Zapee.co
(shut down Mar/2023)
AI-Powered Conversational Commerce platform for SMBs.
The first INTEROPEBLE social commerce platform.
Why I've founded Zapee?
I spent the past 10+ years helping SMBs to succeed online. But it was on my recent experiences at Shopify, Loja Integrada, and Wix that I realized the traditional e-commerce platforms are not the best solutions for SMBs, at least in emerging markets.
I saw first-hand small merchants getting more orders from social channels like WhatsApp and Instagram than on their storefronts. The problem was how to fulfill those orders efficiently.
Alongside my long-time friend and exceptional software engineer, Giuseppe Lopes, we decided to build Zapee to solve that problem. Our goal was to build an e-commerce platform on top of WhatsApp. Making it a seamless experience for both sides, buyers and merchants.
Zapee will help SMBs monetize their businesses through social and chat.
Building the first true INTEROPERABLE commerce platform.
Short life
We founded Zapee during the so-called Winter of VCs. It was November 2022, the VC market was in retraction due to the hyperinflated valuations from past years now being cut.
Although we raised USD 120K, it wasn't enough to get the business up and running at the necessary pace to pick up some competitors.
In addition to that, Meta (WhatsApp owner) started to announce a series of feature launches on WhatsApp to make commerce easier for its users, making a key component of our solution a native feature of the product.
For several reasons we couldn't afford the pivot, we made the hard decision of shutting it down.