Startup playbooks in emerging markets often start at home. Founders build for local pain points, and then may scale to the point of expanding into markets across borders. Take the boom in neobanks and fintech in Latin America as a perfect illustrative example.
But Ayaz Ahmadov, founder of Dosty, a pet-care superapp launched out of Baku, Azerbaijan, flipped that script entirely.
Instead of solving a uniquely Azerbaijani problem, Ahmadov was compelled to solve a problem close to his own heart: the sea of fractured pet care apps pet owners like himself were tired of navigating. But despite the pet-tech industry thriving in other markets, it hadn’t yet arrived in his backyard.
“We knew pet ownership was rising locally,” he explains, “but the infrastructure and market demand for a digital pet ecosystem wasn’t there yet.”
So Dosty launched into markets like the U.S., UK, EU, and Australia: regions with mature pet industries, active pet parenting, and a clear appetite for tech-enabled services. Today, Dosty has 21,000 users supporting 23,000 pets across nine countries and is just beginning to loop back to Azerbaijan.
Ahmadov’s unconventional route stands in contrast to global startup norms. In emerging markets, local-first approaches are common — partly because founders know their environment intimately, and partly because global funding often favors locally grounded solutions. In Azerbaijan, for example, ICT and Govtech are rapidly growing sectors due to the larger push away from an economy built on oil and toward a greener, digital economy.
But Ayaz saw a different kind of leverage: building in a space that was globally validated, even if it was locally premature.
That choice came with tradeoffs. Launching into mature, competitive markets meant Dosty needed to prove product quality fast and with limited funding. Additionally, Ahmadov knew local regulatory gaps would slow him down. “Going international first helped us skip local friction,” he says.
Now, as Azerbaijan’s startup infrastructure matures, Dosty is better positioned to enter its home market with proven traction, global UX standards, and a bold vision for both B2B and government partnerships.
For founders in emerging markets, Ahmadov’s approach offers a compelling alternative: don’t just build where you are, build where the market is. Then bring it back home when the timing is right.
Transcript:
Brittany Evansen
Okay, hello. I am Brittany Evansen, back again with the Beyond the Bubble podcast, which shares the stories of underdog entrepreneurs and innovators who are forging their own paths in emerging European markets and beyond. Today, we’re going to be chatting with Ayaz Ahmadov, who is a founder and CEO of Dosty, the AI powered Super App helping pet owners navigate ongoing and emergency care with tailored expert insights. Ayaz is based in Baku. Azerbaijan, where he is a key member of the emerging tech ecosystem. And prior, prior, excuse me, to diving into the world of pet tech Ayaz spent 15 years as a strategic marketing executive in cybersecurity and sports marketing. So welcome to the show Ayaz thank you for joining us today.
Ayaz Ahmadov
Thank you very much.
Brittany Evansen
Yes, of course. Let’s start off talking about Dosty, your latest venture. Could you tell us a bit about it? What inspired you to leave sports marketing and go to pet tech, which is quite a dramatic shift. Tell us more.
Ayaz Ahmadov
Yeah, cool. Thank you very much. Once again. Congratulations on this great initiative. I wish you all the success with your new beginnings. Yeah, prior, as you mentioned it, right? I’m, I’m kind of new to pet tech, meaning that I spent in pet tech only my last three years of my professional career, and two of those years we’ve been around global markets with Dosty.
Previously to that, I owned the biggest sport marketing agency in the region, and we did a lot of major sport events, including those with UFA and FIFA and Formula One and stuff like that. The main shift was the attachment to the emotional marketing that I have experienced in sports. As you know, sport is very emotional domain and and obviously it’s irrational, right? Whatever you fans, you can’t really control that, and you can’t really explain that in a rational language.
And it happened to be that I’m crazy about pets. I myself, I’m a dog owner: have three dogs, and that’s another very emotional domain, obviously, the dog ownership. So once the pandemic hits, now I started navigating throughout a lot of different applications, a lot of different solutions that were popping up as mushrooms during the pandemic period. Obviously, the 61% of all the pet Tech was born during the pandemic.
And I noticed that there is a big gap, because being a pet owner, obviously, there’s like 1 billion pet owners all over the world, and we all have very different needs, but the one thing that keeps us all in common, in the same in the same boat, basically, is the emotion that connects us to to our favorite pets, to our beloved pets. And considering that, you have to understand that a lot of solutions that exist in the pet space they they are not there to satisfy that emotional urge to take a better care of your pet.
The majority of those applications, I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are hundreds of great solutions, and I used many of those. I tested many of those, and they’re really great, but, but many of them are there to fix the current little inconvenience that is being caused, be the training or be the connection with the vet, or being something else. But once that is established, once that is done, once you train your dog or you connect it to a vet, the app doesn’t carry any purpose, right? And then you don’t have any kind of connection with it. And in order to support the lifestyle of your pet, you need to have several of those apps on your phone, which is very inconvenient for a user, because we, yeah, nowadays it’s all about time and it’s all about convenience.
I’m a parent myself as well. In parallel, I have three kids and I have three dogs, so there is no way I can have like 15 apps to support my lifestyle right? So we decided, we decided to, what we decided to do is we research the market a little bit, and we realized that there are no solutions, or there are very, very few solutions that actually combine various avenues of pet care in one seamless experience. Because, as I said, the digital pet care is not something you use on a daily and creating a niche within a niche, that means that you know, you don’t want to have a solution that is used only once half a year or once every four months.
So we decided to create combine those various avenues of pet care in one seamless experience that aggregates all the data from the user, compares it to the breed standards, to all the known breed standards in dogs and cats, and provides you with the with the guidance, basically with the next steps, creates more awareness in what you are doing. Now, I’m a strong believer in the philosophy that if you have a problem and you can solve it with an application, that means you didn’t really have a problem to begin with, right? So yeah, and that is true. I mean, all the major problems that we have, they they cannot be solved with an app, right? And if we look at it, all the apps and all the digital infrastructure in general is created to support our convenience. So that’s what we decided to do in Dosty that’s that’s like, our main point is to support the convenience of the pet parents, like we want to make them more aware. We don’t duplicate vets. We don’t replace vets. We don’t replace trainers. What we do is, once you reach a point where you have to take your pet to the vet, for example, you are aware of what is going on, and you save your vet a time, and you save yourself a time in researching what is happening and what you’ve been told. So, so that’s our main idea, to make pet parents more aware.
Brittany Evansen
And so for people who have never seen the app, I mean, I’ve seen the app, but briefly, what, what sort of features does the app have? What is the, kind of, the daily use look like for users?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Yeah. So if I may, I will start with a problem. So once we created the app itself, once we put all of those features in one place, like from from weight tracker to food tracker, from the symptom checker to our library, the content library that featured, at that point, that featured about 1000s of articles, verified articles, we realized that our app is very static. Like you – every day you enter the app and you see the same things, and they don’t change unless you provoke an interaction. And considering the fact that a lot of pet parents, those are the new pet parents, those who need an assistant, those are new pet parents, the puppy or the kitten owners, or those people are the or or the owners of the aged animal, which is pretty much the same to me, because that’s everything starts from new for you once your animal has aged. And then those people sometimes they don’t know what they’re looking for, right? So they need some sort of a proactive advice. So Dosty was very reactive.
We switched it, we flipped it, and now the new Dosty is very proactive. So once you enter the app, you get daily insights, personalized daily insights across 10 main categories, from healthcare to mythbusters. Then you have another feature that I’m very proud of, the community feature, where you can ask a question from the fellow pet owners all over the world. So and those pet owners who have the same breed as you will be able to respond, and that’s very important feature to me, because we as pet parents, we we value, we cherish that fact of the community belonging here. We love, we love those joint pet walks, the pet parks. We enjoy the conversation with our friends about the pets. I mean, despite the fact who you are, you can be the big bank owner and I can be a student, but if we both have a pet, we can talk for hours. We have we have that common ground. So So we provided that opportunity for people. We provided the opportunity for people to interact.
Then we have our Dosty assistant, which is basically providing the personalized guidance across any kind of domain you need, like you can ask assistant anything from nutrition to healthcare, and you will get the personalized advice. Then our content library, which can increase to about 4000 verified articles across, again, all the domains, from medications to nutrition, and all those articles are verified. Then we have created the media library, the video tutorials that are taught by the professionals of their fields, from training to grooming. And then we have the smaller widgets, like food tracker, like weight tracker, the finance tracker, the pet profile that actually aggregates all your engagements with Dosty.
And in the future that pet profile will be the link between our B to C and B to B, then that that I’m going to come back to that later. So yeah, we have an array of very useful functions, and I’m very proud of the fact that those functions, some of them, are very proactive, and every day you enter the app, you see something new. Obviously, we still have a long way to go. We’ve been around for a year, and like several months, and more users will have at the moment will stand at the threshold of 21,000 users from all over the world. And more users will have more will learn more data. We aggregate more profiles, we create more things we understand, obviously, and the better devices Dosty will provide eventually. So yeah, that’s, that’s in a nutshell what Dosty is.
Brittany Evansen
It’s interesting that you mentioned this community aspect, right? Because one thought I had was it’s also good for the dogs, right? Or cats and pets and a lot of pets, maybe not all pets, but many pets also want community. So getting able to kind of connect with other people who have similar pets, similar breeds, is also healthy for the pets themselves, but also thinking through this idea of community, because that’s what we were going to talk about today, about like, building a startup in an emerging market where community is so important, because it’s much harder to find right? If you’re not building inside of a major tech hub, you really have to seek out community.
And so one thing I’d love to talk about is, if you could give us a bit of a background on just where the tech scene is right now, in Baku, I know that there’s been, like, a lot of government initiatives that have been aimed at, you know, this really, really strong push to turn the city into a major tech hub. So what is your personal experience been of those changes from when you know you launched a prior venture, Digitalks, to now these most recent experiences with with Dosty.
Ayaz Ahmadov
Oh, that’s a great question, and I’ve been witnessing that firsthand from the inside, as you said, because, like from 2019 I own the big agency that was called the Digitalks, and we were working on establishing a strategic infrastructure, like from the public Wi Fi networks to the people meters on the websites, and creating a single user profile so better understanding of what people do and then how we can guide them properly throughout the digital space.
Baku is evolving, just like the whole country, just like Azerbaijan, we’re evolving from year to year. And right now, you see those great smart cities, digital Smart City initiatives being realized, and Baku is being major connectivity hub between East and West. Like we get a lot of those digital I don’t know how you call them, but those digital internet rails going through the country from Western market to the Eastern Market and back and forth.
There is a huge uprising in the startups that are being built. And those startups are being built across very different industries, like if previously it was mainly FinTech stuff, because that’s the obvious solution that everybody needs immediately. Now you have everything that supports you, like platform deliveries to do the restaurants who have their own app, smart apps that remember and memorize users.
But you still have to understand that, despite the fact, as you rightly mentioned, that government creates those opportunities, right? We still kind of, I wouldn’t call it far away, but we still have a way to go, and we still have, like, government creates the opportunities, but we as startups and we as the business owners in the digital space will have to live up to those expectations as well. I mean, there are a lot of countries in the world, if you take, for example, Middle East, there’s a lot of countries in the world who adopted the strategy of bringing the Western talent, the Western giants, into the region and establishing the infrastructures.
We in Azerbaijan, we kind of have a mix of that, like, like, on one hand, you see our Minister of Digital Development Development meeting Elon Musk and discussing the possibility of launching Starlink, which I think already launched in Azerbaijan. But on the other side, you see a lot of digital hubs, like Sabah hub, Bucha technology hub, the hubs that are being developed, the venture funds that are being developed locally, to up raise the local ecosystem. Again, as I said, we’re not Silicon Valley yet but, but we have that urge to prove right, and the fact that there is a lot of cases that been all over the world already are established. So we do have the playbooks to learn from. And I think that’s that’s the position of advantage, because we already can see the mistakes that people were making previously, both both government wise, like our government can see those mistakes and the startups can do. But again, that’s you mentioned that the community. It’s all about the community, creating the joint program, the joint ways to work, and I’ll bring the local infrastructure. We are much better than we were like five years ago, but, but we still have a have a way to go. We have, we still have a long way to go.
Brittany Evansen
So what are some of the I’m sorry, what have some of the challenges been trying to build a startup in, you know, in the last year since you’ve launched Dosty in this kind of middle ground, right, where you’ve come a long way, but you still have a long way to go?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Oh, the legislation is one of those, obviously, because we have to realize that for startups to exist, it’s not only about the technological opportunities that are being created. That’s basically several ministries, they have to come together – starting from Ministry of Economy to Ministry of taxes to Ministry of Digital Governance – they all have to come together to create the proper environment for startups to grow. That includes the tax exemptions, that includes the startup certificates that they recognize you as a startup. Therefore you get this and that benefit. Yes, that includes the easier and less bureaucratic ways to market, like, where you have to launch it.
So, I mean, you can’t go the old school way where you have to register a company. Wait, get your like, tax registration ID and blah, blah, blah, so maybe there has to be some sort of a simplified procedure, if you recognize as a startup, or you can create and then launch to market right? Like, maybe you have to be exempt from getting some of the licenses because you because of the nature of your business.
So those things that still have to be created, like, if you take the digital governance, like the digital government, we are very sophisticated in terms of that, like the digital citizen ID and like the connected infrastructures, like governmental infrastructures that’s in place, like those things are rolling right? But if you take the startups, the commercial startups, like those, the classical startup for us, it’s a bit tougher, right? Because this market is still fragmented, because those ministries, they kind of didn’t come together to create that environment, and I do understand why, because the first priority was to create that digital government, and then obviously, once that is created, we will go down and support the startups. And I know that there are a couple of things are already rolling and then some of the laws that being discussed right now that will eventually simplify creation of a startup in Azerbaijan.
But yeah, I would, I would name legislation one of the toughest obstacles that is out of our hands as a startup, because everything else is in our hands, right? Like, time to market, the community, finding product market fit, that is something that’s in our hand, right? If I’m as a product, if I’m as a founder, created a startup that is not needed in a country – that’s not the mistake of a country, that’s my mistake, because the idea, right? And that’s the reason why I took Dosty abroad, like, the reason I didn’t start, the reason I didn’t look for the product market fit for those inside Azerbaijan was the reason that the market, the pet market, is not that sophisticated, right? You don’t have a lot of pet owners that will adopt a digital app for their pet care. Because we realized we came to a modern pet care just recently ourselves, like right now in Azerbaijan, you see more and more pet owners. You see more and more pets that are being treated as proper members of the family. Because back in the days, it used to be like, Yeah, I do have a dog. It’s somewhere around my summer house out there, and I will pet a couple of times a year, once I see it right.
But today, you see the dynamic shifts, like pets living in homes, people. You see all these vet clinics and grooming salons opening like one after another, just around the corner from each other, and that means that there is a demand for that, right? And, yeah, and, but we already have an experience. We have an experience of the global market. Like I proved my product globally. Now when it comes to B to B, that I want to do next, like, I want to create the one infrastructure between B to C and B to B for B to B, I will concentrate in Azerbaijan, like I will be creating that connectivity between B to C and B to be locally, prove the case here, and then scale it to the world.
Brittany Evansen
Got it, so, because you started in international markets, right, which is kind of the opposite of what so many startup founders do, right? Usually it’s kind of like: start local, and then eventually you go international.
How did you navigate, like, different cultural differences, or, like, the way that you know, obviously pets are because they’re this like kind of family member. Cultural differences make such a big part of how people go care for and consider their pets. How did you navigate those, like, different cultures, markets, etc, as you launched in different countries, because you’re in in many, many countries now, right?
Ayaz Ahmadov
We like, if you take our user base, 21,000 we are very strong across nine countries, specifically like United States, UK, Australia and several EU countries. And now we are launching a Latin America once the app is already translated in Spanish. So we were kind of spreading ourselves to Latin America as well, coming to cultural differences.
I mean honestly speaking, between us, I would say two, but between us, everybody who watching this podcast, and everyone, everyone else. I mean honestly speaking, at the end of the day, Labrador is a Labrador. Like, I have three Labradors, and Labrador in Baku is just the same as Labrador in Houston, Texas, right? That’s the same. And the way we treat our dogs, the way the emotions that we have towards our dogs, and the problems we experience with our pets, they are not connected to cultural background, yeah?
Like I have three kids, and raising my child in Baku would be very different from from raising my child in Amsterdam or in Hong Kong, for example, because you do have that cultural differences: religion and, you know, society, all of those things that play a big role in raising a child, whereas a dog is a dog, right?
And the problems we experience with dogs are the same, and the way we approach those problems, they also the same. But in United States, for example, you do have more sophisticated ways to solve that problem, whereas in Azerbaijan, you may have only vet whereas in America you may have, for some sort of a problem, you may have in-home diagnostic tools that will help you to identify that problem and then solve that problem in Azerbaijan. We don’t have those yet, right, but, but vet is a vet, dog is a dog, and then the problems that those have is the pretty much the same.
Brittany Evansen
I really love that answer – that was, I’ve never really considered that, that, you know, those cultural differences don’t apply to pets and animals, because, yeah, they kind of are these equalizers in in the emotion, like you said, like you said, like just the love that people have for their pets, but also, like their treatment is very specific, and what their needs are very specific.
Ayaz Ahmadov
I’m very sorry for interrupting but, but that exact thing comes from sport. Like we’ve been doing a lot of football projects all over the world, including euros 2016 and 2020, and if you take a football fan – football fan is a football fan, right? Like you, we as football fans. Once we go to the to the arena, we all experience the same kind of emotions, right? Like that. Those emotions are the same, and at that very moment, during those 90 minutes, that is the the unified thing that connects all of us together, and that’s the language, the common language that we understand.
So the same thing, it’s like talking to a religious person, right? Despite, despite the religion. If I know the fact that you are a religious person, and hypothetically speaking, you’re 25 for example, and then there is a another person who is 18, he’s also very religious. And you guys are on the same religion. For me, it’s enough to know that you guys are both religious, because there are fundamental factors that influence your decision if you are in religion.
So parenting, it’s like the same thing, like, if I’m a pet parent, I live in Azerbaijan, and there is a pet parent who lives in Mexico. We are influenced and moved by the same set of emotions. So that’s the same language, same problem, same inconveniences that we all have, right? And that’s like a unificator. So for us in Dosty, we try to kind of speak that language.
Brittany Evansen
And who have you found to be more emotional football fans or pet parents?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Oh my God, that’s, I mean, if you take about the emotion at very specific moment football fans – it’s like a sprint and a marathon – for the pet parenting, this is a marathon, right? Like, that’s the long run. That emotion is spread.
For the football fans, that’s during those 90 minutes, and maybe prior to the game and after the game, that’s very irrational movements you do very irrational things. But then the next day, once the football match is gone, you kind of settle down, and then, you know, you go on and no, no – like, I used to watch football every day. Now I’m, I’m sick of football. I can’t watch it anymore because I’ve been working with football so much like, I don’t really want to watch it. I don’t even watch the games of my favorite team. So, yeah, that’s the thing. But pet parenting I can’t abandon, yeah, that’s, that’s something that stuck for me for life.
Brittany Evansen
I mean, a different kind of love, right? They can love you back.
Ayaz Ahmadov
Football doesn’t.
Brittany Evansen
So when it comes to launching in these other markets, how have you found the most success in reaching new users and getting new folks to join the app?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Yeah, the more sophisticated market is easier it is to reach a user. Obviously, the let’s say United States, that’s the most sophisticated market for any pet tech. And then not only pet tech, but United States, the users are very sophisticated. Obviously, they have a lot of choice of many different apps. That makes it tougher.
But it also there is an opportunity there, because you you already have an experience with apps in your pet parenting, right? So for me, via many different advertisement tools and very many different platforms, all it takes is a hook for me to hook you up and show you Dosty for you to try it at least.
So once you are already inside the app, that’s where the user experience, and then, you know, and then the design, the whole user flow, that’s, that’s when the whole stuff kicks in. So my job is to kind of get you into the shop, which is the application, and then kind of make sure that you come back and stay there for a while. And the more sophisticated market is easier. It is actually to get a user because in the market that are not so sophisticated, you have to explain why to use an app in the first place?
Brittany Evansen
Sure, yeah. And I can see, I mean, with a more sophisticated marketing, I’m just thinking about my own hesitance anytime I’m like, “oh, this sounds interesting” and then I have to download a new app. It’s really like – do I really want to download a new app? It really has to catch my attention and feel like it’s valuable to go through those steps, right? Because it is like, such a flooded market, and it’s so easy to be like, ugh never mind.
Ayaz Ahmadov
But you consider download, right? In Azerbaijan, you have to explain, why would you download it? Like, would you say, man, I’ve been, I’ve been a pet parent for years. For example, somebody may say that I’ve been a pet parent for years, and I did fine without an app, why would I have an app now? What’s new thing are you gonna bring like, you know? And then you have to explain that stuff.
Brittany Evansen
So kind of going back to this idea of being in an emerging market and not a main tech hub, as far as like the global scene, there is an advantage, right, to being a big fish in a small pond, right?
And you’ve had particularly direct access to people with real power that can enact change. So through your work with Dosty, you’ve actually recently been connected with some government initiatives around animal welfare. Can you speak a little bit about that?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Yes, of course, I would like to make a little addition to what you said. (Sure). It’s great to be a big fish in a small pond, as long as that pond is connected to the ocean, right? Because when you can just swim away, make your rounds, and then come back, and then, know that you can swim, swim away again.
There are two main advantages. Advantage number one is that when the market is growing and you are there as well, and you kind of grow together. So there are many interaction points that are being laid at the foundations, right, like when the market is out here and you are out here, so you kind of catch up with the market, which is still growing, and then you catch up and then that’s growing.
So it’s very – it’s harder to find those fundamental points of interactions, whereas in Azerbaijan, and coming back to that B to B conversation that we’re planning to do right now, we’re planning to create basically a system where we connect B to C to B to B, make sure that that’s engaged with each other. And then there is a possibility that we take it out to B to G, creating a national pet identity, digital beta that a single national pet identity.
So it’s easier to do right now, because the markets are growing. The app is here and in the market is catching up. So now it’s easier for us to find partners and B to B and kind of make it work, and then once it works, to propose it to the government. Because in terms of national pet identity, we’re also nowhere – like. it’s also going to be growing, right?
In terms of the connections as well. And then Eastern markets in general, not only Azerbaijan, the Eastern markets in general, they are built on the connections like here. Relationship within the community is very important, and it’s very important to know each other, right? Like we all we’ve been raised like that, the big families. Everybody knows each other. You know, people go to school together, then then keep on carrying on with each other, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So obviously, in terms of connections, when you build business to business relationship, it’s very important, and it’s easy for us to do.
And coming back to the national government initiatives, we are planning to announce the whole B to B infrastructure in Azerbaijan by changing the law, the animal cruelty law that currently exists, and basically it stands at something like $300 right? You can be cruel. I mean, once you cruel to the animal, you get penalty. But that’s penalty is $300 which is not that much, right? And unfortunately, we still do cases. Do have cases of, you know, animal cruelty, obviously, that’s less and less compared to previous years. Seriously, that’s like comparing water to the sky.
But, yeah, but, but. But they still exist, and we want to eradicate them all by increasing the penalty, by launching the social campaign and announcing the and hoping that the parliament will consider it and announce the change in the law. So basically, that’s the idea, in a nutshell, that will be supported by the big national wide campaign, very positive and very flashy.
And then on the back of that, we were planning to announce the whole ecosystem, like B to C, B to B integrated, and creation of the single pet profile. Maybe not on the government level yet, but at least on the B to C and B to B level – yeah we plan to do that over the summer, right? And once one, yeah, once we will have that, once we create that, we will know that we can move forward from there.
Brittany Evansen
That’s very exciting. That’s very cool. Speaking about, you know, kind of being in a smaller community, so that you just know everyone, and kind of being in a culture where it’s like, encouraged, right, that like people are all just like this larger family – something that I’ve noticed about you and our work together is that you have such enthusiasm for, like, the community of startups, and you are very quick to champion other startups and other founders, even those who, you know, would be considered a competitor, right, who are doing something very similar.
So do you think that that that enthusiasm and kind of championing others is based on this culture or like, where do you think that comes from? What’s your philosophy when it comes to kind of your openness to collaborate with others and seek partnerships?
Ayaz Ahmadov
I don’t know if that’s the right word in English, but, but I am a kind of idealistic person. I do believe in humanity, and like, I really do, and I want my kids to be to live in a better world. And then when you, when you look at the world, right now, it’s all about the competition. It’s all about wars. It’s all about, like, dividing something. And, you know, we, sometimes we don’t even know what we’re dividing, right? Like, what we’re fighting about, like, why are we having this?
And when you, when you bring it down to the founder level, we, I love the competition, man, I come from the sport background. That’s, that’s for me. I love the competition. I was arranging those competition. I was creating those links and but let’s compete on the market, right that let’s leave the competition out there and let let the users decide who is better.
Why would I compete? Why? Why would I not want to work with you as a person? Why would I not want to create something bigger and better with you as a person. The reason for me to create a super app in the first place was to create a place where I could connect all the great products, startups, apps, whatever that are happening in the pet space, to create to connect them in one single ecosystem, like where the user, when he enters that ecosystem, he has everything under one fingerprint.
Like, do you want to have an insurance? Yes, I do. Like, if you live in Spain, connect to Barkibu man, buy it. Like, right now, why would me, as I asked, go to the insurance market and create a new insurance, if I can just get the best one, add it to my app and we can both benefit from that? Like, yeah, right. Like, if you you create a pet food. Like, why? Why would I compete with you? Or why would I hate you for that? Like, if you, if you outsmart me in the competition?
Like, recently, we had that competition, right? Like, Buddy Bites, Buddy Bites, I think that’s an amazing idea, man. I love the product, and I love the philosophy behind the product. Like, why would I, why would I hate on that founder? He does a great thing. He does great stuff like what? Not me going into the Asian market, getting my traction, and then calling him up and saying, Look, man, I already have 20,000 users in Asia, in all the markets that you need. Let me push your product through my app. Sure. Let my users be able to order your food, because that’s convenience for my user at the end of the day, right?
Yeah. You take Scooch, for example, like one of the most direct competitors that we have, they also building, like, a super app, maybe a bit different, because they’ve been more like in the in the vet and healthcare space, but, but again, they those guys have great experience, and we can learn from that experience, like 1.5 billion pet owners all over the world. I mean, I’m not going to cover them all like that’s, that’s, that’s the reality of things, right? And then, but, but together, I think we’re stronger, and we can create a better proposition, that that’s where I come from.
Brittany Evansen
I love that philosophy. I’m very much on board with that. So are there specific partnerships that you’re currently seeking? Is there maybe can be do a call to action, if anyone’s listening, that they would be interested in partnering with you. Who are you looking to partner with?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Yeah, 100% right now we really want to test our B to C, B to B kind of connection. And then we looking for vet clinics, we’re looking for groomers, we’re looking for shelters or to pet services that but, but, but not for now, not the individuals that provide those services, but, but the businesses that provide those services to establish those connections, to see how it works, to see if we can make user run through that pipeline, and then they become exchange. So yeah, those – anybody that we can accommodate in our – especially if you are in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or EU – we would love to partner, any kind of business. Insurance, obviously, is the Holy Grail – but you know that’s, that’s a bit harder with insurance guys. I mean, they, they have their own playbook they live by, they will need to understand that they need to be, they need to change it a little bit.
Brittany Evansen
We can only hope. If you had one piece, if you had one piece of advice to give to founders that are building outside of major tech hubs, what do you think it would be?
Ayaz Ahmadov
Don’t stop no matter how many times you hear, you hear “no.” You know, I heard several major no’s in my life.
Like, the first time when I was creating a sport marketing agency in Azerbaijan, everybody was laughing. Everybody was like, No, why would you create a sport marketing agency? Like, you turned up a job in Manchester United to create a sport marketing agency in Azerbaijan – like, why would you do that? And like the sport is, I mean, individual sport exists, but team sport, we’re not that good. So and then marketing was just being born as marketing, understanding of modern marketing, what you have, so connecting those two non-existing together and creating a sport marketing agency? Don’t do that. You’re not gonna be successful.
Fast forward, like, nine years, and we are like, major vendor for the biggest sport organizations, the global organizations worldwide. We work on major projects that are happening inside the country.
Same thing was with Dosty. When I was creating Dosty, everybody was like, man, why would you do that? Why would you go, why would you drop everything you build already, and why would you jump to build a startup in pet space, in a country where the pet care is not on that level yet? And then you will be in Azerbaijan and reach out to United States and like Canada and United Kingdom, all those countries – man, like you crazy, don’t do that.
Like that was many major no’s, but, but I still did it like, so if you really believe in idea, but not just believe in the idea, if you really understand the point A and point B – and that little route in between them, you will never see it clearly – but at least if you have a blurry vision, go ahead and do that, right, you will never have 100% clear vision. That’s that never happens. The clear vision you have it once you exited the business, that’s it – when the business that that’s when the vision is clear because you already know the whole route, but don’t wait for the clear vision. If you have a blurred line in front of your eyes, but you do have those points, go ahead for like, that’s 100% build. That would be my advice.
Brittany Evansen
Well, I think that’s excellent advice. I feel like I will take that to heart even in my own ventures as a creative and I think it’s important to remember, so Ayaz thank you so much. This was a lovely conversation, and I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing more about your journey and Dosty, and obviously, really excited to see where the future takes you.
Ayaz Ahmadov
Thank you very much, Brittany, I appreciate that it’s always nice talking to you. Nice.
Brittany Evansen
Have a great rest of your day. Bye. Bye.