I Invested 8 Million Tenge Saved for an Apartment": Almaty Resident Forsakes Profitable Businesses for IT Startup
Ablai Yusupov embarked on entrepreneurship while studying marketing at Almaty Management University. Initially, he and his friends created the wine project Queex (producing short funny videos), then moved on to developing a language center. After graduating, he founded Upgrade School, a school for marketing, management, and SMM training. Over time, it transformed into an IT startup, Upgrade Business – an online platform offering access to 70+ educational courses across various fields. The service's main advantage is its short lessons, each lasting 5-10 minutes. In an interview with the joint project Digital Business and Astana Hub "100 Startup Stories of Kazakhstan," Ablai discussed his transition from traditional business to IT, how he managed to create a mobile application for zero tenge, and why he decided to develop his product following the Netflix model.