So many of the greatest business ideas can be distilled down to the simple question: “Wouldn’t it be useful if we could… ?”
This entrepreneurial lightbulb moment occurred to Ulkar Mammadzada, an Azerbaijan-born, Dubai-based Glion alumna, a few years ago. It was during the Covid pandemic to be precise.
“Like all major commercial and tourism centers, there’s huge competition for consumers’ discretionary spending across Dubai,” she explains. “Restaurants, banks, hotels, clubs… all these kinds of businesses are constantly launching loyalty offers and discounts to attract and retain customers. But unless you are opted in to their mailing lists and loyalty programs you never get to hear about most of what’s on offer.
“It’s not a discount problem or an offer problem; it’s a fragmentation and distribution problem. In the UAE loyalty and offer programs are a multi-billion dollar industry, but I describe it as a ‘spaghetti monster’ because it’s so difficult to navigate.”
The big ‘why’
Dubai fared better than most economies during Covid, thanks to a relatively rapid reopening and strong leadership from the government. All that said, with many workers having subsisted on reduced salaries, Ulkar remembers money being tight and, consequently, an uptick in offers to attract what money there was available.
“I was sitting there wondering why there wasn’t some kind of smartphone app which could bring together all the offers and membership rewards into one easy-to-use platform.”
The potential for this to become one of those genius ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ innovations was obvious; but turning a great idea into a full-blown application is quite another matter, especially as Ulkar admits she had no background in digital tech.
“I didn’t even know how much it would cost to hire a developer or anything really. Although I had good commercial experience from my ‘day job’ in hotel revenue management, this was completely new territory.”
Having reached the stage of sketching out a ‘post-it note’ business plan with friend and fellow Glion alumna Anna Gracheva, Ulkar’s lack of tech experience, accompanied by a return to her full-time job after the lifting of lockdown restrictions, saw the idea relegated to the back burner.
However, Ulkar couldn’t quite shake the concept completely from her mind.
The double life of Ulkar
Several years later, the breakthrough happened. And appropriately enough it was technology that proved the catalyst.
“I discovered Vibe coding, and I was like, ‘wow, I can just build my own app’. I was so excited!” Ulkar says.
Thus began a double life: professional role by day, app building by night. “Every evening I would get home from my job and then through until midnight it’d be research, research, research,” she says. “What are databases? What is hosting? I spent three or four months just researching the entire infrastructure. I built my login screen and I was super excited. But then I tried using it, and it failed miserably!”
Rescue arrived in the form of a cousin who also happens to be a bona fide app developer. What’s more, while fixing Ulkar’s amateur Vibe coding he became so captivated by the idea’s potential he quit his job to work on the project full-time. At the same time, the Glion connection brought a UX (user experience) designer on board, who agreed to work for a low fee so as not to drain this self-funded project’s limited finances.
“By that point, I knew I needed a formal business plan, because with all these people making such an incredible commitment, I owed it to them to get this idea off the ground.”
As a sign of total commitment, Ulkar quit her full-time job earlier this year, in order to focus attention on her startup. She continues to offer consulting services in revenue and asset management, to maintain an income and keep her skills current.
A final geopolitical twist was to come into play, however. As the project’s planned March launch date approached, conflict struck the Middle East region. “All our partner conversations froze and the uncertainty was extreme… a genuinely tough stretch. But it was also when I realized, once again, just like during Covid, that the idea behind the app had become something people needed more than ever.”
Here we DiscGo!
Fast forward a few months and today the project is well and truly off the ground, with the arrival of DiscGo – the first offer aggregation app to be focused on the UAE market.
Within just a week of its soft launch more than 4,000 users had signed up, and that’s with literally zero marketing spend. Already the app is home to more than 150,000 offers from over 20,000 businesses across 34 service providers. And all these numbers are rising daily.
Ulkar describes DiscGo as like a massive billboard, but one with the shopping mall and the highway incorporated into it. This gives a clue as to the ultimate revenue model for the app.
“Advertising will be one of the key revenue streams for us, no doubt,” Ulkar explains. “As our traffic builds, the value to a company of having prominence on our user interface will certainly grow. We also expect to launch affiliate and commission revenue structures, as well as site-specific collaborations.
“And of course, while paying all due respect to user confidentiality, we will also be amassing a vast statistical database on how consumers interact with the UAE commercial space; one that will be extremely useful to brands when planning offers and loyalty activations.”
Learn, improve, repeat
Getting so many users on board so quickly is proving hugely beneficial to Ulkar and her team, not just in terms of market credibility but also as a live learning experience.
“I’m watching how our users interact with the app, which areas are they using most, and of course whether they are experiencing any usability issues along the way. My goal is to make sure that the app experience is the best it can be in terms of functionality, and then I can start to put money into marketing to expand our user base.”
If Ulkar is excited for DiscGo’s prospects, the same can also be said for the local business community. She secured IHG as her first hospitality partner, and this quickly inspired other hotels to join. And though business confidentialities prevent her from naming names, Ulkar revealed that some very exciting partnerships are in the pipeline, too.
“You have to understand that we don’t see this as fintech; this is first and foremost a lifestyle app, a social app. I come from a hospitality background and so I want to make this a community thing that’s about people not just finance. In the coming months we’ll be introducing more functionality around this aspect.”
Ultimately, members of the UAE business community seem likely to experience their own lightbulb moments from being app partners, not least through rationalizing and professionalizing their offer and reward strategies.
“I think we’re going to see companies being much cleverer with their discounting, through the clearer picture they’re going to see on our app,” she adds. “For instance, we have some restaurants which have about 10 different discounts in activation on DiscGo, with multiple providers. There’s so much scope to rationalize those, to become more strategic and less reactive around offers and discounts.”
Whatever happens with DiscGo in the future, one thing it has already cemented in Ulkar’s mind is the power of networking.
“I never realized this until I started building DiscGo, because it was not something I consciously went about doing, but in the 10 years or so I’ve been in Dubai I’ve managed to build this amazing network around me; and when I needed them, these people just showed up and helped me get this project up and running. I don’t actually remember even asking anyone; they just did it. It really proves that the time you invest in others is never wasted.
“I’m so, so grateful to every one of them – friends, acquaintances, family members – and it just goes to show that if we all really believe in something, and with enough motivation, we really can change the world!”
• If you are based in the UAE – or planning to visit – you can find and download DiscGo at Google Play and Apple Store.
• To discover more about the app, connect with Ulkar on LinkedIn or visit the website
