Through thorns to investment
Despite the fact that the growing sphere of mobile technologies is very attractive for starting a business, it is very difficult to take a place in the sun. And, if it seems from the outside that all the projects implemented in this area live in clover, then everything is not so rosy. To exist and flourish in the market, you need to plow a lot for this (but this is not news).
Everybody knows the phrase “the road to the young”, but this does not always apply to startups, and not all investors are in a hurry to invest money in you, because you are young and ambitious.
- Hello, are you an investor?
When you want to start a business, you have to believe in your idea so that others will believe in it. We were sure that we had not lost our niche (a growing market is a direct confirmation of this) and were ready to sell our project to anyone. But it is not always enough to prepare the goods, you need to find a merchant who will appreciate it. We went around more than one investment fund. In one, they didn’t understand our technology - how it can be so simple, why we write once and simply broadcast the application on all platforms (apparently everyone was a humanist), in another they decided in principle that the idea was not promising and the market was not successful (for all In their expert form, they didn’t understand IT at all). For the third, we were “at an early stage”, another one called our segment of mobile application development with incremental differentiation. Well, and another reason - fake addresses, 30% of investment boxes simply do not work, although they are indicated on the sites as official contacts.
When we realized that even through the official contacts of the funds it was impossible to get to investors, we went to the social network: Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, Linkedin. More than 3000 letters were sent, of which only about a hundred useful contacts, and only from them did we receive at least some feedback.
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Initially, we were focused on b2c - any user could create a mobile application and keep up with the times. But, having received a question from several investors: “Why do you work with b2c, who needs apps?” They understood that b2b will be more promising for us - then we just received a proposal for cooperation from Ru-Center. Although we still have the “Personal” type of application, where everyone can fill it with any content and successfully use it, we are still more developing types in the direction of business types. For example, recently we have “Beauty Salons”.
Our company is 2 years old, but we started to work actively with clients only six months ago - a lot of things prevented us from working.
If you want to compete with others, you must be different. We decided to create a unique technology. Instant-Apps allows you to write a mobile application at the same time for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, providing an API for unified access to user interface elements, local storage, components for working with the network, geolocation, and a number of other services. We have secured an advantage over our competitors - we create applications 5 times faster, we do not need additional hiring of employees and we save money. Our technology is out of competition. Most of the preparation time for the launch of the project was spent precisely on debugging and polishing it.
Much time has passed and the solution to another problem. For people facing the display of applications in the market, it is no secret that there are no problems with Google Play, they can publish your application in a few hours, but Apple needs an individual approach - moderation takes up to 2 weeks. But not only do you have to wait so much time, you first need to agree that the applications from your account were laid out in the App Store. That's where the “War with Apple” began. As part of our project, we launched the Apps Viewer utility to view applications before publishing them in the stores. And four months the entrance to the App Store was closed. We could not lose a huge audience of the most (!) Popular platform, so we beat many thresholds to achieve our goal. They took us for fraudsters, threatened us with statements, but we did not give up. We worked almost around the clock - after all, 8 hours of difference with America. We even had to open a mini office in San Francisco to get them from there. We were already familiar with all the moderators: we played cards with them, walked behind them literally on our heels, trying to get apruv to go to the stop. We sent thousands of letters, and only one of them worked. After months of continuous work, we achieved our goal, we were allowed to go to the App Store. If you are not there, it is very bad, if you did break through - all the doors are open before you, and this was our little victory.
Having passed this thorny path, we can declare that we are an industrial-scale project. Issuing 25 apps per day is the norm for us.
We were able to convince investors that we are making an international product. And that's what happened:
$ 150,000 Farminers seed round
$ 1 500 000 Life.Sreda A-round
When you get money, you relax for a moment, but then you realize that you need to work and work to meet expectations and not let yourself and your team down. The main rule for all new startups is to act (!). If you just sit on the spot exactly, the money will not flow to you, investors will not go to your home and be interested in, and you did not come up with something big. Just work up a sweat and nothing else.
We must start to do everything on time. If you are working on the growth of the company and the development of technology, then you need several rounds to pay off all costs. You need to understand that fundraising is a permanent job. By the way, our project is now in search of proposals from the funds for the next round.
Everybody knows the phrase “the road to the young”, but this does not always apply to startups, and not all investors are in a hurry to invest money in you, because you are young and ambitious.
- Hello, are you an investor?
- We are to you
When you want to start a business, you have to believe in your idea so that others will believe in it. We were sure that we had not lost our niche (a growing market is a direct confirmation of this) and were ready to sell our project to anyone. But it is not always enough to prepare the goods, you need to find a merchant who will appreciate it. We went around more than one investment fund. In one, they didn’t understand our technology - how it can be so simple, why we write once and simply broadcast the application on all platforms (apparently everyone was a humanist), in another they decided in principle that the idea was not promising and the market was not successful (for all In their expert form, they didn’t understand IT at all). For the third, we were “at an early stage”, another one called our segment of mobile application development with incremental differentiation. Well, and another reason - fake addresses, 30% of investment boxes simply do not work, although they are indicated on the sites as official contacts.
When we realized that even through the official contacts of the funds it was impossible to get to investors, we went to the social network: Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, Linkedin. More than 3000 letters were sent, of which only about a hundred useful contacts, and only from them did we receive at least some feedback.
')
Orientation change
Initially, we were focused on b2c - any user could create a mobile application and keep up with the times. But, having received a question from several investors: “Why do you work with b2c, who needs apps?” They understood that b2b will be more promising for us - then we just received a proposal for cooperation from Ru-Center. Although we still have the “Personal” type of application, where everyone can fill it with any content and successfully use it, we are still more developing types in the direction of business types. For example, recently we have “Beauty Salons”.
We are unique
Our company is 2 years old, but we started to work actively with clients only six months ago - a lot of things prevented us from working.
If you want to compete with others, you must be different. We decided to create a unique technology. Instant-Apps allows you to write a mobile application at the same time for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, providing an API for unified access to user interface elements, local storage, components for working with the network, geolocation, and a number of other services. We have secured an advantage over our competitors - we create applications 5 times faster, we do not need additional hiring of employees and we save money. Our technology is out of competition. Most of the preparation time for the launch of the project was spent precisely on debugging and polishing it.
Winning the App Store
Much time has passed and the solution to another problem. For people facing the display of applications in the market, it is no secret that there are no problems with Google Play, they can publish your application in a few hours, but Apple needs an individual approach - moderation takes up to 2 weeks. But not only do you have to wait so much time, you first need to agree that the applications from your account were laid out in the App Store. That's where the “War with Apple” began. As part of our project, we launched the Apps Viewer utility to view applications before publishing them in the stores. And four months the entrance to the App Store was closed. We could not lose a huge audience of the most (!) Popular platform, so we beat many thresholds to achieve our goal. They took us for fraudsters, threatened us with statements, but we did not give up. We worked almost around the clock - after all, 8 hours of difference with America. We even had to open a mini office in San Francisco to get them from there. We were already familiar with all the moderators: we played cards with them, walked behind them literally on our heels, trying to get apruv to go to the stop. We sent thousands of letters, and only one of them worked. After months of continuous work, we achieved our goal, we were allowed to go to the App Store. If you are not there, it is very bad, if you did break through - all the doors are open before you, and this was our little victory.
Finally money
Having passed this thorny path, we can declare that we are an industrial-scale project. Issuing 25 apps per day is the norm for us.
We were able to convince investors that we are making an international product. And that's what happened:
$ 150,000 Farminers seed round
$ 1 500 000 Life.Sreda A-round
Do not stop
When you get money, you relax for a moment, but then you realize that you need to work and work to meet expectations and not let yourself and your team down. The main rule for all new startups is to act (!). If you just sit on the spot exactly, the money will not flow to you, investors will not go to your home and be interested in, and you did not come up with something big. Just work up a sweat and nothing else.
We must start to do everything on time. If you are working on the growth of the company and the development of technology, then you need several rounds to pay off all costs. You need to understand that fundraising is a permanent job. By the way, our project is now in search of proposals from the funds for the next round.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/201036/
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