🤚🏽 📂 👧🏾 RIT, Maxim Lapshin (Erlyvideo): how a programmer to grow a company 🆒 🎇 🧗

RIT ++ 2017, Whale Rider. Hall "Congress Hall. June 6, 13:00. Abstracts .

In the report I want to talk about my own experience in the organic development of a company selling b2b server software without investment. I started by picking just for fun in what I was interested in, then I was ready to give up everything (especially after talking with several mentors and business consultants).

Maxim Lapshin (hereinafter - ML): - Hello, colleagues! My name is Maxim Lapshin. I am the owner of Erlyvideo. I do it almost all my time, I devote all my work 35 hours a day.

How it all began

I wanted to talk about my experience: how could I, from a simple programmer, without business skills, without the experience of hard work in business, reach the mark of 1 million dollars earned (per year). This is despite the fact that we do not have hosting costs, this is pure entry and earnings.

I want to say that I was ready to close the case in the middle, about my experience of dubious partnership. Also - about what helped me develop, get out of constant hunger and suck on what income. And, actually, like, having no debts and investments (this is a much more expensive debt, as we know), I have reached a million, and what I see on my way to the $ 10 million mark.

I worked for a video streaming company. Very good company, very good team, talented people gathered, wonderful tasks. But I did not see what we are doing. I come to work, do something, and who needs it, what is needed - I haven’t seen all this.
I decided to see how others did it. The world around exists - other people are engaged in video streaming. In Russia in 2009 this was not so much, not so popular. Nevertheless, this story with streaming video over the Internet in the world has been for many years. And I realized that I want to leave ...

I left work and started making software: I picked up an abandoned IT project, collecting from everyone who wrote a contribution letter (that they no longer care about all this, and they alienate everything-everything-everything )

A little remark ...

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Erlyvideo 2010 ?

In my free time, I started making a product called Erlyvideo. Now we have the name of the company, and software is called differently. What was the software that I started doing?

It was a very young thing. He knew very little about what - a percentage (maybe two) of what we have now. Moreover, the core of this software was in opensource. Not knowing, not understanding how software is sold, how it is made ... Especially such a difficult, complicated thing as open source trading. I left the core in the open source, intuitively believing that this would help the spread.

Opensource

It helps at first. People are ready to try open source - this is normal for them. They do not have the feeling that this is some kind of thing for which someone is responsible.

For small businesses, open source is extremely expensive. Open source is fun for the big ones (or for services). That service can do open source to attract people to hire. And when you trade software, it’s really difficult.

The important point is that this forms a freebie feeling. There is such a moment: when you have a commercial product that is closed, then a person from the business can contact you. It is easier to communicate with a person from a business than with an administrator. The admin will not communicate with you when he takes your software. A person from a business will communicate - a simple thing.

Therefore, the first sales by people were perceived as investments in nowhere. People watched: oh, young software, he was a year old; they want some more piece of code (I was selling some additional stuff). People were afraid of this.

First sales

How did I get my first sales? It was very difficult!

I did this: I took those functions that competitors in the market did not have. There were other substitutes for my software, or rather, I made substitutes for other products. I made a certain set of functions (like recording a video) - no one else had them, this, in fact, I sold.

It really excites: you yourself went and got money from the market! This is radically different from the situation when the employer paid you a salary. You went, you agreed, transferred the money, and you have an act: you - software, you - money.

From the first days it makes sense to keep everything in order. If you register as an IP at the start, then contracts are not so difficult, it is possible. It is better to follow this from the first days, otherwise there will be problems later.

The most important point is that I had no business experience: no understanding, no sales, nothing at all. I never wondered who and how it is needed. Market capacity - I did not understand at all what these words mean.

I focused only on "live" competitors. I know that there is another software, there is nothing special in it, in terms of functionality. So, I can repeat this, and then a question that we will solve locally.

How to understand what the market needs?

Today, probably, I would start by talking with potential customers. Then I did not understand at all who my clients would be. I found out later, after the fact. This is now called in a fashionable manner Custom Development: you need to try to understand who and where is buying, to find out somehow.

Such advice is very complicated. With most commercial b2b software, figuring out a customer list is difficult. This is hidden information, and the company, as a rule, does not like to talk left and right about the list of its customers, as this is their trade secret.

Most importantly, I did not make a product, of course, but software. Let’s talk with you about what it is.

Software is something that can be downloaded from the site, some kind of program that does something. And a product is something that solves problems.That is, a product is more than software. Moreover, the product may be without software at all! A product is a set of measures, actions, suggestions, advice, expertise, experience, support in order to convey to someone some kind of business value.

Therefore, there is simply a manual for software: software can do this, do this config - you will have something. And the product has a story about business. A product is such a thing, to which there goes a certain set of presentations, conversations, a salesperson, something else ... Everything that is around the product is brought to the client and he is told: “Dude, drag it into your business, change it, fire someone “Anyway, hire a new person ... Go through all this hemorrhoids and you will have plus some money at the exit.” This is a product. Therefore, programmers make software, and for the product you need a whole team, people who sell (all these unpleasant people in white shirts with ties). This is about the difference.

Conceptual development

It is important that I do what I can. Programmer - what is he? He comes to work and sells what he knows how. Well, I can write in Erlang and didn’t sell it anywhere, I could write in Rails - I sold it. To whom, why is this needed, how does it help some people - without a clue.

And here I had to go through my own self-development, namely conceptual. It consists in the fact that the programmer does what the boss needs. The boss says: "Here is TK for you, do some sort of thing." What this thing is, who needs it - it does not matter. The boss needs!

Business does what customers need! A good, successful business, of course, and not one that slowly decays or burns money from investors, it is not clear what they are counting on. Moreover, the business does not always understand what its customers need, but this is a different story.

And business transforms what employees do in the company into a product that customers need. This is the value of the business. Going to this understanding was very difficult. When you simply work as a programmer and make software that your boss needs, this does not mean that someone else will need this software. This does not mean that someone, except your boss, can transform the same software into a company's profit.

This is important because this transition is difficult to make. Perhaps, having left the company and doing what you did in it, it turns out that the company was unique, only she knew how to turn this software into a product. I was lucky with that.

Self-attempted flight. Investments and savings

Next I left. I was torn between part-time jobs, because I left without a huge “pillow”: during the day 8 hours I worked as an IP, made websites on “Rails”, and the remaining 20 hours were devoted to Erlyvideo. Slowly, the second began to dominate.

Money has become even less, everything has become sad. Even when I closed the whole story with part-time jobs, there were some sales that allowed me to hire the first employee, all this was very difficult. I’ll make a note here ...

I did not have investments and there was very little accumulated money. It is important to understand that investment is a very expensive loan. If you are ready to take an investment, make a product and get out of it in three years - that's great. There is nothing to do here without investments, that is, it is impossible to do something without investment in three years so that it soars up. Well, you probably can, but it should be very lucky.

The problem with investment is that it is a huge, very expensive debt. Debt that cannot be simply repaid in cash. The growth rate of investments in a good business is much higher than even gang loans.

And, an important point, it would be nice if the investment is “smart money”. In short, the story is this:

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Therefore, if you are not ready for such things, for such a conflict (and this will always be some kind of conflict situation), then in any case with your own “pillow”, with your own money it’s calmer, and with investments it will be faster - I didn’t have it. And since it wasn’t, by the beginning of 2012 I was going to shut it all down.

I was absolutely discouraged, even tried to do something else that could feed me. But he did not close the company. How did I analyze this later?

Slow recognition in b2b

I went to the b2b market. I went to a place where businesses buy something from other businesses in order to be better and earn more. In this market, the price of error is high! If I buy a phone that I did not like, I will lose 20, 40 thousand rubles. And if a business buys something that turned out to be bad at the wrong time in the wrong place, the cost of an error can be millions and billions of rubles.

Plus, I started making software, which, generally speaking, is the core for many businesses. Now imagine: you go to do some kind of business, start software / some kind of your own startup ... People come to you and say: “You do not need to do anything! Just completely entrust the core of your business to us. We will give you the finished thing. " I was just the kind of person who comes.

People looked at me: “Mmm ... We do not believe, no, we do not believe. Tell, speak, but not yet - we don't believe. ” This is normal. People look how old we are in the market. It is important. Because if you have been in the market for a year, then businesses will walk past you. Whatever you say, no matter who you vouch for, please live four years! Here live 4 years, and we will come to you.
The same story with conferences happens. Here you come to her for the first time - they pass by you, just look. The third time they say: “Oh! Aren't you dead? So you can work with. ” People have such a simple thing, so I, without waiting, began to die.

With b2b you have to be prepared to wait. Or you will be lucky and some early adopters will be ready to give you money, but they will not be enough for anything. You have to be prepared for this.

The alternative is not very pleasant: to be part of the "big". If this happened and you were quickly bought at an early stage (for example, some Rostelecom), they can put you and shove anything in a big product ... People will be familiar to any level of quality - it's great! What to expect from him? But this is already a little different, this is not at all your own business.

Partnership and divorce

Then I had a story about partnerships. In 2013, I somehow hesitated, and I was offered a partnership by a person from the United States.

Why do you need a partnership? Since I was a programmer, I clearly understood that without sales experience, but a man came who said: “I can make sales!” In fact, he could, in principle, make some good sales. Moreover, he had experience in building sales for large companies (he had two). Plus, he was an American, immersed in the subject in the American market.

He said: “I understand what you are doing. This is cool! I want to sell it. You and I will make a ton of money, retire with this thing. ”

So they made Flussonic LLC in Delaware. I even flew to visit once. We talked a lot - this is a feature of the Americans, they like to repeat, repeat, repeat ... You get lost in this stream of words. In short, nothing helped ...

Fortunately, we calmly, without conflict, dispersed. I think this is a mega luck. I got really lucky that we parted without consequences in a year.

Home sales growth

Sales in Russia began to grow precisely because people began to trust. They look: now, for the third year now, eyes have been blistering - you can take something and buy it.

The American office looked like a parasite: a lot of people ... I have two employees, four there, and we began to earn more money. We began to earn more money on the Russian market than it did on the American one, although it was generally unclear why and how ... Probably, they had the same story with Lag in b2b.

Most importantly, we were not able to overcome the language barrier. I can speak English, sit chatting with people, write in English. But the story is about that very conceptual barrier ... The word "product" for the programmer means that you can download something from the site, and for the director - an examination of another or your own business.

Here we also had a language barrier, which I did not fully understand. But I know that we had it, and we could not overcome it. It is very difficult. In fact, we had a job like cancer with a pike, which was caused by both lack of money and discommunication, so we need to be careful here.

We quietly parted. He said: "I want to do one thing, you do another thing - we will no longer intersect." Today I would not do it all. Partnership is very accurate, because it is very difficult to disperse, this can lead to fatal consequences for the business.

Subscriptions Grow

Then we started to grow - it was great! These are the first pleasant sensations after several years of torment. The growth was due to subscriptions, we switched to a subscription model.

What is it? Instead of $ 2,000, I take $ 75. It seems like some kind of nightmare: 2000 - money that you can already spend, someone to hire, but here - 75 ... What is it? Go to the tavern.

Subscriptions led to the expected loss of revenue. The first few months, people instead of 1000-2000 dollars pay 75, and you just think: “God! Why pay a salary? ” The main thing is to hold on. Hold on for several months.

This is difficult because you need to be able to accept payments. To accept 2000 dollars at once is generally garbage! Currency control, under the agreement for rubles - no difference. When we talk about subscriptions, His Majesty Billing comes up. Billing is a pain because it is a terribly customizable thing. You think: “I’ll draw the tariff plans now - such and such, fifth-tenths!” But we are in b2b: here all issues are resolved by agreements:

- I am ready to buy from you on such conditions!
- Well, here I have tier pricing (note: price level) ...
- I don’t understand anything! If you want $ 1,000 a month, I'll pay you. Do not want to leave.

Here, of course, you need to go towards the client, because you need to somehow work with this. Therefore, my recommendation here is this: do not spend too much time looking for ready-made billing, it is better to hire a person who will write this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think so.

How did they grow, or why is $ 75 more than 2000?

Subscriptions are revenue growth. Why?

We have a client who buys about 100 licenses from us. To pay us for 100 licenses, he would have to take 200 thousand and give them to us once. It is not simple! This cannot be solved by e-mail: you need to fly, communicate, negotiate, you need "people in ties" ... It's a lot of money. I know this, we had such agreements.

And when it is by subscription, it expands smoothly. Addressing the audience:

- What, Nikita, are you ready to accept 200 thousand dollars on the card? Or pay? .. So, pay, of course.

It’s easier for a person to expand. This is all about scaling. The client takes one server, and then he has either growth, or he thinks: “Come on, I’ll replace one more thing with“ Fluxonic ”- it works well!” And it’s not very problematic for him to gradually increase monthly.

As a result, we have customers who are 4 years old. They started from one server, and now they have 70-80 each. These are tangible things.

It is important that when you sign up for a subscription, you have one conversation: you explain, invest in support, it helps him. Then you look - and he went in and ... clap - increased, clap - increased ... Sellers do not work at the same time! This approach really allows you to remove hemorrhoids with sellers.

In order to raise 200 thousand dollars, you need very good sellers who will go and explain to the client what is needed. Truth? Well, when how ... At least for the software - that's for sure! This is not hosting.

For customers, this is also easier. They are slowly increasing the plus. Many companies still have an investment committee: paying up to $ 1,000 is one story, from 2 to 10 thousand dollars is another, and more than 100 thousand, you need to go to the general administration, who will say that these are big grandmas and will offer to go to big major.

There is a small problem here: we were unable to build referral programs, and this, as we know, is important for any software vendor to learn how to sell through someone else.

The problem here is very simple: if we take 75 dollars a month, then even 10% of the referral commission is a lot. And if a person brought us 10 licenses (he thinks he's so cool, cool), we pay him $ 75 a month. He is not at all interested! A person must bring a lot to make a tangible income. I don’t know how to be here - I have no simple answers.

What have you come to today?

We make software that can be downloaded, delivered, implemented in our business - installation and making money. We have a solution: we sat down and wrote some text for clients telling us that we need to take it, go there, do it, and we will do it, and in general, we will do everything and you will have money ... This is for people like, we have a very good introduction.

We also have a ton of implementations. We do not have very many Internet companies in Russia (there are many abroad). In Russia, we have some kind of production. Who would have thought that ships needed our software? It turned out very much! We have installations in the courts.

In three Russian courts (supreme, arbitration and city) we are. We have election commissions, stories about video recording in factories. You can’t always guess that some plant may need audio and video fixation of how they make their cement batches. It turns out that they are needed, and they are very satisfied.

We have over 500 subscription customers. These are those who monthly bring us money. Headache for finding money is relieved. Sales to almost 100 countries. That's cool! Thanks to globalization. It’s cool that it exists, and it’s cool that we can, while sitting in Russia, accept money from all over the world under Russian law. Not so easy! I can’t say that this is elementary.

Traditionally, the country of first class jurisdiction is the United States. If you want everything to be smooth everywhere - this is the United States, and if not from there, everything will not be smooth. Europe is the second class, anyway. There is PayPal there, Stripe is also nowhere there, and American cards do not always go to Europe. Amex is generally a purely American story.

Nevertheless, sitting in Russia, not having a foreign company (we do not need this), we are very cheap. A foreign company is expensive no matter who says it.

Piracy

We got piracy. Our software began to pirate. It's very funny. We learned how to deal with it, even managed to somehow beat.

Fighting hard - it sucks out strength, nerves, so you just need to work with it.

Current issues

What are the problems now? What have I come with and how do I understand this?

The stage of survival has been completed at the level of several years. A couple of tens of thousands of dollars a month - you understand that you can already hire people, grow (there is growth) and everything is fine ...

About hiring

But hiring people is hard! We have a lot of cool, chic programmers in our country! We still have it all: a lot of people with brains, it's cool to hire them (how many people Oleg [Bunin] collects each time), but, for example, finding PR-boxers / marketers for b2b is very difficult. For example, we now somehow found guys who, in principle, know how to approach some site of an American magazine.

Most people who are connected with all this, they say (aspirated): “Ahh, the international market - it's so scary! We cannot go there, we are not ready. We must grow to the size of Yandex, and then we can think about how to enter the international market. " This thought should be crushed in the bud!

On entering the international market

Important: making a digital product (something that does not require physical delivery, presence somewhere), you will immediately open the entire market, if you are not too lazy to make an English version of the site. Or, if you do not do such a thing as the release of the Russian version in the program, the whole world opens up for you, and Russia makes up 3% of it. You immediately 30 times increases where you can sell this software / service / product.

In this case, even if you are not very cool, even if your demand abroad is 5 times lower than in Russia, it is still a multiple increase in money. At present, only 20% of money is earned in Russia (this is the figure at the beginning of 2017). Maybe even less ... Everything else is foreign sales from around the world.

The next sick story, which I vaguely understand how to do, is international advertising. In b2b, the marketing story is different: it’s hard to pour traffic to the landing page, measure conversions from it ... What is the conversion rate from it, if our main competitor (the largest company that does this) has 20 thousand visitors a day on the site?

Stories with online marketing in b2c products speak of hundreds of thousands, millions of visitors per day. And here 20 thousand are the largest. Here you grab every lead. For you, this is not something that you can experiment with and throw away, because it can be an employee, for example, IBM. How can you take it to rotate and throw it away for an experiment? This bad experiment will be very expensive, so it’s hard here.

It is international PR companies that are very painful and difficult, because with the language, not everything is as good as it should be. Plus, Russia's reputation in the international market is not the first assistant.

Development management

Things that are told every year on every corner - how to manage development? We have a difficult development: we make software that we did not do before. Making sites a little easier is because you do them regularly, but there are more requirements than ours. We have our own specifics: we make a product that we did not do before.

Current solutions

What did you learn to do right now?

The most important thing that we get is to make good software fast.
We try to maintain a fairly high level of quality.
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Most important: in general, I believe we were able to convince our customers that we can rely on. People are not afraid to rely on us, they understand that we can use our software, that we are here, were 5 years ago, we will be in 5 years and after 10. Therefore, people are not afraid that we will resolve. About us, while we were working, about 3 video streaming services that were made in Russia were closed with me (before my eyes), and we are alive, we live normally.

Such is my experience.

Questions

Question from the audience (hereinafter - B): - Among entrepreneurs there is such a belief that any business is done with the aim of selling it later. We talked a lot about the fact that partnership is not very good ...

ML: - Partnership is dangerous, not easy. This should be approached very responsibly. It can become bad. But if a successful partnership, then this is a huge, giant boost to everything, because synergy is an important thing.

Is Erlyvideo ready for sale? Revaluation of performance

Q: - Good. If a big uncle comes to you with a big bag of money. Will you sell your company?

ML: - It strongly “depends on ...” We need to clearly understand how this uncle’s relationship with customers who rely on us is maintained and counts on our development. Why does this person need this? What will happen? How much money?

Such a niche business is very difficult to sell. This is important to understand. When you have a project that doesn’t even make money - this is the site on which you managed to drive 10 million unique people a month - this is a completely sold story. She is appreciated! When you have a niche business, yours is a little different - not what we hear about every day. Therefore, in order to sell a company, you need to understand how it will continue to happen, so that at least you do not throw people.

Q: - Maxim, tell me, did you have a reassessment of your activity, which you considered very important in the early stages, but it turned out after the fact that it actually turned out to be unimportant? What were these actions, steps?

ML:- A very good question! The overestimation of the fact that you have a limited amount of time that you can spend was very great. You, for example, spend on one thing, but in fact you need to spend on another. For example, you can go with such a niche software to one conference, but instead you can go to another. For example, if I had identified clients more correctly (5 years ago), it would have been earlier, better, and faster.

It would be possible to get to customers faster - to understand that in Russia we will have operators ... That it makes no sense to go to Russia on Internet projects - so far I have not worked very well with them. And you can go to the operators: cool, good guys, do not try to do development - they need a turnkey solution that you just need to buy and operate. What matters is how to spend time. First of all, this is the identification of the market and customers.

About business and growth in IT

Q: - Tell me, please, how did you come to realize that you need to do something of your own (precisely from the point of view of the individual)? Not “I was doing something and it was not clear to me where it was going”, but “I am not doing anything for myself, but now they are starting to do something” ... What happened in my head, how did it click?

ML: - Stubbornness, a sense of self-assurance. Once again stubbornness, plus hard work. If this is not all, then my path will not work. It makes sense to understand: you are doing something, and many people in the world use it, that is, many who care, many who need it, many who use it ...

It can be difficult. When I started doing this, I probably did not see 90% of how they would use my software later. I have not seen the whole story at all. I'm lucky! But even what I saw was enough to understand that my skills (what I had already learned to do), if I put it in a different way, you can sell, it will be cool, they will be used everywhere.

Another important thing, unfortunately ... I always say the word "sell": it would be cool if everything was open source and somehow brought money, but there is a small problem - many businesses will not take open source at all. They just need a purchase, so that it is someone behind all this, and open source, not open source - this is a secondary issue of price (for scaling a license, for example). Having come into a big business, you cannot say: “Look, here is open source, download.” They will tell you: "No, no, go, get out of here."

A good example is the PostgreSQL guys. They also have open source, but they eventually sell some product - for adaptation, for work, for support. I have a commercial product - it's easier. In a way, it’s easier, in a way it will be harder.

On the movement to the West. Distribution. Lawyers

Q: - As I understand it, you want to move more to the Western market. You did not think to do this through distributors who are already there, provide some services already through the end markets (via telecoms and so on)?

ML: - Good question. It is difficult to sell to the whole world. It is very difficult, but here we can strongly focus on our competitors (a large American company) who have both such and such.

What is the problem with distributors? They do not want to integrate into the way I see it for myself: they will not sell by subscription, they will not engage in technical support. They are ready to just take something on the spot, pack it, then - put it to the client, and even with one-time payments.
One-time payments is a different story, a different business model. It is more traditional, and it is more alien to me, far from me. It is difficult to engage in the sale of subscription (closer to the service model) through distributors. They are not ready to fit into this.

Q: - I guess I can convince you a little. There is a stand of 1C ...

ML: - “Ingrad”! At some point, I was even in your office. Well, let's talk! It will be wonderful. Will you convince me - I'm ready.

Q: - You spoke of a conflict of interest when a person, working “for an uncle”, develops his project. It is clear that in America, the conflict of interest is very acute. How acute is this problem in Russia?

ML:- I am not ready to answer, because I have not encountered this. I just know that we have a law that clearly says: what you did during the day during working hours as part of what you should do for the employer is the employer. The last paragraph adds slippery. I think if you want to hear a good answer - there are meet-up rooms of Nevsky IP Low lawyers. They know about it for sure and very well, with examples and cases will tell. They will give a good answer, and I will share more speculation.

Q: - Sergey Vasin, Banki.ru. Unfortunately, I missed the beginning. As I understand it, you are the founder. Before that, were there any businesses?

ML: - Never, nothing. Only work "for uncle."

Russia today is a country for business. About taxes and Skolkovo

Q: - Were there any entrepreneurial fears at the beginning when you work at work and already have some kind of idea, some idea? Were there such fears that you lacked skills? ..

ML: - Throw away the fears! Fear fetters and makes you dumber. Do not be afraid.
It is clear that it’s easier to rush into the pool with your head when you are 23, 25, there is no child, and the wife says: “Ay, do what you want!” If anything happens, then the programmer gets a decent job without any problems during the day.

Q: - If anything, I will find another husband ...

ML: - Then you need to quickly look for another wife, if such a conversation.

So, fears, some fears that there will be problems somewhere ... How to pay taxes, whether to pay them, not to pay, and what will happen if you do not pay taxes ... It hurts! We are now paying 27%, and we are completely white. Someone cannot, for example, go out ... If you are small, if you have 3 people, you will pay 43%, so for a small company this is a serious blow to everything.
(Responding to a cry from the audience) We did not become agents of Skolkovo. There is personal income tax, social tax, people still have to pay. You forgot?

Q: - Well, Skolkovo has the same support. Grants are not important, but it is important that there is a single social tax of 14%.

ML:- No, grants to take ... No, no, no! We know these grants! Some still hiccups. I can’t answer this question simply because I didn’t do it. Skolkovo? It’s possible, probably, but it’s still not clear whether it is necessary or not ...

Fears - to hell! Awareness is needed. The state makes excellent conditions for creating a business. Very easy, very cool! Paying taxes with us is really easy, compared to the States. I know this from my own experience. To pay taxes in the States - you need to work closely with this, and it’s good if you have someone who has already paid and dealt with everything, passed their checks. We have only one tax [service], there are three tax. Therefore, there’s nothing to worry about!

Once again about fears

Q: - I want to clarify. I have such a fear that there are not enough resources. One, two, three people will not do what is intended.

ML: - Focus! Work 30 hours a day. Beat the investment.

Q: - Maybe make a smaller product?

ML: - Yes, cut back. So he is not needed. You see, a huge number of things can be done by taking only three people: focus only on this, and you will most likely do such a thing that it will do a good amount of people - such a [quantity] that you have enough to live on.

Not ready like that? You can take investments and do things differently: immediately take an office with cookies, with all other things. But no need to be afraid!

You just need to sit down, count, try. Plus, I highly recommend looking - there are a huge number of stories, tips on how to check if someone needs this. The worst thing is to do what no one needs. You think that this is necessary, but in fact someone alone said: “It would be cool if it were like this!” How much will you pay? Yes, not at all! So a bad idea.

See what makes people angry, what annoys them. Since it infuriates, then you can earn money here. What infuriates people is what they are willing to pay for, so that it does not infuriate them. Therefore - Customer development, and go! Or refuse on time, return to work and say: "I'll try again."

AT:- You said that it’s scary to do what no one needs. And at the beginning of your report, you said that you did not research the market at all, you did not do it at all. You just did something, it was interesting to you. That is, you are in the dark, “blind,” in the black room somehow oriented. And if it hadn’t fired?

ML: - I would go back to work and would not stand here now. Everything is very simple! There are plenty of such examples.

We are now making some new stories within the company, we are launching more products within the company. We now have a service for collecting statistics. Why did we start to launch it? People ask, they say: “We want!” We have already accumulated a sufficient number of customers who say: “We are ready to use it, we need it!” Great, we will do it.
It is already there. When you have no customers, find somewhere else. Find, look, to whom it can be sold. Just call, find the phone on LinkedIn, pick up the phone and say, “Hello! I already have such a cool thing! ” The man will answer: “Yes, come on! Cool! Come! ” And you: “Let’s come to you in a year. Well thank you".

Yes, then I did stupid things, blindly did everything. Now I understand that it was wrong. We had to first communicate with people.

Where to go?

Q: - My second question is about the development of your company. Now are you ready to do another business, relying on this basic one? Or, perhaps, the current flows into something? In general, how big is your company in terms of the number of employees?

ML: - We have a little - there are 15 of us now. We have an unplowed field. We still have to do-do-do and sell, develop. I estimate that we will grow 10-20 times for sure. It is without infusions of money from the outside. Why throw something?

Thank you very much for your attention! And good luck to all of you if you come together in a similar way!

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