Dental clinics spend considerable time sourcing equipment and supplies. Even with a limited number of suppliers in Kazakhstan, clinics still face long waits due to calls, consultations, order processing, delivery, and paperwork. zoob.kz founders sought to change this by creating a dental marketplace where ordering supplies takes only a few clicks. Co-founder Madi Agatayev shared with Er10.media how zoob.kz aims to cut business costs, streamline logistics and documentation, and help eliminate counterfeit and unsafe products from the market.
Follow Kazakhstan’s Startup Movement in the "100 Startup Stories of Kazakhstan", a collaborative project by ER10 Media and Astana Hub. This initiative highlights the most innovative Kazakh startups, showcasing projects that stand out for their creativity and impact. Among the heroes are Astana Hub residents, as well as creators of other innovative technological products and services. The content is available in Kazakh, Russian, and English.
Entrepreneurial Drive
– Madi, how did you get into business?
– Honestly, I became an entrepreneur about a year ago. For most of my adult life, I was an employee, working 10 years in healthcare and 7 years specifically in dentistry. I worked for a South Korean company that supplied dental equipment.
In 2023, I took a career break to explore business ideas, and by November 2023, I teamed up with my partners to create zoob.kz.
– How did you come up with the idea for the startup? After 10 years in a corporate job, there must have been a strong reason to turn to entrepreneurship.
– I understand the dental equipment and supplies procurement process inside out. I’ve seen the challenges and pains clinics face and developed ideas to simplify and speed up interactions between clinics and suppliers. After extensive discussions with co-founders, we knew our marketplace could address these issues. With a shared vision, we began developing the software for zoob.kz.
– Who are your co-founders? Are they your friends or coworkers?
– I partnered with my classmate, Erkin Tokmagambetov, and Erkin Dlimbetov, founder and chairman of Ordamed, who also became an investor in our project.
– Had you known Erkin Dlimbetov previously?
– No, we hadn’t met before. After I left my job, my friend and I started developing the startup concept, and I reached out to Erkin to present him with the project. We stayed in touch, discussing it for several months, and eventually decided to move forward together to build the marketplace.
– How are you finding your new role as an entrepreneur? Do you enjoy being an entrepreneur?
– I enjoy it. After 10 years in a corporate structure, where you’re bound by company policies and hierarchies, I feel liberated. Now, when I have an idea, I can bring it to life with my partners. Corporate decisions often take weeks; now, I have the freedom and excitement to move quickly, even if there’s less stability.
Amazon for Dental Clinics
– So let’s get into the startup’s purpose—what’s the idea behind zoob.kz, and what market challenges does it solve?
– zoob.kz aims to bring every supplier of dental equipment, specialized medical products, and consumables together in one place.
– Is there really that much demand for this?
– In general, the number of suppliers for dental clinics in Kazakhstan is fairly limited, with around 100-150 companies operating in the market. This is a far cry from the number of suppliers in the consumer goods and electronics markets. The dental industry is tight-knit, where everyone knows each other, and long-standing partnerships are well established. However, several critical challenges persist, the main one being the inability to quickly purchase all necessary items in one place. Here’s a typical purchasing process for, say, a small dental clinic: A procurement specialist reviews supplier websites, calls them, and requests price lists. They then compare prices, select products, confirm availability, place orders, and make payments. Afterward, each supplier organizes separate deliveries, and all documents need to be processed and reports submitted.
In a large clinic, this procedure can take several days. While a small dental office spends less time on procurement, the responsible staff member still faces a lengthy and inconvenient journey from product search to final delivery.
– How will you help market participants?
– Our idea is to bring all suppliers together in one place. Procurement specialists will be able to access our marketplace, select products, check stock availability, quickly compare prices, receive volume discounts, and make purchases. This way, customers will have a single point of contact for managing documents and payments. Additionally, we are working on implementing digital signatures to eliminate paperwork and avoid common issues with unsigned or lost documents, which often lead to complications with tax authorities.
zoob.kz is like Amazon or Wildberries for the dental market. We streamline the procurement process, saving time and money for all participants.
The Path to Scaling Up
– What are your immediate plans for the startup’s growth?
– Over the next year, we plan to expand rapidly in Kazakhstan. Our goal is to attract all suppliers of dental goods and equipment. We have already onboarded some of the industry's leading suppliers: Astra Dent, Luch, Helium, Medicom, Delta Farm, and Proteco Asia. This list will continue to grow.
We also plan to implement features like digital signatures, our own delivery service, and the ability to fully outsource operational management to the platform.
Beyond that, we aim to enter the markets of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and may consider exploring opportunities in Russia to evaluate its potential.
– Does the startup need investment?
– We’ve grown through bootstrapping so far and haven’t yet attracted outside investors. However, we are open to considering interesting offers starting at $200,000.
– How do you plan to monetize the marketplace?
– We only charge a platform commission on sales. Creating an account and listing products are entirely free. Under this model, the supplier receives orders through the platform but handles product preparation and shipment independently. Documentation flows through us, but it's created by both the customer and supplier.
We are also exploring an additional monetization model, where we take on all services ourselves. This means the supplier’s task would be solely to prepare the product and hand it over to our courier. We would handle everything else—delivery, payment collection, and providing all necessary documentation.
– What stage is the startup currently at? How would you evaluate it?
– I would describe it as the final MVP stage. Almost everything is ready; our hypotheses are validated, and the primary partners are onboard. We just need to finalize the product, and then we can launch a full-scale marketing campaign.
We’re preliminarily aiming to launch on February 9th—International Dentist’s Day. It will feature a strong advertising campaign, a major sale, and attractive promotions. Think of it as a kind of Black Friday, but for dentists.
– Have you considered integrating dental services into the platform?
– We believe in a gradual approach. This idea is under review, but we need to launch our core services first.
– Tell us, was it difficult to bring the startup to life? Were there any challenges?
– There weren’t any significant difficulties with the project’s execution. We found an investor fairly quickly and got started. The acceleration and training at Astana Hub helped us avoid major missteps.
However, we are currently facing one challenge that somewhat limits the platform’s growth. Typically, clinic purchases are managed by head nurses, who are often more accustomed to using WhatsApp to share information and price lists, sometimes sending voice messages, or even writing orders on paper and sending a photo to the supplier. Some visit the site, jot down items, and then call to place an order. Our task is to teach people to use the platform to save time and make their work easier. With younger users, it’s much simpler—they quickly see the platform's advantages and start using it.
A Promising Market—Inside and Out
– Do you aim to enter large international markets and become a global unicorn?
– For now, we’d like to build a strong, sustainable, and profitable business in Kazakhstan. We estimate the domestic market turnover to be about 30 billion tenge, excluding dental services. This includes all sales—from gloves and syringes to dental chairs, equipment, and large X-ray machines.
Afterward, we’ll scale to nearby regions. For now, we are not planning to enter Western markets. Instead, we see more promising opportunities in scaling to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and other Asian countries.
– Could you tell us if you have any competitors in Kazakhstan or abroad?
– We don’t have direct competitors. There are general marketplaces and classifieds like Kaspi.kz or Satu.kz, where various products, including medical items, are sold. However, these platforms primarily target retail and generally lack specialized dental products. In contrast, our industry-focused marketplace is designed specifically for business needs, where suppliers know their target audience is waiting on the other side of the screen.
– Are there similar marketplaces abroad?
– In Russia, there’s a similar project for dental supplies called doctorslon.ru. However, in our opinion, it’s more of an online store with a single supplier than a true marketplace.
Our model is different. We don’t import or produce anything ourselves; we simply provide a platform for sales. This approach, in fact, attracts our supplier partners—they know we don’t have our own products that we might prioritize.
Clearing the Market of Counterfeit Products
– Do you think zoob.kz can bring value to people?
– Absolutely. We aim to make the dental medical supplies market transparent, safe, and entirely legal. The fact is, a significant portion of the products available are of questionable origin. Moreover, these are sold openly without fear of consequences from authorities.
Our startup strictly avoids working with unregistered or counterfeit products. In the future, we aspire to lead efforts to clear the Kazakhstani market of such dubious goods. We want all dental clinics to purchase certified products only, ensuring patients are treated with high-quality, verified medications and materials. This is our mission.
– How dangerous are counterfeit products?
– If it’s something like counterfeit medical gloves, there might not be major consequences—at worst, a doctor could get skin irritation. But what if drills, screws, or pins, which interact directly with the human body, turn out to be fake? That could lead to severe complications. Counterfeit products must be removed from the market. Patient safety should always come first.
Teamwork
– How do you keep yourself motivated? Do you read books, watch movies, or series?
– Definitely. First, I’d mention the excellent and insightful series Silicon Valley and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. Among recent books, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, and The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone, come to mind.
Over the past year, we’ve completed two accelerators from Astana Hub. These programs deeply immersed me in startup culture and helped me understand the business.
– Do accelerators actually help?
– I became interested in startups in 2022, when I attended Digital Bridge in Astana. I was captivated by the startup alley, the pitches, and the engaging discussions. At that time, I was working for a company, but the startup world really drew me in. I started following Astana Hub’s news and activities. When I launched my own startup, Astana Hub was opening applications for its latest Startup Garage. I successfully applied and completed a four-month online course. Currently, I’m also participating in an acceleration program that wraps up in November.
– What sport would you say best represents your personality?
– I’d say football. Teamwork is essential to me, where you have a coach, a captain, and a coordinated team. Only with this setup can you achieve success. Our investor, with vast experience in healthcare, is a strong coach. I could be called the captain, guiding and uniting the team. Yerkin Tokmagambetov is like the assistant coach, specializing in strategy and tactics. In a coaching team, such a specialist is responsible for analyzing data on the team, competitors, and player stats, helping the head coach make optimal decisions and guiding the team toward victory.
