Female startup: the marketplace for time-conscious people

Regardless of education, field of activity and gender anyone is capable of creating a startup. The projects that we talk within “Female Startup” column proves our point.

Aiperi Parkhanova, the Co-Founder, Product owner of the Happy.kg marketplace from Kyrgyzstan is on our spotlight this time.

Where did it all start?

Aiperi is 33 years old. She works for an IT company. The idea to launch such a project, according to the recollections of the heroine, appeared a year ago.

“In 2022, we thought about the development trend of e-commerce. We understood that modern customers value their time very much, which is getting smaller every day, given our frantic pace of life. Now the buyer is not ready to spend it on scrolling ads for sale.”

Happy.kg is a marketplace that provides customers with the opportunity to buy goods by installments without coming to bank offices and shops.

The founders themselves call it a “happy marketplace”. The project was created to give the buyer the opportunity to save time on online shopping, not spending it searching for offers all over the Internet, and making purchases in one place.

Tell us about the benefits of a startup

Aiperi calls society the main reference point. The primary goal of Happy.kg is to create a modern and high-quality trading platform that will meet all the needs of the current pace of life, providing customers with the opportunity to buy everything they need in one place, saving time, which consumers have less and less every day.

“Users of Happy.kg don't have to spend hours in queues at banks and face tons of bureaucracy. Now you can make a purchase on credit or by installments by choosing the appropriate option from several proposed.”

The development of marketplaces, she notes, allows you to expand purchasing opportunities for consumers and increase sales for suppliers at a lower cost.

“Our main mission is to contribute to the development of e-commerce in the CIS countries. We are focused on service and safety, confidence in the quality and authenticity of the goods. We create comfort for the buyer and business opportunities! A wide range and the ability to compare many sellers on one site is an additional nice bonus.”

Now the project team consists of about 20 people - these are not only IT developers, but also managers, accountants, lawyers, a call center and a marketing department.

 • Aiperi — Co-founder, Product owner, strategic product development

 • Bakyt — Co-founder, CTO

 • Development team — 5 people

 • Team working with marketing, communications, SMM, design - 3 people

 • Operational work (lawyer, accountant, content, call center, courier) — 10 people.

Tell us about your plans

When founding a startup, it is impossible to do it without difficulties. The hardest part of working on the project, according to Aiperi, was the alignment of processes - it was necessary to establish interaction between suppliers, buyers and financial institutions.

Another difficulty was finding employees.

“Despite the fact that now there are more and more specialists with all key competencies on the market, there were difficulties in finding and selecting members of the Happy.kg team. Not only the accumulated experience and hard skills are important for us, but also the extent to which the ambitions and values ​​of the employee coincide with ours.”

However, the difficulties did not prevent the team from carrying out their plans.  For six months, the team managed to develop a marketplace platform with several payment options at once, including through mobile online wallets.

“At the initial stage of work, we attracted the so-called “business angel” - a private venture investor who provided us with financial and expert support. In December 2022, we launched Happy.kg in test mode, and in just a month we reached a turnover of more than $30,000. Evaluating the results, we can openly and without pretense say that we have achieved a very good result and continue to move forward with confidence.”

Now, the search for an investor for the second stage of investment is being actively carried out as Aiperi notes, since in the future the project is planned to be scaled up and spread across the CIS countries.

“Now the startup industry is developing actively, which has a positive effect on the development of other areas of activity and, first of all, business digitalization and process optimization. The most important thing is that IT startups are aimed at launching their product without being locally tied to countries, but can scale up in different countries and even continents.”

Aiperi is sure that there is no sector about which it can be unequivocally said that startups have no place in it. Business is constantly evolving, competition in the global market is growing, so the classic approach must change to meet new, higher requirements and desires of users.

“I believe that the most important thing for newcomers to this field is faith in their product. If it is present, it immediately gives the startup an advantage, highlighting it from the general background.”

Aiperi herself has once also received help by participating in the Tumaris.Tech program.

“Participation in the project left the most positive impressions. Thanks to Tumaris.Tech, we were able to take a new outlook at our product and our processes. As a result of training, we have identified a new vector for development, which we are following now. I highly recommend novice startups to take part in such projects. I also want them to believe in their product, work hard and be flexible, because these are the strengths of a startup.”