The history of Smartup dates back to 2009. In those days, business matters were mostly settled in chaikhanas (teahouses), data was kept in A4 notebooks, and automation in companies was something you only found in the gearboxes of company cars. Smartup founder Abdukakhkhor Tashmukhamedov shares how the business evolved from facing the skepticism of its first clients to reaching an international level, and why there is still a long journey ahead.
“When I started the business, there was no market to speak of. Entrepreneurs didn’t use software at all, or they would just pick up a cheap $5 alternative from the Yangiobod flea market and casually work with it. Back then, my team and I were looking toward the future. We wanted to systematize business in Uzbekistan by consolidating big data, market insights, sales, and retail point analytics all in one place to make them work together efficiently. We knew that scaling a business was only possible through this approach.
In the beginning, convincing people that they needed our product was incredibly difficult. There were times when I was called a fraud who was trying to upsell something simple and obvious for a high price. International corporations were the first to grasp the value of automation. Mars, Nestlé, and Pepsi became Smartup’s major clients at a time when local businesses hadn’t even considered the question. 2018 became the turning point: structural reforms began in the country, and calculating efficiency became a necessity.
Local entrepreneurs, realizing that growth is impossible without managing data and processes transparently, began following the lead of large corporations and reached out to us. As people began to understand the value, we gained momentum. We started driving the market forward, and we have been doing so for nearly 14 years. Earlier, at the government level, it was estimated that 7% of Uzbekistan’s GDP flows through Smartup’s client systems. This is gratifying, but it also places a massive responsibility on our shoulders.
Looking back, I clearly understand why we began to grow and why Uzbek businesses turned to us: it was driven by high staff turnover and tightening state regulations, such as mandatory product labeling, track-and-trace systems, and cargo monitoring. Furthermore, business standards at the state level and global trends shifted, and we became an integral part of those standards. Such transformations are still ongoing today. The permissive operational regime (vetting system) has been introduced, and cash registers are no longer just money-counting devices, but critical control points. If you, as a business, cannot manage these processes properly, you simply cannot function at an operational level.
Operating at this pace is extremely challenging. I am deeply grateful to my team for constantly upgrading their professional skills and introducing innovations to our product and the market. Currently, we are building a full-fledged ecosystem: sales, warehouse management, finance, trade marketing, integration modules, and other value-added services that will simplify the lives of Uzbek businesses in the future. Put simply, our goal is to keep all the necessary data and metrics at the businessman’s fingertips, right where they need them. This significantly boosts the overall level of operational efficiency.
Another reason why 2,000 businesses have placed their trust in us is the simplicity and speed of deploying our automation solutions. Both past and present, many believe that automation is a painful, drawn-out process that takes months. We, however, have proven in practice that even deep automation can be integrated into a live business much faster, in a standardized and high-quality manner.
That said, we don’t claim our solution is the only one or that it has no alternatives. Our industry and technologies are continuously evolving; any product can be copied, code can be rewritten, and templates can be replicated. A unique selling proposition (USP) at the product level is virtually unattainable in our business model. However, it is precisely our expertise and years of experience that make us the benchmark of quality in Uzbekistan. The fruits of our experience lie in our deep knowledge of sales volumes, logistics routes, retail point behavior, and the efficiency of Uzbek businesses across various categories.
I like to compare Smartup to a locomotive running at 200 km/h, but aiming to accelerate to 400 km/h. We clearly understand that we still have a lot of work to do. Smartup competes with global companies generating over $40 billion in annual revenue. Since our benchmarks are at this level, we are currently raising millions of dollars in investment to develop our team, upgrade our infrastructure, and prepare for scaling.
We have opened an office in Kyrgyzstan, and we will soon launch operations in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The next step will be the Caucasus and Arab markets. By expansion, we don’t just mean geographical growth. New offices and markets are the result, not the goal. Our goal is far more ambitious: to become a full-scale infrastructure that defines how commerce operates—first in Central Asia, and eventually across the globe.”
