iCity is a virtual city that nobody cares about. Post Mortem to an internal startup
Hello. The article will be about a startup. But do not rush to frown. The article will be about the internal startup - inside the parent company. These are sometimes called spinoffs. As you might guess from the title, I suggest reading about how enthusiastically I made a mistake after mistake in an attempt to create an internal startup and what came of it. I really hope that I warn someone from this kind of mistakes.
I always had a lot of ideas. Where and by whom I would not work. I wrote the first line of code in 1990, still at school. Somewhere in 1996, I came up with something like Yandex.Market (as it turned out later), a bit later - a variator (such a bevel gear for a vehicle's gearbox), then there were already more practical things - most of us come up with ideas, only we -to dispose of them. I carefully wrote down my own, setting out the requirements in detail (fortunately, there was a lot of practice as a business analyst). One even patented. Now just do not understand why :). By 2011, I managed to work not only as an analyst, programmer, IT project manager and commercial director of an IT company, but also as a development director for a large construction company, build two shopping centers and be the general director of the company in the field of transport logistics. In general, the experience - the car. But never lost contact with IT. On the contrary - in every industry you see how it would be possible with the help of IT to give it a powerful impetus to development. As a result, in 2011 I was offered to return to IT, providing a solid budget (a little more than 10 million rubles), a blank check in the formation of the team. The nuance was an interesting restriction on the subject - to make a product that would suit the name “Information City” and in which QR codes would be actively used. Well, and that, of course, as a result, would pay for itself and start earning a profit.
Agree, the proposal made to me is the ultimate dream for many habrovchan - a good budget, a share, a blank check, an office, the freedom to choose a team - one could only dream of such! At that moment I was thinking about the same, and, rolling up my sleeves, I rushed to write the concept of a product and think about its implementation.
The result was the following concept. Next - a quote from the document:
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The idea is to provide an environment in which its users can, at their own discretion, shape the image of their subject area, organize their social communities using original tools for shaping the authority of community members and take an active part in their lives.
Our environment will combine the best qualities of Wikipedia, social networks and mobile technologies. The key principle is the integration of a social environment built on the principle of social networks with a subject infrastructure built on the principle of Wikipedia.
Such integration, coupled with the use of mobile technology, the principle of "augmented reality", structural ratings and game elements, with a high degree of probability, should be a success.
To create a prototype, the idea will be projected onto the life of a city with the most important aspects of its life, elements of “augmented reality” and organization of effective communication with the executive authorities.
Now I would not even look at such an idea - a complex concept, slurred monetization, the lack of proofs, even basic prerequisites. From the information “from the fields” there was only the interest of Samara bloggers, whom we collected several times and who had a keen interest in the project as a platform where you can really do everything the way you want in your hometown - without waiting for any action from official authorities and the fight against them.
Despite the fact that we worked inside a large company, the team needed, for obvious reasons, to recruit from scratch. According to my logic, the project’s technical implementation was to determine the project’s technical lead — it had to choose the one that best suited. Then it seemed to me that it does not matter which platform to choose - if the hands grow from the right place, then the result of the right quality will be in the right time. How wrong I was! Yes, they made a very competent and responsible specialist who has an excellent track record and experience in working with Java. The fact that the experience was primarily industrial, and not web development, then seemed to me insignificant - after all, a man of sensible and adequate + in the team we recruit specialists with the necessary experience.
As a result, instead of choosing a CMF for the pilot, on which one could quickly make a prototype and test it, we, blinded by my confidence in success, immediately started making a large system in Java. The process is suspiciously reminiscent of industrial development. Since the team's performance and quality of development left much to be desired, and I wanted to keep the planned deadlines, the team grew steadily and by the end of 2011 it was already 8 people, including 3 mobile developers (I didn’t think of anything better than to immediately do the mobile platforms).
The concept was changing before our eyes, and from time to time, from developers, there were offers to stop this madness and somehow simplify the concept. And for a start it would be good to understand for ourselves what we are doing and for whom. But it was not so easy. As a result, I, most likely, in order to self-indulge, the idea was born - all standard startups are simple, like a penny, they solve only one problem. Our own solves a lot of problems right away, but all together, and not one by one. A virtual city should be a city, not a sandbox. Because you need to continue to cut the product.
We met monthly, I enthusiastically reported on the work done and showed intermediate results. For all attempts to somehow cast doubt on the correctness of the chosen approach - we make the product, without raising our heads, for a year without any confirmation of the concept from the outside - I screamed with indignation. The main motive that I cited as an argument is that we make a complex product that will have value to the user only when it is fully ready - otherwise, we will have a failure. Alas, my pressure and my persuasiveness have done their job month after month. But the wages (sometimes even bonuses) were regularly paid to us and the amount of money kept decreasing and decreasing.
However, in April 2012 we made the first public (as it turned out - and the last) version of the project. What are our friendly bloggers friendly and very friendly told the whole Internet. A whole campaign was carried out, the results of which can be seen by typing “iCity - we made it” at Yandex. We were enthusiastic and prepared to withstand enormous loads from the influx of a huge number of people who wanted to make their contribution to the virtual city, to begin to describe objects, upload photos and news, comment on other people's news, earn ratings, etc. As you might guess, our expectations, to put it mildly, did not materialize. As a pilot, we were going to test the concept on Samara, finish the product and then open it to the whole of Russia.
Here you need to make a small digression. One of the key places in the project was a QR code. I must say that at that time this tool had not yet received such a broad view and we wanted to make Samara the first in Russia (and maybe in the world) a city where every building would be equipped with a QR code, a link from which leads to a wiki-like iCity page, where you could both get comprehensive information about the object itself, and upload your comments, reviews and photos there. I still consider this concept good and so far no one has even gotten close to such a service. As a result, everything came up against the provision, which governs the city administration of Samara, which regulates the use of QR codes along with the signs with addresses. We prepared a relevant resolution, made presentations to the responsible persons. In general, in Samara, after two and a half years from the transfer of our version of the decree of the mayor, there are still no regulations governing the placement of QR codes in the address space and at housing and public utilities facilities.
After we launched the project and fellow bloggers made good PR for us, it was necessary to actively increase the user base and increase the amount of content. And here we very much hoped that we would still manage to carry out a QR code regulation through the municipality of Samara. Alas, about QR codes have already been said a little higher, and other tools that we tried to use for promotion, did not give the proper effect.
According to the results of the first two months of the resource’s work, it turned out that the most demanded resource was from people who want to draw the city’s attention to certain shortcomings of the city - they left signals on maps, supplied them with photographs. And they expected that in response there would be real administration actions. We worked hard to integrate this part of our systems with a similar system of the Samara administration, but this work progressed very slowly and the users, tired of waiting, left. However, this led to the fact that we were offered, on the basis of iCity, to make a system for working with citizens in another major municipality. Taking into account the thawing budgets, the proposal was very timely and we threw all our efforts to remove everything unnecessary from iCity and leave only that which is responsible for the communications of citizens with the executive authorities and the executive authorities with citizens. The result was the “Open City” system for Togliatti. There is, of course, almost nothing left of iCity - we took into account the many wishes of our Togliatti colleagues and sharpened the product to the requirements of the municipality. There was interest from other regions.
What would you do in my place? Well, right - to quickly reorient the team, and most quickly go with presentations to the cities and villages of the Russian Federation, I propose a good product, selling and introducing it to everyone. The obvious pivot! But I made another mistake here - it was a pity for the efforts spent on iCity and we rushed to finish it, believing that users do not go to us due to the fact that the resource is slow and, at times, unstable.
Yes. Everything turned upside down after I went to Moscow for this event. It was a kind of cold sobering soul. After returning, I rushed to read Blanca and Dorf. How could it have been done in 2011! All my mistakes have become so obvious that it has become unbearably annoying for so inefficiently spent budgets and people who followed you and are at great risk to come to a broken trough.
Having gathered the key people of the team, I conveyed the essence of the new concept (clear segmentation - a city for sports, a city for guests, a city for entertainment, an open city, etc.). We decided to freeze the development of iCity in its current form and focus on one of the new portals for a new concept. Even made the design of the main pages. But then it became clear that there was not enough money even for one portal.
As a result, in order to preserve the created team (which already had serious experience of joint work and experience of making mistakes, successes and failures), third-party investments were attracted for another project. But that's another story.
It is spinning in open access on a weak computer in order to occasionally show potential customers what a cool thing we did in our time, even with three mobile applications. And for our team, which, for the most part, has already fled on other projects (both within and outside the parent company), iCity will be remembered as a great example of how not to do projects.
Prehistory
I always had a lot of ideas. Where and by whom I would not work. I wrote the first line of code in 1990, still at school. Somewhere in 1996, I came up with something like Yandex.Market (as it turned out later), a bit later - a variator (such a bevel gear for a vehicle's gearbox), then there were already more practical things - most of us come up with ideas, only we -to dispose of them. I carefully wrote down my own, setting out the requirements in detail (fortunately, there was a lot of practice as a business analyst). One even patented. Now just do not understand why :). By 2011, I managed to work not only as an analyst, programmer, IT project manager and commercial director of an IT company, but also as a development director for a large construction company, build two shopping centers and be the general director of the company in the field of transport logistics. In general, the experience - the car. But never lost contact with IT. On the contrary - in every industry you see how it would be possible with the help of IT to give it a powerful impetus to development. As a result, in 2011 I was offered to return to IT, providing a solid budget (a little more than 10 million rubles), a blank check in the formation of the team. The nuance was an interesting restriction on the subject - to make a product that would suit the name “Information City” and in which QR codes would be actively used. Well, and that, of course, as a result, would pay for itself and start earning a profit.
Ideal conditions !?
Agree, the proposal made to me is the ultimate dream for many habrovchan - a good budget, a share, a blank check, an office, the freedom to choose a team - one could only dream of such! At that moment I was thinking about the same, and, rolling up my sleeves, I rushed to write the concept of a product and think about its implementation.
The essence of the virtual city
The result was the following concept. Next - a quote from the document:
')
The idea is to provide an environment in which its users can, at their own discretion, shape the image of their subject area, organize their social communities using original tools for shaping the authority of community members and take an active part in their lives.
Our environment will combine the best qualities of Wikipedia, social networks and mobile technologies. The key principle is the integration of a social environment built on the principle of social networks with a subject infrastructure built on the principle of Wikipedia.
Such integration, coupled with the use of mobile technology, the principle of "augmented reality", structural ratings and game elements, with a high degree of probability, should be a success.
To create a prototype, the idea will be projected onto the life of a city with the most important aspects of its life, elements of “augmented reality” and organization of effective communication with the executive authorities.
Now I would not even look at such an idea - a complex concept, slurred monetization, the lack of proofs, even basic prerequisites. From the information “from the fields” there was only the interest of Samara bloggers, whom we collected several times and who had a keen interest in the project as a platform where you can really do everything the way you want in your hometown - without waiting for any action from official authorities and the fight against them.
Start - platform selection
Despite the fact that we worked inside a large company, the team needed, for obvious reasons, to recruit from scratch. According to my logic, the project’s technical implementation was to determine the project’s technical lead — it had to choose the one that best suited. Then it seemed to me that it does not matter which platform to choose - if the hands grow from the right place, then the result of the right quality will be in the right time. How wrong I was! Yes, they made a very competent and responsible specialist who has an excellent track record and experience in working with Java. The fact that the experience was primarily industrial, and not web development, then seemed to me insignificant - after all, a man of sensible and adequate + in the team we recruit specialists with the necessary experience.
As a result, instead of choosing a CMF for the pilot, on which one could quickly make a prototype and test it, we, blinded by my confidence in success, immediately started making a large system in Java. The process is suspiciously reminiscent of industrial development. Since the team's performance and quality of development left much to be desired, and I wanted to keep the planned deadlines, the team grew steadily and by the end of 2011 it was already 8 people, including 3 mobile developers (I didn’t think of anything better than to immediately do the mobile platforms).
First signs of failure
The concept was changing before our eyes, and from time to time, from developers, there were offers to stop this madness and somehow simplify the concept. And for a start it would be good to understand for ourselves what we are doing and for whom. But it was not so easy. As a result, I, most likely, in order to self-indulge, the idea was born - all standard startups are simple, like a penny, they solve only one problem. Our own solves a lot of problems right away, but all together, and not one by one. A virtual city should be a city, not a sandbox. Because you need to continue to cut the product.
And what about the investor [he is the management of the parent company]?
We met monthly, I enthusiastically reported on the work done and showed intermediate results. For all attempts to somehow cast doubt on the correctness of the chosen approach - we make the product, without raising our heads, for a year without any confirmation of the concept from the outside - I screamed with indignation. The main motive that I cited as an argument is that we make a complex product that will have value to the user only when it is fully ready - otherwise, we will have a failure. Alas, my pressure and my persuasiveness have done their job month after month. But the wages (sometimes even bonuses) were regularly paid to us and the amount of money kept decreasing and decreasing.
We made it!
However, in April 2012 we made the first public (as it turned out - and the last) version of the project. What are our friendly bloggers friendly and very friendly told the whole Internet. A whole campaign was carried out, the results of which can be seen by typing “iCity - we made it” at Yandex. We were enthusiastic and prepared to withstand enormous loads from the influx of a huge number of people who wanted to make their contribution to the virtual city, to begin to describe objects, upload photos and news, comment on other people's news, earn ratings, etc. As you might guess, our expectations, to put it mildly, did not materialize. As a pilot, we were going to test the concept on Samara, finish the product and then open it to the whole of Russia.
QR codes
Here you need to make a small digression. One of the key places in the project was a QR code. I must say that at that time this tool had not yet received such a broad view and we wanted to make Samara the first in Russia (and maybe in the world) a city where every building would be equipped with a QR code, a link from which leads to a wiki-like iCity page, where you could both get comprehensive information about the object itself, and upload your comments, reviews and photos there. I still consider this concept good and so far no one has even gotten close to such a service. As a result, everything came up against the provision, which governs the city administration of Samara, which regulates the use of QR codes along with the signs with addresses. We prepared a relevant resolution, made presentations to the responsible persons. In general, in Samara, after two and a half years from the transfer of our version of the decree of the mayor, there are still no regulations governing the placement of QR codes in the address space and at housing and public utilities facilities.
After we launched the project and fellow bloggers made good PR for us, it was necessary to actively increase the user base and increase the amount of content. And here we very much hoped that we would still manage to carry out a QR code regulation through the municipality of Samara. Alas, about QR codes have already been said a little higher, and other tools that we tried to use for promotion, did not give the proper effect.
Pivot
According to the results of the first two months of the resource’s work, it turned out that the most demanded resource was from people who want to draw the city’s attention to certain shortcomings of the city - they left signals on maps, supplied them with photographs. And they expected that in response there would be real administration actions. We worked hard to integrate this part of our systems with a similar system of the Samara administration, but this work progressed very slowly and the users, tired of waiting, left. However, this led to the fact that we were offered, on the basis of iCity, to make a system for working with citizens in another major municipality. Taking into account the thawing budgets, the proposal was very timely and we threw all our efforts to remove everything unnecessary from iCity and leave only that which is responsible for the communications of citizens with the executive authorities and the executive authorities with citizens. The result was the “Open City” system for Togliatti. There is, of course, almost nothing left of iCity - we took into account the many wishes of our Togliatti colleagues and sharpened the product to the requirements of the municipality. There was interest from other regions.
What would you do in my place? Well, right - to quickly reorient the team, and most quickly go with presentations to the cities and villages of the Russian Federation, I propose a good product, selling and introducing it to everyone. The obvious pivot! But I made another mistake here - it was a pity for the efforts spent on iCity and we rushed to finish it, believing that users do not go to us due to the fact that the resource is slow and, at times, unstable.
Win the market
Yes. Everything turned upside down after I went to Moscow for this event. It was a kind of cold sobering soul. After returning, I rushed to read Blanca and Dorf. How could it have been done in 2011! All my mistakes have become so obvious that it has become unbearably annoying for so inefficiently spent budgets and people who followed you and are at great risk to come to a broken trough.
Having gathered the key people of the team, I conveyed the essence of the new concept (clear segmentation - a city for sports, a city for guests, a city for entertainment, an open city, etc.). We decided to freeze the development of iCity in its current form and focus on one of the new portals for a new concept. Even made the design of the main pages. But then it became clear that there was not enough money even for one portal.
As a result, in order to preserve the created team (which already had serious experience of joint work and experience of making mistakes, successes and failures), third-party investments were attracted for another project. But that's another story.
What now?
It is spinning in open access on a weak computer in order to occasionally show potential customers what a cool thing we did in our time, even with three mobile applications. And for our team, which, for the most part, has already fled on other projects (both within and outside the parent company), iCity will be remembered as a great example of how not to do projects.
We write in blood:
- Immediately big budget is bad. This makes it possible not to see the truth much longer than could be. The only thing that could justify a large budget is the presence of knowledgeable and authoritative (which could not be forced or persuaded into a frankly unprofessional position) mentors. We did not have them.
- Development platform is very important. An incorrectly chosen platform will necessarily lead either to dead dates, or to inflated budgets, or to unacceptable quality. And most likely, it will lead to everything at once + will serve as a source of serious demotivation of the team.
- For the project team, being in the same office with the rest of the staff is detrimental. It’s extremely difficult to make a start-up in employee-friendly mode in a safe office environment. If employees know that in any case they will receive a salary, then what's the point of staying after 6? Around is full of other projects that are discussed from time to time in the office. In extreme cases, transferred to another project. As a result, low efficiency and involvement.
- We need to make the team members feel less hired and more members of the team that does one big thing. In no case do not take in the team of people who do not believe in the idea of ​​the project, no matter how professional this employee is and no matter how much later they are going to use it in the parent company.
- Let our people learn and go to various kinds of seminars and trainings. The benefits of reformatting the brain are much higher than the money spent and the risk that employees will be lured away. Stagnation in the heads is a direct risk for a startup.
- It is detrimental to the project manager to entrust tasks not related to the project [the temptation is great - the person is on salary, the qualification is good, you can take a couple more projects easily]. If the team sees that their leader is dealing with issues that are not related to the project, then the project is not so important, if you can not focus on it. As a result, the focus of the manager is lost, the control of the team’s work is weakened, the team’s motivation falls.
- It is unacceptable to make responsible for the internal startup person who is not familiar with Lean Startup. No matter how competent a specialist is and how many industrial or custom projects there are behind him - if he doesn’t know the principles of creating startups and / or doesn’t have experience in them, you don’t need to trust him with the project. And even more so if he at the same time has the ability to persuade and lead. Convincing and lead for themselves. Only it is unlikely to be a success.
- If the leader of a startup is an ideological person who regularly generates new ideas and seeks to attach them to the project, then next to him you definitely need to put in a couple pragmatists who will not allow the project to fall apart with new ideas and will miss only a few things that are truly worthy. . And even better - it will be to delete from the backlog all the excess, leaving only the most important. And, at the same time, it should be resistant to the fiery speeches of the project leader - only pragmatism.
- If a pivot knocks on a project's door, it can never be ignored. And the leaders of the parent company must carefully monitor the market reaction to the new product - the team is sometimes unable to see the prerequisites for the pivot. Or pretend not to see. Because there is a salary and apparent stability. And I want to do not what is needed, but what is interesting.
- The leaders of the parent company who wants to make an internal startup, it will be very useful to read about Lean Startup and the basic principles of creating such things. Otherwise, you are either waiting for long discussions with the project manager (with whom you will speak in different languages), or you simply will not be able to recognize the risks that await your project and your investments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202272/
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