Kopini's New Year's Eve Report
Hello!
As promised, we make a report on the work done. Considerably podnadoev habrovchanam their articles ( about the budget , office and LLC , revenues ) about our startup Copiny , tried a little PR and more facts. Yes, and accumulated questions that I would like to answer.
Under the cut talk about the current state of affairs in the company:
')
UPD: For unknown reasons, our report was considered to be tough PR and hid the topic, although a bunch of other projects are published in Startups and Services simply with a description, without numbers, without background and other interesting information. Even lichku received questions "Where did we hide the topic?" In connection with which they decided to start a blog for the company Habré. So even better. Now only you and no one else can appreciate what the topic is worth.
Strangely enough, but only after 4 months of working on the project, we finally realized what a service it is and what value it actually carries to customers. So, Kopini is NOT a collection of ideas . This is a collective knowledge base, a support forum and a way to organize effective feedback in one bottle. Collecting ideas is only a small part of the feedback. We want to make our service a universal means of productive communication of companies with their clients on the Internet.
Kopini allows you to improve the quality of customer service and reduce support costs, increase customer loyalty and attract new ones, receive effective feedback and be closer to customers . This is what distinguishes us from analogs.
One of the most significant achievements for us was the victory in the WebReady competition in the nomination "The best project on the basis of online voting." After the contest, we were interested in 3 funds and 2 business angels, but they had to refuse, because managed to reach the one who we really need! Read more at the end.
And before that, we almost got bought, wrote in more detail in our blog . Well all that ends well. Looking back, I can say that the sale would be a fatal mistake.
Well, some statistics of the service , it is constantly updated on the main:
Expenses Currently spent 495894r . - on the one hand less than planned, on the other hand there were rather big unforeseen expenses. The main expenses amounted to a salary fund of 307000 rubles (with taxes), 82,320 rubles. furniture and office equipment, 45400r. rent, about 30,000 business trips (not planned as many). In general, the financial plan expenses met. By the way, only one hired worker remained in the team, so the expenses were reduced to almost 50000 rubles per month. But it is not for long, because In January, a new employee will come to us.
Revenues . Many have annihilated us in the comments and talked about the unreality of numbers. Someone advised to divide the potential income by 10. In fact, not everything is so scary. At the moment, earned 50904 p, in fact it is almost for December. What conclusions can be made?
We were mistaken not with the order of numbers and the number of customers, but with the time that would be required to bring a new product to the market, as well as the difficulties of selling it. More on errors below.
As mentioned above, in December there were 3 people left in the team in the office. The programmer and our only girl, unfortunately, left the project. Care programmer due to the fact that the guy after 3 years of freelancing could not work in the office and combine the internship. For the girl corny there was no work. Despite the fact that there are three of us, and there are 2 empty seats, the office essentially organizes and helps the work.
In parallel, in December, they began to cooperate remotely with my old acquaintance; we are not yet introducing him into the company staff. And since January we have a new teammate.
Optimistic sales plan . Due to the lack of experience in the niche and not a complete understanding of the product, they made a fairly decent mistake in the calculations. On the one hand, the number of customers is not at all what they expected and this is bad. On the other hand, customers do not pay monthly, but immediately, for a year (almost all) and that’s good =).
The complexity of sales . It is also very difficult to sell a new product on the market, which is not yet available. But this is a separate story, more here .
Quick start . These rakes flow from the first point, relying on big sales, started working as a “big adult” company, skipping the validation of the idea.
The most important thing is that we realized our mistakes in time and took measures. In a startup, it’s not the initial idea and business plan that is important, but the ability to change.
I will briefly talk about the main features and capabilities that have appeared since the start. It makes no sense to consider trivialities, for a couple of months there were dozens of improvements.
Integration into design and transparent authorization allows you to fully integrate the community into the client's infrastructure. Thanks to transparent authorization, visitors are immediately authorized, and they do not need to register. And integration into design will make the community a full-fledged section of the site.
A living example: the leading Internet provider of the Samara region, the company Stork .
Surveys and important discussions allow representatives of the company to find out the opinions of their clients and put forward important questions for discussion or to make an easily accessible FAQ.
Logging in through popular Russian social networks allows you to log in to Kopini in 1 click. And a whole bunch more.
Here are collected questions that are most often asked to us and which, frankly, are fed up =) If there are more, welcome in the comments.
How are we different from Reformal and analogues? Friends, understand, we are completely different, although at first glance they are very similar. Reformal is a service of collecting ideas, their main goal is to improve your website (as they themselves say). Kopini is a way of effective interaction between customers and company representatives, our main goal is to get maximum benefit from communication (customer service, loyalty, reduction of support costs, etc.)
Why are we paid? It's simple. Kopini is our only project, it is our brainchild to whom we give ourselves completely. All team members work full time. This allows us to develop by leaps and bounds, to provide quality service and support, to ensure reliability and stability. Receiving money, we take legal responsibility for the service, for the data and their safety. When you use a free service, no one owes you anything, and if it closes tomorrow, you lose everything, and there will be nobody to ask.
Are we reliable? Pah-pah-pah there were no failures. Uptime server 100% and it is loaded now no more than 3%. And most importantly, paying for the service, be sure that it will work throughout this period. We give a guarantee and legally arrange it.
Who are your customers? This question is usually asked by those who are frightened by our youth and "non-mailing". There are not many iconic customers, but already there is someone to brag about =)
Functional.
First of all, we will develop the service in the direction of integration. In the first quarter of 2011, a commercial API will be ready, which will allow Kopini to integrate with any systems, including SVN, HelpDesck / ServiceDesk, etc. New widgets will make it easier and more efficient to use Kopini. Plans search widget, voting and polling widget, etc. Connecting payment with electronic money is also on the way. And of course we will work on improving the efficiency of our service as a whole.
Investments.
Before the new year must sign an agreement on conditions with a business angel. If everything goes smoothly, then we will receive funds at the end of January. I just found it - I wrote a letter with information about the company, then met first together, then with the whole team. Despite the fact that we have almost reached the operational payback, we need the attracted investments for rapid growth. Terms of the transaction and the name has not yet disclosed. As they say, do not speak gop until you jump.
Long puzzled over the monetization model, they stopped at freemium. Therefore, approximately from February 2011, Copini will be available for free . Not to miss the moment, follow us on Twitter . For free-accounts will be available almost all the basic functionality of the service.
Here, perhaps, all that I wanted to tell about Kopini .
We wish you all success and goodness in the new 2011. Holiday greetings!
As promised, we make a report on the work done. Considerably podnadoev habrovchanam their articles ( about the budget , office and LLC , revenues ) about our startup Copiny , tried a little PR and more facts. Yes, and accumulated questions that I would like to answer.
Under the cut talk about the current state of affairs in the company:
- how much they earned and spent (up to a ruble =))
- what's up with the team and the office
- on which rake came,
- how we found a business angel and what we agreed on
- whether Kopini will be free.
')
UPD: For unknown reasons, our report was considered to be tough PR and hid the topic, although a bunch of other projects are published in Startups and Services simply with a description, without numbers, without background and other interesting information. Even lichku received questions "Where did we hide the topic?" In connection with which they decided to start a blog for the company Habré. So even better. Now only you and no one else can appreciate what the topic is worth.
What is Kopini?
Strangely enough, but only after 4 months of working on the project, we finally realized what a service it is and what value it actually carries to customers. So, Kopini is NOT a collection of ideas . This is a collective knowledge base, a support forum and a way to organize effective feedback in one bottle. Collecting ideas is only a small part of the feedback. We want to make our service a universal means of productive communication of companies with their clients on the Internet.
Kopini allows you to improve the quality of customer service and reduce support costs, increase customer loyalty and attract new ones, receive effective feedback and be closer to customers . This is what distinguishes us from analogs.
4 months after launch
One of the most significant achievements for us was the victory in the WebReady competition in the nomination "The best project on the basis of online voting." After the contest, we were interested in 3 funds and 2 business angels, but they had to refuse, because managed to reach the one who we really need! Read more at the end.And before that, we almost got bought, wrote in more detail in our blog . Well all that ends well. Looking back, I can say that the sale would be a fatal mistake.
Well, some statistics of the service , it is constantly updated on the main:
- 522 Communities registered.
- 53222 Members in all communities.
- 5449 Discussions created by members.
Finance
Expenses Currently spent 495894r . - on the one hand less than planned, on the other hand there were rather big unforeseen expenses. The main expenses amounted to a salary fund of 307000 rubles (with taxes), 82,320 rubles. furniture and office equipment, 45400r. rent, about 30,000 business trips (not planned as many). In general, the financial plan expenses met. By the way, only one hired worker remained in the team, so the expenses were reduced to almost 50000 rubles per month. But it is not for long, because In January, a new employee will come to us.
Revenues . Many have annihilated us in the comments and talked about the unreality of numbers. Someone advised to divide the potential income by 10. In fact, not everything is so scary. At the moment, earned 50904 p, in fact it is almost for December. What conclusions can be made?
We were mistaken not with the order of numbers and the number of customers, but with the time that would be required to bring a new product to the market, as well as the difficulties of selling it. More on errors below.
Team and office
As mentioned above, in December there were 3 people left in the team in the office. The programmer and our only girl, unfortunately, left the project. Care programmer due to the fact that the guy after 3 years of freelancing could not work in the office and combine the internship. For the girl corny there was no work. Despite the fact that there are three of us, and there are 2 empty seats, the office essentially organizes and helps the work.
In parallel, in December, they began to cooperate remotely with my old acquaintance; we are not yet introducing him into the company staff. And since January we have a new teammate.
Main rake
Optimistic sales plan . Due to the lack of experience in the niche and not a complete understanding of the product, they made a fairly decent mistake in the calculations. On the one hand, the number of customers is not at all what they expected and this is bad. On the other hand, customers do not pay monthly, but immediately, for a year (almost all) and that’s good =).
The complexity of sales . It is also very difficult to sell a new product on the market, which is not yet available. But this is a separate story, more here .
Quick start . These rakes flow from the first point, relying on big sales, started working as a “big adult” company, skipping the validation of the idea.
The most important thing is that we realized our mistakes in time and took measures. In a startup, it’s not the initial idea and business plan that is important, but the ability to change.
Main features
I will briefly talk about the main features and capabilities that have appeared since the start. It makes no sense to consider trivialities, for a couple of months there were dozens of improvements.
Integration into design and transparent authorization allows you to fully integrate the community into the client's infrastructure. Thanks to transparent authorization, visitors are immediately authorized, and they do not need to register. And integration into design will make the community a full-fledged section of the site.
A living example: the leading Internet provider of the Samara region, the company Stork .
Surveys and important discussions allow representatives of the company to find out the opinions of their clients and put forward important questions for discussion or to make an easily accessible FAQ.
Logging in through popular Russian social networks allows you to log in to Kopini in 1 click. And a whole bunch more.
FAQ
Here are collected questions that are most often asked to us and which, frankly, are fed up =) If there are more, welcome in the comments.
How are we different from Reformal and analogues? Friends, understand, we are completely different, although at first glance they are very similar. Reformal is a service of collecting ideas, their main goal is to improve your website (as they themselves say). Kopini is a way of effective interaction between customers and company representatives, our main goal is to get maximum benefit from communication (customer service, loyalty, reduction of support costs, etc.)
Why are we paid? It's simple. Kopini is our only project, it is our brainchild to whom we give ourselves completely. All team members work full time. This allows us to develop by leaps and bounds, to provide quality service and support, to ensure reliability and stability. Receiving money, we take legal responsibility for the service, for the data and their safety. When you use a free service, no one owes you anything, and if it closes tomorrow, you lose everything, and there will be nobody to ask.
Are we reliable? Pah-pah-pah there were no failures. Uptime server 100% and it is loaded now no more than 3%. And most importantly, paying for the service, be sure that it will work throughout this period. We give a guarantee and legally arrange it.
Who are your customers? This question is usually asked by those who are frightened by our youth and "non-mailing". There are not many iconic customers, but already there is someone to brag about =)
- UMI.CMS - I hope the company does not need to submit,
- Internet company Aist - the leading Internet provider of the Samara region,
- Alor + - included in the TOP5 brokerage companies in Russia,
- NovaFilm - translation studio (known in Habré),
- Lucas Gold - Moscow Jewelry Factory.
Plans
Functional.
First of all, we will develop the service in the direction of integration. In the first quarter of 2011, a commercial API will be ready, which will allow Kopini to integrate with any systems, including SVN, HelpDesck / ServiceDesk, etc. New widgets will make it easier and more efficient to use Kopini. Plans search widget, voting and polling widget, etc. Connecting payment with electronic money is also on the way. And of course we will work on improving the efficiency of our service as a whole.
Investments.
Before the new year must sign an agreement on conditions with a business angel. If everything goes smoothly, then we will receive funds at the end of January. I just found it - I wrote a letter with information about the company, then met first together, then with the whole team. Despite the fact that we have almost reached the operational payback, we need the attracted investments for rapid growth. Terms of the transaction and the name has not yet disclosed. As they say, do not speak gop until you jump.
Copy will be free
Long puzzled over the monetization model, they stopped at freemium. Therefore, approximately from February 2011, Copini will be available for free . Not to miss the moment, follow us on Twitter . For free-accounts will be available almost all the basic functionality of the service.
Here, perhaps, all that I wanted to tell about Kopini .
We wish you all success and goodness in the new 2011. Holiday greetings!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/110953/
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