Monday update · 4-minute read

Three things we promised. Here's where each one is.

For James From Emily Thursday in-person 2026-05-14
Promise 1

The bot reads, tracks, drafts. You stay in command.

Connect once — WhatsApp, email, WeChat where we can. The bot reads what comes in, tracks what you agreed, drafts what goes out. You tap send. The bot earns more autonomy over time, on the actions you decide. Commercially binding moves — price, MOQ, timeline, spec — always pass through you. That's not a Phase 1 limitation. That's the posture.

Step 1 · once
Connect your channels
WhatsApp (linked device), Gmail or Outlook (access), WeChat where we can capture it. No forwarding, no copy-paste, no app-switching.
Step 2 · inbound
Bot reads + tracks commitments
Every vendor reply — Mandarin or English — in the channel where it lands. Tracks what you agreed on price, MOQ, timeline, spec. Flags drift.
Step 3 · outbound
Bot drafts from your templates
Same words you'd write — sample requests, PO acks, ship-by confirms. Bot fills the slots from chat context. You tap send. Negotiations stay yours.
Step 4 · day rhythm
5pm digest. 8am brief.
Evening: drift at the top + anything you flag for tomorrow. Morning: yesterday's flags become today's to-dos. Binding moves wait for your tap.
A concrete day

"Wang Mei moved the unit price from 12.40 to 12.85 in the Thursday thread. You haven't replied yet. The Mar 28 ship-by date is now Apr 4 — quietly."

Two lines in your 5pm digest. Before you sign the PO Monday. Nothing about Wang Mei changed in your inbox — it never says "by the way I'm raising the price." The bot reads the math against what you both already agreed and flags the gap. In the morning, "draft counter to Wang Mei holding 12.40" lands at the top of your to-dos with the brief already assembled.

Three operating modes. You pick the dial.

Some operators want Frenzee to just handle it. Others want their voice and judgment in the loop. Same product, three positions on the autonomy dial — and you can flip per vendor.

Mode 1
Waymo

Bot handles outbound. You live in the morning brief — the only place binding moves wait for your tap. For Shopify migrants, side-hustlers, anyone who says just get it done.

Mode 2
Autopilot

Bot drafts from your templates. You review and tap send. Negotiation context packs assembled for you, decisions stay yours. The default for working operators.

Mode 3
Manual

You're driving. Bot reads, tracks, drafts on demand. For James-tier operators whose 30 years of judgment is the differentiator.

What the bot drafts vs what stays with you
Templated comms — bot fills + drafts
  • · Sample requests with spec lists
  • · PO acks + payment terms
  • · Ship-by confirmations
  • · Spec clarifications
  • · Intro-to-new-vendor opens
  • · "Received, reviewing this week"
Negotiation moves — bot preps the brief, you write the move
  • · Counter-pricing
  • · Pushback when they steer the product
  • · Conditional offers
  • · Walk-away decisions
  • · Long-term relationship moves

That's the part 30 years of experience doesn't outsource. The bot makes your judgment more leveraged — not replaced.

Trust ladder · permanent principle, not a roadmap
What the bot earns over time

Auto-sending patterned acks per vendor (you flip the toggle). Pre-filled boilerplate. Routine receipts. Each one has an audit log — what was sent, when, why.

What it never earns

Commercially binding commits — price changes, MOQ moves, ship dates, sample approvals, negotiation moves. You always tap send. Same in 12 months. Same in 5 years.

Thursday — what we'll do together

We connect your channels at the table — WhatsApp linked device, Gmail or Outlook access. You point us at three vendors. By 5pm Thursday you get the first digest on your real conversations — what the bot read, what it drafted for you to review. Nothing leaves your phone unless you tap send.

Promise 2

How we'll score suppliers fairly.

Today the supplier list is ranked and filtered. It is not vetted — not yet. The vetted layer is what makes Frenzee defensible. Here's the recipe.

1
Do they deliver on time?
Ship-by date promised vs ship-by date actually hit. The bot reading your chats catches the quiet slip — "Mar 28 became Apr 4" — and feeds it into the score over months.
2
Glitches in the finished product?
Quality of what actually lands at your dock vs what was spec'd. The hardest signal to fake — you can fake fast replies, you can't fake a clean shipment.
3
What's their sample-fee policy?
Free samples, paid samples, refunded-on-PO, refunded-never. Real economic signal of how serious they are about earning your business — not just talking about it.
4
Amicable, or do they steer the product?
Some factories execute what you brief. Others push you toward what's easier for them. The bot reads disposition over time — pushback patterns, scope-creep nudges, "you should really" sentences.
5
Have they burned a buyer in our network?
Repeat-bad-actor pattern, shared across operators. One bad story travels. The kind of signal you'd hear at a HK trade-show dinner — captured and made queryable.
6
Have operators we trust used them?
Insider-network signal, not Alibaba's gameable public stars. Your 30 years of relationships count here — and so do the operators you trust within Frenzee.
How Promise 1 feeds Promise 2

The bot reading your vendor chats isn't just a digest tool. Every commitment it tracks — price held, ship-by hit, spec matched, sample-fee charged — flows into axes 1 + 2 + 3 over months. That's the Wang Mei test at scale. Across hundreds of operators, the same supplier's drift pattern becomes the signal.

↓   combine into one tier   ↓
S
Trusted · few
A
Strong · default
B
Working · watch
C
Avoid · flagged
Every score is explainable

"Tier A · 78 · Strong because: on-time 94% across 11 deliveries, samples returned free against PO, holds price within 2%. Watch: nudged spec on three orders last quarter."

No black box. You can always click in and see the three drivers + what the supplier would need to do to move up a tier. Sample-fee policy and amicability axes — the things sourcing-agents charge 8% to know — are visible on the supplier card itself.

Context tag, not a scoring input: we also note whether each supplier sells on Xiaohongshu or TikTok Shop — that's the old-school vs new-school sourcing lane, useful intel for buyers but not a quality signal in itself.

Promise 3

How we make money — three jobs, three price tags.

Frenzee charges all three sides because it does different work for each. Operators get a force multiplier (replaces their sourcing-agent fees). Buyers get production-as-a-service (replaces the PM or agency they'd otherwise hire). Suppliers get distribution (replaces marketing spend on Alibaba ads). Everyone enters free. Paid tiers unlock as the work scales — Alibaba-style.

Free for everyone

Anyone can browse, search, chat with the AI, and try the bot on one vendor relationship without paying. No credit card. The supplier graph is open. This is what builds the network.

  • Browse the 12,547-supplier index
  • 8-question guided sourcing chat
  • Public S/A/B/C tier on every supplier
  • Save 1 active project
  • Bot watches 1 vendor relationship
  • Manual reply (you copy-paste)
Operators · like you
Replaces 5-10% sourcing-agent fees · below Sourcify $299, far below Joor $1K+ and NuOrder $10K/yr

Operating modes: Manual or Autopilot. You're the driver — Frenzee makes your judgment more leveraged. Pricing benchmarked against the AI-procurement and wholesale-SaaS landscape — every Frenzee tier sits below the dominant comparable.

Solo
$99 / mo

For independent operators running one engagement at a time. Manual or Autopilot mode.

  • Bot reads + tracks + drafts on 1 client, up to 10 vendors
  • 5pm digest + 8am morning brief with reflection-to-todo loop
  • Frenzee-seeded template library (~50 supplier-comms patterns)
  • Public S/A/B/C tier on every supplier match
  • Commitment tracker — price / timeline / spec drift alerts
  • 90-day comms history, fully searchable
Agency
$599+ / mo

Teams managing 5+ brands or running operator-as-a-service.

  • Everything in Practice, unlimited clients
  • Up to 5 team seats included (+$99/extra seat)
  • Admin dashboard with cross-client audit log
  • Custom template playbooks + scoring weights per client
  • Shareable template pool — contribute and receive
  • API / webhook access
  • Direct Slack channel with Frenzee ops
  • Quarterly business review

All tiers: + 2% take on supplier matches Frenzee sources (not on suppliers you bring).

Buyers · brand owners

Three tiers map onto the three operating modes — Automate = Waymo, Guided = Autopilot, Managed = full concierge. Pricing positioned below Pietra Essentials ($39/mo) for the wedge tier, since they ship more feature-surface today and we win by being lighter at the front door. Geographic gravity holds: Asia-based brands tend to land in Managed (turnkey production); Western brands tend to land in Guided (audit + sourcing help). Same SKUs — different gravity per region.

Automate · Waymo
$29 / mo

For migrating Shopify / Shopee owners who already know their suppliers and want Frenzee to just handle it.

  • Waymo mode — bot handles outbound on up to 5 existing supplier relationships
  • Templated comms auto-sent per vendor; binding moves batch-approve in morning brief
  • Frenzee-seeded template library (filled automatically from chat context)
  • Public S/A/B/C tier on any vendor (informational, for reorder decisions)
  • 5pm digest + 8am morning brief with tap-approve-all
  • Light multi-platform DD (flags major reputation issues only)
  • 3 new supplier match suggestions / month
  • 90-day history
Managed · Concierge
$500 deposit + 12% admin + 3% cut

Side-hustlers with capital who want the project run end-to-end. Frenzee + AI ops the whole thing.

  • Concierge — Frenzee picks, negotiates, manages
  • You approve at decision points: sample, PO, ship
  • "$20 retail" → we work back to MOQ + cost + margin + supplier mix
  • Full sample QC at HK intake (trained human review)
  • Real-time milestone updates via bot — sample sent, sample approved, PO placed, in QC, shipped
  • Full Stripe escrow on every transaction
  • $500 deposit credited toward first invoice
  • Multi-country QC chain
Suppliers · factories on the list
Free to list. Pay only to be discovered. Verified $499/yr = 1/4 to 1/8 of Alibaba Gold ($2K-4K/yr typical, $10K+ premium).

The S/A/B/C tier is earned through the 6-input score and can never be paid for. What can be paid for: verification badges and promoted exposure — both transparently labelled. Pricing aggressive on purpose — undercut the dominant directory while offering quality matching they don't.

List
Free

Everyone we scraped is here. Operators + buyers can find them.

  • Appear in the 12,547+ supplier index
  • Public S/A/B/C tier (algorithm only, never paid)
  • Receive new-buyer matches when Frenzee matches your capabilities
  • Claim profile + verify ownership
  • Edit basic info (capabilities, MOQ, lead time)
Promoted
$1,499 / yr

Featured slots, transparently labelled "promoted."

  • Featured in match results (clearly tagged "Promoted")
  • Newsletter placement to operator network
  • Community placements (operator Discord / WhatsApp where applicable)
  • Quarterly performance review with Frenzee ops
  • Beta access to new buyer features

All tiers: + 3-5% on confirmed new-buyer matches Frenzee delivers (Phase 2 — never on existing relationships).

Phase 2
Real shops + real creators. Physical shops in HK, Sydney, Canada, US that accept first-100 trial product with no upfront commitment. Creators paid only on confirmed sales. The cut is small — but it's the messy human network that actually moves product, made tractable through software. We don't do AI-automated social media. Operators see through it instantly.
Next slide Where this sits in the market — vs Alibaba, Faire, Pietra, sourcing agents.
Thursday · Mongkok · 1.30

No homework. Bring yourself.

An hour. Two things we'll do together — and whatever else comes up.

1
Set up the bot on your WhatsApp.
One or two vendors you pick in the moment. We connect at the table — no forwarding, no copy-paste. The bot reads, drafts, and you stay in command. By 5pm you've got the first digest on real conversations — and nothing leaves your phone unless you tap send.
2
Pressure-test the six axes.
Your four — on-time delivery, glitches, sample fees, amicable vs steers — are now axes 1-4. Plus burned-in-network + operators-we-trust. Walk through a real supplier together. Anything missing? Weighted wrong? Frank reactions are the whole point.

The rest of this is just so you have something to react to — not a deck to read end-to-end. Skim what's useful, ignore what isn't.

"Open to your read on any of it — plus ideas of what we should be adding."