Startup Story: Oshme — service that helps choose a restaurant and make a table reservation online

As part of our special Startup Story edition, we proceed to acquaint our subscribers with CA projects that have succeeded by participating in IT Park acceleration programs.

Next in our spotlight is Taufik Khisamov, CEO at Khisam Communications PR agency and founder of the Oshme_bot project.

How did you come up with the idea?

Taufik was born and raised in Tashkent, but later moved to Moscow, where he graduated from the Russian State University for the Humanities with a degree in PR, worked at the international agency Edelman, taught at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, and later opened his own PR agency Khisam Communications, promoted eBay, LinkedIn, Ozon, etc.

In February 2022, he arrived in Tashkent, and in April he launched the Oshme project, a guide to restaurants, coffee houses, bars and pubs in Uzbekistan.

“The idea came in April 2022, after a large influx of relocates to Uzbekistan. Since I am originally from Tashkent, many people contacted me to find out where to eat plov, drink coffee or have breakfast. After that, I noticed that many people actually liked the places I recommended. Then I thought, “why not launch a useful service that would unite all establishments, provide complete information on the cuisine, locations, and also offer the possibility of making reservations?”

This is how the startup Oshme came about, which was originally created not for the purpose of making money, but to offer people a convenient tool for searching and choosing places to dine out in Uzbekistan.

Taufik created the project by himself. Given the demand among Uzbeks for the Telegram messenger, he decided to launch his startup on this platform.

Now 4 more people are involved in the project. A team of 5 people is currently working on improving and developing a startup.

What is the benefit of a startup?

@Oshme_bot is a Telegram guide to restaurants, coffee houses, bars and pubs in Uzbekistan with the possibility of booking a table.

The service also serves as a kind of advertisement for restaurant services in Uzbekistan. It provides an opportunity not only for local residents, but also for tourists to get acquainted with the map of the country's establishments, which helps to better understand the gastronomic culture of Tashkent, Samarkand or Bukhara.

“Everything at @Oshme_bot is absolutely free. There you can easily find any institution to your taste, choose a cuisine, a convenient location, as well as book a table and even order a taxi to the place. And for the most active users, partner restaurants offer exclusive discounts of up to 10%.”

There are currently more than 100 establishments in the catalog. Twenty establishments act as partners that provide Oshme privilege card holders with discounts in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, as well as in Charvak and Chimgan.

Users can select a restaurant by area of residence, type of cuisine, format (clubs, karaoke, hookah places, etc.). After selecting a restaurant, its description, location, where you can order a taxi directly from the bot, a table reservation button and the best visitor reviews appear. The last point emphasizes that the project was created and developed based on real experience of guests of chosen restaurants.

“We are trying to improve the functionality of a startup. Customers from other countries who had not yet managed to register a SIM card and, accordingly, could not reserve a table contacted us. Then we created a tool that allows switching from a bot to direct communication with a restaurant manager.”

What was the most difficult part of the project for you?

As Taufik recalls, the most difficult step was building connection with restaurants.

“We first offered establishments a model with free accommodation and payment only from the brought guest. Many liked this model and allowed us to test various mechanics, but for us, as a business, this approach was not very convenient, as it hindered our development and financial planning. Therefore, we soon switched to a SaaS model, which opened up great opportunities for restaurants to attract customers and advertising, and for us, long-term planning and multiple growth.”

Fortunately, the team has overcome all difficulties and confidently moving forward. And this is largely due to the conditions created for the development of startups.

“The startup industry in Uzbekistan is only at the initial stage of formation, but what is surprising is that it is developing by leaps and bounds. Not only strong projects appear, but also a top-quality ecosystem is being formed around startups represented by IT Park, AloqaTech Lab accelerator and funds.”

The guys also have participated in several competitions with their startup.

“We won the Tumaris Tech 2023 startup battle, made it to the semi-finals of the Astana Hub Battle 2023 contest, and became a member of the AloqaTech Lab 2023 accelerator. I believe that this is just the beginning, and there are many other contests and victories ahead of us.”

How do you plan to promote the project?

Now the team is creating an ecosystem where the user has the opportunity to choose a restaurant, reserve a table, pay the bill, leave a tip to the waiter, and for the restaurant to attract customers, gain recognition, and purchase everything necessary for the place.

“We are at the pre-seed stage, in search of investments so to speak. We are looking for smart money in the form of a strategic partner who can benefit from our expertise in restaurant industry (HoReCa) with 68 000 users in the platform.

We use various channels for promotion: from social networks to buzz marketing. 2GIS has already become our partner, and soon, I hope, Google and Yandex will also join.”

The team has no doubts about the success of the startup. The main thing that a project needs for successful development, Taufik believes, is a strong leader and team.

“If a team is led by a competent and strong leader, then the team will succeed. But in any case, even if something doesn’t work out or doesn’t work out right away, there is nothing to worry about. Because the experience gained is also a big plus. I would like to encourage newbies and everyone who is just thinking about it to take the first step, not be afraid to make mistakes. Even if you get rejected, never stop!”

Photo in the preview: Spot.uz