How we were invested and what came out of it

About two years ago, my friends and I decided to implement one of our many ideas and thereby establish our own startup. But the lack of understanding of many things in this area played a role, and not one of the two projects we started did not see life. However, the fire in our eyes did not go out, and we decided to deal with the problem, which by then had gotten each of us and it is connected with public education.

A bit of history

We already told Habra the history of the formation of our startup, in which we described many everyday moments related to the establishment of our own project. Not so long ago, we talked about how we were in Silicon Valley , where we presented our project and were in search of investment. Today we want to talk about the new stage in our development, namely, how we have attracted investment, what has contributed to this and what results we have achieved so far.
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Investment attraction

After returning from the US, we gave two interviews (to the information and entertainment portal allfun.md and the economic magazine BusinessClass), and also posted an article on Habr.

All this caused such a strong response that within a few days we simply did not have time to process feedback from different people. Along with reviews, ideas and wishes, we began to receive investment proposals. In total, we received about six proposals from private investors, but entered into detailed negotiations with only one of them. In the end, it was he who became the one who invested us.

All meetings with the investor were on Skype and contained the following questions:

- how long have team members known each other?
- how long have we been working together?
- What did you do before this project?
- at what stage of development is the project?
- what do we want from the project in the future?
- what are we going to earn?
- what motivates us when creating a project and working on it?
- what number of users we want to achieve in the end?

There were a total of three preliminary calls, during which the team met with the investor, a financial plan was prepared for the next six months and the terms of investment were agreed upon. As a result, we received the necessary funding, giving the investor 25% of the company.

New stage in development

Before the new 2012, we decided that we should release an improved version of the service already at the end of January (that is, we only had a month left to develop). By that time, our team did not use any special tools to work on the project: we just chatted on Skype, occasionally calling each other. Nevertheless, during the first two weeks of January we managed to enter the working “stream”, confidently approaching the launch moment. The work was in full swing, discussions and discussions were hot, we were in anticipation of the launch, when suddenly the investor decided to contribute to the development of the project. Imagine that you were suddenly told that you are living in the wrong way and that you must live in a completely different way! - that's how we felt at that moment. We were asked to significantly change the design of the project, perhaps change the name and completely reorganize teamwork. It was the first time when we were completely at a loss and did not know how to act better. The workflow “got up” for about a week. As a result, we decided to keep the name, but it was decided to change everything else.



As a project designer, it was extremely difficult for me to significantly improve the design in such a short time, realizing that everyone is waiting for me: the finished design was immediately sent to the layout, and then to programming. I slept very badly in those days, but I was convinced that some of the best decisions could come to us in a dream.

A week later, the work was boiling again. We began to experience new methods of working in a team, gradually organizing the development process, and this gave its results.

No, we did not start at the end of January. Then we were just starting to develop a truly new version of the project. We did not start in mid-February, although we thought that we would be in time. We had to start on March 1st, but even then the launch was thwarted: it was necessary to transfer domains, move to another server, configure and fix all the bugs found. But the given pace made itself felt, and on March 5 the second version of our project, instudies 2.0 , was released.

Summing up, we can say that we have set ourselves a difficult, but extremely fascinating goal. We want to make maximum efforts and change the education system for the better, at the same time changing the attitude of students to learning. We have secured good support, although we are aware that all the responsibility still lies with us. And, nevertheless, we believe that even if not immediately, we will succeed in changing the world for the better.

Conclusion

In the near future, we plan to talk about what is really going on inside an invested startup: how to build relationships with an investor, how a teamwork is built, how decisions are made and ideas are implemented. Any questions regarding the project are extremely welcome, as we are ready to share our knowledge and experience!

PS If you are an experienced php-developer and imbued with the idea of ​​our service, we will be happy to see you in our team (freelance). Send a story about yourself and CV to job@instudies.com

PPS If you (or someone you know) are directly related to education, send a story about yourself to job@instudies.com and maybe we will be useful to each other :)