Doing business in countries like Uzbekistan is tough because of inability to get payments. But there is a solution to that and it's called MIDDLE MAN.
For example, Facebook ads are really picking up here. Of course, most small businesses cannot pay to Facebook directly due to tight payment regulations. So what happens? A middle man comes in. He signs up as a Facebook partner (or regular user), finds small local businesses that pay him extra and then he pays Facebook through his internationally accepted cards to show ads belonging to others.
I have no doubt that if American companies came here and tried a little, they would quickly realize that Uzbeks are entrepreneurs, who can be good partners and can make lots of money.
Even the ideas that I see pop up in the United States have been implemented here long time ago. For instance, we had car-sharing service in Uzbekistan since I was a child -- we just didn't have GPS and mobile phones to make an Uber, so we had middle men finding riders and putting them into one car. Then the driver would pay a fee for that.
Same thing with delivery -- we had delivery services, which you could call, so they could find the closest person to you (or the store/pharmacy) and deliver the items quickly. You would just pay cash to the driver (which of course had to be trustworthy-- otherwise delivery service wouldn't work with them)
What you call a "Middle Man" is also known as a "Market Maker" or a "Liquidity Provider". He takes on the risk of connecting supply and demand in order to profit from the bid/ask spread.
The "Middle Man" has been replaced with technology because it's more efficient and enables more liquidity than an actual man or a network of men could.
If you see solutions popping up in Uzbekistan for basic logistical problems such as transportation and delivery, perhaps you should try to implement them elsewhere? I would be interested to hear more examples that could be implemented elsewhere in the world.
For example, Facebook ads are really picking up here. Of course, most small businesses cannot pay to Facebook directly due to tight payment regulations. So what happens? A middle man comes in. He signs up as a Facebook partner (or regular user), finds small local businesses that pay him extra and then he pays Facebook through his internationally accepted cards to show ads belonging to others.
I have no doubt that if American companies came here and tried a little, they would quickly realize that Uzbeks are entrepreneurs, who can be good partners and can make lots of money.
Even the ideas that I see pop up in the United States have been implemented here long time ago. For instance, we had car-sharing service in Uzbekistan since I was a child -- we just didn't have GPS and mobile phones to make an Uber, so we had middle men finding riders and putting them into one car. Then the driver would pay a fee for that.
Same thing with delivery -- we had delivery services, which you could call, so they could find the closest person to you (or the store/pharmacy) and deliver the items quickly. You would just pay cash to the driver (which of course had to be trustworthy-- otherwise delivery service wouldn't work with them)