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The story of Magfi begins in 2020, amidst the global pandemic that reshaped our world. Mustafa Uğur, a then 20-year-old university student, found himself disconnected from traditional education and on the verge of dropping out, but also deeply engaged in the vibrant discussions within university WhatsApp groups. Realizing how much value is stored in such niche groups, Mustafa decided to create a search engine for WhatsApp group chats. This is how an app called “Group Search Engine” came to life. The prototype’s rapid growth to 300,000 users and more than 10,000 added groups highlighted a clear demand, but monetization proved challenging. That’s when Mustafa reached out to Deniz Duran, a high school friend and soon-to-be co-founder. Together, they pivoted to focus on the untapped potential of advertising within these niche, engaged communities, bringing Magfi to life.
Over three-quarters of the world’s 5+ billion internet users
now participate in online communities, reflecting a growing preference for niche, interest-based interactions. While, in the beginning, internet users wanted broad access to information, now they are starting to migrate towards more niche communities, where they can indulge their personal interests with greater data privacy. This trend is the result of the overall proliferation of Web 3 – the concept of the next generation of the web, in which most users will be connected via decentralized networks and have control of their own data. This shift can be considered a whole new philosophy of promoting freedom, privacy, openness, and and decentralization.
These changes, combined with Web 3’s growth of users,
is driving demand for advertising within these new digital town squares. However, advertisers face a variety of challenges that deter them from directly reaching out to community channels or using Web 3-native ad management tools like Telegram Ads.
- Discovering relevant communities feels like searching for a needle in a digital ocean of data.
- Manual ad placement across multiple platforms is time-consuming and inefficient, requiring advertisers to develop individual campaigns for each channel without the ability to perform bulk actions.
- Negotiating with individual group admins adds layers of complexity.
- Generic ads often fail to engage users due to their lack of personalization.
Discovering and targeting the right groups is made effortless
through Magfi’s complete analysis and profiling of every group, powered by a bot installed by group admins that accesses content and metadata. Advertisers can filter suitable groups by listing keywords and interests, with Magfi estimating the individual users that will be reached. The often tedious manual process of posting ads is streamlined, as Magfi enables fully automatic posting across all groups within a single network simultaneously, and even across different networks like Discord and WhatsApp, managed centrally. Additionally, the platform offers comprehensive reach, interaction, and billing statistics through a user-friendly interface reminiscent of Google or Meta.
The process of negotiations is also automated and facilitated by the platform, with group admins managing ad placement frequency and scheduling via an intuitive interface, freeing advertisers from these tasks. Magfi ads are designed to be inline and interactive, blending seamlessly with user posts, while being clearly marked as Magfi ads. This not only enhances engagement but also boosts brand awareness and the viral spread of the service.
Before embarking on the mission
of making decentralized advertising better, Mustafa had a long entrepreneurial journey dating back to when he was 12 years old. Back then he tried to develop a product that would keep ears warm when listening to music in the winter. After this first experiment, followed another one, then another one, and then another one. By 14, he had already experienced the highs and lows of multiple startups, learning that “success is always a team effort.” This philosophy led Mustafa to Deniz, his analytically-minded high school classmate, as well as Kadir and Atakan, two university roommates. Together, they’ve built a close-knit team of young innovators, all living and working under one roof near Istanbul the past three and a half years. They’ve worked through financial constraints, taken on side jobs, and worked from weddings and beaches – all to bring their vision to life. With an average age of just 24, the team embodies Mustafa’s belief: “If we believe, imagine, and work for it, we can achieve anything”.
