Startup Grind of Isfahan with the presence of the founder and CEO of Tapsi

Startup Grind is an event that is held in many big cities of the world with the aim of getting to know those interested in entrepreneurship and value creation. In this event, in addition to the time devoted to networking and getting to know experts and enthusiasts, a successful entrepreneur is also invited for a question and answer session. Isfahan is one of the few cities in Iran that seriously organizes the Startup Grind event. Fortunately, public and private organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce of this city, are also with the organizing group in advancing the goals.

The 18th Startup Grind event of Isfahan was held with the presence of the founder of Tapsi. This event was hosted by Isfahan Chamber of Commerce and was held in its meeting hall. The conversation expert of this event, Homan Rezvani, was a member of the organizing team of Startup Grind and the founder of the Startup Show website. The presence of the CEO and founder of Tapsi, as one of the biggest startups in the country, was an opportunity for those interested in the field of entrepreneurship to learn more about its challenges.

As usual for all startup-oriented events, at the beginning of the event, the participants networked and got to know people with common interests and expertise. At the time of networking, the participants announced their field of activity or interest to other people by installing tags on their clothes, and if they wanted, they started talking and exchanging ideas with them.

Mead Manshipour is an MBA graduate from France

The discussion session started with a short introduction of Tapsi, the activities carried out and the future perspective of this startup. Next, Milad Manshipour gave a summary of his biography. Manshipour graduated from Tehran University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. For the first few years after graduation, he worked in the oil and gas industry in Iran, and then went to France to continue his master’s degree.

The founder of Tapsi received his master’s degree in MBA from France and worked in this field for about 10 years after graduation in European and American companies. His main activity in these years was management consulting until he returned to Iran two years ago. Regarding his return to Iran, Manshipour states that he negotiated with Hamid Mohini, his friend and current partner, over a period of four years, and both of them were convinced to travel to Iran to establish the company. Hamid Mohini is a PhD graduate in computer engineering from Sharif University of Technology, who has worked in Silicon Valley as a senior software engineer for several years.

Manshipour was a little far from the field of technology during the years he was engaged in management consulting; But in the last two years of his career, he was consulting large companies in the technology department of BCG. During this time, his consulting activities helped large companies to keep pace with the disruptions created by startups and not fail them.

Manshipour mentions in his talks that at first, thinking Business startup He has not been himself; But during the years of activity, he came to the conclusion that by starting a business, he can have a greater impact, especially in the Iranian market. His big decision was to return to Iran, and Manshipour was sure that if he returned to his homeland, he should have his own business.

The founder of Tapsi explains the reason for choosing the field of online taxi finders for his activity because it is a growing and susceptible market. In his view, markets such as online taxis and retail stores all over the world have high growth potential and can become unicorn startups. Regarding the competition with the companies that were present in Iran’s online taxi market before Tapsi, he says that this market has a high potential and they knew at the beginning of the establishment that the market still has capacity for the new online taxi finder company.

All businesses need a proper period of time to achieve profitability

An important point that Menshipour states about the profitability of startups is the time required to reach profitability. In his opinion, all businesses, both traditional and modern, need time to fully mature and start making profits. Of course, according to the founder of Tapsi, they attracted investors quickly and had a faster growth rate. Manshipour believes that the era of the establishment and growth of startups similar to Google and Facebook, which have reached huge growth without special capital, is coming to an end. According to him, the markets have reached a level where their relative maturity requires startups to attract capital at a faster rate and the time for trial and error has decreased. Of course, this time also depends on the type of startup, and startups with fewer competitors have more time for trial and error.

About the early days of the company, the founder of Tapsi points out that the initial investment was from the personal capital of the founders; But their team was looking for investors quickly, despite the desire to attract capital later. Manshipour said his team’s biggest challenges at the start-up were building a unique and scalable technology, as well as Create a team Knows. In his opinion, for a startup that needs to grow quickly and a lot, it should go through these two stages more carefully.

Milad Manshipour considers the technology used in Tepsi to be very professional and advanced. Hamid Mohini is responsible for leading the development team of this technology, and Manshipour believes that their decision to develop the technology from the ground up inside the country was the key to the success of Tapsi technology. One of the unique features of Tepsi in technology is smart pricing according to the origin, destination, traffic and the number of possible trips at the destination.

Startups in Iran have more potential to attract and retain brilliant talents

Regarding the formation of the team, Manshipour believes that there are many creative and talented forces in Iran and startups can use their potential. The challenge of Tapsi in this period is to attract these forces from inside and outside the country and to make them interested in participating in domestic startups, and the perspective of Tapsi’s human resources in hiring these people is to cultivate their talents. Manshipour believes that the existence of start-up companies helps to maintain brilliant talents in the country. About 12 people from the current team of Tapsi have come to Iran and this company after studying abroad, which shows that the talents are interested in working in the country.

Regarding the intense competition with Snap, the founder of TapC sees it as a positive feature for the benefit of both companies. In his opinion, Iran can use the shortcut of technology startup companies for faster growth, and the competition between big startups will increase the speed of this growth. Manshipour denies the rumors published about the close relationship between the founders and the affiliation of both of them to government organizations.

One of the biggest challenges of online taxi finders in Iran is legal problems and complaints from different organizations. Manshipour explains that these activities have wasted a lot of time from him and his team. Of course, Manshipour has taken preventive measures at the beginning of the establishment of Tapsi. In the early days of Tapsi’s establishment, he held meetings with many legislative government agencies and gave explanations about his company’s vision and actions.

Manshipour considers the legal challenges facing startups to be almost natural; Why so Startup are new and unknown creatures in the market and society, and their acceptance requires its own time. However, the legal challenges created for online taxi finders have generally come from traditional competitors, and security officials have no problem with the activities of these startups. Manshipour further explains that online taxi finders have also increased the security of urban passenger transportation. Ultimately, Manshipour and his team’s preparation provided by the initial meetings helped them resolve the legal challenges.

Most of the legal challenges to Snap and Tepsy have been created by non-security entities

Manshipour considers price as one of the competitive levers in the startup market. Of course, he believes that this lever costs a lot and should definitely be used along with other strategies. About his day-to-day challenges as CEO, one-third of them are legislative, one-third Fundraising And one-third knows the management activities inside the company.

At the end of his speech, Manshipour once again points to the high potential of the startup market for developing countries. In addition, he markets such as Food delivery startups And Online taxis also considers it the best type of startup for these countries; Because these startups grow quickly in spaces with low capital and high human power potential.

In response to the audience’s question about the payment of tax by the drivers of online taxi finder services, the founder of Tapsi replied that the tax will not be paid by the drivers and the tax payment is currently the responsibility of the main companies. Regarding investing in other areas, he also points out that the current market considers taxi finders suitable and new investments will only be made if a sufficient study is done on them.