"Divorce" startups
Finding an investor is not an easy and exciting experience. You can get the necessary funds, not get them or lose them.
So, I present the real story of the "layout" of a startup.
Several years ago, our team started the project of Infoaren , it got accustomed well in the test Kaliningrad region, but in order to reach greater Russia and further, as practice has shown, additional investments are needed, which we did not have. We tried to talk traditionally with investment companies, but no one showed interest. It was decided to move on their own - slowly but surely.
So, the greatest costs of money and, most importantly, time are spent on programming services and their support. We also had experience in creating websites and online stores. Therefore, after a little reflection, we came to the simple idea that our achievements should not remain within the same project, but become accessible to many people. This is possible if typical functional elements are made as simple and customizable as possible so that any website, store, social network or other complex Internet service can be folded out of them.
No matter how well you plan, do not conduct market research, in practice everything will be completely wrong. In life, it is important to quickly deploy your project, start selling and be ready to adapt to new market requirements.
So, together we came up with and launched the project Aitiniti . What we have already done allows us to create Internet projects ten times faster than before, but in order to do something really cool, money is needed.
Once, thanks to the information posted on merar.com, an investor came to us and declared that he was interested in our project. We approached this issue seriously - we formulated and beautifully designed our new vision, carefully translated the presentations into English and sent them away.
Within a couple of months, through the exchange of various memorandums of intent, we received agreement to finance our project. Rather simple procedures and the absence of special difficulties did not alert any of us — we attributed everything to the Western style of business communication.
The first alarming factor was the possibility of transferring money personally by the representative, but we chose the non-cash option. Then it turned out that a person trusts and is ready to give money, but for now he does not need to be entered by the founder of the company, otherwise he will fly into taxes in his country. Also not a problem - you still need to register a separate LLC.
Sometimes you feel that you are being deceived, but hope is so strong that it drowns out the mind.
The most interesting begins further. The investor reports that the money is ready and I need to open an account in a bank in England, from which I can transfer the money where I need it. I agree, and the representative of this bank contacts me. The first serious mistake of fraudsters - a letter sent from a free hosting in the Czech Republic. I looked at the site of the bank, it seems they have branches all over the world, and one of the domains where I opened the account was registered a week ago. I think, well, where did this woman lurk ..., but I still don’t understand exactly where (and the inner voice of an optimist is in my head - well, people also need to invest money, everything may coincide, but a project without this money will crawl like a wounded turtle) . Slip number two scammers - weak pseudo bank account functionality and unprotected connection.
So, the money is “received”, despite the suspicions, we all rejoice when we see large numbers on a personal account in an English bank. We are preparing to transfer part of the money to Russia, although this is also not so simple. The transfer scheme was changed several times, but at the end I lined up so that I received a loan and occupied my company. The passport of the transaction is not required, but the dollars can not be calculated. By the way, it turned out to be useless to show contracts to employees in a Russian bank - the staff qualifications are terribly low, they almost set me up for violating the law. I advise you to hire a competent lawyer. I urgently open a personal account and transfer part of the amount. The transaction has passed, all parties are satisfied, and here ... here it is - meet her majesty ....!
')
The next day, it turns out that the account was blocked by a certain commission on terrorism by the government agency, the UKAAMT (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), you need to issue a Clean Bill of Records Clearance Certification and this pleasure is worth some ridiculous 3100 British pounds sterling. Everything immediately fell into place. Well, naturally, the false bank cannot take them from the account - it is frozen, the request for credit is ignored, the fraudster partner asks from his sources to pay the amount in order to unfreeze the account.
Parallel to what is happening, google it at the expense of these organizations and the certificate, with a long name. There is simply no information on these organizations, since, obviously, such offices do not exist at all. But regarding the certificate, there were a couple of interesting pages from 2004 and 2006, where the “injured” people tell how they were bred to pay for this certificate according to the “Nigerian letter” scheme.
In addition, I turned to a real bank, so that they would confirm it to employees, and to the ATC. The bank answered a couple of days later that it was a fraud, but no one was interested in ATC.
But also for interest, I asked where to transfer money, it turns out, you need to send it to a private person through Western Union.
Personally, I was not very upset, because the information was accumulated in the subconscious, and in fact I was ready for such a turn of events. It’s a pity a little lost time, but I got experience and I can warn other startups and find people who are ready, one way or another, to participate in our project.
PS If someone thinks that he is so smart and he immediately recognizes the fraudulent scheme - let him not be deceived, but he will reread this article more carefully and remember: the main thing is to stop in time.
So, I present the real story of the "layout" of a startup.
Prologue
Several years ago, our team started the project of Infoaren , it got accustomed well in the test Kaliningrad region, but in order to reach greater Russia and further, as practice has shown, additional investments are needed, which we did not have. We tried to talk traditionally with investment companies, but no one showed interest. It was decided to move on their own - slowly but surely.
So, the greatest costs of money and, most importantly, time are spent on programming services and their support. We also had experience in creating websites and online stores. Therefore, after a little reflection, we came to the simple idea that our achievements should not remain within the same project, but become accessible to many people. This is possible if typical functional elements are made as simple and customizable as possible so that any website, store, social network or other complex Internet service can be folded out of them.
No matter how well you plan, do not conduct market research, in practice everything will be completely wrong. In life, it is important to quickly deploy your project, start selling and be ready to adapt to new market requirements.
So, together we came up with and launched the project Aitiniti . What we have already done allows us to create Internet projects ten times faster than before, but in order to do something really cool, money is needed.
Communication with the investor
Once, thanks to the information posted on merar.com, an investor came to us and declared that he was interested in our project. We approached this issue seriously - we formulated and beautifully designed our new vision, carefully translated the presentations into English and sent them away.
Within a couple of months, through the exchange of various memorandums of intent, we received agreement to finance our project. Rather simple procedures and the absence of special difficulties did not alert any of us — we attributed everything to the Western style of business communication.
The first alarming factor was the possibility of transferring money personally by the representative, but we chose the non-cash option. Then it turned out that a person trusts and is ready to give money, but for now he does not need to be entered by the founder of the company, otherwise he will fly into taxes in his country. Also not a problem - you still need to register a separate LLC.
Sometimes you feel that you are being deceived, but hope is so strong that it drowns out the mind.
The most interesting begins further. The investor reports that the money is ready and I need to open an account in a bank in England, from which I can transfer the money where I need it. I agree, and the representative of this bank contacts me. The first serious mistake of fraudsters - a letter sent from a free hosting in the Czech Republic. I looked at the site of the bank, it seems they have branches all over the world, and one of the domains where I opened the account was registered a week ago. I think, well, where did this woman lurk ..., but I still don’t understand exactly where (and the inner voice of an optimist is in my head - well, people also need to invest money, everything may coincide, but a project without this money will crawl like a wounded turtle) . Slip number two scammers - weak pseudo bank account functionality and unprotected connection.
So, the money is “received”, despite the suspicions, we all rejoice when we see large numbers on a personal account in an English bank. We are preparing to transfer part of the money to Russia, although this is also not so simple. The transfer scheme was changed several times, but at the end I lined up so that I received a loan and occupied my company. The passport of the transaction is not required, but the dollars can not be calculated. By the way, it turned out to be useless to show contracts to employees in a Russian bank - the staff qualifications are terribly low, they almost set me up for violating the law. I advise you to hire a competent lawyer. I urgently open a personal account and transfer part of the amount. The transaction has passed, all parties are satisfied, and here ... here it is - meet her majesty ....!
')
Fraud scheme
The next day, it turns out that the account was blocked by a certain commission on terrorism by the government agency, the UKAAMT (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), you need to issue a Clean Bill of Records Clearance Certification and this pleasure is worth some ridiculous 3100 British pounds sterling. Everything immediately fell into place. Well, naturally, the false bank cannot take them from the account - it is frozen, the request for credit is ignored, the fraudster partner asks from his sources to pay the amount in order to unfreeze the account.
Parallel to what is happening, google it at the expense of these organizations and the certificate, with a long name. There is simply no information on these organizations, since, obviously, such offices do not exist at all. But regarding the certificate, there were a couple of interesting pages from 2004 and 2006, where the “injured” people tell how they were bred to pay for this certificate according to the “Nigerian letter” scheme.
In addition, I turned to a real bank, so that they would confirm it to employees, and to the ATC. The bank answered a couple of days later that it was a fraud, but no one was interested in ATC.
But also for interest, I asked where to transfer money, it turns out, you need to send it to a private person through Western Union.
Personally, I was not very upset, because the information was accumulated in the subconscious, and in fact I was ready for such a turn of events. It’s a pity a little lost time, but I got experience and I can warn other startups and find people who are ready, one way or another, to participate in our project.
PS If someone thinks that he is so smart and he immediately recognizes the fraudulent scheme - let him not be deceived, but he will reread this article more carefully and remember: the main thing is to stop in time.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124524/
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