Wouldn’t it be nice to have your own personal shopper? Right in your back pocket?
Denarri is a mobile marketplace that’s designed to learn a user’s shopping habits so that each search is faster than the last, and you get the best price- all, in just three clicks. Search for an iPhone 6, for example, and it’ll already know the price range, condition, and shipping preferences that you had in mind.
If you don’t find something you like right away, it’ll continue to track all the items you’re following and notify you when new matches pop up.
Here’s how it started; Denarri founder and CEO Andrew Ghobrial has been buying and selling electronics since he was 10 years old, and this is the app he wishes he had back when he started out. Like any entrepreneurial New Yorker, he decided to learn to code and built it himself. Ghobrial tells us about the app, which you can download here.
Tell us about the product.
Denarri is a marketplace that helps users get the best price on the products they love, in three clicks, by learning their shopping habits. It combines the personalization and intuitiveness of in-store shopping, with the convenience and low prices of online shopping.
How is it different?
Mobile shopping currently has three major pain points:
First, the experience isn’t very personalized, you have to input things like price range, condition, and shipping speed preferences repeatedly. Every time you shop for an item, may as well be the first time you’ve ever used the app. Then there’s the dreaded “choice fatigue.” You search for an item, and get overwhelmed with thousands of results, having to sift through the noise to find the best matches.
On top of that, if you’re shopping for multiple products, you have to separately search for each one on a regular basis to keep track of the latest matches. You have no good way of being kept up to date on new matches. Your options are to either check as often as you can and risk missing out on a great deal, or get buried in notifications for items you may not be in a rush for. No one’s got time for that.
Denarri solves this in 3 ways:
1) The personalization engine learns your preferences as you use it, so when you search for an item, it’ll already know the price range, condition, and shipping speed preferences you had in mind for that kind of product. Just search and go.
2) The MatchCenter curates the best matches for all the items you’re following, in one place. It sifts through the thousands of results and gives you the best deals.Simply fire it up and you’ll be seeing the most up to date results.
3) It ranks items based on priority level, and then notifies you accordingly. Need it soon? It’ll notify you more frequently of new matches and prefered nearby sellers. Not in a rush? Notifications will be less frequent, so you never miss out on a deal, and never deal with notification overload.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
Your smartphone is the most personal device you have, and it’s with you everywhere you go. It’s no surprise that this has caused explosive growth in the market we’re targeting – mobile commerce. M-Commerce sales in the US alone are projected to reach $108B by 2017.
What is the business model?
The app is free, and listing an item on Denarri costs nothing (selling functionality coming soon, with 2.0). When an item sells, we take a small cut of the sale price (5%).
What inspired the business?
I’ve been buying and selling electronics for 13 years (since the ripe old age of 10), so I’ve seen the pain points of online shopping, from every angle imaginable. Over time, I noticed more and more of my friends/family asking for help finding good deals on items they wanted, and when I asked why that is, they consistently complained of the tedious and confusing user experiences they had to deal with.
I was inspired by one of my favorite childhood games, Runescape. The marketplace for in-game items and weapons was designed to get you the item you wanted at the price you wanted in three steps, without having to bid or keep track. I wondered why real world marketplaces weren’t this easy, and decided to build it myself.
What types of items are people most often wanting to save on, according to your data?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the two most popular types of items users have been buying are smartphones and tablets. Namely, iPhone/Samsung Galaxy, and iPads. Other popular items we’ve seen are headphones, PC parts, and apparel.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
We plan to launch our 2.0 update in the next month or two, selling functionality,then growing the user base by 50x in the next six months.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
If you have an idea that you want to turn into a real product, and you have limited resources, build it yourself. Taking time out to search for a cofounder instead of working on the product is more likely than not going to be futile, and you’re more likely to convince someone to join you if you’ve shown that you can build, iterate, and grow it past the idea stage.
There’s no better way to truly understand your users and the experience they want than to roll up your sleeves and get something out there.
If you could be put in touch with one investor in the New York community who would it be and why?
Out of the diverse network of investors in NY, the best fit for our market and stage is Fabrice Grinda. He shares our love of marketplaces due to their efficiency, ability to quickly scale, and massive potential impact.
Why did you launch in New York?
In addition to the fact that I was proudly born and raised in NY, no other city boasts the diversity of people, industries, and talent that this city does.
Where is your favorite outdoor bar in the city for a drink when it is actually warm out?
I’m a big fan of 230 Fifth. Lots of space and an unbelievable view of the city.
