Startup story: how Nigora Akilova and her team launched Beautify.uz

We are pleased to announce that IT Park is launching a new ‘Startup Story’ column that tells about successful startup projects. As it kicks off, the first story we want to tell you is about the Beautify.uz project and its founder Nigora Akilova.

How did the idea to launch the project come about?

Nigora is 47 years old. She works as a marketer and runs her own PR agency.

According to Nigora, the idea to launch a startup arose from previous work experience in the ArzonApteka project, where she and her team managed to attract investments. There she was the executive director of the project, but due to the fact that she was just a hired employee, she decided to leave.

‘I wanted to create a similar product, but not competitive. I teamed up with my colleague from ArzonApteka, Nargiz Kasimova, and we launched our own project in the beauty industry. In the previous project, we gained a lot of experience in B2B, B2C marketing, product packaging, sales, pricing, building a sales team, and fundraising. It all helped a lot in the new project.’

Now there are 8 people in the Beautify.uz team: Nigora - CEO, Nargiz - responsible for marketing and sales and customer support, as well as back-end and two front-end developers, a designer, a tester and an SMM specialist. Also, the team has a great advisor – an entrepreneur in pharmaceutical industry Oybek Dusmatov, the founder of the Pharmaceutical Club of Uzbekistan.

What the project is about?

Beautify.uz is the only platform in Uzbekistan that unites beauty masters and users. The project is intended for the complete digitalization of the beauty industry and includes the digitalization of transaction chains: suppliers of consumables for the beauty industry - beauty masters - consumers.

The platform works as an aggregator of photos of masters' works, through which clients can go to the master's profile, get acquainted with his bio, location and sign up. Also, customers can find the right master through a search by the specified parameters.

About Beautify.uz

According to CEO, the mission of the project is to create a brand for women that will support them in any situation: in training, at the initial stage of the work, in finding clients.

‘Beautify.uz is of great social importance, as it gives thousands of women the opportunity to start off their careers. For example, a girl graduated from high school, but does not know what to do. Through the platform, she finds a master who will teach her some service, and then, through our own platform, she finds clients. Especially great support will be for women who are left with small children in their arms and cannot leave the house. Thanks to the platform, they can find clients in their own mahallas.’

The Beautify.uz platform has many advantages.

For instance, masters receive the following benefits:

• an online booking system that manages the master's calendar - this saves time and effort;
• Finding new clients;
• guarantee of a booked appointment through prepayment;
• stylists can choose from a list of suppliers of consumables for salons.

The platform is convenient not only for masters. Beautify.uz gives users the following advantages:

• search for a master by location, free time, price segment and quality;
• make an appointment;
• get a loan or installment from the service to pay for the services of the master.

What was the most difficult thing about starting the project?

According to Nigora, the most difficult part of the project was determining the characteristics of consumer behavior and building a customer journey map in connection with this.

The biggest problem for a startup at the initial stage is to find a working, monetizable and scalable idea, and to find an investor who is ready to give money and not call you for at least a year. And the most important questions are: what guides women when choosing a beauty master, how important is the price, is she ready to go to the other end of the city for the sake of a good master, how often do they use beauty services.

‘We had a lot of questions about the masters: for example, are they ready to pay for additional clients, what motivation do the masters have, are they ready to make discounts or participate in loyalty programs. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that if we ourselves were not women, we would not be able to find the right answers to these questions.’

How do you plan to develop the project?

‘Our project can be developed in different directions,” says Nigora. “Technically, it makes it possible to create different business stories. However, for now, we decided to focus specifically on the beauty industry, since this area is close to us as women. This area is very difficult for men, since the consumer behavior of women is significantly different from that of men, we have a huge advantage over others here.’

As Nigora admits, their business model involves broad coverage and then the introduction of payment. Now they do not earn, the first payments will be implemented in September 2022.

‘We are open to cooperation with marketplaces, useful plugins, fintechs, payment systems, cosmetic brands, educational platforms, etc. The development of our project in the first place is an exit to other markets. Our project plans to enter foreign similar markets as soon as possible,’ added Nigora.

What do you think about the startup industry in Uzbekistan?

According to Nigora, the start-up industry in Uzbekistan is extremely underdeveloped.

‘We use the word “startup” too much, but we don’t have many real startups with a good idea. Nevertheless, in the last 2-3 years, a breakthrough has been made in this regard, and the joint accelerator of AloqaVentures and IT Park is of a really high quality.’

Among actively developing startups in Uzbekistan, Nigora singles out such projects as  Billz, Iman, DalaTech, Avlo.

As she admits, today there are no such niches in Uzbekistan where one is not allowed to enter.  However, it is always worth remembering that a startup should not be limited only to Uzbekistan, so you need to carefully study the countries where startups intend to go with their projects.

The most emerging ones, in her opinion, are: car parts and service stations, logistics, delivery to FMCG, the event industry (especially weddings), personal finance, coupons, public service aggregators, purchases and tenders.

‘A priori, a startup is given an advantage by the experience of founders in similar startups. Therefore, if you manage to “hunt” a valuable employee from another similar project, this is priceless. I advise beginner startup founders to carefully study the market: determine the target audience, its volume, and the desire to spend money on your service, as well as be patient. And my most important advice: choose your partners carefully!’