Interview with Tatyana Tsvetkova

At the end of last year, I announced an interview with Tatyana Tsvetkova, director of business development at Fast Lane Ventures, and suggested that you suggest questions for our conversation. I was lucky: Tatiana’s schedule had enough time for a detailed discussion, and we were able to discuss a variety of topics: the principles and organization of the company's business, relations with original projects, trends and promising areas of Internet business in 2012, and much more.



I will start with the most current question at the moment: “Who are you?” Ie, are you a venture company or do you have some other self-determination?

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We are still “not self-determined” (laughs). No, in fact, we have long been determined. Fast Lane Ventures, of course, is not a “venture fund” at all, although we have the word “ventures” in the title. Fast Lane Ventures, rather, closer to the accelerator - the platform on the basis of which new companies are created. The fact is that the word “ventures” does not necessarily mean a venture capital fund. "Ventures" means, rather, a risky investment. Because any startup is a risky investment. Just in our perception, the word "venture" is associated exclusively with the foundation.



Well, in general, you can be defined as a business accelerator or even an incubator.



Accelerator - yes, the incubator - no, it's still a bit different.



I agree that different projects are growing in incubators, but you have all your own.



Almost everything is yours. Although we also consider external ideas and teams. But in order for us to invest in such a company, it is necessary that several factors coincide. It is necessary that we ourselves believe in the business model. And in order for us to believe in it, it must have an American or European equivalent, i.e. there must be some kind of successful example. The second project leader in itself should, let's say, fall under a certain pattern. Those. In addition to the traditional requirements of the project leader, he must necessarily know English, he must have at least some experience in a European company or his business — it’s very difficult to find such a person.



Well, I know that you “raised” such specialists at your place. As part of your selection program.



Yes, at the end of last year we made the program “Fast Lane Challenge”: we selected young promising people, young men and women - we had a business game, stress interviews. In general, they went through fire, water and copper pipes. As a result, we selected 10 people who were “loaded” into different companies. Each “junior” in the area of ​​responsibility had a certain subproject, let's say, a satellite of a large project or some limited task within the company. Some of the guys are still continuing to develop, some have moved inside the company to some kind of functional position, some have broken up. And two have become the new leaders of the companies.



In the comments on Habré there was an amusing observation that on your site, among the management of the company, mostly women, and you say that you selected mostly men.



In the management team of Fast Lane Ventures there are really almost only women, there are several men. And the leaders of specific companies by 80% - men. We have two women business leaders. Shareholders of Fast Lane Ventures are only men, exclusively.



And how much money is needed to launch such a project like yours?



It depends on how many companies you want to have in your portfolio. We declare that we give our projects about 150-500 thousand euros as a starting investment. Multiply the average figure by the number of companies and get the required amount of venture capital.



But actually your organization is eating a lot? Or is it some modest amount of administrative expenses?



If you look at the scale of investment, the amounts are, of course, modest, although our office is not in the basement.



What else is needed to create a venture company in Russia or a company of your type? Naturally, except for money.



First of all, we need people with some expertise, experience from the “previous life”. What is good about Fast Lane Ventures is that it brought together two people with experience: Oscar Hartmann and Pascal Clement from the Direct Group. People who believed in the model itself and with their own money began to launch projects. Oscar has good experience in marketing and attracting investments, and Pascal is a person who has very powerful entrepreneurial experience. Marina Treshchova, our director, has been working with Pascal for many years and she also has a lot of operational experience.



So, the first point is the experts ... The second point is probably money.



Money and expertise required. These are key moments, perhaps. Clear. In general, when experts meet with money, something good comes out of it. Yes, this is not industrial companies - there are no special difficulties to start. Here the leader’s charisma is very important in order to energize the team, direct them in the right direction and see some “light at the end of the tunnel”, i.e. what we ultimately want to come to and help projects find a way.



And what light did Pascal Clement see?



The Internet is big, the Internet is growing, Western companies are showing great interest in the Russian Internet, in its size. And the emptiness of the market itself simply attracts investors, including the founders of Fast Lane Ventures, who also saw significant potential for development.



Is there a “c” point about the fact that our people do not like to pay for certain things?



Oh, well, in general, this is not true.



Those. get paid?



Pay, of course. Problem as a suggestion. If there is a good offer, then there is a demand. That is, we are not as wild as is commonly believed. This is generally not the case. When we first began to develop, we often thought that a particular model should develop quite differently than its foreign counterpart, because the Russians are different. Russians are not different, we just have several historically objective reasons why something is happening differently. It is clear, for example, that trade in catalogs was not common in our history, therefore distance trading is not particularly

developed. But experience shows that the situation is changing - three years ago, clothes were not bought, now it is a boom; two years ago, shoes on the Internet did not buy, and now Sapato.ru is growing like a mushroom after the rain.



What is your relationship with the originals of the projects? Those. Take the same story Pinme.ru and Pinterest.com .



With many of these companies, we are in good partnership. We meet with them, talk about our company, get useful recommendations for the development of businesses. For example, Demand Media tracks the success of Rlevant Media, a TheLadders - our recruiting project Upladder.

A member of the American WebMD team recently entered the Vitaportal Supervisory Board, giving them valuable advice.



And what is their interest in general? Did they help you with advice? Did they sell you a franchise or what?



No, there is not even a question of any franchise, since we are creating a business from scratch, often without having any knowledge about how it works inside - we can only guess about it. Take, for example, Jizo.ru - it was originally created on the model kayak.com . Just recently, we met with Kayak, they gave us a lot of practical recommendations and advice. The most important thing at the startup stage is to understand what KPIs should be, digital indicators from this business. When you start a new project, the way a child is in the dark, “poking”, trying to “find corners”. When you communicate with an experienced company, it shows you which rakes you do not need to step on, and that we may not have seen.



And yet, why is this something they need?



Russia is a large and promising market (the 6th largest Internet audience in the world with an average disposable income is higher than in Brazil, India and China). The forecast for 2013 is 70 million Internet users, so many foreign companies are interested in working here.



I try to understand: you are working on a “plot” for them, and after a while, when they see your progress, do they come here too? Compete with you already, or what does it look like?



No, why, one hundred percent or partial purchase of the company.



But still you are doing these projects with the expectation of their further sale?



Of course.



Fine. There was just a question on Habré about how you feel about projects that were originally made for sale, and specific companies. In general, it is now clear how you feel about them.



Well, naturally. A bad entrepreneur who does not want to sell his company at least in 7-8 years. It's just that you are already physically tired of doing the same thing. A real entrepreneur is one that is looking for. Family business is not entrepreneurship, but rather a craft. An entrepreneur is a person who is looking for new opportunities and directs his efforts to them. Therefore Fast Lane Ventures

put at the forefront the idea of ​​creating a company, its development, raising to a certain level and the subsequent sale.



Accordingly, closing the issue of relations with the originals, the reason why Pinme.ru is even visually a copy of Pinterest, is that this is its potential branch in Russia. And if the project does not go and the "original" will not be able to sell it?



For what reason? Because the model was wrong? The market was not ready? Or is the team wrong? The reasons why it does not go can be different. If the market is not ready, then we can make some kind of revision of the business model. We had, for example, situations when we started to work on a project, met with potential partners, but understood that it was too early, and rolled back.

There is always an opportunity to review the business model, for example, now one of our companies is significantly changing its concept and will be restarted in the near future. We do not say that only the original is a potential buyer. As in any startup, customers can be completely different. It could be strategic investors, it could be media

holding, to whom the project is interesting because of synergistic opportunities.



That is, you will in any case look for a buyer. Imagine this situation: we take all the same Pinme.ru, which visually and according to the concept of clone Pinterest. For some reason, they will not want to buy a project from you, but another investor will appear. As a result, it turns out, they voluntarily help create their competitors. Do you see any risks here? As in the automotive business - in China, for example, they love to produce copies of Mercedes. And the Germans are suing them constantly, always losing, of course, but there are certain reputational risks that flow from this. Those. they gave an idea, shared their design with you, after some time a completely different company has gained profit from it.



First you need to explain why we have the concept of following the original. Here, you see, on our wall the word “SPEED” is written in large black letters. The key task, especially now when competitors began to appear on the Internet, is to do everything very quickly, otherwise someone will overtake you. If a good business model appears on the horizon, we must launch it within 50 business days. Our

the strategy of “taking the best from the original” allows you to reduce the time it takes for a project to enter the market. This is the main thing.



Well, this is understandable, I have a direct relationship to this market, that is, I not only write, but also work on it. I am interested in how the original looks at this situation, i.e., maybe from the point of view of business logic, this is not an urgent question, but I am interested in the ethical side of the question: “We

they gave you everything ... ”



World history knows many examples when an improved follower became more successful than the market pioneer. For example, from my point of view, Sapato is already significantly better than its counterpart - Zalando, although in the beginning many things repeated this German store. Of course, if we copy pieces of code, then this is a violation of copyright.



And the design?



Take any online store: there is a catalog, there is a basket, there is a product card, there is a check-in box. Virtually every other store is built on the same concept. And everyone has different content.



I was not even talking about the structure, but about the visual similarity.



Never mind. There is VKontakte, which has a visual resemblance to Facebook, there is a successful Biglion company - which at the very beginning was a complete copy of Groupon. Winners are not judged. Our task is to start a company for a start, and then improve the product by analyzing the market reaction.



Yes, the vectors then go away anyway.



If we talk about design, of course. For one and a half years of operation, Sapato.ru interfaces have undergone significant changes. The team is constantly working to improve the product: watching the reaction of users, conducting experiments and various tests.



Well, okay. By the way, I also had a question about speed - about your pace, life and work. What know-how do you have in time management and human resource management other than coffee?



In general, each uses its own time and task management system. If we talk about time management, then we have something that went from Oscar, well, and is used, as I hope by many people, - the system Getting things done. The idea is that all incoming information is collected in one box, and then you distribute it depending on the type of task: throw it away, assign it for a certain period.

Those. in fact, it is a flow distribution system. Very simple and intuitive system. Oscar receives thousands of letters per day, it is important that by the end of the day everyone should be worked out. This is the first.



The second is mobility. We all use email clients on phones, tablets. I go down in the elevator and answer the e-mail, I am standing in traffic and I can do something. Third, we often work on Saturday. And in general, I believe that if you are a business owner, small, medium - even if you started it, and it works steadily, you have to work every Saturday.



Let's digress from Fast Lane Ventures a bit and talk about more global things - the trends of the new year. Well, except for the end of the world, of course.



One of the trends that I see is the development of media, content projects. Our Relevant Media has ambitious plans for the next year to enter the top twenty most visited sites on Runet. Also, it seems to me that the trend that can develop is any 2-sided market places format, like, for example, TravelRent, where a large number of market players are playing on both sides, and they need to be reduced to a single platform, giving them some kind of mechanism for effective interaction. There are really a lot of such examples. And there are also many unrealized opportunities here. In America there is, for example, Eventbrite - a company that enables those who organize events to sell tickets to those who want to go to these events. The growth of smartphones continues - it is expected that in 2013 these devices will be sold more than ordinary phones. And this will significantly change our behavior and give the world new business models, as was the case with the usual Internet. So there is where to turn, So wait in 2012-2013 for many new and interesting startups in this area.



E-commerce is a global trend that has been developing for many years and Russia is no exception. So far, the e-commerce market is only 1% of offline sales versus 7% in America. We have where and due to what to grow. True, local players feel quite relaxed until such time as foreign companies with higher work standards came here. By the way, it’s interesting that despite the size of the audience, many store owners are disappointed with the share of sales from social networks, but mobile commerce is gaining momentum. It is interesting to observe how all new categories become familiar to most Internet users. In the field of travel, for example, now besides tickets online and hotels online, tours already began to appear. It seems to me

also a strong trend.



Tours - in the sense of selling them online?



Well, yes, packaged information. What do people buy from us when they go abroad? They buy tours. Tours who sells? Travel agencies that are simply resellers from tour operators. And now there are projects that have really learned how to sell entire tours - at least 2-3 of them came to us: they buy tours from tour operators and resell them online.



Do you have any specific problems associated with the imperfection of Russian laws? How developed is the legal framework for companies like yours?



We are building a business within the framework of those laws that exist, and they are not the worst.



In general, you can work, and you have no special wishes?



There are, but not within the framework of Fast Lane Ventures itself, but, for example, within our companies. Many people, for example, began to buy goods in the west. They order to buy goods there, which are brought here as private parcels, and it turns out that Western sellers do not actually pay taxes, but receive a very good market. And to some extent, Russian e-commerce companies lose to western ones. Here you can only talk about the need to control these flows so that there is some kind of tax on imported goods.



I feel this will be the most unpopular part of this interview.



(Laughs) This will be interesting from the point of view of e-commerce companies. It is necessary to protect Russian producers from Western intervention.



Since we are talking about laws, let's talk about politics. Here is your business apolitical. But, nevertheless, I was pretty surprised when I saw the video Teamo.ru , where you were agitating to go to the rally on December 24th. I saw a familiar name, even climbed specifically on your site to make sure that this is exactly your project. You grabbed a certain trend and decided to earn some social capital on it, or was it really the initiative of your politically active wing?



Naturally, it was a trend that “grabbed the right place” and which simply was a sin not to use. We are simply sensitive to the market and we understand that if there is a trend, then it should be used.



Do you think politics is a trend now?



Politics is always a trend that greatly affects our lives.



OK. The last question is on a free topic. What is important, what I did not ask for, would you like to say yourself?



For me, the problem of the lack of professionalism in most people and some kind of universal unwillingness to learn is important. Therefore, for me a sore subject, how to make in Russia so that there are many good professionals. There are several ways you can go. For example, we are going to take on internship students and give them the opportunity to work in the company, deciding on real business cases.



And what specialties will it be?



It will most likely be economic and managerial universities - Higher School of Economics, REU them. Plekhanov, GUU, etc. Non-technical universities.



And how much can you take interns, have you already estimated volumes?



There are no specific numbers in my head, so I will not deceive.



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