Intvideo.tv - invented, embodied, burned, found money, rewrote, share experiences, look for money

Hello, the Intvideo team is with you. My name is Dmitry, I am PM in this company. We would like to share with you our successes and difficulties that we had to go through over the 3 years of the project’s existence. To this end, I asked to tell about this one of the project’s founders, Chernogubov Yevgeny. Further, the story from his face.

The story is very interesting, I will tell everything and even more, but everything is in order.
')

about the project

The idea of ​​the project belongs to my friend, with whom we are familiar from school age. Today we are partners.

Service Intvideo transmits video polls.
A video survey is a promotional video with an online survey at the end. It combines the advantages of the most productive type of advertising - video advertising and an online survey questionnaire.

The service is interesting for both users and advertisers.

For users, registration is not difficult, after which you can start using the service and make money. At the same time, the more detailed the profile, the more paid surveys it will receive. Participation time is paid at the rate of $ 3.60 per hour. In addition, an additional income brings an affiliate program, thanks to which, the user earns a percentage of participation in video surveys, invited users. Registration in the project is possible only by invitation code, so each recommendation is taken into account when calculating commissions.

The advertiser has the opportunity to choose consumers, for any reason (place of residence, gender, age, occupation, income, Internet access speed, etc.), ask users questions on topics of interest and find out the opinion of the target audience about their services, products and services. The research results allow you to create separate groups of users and, when conducting new advertising campaigns, you can choose consumers with a certain opinion!



You can also highlight a few more benefits:

1. There is no concept of intrusive advertising, the user himself is willing to take part in a paid video survey.
2. The user chooses the most convenient time to view, which means that he will be most susceptible to new information.
3. If the information was useful to the consumer, but he did not manage to write down the phone number or did not hear the address, then unlike the usual video advertising on television, he would not have to wait for the next rental, which may not be.
4. In Intvideo, a consumer can stop a video, rewind to the beginning, or watch it again later.
5. Video survey can be run on any number of users, which is determined by the advertiser independently.
6. In the video survey, you can ask questions to consumers and offer up to six answers to each. This gives a clearer picture of the results of sociological research.
7. Already in the process of broadcasting a video survey, one can observe preliminary statistical data on the number of participants, and on their responses.
8. Opportunity not to show your video plot to everyone in a row, but to choose from all participants, only potential customers according to certain profile parameters or according to the results of previous video polls.
9. Reasonably low prices compared to all other types of video advertising.
10. Money is spent on the fact of watching the video and answers to questions by each user.
11. If the user has not watched the video to the end or did not answer the questions - his participation is not counted.
12. Feedback from consumers allows you to constantly use statistical data that helps to correctly build the strategy for the development of an advertising campaign.

Start, takeoff and first successes

In August 2008, the project attracted the money of the first investor - $ 40 thousand.
During the year, a team of programmers was recruited, the main functions of the service were developed, and servers were purchased. In early 2009, registration was opened.



Registration was active. Simultaneously with the registration, all sorts of bugs began to appear, since the development team was not professional enough and did not believe in the success of the project. For these reasons, the guys could not design and implement a project that will withstand high loads.

Tip # 1: Before starting any project, consult with several programmers of different profiles about the tasks that will be required to solve on the project.

Tip # 2: The main task in recruiting a team is not only professionalism, but also faith in the intended result.

But despite all this, the service worked and developed.

Misfortune never comes alone

The crisis, which began simultaneously with the start of the development of the project, prevented the investor from continuing financing, until reaching profitability. This could not affect the productivity of work, so it was decided to look for a new investor.

Tip # 3 Try for your project to find an investor who has a good margin of finance. This will give you the opportunity to continue to work productively even in case of a delay in time. In addition, as practice shows, if an investor gives you the last money, he will take out all the brains with the control of every penny and every step.

I became the next investor. We considered that the figure of $ 32,000 would be enough for the successful launch of the main Intvideo services. Thanks to this investment, the advertiser’s service was launched.
After 4 months, the project scored more than 200,000 users, registration was exponentially, the first video polls were sent, people started earning. It was a success!

But we rejoiced not long. At one point, the server stopped responding. Data center for several days did not answer calls. As it turned out later, the blame was a fire. We were shocked when we learned that the fire destroyed not only the main server, but also the server with backups. They were not subject to recovery.
We could not think that the data centers are capable of burning, and so that all the aluminum has flowed through the ventilation slots.

The most modern data center in Ukraine, in which there were several thousand servers, not only from Ukraine, but also from Russia, Belarus, equipped with the latest technology burned to the ground. The most interesting thing is that it happened on Saturday evening, for some reason nobody was in the data center, the fire alarm system was turned off, the fire extinguishing system was also there, and the firefighters, who came very late, extinguished it all with water! As a result, that which did not burn out was simply rusty.



The main server kept terabytes of video and a database of all users. After costly attempts to backup all this to another data center, we placed backup servers on the same site, in the next rack. On this site, they both burned. We had fun then.

Tip # 4: if your project stores a huge number of user files, that it is not possible to backup all this to another data center, then, apart from duplicating servers in the same data center, try to remotely locate the server that only the most important will be backed up. For example, user base and their settings.

The second life of the project

We did not grieve for a long time, and at the meeting of founders it was decided to rewrite the project again. Despite the experience gained, the work of programmers required payment and time. The first investor ran out of patience and, having received compensation from the data center for the burned down servers, he left the project.

Then we took a couple of programmers to work (how much we could pay for) and began to slowly rewrite the service again, using new technologies. Taking advantage of the situation, they took into account all past shortcomings. The situation was facilitated by the fact that right before the fire a detailed technical description of the entire project was compiled.

Tip # 5: be sure to have a person on staff who will document all the functions of the service. This will help not only in such situations, but also when expanding the development team. Beginners will be able to easily understand the existing functionality.

In the context of the constant lack of finance for office rent and programmers' salaries, we have compiled a detailed business plan for the annual development of the project and began to look for investment funds.

After four months of searching, another investor was found, but for a more serious amount, many times higher than previous investments. The new investor was offered a financial plan, where profit and expenses were planned for each month of development.

Tip # 6: when drawing up a financial plan for an investor, be sure to set 10% for unforeseen expenses and set yourself a good salary (despite the fact that you are in a share, you need to feel normal for productive work). Multiply the development time you have planned by two (it is better to do it earlier than planned and to please the investor than to listen about your non-execution).

Tip # 7: Agree with the investor that money saved in one item of expenditure can be spent on another, and savings in a given month can be spent in the next. This will prevent a situation when, for example, due to a time delay, you didn’t open a chip, so you didn’t invest in advertising. And next month there is no money for advertising. Or, for example, every month, while you have not yet found a programmer, gives you the opportunity to offer more money for this job in the next.

Tip # 8: at every meeting with the investor, fix with him all the agreements on paper, this will prevent any slippery moments in the future.

Tip # 9: Be honest with your investor. If you screwed up somewhere, say so.

Tip # 10: financially do not overstate the expected profit.

Thanks to the investor, we were able to move to a comfortable office, got the opportunity to purchase servers, to provide our team with good conditions that allow us to work easily, joyfully and with pleasure. The team did not manage to dial immediately. It turned out to be an erroneous opinion that by offering good salaries and good working conditions, you can instantly dial an intelligent team.

Tip # 11: Keep in mind that after the start of funding it will take some time until you type the necessary development team.

Project today

After eight months of work, the service appeared in a new pleasant interface, became more convenient and functional. The client interface was made on a flex to please users with animation, and at the same time, it was easy to adapt it to social networks.



After the opening, in a few months, there were about 90 thousand users with a daily visit of 3,000 - 5,000 people. The first advertisers appeared. Absolutely all advertisers that we know were delighted with the capabilities of the service.

Angelic investments are coming to an end, the service works and develops. Therefore, we are now entering the next stage of investment. Investments are needed for the promotion of services on an international scale and the development of new functionality. It needs to be “shaken”, since the more people will be participants in this project, the more advertisers will be.

We welcome any advice and criticism.

With respect to the readers of Habrahabr, Eugene.

PS Since registration on the site is only about invitations, for those who want to try out the service - the invitation code "777".