My trip to FRIA

Application preparation

FRIA - what is it?

I learned about FRII from the business consultant and mentor of our project, Oleg Malsagov Hitrusha . He said that a fund is being created in Russia in which 6 billion rubles are managed. And now with this money you need to find * tsat Internet projects and invest in them. Another initiative is to transfer the country's economy from raw materials to innovative rails.
The foundation is young, in September of this year their first selection was in which my project got into. More on this.

Submit an application

A week before the end of the application, the director of one of Tomsk's business incubators wrote to me: “Look at the frii.rf Internet Initiatives Development Fund, submit an application there, a great topic, write questions, call”.
Looked: the site is light, light, understandable - almost habrastyle. But little specifics. From the description it became clear that, having passed the selection, startups can get into their accelerator and, possibly, receive investments.
I am registering with the thought “will not lose us”.
Registration form is absolutely not annoying - just a couple of questions. But the application itself is weighty: 8 sections (what it looks like, you can look at iidf.ru, submit a project for participation in the TOP-100 in your account).
Puffed an hour, collected the data in one array. The application is filed, I was notified by a letter that they would soon get to know me on Skype. I am signing up for a virtual meeting, and at the appointed time someone calls me "FRIA employee".

First acquaintance: Skype interview - a few minutes

They said little, everything in the case, namely:
• the essence of your business idea, why you chose this particular subject;
• What service does your service provide, and what do you earn?
• what of your plans have you already implemented and what results have you achieved;
• business experience and the main achievements of your team.
On the other side of Skype, there were two "FIDI Employees", one of them is an expert from the Greenfield Project who I already know. Once again, I am convinced that the Russian IT crowd is a rather narrow circle of people.
In a few minutes they received answers and went to get acquainted with the next project.

We went to the top 100

Suddenly, out of nowhere ...
A few days later I received a letter of happiness: we went to the TOP 100 projects. Now there was another Skype interview, only now for an hour and a half, and even with our technical director. The staff of the fund kindly sent us a list of questions in advance, and this markedly shortened the talk time.
There was one interesting point. In the letter of happiness I was asked to keep secret that we were in the TOP-100. Mystery shrouded in darkness. Dear habrazhiteli, who thinks what? Why such a conspiracy? But we were really silent, like fish.
')

Let's take a closer look: Skype interview - 1 hour

Remember "What men are talking about": what if the Germans come and torture you?
At this stage, the FRIA staff wanted to talk with two representatives of the project: the manager and the product manager.
This time they spoke at length and in detail. There was already another expert, he quickly analyzed our answers, helped us find the missing project metrics, which are often removed for mobile applications and cloud services, and in our project there is both.
As a result of an hour-long interview, the experts found out what was necessary, but we still did not understand what would happen next. There were a lot of interviews, they were held in a short time, so I don’t have time to tell us the details of the IIDF staff.

What awaits us? FRIA keeps silently-a-anier ...

In short, we realized that there are two options for further work with the project:
1) Offline acceleration
if the project goes offline, then I fly to Moscow with my director, we get $ 25K, we hang out there for 3 months, I give 7% of the company, we are taught how to develop the product to the desired indicators, and help us achieve these indicators.
2) Online acceleration
we’ve got into it exactly as past TOP-100. In this case, we are also taught how to develop the product to the desired indicators, and help us achieve these indicators. But at the same time we do not hang out in Moscow for 3 months, they don’t give us money and do not belong to the company.
The approximate picture became clear. But who will be these experts who are going to train us. And the second question that worried me the most: now I am a line manager, subordinate to 10+ people and all administrative work with external services. I can not leave for 3 months.
From this point on, it became clear that in order to participate in the offline accelerator, you must either agree on a change of conditions, or go online.

I fly to Moscow

A few days later an employee from IIDF flew to Tomsk and on the recommendation of the same kind people Hitrusha came to our office. In a pleasant conversation, she spoke about the purely business objectives of the foundation. And most importantly, it became clear that it is MANDATORY to fly to Moscow to present the project to the experts, who will select 40 projects for the offline accelerator. It turned out that offline is a kind of privilege.
They asked to come with a product manager, but from Siberia a round-trip ticket is 13-14 thousand rubles. I flew alone.




And as it turned out later, one of the team is enough. Interestingly, the FRIA realizes that Russia has not ended behind the Moscow Ring Road, and from Vladivostok it is extremely expensive to fly, and where does the money for these flights from an ordinary startup come from?

Party in Moscow

Day 1: Consultation

Complete the presentation, the conditions for offline acceleration are not discussed

The morning of the first day was a consultation with a staff member of the IIDF. You could say the test run is a presentation one-on-one. The purpose of the procedure is to help participants to highlight all aspects of the project so that experts have a minimum of questions.




We managed the minutes for 7 of the 30 dedicated.
I was interested in another question: is it possible to get into an offline accelerator, and still be in Tomsk. Those. Is it possible to get investments and work in the place where my efficiency will be maximum? The answer was given momentarily and unequivocally: “It is impossible. You must be in Moscow. ” There was a ghostly opportunity to talk with the director of educational programs, but he also talked with participants without interruption, he was busy all the time.

Meetings with acquaintances, potential customers and partners

With this, the compulsory program of the first day ended, and in the remaining time I met with my acquaintances, potential clients, partners, and walked around Moscow. Thank you Zhanna Bogomolova for a delicious pizza!




In the evening I adjusted the presentation and ... the second day began.

Day 2: Judgment Day

Registration from 8:30 - penguins in Vykhino

Everyone who gets to work in the morning from the final metro station is dedicated.
Registration for project protection began at 8:30. I started from art. Metro Vykhino. It is from this station you need to leave in the morning if you want to feel like a penguin. A stream of people pushes you into the car. Outside the car, people are tense, aggressive - hungry penguins, and once inside, they take out their gadgets and become calm to indifference.
To get to the opening of registration, you had to leave earlier - you need to get used to the distances in Moscow. I arrived at about 9, a queue of people at 30 had already lined up from the front desk. I registered at 16:15.

Mad party - sold to himself

Protecting the project in the evening, there is still a lot of time, meetings for this day are not planned, all potential meetings are here. All the TOP 100 projects have been invited, so ideally there should be 100 managers. In the tusovka zone, confident guys and girls walk back and forth, register for protection, take T-shirts with the FRIA logo, eat and chat.



Everyone I met was selling my startup well. That is, it seems that people want to sell it, and not to build a business, to earn money for themselves. I especially want to mention Dmitry Rozhdestvensky with the project bankrot.pro. They can all talk about their creation for hours, it is very difficult to kill them. And when the topic is specific, it is also not easy to support. Why did he sell, I did not understand. With his energy, you can run a business like that.
I noticed that if you are polite at such a party and listen to the others, then there will be no time left for promoting your project - everyone just talks, but does not listen.
There were not only self-selling, but also vampires. They pulled out useful information that I shared until I asked them a question; they gave feedback rarely and dryly.
A pleasant completion of the painting were beautiful girls - the organizers of the event.

Offline shortage

About 90% of the projects wanted to get online. Not satisfied with the 2 conditions: 1) $ 25K for 7% was considered expensive; 2) were not ready to move to Moscow for 3 months. It turned out that the number of projects offline was significantly less than the planned 40.
There were teams that were ready to be in Moscow for 3 months. Basically, these are the teams where there are only two people and they do not need to manage other people in their region. But I met only two such teams.

Protection of the project: "Dear, I see you for the first time"

Time to submit a project. The protection schedule has shifted by 30 minutes. Experts sat in a classroom with transparent doors at a round table. They are noticeably tired and did not immediately get involved in the work. When I began to talk about the project performance, everyone was interested in looking at the slide.
As a result, there were questions. All of them were of a general nature, none on the subject of photo / video processing, but short, without much discussion. And the final question was: “Where do you want: offline or online?”
I was not satisfied with the requirement to be in Moscow for 3 months. And how do you imagine that? Now I am still a line manager. If IIDF is included in the company, then our goals for increasing capitalization become common. But if I will be 3 months in Moscow, then the efficiency of work in Tomsk will fall. The system is not yet established to work without my participation. It turns out that by this condition FRIA exposes the further development of the project to risk. And what would FRIA do if after investment rates started to fall?
My arguments were either not heard or there was no time to agree. But the result is the result: Dmitry Kalaev once again noted that the conditions of the offline accelerator will not change.
Offline accelerator - it is not clear what I agree on . In Tomsk, I have a development team, our young business is accompanied by a number of people and companies - I have something to lose. And in the offline accelerator, I do not even know which experts will supervise us. The list of experts was not even preliminary. The educational program is incomprehensible. In his defense, Dmitry pointed to the experts sitting at the table, asking what these experts are not satisfied with. I am sure that all the experts are professionals, but I have never seen one of them before, and I told them there too. Mute scene: "We are cool, because we are cool!"

Rewarding - the rules of the game change on the go

After the projects were defended, a tusovka began with a non-standard leader — the director of an IT company that produces mobile games. The presenter took the carte blanche in advance and apologized for the lack of professionalism on his part, saying that he was paid for by the IIDF and therefore he is here. The guy must pay tribute, entertained, as he could. Probably, he has already exhausted himself in the position of the owner of the IT business and is committed to show business.
Awarding Ceremony The organizers and experts consulted and instead of 40 offline projects they chose as many as 50! But with a reservation for startups, so that they are not surprised that they are offline, although they have stated their desire to get online. Anyway, there was a shortage of offline.
They handed out certificates, shook hands, and began the IIDF party.

FRI-party

After the “distribution of elephants”, the VIA from St. Petersburg came on the scene - 4 charming girls entertained everyone with covers for the latest hits of Europe +. It was nice to watch and listen. There were plenty of snacks, drinks, whiskey on the tables, bartenders showed feints with bottles. In general, there would be ordinary guys there, the party would be torn and MOD DESIGN (the so-called event hall) would burst at the seams. But businessmen gathered here, and many are not local, so 30 minutes after the award ceremony, almost no one is left. The whole celebration continued for a rare viewer.

Tomic in Harat's

Without waiting for the curtain, we gathered with Dima Pangayev ( bubuka.info ) and Zhenya Dyachenko ( smartfield.ru ) and went to Harat's bar, where we spent the rest of the evening. Harat's taxis!

findings

From positive

Organizers and experts completed on time

There were many projects, all different, complicated in their own way. The good news is that the experts met the project evaluation on time. I had to chuck in this business center until late. There was a slight time shift during the defense, but this time was compensated, and as planned, at the tenth hour we were free.

Pleasant interior event zone

The second pleasant moment of what happened is the selection venue: a convenient location next to the Barrikadnaya metro station, a trendy interior (knowingly this modern design and innovation center for life is called MOD DESIGN), a comfortable atmosphere with frameless furniture, separate meeting rooms.

From the negative: conditions for participation in the offline accelerator

Drop everything, get over to us!

The main reason to choose an online accelerator for my project was the reluctance to move to Moscow for 3 months. Bad that the organizers did not consider options to change the conditions. They wanted one size fits all. At the same time, they do not think about the business itself, but solve their goals - probably, it was necessary to make a good report.

The forest is dense, the forest is dense - the acceleration program is foggy

The second repulsive reason is the strict secrecy of the acceleration program. It is clear that FRII are a start-up themselves , but then we would like them to communicate with us honestly, on an equal footing, to tell at least about the outline of the program. On the other hand, about what "equal" I am talking about: we are separated by several billion rubles, and we are the "cats" in which we can train.

Visited the Tretyakov Gallery

On the day of departure, it was time to get to know Moscow, finally visited the Tretyakov Gallery. 5 hours is very little for her. During this time, it is hardly possible to bypass only one building of art of the 20th century. Masterpiece!



Painting helps to look at the same things from a different angle. Most likely I will say sedition, but in IIDF it attracts more by the fact that you can take advantage of the opportunity and visit all sorts of cultural institutions.

FINDINGS:

There was a feeling that acceleration conditions were developed in isolation from startups. Therefore, "the stone flower came out with difficulty and not to the end."
In general, the IIDF organizers need to say thank you for collecting such a number of projects and experts at one time and in one place. The work is done a lot and more work awaits them ahead. Good luck! But you give work comparable to the get-together!
PS Now those who have gone offline are in the process of understanding what is happening and already know those who have decided not to go to Moscow for 3 months.