How to build a startup from scratch without investment and fail it: the story of an IT Park employee!

The Community Development manager at IT Academy unde IT Park, the founder of the “Ambient” studio, the coordinator of the national educational project “One Million Uzbek Coders” Dilmurod Nasibullaev wanted to share with us his experience of creating a startup. In this article, we will tell you about how he created a startup without any financial resources, what he had gone through and what experience he got as a result.

Lepestock

The “Lepestock” project dates back to 2017. Dilmurod’s university held a contest on developing products and start-up projects (Dilmurod graduated from Inha University in Tashkent). The winner could win a ticket to Korea for a 3-week summer course. Thus, he with his friend from the university decided to take part in this competition.

They clearly understood that their startup had to solve some problems and bring change to the market. Initially, they had so many ideas ranging from standard delivery to trade automation.

At last, the guys decided to make a flower delivery service in Tashkent. The service is quite simple - take the goods from the flower sellers in the market and deliver them to the client. Prior to this, the niche was occupied by market-based flower sellers as well as expensive flower boutiques. In the first case, they did not provide any service or delivery. In the second case, everything was present, but with a sky-high market value. On the other hand, young entrepreneurs wanted to choose a niche that would combine the first and the second cases, that is to say, to deliver flowers at affordable prices, while not wasting the customer's time looking for bouquets.

At the beginning they called the project “Fleurs de la space”, but later decided to rename it to “Lepestock”.

Dillmug and his friend created a website of e-store based on «Wordpress»,, went to the market and took photos of different bouquets, and there, , without any legal documents, started to collaborate with the flower sellers. Actually, the model was simple: the market price -10%, since they are partners, + 30% for their service. It turns out that if the market value of the product is $10, they sold the bouquet for $13, and their revenue was $4.

Initiative guys prepared for the presentation for a long time to partake in the contest and win a ticket to Korea. Unfortunately, they couldn’t win. Although that the failure was a slap in their face, it gave them a strong motivation. Ultimately, they decided that they would start the business themselves, having only 2 people in the team who do not know anything about the business, several partners, relations with whom were built on a gentleman's agreement and with around $ 120-150 in their pocket. Young entrepreneurs knew that the percentage of failure is very high, but they believed that at least they would get invaluable experience.

Having passes all the stages, they began to take a photo of new bouquets and establish partnerships. Alas, for a long time they had no orders. However, they soon received the first order, which was delivered personally by taxi. The client as satisfied with the service and the guys earned their first money. Unfortunately, after their first order for about 4 weeks, no orders came out. At this time, Dilmurod's partner left, as he did not see any further prospects and also was busy with his studies.

Eventually, Dilmurod ordered the wrappers and stickers with the logo on his own, slightly changed the work model and strategy. Currently, his startup did not just provide flower delivery, but also it offers a service to congratulate the client when needed. Flowers, toys, chocolates and a special method of congratulations with poems and songs were included in the new package of services for an additional fee.

Furthermore, he used a “Like and Share” method in order the boost the sale. Afterwards, Dilmurod received 2-3 more orders, which were delivered by taxi by him. But this time the customers were not satisfied. Then he concluded and realized that he should not be responsible for the quality and price of bouquets and also while choosing a product for delivery, it was necessary to take into account that some products quickly deteriorate, which negatively affects on the business.

Considering this factors, he decided to make an aggregator for flower shops and make money on transactions. However, there was a problem with the aggregator. There is a “deadlock” - a vicious circle. So as to have partners (sellers) you need to have many clients; to have many clients you need to have many partners. This problem could be solved only by investing a large amount of funds on the marketing of the project, which, unfortunately, he did not have.

Due to his studies and lack of a team, money and experience, Dilmurod gave up working on this project.

What Dilmurod got in the end:

1) Experience.

How to build a business, what to look for and what is generally needed to create a business.

2) Team.

Dilmurod managed to work on several other projects with his friend who left the team.

3) Communication skills.

He learned how to engage in basic negotiations, advertise products and sell them.

Dilmurod's conclusions:

1) To start a project, you need base capital. At least to keep the project afloat.

2) The team is needed. This is a very important point. You need specialists who have the same vision and a desire to work in a particular area.

3) Create an aggregator for your business only if you have a strong brand or if you have a good marketing strategy and basic funds for implementation.

4) If you are engaged in delivery, then you definitely need to have couriers to deliver. Moreover, it is better not to choose products that re ruined quickly.

Link to the project: https://www.facebook.com/lepest0ck
 

In the future, our expert will share other stories related to startups, failures, IT and other things.!