🉐 🌨️ 👎🏻 Part 6. Career programmer. Own startup 🏰 🗳️ 👨🏼‍⚕️

Continuation of the story "Career programmer . "

I did not touch the book “Career of a programmer” for exactly a year, and apparently not in vain. Over the past months, I have undergone many transformations that will complement this story with materials on how to create and develop an IT company. It seems natural. If you are an ambitious programmer or freelancer, then sooner or later you ask yourself: “What next?”. Now, I’m already a senior developer - and then what? Appointed as an architect - what's next? ..

But let's get back to where we left off. The last part number 5. Programmer Careersended up ending my career as a freelance developer and going to invest all my savings in creating a startup. Since the publication of the last 5th chapter, I have received a dozen private messages on Habr and even several on social networks, asking about the continuation of the book. To many readers of Habr it turned out to be useful and informative this reading. And since each business needs to be completed and there is a demand for this business, I hasten to continue sharing my experience.

In this chapter you will learn:

How the crazy idea of an IT project was born and what were the prerequisites for this
About the motives of the person who drops everything and creates his own startup or business. Moreover, he throws not only comfortable and profitable work, but also completely changes his place of residence and environment.
How to raise start-up capital
About creating a team from scratch
About the role of the founder in the development and development of the project
About the search for investments and how it happens in reality
About mistakes and consequences
And also about the relatively happy ending of this chapter of life

This chapter covers the period from the end of 2011 to the end of 2013.

Idea

Conception of a child begins with passion. With irrepressible, overwhelming emotions, which is transformed into a super-force that can roll mountains. This power is so huge that it gives a new life. Introduces a new resident to Earth. But before the baby is born, 9 months of preparation and organic growth must pass. Growth from a small cell to an extremely complex organism consisting of a billion other cells harmoniously interconnected. As you know, 9 mothers will not “release” the baby in a month, so the key to this process, as well as to building your IT project, is harmonious and consistent growth.

I hope that this parallel between conception and the birth of a child conveys the approximate mood of a novice IT entrepreneur from the birth of an idea to the release of the first version to public access.

In my case, the idea of my startup seemed to be in my head always, starting from the moment of writing the first program. In chapter 4, I mentioned that at the university I developed my own C ++ compiler in order to reach the bearded uncles with RSDN.ru by knowledge. This story is described in more detail in a separate post - " As I wrote the C ++ compiler ."

Obsessed with the idea of creating something outstanding for fellow programmers, I often wrote in a notebook how to automate a particular process in my favorite IDE. I also had a file on the desktop where I wrote out all the routine tasks of writing code that occurred during the work.

Whether it is thousand times repeating cycles

for(int i = 0; i < items.count; i++)

Or creating Get / Set methods in C ++. All these daily repetitive actions suggested that the development tools are far from perfect.

Further, I began to wonder more often - " And what will programming in the future be like? ". So in 10-20 years.

Thinking about it at the beginning of 2010, I imagined that in 10 years, the machines would write programs themselves, and the developers would wave their hands near the transparent monitors as shown in the film - Password “Swordfish”.

Ten years have passed, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies have gained popularity. Like contactless touch controllers like Kinect. But as I wrote the code in Visual Studio, I am writing. Only the version number has changed. Nothing revolutionary in the last 10 years!

Start-up capital

But back to the end of 2011. At that time, I worked diligently as a freelance developer on two projects at once. My goal was to quickly raise money for an apartment and move from my parents to my own home. And the more money I put under the sofa, the more was my confidence in myself and tomorrow. Now $ 5,000 has accumulated. I began to look at what types of apartments you can buy for this amount, even on credit. In fairness, the idea to buy an apartment was imposed by parents. By itself, it did not light me. I already had a car by that time, so I began to glance towards creating my own business and accumulating start-up capital for it.

In my free time, I looked and read everything that was at that time about creating a business on the network. There was little information. My favorite resource was Zuckerberg Calls (now vc.ru), which later led me to influential people in the field of IT entrepreneurship.

However, everything that appeared on the pages of that blog and in social networks seemed very distant from my provincial city. So far away that it seemed like I was watching a movie when someone was telling how he raised tens of thousands of dollars of investment.

Then I went out to my provincial courtyard, furnished on four sides by the Khrushchevs of the early 1960s. With gloomy trees and gloomy people. And all that was left for me was to close my eyes and start to imagine what my startup of the future could be. Breakthrough idea in a million.

I walked and dreamed. Along the way, stumbling about the homeless people in the transition, I thought about the potential of devices with a touch interface. I imagined how you could twist on the screen with a few fingers at once, turning an imaginary gear and this caused euphoria and a desire to create something similar for the world of software development.

In less than two years of hard work, I saved up $ 20,000. I didn’t buy myself anything, the food was cheap and mostly my parents bought it. I did not have monthly bills and my family. Therefore, 95% of the earned on freelance, directly folded under the sofa. I have done such accumulative marathons in my life more than once, including now, when I have a lot of accounts and a big family.

Having such savings, I finally came to the conclusion that you need to start your IT project.

From idea to implementation

So there was a crazy idea. Inspired by the purchased New iPad 3, the movie Iron Man and having several years of development experience, I decided to create a visual programming environment. Or simply put, an IDE with a touch interface. There is an idea, and I began to sketch notes about the functionality.

The basis of UI / UX was the ability to move components, classes, methods and interfaces across the IDE space, while connecting them together and delving into details by clicking on the blocks
that make up the program.

It looked something like this:

The idea of visual programming was mind blowing. She greatly excited the imagination. But I could not bring it to the point where such an instrument would be really useful in terms of productivity. Nevertheless, my slogan at that moment was: "the main thing is to do, and be what happens."

Having started searching for artists in my team, I came across a couple of developers from the RSDN.ru site. They were ready to take up the development. But a fatal thought was imposed on me that the founder did not need to engage in development. In truth, I didn’t really want to, I was more concerned about creating a real business and raising investments. To make everything as beautiful and rich as other successful startups. Many of the decisions I made then were based on intuition, as well as on my own ego. There was no one to learn and learn from.

One way or another, I hired the first person to the startup team almost immediately when the idea came up. I gave him a test task - to make a simple application for the iPad, which allows you to move blocks around the screen and connect them with arrows. The candidate quickly completed this task, and given his small rate of $ 10 / hour, he was hired without delay.

Further more. I saw that “Oh, miracle!”, The developer does the tasks that I give him. And I decided to hire more guys from oDesk. Thus, from my crazy idea yesterday, a company of 8 developers for any platform quickly formed.

My plan was to create prototypes of Desktop, Web and Mobile applications, and go with them to investors. I did not know another way at that moment. However, no one cultivated another way in the Russian-speaking startup community. There was one thing on the surface of the information space: you create a prototype, write a business plan, ask for money ... Profit!

Why Networking

The team developed a prototype under my leadership. In parallel, I began to aim at attracting investment. The size of the investment was unknown to me and I never held in my hands more than $ 20-25,000. Therefore, at first it was guided by the figures that were published in open sources. And only after a while, I tried to write a business plan, and fell into a stupor from the received $ 500,000 only to pay for the development year for 8 people.

To search for such investments under a crazy idea was such an idea. Perhaps somewhere in Palo Alto it would have worked, with a drunken billionaire, but not in the CIS of those years. Although there were different stories ...

While still living with my parents, I intuitively began to seek to get acquainted with everyone who at least somehow intersects with investing in IT startups, or starts them myself. At that time, there were almost no such events in Ukraine. During the summer of 2012, I attended only 2 events held on the other side of the country.

However, this allowed me to touch a previously unknown level. Level of personality development. I was inspired by how the people from the IT party behaved, how confident they were, what crazy energy was coming from them. It all blew the roof, and was from a completely different world - Through the Looking Glass. In this world there were no domestic drug addicts, grannies, and a gloomy city in which I lived for 26 years.

At that time, I met many IT-businessmen who are still listed as my friends in social networks. Among them were the founders of VKontakte, relatives and friends of the then ministers of Ukraine and Russia, many multi-millionaire investors in IT.

Despite the fact that I looked more like yesterday’s student, I had nothing to offer except “my team makes a programming environment with a touch interface”. Nevertheless, many powerful people of this world made contact and at least gave a business card. And if you managed to organize meetings through third parties, then you could present your idea for several minutes.

Looking for Microsoft support

The network of acquaintances and the environment decide a lot, if not all.

Active investment search phase

In the 2012th year, I moved to Kiev, from my gloomy settlement. Burned all bridges and communications. Finished projects on freelance. He packed his things and a computer in checkered bag-bags and went away from his parents to create his bright future. In Kiev, I had almost no acquaintances, so I had to do everything myself. To say that it was hard was to say nothing. Such wild things happened to me that putting them out in public would be suicide. I can only say that I had to call an ambulance quite often. And also the landlady of my apartment, more than once wanted to kick me out of it, for all kinds of jambs (after all, I hadn’t lived alone before and learned many things on the go).

But I stayed to live in Kiev, although no one believed in me and my relatives constantly pulled me back to their Las Vegas. Today, on the contrary, I bought relatives an apartment and I call them to move to me. The main thing is not to give up.

So, all I needed at that moment was my computer, desk and chair. There was no table in the first rented apartment, so I had to find a folding option for a summer cottage, which barely fit between the bed and the TV in a tiny odnushka.

But the idea of the move was to find the right contacts and investments that were within walking distance. So in the period from September 2012 to February 2013, I went around about 20 investors, presenting them my projects. I found them at conferences and events, in social networks and news. Contacted directly through Facebook. I had nothing to lose. I clearly understood that when my accumulations run out, there will be no turning back.

It will be an emotional death. I cannot go back, but in order to stay in Kiev I will have no money. After all, freelance is also over.

I was inspired by the campaign of Julius Caesar in Britain. When, having landed the army on the island, he ordered the ships to be burned so that the soldiers did not have the opportunity to run back.

And the soldiers captured the island. I was in a similar situation, because there was nowhere to run. If it was possible to self-motivate yourself, then this was done as much as possible. Either all or nothing.

But the reality is a little different. And despite the universal desire to receive investments and launch a global startup, the money was melting before our eyes, and people with whom I suggested investing in us were in no hurry to write out checks with five digits.

And now I have a few hundred dollars left from all the savings. There was nothing for developers to pay, there was nothing to pay for renting an apartment, there was no money. By the way, there was no prototype product that would catch and cause a wow effect. I just pasted a piece of paper with tape on the wall with the inscription "The darkest hour before dawn" and continued the struggle.

From hopelessness, I turned completely to an outsider who conducted business training in Kiev, and had nothing to do with IT. I showed him a demo on the iPad, right next to the stage, in front of a thousand people. We talked for about 10 minutes, while the audience languished in anticipation. In the end, he rendered a verdict on how things really were: “I see some squares moving on the tablet screen and you ask me for tens of thousands of dollars. I will not invest in it. ”

However, this did not stop me, I continued to walk and present what was, despite the fact that the future was under threat. People competent in IT, gave practical advice, and if then I listened to them, everything could be different. Someone advised to adapt the application for children and teach them programming in this way. This idea seemed to me, if not offensive, then wild.
What children?! What are you ?! I want to make a revolution in the field of software development, and you suggest me to develop toys? Yes, yes, it’s good to analyze yourself after years.

I continued to beat at the closed door, even when I completely stopped development. He took a microloan from the bank to pay for renting an apartment. My parents sent me food, or my future wife brought me. Therefore, although I was bankrupt, and already morally depressed from refusals, nevertheless, they called me from the newly opened startup accelerator and invited me for an interview.

And in truth they say: "Everything will work out - you just have to get sick." Emotionally and financially, I was at zero, but I found the strength to hobble to the potential office of my company. And the good news awaited me there. The founder of the accelerator and part-time investor, was well acquainted with the founder of MySQL and GitHub. And if possible he could introduce me to them.

And also this incubator attracted about a million money, and they were glad to invest in promising developments. In the end, I was taken as one of the first residents of the incubator and promised to cooperate in every way. However, I had to live on something, pay rent and food. In addition, the team has not worked on the project for a long time. However, I nevertheless got acquainted with these influencers from the IT world, and borrowed enough knowledge from them.

Total

Despite these roller coasters, at the limit of human capabilities, I have gained a lot of positive for these crazy half a year. I met many famous people from the world of IT entrepreneurship. Got a lot of experience, understanding the processes of creating and developing a startup.

Also, it was the move to Kiev that gave me my wife, largely thanks to which I did not finally drown at that difficult time. Her support and help pulled me out of this hell.

And after 8 years, with a cold head, acquired knowledge and contacts, I start up the IT business again. What I will tell you in the last chapter.