Acquaintance with Habrapipl

PS instead of the entry (from the comments that have arisen) to make it easier to decide whether or not to read this post:

:-)
know how it goes? Such cool friends, extremely powerful and talented programmers and art creators gather. “We are so cool! We are geniuses! We can implement cool projects for one or two times! ” And they create a miracle company, because they are cool! They can not earn, because their work is beautiful and without bugs.
But now it takes several months, but the business somehow does not go ... And everything is very simple: just the sales system in the company is not perfect. And they run, and try to tear off at least some zakazik for a penny, to be able to prove to this customer that they are cool, in the hope that he will appreciate them and then make a good order. And they seem to find ... And again something is wrong. Does not appreciate their customer, does not understand their genius! Again he is trying to impose his vision on how to do it right. And again, it all ends in a fuss and a failed project.

Try to convince me that I have not described at least 50% of the collapsed web studios. And it’s not at all possible that there were normal specialists there.
It’s just that many such companies lacked the ability to develop a proper sales system, the ability to find good customers who will pay normally, even for slop work.

These are exactly the questions that we will raise.
')
Appeal now to all, so to speak to the word:
If you are one of those who want to create the perfect company with a brilliant portfolio and an impeccable reputation, it is unlikely that you will find something interesting here.
If you are more a businessman and want to raise a business, please invite to a constructive dialogue. In future articles, more interesting and substantive moments will be revealed.

Good day to all!

So there was a blog of our young growing company, and first of all I would like to tell about our company, about ourselves, who we are and why we are. Website for habraudara: newpg.ru

Immediately I want to clarify for whom, most likely, our information will be interesting:

1) For freelancers
2) Startups
3) Top-management of small beginner web studios
4) Those interested in labor motivation
5) Those who are constantly in search of new methods of doing business
6) All others with similar interests.

What will be the cycle of our articles

Basically, we will consider the issues of running a business from scratch, a business in conjunction with freelancing, various issues related to the difficulties of finding orders, etc.
I must say at once that we will fairly fairly and honestly share our experience, revealing, one might say, the very underworld. Why? After all, many will say that it is stupid, because the experience of the company is the most valuable asset! Yes this is true. But the Internet is an area that is developing at a frantic pace, and business practices have to be developed daily in order to be ahead. And we know for sure that after we share our knowledge, in a very short period of time we will learn new methods. In addition, the market is actually huge, despite the great competition in this market.

Introduction

There is a time-tested, and familiar to absolutely everyone, popular wisdom: “to learn from the mistakes of others” and associated with it “for one beaten, two unbeaten are given”, that is, negative experience is more often and more valuable. So, here we will share our experience. In the newspaper "Metro" read a couple of months ago, that according to statistics, more than 80% of web studios are closed in the first 6 months. Here habrahabr.ru/company/qsoft/blog/99690 provides statistics that 80-90% of companies close in the first year. I think that most often beginner web studios are also a kind of typical startups. In this article, the guys in particular say: "Simply put, there are no logical prerequisites for organizing your own business, the probability of winning is comparable to playing roulette." Only at the end it sounds neatly: “you act carefully at the beginning, carefully study the experience gained then ...”. On that and stopped.

I’m sure that you just can’t rely on Fate. A lot depends on us. Here we will just bring and analyze the experience gained here so that everyone who plans to create his own web studio can see various pitfalls in this business, be better prepared for this crucial moment, plan the development of his company. Although my company has undergone some reincarnations, I have been in my office in the center of Moscow for over a year now, and now more than ever I am sure that everything will be fine. And this confidence gives just experience.

About me briefly

I will write out my biography in more detail later, and now briefly and in the matter:
Until 2007, he had nothing to do with IT. In the summer of 2007, he decided to hit it in this area. In July 2007, he got a job at a small Internet provider company in Khabarovsk, where he lived at that time. After 3 months, I was called to the cellular company for the position of a billing support specialist, where I worked for 10 months. During this time, I have mastered Oracle, SQL, PL / SQL and the very basics of HTML, CSS and PHP (as part of a hobby). In August 2008, in connection with admission to the institute for full-time education, he quit the cellular company and got a job as a programmer at one of the Khabarovsk web studios. This was my first experience in commercial web programming. I finally learned what a CMS is :-).
I left the institute after 2.5 months, since I went to study, and not to teach a leading teacher in computer science. In general, I wanted large projects, and I decided to leave for Moscow again. On December 12, 2008, I flew to Moscow with 19,000 rubles in my pocket and my computer in my bag. I stopped living in one of the hostels, in which there was one very big plus - 10-bit Wi-Fi. Immediately hooked on freelancing.

Here begins the main story ... The story about the business from scratch.

I worked on freelance for more than six months. In the summer of 2009, my former boss (Vladimir, the general director of the Khabarovsk web studio) offered me 50% in the company and jointly open an office in Moscow. I have long wanted to open my web studio, but constantly something was missing. The main problems were two:
1) I never liked messing around with documents, and in my understanding all this fuss with organizational papers seemed to me hard labor.
2) I am a web programmer, not a designer, that is, I needed a person who understands design well.

Vladimir, on the contrary, was a designer, and understood almost nothing in programming. His company has existed for more than five years, but kept on the word of honor. The works, of course, turned out to be creative, but the technical implementation was at a very weak level.

In general, I decided that it would be a good union. We had 50% in business. He is an art director, I am a technical & commercial director. Starting capital - 0 rubles ... Just in this period, the negotiations on freelancing on one project for 400,000 rubles approached the logical end. Prepayment for this project was decided to be sent to the office. I must say that the crisis of 2008 was good for us. While earlier the office in the center could be removed with great difficulty, and in our business center on Novy Arbat all the more (earlier there only 500-1000 sq. Meters were handed over by floors and half-floors), at that time the BC’s occupancy rate was less than 70% and they handed over offices to anyone from 15 squares. There will be a separate article about the office, there are a lot of all sorts of subtleties, interrelations, etc., so we will sort out this issue very closely in the future.

We took office in September of 2009. It was here that all the most interesting things in my life began ... Not a single day off during the year, except ten days this September, which I spent at sea; work 10-18 hours a day; a huge amount of information; constant search for projects; problems with finding employees, project implementation; the unreliability of a business partner; leaving the company and opening your company from scratch (but with preservation of your office), etc ... All of this we will touch on in the next articles. In order not to write very long and tedious articles, I will break them into logical parts so as not to be sprayed on a bunch of ideas, not to drown in a pile of little related comments, etc., so if anyone is interested, watch for new announcements. On this topic, I think, in the next couple of weeks almost every day there will be another article in the continuation of the conversation. We will consider both legal issues relating to company registration, workflow, etc., as well as organizational issues relating to employee search, orders, etc. In any case, this will be a presentation of only real experience, the situations that most beginner and already developed web studios encounter.

I will be glad to answer any of your questions.