Learning platform LendWings, as we have come to Russian e-Learning
Hi, Habr.
I am starting a series of articles on educational startup LendWings and on Russian eLearning as a whole.
We really like the idea of Internet education, but in RuNet, instead of education, we see muddy courses from unknown authors (thousands of them), eerie boxes with disks that promise to send us by mail, hence the desire to spend some of your life on the following:
')
To put it all in simple terms, the criterion for the selection of authors: “professional coolness”.
We are interested in any areas of knowledge: from hardcore programming specialists from Yandex to home brewing from director Heineken.
Now with us more than 25 authors.
All ready at the moment there are previews here .
More about what it is, who is cool and who is not - I will write later.
In the first post I want to tell you how we have come to this in general.
It so happened that my story of start-ups throwing has its own flavor, and maybe it will be interesting to someone, or even useful. I will not name all names and companies so as not to offend religious feelings.
Part 1. The first elephants
Entry into this universe happened about 3 years ago, when I was engaged in poker forums, affiliate programs and other gambling.
I had a terrible partner who decided that he was a super businessman and that it was time for him to start “big things”: he found a suspicious team and “muddled out” the pizzeria network with them. In short, he lost a lot of money, an apartment in Moscow and now lives in a poor urban-type settlement. Then I realized that professional illiteracy leads to disasters.
As a result, the poker business was sold, there was a small amount of money and I started thinking about my own project and team. I went to my acquaintances, called, wrote, begged to connect with competent developers, and fate brought me together with the right person, who is on Habré under the nickname - mrmig , and with another right person - Kuban adventurer-chess player, in the past a professional poker player who decided to do business development.
Our first startup was completely insane. It was called madelephants. If without a selling pitch, here’s what we did:
- users downloaded our extension
- created their advertising messages / announcements
- every time when other people (with the established extension) entered in any search engines the words associated with the created ads, then elephants appeared on the screen !!!
- and on their bodies were those same advertising messages
It was hell and frenzy, but at that time we saw some joke in all this.
Elephants could catch, chase around the screen and do other fun things with them.
I have compiled a business plan for 40 pages, in which there were calculations and a complete analysis of the niche and research (hand on heart, everything was considered according to the “finger to the sky” method).
We even made cartoons about elephants!
And with such trash, we began to ride through the funds and angels.
Time spent: 6 months
Money spent: $ 4,000
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners.
Part 2. Pushing the first elephants
Somewhere in the fall of 2011, I started sending out a business plan to everyone I found online. Then I still had little idea what networking was, and that documents should be transferred after the initial acquaintance on Linkedin or Facebook.
After the first conversations with the funds, we realized that our elephants are the same trash as cartoons (in one of the funds they refused to accept, by the way, because of Hitler). It was then that Alexey and I decided to find a good designer, as well as someone to help with the development, and these people have remained until today. We realized that you need to build a normal e-commerce extension. With blackjack and elephants, but without their appearance on the screens and other madness.
Time spent: 6 months
Money spent: $ 1,000
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners, 10 pieces of contacts of various funds and business angels, the first experience of communication about business, the first advice of experts.
Part 3. The second elephants
The second version of madelephants turned out to be more suitable. The first experience of serious communication with the funds took place in the Runa Capitals. It is not difficult to get to them, if there is a great desire. (And getting to them can be very useful, so, for example, I worked for about a year as the head of a small sales department in the company Metabar precisely because of a trip to Runa). Fund analysts shot the project with questions, something they liked, something did not. There were holes in the calculations, in the marketing plan and monetization. But the experience I received was simply colossal. One of the women, an expert-marketer, said the correct phrase that, after sorting out the project with us, you invested more than one thousand dollars in your own development.
Next was a trip to the Diamond and Summer groups. No less valuable experience, interesting questions and suggestions. The director of the Summer Group practically took the madelephants into the portfolio (which is why Alexey didn’t sleep for 2 weeks preparing extension), but soon he realized that it wasn’t the right idea to distribute the insider program with the EsetNod32 distribution kit. I still maintain relations with the analysts of the foundation, and I have already received a lot of benefits from these “elephant” dating.
Time spent: 4 months
Money spent: $ 1,000
It was acquired: work in the company Metabar, 20 pieces of live contacts of desizh-makers of funds, analysts and business angels, analysis of the product by experts, adjusting the business plan and opening eyes to many things in business.
Part 4. Investors
In the end, we found investors among Moscow business angels and launched the development to the fullest. It turned out a whole service with a rating system of shops and a bunch of whistles. We signed partners, made installations and slowly understood that in order to make Yandex Market in extension you need a lot more money.
The error of many start-up startups (throwing money into a utopian project) was shielded by a case: we did not receive full funding due to the problems of investors themselves. Their business has reached a seven-digit amount. I was present in Moscow during those mourning events and the problems of elephants were nothing compared to the scale of the disaster.
However, we did not get into big debts, and although I lost some amount of money, the experience of communicating with serial entrepreneurs was worth all this. There were overnight stays at the office on Arbat, and weeks of parties at the deputy apartment and stories from former operatives (Tech-Who-Can-It-Not), in general, the whole kitchen of Russian business was studied from the inside.
In addition, it was in this part of my story that I acquired the last two equity partners, and our seven was finally formed.
Time spent: 6 months
Money was spent: $ 10,000 of debt uncovered by investors to hired guys.
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners, 20 live contacts of large Moscow businessmen, former kgbists, heads of research institutes, deputies and people from politics. All this was one common company that gave me gigabytes of information over the months that you wouldn’t read in one book, and I believe that the very idea of expert knowledge from famous people appeared just then.
Part 5. Our days
Now people have problems ended, and we help each other with tips, contacts, ideas and other things. Out of kindness, our friends even cover LendWings depreciation expenses, but this is up to the first sales.
For those who believe that there are only gangsters and swindlers in Russia, I will not dissuade, because everyone sees the world as he wants it to be. Time has shown that if you do not turn away from people, then, even having lost something at the beginning, then you gain many times more. Twitching after every wrong step and shouting that “we were thrown and do not have business with the Russian angels” - the easiest way. It is more difficult to build relationships as is customary in Russia. Without papers and exact plans. In all this chaos there is a grain of human relations.
The project of elephants was put on the shelf, and now we are building a much more understandable business with a very correct product - subjective expert experience.
I want to summarize in the form of simple calculations:
For 2 years of riding on the funds, we spent $ 6000 and got into $ 10,000 of debt.
It was a very successful investment, and I wish all young entrepreneurs to be patient and hold on to influential people (or listen to courses from them, yy).
What we got:
- Experience in the company Metabar (Mikhail Ushakov was one of the analysts who listened to us in the Runa Capitals)
- dozens of contacts of top experts who are now actively helping us with the educational platform, relations with Western authors and building a business
- dozens of contacts of top entrepreneurs who actively help us with recording courses from Russian Pro
- a team working for shares of seven people, which we also gathered in the process of travel
- experience and understanding how to make a project with zero burn rate and a whole bunch of help from other people
In August and September, I will definitely issue an article about these very people and courses from them.
So do not be afraid to take risks, drive, communicate, get paid for money. Be careful not to do anything after the files and blame the partners - then it is certainly easy to drown.
The continuation will be about our system of metrics for selecting cool authors and more - more.
Thank you all very much.
I am starting a series of articles on educational startup LendWings and on Russian eLearning as a whole.
We really like the idea of Internet education, but in RuNet, instead of education, we see muddy courses from unknown authors (thousands of them), eerie boxes with disks that promise to send us by mail, hence the desire to spend some of your life on the following:
')
To put it all in simple terms, the criterion for the selection of authors: “professional coolness”.
We are interested in any areas of knowledge: from hardcore programming specialists from Yandex to home brewing from director Heineken.
Now with us more than 25 authors.
All ready at the moment there are previews here .
More about what it is, who is cool and who is not - I will write later.
In the first post I want to tell you how we have come to this in general.
It so happened that my story of start-ups throwing has its own flavor, and maybe it will be interesting to someone, or even useful. I will not name all names and companies so as not to offend religious feelings.
Part 1. The first elephants
Entry into this universe happened about 3 years ago, when I was engaged in poker forums, affiliate programs and other gambling.
I had a terrible partner who decided that he was a super businessman and that it was time for him to start “big things”: he found a suspicious team and “muddled out” the pizzeria network with them. In short, he lost a lot of money, an apartment in Moscow and now lives in a poor urban-type settlement. Then I realized that professional illiteracy leads to disasters.
As a result, the poker business was sold, there was a small amount of money and I started thinking about my own project and team. I went to my acquaintances, called, wrote, begged to connect with competent developers, and fate brought me together with the right person, who is on Habré under the nickname - mrmig , and with another right person - Kuban adventurer-chess player, in the past a professional poker player who decided to do business development.
Our first startup was completely insane. It was called madelephants. If without a selling pitch, here’s what we did:
- users downloaded our extension
- created their advertising messages / announcements
- every time when other people (with the established extension) entered in any search engines the words associated with the created ads, then elephants appeared on the screen !!!
- and on their bodies were those same advertising messages
It was hell and frenzy, but at that time we saw some joke in all this.
Elephants could catch, chase around the screen and do other fun things with them.
I have compiled a business plan for 40 pages, in which there were calculations and a complete analysis of the niche and research (hand on heart, everything was considered according to the “finger to the sky” method).
We even made cartoons about elephants!
And with such trash, we began to ride through the funds and angels.
Flashback (I first met with Mig).
“In short, I want people to be able to receive advertisements right in the browser, bypassing websites, so that immediately after the search, we would show them some elephants advertising on the groin, and that the search for extension would work coolly ... It’s advisable to do it in a couple of months ... "
Time spent: 6 months
Money spent: $ 4,000
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners.
Part 2. Pushing the first elephants
Somewhere in the fall of 2011, I started sending out a business plan to everyone I found online. Then I still had little idea what networking was, and that documents should be transferred after the initial acquaintance on Linkedin or Facebook.
After the first conversations with the funds, we realized that our elephants are the same trash as cartoons (in one of the funds they refused to accept, by the way, because of Hitler). It was then that Alexey and I decided to find a good designer, as well as someone to help with the development, and these people have remained until today. We realized that you need to build a normal e-commerce extension. With blackjack and elephants, but without their appearance on the screens and other madness.
Flashback (I'm on Skype with one of the first angels):
“Well, we have a sales funnel calculated here ... The user has to download the extension, then he can google something and we will show the relevant offers faster than anyone else and right in the browser ... And then he will click on the necessary store in the plugin ... And then he will buy there ... A funnel of at least 3% will be ... ”
Time spent: 6 months
Money spent: $ 1,000
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners, 10 pieces of contacts of various funds and business angels, the first experience of communication about business, the first advice of experts.
Part 3. The second elephants
The second version of madelephants turned out to be more suitable. The first experience of serious communication with the funds took place in the Runa Capitals. It is not difficult to get to them, if there is a great desire. (And getting to them can be very useful, so, for example, I worked for about a year as the head of a small sales department in the company Metabar precisely because of a trip to Runa). Fund analysts shot the project with questions, something they liked, something did not. There were holes in the calculations, in the marketing plan and monetization. But the experience I received was simply colossal. One of the women, an expert-marketer, said the correct phrase that, after sorting out the project with us, you invested more than one thousand dollars in your own development.
Next was a trip to the Diamond and Summer groups. No less valuable experience, interesting questions and suggestions. The director of the Summer Group practically took the madelephants into the portfolio (which is why Alexey didn’t sleep for 2 weeks preparing extension), but soon he realized that it wasn’t the right idea to distribute the insider program with the EsetNod32 distribution kit. I still maintain relations with the analysts of the foundation, and I have already received a lot of benefits from these “elephant” dating.
Flashback (conversation with one friend in the train vestibule, after visiting the Runes):
“He: I, too, often travel to Moscow for business. The boys say to me, why did you forget there, it's good at home, but I can't do it ... I need a big city, all this movement, possibilities, after all ...
Me: And what are you doing?
He: Well, it is different, sometimes we plaster, sometimes we even lay tiles ”.
Time spent: 4 months
Money spent: $ 1,000
It was acquired: work in the company Metabar, 20 pieces of live contacts of desizh-makers of funds, analysts and business angels, analysis of the product by experts, adjusting the business plan and opening eyes to many things in business.
Part 4. Investors
In the end, we found investors among Moscow business angels and launched the development to the fullest. It turned out a whole service with a rating system of shops and a bunch of whistles. We signed partners, made installations and slowly understood that in order to make Yandex Market in extension you need a lot more money.
The error of many start-up startups (throwing money into a utopian project) was shielded by a case: we did not receive full funding due to the problems of investors themselves. Their business has reached a seven-digit amount. I was present in Moscow during those mourning events and the problems of elephants were nothing compared to the scale of the disaster.
However, we did not get into big debts, and although I lost some amount of money, the experience of communicating with serial entrepreneurs was worth all this. There were overnight stays at the office on Arbat, and weeks of parties at the deputy apartment and stories from former operatives (Tech-Who-Can-It-Not), in general, the whole kitchen of Russian business was studied from the inside.
In addition, it was in this part of my story that I acquired the last two equity partners, and our seven was finally formed.
Flashback (the story of one of the investors, as he was sold 4G modem, but 4G itself was not):
“Damn, I barely returned this modem to them, they told me you read the contract, everything will be soon, they will connect everything ... I told them that I have an office opposite, and a car is parked nearby, and there is a canister with gasoline in it, and that I now I’ll go back, return with the canister and burn to their *** *** their whole office ... Right here they gave me a manibek ... ”
Time spent: 6 months
Money was spent: $ 10,000 of debt uncovered by investors to hired guys.
It was acquired: 2 class equity partners, 20 live contacts of large Moscow businessmen, former kgbists, heads of research institutes, deputies and people from politics. All this was one common company that gave me gigabytes of information over the months that you wouldn’t read in one book, and I believe that the very idea of expert knowledge from famous people appeared just then.
Part 5. Our days
Now people have problems ended, and we help each other with tips, contacts, ideas and other things. Out of kindness, our friends even cover LendWings depreciation expenses, but this is up to the first sales.
For those who believe that there are only gangsters and swindlers in Russia, I will not dissuade, because everyone sees the world as he wants it to be. Time has shown that if you do not turn away from people, then, even having lost something at the beginning, then you gain many times more. Twitching after every wrong step and shouting that “we were thrown and do not have business with the Russian angels” - the easiest way. It is more difficult to build relationships as is customary in Russia. Without papers and exact plans. In all this chaos there is a grain of human relations.
The project of elephants was put on the shelf, and now we are building a much more understandable business with a very correct product - subjective expert experience.
I want to summarize in the form of simple calculations:
For 2 years of riding on the funds, we spent $ 6000 and got into $ 10,000 of debt.
It was a very successful investment, and I wish all young entrepreneurs to be patient and hold on to influential people (or listen to courses from them, yy).
What we got:
- Experience in the company Metabar (Mikhail Ushakov was one of the analysts who listened to us in the Runa Capitals)
- dozens of contacts of top experts who are now actively helping us with the educational platform, relations with Western authors and building a business
- dozens of contacts of top entrepreneurs who actively help us with recording courses from Russian Pro
- a team working for shares of seven people, which we also gathered in the process of travel
- experience and understanding how to make a project with zero burn rate and a whole bunch of help from other people
In August and September, I will definitely issue an article about these very people and courses from them.
So do not be afraid to take risks, drive, communicate, get paid for money. Be careful not to do anything after the files and blame the partners - then it is certainly easy to drown.
The continuation will be about our system of metrics for selecting cool authors and more - more.
Thank you all very much.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/186716/
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