Kupci — from trust problem to business platform

It started with trust

Every product starts with a simple observation. For Kupci, it was trust.

Before writing a single line of code, we spent a long time thinking about how people make purchasing decisions. Whether choosing a restaurant, a mechanic, a dentist, or a local coffee shop, most people rely heavily on online reviews to decide where to spend their time and money.

Platforms like Trustpilot have shown just how valuable transparent customer feedback can be. By creating a place where customers can openly share their experiences, businesses are encouraged to improve while consumers can make more informed decisions.

However, we felt there was a significant gap in our own market.

In the Balkans, the vast majority of people rely on Google Reviews. While convenient, they often suffer from problems that reduce their credibility: coordinated review bombing, fake positive reviews, malicious competitors, or emotionally driven ratings with little context or evidence.

As a customer, it can be difficult to distinguish between genuine experiences and manipulated feedback. That question became the foundation of Kupci.

What if there was a platform built specifically for the Balkans, where honest customer experiences mattered more than raw star ratings?

Reviews with context

Kupci was never intended to become “another review website.” Our goal was to create a platform where reviews carry context.

Users should be able to describe their experience, upload evidence when appropriate, and help future customers make better decisions based on real experiences rather than anonymous star ratings alone.

Reviews can be written anonymously for users who value privacy, while registered users build a history of their contributions over time — transparency and credibility without sacrificing choice.

The first milestone was ambitious but straightforward: build a comprehensive directory of businesses.

We began in Bosnia and Herzegovina, before expanding into Croatia and eventually Serbia — letting customers across the region discover companies and share their experiences.

Businesses wanted tools

One lesson quickly became obvious. Once businesses claimed their profiles, they didn’t only want to respond to reviews. They wanted tools.

Instead of forcing businesses to subscribe to multiple disconnected services, we started asking a different question.

How much of a small business’s digital presence could exist inside a single platform?

One real problem at a time

That question completely changed Kupci’s direction. Over time it evolved into something much larger than a review platform.

Business owners can now claim their company profile and unlock tools to interact directly with customers and manage their online presence:

• Respond publicly to customer reviews
• Get notified whenever new reviews are published
• Manage appointments and reservations — no separate booking software
• Create digital QR menus for cafés, restaurants, and hospitality
• Present products and services directly on their profile
• Embed reputation widgets on their own websites

Reviews as market signal

As the platform matured, another opportunity emerged. Businesses wanted to understand not only how they were performing, but how the market around them was changing.

Kupci introduced signals and notifications that let users follow companies they care about — competitors, partners, or favorite local businesses — and receive updates as review scores change.

Instead of reviews being static information, they become a living source of market intelligence.

An ecosystem for local business

Kupci is still growing. What began as a platform for trustworthy reviews has gradually evolved into a digital ecosystem for local businesses.

The ambition is not simply to help customers choose where to spend their money. It is to give businesses the tools to build trust, communicate with customers, manage daily operations, and continuously improve based on real feedback.

The expansion from Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croatia — and eventually Serbia — is only the beginning.

The long-term vision: become the most trusted platform for discovering, evaluating, and interacting with local businesses across the region.

From business to architecture

With the business problem defined, the next challenge became designing a platform capable of supporting millions of reviews, business profiles, reservations, notifications, widgets, QR menus, and future features — without requiring a complete rewrite every time a new idea emerged.

The next chapter explores the architectural decisions that made that possible.