The Story Of Mazzaneh
PART I
It all started with a very real and frustrating problem. At the time, I was working on a startup that provided consumable goods to restaurants and cafes through an online platform. But with the outbreak of COVID and extreme inflation in Iran, continuing that business became extremely draining. Around the same time, the idea for Mazzaneh sparked in my mind, and I decided to fully shift my energy toward it because I believed it had a brighter future.
So, what was the pain point that triggered Mazzaneh?
We had to request and update prices for hundreds of products every single day. Inflation was skyrocketing, and every supplier had different rates. We had to call multiple vendors for each item. It was time-consuming and exhausting.
One day I thought:
“I wish I could just write what I need once, and that request would automatically go out to all the relevant sellers, and they could reply—then I’d just pick the best price!”
That exact sentence became the spark for Mazzaneh. After that, I spent months researching and shaping the direction of the platform. By late 2021, we officially began building it.
At first, I considered turning Mazzaneh into a traditional online store—but I quickly realized that would mean competing with giants like Digikala, Torob, Divar, and others… all with zero funding. That path clearly wouldn’t work.
So I changed course. I studied the weak points of those big platforms and started designing a totally different model that wouldn’t need to compete with them head-on.
One of the biggest pain points was the constant need to update product prices due to inflation. Many sellers were frustrated. I also noticed that many wholesalers avoided going online altogether. Why?
They didn’t want competitors to see their prices.
They didn’t have time to update their listings every day.
At the same time, buyers were also frustrated—because they had to manually check prices before every purchase.
That’s when I asked myself: what if we started the buying process from the buyer’s side?
Let the buyer write exactly what they need (especially in bulk orders, property, or cars), and have the request automatically go to all relevant businesses. Sellers could then reply privately with their offer. No need to publicly list products or prices. No worries about competitors seeing it. Everything is handled through private quotes.
This became the core of what we later called “Mazzaneh Begir.”
But building the app was far from easy. I signed with a development company who promised delivery in four months. Based on that, I scheduled local ads in Shiraz, hired a team, set up an office—everything. But by the fourth month, they hadn’t even finished the backend!
Since the marketing was already booked and the team was on board, I couldn’t afford to pause everything. So I asked them to at least build a registration page so we could launch something and start attracting sellers.
With just that one registration page, our team managed to register over 12,000 businesses in just 4 months by calling sellers, explaining the vision behind Mazzaneh, and getting them excited—without even having a working app!
We pitched Mazzaneh like a shopping mall under construction. Sellers could “reserve their store” early. To keep the public from entering an empty app, we only kept the sign-up page live. Once we had enough sellers, we would open the platform to customers.
Even after we received the first app version, we stuck to this strategy. During that time, we recorded all sales calls. If a seller asked a new or interesting question, our marketing team would flag it. We’d listen to it, understand their concern, and adjust the product or strategy accordingly. Many Mazzaneh features were built from these real conversations.
To improve usability, we created a Figma prototype and invited people of different ages, backgrounds, and tech habits to interact with it. We recorded their sessions, noted their questions, and studied how they used the platform. This helped us fix major UX issues before the real app was even ready.
Two months later, the first full version of the app arrived. But after using it for a while, I realized it wasn’t scalable—and could break under real user pressure. So I quickly assembled a dedicated in-house development team and rebuilt the entire platform from scratch with a stronger infrastructure.
This time, I refused to repeat past mistakes. I didn’t launch any marketing campaigns until I was 100% confident in the product. That decision meant development took over a year, and the app still wasn’t publicly launched.
But once we had a stable product—and had implemented all the features that came out of user feedback and real-world needs—we decided to launch Mazzaneh in a limited rollout, starting only in Shiraz.
In the rest of this story, I’ll share all the ideas, solutions, challenges, and insights that shaped the development of Mazzaneh.
As Mazzaneh started to take shape, we didn’t just stop at solving the initial quoting problem. We dug deeper
We realized that even with all the advancements in digital commerce, a huge number of buyers and sellers still avoid using online platforms—and we wanted to understand why
On the sellers’ side, many small and mid-sized businesses simply don’t enter the digital space because it’s expensive to set up, too technical, or just too time-consuming. They’re worried about things like delivery logistics and providing customer support online.
On the buyers’ side, many people still prefer to shop in person. They want to see and touch the product, check its quality firsthand, get it right away, and talk directly to the seller. That human interaction still matters—a lot.
So instead of forcing people to adapt to technology, we thought:
Why not make the technology adapt to people
That mindset led us to build two complementary tools within Mazzaneh:
Mazzaneh Begir and Mazzaneh Radar
These tools combine the comfort and familiarity of traditional commerce with the intelligence and scalability of modern platforms.
There’s no need for apps, complicated systems, or tech skills—just a smooth, fast, and intuitive way to buy and sell, built around how people actually live and work today.
Key Challenges for Sellers in Engaging with Online Commerce
High setup and maintenance costs for online selling
Creating a website or app, subscribing to e-commerce platforms, running digital ads, platform fees, transaction costs, and product return expenses make online selling financially infeasible for many small businesses
Need for dedicated staff for online operations
Successful online selling requires photographers, graphic designers, content creators, customer support agents, order processing, packaging, shipping, and tracking For small businesses, this is a major burden
Intense competition in the digital space
Major players like Amazon, Temu, Etsy, and others dominate online visibility. Small businesses must spend heavily on ads to attract attention, making it difficult to be seen
Logistical and inventory management issues
Online selling demands tight coordination of stock levels, timely shipping, product returns, and warehousing
many shops lack the infrastructure or resources to handle these complexities
Concerns about cybersecurity and privacy
Small sellers often lack cybersecurity measures. Fear of fraud, chargebacks, data breaches, and legal issues discourage them from participating in online sales
Belief that online sales don’t suit their business type
Some sellers assume their customers only shop in-store or that their products require physical interaction. As a result, they dismiss the idea of selling online
High commission fees to third-party platforms
Many online platforms charge high fees per sale, which eats into the seller’s profit margin
Why Consumers Prefer In-Store Shopping
Desire to physically see and touch the product before buying
Especially for categories like apparel, shoes, furniture, and beauty products. Customers want to feel the fabric, verify the real color and size, and assess quality.
For example, someone might see a shirt worn by a celebrity and want to find something similar but prefers seeing it in person to ensure it’s the right fit
Instant gratification and immediate product access
In-store shopping allows customers to take the product home immediately, which is crucial for urgent needs like outfits for events or immediate appliance replacements
Appreciation for human interaction and in-store consultation
Customers enjoy talking to salespeople, receiving guidance, negotiating prices, and feeling reassured through face-to face interaction
Lack of trust in online descriptions and images
Many have had experiences where online purchases didn’t match expectations, making them more comfortable with in- person shopping
Return and post-sale service hassles online
Returning items bought online is often more complex, time-consuming, and expensive compared to physical store return
Emotional satisfaction and entertainment in physical shopping
Especially Gen Z, who sees shopping as a social or leisure activity, not just a transaction.
Despite being digitally native, they enjoy being in stores, trying things, and experiencing products firsthand.
Here we look at possible solutions to the problems mentioned
?HOW DOES MAZZANEH BEGIR WORKS
With “Get a Quote”, you (the buyer) simply enter the name of the product you’re looking for and send the request Your request will be sent to sellers in the relevant category. If any seller has the product, they will respond with a price. Then you can choose the best price from among the offers and complete your purchase.
How do sellers get notified of a customer's purchase requeST
All sellers related to the user's purchase request within the area specified by the user
will see the purchase request and respond to the customer... In the Mazzaneh, we first send the purchase request to the sellers via notification, and after 3 minutes,if
there are sellers who have not received the notification, we send that request to them via WhatsApp and SMS. And sellers are also able to see the purchase request along with the image of the desired product and its recorded description and respond to the customer or chat.If
the store and seller have an active account in the quote, we will show the buyer a product similar to the request
Automatic Chat
PROBLEM AND SOLUTION
In Mazzaneh you dont need to know every technical information about someting you want to buy…Dont worry and leave it to Mazzaneh Auoto Chat
Since our working method is to first find problems and solve them with new ideas, and in order to maintain our slogan that we always work differently, we started researching people's problems with shopping and sales advertisements and we concluded that one of the problems of buyers is the lack of complete information about the product they intend to buy, and it was mostly about products with technical complexity and legal issues.
. Since in Iran, the most transactions and advertisements are in the field of cars and real estate, so the most sellers should be in these two categories!! So, now what is the problem of sellers with advertisements!? And their problem is answering many calls and talking about advertisements and questions that are 95% repetitive, and many of them are not real customers!! And this makes them tired and then the sellers cannot recognize the real customer and spend time on them..
And it was here that we came to the conclusion that we should include an option in the ads that would act as both a consultant for buyers who do not have accurate information, for example, about the car they want to buy, and a secretary for sellers who would answer customers who ask repetitive questions. And it was here that we added the automatic chat to the ad... By the way, I would like to mention this because this option is one of the first options mentioned,It was created at a time when artificial intelligence like Chat GPT was not yet available to the public.
But in my opinion, to solve the problems of buyers and sellers, new ideas and options were still needed that could solve all the problems I mentioned in the simplest and fastest way possible. This led me to write down all the problems and concerns of buyers and sellers and come up with solutions one by one that would cover each problem.
One of these conclusions was that I should implement an option that It requires as little technical knowledge as possible, does not take time to complete the process, and covers all other problems. The result was that Radar was created after a lot of research and investigation. I can confidently say that it has the fastest and easiest buying and selling process in the world, which, with the policies and techniques used in it, can attract the majority of people and sellers who prefer to buy and sell in person.
After the user registers the request in the application, within a short period of time, Radar collects the product information from all related sellers within the radius specified by the user and asks them if they have the goods or services that the buyer wants or not!?
Even if the buyer is in a large passage, by sending the image of the desired product, he can query all related stores in that passage and check whether they have a similar product or not; This system is very useful for buying items such as clothes, jewelry or any other goods.
Sellers Phone at The Same Time
With Mazzaneh Radar, what might take you a day will be done in just a few minutes!
When a buyer uses Mazzaneh Radar to make a purchase, the phones of all sellers related to his request in that area will start ringing and display the buyer's request. If you are a seller, all you have to do is respond to the request by pressing the "Available" or "Not Available" button.
In this section, after a few minutes, you can see the answers given by the sellers to your request. Sellers who have accepted your request are marked in green and those who have not responded or are out of stock are marked in red. Also, those sellers who have the product in stock can announce the price of their product or provide explanations about it through audio recording.
NUMBER 2
Problem: The seller needs to hire separate staff for content creation, customer support, packaging, and shipping
NUMBER 1
Problem: The store is located on a side street or in a crowded area with low foot traffic
NUMBER 4
Problem: The seller has to hire separate staff for shipping, support, and packaging
NUMBER 3
Problem: The seller doesn't have enough time or expertise for photography, content creation, and online selling
NUMBER 6
Problem: The need for expensive advertising to be seen
NUMBER 5
Problem: Large platforms take a significant percentage of the sales profit as commission
NUMBER 2
Problem: Finding a specific item with precise details, like a particular color or model, is difficult in most online stores
NUMBER 1
Problem: You spend hours Browse different websites, online stores, and social media pages without finding exactly what you need
NUMBER 4
Problem: In a purely online purchase, you can't touch, try on, or check the quality of an item up close
NUMBER 3
Problem: To shop in person, you have to spend hours walking around and visiting different stores in the hopes of finding what you need
Urban congestion and fuel overconsumption remain pressing challenges in major cities around the world. These issues not only waste people’s time but also contribute to air pollution, economic inefficiency, and environmental degradation. One often-overlooked contributor to these problems is the outdated way in which people search for local goods and services—a process that still involves multiple stops, phone calls, and unnecessary movement through the city.
To better understand this problem, our team conducted a real-world simulation in Midtown East, New York City
🚗 A Familiar Urban Challenge in the Heart of New York
Imagine you're looking to rent a three-room office space in Midtown East, a high-density commercial zone. Within a few blocks, there are easily more than 80 real estate offices. If you decide to follow the traditional method—walking in or calling office after office—the challenges quickly emerge:
Significant Time Loss: Navigating busy streets, locating agencies, speaking to multiple brokers, and reviewing listings can take an entire day or more—time that could be far better spent.
Increased Fuel Use and Wear on Vehicles: Driving through traffic, repeatedly stopping, and even short-term double parking all contribute to higher fuel consumption and vehicle fatigue.
Added Congestion and Pollution: When several people in a given area are engaged in this behavior every day, the cumulative effect is an increase in local congestion and air pollution, especially in cities already struggling with both.
💡 The Smarter Alternative: Mazzaneh Radar
In our simulation, instead of physically visiting offices, we simply typed the following into the Mazzaneh Radar app:
"Looking to rent a three-room office in Midtown East with a monthly budget of $5,000."
Within less than 10 minutes, we received multiple relevant responses from local agents active in the area—no travel, no phone calls, and no delays.
HOW ITS WORK
In-App Delivery: Agents who use the app receive the request instantly via push notification and can respond with one tap.
WhatsApp Backup: If an agent does not use the app but has a WhatsApp-verified number, they receive a smart message with a reply option.
Smart Voice Call: If neither the app nor WhatsApp is available, the system initiates an automated voice call. The request is read out loud, and the agent can press:
1 if they have a matching property
2 if they don’t Responses are then sent directly to the buyer in a unified inbox.
This ensures that the user receives input from every potential agent in the area—whether they are digitally connected or not.
🏡 Real Results: No Traffic, No Pollution, No Hassle
Without leaving our desk or making a single call, we accessed options that would typically take hours or even days to find. This not only saved time, but also prevented unnecessary traffic, fuel usage, and mental fatigue.
🛠 Beyond Real Estate: A Socially Scalable Model
The advantages of Mazzaneh Radar extend far beyond property searches. The same technology can be used for:
Finding urgent repair services
Locating in-stock products in nearby stores
Getting same-day offers from local service providers
Anywhere that people typically search, drive, or make calls to inquire—Mazzaneh Radar can streamline and replace friction with precision.
And for broader, nationwide needs, users can rely on Mazzaneh Begir, a parallel platform that enables search and response across all regions. Together, the two systems provide both hyperlocal speed and national coverage.
🌍 Social Transformation Through Smarter Urban Tools
Technologies like Mazzaneh Radar are not just about convenience. They represent a fundamental shift in how urban life can be organized:
Less unnecessary travel
Reduced fuel consumption
Cleaner air
More time for productive activities
Greater access equity across digitally and non-digitally connected businesses
Every time a user replaces a car trip or a cold call with a smart, automated request, the social benefit is immediate and cumulative—making cities more livable, sustainable, and inclusive.