Online reservation of conference hall, gallery, studio with Pelato

Plato is the reservation system of cultural and artistic events and centers like Pelatos, studios, conference halls and galleries and etc.

The point is that at the first stage, I gave promissory note to centers for introducing them on site and reservation because I didn’t have enough experience, but now that I think about it, it makes me laugh.

Mehrdad Yari is a soldier but runs a startup. He is born in 1370 and has launched Pelato startup along with Maryam Yari, Abbas KhaneZad, Amir Mohtasham and Mahdi Darzi.

Mehrdad has studied electric power and after that he became interested in art and studied directory in art university.

He says: “when I was an art student in 1392, startup ecosystem was gradually being formed.

I was interested in technology as well and participated in startup weekends. Meanwhile I recognized a gap at the university and that was students of theater and music could hardly find a place to rehearse and they had to call many places to find a studio for their rehearsal.

I was responsible for pelato and studios at the university and saw these problems closely.

At first I wanted to provide an infrastructure for our university to solve this problem for students but then I decided to create an infrastructure for all pelatos and studios.

The idea of Pelato was formed from here and in 1397 we registered a company about this subject with the title of Simorghe Zarin Honar Co.

It last  a year we became one of the best 30 teams in Elecomp Fair 2018 and received the creative grade from vice president and right now we are located in national technology and science park of soft and cultural industries.”

• You said you are a soldier and have to do military service. Isn’t it challenging for you to leave your business and do military service?

Our company is one of recognized creative companies and this is an advantage for me that I can do military service in my own company and I should just pass training period outside.

• Explain more about this possibility for creative companies. Can all creative companies have this possibility?

Yes, creative companies have the advantages of knowledge-based companies and according to military service, CEO’s of creative companies can use this possibility to pass the period of military service at their own companies.

Albeit it has a complicated process and it took me 6 months to get this permission but finally I did it.

• According to the fact that your major isn’t related to IT, didn’t you face any problem for programming at first?

I faced many problems because I didn’t know anything about IT and decided to learn it. I think it’s better that founders of startups learn a little about IT and know logic of programming so that they can transfer their ideas to the technical team better.

• When did the idea came to your mind and you execute it?

This idea came to my mind in 1393 but because I didn’t have enough experience, I went on by error and trial until 1395 when we provided the initial version and from the beginning users reserved there and we didn’t have to advertise.

It was interesting for me but when the number of users increased, we faced the problems in terms of management and time conflict.

Thus after a while we decided to remove reservation system and only introduced studios.

I was involved in my study and thesis a little bit and thus the work was interrupted. Then in 1396 after I graduated, we worked on the idea and load the site again but this time with PHP.

I didn’t know anything about IT and decided to learn it. I think it’s better that founders of startups learn a little about IT and know logic of programming so that they can transfer their ideas to the technical team better

• Explain more about Pelato and the services you offer?

Plato is the reservation system of cultural and artistic events and centers like Pelatos, studios, conference halls and galleries and etc.

The point is that at the first stage, I gave promissory note to centers for introducing them on site and reservation because I didn’t have enough experience, but now that I think about it, it makes me laugh. Right now managers of centers come to us and want to reserve through our site.

• How many centers and studios have worked with you so far?

Right now 30 centers use reservation service. Our strategy was to begin with small number of centers and then offer our service widely.

There are about 2000 reservations which include about 5000 hours, reserved in our site so far and about 5000 users are registered in the site.

• Do you any evaluation of the market and what percent do you want to gain?

In general artists don’t make a large part of the society and we don’t have a big market but according to current statistics, the turnover of conference halls and pelatos.

Studios which are our target market, is about 40 billion Tomans a year and our goal for the next year is to gain 20 percent of the market share.

• Which barriers and problems have you faced with so far; problems that if they didn’t exist you would experience better growth with higher speed?

When I started, there weren’t many books translated in the field of startups and there were small number of people who could guide startups in the field and in overall forming a team was hard for me but after a while we came up with a common language with the technical team.