Tolstoy Startup Camp: how Yandex teaches how to do its business
Once in the icy May period I read Habr in the usual morning. On that day, a post from Yandex appeared here that a start-up cultivation event from scratch would soon begin - then it was summer and was called Tolstoy Summer Camp. After reading the details of the event, I still thought: “Two months? Serious approach. Somewhere in thirty times more serious than the average for the startup market. "
My name is Alexander Yankovsky, and among the 12 ready-made prototypes in the finals of the past, Tolstoy Camp and the three who received investment and support from Yandex, there was my project Speaking Mind - a news aggregator that can read them. Today I want to tell you about my personal experience at Tolstoy Camp, what I was given these two months, and why it is worth attention.
I admit at once that the reason for this post was that today Yandex is announcing the recruitment of a new Tolstoy Startup Camp - a workshop for those who want to learn how to create, develop and launch start-ups. Like last year, Yandex is waiting for applications from developers, designers and managers. There are no requirements for education, experience or the place where you live, there is no, and nonresident pays for accommodation in Moscow. At this time, classes will be held in the spring - from March 3 to April 25. If you are ready to participate, fill out the questionnaire and proceed to the test task.
')
So, I will try to tell about how I became a participant of the camp and what he gave me.
As I wrote at the beginning - I read the last post and almost forgot. “Almost,” because somewhere in the subcortex, the feeling that I was missing something. Well, you know, such as sometimes happens on leaving the house. You go to work, and it is itching. You clap yourself in your pockets, check money, keys, passes, documents, sneakers on your feet, not sneakers, and only then in the subway you realize that you forgot your headphones and now you have to suffer from this unbearable crash for half an hour.
Before I read about recruiting at TSC, I worked in IT for more than fifteen years. He started with a “courier” (not to be confused with a courier) in an advertising agency with an additional load in the form of maintaining everything in working form, then an enikeyschik, then an administrator, a senior administrator, an information security specialist, and by the time I was telling you, IT department.
Standard, in general, career. But this experience did not allow me to calm down, because the creative impulse too often broke on the reefs of budgets, plans and meetings, and because my ideas were not at all related to work, and the work took all the time. And by the time I learned about TSC, the feeling that “something needs to be changed” has already matured.
A few days later a long-time girlfriend called me and said: “Sasha, you have been blowing my ears with your ideas for at least fifteen years. I don’t even remember ten percent of them. But I remember that at least a couple of them were very worthwhile. Come on, you take the legs in your hands, squeeze the will with your buttocks, collect the snot into a fist (or whatever motivation you still have there) and finally do something so that at least one of your ideas will take on a real shape, ”and gives I have a link to Yandex. At the same camp.
Here I was even ashamed. The girlfriend was absolutely right. There are hundreds of ideas in my head, and I never even tried to realize them. My work has been going on remotely for a couple of months, it did not require eight hours of attention, so the idea of ​​digging into something worthwhile for two months looked more and more attractive.
In the meantime, three days remained before the deadline for filing an application. For two days I thought about which of the ideas could be proposed for consideration, then squeezed snot and wound the will on the fist. In general, approximately five minutes to deadline, sent a request for consideration.
A few days later I received a letter that Yandex invites me for a Skype interview. And in the end it was not at all like anything I had experienced before. Rather, it was such a short and pleasant conversation "for the life" of two strangers. However, the impression remained very good.
And it did not deceive me. A couple of weeks later I received a confirmation letter that I was selected and invited to participate in the event. The condition was almost euphoric. Later, I learned that the competition was more than twenty people per place, and the euphoric mood changed to a “heavy burden of responsibility”. Seriously, these people chose me by reading my very brief essay and having a twenty-minute skype interview. I have no illusions about the fact that I am some kind of super amazing or my idea is brilliant, but this choice of the Yandex team has placed a certain responsibility on me - now I can’t screw it up and disappoint these people.
In general, on July 1, a group of a little more than sixty stupid boys of varying degrees of age gathered in the Yandex office and the workshop started. In short, for the first week such amount of information was uploaded to us, that if I hadn’t conducted any notes at all, I wouldn’t remember now even 5%. And so I remember at least a quarter. :)
A very special impression in the first weeks of the camp was left by the trainings of Natalia Zverok, Deputy Director for Personnel Development at Yandex. She taught us the most basic things that, in theory, a thirty-year-old man should already know from experience, but at the same time she constantly opened up new sides and showed new ways of communication and interaction. It was very cool. Fifteen years ago, I paid for some kind of NLP training, but I was driven out after an hour and a half because I was deeply disgusted with the brainwashing technique and the rubbish that the trainer was carrying. In a natural way for me, I said all three times publicly and did not go to such events again. However, trainings Natalia were completely opposite in terms of empathy. I can’t speak for all the participants, but I didn’t have experienced more than twenty years of knowledge, if not more.
Every day during the month we were taught something for 8-10 hours. There was a mass of absolutely wonderful invited guests, who often crossed half the globe to speak before us. We were told about business, about patent rights, about technologies. The guys came from Yandex, who told and showed their own development, which we can use.
Quite often, lecturers contradicted each other, which made a funny element of cognitive dissonance in the learning process. Since childhood, everyone has become accustomed to the fact that everything that a teacher teaches you is the truth. And then two lecturers with a break of two days say, if not diametrically opposed things, then at least they are very different. And you have to decide for yourself, for what conditions of their installation are true. For example, MetaBeta told us that a business should be built “forever”, i.e. so never thought it was to sell it. A couple of days later, Denis Dovgopoly, the co-founder of the first Ukrainian accelerator, said that it was nonsense and business had to start, knowing exactly when to leave it.
Two weeks after the start of the camp, the first screening of projects was appointed. That is, the head of each of them had to speak before the panel of judges from the organizers and in five minutes present her a project. Out of thirty-three ideas, it seems, a third was rejected, and as a result 22 projects remained. For some, the dropouts became quite traumatic, but none of the participants left the camp - they joined other projects. It was clear to everyone that it is impossible to miss three quarters of the camp. The situation was quite stressful, but I remained calm. I was already sure that even if my project does not work, I will still bring it to mind, because I like it. But I passed.
After the first drop out, “real work” began. That is, we have already become a little less to learn. Although the lectures were still almost every day, there was a time to deal with the very essence of their projects.
The second dropout was scheduled for the first of August. We had two weeks to make the MVP - Minimum Viable Product - the minimum viable product that can be shown to the judges. This stage was the most difficult and stressful for all the time at the camp. Because under the terms of the event after the second dropout, it was necessary to make the final decision to join another team or leave the camp.
It was a great time when everything was naturally “plowed”. The floor in the Yandex office where we were located looked like a beehive, where the activity did not stop day or night, seven days a week. The dishwasher was loaded with coffee cups four to five times a day.
On the first of August in the conference room of Yandex, several dozen people who manage money comparable to the budget of a small country gathered to listen to what we have to offer them.
That's when I really worried. Mandrazh was such that I did not recognize my own voice. But I went and went again! I was proud of myself when I learned that my project remains on the campus among the twelve who passed this important stage. It was very nice.
And with each such stage, I realized that "now I certainly can’t be screwed up." We “went out to the people” - this is when you have a hypothesis, but to check it you need a relevant audience. For example, my service Speaking Mind aggregates and voices the news. It is essentially designed for motorists. And I spent a total of several days at various large parking lots, interrogating people as they walk from the car to the store entrance. Testing hypotheses is very cool. Every time when an ordinary person smashed another assumption to me in three words, I recalled one expression heard on the camp. We were told: “Do not be afraid to make mistakes, just check everything and change. Remember, Groupon started out as “two pizzas for the price of one”, and it turned out to be a world-famous billion dollar capitalization store. ”
We even managed to quarrel and I had to start developing the application from scratch two weeks before the final, because our only developer left the project. But we managed. And to the final performance, when, apart from those who saw us a month earlier, we were also given a chance to evaluate another two dozen people managing someone else’s money, we had an almost finished product. And he completely satisfied the notion of MVP. And here I messed up a bit. I was so nervous the last two weeks before the “graduation” that I was no longer enough for the courage, and I simply ottaraban the learned pitch and did not answer the questions too vigorously.
But when Ksenia Yolkina Yolkina made a final speech about the project, three projects were announced that Yandex became interested in. And it turned out that my project is among the top three! That was a megasurprise. If up to that point I had rather big doubts about how to develop further and what exactly should be done to make money at the same time and not let the project die down, now the future again seemed quite attractive and promising. Get Yandex as an investor was my dream. No, not because of money - there is a lot of money in the country - the same IIDF gives money to every project that deserves attention. For me, Yandex is five thousand professionals who are potentially available to share their expertise with me.
Now I would like to criticize and pour thanks.
The amount of information per unit of time in the first two weeks was overwhelming and no notes were saved. You need to be able to watch the lecture in the recording again. At least in the camp. Some rules were not clearly spelled out immediately and, despite the fact that they were obvious to most, the minority provoked several unpleasant moments because of these omissions.
I am grateful to the MetaBeta team for literally all camp teaching us and giving advice. Sometimes it was tough, but correct.
I am grateful to Yandex in general for the fact that they did it. TSC is the coolest event in my life over the past ten years. Here's a thank you!
Separately, I want to thank the lecturers, both from Yandex and those invited, for coming to us after the lectures - or even outside them - and sharing their experiences. It is very valuable.
I can not tell you what I learned at the camp. Because it was too much. But I can definitely say that I left the Yandex workshop completely different. I began to look at a lot of things with completely different eyes. The attitude towards business owners has changed, I began to better understand the logic of their actions. And what I’m definitely not going to do is to unconditionally trust the words of recognized authorities. Because they often contradict each other.
All the details about Tolstoy Startup Camp are here . The training will again take place in three stages, which I talked about: formulating the idea, testing hypotheses and creating a prototype. Consider that the workshop implies full employment - you will work on projects every day from sunrise to sunset and a little more at night. But I am absolutely sure that you will not regret this time.
My name is Alexander Yankovsky, and among the 12 ready-made prototypes in the finals of the past, Tolstoy Camp and the three who received investment and support from Yandex, there was my project Speaking Mind - a news aggregator that can read them. Today I want to tell you about my personal experience at Tolstoy Camp, what I was given these two months, and why it is worth attention.
I admit at once that the reason for this post was that today Yandex is announcing the recruitment of a new Tolstoy Startup Camp - a workshop for those who want to learn how to create, develop and launch start-ups. Like last year, Yandex is waiting for applications from developers, designers and managers. There are no requirements for education, experience or the place where you live, there is no, and nonresident pays for accommodation in Moscow. At this time, classes will be held in the spring - from March 3 to April 25. If you are ready to participate, fill out the questionnaire and proceed to the test task.
')
So, I will try to tell about how I became a participant of the camp and what he gave me.
As I wrote at the beginning - I read the last post and almost forgot. “Almost,” because somewhere in the subcortex, the feeling that I was missing something. Well, you know, such as sometimes happens on leaving the house. You go to work, and it is itching. You clap yourself in your pockets, check money, keys, passes, documents, sneakers on your feet, not sneakers, and only then in the subway you realize that you forgot your headphones and now you have to suffer from this unbearable crash for half an hour.
Before I read about recruiting at TSC, I worked in IT for more than fifteen years. He started with a “courier” (not to be confused with a courier) in an advertising agency with an additional load in the form of maintaining everything in working form, then an enikeyschik, then an administrator, a senior administrator, an information security specialist, and by the time I was telling you, IT department.
Standard, in general, career. But this experience did not allow me to calm down, because the creative impulse too often broke on the reefs of budgets, plans and meetings, and because my ideas were not at all related to work, and the work took all the time. And by the time I learned about TSC, the feeling that “something needs to be changed” has already matured.
A few days later a long-time girlfriend called me and said: “Sasha, you have been blowing my ears with your ideas for at least fifteen years. I don’t even remember ten percent of them. But I remember that at least a couple of them were very worthwhile. Come on, you take the legs in your hands, squeeze the will with your buttocks, collect the snot into a fist (or whatever motivation you still have there) and finally do something so that at least one of your ideas will take on a real shape, ”and gives I have a link to Yandex. At the same camp.
Here I was even ashamed. The girlfriend was absolutely right. There are hundreds of ideas in my head, and I never even tried to realize them. My work has been going on remotely for a couple of months, it did not require eight hours of attention, so the idea of ​​digging into something worthwhile for two months looked more and more attractive.
In the meantime, three days remained before the deadline for filing an application. For two days I thought about which of the ideas could be proposed for consideration, then squeezed snot and wound the will on the fist. In general, approximately five minutes to deadline, sent a request for consideration.
A few days later I received a letter that Yandex invites me for a Skype interview. And in the end it was not at all like anything I had experienced before. Rather, it was such a short and pleasant conversation "for the life" of two strangers. However, the impression remained very good.
And it did not deceive me. A couple of weeks later I received a confirmation letter that I was selected and invited to participate in the event. The condition was almost euphoric. Later, I learned that the competition was more than twenty people per place, and the euphoric mood changed to a “heavy burden of responsibility”. Seriously, these people chose me by reading my very brief essay and having a twenty-minute skype interview. I have no illusions about the fact that I am some kind of super amazing or my idea is brilliant, but this choice of the Yandex team has placed a certain responsibility on me - now I can’t screw it up and disappoint these people.
In general, on July 1, a group of a little more than sixty stupid boys of varying degrees of age gathered in the Yandex office and the workshop started. In short, for the first week such amount of information was uploaded to us, that if I hadn’t conducted any notes at all, I wouldn’t remember now even 5%. And so I remember at least a quarter. :)
A very special impression in the first weeks of the camp was left by the trainings of Natalia Zverok, Deputy Director for Personnel Development at Yandex. She taught us the most basic things that, in theory, a thirty-year-old man should already know from experience, but at the same time she constantly opened up new sides and showed new ways of communication and interaction. It was very cool. Fifteen years ago, I paid for some kind of NLP training, but I was driven out after an hour and a half because I was deeply disgusted with the brainwashing technique and the rubbish that the trainer was carrying. In a natural way for me, I said all three times publicly and did not go to such events again. However, trainings Natalia were completely opposite in terms of empathy. I can’t speak for all the participants, but I didn’t have experienced more than twenty years of knowledge, if not more.
Every day during the month we were taught something for 8-10 hours. There was a mass of absolutely wonderful invited guests, who often crossed half the globe to speak before us. We were told about business, about patent rights, about technologies. The guys came from Yandex, who told and showed their own development, which we can use.
Quite often, lecturers contradicted each other, which made a funny element of cognitive dissonance in the learning process. Since childhood, everyone has become accustomed to the fact that everything that a teacher teaches you is the truth. And then two lecturers with a break of two days say, if not diametrically opposed things, then at least they are very different. And you have to decide for yourself, for what conditions of their installation are true. For example, MetaBeta told us that a business should be built “forever”, i.e. so never thought it was to sell it. A couple of days later, Denis Dovgopoly, the co-founder of the first Ukrainian accelerator, said that it was nonsense and business had to start, knowing exactly when to leave it.
Two weeks after the start of the camp, the first screening of projects was appointed. That is, the head of each of them had to speak before the panel of judges from the organizers and in five minutes present her a project. Out of thirty-three ideas, it seems, a third was rejected, and as a result 22 projects remained. For some, the dropouts became quite traumatic, but none of the participants left the camp - they joined other projects. It was clear to everyone that it is impossible to miss three quarters of the camp. The situation was quite stressful, but I remained calm. I was already sure that even if my project does not work, I will still bring it to mind, because I like it. But I passed.
After the first drop out, “real work” began. That is, we have already become a little less to learn. Although the lectures were still almost every day, there was a time to deal with the very essence of their projects.
The second dropout was scheduled for the first of August. We had two weeks to make the MVP - Minimum Viable Product - the minimum viable product that can be shown to the judges. This stage was the most difficult and stressful for all the time at the camp. Because under the terms of the event after the second dropout, it was necessary to make the final decision to join another team or leave the camp.
It was a great time when everything was naturally “plowed”. The floor in the Yandex office where we were located looked like a beehive, where the activity did not stop day or night, seven days a week. The dishwasher was loaded with coffee cups four to five times a day.
On the first of August in the conference room of Yandex, several dozen people who manage money comparable to the budget of a small country gathered to listen to what we have to offer them.
That's when I really worried. Mandrazh was such that I did not recognize my own voice. But I went and went again! I was proud of myself when I learned that my project remains on the campus among the twelve who passed this important stage. It was very nice.
And with each such stage, I realized that "now I certainly can’t be screwed up." We “went out to the people” - this is when you have a hypothesis, but to check it you need a relevant audience. For example, my service Speaking Mind aggregates and voices the news. It is essentially designed for motorists. And I spent a total of several days at various large parking lots, interrogating people as they walk from the car to the store entrance. Testing hypotheses is very cool. Every time when an ordinary person smashed another assumption to me in three words, I recalled one expression heard on the camp. We were told: “Do not be afraid to make mistakes, just check everything and change. Remember, Groupon started out as “two pizzas for the price of one”, and it turned out to be a world-famous billion dollar capitalization store. ”
We even managed to quarrel and I had to start developing the application from scratch two weeks before the final, because our only developer left the project. But we managed. And to the final performance, when, apart from those who saw us a month earlier, we were also given a chance to evaluate another two dozen people managing someone else’s money, we had an almost finished product. And he completely satisfied the notion of MVP. And here I messed up a bit. I was so nervous the last two weeks before the “graduation” that I was no longer enough for the courage, and I simply ottaraban the learned pitch and did not answer the questions too vigorously.
But when Ksenia Yolkina Yolkina made a final speech about the project, three projects were announced that Yandex became interested in. And it turned out that my project is among the top three! That was a megasurprise. If up to that point I had rather big doubts about how to develop further and what exactly should be done to make money at the same time and not let the project die down, now the future again seemed quite attractive and promising. Get Yandex as an investor was my dream. No, not because of money - there is a lot of money in the country - the same IIDF gives money to every project that deserves attention. For me, Yandex is five thousand professionals who are potentially available to share their expertise with me.
Now I would like to criticize and pour thanks.
The amount of information per unit of time in the first two weeks was overwhelming and no notes were saved. You need to be able to watch the lecture in the recording again. At least in the camp. Some rules were not clearly spelled out immediately and, despite the fact that they were obvious to most, the minority provoked several unpleasant moments because of these omissions.
I am grateful to the MetaBeta team for literally all camp teaching us and giving advice. Sometimes it was tough, but correct.
I am grateful to Yandex in general for the fact that they did it. TSC is the coolest event in my life over the past ten years. Here's a thank you!
Separately, I want to thank the lecturers, both from Yandex and those invited, for coming to us after the lectures - or even outside them - and sharing their experiences. It is very valuable.
I can not tell you what I learned at the camp. Because it was too much. But I can definitely say that I left the Yandex workshop completely different. I began to look at a lot of things with completely different eyes. The attitude towards business owners has changed, I began to better understand the logic of their actions. And what I’m definitely not going to do is to unconditionally trust the words of recognized authorities. Because they often contradict each other.
All the details about Tolstoy Startup Camp are here . The training will again take place in three stages, which I talked about: formulating the idea, testing hypotheses and creating a prototype. Consider that the workshop implies full employment - you will work on projects every day from sunrise to sunset and a little more at night. But I am absolutely sure that you will not regret this time.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/208886/
All Articles