Listen to Mergim Cahani, Founder and CEO at Gjirafa
The founder of the fastest growing tech company in the Balkans talks about growing pains, StartupYard, and launching the most ambitious tech project in the history of the region.
A Conversation with Mergim Cahani:
This week we have something a bit different for you: a podcast! I sat down with Mergim Cahani, Founder and CEO of Gjirafa.com, a StartupYard 2014 alum.
Mergim founded Gjirafa in 2013, and joined StartupYard in 2014, where he laid out plans to make the small search company into a key provider of basic internet services in Kosovo/Albania, throughout the Balkans, and the wider Albanian speaking world.
Below the interview I include some key stats and highlights from our 30 minute talk.
Key Facts:
- There are over 12 million Albanian speakers under-served by online services in the Balkans and worldwide
- Gjirafa has grown revenues by 10x (1000%) in the past year. It is on track to grow another 1000% this year. Fastest growth has come from its ad-network, and from e-commerce
- Gjirafa grew from 17 team members to a company of 70 employees since January 2016.
- The company expanded its offices and launched Gjirafa50, now the largest e-commerce platform, and the first of its kind in the region with almost 25,000 unique products
- Gjirafa provides products within 1-5 business days, allowing COD, credit card payments, and other methods. Credit card use in Kosovo/Albania is extremely low, and many are using them online for the first time with Gjirafa
- Gjirafa’s video streaming platform has attracted millions of registered users
Key Takeaways
- Recruiting into a growing organization has been a major internal challenge.
- Risk of burnout, and maintaining efficiency and agility are key factors for a startup in growth stage.
- Gjirafa50 e-commerce has brought European standards of online shopping to Kosovo and Albania for the first time ever
- Gjirafa now provides: “Amazon level” customer experience for the first time to Albanian speakers, according to online reviews by customers
- Gjirafa drew strong inspiration from Seznam at the beginning, but now emulates Yahoo Japan, and Naver (South Korea’s leading search provider)
- Seznam hasn’t diversified much into the consumer and media markets, but Gjirafa will do so.
- Gjirafa sees itself as “building the whole internet economy” in the Balkans.
- Cahani believes that strategic investors like Rockaway Capital and StartupYard have been vital in allowing Gjirafa to press its first-mover advantage in the region, and leverage experience from the Czech Republic in e-commerce, search, and media
Mergim Cahani talks about his journey from StartupYard to growth-phase startup at StartupYard DemoDay 2016.
On StartupYard
Mergim notes in the interview that he firmly believes he would not be in the position he is in today had he chosen not to attend StartupYard 3 years ago. While he doesn’t yet call Gjirafa a success, the growth the company has experienced couldn’t have been achieved without the network StartupYard provided, or the ongoing input of the StartupYard team, mentors, and shareholders.
At the end of the interview, he recommends anyone who believes strongly in their ideas not to hesitate, and apply to StartupYard.
You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.
We will select up to 10 startups for our three-month intensive startup accelerator focused on bringing products and solutions based on Deep Technologies to market. We are currently looking for startups or teams working on the following Deep Tech domain:
- Robots
- Artificial Intelligence
- VR/AR
- IoT
- Cryptography
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: June 30th, 2017
Program starts: September 4th, 2017
Program ends: December 1st, 2017
StartupYard is proud to be GAN, a highly curated community of accelerators, partners, and investors.
