How an economist from Ashgabat transitioned into IT and founded the PetTech startup Zootel

Tahir Orazdurdyev entered the IT field from economics, and today he is developing Zootel — a platform for businesses in the pet care sector and pet owners. Read about how MrBeast’s videos inspired him to create his own startup and what challenges he had to overcome along the way.

Tahir Orazdurdyev, city — Ashgabat, CEO

How it all began

I studied economics, but after some time I became interested in the IT field. My friends and I started taking orders for developing websites and mobile applications on freelance platforms, and after a while I realized that I wanted to create my own product.

Launching the startup

The idea for Zootel came after watching a video on YouTube on the MrBeast channel, where he helped homeless animals find homes and new loving owners.

At the initial stage, it seemed to me that everything was easy — developing the product and launching it. But in reality, it turned out to be much more complicated. The team consisted mainly of friends with whom we had worked on freelance projects, but for a long time we essentially did not develop and stood still, as I did not fully understand how the startup world works.

Target audience

Our target audience includes businesses that provide pet care services, as well as pet owners. For businesses, our project is useful because our CRM was developed with the specific features of the pet care industry in mind, allowing Pet Care companies to fully automate their business processes without delving into the IT sector. Everything with us is simple and clear.

For pet owners, we have a marketplace where they can quickly find and book services, such as grooming, or schedule an examination at a veterinary clinic.

Incubation programs

We completed our first incubation program at Startup Academy TM, where we took first place. There, we also gained a knowledge base about how startups generally work — this helped us greatly, continues to help now, and I believe will continue to help in the future.

Last year, we participated in the Digital Startup Awards incubation program by IT Park Uzbekistan, where we entered the top 15 startups and received a check for $10,000. However, at the initial stage, the startup was funded through personal funds.

About difficulties

The most difficult part was assembling the right team. If you compare the team composition now with that at the start, you can say that it has changed significantly — essentially, only I remain from the original team.

When we began implementing the idea, I saw that the previous team was not coping with the assigned tasks. The issue was not a lack of qualifications, but rather that the guys were not as involved and passionate about the project as I was.

After some time, before the start of the incubation program from IT Park Uzbekistan, I formed a new team — people who were genuinely interested in the project, who believed in it and in me. The main conclusion is that it is important to assemble the right team.

Achievements

Among the main achievements of the project were winning the Startup Academy TM incubation program and becoming finalists in the IT Park Uzbekistan incubation program.

Plans

Currently, we are actively communicating with companies from Uzbekistan to integrate them into our platform.

By the end of the year, we plan to focus on product development and strengthening our presence in the Uzbekistan market, expanding the number of partners and users. We are also continuing work on improving the platform and preparing for further regional expansion.