Mahdi Barkhordari

Unlock is an indie iOS app studio building focused consumer apps for the Apple ecosystem. We launch fast, test rigorously, and iterate relentlessly, creating a portfolio of products designed to scale. Our approach combines rapid experimentation with disciplined product execution. We build Minimum Lovable Products, validate them with real users, and double down on the ideas that show strong signals. Our app portfolio currently includes:

Startupbootcamp helps the world's most promising startups build a sustainable global business, our multi-faceted accelerators combine deep industry expertise with extensive insights from the startup ecosystem. Startupbootcamp was one of the first European acceleration platforms, and now operates across 4 continents with over 80 startup accelerators.

This is my volunteering work. ProductTank is a global network of meet-ups for product people by product people in more than 200 cities. ProductTank Birmingham is a strong community of Product People in Birmingham. We meet every month and host speakers to share Product Management learnings and working practices as well as providing networking opportunities. Since March 2024 I have been volunteering as the co-organizer of this event after being introduced with the event and the co-founders on the first event once I arrived to the UK back in November. Please check our LinkedIn page or Meetup for more information.

● Managed the lifecycle of a data platform for transparency, governance, monitoring, logging and reporting every single ticket transaction in the industry regardless of channel with Full API documentation and solid understanding of airline data flow (e.g. PNR, PRL, passenger data...). ● Maintained data governance platform’s data domain e.g. glossaries and taxonomy. ● Led the integration of Central Reservation Systems (CRS) with multiple airlines, ensuring seamless inventory management and data flow ensuring compliance with IATA standards for governance replicating the PNRgov structure for domestic airline transactions. ● Spearheaded product initiatives for enhancing governance on ticketing and managing over 40% of the daily ticketing volume +150,000 tickets/day in the industry. ● Negotiated and integrated with Central Reservation Systems (CRS), establishing partnerships with three leading domestic airlines and enhancing services for 1M+ passengers annually. ● Defined and executed a rapid go-to-market strategy under resource constraints, aligning with international standards (IATA, ICAO) and delivering a streamlined solution within six months, covering 90% of the industry’s ticket issuance. ● Managed the end-to-end product lifecycle, incorporating stakeholder feedback to reduce development cycle time by 40% and driving a 25% increase in operational efficiency. ● Led discovery phases, including product design, interviews, and field inspections across seven major airports, gathering requirements for the entire product roadmap including our operational needs, customer needs, APIs, android, PWA and dashboards. ● Delivered a robust application with an activation rate of 23% and over 2.8 million check-ins within the first 30 days, providing real-time updates and notifications for passengers. ● Led the design of the user experience and user-friendly interface, enabling passenger timely notification, QR check-in, boarding status and all seamless flight info integration.

● Led the smooth transition of the business, finances and technical assets following PhonePay’s M&A worth +£3.6 million (Oanda FX) with Kian Ofogh Hirbod (iToll). ● Managed and led the team during the processes including drafting the contracts, negotiating terms, handing over our financial, marketing, technical and product to the new owners.

● Exited the startup through M&A with a major FinTech player in the industry called iToll, after experiencing a collaboration with one of the top FMCG chain stores called Refah. ● Managed to lead our financial team to deal with the tax problems of the company resulting in an 85% deduction of unfair taxes. ● Managed to lead our product team to launch more than 9 value added services in a one year times span, completely revamping our infrastructure. ● Managed to raise +£1.8 million funding (Oanda FX) from Stars Wealth Management a major Venture Capital firm. ● Pivoted the business to a virtual card solution and managed to serve cards to plus 30K unbanked Afghan immigrants and became the Co-Founder and CEO of this prominent FinTech startup. ● Championed user-centric design and development, resulting in a 32% increase in customer conversion and higher user engagement. ● Facilitated the development of a QR-based taxi fare payment solution, increasing DAU/MAU by 2% and boosting service engagement by 12% in 3 months. ● Built strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, including a collaboration with one of Iran’s top FMCG chains. ● Expanded service offerings through collaborations, integrating with existing systems to enhance product functionality and market reach.

● Facilitating the daily commute of for than 20K passengers of yellow cab taxis during COVID19. ● Led a dynamic team to develop and enhance PhonePay’s platform for scale up with a user base of +500K. ● Negotiated contracts and managed complex tax disputes, securing an 85% reduction in unfair tax liabilities after multiple rounds of structured and organised follow up with our tax/legal team. ● Optimized operational workflows, improving service delivery and enhancing customer experience across the platform.

Most of my contributions fall under the Fractional CPO role, but I was also involved other scale up initiatives in the business. Classeh (an Edtech startup providing B2B SaaS solutions to schools) had reached an outstanding increase in terms of the number of contracts in more than 212 cities during the Covid 19. Due to the fast pace growth, the company focused mostly on sales and the scale up of divisions specially technical and product faced various challenges: ● Started the process of attaining recognition as a Knowledge-Based Company from the Committee on Innovation and Technology of the Ministry of Science, which involved documentary details with respect to innovative educational technologies of Classeh, its methodologies in curriculum development, and its patented LMS in order to meet the stringent criteria set by the committee. ● Led efforts to redefine the company's vision, core values, brand entity, and strategic priorities. This realignment provided a clear direction for the entire organization, facilitating better decision-making and focus on product development, ● Built and managed a cohesive technical team with a tight schedule and challenging requirements. By making strategic hiring decisions and implementing decisive planning, I ensured the team was equipped to overcome obstacles and deliver high-quality products, ● Led major process improvements in support, operation sales, and marketing which resulted in major reductions in costs and increase in efficiency, ● Planned the shift of mindset from traditional marketing and sales funnel approach towards a Product-Led Growth model by introducing a freemium model ● Drove and facilitated the introduction and development of a first-time industry innovation, through the gamification of school textbooks.

During my time at Carpino, a top ride-hailing service in Iran, I played a pivotal role in the team transition and development of fast-to-market products. With the company undergoing a team replacement due to complications, I was tasked with creating a parallel team to the core technical team. Our goal was to launch products quickly with minimal reliance on the core team. In this position I managed to balance short term needs of the business with some quick wins such as the website revamp, not loosing sight of long term return of investment for the business. Key accomplishments include: ● Redesigned and launched Carpino's website in just two months, delivering a modern, user-friendly interface to enhance the overall customer experience. ● Collaborated closely with the core tech and product team to revamp the official application's user interface and experience, aligning it with evolving customer needs. ● Led the development and launch of highly effective products, enabling the Marketing and BI teams to increase rides sixfold within six months. Notably, we introduced a groundbreaking product similar to Lyft and Uber Pass, leveraging historical data and customer clusters. This industry-first innovation led to a monthly 35% increase in rides during peak hours. ● Pioneered the design and launch of an industry-first product similar to Uber for Business. This solution was subsequently adopted by competitors Tap30 and Snapp, significantly impacting the daily ride count within three months. Through negotiation as the part of the team, I developed a white-label solution with the municipality of Tehran called Sahand, enabling them to deploy and manage the product based on their needs. ● Developed and launched a product automating driver registration and online verification, resulting in a 168% increase in driver registrations and a remarkable 83% reduction in processing time for the operations team.

● Being approached through a referral by a travel agency owner, who later became my Co-founder, I transitioned from a promising role as a programmer to co-founding an online tourism startup. Seizing the untapped potential in the Iranian market, I proposed a bold solution to the owners; I would develop his idea in exchange for a 50% equity of the company in case it showed traction in 3 months. ● I started coding the front end and convinced a university friend to code the back end. I started the front-end development myself and onboarded a university friend Reza Karimi to help with the back end. In March 2016, we registered “Tose-e Monasebat Danesh Gostar” company and our journey with "Vistavel" started. ● Vistavel was a bootstrapped startup that grew to serve over 470,000 users, and focused on Schengen travel insurance for Iranian passengers, CIP, VIP lounge, and airport transfers. ● Tose-e Monasebat Danesh Gostar provided it's tourism services under the license of "Niloufaraneh Parvaz Roayee Travel agency". Moments that I loved regarded our collaboration with Niloufaraneh to Curate, organize, distribute and sales of special sport tours. Vistavel was responsible for the online presence of Niloufaraneh as well, and based on that the marketing, acquiring, selling and operation of several major tours. ● Pioneering in the use of cruise ships for accommodation, a first in Iran sport tour history for more than 380 passengers for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. ● By 2019, the economy in Iran was taking a major downturn. Our marketing costs had increased significantly, Google Ads being our primary channel of acquisition. Realizing this, I managed to strike a deal with Iran’s largest Super Application with over 40 million users and an MAU of 18 million. ● Led the launch “SafarBus”, a dedicated service for online bus tickets, which rapidly gained traction with +2 million users through this collaboration and reached an annual turnover of £250K (Oanda FX) in the last year.

I worked in the IT department of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences at University of Tehran. It resulted in the launch of an e-commerce website for sports pathology and corrective excercises equipment.

Focused on digital platforms and knowledge-based economies, my research explored scalable models for monetizing expert insights. This work led to the publication of our paper in Electronic Markets (Springer, Q1 Journal). The program is currently on hold due to my relocation to the UK, but it laid the foundation for my continued work in product strategy, digital transformation, and platform-based innovation.

Thesis on "Presenting a Model for NFC-mobile Payment Adoption in Iran"- grade: 5/5

Thesis on "An Improved winner determination algorithm for Multi-unit Combinatorial Auction ", Grade: 5/5