At just 24 years old, Alex Crawford, a medical student at the University of the West Indies, is leading two innovative start-ups in the United States.
At the height of the global pandemic, Crawford and his business partners launched Imperial Solutions LLC, a hospitality company with more than 400 employees providing business solutions to more than 100 clients in seven major cities, and Aidamm LLC, an e-commerce marketplace. for small and medium-sized companies. size companies.
Aidamm has an 80 percent success rate of vendor registrations and has seen app downloads increase by 1000 percent since launch. They have also sold 90 percent of the products featured on the website, which range from air pods to cereal. And as Crawford says, it’s just getting started.
As a young man from humble beginnings, Crawford caught the entrepreneurial bug early, having started business ventures since his days at Manchester High School, where he quickly identified entrepreneurship as a potential tool to change his life and empower many. others on the way. .
At Manchester High, Crawford met some of his longtime friends who would later become business partners in his US-based businesses. So there’s no question why she fondly remembers her days at Jamaica’s prominent south-central school. “It’s the best school in Jamaica!” he said. “He is well-rounded and is known for his excellence in the arts, sports and academic achievement.”
Many fear mixing friendships with business. But the formula has worked well for Crawford and his executive team of successful young professionals in business, science, technology and medicine. When asked what makes a partnership successful, he said: “The answer is the trust and dedication of everyone involved, led by a radical visionary.”
Crawford is harnessing this ‘radical vision’ to lead Aidamm to unprecedented success. Since the pandemic, the online business community has expanded, taking advantage of the extra time people are spending online. Crawford identified opportunities early and didn’t let fear stop him.
Spring into action when COVID-19 forced furloughs, layoffs, and business closures. He saw that people needed to do their shopping without leaving home, and other companies were taking too long to switch to selling online. Companies had to adapt or die. Meanwhile, the e-commerce industry was booming. Over time, Aidamm’s vision expanded beyond groceries, becoming a one-stop online hub for small businesses, driven by a desire to enhance the Caribbean online shopping and delivery experience. Crawford focused on creating an e-commerce and marketing platform where SMEs could market their products and services and deliver them to a global marketplace in a variety of convenient ways.
Being new to the block in the eCommerce space gave the Aidamm team a significant advantage in studying what their competitors were offering and how they could provide better solutions.
Many small businesses struggle with the cost of developing a website and the challenges of accepting payments online without the red tape involved with financial institutions. Aidamm has masterfully solved both problems, as vendors can post their products or services online, where there are no barriers to entry. This platform, in turn, will create new market acquisitions and help companies seize and cultivate recent sales and revenue opportunities. They have gained approval from international payment gateways such as Stripe, Apple Pay, Mango Pay, PayPal, RazorPay, and bank transfers. Additionally, Crawford has managed to secure partnerships with DHL, FedEx, USPS and Australia Post to ensure items can be shipped and tracked around the world with full transparency.
“We believe in the power of the digital space to transform the way people live and connect with each other and provide world-class technology and infrastructure support that our customers, whether suppliers or buyers, can leverage to expand their reach and connect. more effectively,” Crawford said. . “We have consistently positioned ourselves at the forefront of innovation, finding the best wholesale and retail e-commerce products, services, and solutions for our users.”
Aidamm envisions greater access for small and medium-sized Caribbean businesses to the global economy and a way to accept foreign currency payments online. This platform will allow them to generate more income to grow and operate safely and efficiently.
