Our Story
Chapter 1: The Problem | In the Spring of 2008, Daniel Sperling-Horowitz was sitting in his college dorm room attempting to import flat screen TVs from a "Gold Supplier" he found on Alibaba.com. Skeptical of the images provided by the supplier, Daniel conducted a thorough search that was absolutely shocking. This "trusted supplier" was the subject of multiple complaints from international buyers who had been blatantly scammed. To this day, he remembers thinking to himself; I have no idea where to begin. Who do I trust? And how do I make sure the products I'm purchasing will be as described?
You can imagine Daniel was left with many more questions than answers.
Chapter 2: Discovery | Convinced that small and mid sized businesses had to contend with an tremendous problem of scam, order inaccuracy, and quality uncertainty on leading B2B marketplaces, Daniel pitched a very basic business plan at the 2010 China MBA Business Plan Competition at Peking University in Beijing. His team ended up finalists. More importantly, Daniel fell in love with the intricacies and nuances of international trade, and this initial visit to China was all the validation he needed to spend the Summer of 2010, and several subsequent visits, in the Guangdong province studying procurement and supply chain management best practices. During his visits, Daniel began the process of developing business relationships, guanxi, with stakeholders along the supply chain and procurement value chain. These relationships are the cornerstone of the HDTS Network.
Chapter 3: Opportunity Meets Technology | When Daniel returned to the United States, he connected with Dan Sugarman, a fraternity brother and highly respected computer scientist. Convinced the current system of purchasing from overseas suppliers was broken, the two set out to figure out the best way to apply emerging technologies, primarily cloud and mobile computing, to create a fundamentally transparent and highly secure B2B marketplace, and in the process eliminate trade risk once and for all. From their hands-on experience developing technology systems for international Logistics Service Providers (companies that handle the physical transport of goods), they knew the answer to the terrible problem of trade risk was a tightly controlled supply chain.
Chapter 4: Team Building | In September 2011, Daniel Sugarman dropped out of Stony Brook University's Computer Science PhD program to assemble a brilliant team of engineers and begin building the HDTS Platform. Matthew Thomas, a close friend and equally well-respected computed scientist, joined the company in late 2011. Matthew now serves as Chief Technology Officer.
Chapter 5: Founding | HD Trade Services, Inc. was officially founded in November 2011. By April 2012, our technology was featured at the prestigious DEMO Conference in Silicon Valley. That same month, the Company was accepted into Y Combinator, a world renowned technology accelerator program in Mountain View, California.
Chapter 6: Marketplace | When we founded HD Trade Services, our mission was to create the world's safest and simplest B2B marketplace. We knew that in order to achieve our mission, we needed to establish the foundations for a truly transparent supply chain. So we took an unconventional approach to creating our marketplace.
We started by developing inspection technology so that anyone buying goods could route their shipments through our network of HDTS Certified Inspection Locations (3rd Party Logistics Service Providers specialized in handling high value goods) and remotely participate, via crystal clear high definition streaming video, in the quality verification of their goods. To complement our inspection technology, we created a suite of productivity tools for professional distributors. The suite includes a Deal Manager to organize, manage and grow your relationships with customers and partners.
Our next step was to develop a real time inventory management and notification system to notify buyers and sellers as soon as their goods are received and released from our inspection warehouses. So we developed the Mobile Warehouse Manager, a tablet based inventory management system which is fully integrated with our inspection technology.
Now that we've established a highly scalable framework for a truly transparent supply chain by integrating our Distribution Management Suite with the operations of our network of highly specialized Logistics Service Providers, it's time to announce the HDTS Marketplace.
Our foot is on the pedal of innovation, come join us for the ride!
Founded: November 2011Headquarters: Mountain View, CA USA Daniel Sugarman: Co-founder & CEO Daniel Sperling-Horowitz: Co-founder & President Matthew Thomas: Co-founder & CTO Christopher Pierre: Chief Creative Officer
