How it all began ...
Good day, habrachiteli!
Stories about startups on Habré are already a separate genre. Most often, this is either a presentation of a new product or a “success story”. BrandMaker in Russia is also a startup, but not quite normal. On the one hand, the product itself, the MRM system of the same name, is far from new, and has been successfully implemented in European companies for 10 years. However, in Russia there is no practice of using such systems. Distinct, formed demand for them - in fact, too. So BrandMaker-Russia acts as a pioneer - one who is trying to create this market in Russia from scratch.
About how this way began, what difficulties companies are facing, promoting European IT solutions on the Russian market, about the features of the specialized software market - our conversation with one of the company's founders, Alexei Zaleski.
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- Business starts with an idea. How did the idea to promote MRM in Russia?
- It was definitely not a spontaneous decision, we were walking to it for a long time. It all started in 2009. At that time, we with Alexander Vorobiev, who is now our development director, were engaged in another project - a marketing agency in Novosibirsk. There is a very tough competition in the market of advertising services, and I wanted to get some unique advantage, to offer something that others do not have.
We have long been thinking about marketing automation, about specialized software products that we could use to increase the efficiency of our work. I myself am a mathematician by education, this subject is close to me. We monitored the market, looking for suitable solutions. Understandably, they started with major developers - the same Microsoft, Oracle, SAP ... But all these options, in my opinion, are very cumbersome, heavy - after all, they are designed to completely close all management processes in the enterprise - from accounting to personnel management . But when the system is so global, it loses in solving some specific tasks, which marketers have quite a lot of. For example, marketers work very closely with the advertising market, and they need separate tools for storing, sending, processing various images - say, advertising layouts.
This is actually quite a big problem, especially for large companies. Some specially develop their own programs for organizing the same photobank, for example. The main disadvantage of such “self-written” solutions is that, as a rule, they do not develop. Not in terms of improvement, much less in terms of distribution to other companies.
In general, in the course of studying this market, it came to be understood that no full-fledged specialized marketing programs are presented in Russia, and marketers in companies use only basic tools such as Microsoft Excel. Well, more advanced learn more and Project. But these are all products that marketers are only trying to adapt to their tasks. These are not specialized solutions, and often this creates additional difficulties.
We conducted a small survey among the clients of our agency - those that were ready to share their inside information and their analytics. They asked in detail about how their work was organized in marketing and advertising departments, what programs they use, what they outsource, what information they have about competitors.
And it turned out that everything is quite pitiable, in fact. If you think about it. Even in very large companies of the federal level. But at the same time, no one is seriously going to work on improving the effectiveness of marketing at the operational level, to invest in it. Probably because in Russia we often consider marketing and advertising to be something that does not earn money for the company, but only spends it. The year 2009 is the height of the crisis, and at that time it was especially noticeable. Cost reduction in the company? Staff reduction? Marketing and advertising under the knife first.
Why is this happening? If it’s very simplistic, it’s because the marketer’s performance is often difficult to calculate. It is the salespeople sales volumes speak for themselves. And the advertiser has only expenditure items, and go prove how justified they were. This can be changed if you give the marketer the tools that allow you to “consider marketing” and make it more economical. But it also costs money - either for the purchase of such software, or for its own development. So - a vicious circle.
- Which, in general, explains why there was no specialized software for marketing specialists in Russia ...
- Yes, but this is not a normal situation. This is due to the fact that marketing itself is still young. And, by the way, the crisis, in my opinion, just showed that those companies that did not cut their marketing departments, in the end only strengthened their positions. And the fact that something else is not developed in our market does not mean that it will remain forever.
In general, all these our searches and researches only strengthened us in the thought that specialized marketing software is the thing that can change the situation, and it will turn out to be very popular in the coming years.
And here we are searching for the site of the German company BrandMaker, which is considered Europe's leading MRM developer, Marketing Resource Management, in this search. And almost at the same time, we get acquainted with Artur Rakhimov, the founder of one of the Novosibirsk IT companies, who, as it turned out, had already worked with BrandMaker for several years in the development of the program part itself.
And it became clear - here it is! Exactly what is needed. Not only is this a truly specialized and proven system, so much of it is written under an outsourcing contract by our Novosibirsk programmers, which immediately solves a bunch of questions about the training of technical staff.
- But after all, as a result, BrandMaker-Russia became a separate project that was not related to the agency?
- Yes, the original idea has undergone significant adjustments. Especially after all three of us in February 2011 - I, Alexander and Arthur - visited Germany, talked to Mirko Holzer, director and founder of BrandMaker. It became clear that this product is not quite suitable for agencies. One of Mirko's advice about sales sounded like this: “Do not try to offer BrandMaker to agencies”. Because in some cases, this product makes some agency services generally unnecessary.
In general, BrandMaker, as we were immediately warned, is quite difficult to sell. It does not make sense to offer IT shnik companies, because they do not need extra software and an extra “headache”, and they are poorly understood in the problems of marketers. Moreover, there is no point in offering it to marketers themselves, because the solution is quite expensive, and such costs are not budgeted for them. But at the same time, it is necessary that both marketers and IT specialists are on your side when you make your way to the top management of the company.
- But the difficulties did not frighten?
- At that time, we were already so enthusiastic about this idea, so believed in the product, that the last doubts were dispelled. Mirko is a great salesman, and he, in fact, sold us this system. During that meeting, we decided to create a company that would become the official BrandMaker dealer in Russia. At the same time, for me and for Sasha Vorobiev, this meant that we are moving away from business in a marketing agency and fully focus our attention on the new project. Sasha went to Moscow to organize a front office in which we concentrated sales - there are negotiations with clients, presentations are underway. Artur and I stayed in Novosibirsk, prepared the technical base - starting with an elementary translation of the interface into Russian and ending with the recruitment and training of specialists who will be directly involved in the implementation of the system.
Yes, maybe April is not the best time to start a business and to start active sales of a similar product. The annual budgets of all have already been imposed, and a full-fledged comprehensive solution based on BrandMaker is quite expensive - hundreds of thousands of euros. Plus, literally after a couple of months, the holiday season began, and the number of meetings that could be held was significantly reduced.
But, honestly, we did not count on quick sales and quick payback of the project. First and foremost, of course, it was important to make sure of the potential of the product, that it was in demand, to go to the first deals. In general, the classic challenge facing any startup is to determine in practice whether it will be good or not.
“But, unlike companies that promote their products from scratch, BrandMaker has a weighty argument — more than a hundred large corporate clients, including world-famous multinational corporations ...”
- Already, in my opinion, almost two hundred, and more than two thousand smaller customers who use BrandMaker in the SaaS format ... But this is a weak argument in Russia. It practically does not work. In Russia there are generally many nuances, which, of course, you think about beforehand, but sometimes you do not quite appreciate the real scale.
For example, you can tell the head of the company for a long time that with the new software, its employees will spend several times less time on certain operations, their efficiency will increase, the possibility of errors due to the “human factor” will decrease, and so on. And in response you will hear - "Why do I need all this?". If I say on Monday that I need such a report by Friday, then I will have it. And I am not interested in who will do it and how it will be done - even if it sits at night, even with a calculator. Errors? For mistakes, they pay a premium, in severe cases - by dismissal. Very, you know, motivating.
There are such leaders, and there are a lot of them. There are also marketers and advertisers themselves who are against the introduction of MRM, because it is unprofitable for them that the company's advertising budgets become “transparent” and easily tracked. Also, I think, no need to explain why.
But in general, in general, the level of interest of companies was even higher than we expected. Especially we felt it in the fall, when we had several meetings and presentations every week, the first clients appeared - so far only on the trial version, without buying out licenses from the Germans. This is a big step forward, because we basically do not provide a free trial. First of all, there is a purely psychological aspect: when an organization pays for a trial period, it motivates its leadership to ensure real work on testing the system. If you put something for free, there is a high probability that no one will be seriously engaged in this, and in the end they will not appreciate the program. Surely many people have come across this, even purely at the household level. Well, and secondly, the deployment of the test version of the program also requires certain resources on our part, and the trial fee is simply a reimbursement of our operating expenses. This scheme was recommended to us by the Germans themselves - they work like this. True, their trial period is usually a month. At the present stage, we are ready to give our clients much more time for testing.
- At the beginning of the year it is customary to sum up, plan for the future. What was the year 2011 for BrandMaker-Russia, and what will 2012 be like?
- Let it sound pathetic, but - the past year was fateful for us. That idea, which we hatched for a long time, was finally realized in the form of a full-fledged business unit, a company was created - one might say, a team of like-minded people. We managed very well to “test” the market, to understand who and how it makes sense to offer our product. With the help of the first clients, we have already managed to test the system not on abstract demonstration stands, but in the context of real business processes of real Russian companies. This is a very valuable experience, valuable information.
Well, and this year, of course, we plan to make several full-fledged sales, continue active promotion of MRM in the information field - so that the term itself is familiar and understandable to both marketers and IT specialists - at the same level as, say, CRM or ERP.
- Based on the experience gained, did the “ideal customer” portrait appear for BrandMaker? What kind of company should it be from which industry?
- In my opinion, for any business software product, an ideal client is one that already thinks constructively at the stage of product presentation. Which does not ask about the functions of the program, about the interface, but immediately sets the task. Let's say that I have such a look and scope of work, now it is done this way and that. How can I do this work with your product? Faster and cheaper? I'm listening to you. No goodbye.
Actually, we ourselves finally came to the conclusion that the presentations are less and less trying to talk about the functionality of the system (especially since our product in this regard is very flexible, and you can do a lot in it). We try to sell SOLUTIONS specific business problems. Actually, now, for the next couple of months, we already have four such specific tasks set by clients, and we - while in the framework of test servers - are preparing solutions for them. This is a great, really interesting job, thanks to which we will already have ready-made business cases developed not in Europe, but in Russia, which can be shared with potential clients.
Novosibirsk, January 2012. Photo - from the family archive of A. Zaleski.
Thanks for attention! We will be happy to answer your questions.
Stories about startups on Habré are already a separate genre. Most often, this is either a presentation of a new product or a “success story”. BrandMaker in Russia is also a startup, but not quite normal. On the one hand, the product itself, the MRM system of the same name, is far from new, and has been successfully implemented in European companies for 10 years. However, in Russia there is no practice of using such systems. Distinct, formed demand for them - in fact, too. So BrandMaker-Russia acts as a pioneer - one who is trying to create this market in Russia from scratch.
About how this way began, what difficulties companies are facing, promoting European IT solutions on the Russian market, about the features of the specialized software market - our conversation with one of the company's founders, Alexei Zaleski.
')
- Business starts with an idea. How did the idea to promote MRM in Russia?
- It was definitely not a spontaneous decision, we were walking to it for a long time. It all started in 2009. At that time, we with Alexander Vorobiev, who is now our development director, were engaged in another project - a marketing agency in Novosibirsk. There is a very tough competition in the market of advertising services, and I wanted to get some unique advantage, to offer something that others do not have.
We have long been thinking about marketing automation, about specialized software products that we could use to increase the efficiency of our work. I myself am a mathematician by education, this subject is close to me. We monitored the market, looking for suitable solutions. Understandably, they started with major developers - the same Microsoft, Oracle, SAP ... But all these options, in my opinion, are very cumbersome, heavy - after all, they are designed to completely close all management processes in the enterprise - from accounting to personnel management . But when the system is so global, it loses in solving some specific tasks, which marketers have quite a lot of. For example, marketers work very closely with the advertising market, and they need separate tools for storing, sending, processing various images - say, advertising layouts.
This is actually quite a big problem, especially for large companies. Some specially develop their own programs for organizing the same photobank, for example. The main disadvantage of such “self-written” solutions is that, as a rule, they do not develop. Not in terms of improvement, much less in terms of distribution to other companies.
In general, in the course of studying this market, it came to be understood that no full-fledged specialized marketing programs are presented in Russia, and marketers in companies use only basic tools such as Microsoft Excel. Well, more advanced learn more and Project. But these are all products that marketers are only trying to adapt to their tasks. These are not specialized solutions, and often this creates additional difficulties.
We conducted a small survey among the clients of our agency - those that were ready to share their inside information and their analytics. They asked in detail about how their work was organized in marketing and advertising departments, what programs they use, what they outsource, what information they have about competitors.
And it turned out that everything is quite pitiable, in fact. If you think about it. Even in very large companies of the federal level. But at the same time, no one is seriously going to work on improving the effectiveness of marketing at the operational level, to invest in it. Probably because in Russia we often consider marketing and advertising to be something that does not earn money for the company, but only spends it. The year 2009 is the height of the crisis, and at that time it was especially noticeable. Cost reduction in the company? Staff reduction? Marketing and advertising under the knife first.
Why is this happening? If it’s very simplistic, it’s because the marketer’s performance is often difficult to calculate. It is the salespeople sales volumes speak for themselves. And the advertiser has only expenditure items, and go prove how justified they were. This can be changed if you give the marketer the tools that allow you to “consider marketing” and make it more economical. But it also costs money - either for the purchase of such software, or for its own development. So - a vicious circle.
- Which, in general, explains why there was no specialized software for marketing specialists in Russia ...
- Yes, but this is not a normal situation. This is due to the fact that marketing itself is still young. And, by the way, the crisis, in my opinion, just showed that those companies that did not cut their marketing departments, in the end only strengthened their positions. And the fact that something else is not developed in our market does not mean that it will remain forever.
In general, all these our searches and researches only strengthened us in the thought that specialized marketing software is the thing that can change the situation, and it will turn out to be very popular in the coming years.
And here we are searching for the site of the German company BrandMaker, which is considered Europe's leading MRM developer, Marketing Resource Management, in this search. And almost at the same time, we get acquainted with Artur Rakhimov, the founder of one of the Novosibirsk IT companies, who, as it turned out, had already worked with BrandMaker for several years in the development of the program part itself.
And it became clear - here it is! Exactly what is needed. Not only is this a truly specialized and proven system, so much of it is written under an outsourcing contract by our Novosibirsk programmers, which immediately solves a bunch of questions about the training of technical staff.
- But after all, as a result, BrandMaker-Russia became a separate project that was not related to the agency?
- Yes, the original idea has undergone significant adjustments. Especially after all three of us in February 2011 - I, Alexander and Arthur - visited Germany, talked to Mirko Holzer, director and founder of BrandMaker. It became clear that this product is not quite suitable for agencies. One of Mirko's advice about sales sounded like this: “Do not try to offer BrandMaker to agencies”. Because in some cases, this product makes some agency services generally unnecessary.
In general, BrandMaker, as we were immediately warned, is quite difficult to sell. It does not make sense to offer IT shnik companies, because they do not need extra software and an extra “headache”, and they are poorly understood in the problems of marketers. Moreover, there is no point in offering it to marketers themselves, because the solution is quite expensive, and such costs are not budgeted for them. But at the same time, it is necessary that both marketers and IT specialists are on your side when you make your way to the top management of the company.
- But the difficulties did not frighten?
- At that time, we were already so enthusiastic about this idea, so believed in the product, that the last doubts were dispelled. Mirko is a great salesman, and he, in fact, sold us this system. During that meeting, we decided to create a company that would become the official BrandMaker dealer in Russia. At the same time, for me and for Sasha Vorobiev, this meant that we are moving away from business in a marketing agency and fully focus our attention on the new project. Sasha went to Moscow to organize a front office in which we concentrated sales - there are negotiations with clients, presentations are underway. Artur and I stayed in Novosibirsk, prepared the technical base - starting with an elementary translation of the interface into Russian and ending with the recruitment and training of specialists who will be directly involved in the implementation of the system.
Yes, maybe April is not the best time to start a business and to start active sales of a similar product. The annual budgets of all have already been imposed, and a full-fledged comprehensive solution based on BrandMaker is quite expensive - hundreds of thousands of euros. Plus, literally after a couple of months, the holiday season began, and the number of meetings that could be held was significantly reduced.
But, honestly, we did not count on quick sales and quick payback of the project. First and foremost, of course, it was important to make sure of the potential of the product, that it was in demand, to go to the first deals. In general, the classic challenge facing any startup is to determine in practice whether it will be good or not.
“But, unlike companies that promote their products from scratch, BrandMaker has a weighty argument — more than a hundred large corporate clients, including world-famous multinational corporations ...”
- Already, in my opinion, almost two hundred, and more than two thousand smaller customers who use BrandMaker in the SaaS format ... But this is a weak argument in Russia. It practically does not work. In Russia there are generally many nuances, which, of course, you think about beforehand, but sometimes you do not quite appreciate the real scale.
For example, you can tell the head of the company for a long time that with the new software, its employees will spend several times less time on certain operations, their efficiency will increase, the possibility of errors due to the “human factor” will decrease, and so on. And in response you will hear - "Why do I need all this?". If I say on Monday that I need such a report by Friday, then I will have it. And I am not interested in who will do it and how it will be done - even if it sits at night, even with a calculator. Errors? For mistakes, they pay a premium, in severe cases - by dismissal. Very, you know, motivating.
There are such leaders, and there are a lot of them. There are also marketers and advertisers themselves who are against the introduction of MRM, because it is unprofitable for them that the company's advertising budgets become “transparent” and easily tracked. Also, I think, no need to explain why.
But in general, in general, the level of interest of companies was even higher than we expected. Especially we felt it in the fall, when we had several meetings and presentations every week, the first clients appeared - so far only on the trial version, without buying out licenses from the Germans. This is a big step forward, because we basically do not provide a free trial. First of all, there is a purely psychological aspect: when an organization pays for a trial period, it motivates its leadership to ensure real work on testing the system. If you put something for free, there is a high probability that no one will be seriously engaged in this, and in the end they will not appreciate the program. Surely many people have come across this, even purely at the household level. Well, and secondly, the deployment of the test version of the program also requires certain resources on our part, and the trial fee is simply a reimbursement of our operating expenses. This scheme was recommended to us by the Germans themselves - they work like this. True, their trial period is usually a month. At the present stage, we are ready to give our clients much more time for testing.
- At the beginning of the year it is customary to sum up, plan for the future. What was the year 2011 for BrandMaker-Russia, and what will 2012 be like?
- Let it sound pathetic, but - the past year was fateful for us. That idea, which we hatched for a long time, was finally realized in the form of a full-fledged business unit, a company was created - one might say, a team of like-minded people. We managed very well to “test” the market, to understand who and how it makes sense to offer our product. With the help of the first clients, we have already managed to test the system not on abstract demonstration stands, but in the context of real business processes of real Russian companies. This is a very valuable experience, valuable information.
Well, and this year, of course, we plan to make several full-fledged sales, continue active promotion of MRM in the information field - so that the term itself is familiar and understandable to both marketers and IT specialists - at the same level as, say, CRM or ERP.
- Based on the experience gained, did the “ideal customer” portrait appear for BrandMaker? What kind of company should it be from which industry?
- In my opinion, for any business software product, an ideal client is one that already thinks constructively at the stage of product presentation. Which does not ask about the functions of the program, about the interface, but immediately sets the task. Let's say that I have such a look and scope of work, now it is done this way and that. How can I do this work with your product? Faster and cheaper? I'm listening to you. No goodbye.
Actually, we ourselves finally came to the conclusion that the presentations are less and less trying to talk about the functionality of the system (especially since our product in this regard is very flexible, and you can do a lot in it). We try to sell SOLUTIONS specific business problems. Actually, now, for the next couple of months, we already have four such specific tasks set by clients, and we - while in the framework of test servers - are preparing solutions for them. This is a great, really interesting job, thanks to which we will already have ready-made business cases developed not in Europe, but in Russia, which can be shared with potential clients.
Novosibirsk, January 2012. Photo - from the family archive of A. Zaleski.
Thanks for attention! We will be happy to answer your questions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/137048/
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