and an investor both provide capital to a business, there are key differences between the two. Role and Involvement A silent partner provides capital without actively participating in the management or operations of the business. On the other hand, an investor may take on an active role in the business and offer strategic guidance and expertise. Risk and Liability Silent partners generally have limited liability and are only liable for their investment amount. In contrast, investors may have unlimited liability and potentially lose more than their initial investment. Read More: What to Consider Before Buying Land: A Step-by-Step Guide Return on Investment Silent partners typically receive a share of the profits based on their ownership stake, while investors may receive a return on investment in the form of equity, interest payments, or a combination of both.

The hectic traffic jams of Dhaka city discourage many people to visit the physical food outlets and restaurants. App-based online food delivery services have appeared as a savior for Dhaka city residents. Using the food delivery apps, food enthusiasts and office goers can order desirable foods from their chosen restaurants after checking ratings and reviewing. Let’s take a look at 7 well-known food delivery apps to order food within Dhaka city. 7 Online Food Delivery Services in Dhaka Food Panda The app was released on 19th November 2019. It has an average of 4.2-star play store with more than 2 lakh user ratings. The app has been downloaded over 100M times. FoodPanda now operates in around eleven countries throughout the globe including Bangladesh. They provide their services in a variety of locations in Bangladesh, beyond Dhaka city.   Pathao Food  Pathao is the greatest online food service for you to use if you want to get your meal exactly one hour after placing your order with them. You need to download their applications to your Android mobile devices in order to make use of their services. However, you have the ability to choose which restaurants are shown on the app.  Read More: 5 Bangladeshi Winter Recipes Using Date Jaggery Shohoz Food Shohoz company sells tickets for various transport services, including launches, motorcycles, trucks, buses, etc. Their food delivery lineup called Shohoz Food is one of the largest online food service providers for residents of the city of Dhaka.  They are working with a large number of eateries located around Dhaka and delivering orders in a timely manner. The Shohoz food app is not available in the play store right now. However, it can be downloaded from the official Shohoz blog. This app can be downloaded on mobile devices running either Android or iOS.  HungryNaki Hungrynaki has become one of the most well-known and widely used online meal delivery services in Bangladesh. It is one of the earliest online meal delivery services based in Bangladesh. Hungrynaki is the choice that you should choose since it covers the cuisine of more than 800 different eateries. Customers who pay with credit cards get discounts on their orders placed via Hungrynaki. Read More: 5 Yummy Samucha Recipes for Evening Snackers The HungryNaki app is also available to make things more enjoyable by providing a more convenient dining experience. You may sign in to the application using your HungryNaki account, Gmail account, or Facebook account. The app was released on 10th January 2014. Khaas Food Khaas Food is just not another leading name in food delivery services in Dhaka. It has become the most popular name among grocery delivery services in Bangladesh. Since its first release in 2015, the app is providing consistent service delivering fresh and intoxicated food to the inhabitants of Dhaka city. Khaas Food has currently 100+ products and provides home delivery within Dhaka, Chattogram, Comilla, and Sylhet city and has served 35 thousand satisfied customers to date. Read More: 5 Nepali Momo Recipes for Bangladeshi Kitchen Cookups Cookrups is the greatest site to use if you want to purchase handmade dishes online since it allows you to do so. In addition to this, it offers groceries products over the whole of the city in Bangladesh. This app can be downloaded from the app stores for Android and iOS-based smartphones. It is ahead of the pack across the board in terms of women. The Cookups app was released on 8th August 2017. Kludio Asia Kludio began its journey with such a large number of companies. For the purpose of the company to the consumers, and for the customers to the classified products. They provide a wide variety of tastes under a variety of brand names, like "hero burger," "fried box," "dough on the go," and several more. They provide services covering a very wide variety of cuisines.  Read More: 5 Healthy Winter Soup Recipes for Weight Loss Conclusion Only Dhaka dwellers know how much hassle it is to move from one place to another in Dhaka due to traffic jams and overpopulation. In recent years, several food delivery businesses have emerged in Dhaka city to deliver food and drinks to busy people. Not all of them have reached the standard level of success. However, online food delivery start-ups are trying to ease Dhaka city's residents’ life by saving them from going out and experiencing traffic jams to just eat some food. So far, we have discussed 7 App-based Food Delivery Services in Dhaka. Pick your online food delivery service after checking ratings and reviews. Read More: 5 Yummy Winter Pitha Recipes for Diabetics

In this age of information technology, when the internet has spread its wings in every single sector of human life, an EdTech startup found out the loophole in the Bangladeshi education system and started an online education platform for academic students. We are talking about "Sohopathi," a visionary education platform in Bangladesh. However, the platform might not be familiar to many, but they are growing silently. Although EdTech is a hot topic worldwide, many entrepreneurs do not dare to venture into this field due to a lack of knowledge or capital. The founders of Sohopathi took the dare and successfully managed the fund! Let's explore more details about Sohopathi. What is Sohopathi? Officially launched in 2019, Sohopathi is basically an online education platform to facilitate students and mentors. It is a place where anyone can learn or teach lessons online on different SSC and HSC level subjects. Sohopathi aims to provide personalized education to students online. They provide the service the experienced mentors from top universities such as BUET, DU, SUST, NSU, KUET, and more. Further, they have specialized mentors for each subject. Currently, Sohopathi has more than 70 mentors. Further, the web platform has videos on different subjects and different chapters.  Read: Distance Learning: Grab foreign degrees online while staying in Bangladesh How does Sohopathi emerge? Sohopathi was an initiative by a group of BUET and MIST students. All the founders were educators when they were in their undergrad. So, they used to visit different suburban and rural places, and they felt that the majority of the students did not have access to quality education. Furthermore, they also realized that the student-teacher ratio is quite skewed, and as a result, teachers cannot pay attention to each student. Hence, the students outside of Dhaka city miss the quality education. With that note, the founders started a Q & A based Facebook group and pages, where the students can ask about anything, and they would supply the right answer. Gradually they got a huge response. Later they appointed a group of volunteers consisting of 60 members, who used to answer the questions in the Facebook group. Back in 2017, they were quite popular, and within two years, they built a database of 15,000 questions. In their early days, it was known as Online Sohopathi. Read 20 Most Promising Education Start-Ups in Bangladesh The idea of launching a platform came from that Facebook group based on academic questions and answers. Although they began their journey in 2017, Sohopathi incorporated in 2020 as Mainframe Lab. They launched the website in the same year, but they did not have any business model for the first two years. Nevertheless, they were not sure if anyone would be willing to pay for their services as it was not common during those days. But, their confusion got clear when 100 students paid for a programming workshop they took at Dhaka University. Read Visa’s Fintech Initiative for Bangladesh: New Opportunities for Start-ups? Later they introduced a paid online model test option for the students looking for admission to universities, which led them to earn revenue and improve their business model. Later they started personalized support for the students for a fee. That's how the mentor service emerged. However, the Q&A section is still free. How do they work? Back in 2019, Sohopathi used to run through the earnings from paid online exams, workshops, and other sources. Later in the same year, they rented a co-working space in Daffodil Business Incubator Center. Later they applied to the Grameenphone pre-accelerator in 2019 and eventually got selected, which was a turning point to shape their business. Further, they competed in Tiger IT Innovation Challenge 2019 and earned top three positions, and received investment from Tiger IT Foundation. Read: Top 10 Free Online Digital Marketing Courses in 2021 They already had mentor service, and later they launched the B2B platform to collaborate with the coaching centers and eventually sold the service to several coaching centers. It later included the main model of Sohopathi. However, they didn't have an actual operation until September 2020. The Sohipathi platform is fully automated now, and students can purchase the courses they want and start the course after making payment. Throughout this process, no human interaction is needed. For the mentors, Sohopathi has a commission-based model as well as a fixed payment model. For the commission-based structure, the platform takes a certain percentage from the mentors' earnings, and the rest of the amount directly goes to the mentors' bank account without any manual interaction. The fixed payment model is applied to the courses with big batches. Read Agro-Tech Startups in Bangladesh: Tech revolution in Agriculture Sector When it comes to the sales side, they have a full-proof pipeline to find, acquire and register students. They use calls, SMS, and other promotional activities. Sohopathi has more than 1000 campus ambassadors in different schools and colleges. Mostly the ambassadors are school and college students who help the company with marketing and sales. The ambassadors get good incentives to bring the leads. For the content side, they are an open platform in which students, mentors, and anyone can submit content. However, they had an unorganized content library, but now they have an organized content library as the company hired people for video editing and illustration. That's how their revenues have grown to almost five times since 2020. For the B2B segment, Sohopathi has an online exam solution for educational organizations. Read Can E-Learning Substitute Classroom Learning? Pricing model Sohopathi has a different price for different segments. For instance, students can have the option to take courses for Tk. 500/month to Tk. 5000/month. The differentiation happens due to the personalized service as the student will need to pay more for the personalized service. Future Plan Sohopathi is proceeding with a solid plan as they have a target to collaborate with 50 top-level high schools or colleges from 30 districts in the next 1 year. Further, they also aim to create a network of top 3,000 educators across the country. The company also plans to introduce skill-based courses in the future. Read: Robi-10 Minute School launches exam preparation course for grades 6-9 Apart from these long-term goals, the founders also aim to increase the daily app users to 50,000. Through all these targets, they want to get ready to raise VC investment word $1.5-2 million by the end of 2022. Further, the organization also aims to improve the platform gradually while they integrate online exams and mentorship programs for educational institutions. Final words While the Sohopathi develops its business, they face challenges too. The main challenge they face is the reach, and they want to improve it by reaching more students. Now, Sohopathi is a team of 20 members who have expertise in different domains, from software development to marketing. The company has more than 3500 active recurring paid users. Their B2B platform has collaborated with 5 educational institutions, and most of them are located outside of Dhaka. So, the founders see a good prospect of providing quality education outside of Dhaka. Read Best Banks for Student Credit Card in Bangladesh

Food delivery giant Zomato on Friday became India's first new-age technology unicorn to list on the country's bourses, scripting a stellar debut that could soon lure similar internet-based consumer start-ups to go public. The company, backed by Jack Ma's Ant Group, in fact, rode on the Covid outbreak that has prompted a trend of people moving to order food items online the world over. Such was the fantabulous listing -- true to hype -- that Zomato's market capitalization breached 12 billion US dollar mark in the first hour itself, making it one of the 50 most valuable traded firms. Read: India successfully test-fires home-grown anti-tank missile The listing price was Rs 115 and Rs 116 on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), respectively, as against the offer price of Rs 76. NSE's flagship NIFTY 50 index is used by domestic and global investors as a barometer of the Indian capital market as well as the economy. 'Future exciting, but a long way to go' "The future looks exciting. I don’t know whether we will succeed or fail -- we will surely, like always, give it our best," Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal tweeted. In a letter to the company's shareholders, tagged on the micro-blogging site, Goyal also hailed its business rival -- Japan's SoftBank-funded Swiggy -- but said that both the food delivery companies "have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers’ standards". "India is a tough market to operate in, but if you are building to succeed in India, you are already exceptional. I say that because I believe Zomato and Swiggy are two of the best food delivery apps in the world today. We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers’ standards, but we are determined to get there. "We have lived through many ups and downs -- something not every company has the privilege of living long enough to do. I have made many decisions which have been good for the company, while some have caused our stakeholders a lot of heartburn... "We are going to relentlessly focus on 10 years out and beyond, and are not going to alter our course for short-term profits at the cost of long-term success. The tremendous response to our IPO gives us the confidence that the world is full of investors who appreciate the magnitude of investments we are making...," he wrote. Read: 25 die as heavy rains batter India's Mumbai Decoding Zomato Founded as Foodiebay in 2008 by Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, both technology graduates, and rechristened Zomato two years later, the food delivery firm's technology platform connects customers, restaurant partners and delivery partners, serving their multiple needs.The service is currently available in almost all major Indian cities and in several countries. The company's customers use the Zomato platform to search and discover restaurants, read and write customer generated reviews and view and upload photos, order food delivery, book a table and make payments while dining out.

One of the key challenges faced by the start-ups in Bangladesh is regarding the payment gateway. As an emerging market for tech start-ups and Fintech organizations, the lack of accessibility to a secured channel of the transaction is a concerning issue. In both securing funds and operating a multi-point transaction system, access to a secured globally accepted transaction model is an integral part to develop the financial aspect of any start-up. To this end, Visa Digital Payments brought forward exciting programs to assist the start-ups in their financial operations. What is Fintech? Fintech stands for Financial Technology. Simply put, it is the process of incorporating technology in the financial processes of organizations to digitize transactions. Initially, Fintech was limited to the back-end use of financial institutions to develop the infrastructure of the banking system. The core focus was to develop the service at the back end to offer efficiency to the client at the front end. However, with advancement in the field and tech becoming more and more accessible to people, Fintech took a front-end position as well. Now, Fintech is widely used in various banking processes and is directly available to the customer as credit cards, debit cards, or instant wire transfers even. Read Fintech MFS: Best Mobile Financial Services in Bangladesh The horizon of Fintech, however, isn’t limited to the banking sector alone. With more and more diversification, Fintech has seen prospects in the mobile banking sector, cryptocurrency, and stock exchange as well. Stocks have now become more accessible to people through app-based transactions which are all entailed by Fintech. Financial Scenario and Constraints Facing Start-ups In the present context of Bangladesh, start-ups and Fintech organizations require an omnichannel transaction support system for their businesses. Even though cash is still one of the primary bases of the transaction, there is a huge interest in digital payment scenarios as well. The claim is further backed up by the popularity of bKash, a mobile banking platform powered by Fintech under BRAC Bank. With over 45 million BDT worth of transactions per day and over 22% of all adults of Bangladesh being its user, the popularity of the platform is on the rise for a considerable time now. Read 20 Most Promising Education Start-Ups in Bangladesh This growth trajectory will only continue as more and more start-ups are promoting digital transactions on their platform. Start-ups like Pathao, Foodpanda, and Shohoz offer discounts and cashback offers in various digital payment methods. As more and more people get access to the internet, digital payment platform seems to be the future of monetary transactions. However, there is still a lack of innovation when it comes to developing the Fintech scenario in Bangladesh. With more than 1700 digital start-ups in Bangladesh, the digitization process is far from the optimum level and the few stories of Fintech integration cannot be considered as the mean value. There is still a lot to develop in the merchant ecosystem as well as client end facilities. As start-ups in Bangladesh are focusing on the digitization of their platforms, the issues pertaining to the ease of access of the payment channels as well as digitizing currencies remain a burning issue and unexplored opportunities for the start-ups. Read The SWAP story of Bangladesh's first reCommerce startup What does Visa’s Initiative mean for Startups? Visa is probably the largest singular body when it comes to digital transactions. They are not only the leader across all the countries of the world but also one of the most secure platforms and channel operators when it comes to online transactions. Visa recognizes Bangladesh as one of the top emerging markets for tech start-ups and Fintech solutions. However, the company also realizes the lack of ease of business as automation and innovation are still in the nascent stage when it comes to leveraging the full potential of digital payment scopes. To that end, Visa has designed a 12-part webinar for the start-ups and Fintech in Bangladesh to better communicate the service and innovation Visa offers. The entire webinar is divided into three parts – Visa Connect, Mentorship Series, and Thought Leadership series. Basically, Visa aims to introduce up-and-coming start-ups and Fintech with the cutting-edge technology offered by Visa. Read: Sofol App from iFarmer: A Revolution Towards the Agriculture Digitization The mentorship program will focus on Visa’s approach in alleviating the Fintech experience for the clients as well as develop processes in the merchant end as well all the while maintaining efficiency and security. The leadership thought series will see Visa work closely with the start-ups to innovate processes to better suit the market of Bangladesh and understand the best means of digitizing transactions. Visa is working in collaboration with Start-up Dhaka for the project. The country director of Visa for this region, Soumya Basu feels that this is an excellent opportunity for the start-ups to learn about digital transaction systems from a company that has pioneered the platform itself. He also feels that it will create new opportunities for businesses as they perfect their financial modelling and diversify their offering to the client base. The webinars will start on 17th June 2021. You can learn more about the webinars and the project here. Bottom Line Truth is that the start-ups in Bangladesh are lagging in the digital transaction landscape. Businesses aren’t able to utilize the existing digital transaction channels properly and neither are their new growth opportunities. To this end, the initiative taken by Visa to promote their services and incorporate them in the growth of start-ups and Fintech is certainly commendable. Read Shammi Quddus: A Talented Bangladeshi Woman in Google Global Fintech Industry.

As Bangladesh tackles the Covid-19 situation, the impact left behind by the pandemic has been quite significant. Not just in terms of loss of lives but economic downtrend as well. Many people lost jobs and many businesses saw themselves on the brink of shut down. However, many businesses are opting to shift their offerings to what’s known as Facebook Commerce or F-commerce. With 22% of the population of Bangladesh being active users of Facebook, the platform can provide a strong foothold to reach customers on a far wider and diverse scale. In this article, we will take a look at some of the best small business ideas for F-commerce in Bangladesh during a pandemic. Small business ideas for F-commerce in Bangladesh Clothing Line With a country of festivities, we sure do have a knack for clothing. That is reflected in the apparel market as the market cap stands at around BDT 250 billion. There is a huge opportunity of taking this apparel market to the online platform. As a startup, you can source apparel locally from wholesale dealers and create an apparel niche of your own. With the Flexibility of F-commerce, it becomes very easy to reach your target customer base. You can even jump-start your business with little to no capital. You can start by having a small exclusive line of collection or simply set up a system of pre-order. That will ensure that there isn’t any loss to your startup venture. Also Read A Bangladesh startup that aims at saving the world! Book Store Nothing like a good book in days of lockdown, right? There is a high number of book readers in Bangladesh. The numbers add up as the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela saw a 70 crore BDT jump in sales from 2013-2018. With a growing demand for books, selling them on an online platform can be a good startup venture. The goal here is to find the targeted customer base and set up your business to attract them. Just like the apparel line, you can list your collections or simply deliver on a pre-order basis. Nilkhet being one of the largest markets of all sorts of books, sourcing shouldn’t be an issue and you can make a profit straight away with very little investment. Read How to Earn Money from Facebook Consumer Electronics The consumer electronic market is another potential sector for F-commerce startups. In 2017, the total market cap on consumer electronics stood at 1.38 billion BDT. However, as a startup, it's not possible to sell large-scale consumer electronics because of regulation and investment. You can start with smart gadgets and portable electronic items. The pandemic has seen people shift to online platforms for their gadget fix. You can either start by offering a certain product category or you can add multiples depending on your investment scale. The most important thing here is to plan. You should have a definitive F-commerce marketing strategy to attract customers. And since this is a consumer electronic sector, there should be ample focus on the after-sales service as well to ensure customer retention. Read 24pc of female online entrepreneurs shut businesses in June: Study Home-Based Catering There is a huge untapped opportunity in the home-based catering service in our country. With the easy parcel delivery services in Bangladesh, it is now possible for the home cooks to deliver on-demand food items concurrent to the restaurants. A home-cooked meal is not only a healthier choice for many but also a comparatively cheaper alternative to restaurants and takeaways. Just like the other F-commerce ventures we have mentioned in this article, the capital investment in home-based catering is little to nothing. The variety of cuisines on demand is what makes this start-up idea a thriving one. Based on expertise, a home cook can significantly monetize their skills and convert them into a functional earning source. And with the pandemic in question, the demand is also at an all-time high. Also Read: What Is Passive Income? Pros and Cons of Passive Earning Online Grocery Store An online grocery store is another business idea that has been propelled to the forefront in light of the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. The idea of having all the daily necessities right at your fingertip is lucrative for many. This not only reduces the hassle but also ensures that you won't have to risk your safety by visiting crowded places. As a small business, focus can be put on a certain niche of groceries. It can be cooking essentials, dairy items to frozen goods. This solely depends on the target market. It is possible to source goods from wholesalers depending on the niche. As long as you can ensure competitive pricing, the F-commerce platform can be the perfect place to kickstart your venture. Read Zero Investment Business Ideas to Try Amidst the Pandemic Cosmetic Line Beauty products have a considerable market cap in Bangladesh. In addition to local brands, there is a high demand for the international cosmetic brands and their products. A cosmetic line can be a good small business idea because the online market is still in its budding state. People are getting more and more used to buying goods from online stores as the pandemic has reshaped the idea of how we shop. Depending on your niche, you can source products from the local market or use importers to source products from an international brand. Needless to say, the latter would require a significantly larger investment. But the ROI of this venture is high and considering there is no sunk cost involved, you stand to make a profit in a considerably short time. Art & Craft Recent trends show that the millennials of Bangladesh are significantly interested in local arts and crafts. It can be attributed to the widespread cultural promotion and in the general interest of the mass. If you are someone who is an artist, you can sell your work on the F-commerce platform. Not just art itself, there is a huge of demand for local craft utensils. Whether it's for home decoration or part of utility needs, as a business, you can produce or source these local crafts for online clients. Also Read: Domestic electronics, technology products should get priority in govt procurement: Speakers Sell Your Expertise If you are an expert in your trade, you can set up your online consulting firm. There are endless niches where there is a demand for expert consultation on different subjects. The same stands true for skills as well. If you are good with graphics designing or web content development, you can sell your expertise on the F-commerce platform depending on your niche. This doesn’t require any investment to begin with and also makes communicating with the clients easier. Bottom Line There is a huge untapped opportunity when it comes to the startups in the F-commerce sector of Bangladesh. The pandemic has paved a way for many new Facebook-based business ideas in the existing niche as well as creating demand for new ones. Sure enough, you won't see success upfront, and you would need to develop a sizeable community around your product. But the efforts and investment are much more risk-free when it comes to F-commerce and has a high ROI. Read Bangladesh Cloud Kitchen Business Heralds Improved Food Delivery Services