Technological startups in Russia. Interview with Renat Garipov

We are continuing a series of interviews dedicated to digital start-ups in Russia. Our guests are prominent experts from the world of startups. In the third interview, we talked to Renat Garipov , co-founder of GreenfieldProject, the ideologist of the business incubator InCube. Renat is a mentor of a number of technology startups, co-author of the book “Project from scratch”. Reads the author's course "Financial Model of a Startup."

WebProfessionals.ru: What, in your opinion, are the main differences between start-ups in Russian e-commerce, mobile and web development?

Renat Garipov: The main specificity is that most projects are niche and local. This is when a good narrow problem is solved that exists in a familiar market. And this is good. Only the market is too small and in many cases the game, alas, is not worth the trouble.

WebProfessionals.ru: Which startups from your practice are the most memorable? What are the most significant successes and what is the reason for their success?
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Renat Garipov: The projects that we incubated in InCube were the most memorable: software that makes it possible to effectively use super computers built on CPUs and GPUs. They signed with T-Platforms and are now massively installed. In short, well done! The project is called ttglib . I also remember the project with sensors, the knowledge of the relative position of which allows you to make absolutely crazy products both in games and in the defense industry. Another favorite: the project http://sportfort.ru/ . A cool service that allows amateur sports teams to create their own online representation and use many useful services. In general, a lot of things like it. About everything you can not write, alas.

WebProfessionals.ru: How do you see the development vector of the development of web startups in our country? What are the trends and opportunities?

Renat Garipov: The vector of development is globalization, for this you need to learn a lot, travel a lot, communicate a lot. The vector is definitely justified, I want it to happen faster and we have more global startups. And the trends that drive me personally are solutions based on mobile technologies and innovations in medicine. I would like to delve deeper into projects related to the optimization of the urban environment.

WebProfessionals.ru: Advise our audience sources of startup inspiration and external experience.

Renat Garipov: For inspiration, read TechCrunch and similar tapes. It is necessary to talk more about your project to other people, there is an opportunity to get not only feedback, but also useful contacts, and maybe a like-minded person who will strengthen the team. Come to special events. For example, on our Harvest . The main thing is not to “hang out” on them, but to work and understand what kind of results you want to get.

WebProfessionals.ru: Over the past year, web startups in large companies have begun to appear more often (for example, e5 - the Crossroads project, Enter - the Svyaznoy shareholders project). Should we expect more mass attention to the topic of a new online business?

Renat Garipov: Definitely! Enter is just a wonderful project and what we see now is just a part of the iceberg, the most interesting thing to come.

WebProfessionals.ru: Share your experience: can you list the parameters of a startup, which it must necessarily comply with in order for it to return to the payback period and bring profit?

Renat Garipov: The founder should have a clear idea of ​​how he will convert one ruble into three. This implies that marketing, sales, relationships with partners are well developed. This is if you consider the project as a business. If you do something visionary, poorly predictable and without a business model, then you have to be crazy and really in love with your product. Ideally, each project will solve a problem that really “hurts” with customers.