Video interview from Silicon Valley. Alex Debelov is a graduate of YCombinator, leader and co-founder of Virool, an online video promotion service.

We continue our series of interviews and reports from Silicon Valley. Links to previous issues at the bottom of the post. This time we met with Alex Debelov, a 25-year-old, not afraid of this word, millionaire, leader and co-founder of Virool - a service for promoting online video (in particular, on YouTube). In 2012, the Virool startup hit YCombinator, the best startup accelerator in the world, and, moreover, raised at the seed round stage more than any company in the entire history of YCombinator - 6.62 million . dollars. Companies like Pepsi, Sony, Intel, GM, Colgate, Volvo, Lipton and famous film studios are among Virool clients, however, anyone can start a video promotion campaign, making only $ 10.

Alex was born in Rostov-on-Don, moved to the USA, graduated from Babson College, during which he became co-founder of The Kairos Society, the largest student-entrepreneurial student community, and was recognized as one of the best American entrepreneur students Entrepreneur Magazine in 2010). At a party in Blackbox, Alex met Vladimir Gurgov, an entrepreneur from St. Petersburg and the founder of the web development company OBS Labs, with whom he founded Virool in 2011. Employees of OBS Labs and made up the backbone of the state of Virool - this explains the fact that an overwhelming number of employees of Virool from Russia.

The interview was quite long, but very interesting and useful. Below is a list of questions that were discussed with Alex:

• Tell us how you started, collected the team, Customer Development and where did the first money for the project come from?
• Why did you decide to move to Silicon Valley?
• How did you get into YCombinator, at what stage was your startup? What can you advise to those who want to apply in YCombinator?
• How is Virool doing now, what are your plans for the near future?
• I noticed you have a lot of Russian guys working. Why did this happen?
• That is, it turns out that the level of engineers in Russia is not worse than in the USA?
• What cities do you have employees from Russia from?
• You have a profitable project, so why do you still attract funding from investors?
• How many real competitors who claim to lead the industry?
• You have a minimum budget for the promotion of video is $ 10. Will users get a significant result by making such a modest amount?
• As for promotion and advertising, what are the most useful ways that you have discovered to promote Virool?
• What are the most important customers? Large?
• Let's talk a little about your education at Babson College? Tell me what you gave education?
• Did your classmates then become clients or partners?
• To get into YCombinator, do not have to be some kind of star?
• Is it worth applying to accelerators only when you already have a working business and clients?
• Have you been the president of a student organization?
• Say some wishes or advice to start-up entrepreneurs.
• But what about communication with experienced people?
• Tell me how to reach big customers? How did you manage it?
• Did you do all this first?
• Did you have a large percentage of customer failures at first?
• What tricks did you use in client presentations?
• Is there anything else you would like to add?

PS: please do not litter comments with resentment about the purity of the Russian language. Understand that it is difficult for people who have lived in the USA for more than 10 years to speak Pushkin’s language when everyone uses foreign terms in that environment, even in communication in Russian.
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Previous posts:
Video interview from Silicon Valley. Sergey Burkov - a serial entrepreneur, mentor 500 Startups, the first head of the Google development center in Russia
Video interview from Silicon Valley. Members of Council SovBir AmBAR, the largest US business association of Russian-speaking high-tech professionals
Report from Silicon Valley. Blackbox - American startup accelerator focused on non-American startups
Report from Silicon Valley. Hacker Dojo Tour - Free Coworking Center
Video interview from Silicon Valley. Max Skibinsky - serial entrepreneur, business angel and incubator mentor 500 Startups