Cloz.uz — a startup that will help you find a job or hire employees in Uzbekistan

Abror Mashrabov, City — Tashkent, Founder of Cloz.uz

How It All Started

My professional experience is closely tied to launching our startup. In 2020, even before the pandemic began, I launched a Telegram channel dedicated to job vacancies in Tashkent, which became my first step into the HR and recruitment field. From 2020 to 2021, due to life circumstances, I also worked as the director of an educational center and handled marketing. In 2021, I returned to HR, founding a recruitment agency with a partner, which became the foundation for our startup.

I was inspired by the philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb. In 2020, I learned about his concept of the "barbell." Simply put, this means combining non-scalable activities, such as baking bread, with scalable ones, such as writing a book. To feed a million people with bread, you need to bake a million loaves, but for a book to reach millions of readers, it does not need to be rewritten each time. These reflections on scalable ideas significantly influenced my approach to building a business.

When my partner and I founded the agency, we understood that in the long term, we did not want to limit ourselves solely to recruitment, as this restricts our contribution to the market. We were looking for a scalable solution in the staffing sector while simultaneously studying the market in depth through the agency. Thus, the idea for our startup emerged.

The idea arose during work with clients and analysis of their needs. The insight came when we realized that existing tools on the market did not meet the needs of entry-level employees and employers, which pushed us to create our own solution.

Launching the Startup

In five hours, I developed the design for the first version in Figma, and within an hour, I agreed on terms with programmers. Just seven days later, we had an MVP—albeit with bugs, but with working functionality. We received market feedback by publishing a product review on Instagram, where the video organically garnered 300,000 views. The audience's reaction showed that the idea was in demand.

Our startup was funded through the resources of our recruitment agency and personal savings.

The Team

The key qualities we looked for in our employees were proactivity, the ability to work in uncertain conditions, and the capacity to solve complex tasks within tight deadlines. We also valued openness to learning and a desire to grow together with the project.

Target Audience

Our product is aimed at entry-level employees, such as sales consultants, nannies, cleaners, cashiers, and other specialists whose work does not require high qualifications. We chose this audience by elimination: platforms for qualified specialists already exist in the market, but there was no convenient service for unskilled workers. Therefore, we decided to create such a product.

Our product helps users find jobs near their homes thanks to a user-friendly interface and filters that allow for quick and easy selection of suitable vacancies.

Our website is visited by approximately 10,000 users monthly, almost all due to organic traffic. Advertising in Telegram channels was used only twice. Every day, about 10 new users register on our service.

Challenges

The project launch went relatively smoothly, without encountering serious obstacles.

One of the most difficult tasks proved to be effective interaction with programmers, which required a deep understanding of the technical aspects of the project.

Achievements

I wrote a bestseller on the basics of recruitment in Uzbek, which received positive reviews from leading entrepreneurs and HR specialists. These reviews are available on my Instagram.

Plans

By the end of the year, we plan not only to confirm the current startup valuation of $1 million by attracting investments from angel investors and venture capital funds but also to actively participate in several grant programs. This will help accelerate the project's development and take it to a new level.

We also plan to scale the product, focusing on process automation and improving the user experience. Our development strategy will be based on a deep analysis of market needs and user feedback.

In the near future, we will introduce new features and products that will allow our users to solve their tasks even more effectively. Development priorities are determined based on the analysis of user requests and market trends.