Sibkade

Sibkade is a digital gift-card and subscription business serving customers in Iran. I founded it in 2020 and have led it from the first website and the first ads through building a team and developing the systems behind the business.

Getting the business started

In 2020 I built the website and handled everything myself. I ran the Google Ads that brought in the first customers while managing the day-to-day operation. That gave me a close view of the whole journey, from the first ad someone saw to the questions they asked after buying.

As orders passed ten thousand a year, I hired and trained a team. My responsibilities grew with it, and I stayed in the decisions about the product and the customer’s experience.

Making the experience worth recommending

We were the first in our market to deliver gift cards instantly, so customers receive their codes without waiting for someone to process each order by hand. If a paid instant-delivery order misses its window, the fee is refunded in full. Loyal customers get a VIP tier with their own support line.

The result is the growth channel we never paid for. Nearly one in two customers come back, and three in ten order three times or more. Most of the rest arrive because someone they trust recommended us. That is the standard I wanted: an experience people are comfortable putting their own name behind.

An experience people are comfortable putting their own name behind.

Staying close to the product

In 2026, after six years inside the business, I designed and built the core systems myself: twelve production systems in eleven weeks, about 41,000 lines of code and 15,000 lines of tests, all live.

Each one answers a practical question a customer asks. Where is my code? Automated code fulfillment. How much do I still need to pay? Wallet payments that show the split clearly. How do I get back into my account? Phone-first login and passkeys, after the data showed almost no customer ever used a password. When can I expect a reply? A support desk inside the customer’s account, with an honest estimate.

Behind fulfillment, I also built the tools for tracking stock, spotting shortages, and allocating codes when inventory is replenished. These are the less visible parts of making a delivery promise work.

Giving the team better support tools

The helpdesk is built around how our agents actually work: customer history, internal notes, follow-up reminders, mentions, and feedback on individual replies. The aim was enough context to continue any conversation, and a way to review the quality of support without reading every ticket.

I integrated AI into that workflow. It helps draft and refine replies using product-specific guidance, and turns recurring questions into proposed knowledge-base entries for managers to review. Staff see suggestions before anything is sent. A separately controlled option can answer automatically, only from approved knowledge.

Understanding the business as it grows

I built the customer-intelligence and reporting tools that bring purchase history, customer segments, churn risk, and product-level profit into the daily operation. I also built first-party tracking for sign-in, checkout, and payment, because off-the-shelf analytics recorded zero purchases on our stack. Now those parts of the journey can be measured, not guessed.