The history of amperca

Habrarider, hello!

The blog of our company will soon expire the paid period. We definitely will not have time to prepare some interesting and unusual material about DIY electronics before its end. Therefore, taking this opportunity, I will tell you better about how Ampere appeared, and how we came to what we have now and why we do not have time for anything forever.

So, if you are interested in the story of the emergence of a small business, please under the cat.
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Prehistory

It all started in 2010, when I worked as a programmer for another game development company and wanted to introduce another fashion chip into the process. This was the practice of Continuous Integration. You know, probably: this is when there is a lamp in the room that glows green, if everything is fine with the code and turns red, if someone commits changes that break the assembly or tests.

I did not know how to do this and had no idea about resistors, transistors, and even more so about microcontrollers. Google then led me in the direction of semi-finished solutions for the smart home. They were expensive and generally resembled gunfire on sparrows. And then a ray of light - Arduino! Straight what you need! It's funny, but Google didn’t tell me about the cheap raw microcontrollers.

So, it was decided: I urgently need an Arduino and a bunch of parts to quickly deal with all this. In Moscow, it was impossible to buy the flagship Arduino Duemilanove, so I had to order it in Germany, as I remember, at Waterott Electronics.

The package arrived and I began to blink the LEDs with interest. I finally began to understand why we need resistors, transistors and diodes, which I last heard about at school. It seemed to me that such circuitry for dummies could be liked by many people.

At the same time, I really wanted to stir up some IT startup. Fortunately, I already had 3 of my own failed projects and one not launched. Arduino seemed so interesting and unfairly undeveloped in Russia that I forgot about the Continuous Integration and began to investigate the issue of xDuino production in Russia. The platform is in open source. Nothing thinking in the production of electronics, I counted 200-300 rubles per unit.

I fired up. I understood that this is it: both an IT start-up and real production are very interesting and not very banal. Spring and rejoicing, I decided to tell my friend about the idea. He, by the way, was a humanist and often did not understand who needed "these your techish pieces." But the concept of the Arduino was so simple and clear that it also hooked. We decided to do. So the company was born.

Before dealing with production issues, the partner suggested trying to buy some Arduin in Europe and sell it with a minimum markup, in order to understand whether they need someone at all. It was the first time one of us saved the other from an idiotic decision. After all, I did not know then that I had made a mistake in calculating the cost of a unit by more than π times.

First investment

We chipped in by 20 thousand and began to form the first order in Robot Italy for our private satisfied people. I remember these were seven Arduino Duemilanove, one Arduino Mega, several breadboards, crumbling, two LCD screens, a power supply and two servo drives. Now it brings a smile. We pressed the “checkout” button on April 4, 2010. This was the official birthday of Amperka.

While our first batch was traveling by Russian Post, it was necessary to raise the platform of the online store. I was a developer at that time for 7 years, of which I had been working on Python for 2 years. What a blessing that I did not find any sane e-commerce platform in Python. I had to choose something from SaaS. I decided to use InSales, because I heard something about them. And it was another correct decision chosen by chance. Successful not because InSales is a super-duper (now we are cramped in their functionality), but because someone else was engaged in hosting, backups, updates, reflection of DDoS. I simply did not imagine then that the stupid “buy-sell” model would throw a basilion of small worries on our heads. The last thing I would like to see in the morning when it's time to run for the main job is “504. Gateway Timeout by nginx.

I also decided that just Arduino is cool, but some sets that include the necessary kit are even better. Mikhail, my partner, was very skeptical about the idea, arguing that “you will never understand what a person needs,” “why should he overpay” and other arguments. I insisted and it was another anti-idiotic decision. So there were sets Milimatreshka, Kilomatreshka and Megamatreshka. Appeared virtually because goods we have not waited.

Then our megaparty finally arrived, but there were still a number of pre-launch issues: an agreement with the courier service, a direct telephone number, cardboard boxes, company stickers, zip-packages for small things and other nonsense. At the beginning it was completely unobvious that all this is not born out of thin air. We worked on our full-time jobs, so the business did not move very fast, but it did. All the evenings and weekends we enthusiastically spent on preparing for the start.

Launch

As a result, on June 27th we will start, as announced on Habré . I often say that our 7 arduins bought out in the first 7 minutes. This is not entirely true. In fact, it took us 48 hours. The announcement is in a very right place - one more star from those that formed in a row and allowed to go further.

Suddenly, the first of these mundane tasks appeared that I had never thought about. They call the store, and you're at work. We had to constantly run into the corridor. If the conversation needed something in the computer, it was inconvenient, stupid and ridiculous. Someone wanted to pick up by self: I had to call to the office where I worked and for a long time tell me how to walk in a low voice. Couriers for orders came, of course, also during working hours. All this caused oblique views of colleagues and gave me emotional discomfort. But there were no options.

It was evening and it was necessary to do something worldly again. I remember that there were not enough jumpers on the sets. Mikhail had to ride Chip-e-Deepam to close the hole. As a result, a pair of large canisters were bought, of which I, sitting on the parquet with tweezers, counted out 65 pieces declared by us and shoved them into mail envelopes. That is another occupation.

In general, the first product was sold out, the fuss was underlined and it became clear that it could be sold.

Go

It immediately became obvious that carrying the goods to yourself is an option that does not scale in any way. Therefore, we exhaled, formed money and ordered a commercial batch. 35 Arduino Duemilanove and more details. Mikhail dealt with the import issue, and since he did it for the first time, the party epically stuck at customs.

The long customs history was stretched. By early September, we understood that the party and the money were lost, because everything was done wrong. Michael immediately received 10 level-ups on the ability to "import", but that was no sweeter. Personal money was not infinite. Friends, I remember, sympathized, but when they learned that the party was only 50 thousand rubles, they were touched and said that it was nothing. But for us, 50K is not nonsense, and most importantly, we have lost time.

At your own risk, we ordered a double of the party. On the 10th, the level of "import" was still enough to drag the party. We were delighted and set to work. There were a lot of plans: interesting articles, a forum, partnerships with bloggers, but it all instantly broke down about the packaging of radio components on bags, problems with couriers and other mundane matters. Mikhail said that because of these things at work, it already smells fried and we need a manager. I agreed, although obviously it would not be free.

First employees

Found a student for 15 thousand plus a percentage of orders. They handed over all the goods to him, put him in the bomb on the "six" and sent him home. For two days everything went well, but then he just disappeared: neither the e-mail, nor the phone answered. And we, idiots, did not even make a copy of the passport. After 3 days, he showed up and told some nonsense about the lost phone. We nodded, paid off and took the goods.

Meanwhile, miraculously climbed that first, stuck party. I again plunged into operational matters, and Mikhail, drinking on a stream a cup over a cup of coffee in the nearest café, filtered out new candidates. Finally a miracle happened, and we found a funny boy who was on sabbatical, sociable and even by car.

Lots of 30-50 arduins already seemed not our caliber, therefore it was necessary to take more. And personal money is over. Investors? In the bath. There was little experience with them, no longer wanted. There was a loan. For a micro company that does not even have an office, not a single bank will give a loan, I worked without personal income tax, so they refused me. Rescued his father, having issued a 350K. This money Amperka gobbled for a couple of months and in one gulp. The turnover increased, the number of orders grew (especially on the eve of the New Year), and more and more money was not enough.

The misunderstanding of why this is happening, led to passions, regular scandals with a partner and in general almost led to a decision to curl up, remaining with a loan and an unfulfilled dream. We then heard what Balance Sheet and Income Statement are, but did not understand that these are not accounting corporate papers, but fundamental indicators of financial health.

Reinventing these documents, I managed to prove crookedly and obliquely that there is money, they just roll in the form of orders with cash on delivery and new lots. And that at least we will be able to see some profit only when demand is braked. Convinced Mikhail got a loan for 800K.

There was no braking and new money was also quickly melting before our eyes. At that time, as the main job was already the next shop, where I became the technical director. There was a lot of work, but they also paid 150K. It was very helpful, because a part could sometimes be thrown into the mouth of Amperca.

Sitting on two chairs was extremely difficult. We needed to develop a wiki, make descriptions of a large number of new products, conduct experiments to respond to technical questions from customers, keep track of product residues and much more. Therefore, in June of 2011, I raised the question that I need a salary and I will pay 100% of the time to the store. We stopped at the sum of 70K, that after 150K, of course, it was not a fountain, but this is really earned money in a real own company! And the development prospects inspired even more.

End of career

In June, I told the employer that I was leaving for my own business. The uncle was severe and for the first time it was terrible for me to talk about dismissal. To my surprise, there was a phrase like: “Your own business? This is the only good reason you can leave! Blow. I was glad and with a little money, before the new achievements, the girl and I went on a summer vacation. It was worrying: is it possible to leave your offspring unattended for 2 weeks? But Michael was not going anywhere, it inspired a certain confidence. In addition, I was so zadolbalsya that I needed to be distracted.

The founder of the company, from which I had just quit, added fuel to the fire. He called the day before departure and offered to score on vacation, to return a month and a half before the next Milestone, and if I run a certain list of features, he pays a million on his hands at once.

I had no such temptation in my life either before or after. I rushed about the room, weighing the pros and cons. Perhaps the only thing that I was not at all confident in my abilities was that I would be able to realize the necessary things 100%, that the servers of the gathering would withstand a tremendous influx of players, I gritted my teeth, said “No”.

This was the last full-time job as a programmer. So ended my hired career.

"Free swimming"

The vacation is over, more and more people were learning about Arduino, various companies began to contact us with offers of all kinds of partnerships, interaction in the field of education and other concepts. We began to feel a little more than a tiny store.

Somehow the guys from Ufa appealed to us and said that they needed a couple of robots for the festival, which is organized by Google, and asked for a discount. This was probably the first request from the hundreds that followed, so we gave ourselves at half price at a wide price in anticipation of some kind of miracle.

And the miracle happened! Google turned to us and bought 30 sets of Matryoshka Z for the prize fund of their event . It was an explosion and panic. It was at that moment that something was podzastryal at us at customs, we were already going to go with backpacks to Italy to Massimo Banzi and pick up Arduins by self. Just to not let google. At the last moment the game was over and a little light. There was very little time left. We had to form 30 sets for 1 evening.

With sore backs and sweaty faces, the manager and I tirelessly pored over the bundle, taking over the floor of the entire apartment I was renting. The task was aggravated by the fact that the Matryoshka Z had not yet come out: Google bought their very first copies, even before they appeared in our store. The new line had a new packaging, new parts, new everything. And from the first time it, as always, did not fit, crumbled and fell out. I had to invent on the fly, but everything worked out.

We are again faced with the effect when the company sells and everything is fine with it, but as there was no money, there is still no. Only this time the effect was much more powerful. Neither of which the salary was out of the question. A few months later the money for food ran out. In the hope that everything is about to get better, I borrowed money for 2-3 months of a super-saving regime from my father.

Naturally at this very moment the display burned down at the laptop. I had to buy an external monitor. A month later, the laptop itself was dead. There was already a negative amount of money. I had to borrow more from Michael.

Amperke was at least henna. On the contrary, everything was fine with her: the number of orders grew, one manager could not cope, one more was needed. So there was a second employee, who was also not free.

Depression began. There is no money, there is no place to wait for them, I am in debt, as in silks. Around everything, like white people, they buy cars, apartments from somewhere are spawned, and they rush back and forth. And here I am in all this violence I sit with my fucking doll and bare ass. Michael argued that we need somewhere else to get 50K, pumped into the company and then we will live. The calculations probably had little to do with reality. Cash gaps were measured in hundreds of thousands of rubles. And if you borrow from someone this amount, give milk?

Back to uncle

In general, I realized that I set sail too early for free swimming. “Burn it all with a horse” - I thought and began to look for a normal job as a programmer. So from January 2012 I worked again. The shop was very boring, dull and uninteresting, but I agreed that I would work from home. The main thing for me then was the money, and so that they did not stand above the soul.

After the New Year hysteria for the first time, the very inhibition of demand occurred. At least some money appeared in the company. In addition, for several months, Michael knocked out a credit vacation.

I increasingly found myself at work that sometimes I did not do anything for several days in a row. All the attention was on our company. Moreover, the first shoots of hope appeared. I was engaged in the production of content, screwed up all sorts of IT-items to the store. The number of cases grew and grew and again deja vu: if you do not get out of work, Amperka will begin to work 10 more years. We agreed with Mikhail that I would have a salary of 60K (I paid 38K for an apartment), and not on a residual basis, as before.

So in April 2012, I left the last office. For the first time, I guess I quit without bringing something useful to the company-employer. It's a shame, but such is life. Forgive me, "Optimism." This time I left forever.

Office again

We have made purchases of the company with the name. Charitable funds, various schools and colleges were bought for decent amounts a couple of times. Collaboration offered Digital October, RC toy stores, book publishers and magazines.

We never hid the fact that we work without an office, but we didn’t even build Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. Meetings in cafes seemed unprofessional.

My room, the balcony and the closet more and more resembled an industrial warehouse. When the party arrived, it completely resembled a robbery in the garbage. Everywhere there was a ragged cardboard, polyethylene, foam balls, lumps of bubble wrap and a pile of boxes in the center of the room for recalculation and grouping: these are under the table, these are in the corner, these are on the washing machine, and this is not afraid of the cold - on the balcony.

How the room at the manager's house looked like, it's just hard for me to imagine.

Increasingly, there were stories like:
- Hear, Vity, our Megs are over. I will drop in the evening?
- How did it end? Well yesterday I gave 11 pieces!
- Eeeee ... is it?
- Yes, look for
- [one o'clock in the morning, MMS with a photo] Aaaa, found-found)))))))) !!! 111

It was not very funny. I needed an office. Convince of this had a long and painful. I even calculated some kind of ROI: costs, yes, more - but the profit will increase. All this, of course, was sucked from the finger, but in the end we both agreed.

The technical business process “Try to rent an office in Moscow” has begun. 200 m² - no problem. And if money doesn't matter, then at least in any building. But we needed something for 40K a month from strength. And since we were sure that space mattered, we looked only inside the metro ring.

Mikhail looked at 7 options, but it was all terrible dumps 3 kilometers from the subway, in the basement, with the smell of the toilet soaked directly into the walls. “And what did you boys want for such money?” The agents wondered.

And here is a nice office on Dobryninskaya, hurray! We were already going to move there, but Mikhail, using his experience as a lawyer, requested the landlord the necessary pile of papers for familiarization and the landlord sour. As it turned out, they were fraudsters. All over again.

We were ready to take office next door to the funeral agency, in a building that seemed about to fall. An office was offered in the attic with boarded up windows overlooking the noisy Bolotnaya Embankment. In the summer, we would definitely die there and become neighbors' clients.

Then a miracle happened, and we looked at the last control version. Office of 38 m² on m.Taganskaya, with a normal repair, in a quiet place. Grabbed! We bought a couple of racks of Expedit in Ikea and placed all the goods in them.

Since March 2012, I was back in the office. I am writing to you now from it. But this is a completely different feeling.

Development directions

Since then, acute financial problems have ended. The money was back to back, but the cash flow stopped being negative. The long-awaited point of self-sufficiency has come. We carefully maintained the optimal level of the warehouse, kept the turnover ratio at a fantastic level of 10-16 (the norm in the industry 3-4). It was the only way not to slip back.

We began to think not about putting out fires, but about some conscious development: SEO, context, social media. Snacked here and there. The effect in the number of visits was, but not in rubles.

I eagerly read several books on marketing. And if you take an average thought in the context of Amperka, it all came down to the fact that “do awesome content, love customers and everything will be.” It's funny, but we got up on that, and then for some reason got into those areas that we didn't understand. The same SEO and context only make sense in a developed market, while the DIY microcontroller electronics market was tiny at that moment and was pulled by only a few locomotives, including us. It is good that this deviation of development did not eat much time and money - we came to our senses in time.

The main problem was time. The current operational tasks: purchases, shipments, monitoring, analytics, technical support, IT development took most of the time. It was possible to write very little. Therefore, I convinced the partner that we need a person who will pick the pieces of iron and write on wikis and Habr.

This is again a waste. I tried to show in calculations that such a person would pay for himself in 3 months. But now I understand that it was rather an attempt to deceive myself and justify the decision to hire a new one. It is quite clear now that such an employee is extremely useful to us, but in no case could we expect a serious return in the first months. Content is something that will pay off in at least a year.

Who could we take on 35-40 thousand? That's right - a student. So we contacted the first student since our first, vague manager for 2 days. Egor was a great guy, but without work experience. Damn it, that at the time of his work, he had to spend his time to bring the material to a form suitable for publication. Most of all, the inability to distribute our forces, to use the search on the Internet and the fact that gradually the institute began to eat up a lot more time than we stipulated, grieved. So two and a half months later we said goodbye to him.

We decided to step on the rake again. The newcomer showed absolutely the same qualities and left to study in Germany. “What did you boys want for such money?” - we thought and left the idea with a technical writer until better times.

In parallel with the wiki writer, we decided to try to produce some kind of pay-shield for the Arduino. We were recommended one person who was engaged in electronic engineering in the Almaz design bureau. For a sample of the pen was selected Troyka Shield, which is sold to us at the present time. The fee is simple, but useful for beginners.

I had no idea how the boards were made, and when our new engineer brought the prototype a week later, I was pleasantly excited. It was a brown freak of naked textolite, on which everything that could be confused was confused. But it was not important. The main thing is that here it is - the beginning of the path to its own electronics. After a month and a half, we still ordered the first batch.

Then they decided to do Motor Shield. Everything is up to it. How our S400 missile systems work since I don’t understand. The engineer went to us 15 times, probably with new prototypes that “worked perfectly at home!” And each time the demonstration ended with smoke, a flame and the smell of burning plastic.

Money for the development of Motor Shield has already been spent enough to beat them a couple of the next years. Direction turned.

Popular Mechanics

Everything returned to its former course when we were engaged in routine work and could not afford something new magic for further development.

But here, in the September issue of 2012, Popular Mechanics suddenly wrote about us. And not to mention, and zababahala full turn! This was a complete surprise. Our office literally lined up queues for orders. It is clear that we were attacked by some new layer of customers. Less prosharenny than the audience with Habra and their friends.

A huge number of requests for advice and small orders fell down. Not far off was the New Year, which this time we decided not to click and use to the fullest. All this has further increased the burden on us. Current tasks again began to take most of the time.

In the rare breaks between purchasing and loading cases and communication with customers, we tried to work on at least something from the list of strategic plans. The goal was proposed by Michael set adapted for educational needs.

It was clear that with such a load, even if the product goes out, we simply do not have enough strength to promote it to a new market for us.

Evangelists

On our forum, by that time, life was already seething.

Somehow I wrote to the person who told me that he really likes what we do and with what approach. He even offered to promote our products in the communities of parents so that adults and even financially insolvent children could get the Arduins. Corresponded with the month.

Why was he to him I could not understand. I do not quite understand the hints. I suggested to the forum member to come to our office to meet. “Well, finally!” He said.

We met, he was a sales manager with extensive experience. Found many opportunities for interaction. The payment was supposed to be bonus, so there was no big risk in trying. Especially since the person is so well aware of what to sell.

So in February of 2013, we had Ruslan, who is now the director of the sales department.

A month later, on the forum, I wrote to another of his regulars. It turned out that he is a pro electronics designer who loves Arduino. Usually such people belong to the class of arduinone-haters, and this one loved.

We decided to try Motor Shield again - it went. So we had a cool engineer Alexey, who by the current moment had already designed two dozen pieces of iron. You have not seen many, if you follow the assortment, but you will definitely see it soon.

Supermanager

Everything was going well, but slowly. The company gradually appeared money. But we could not do what we really wanted: to create new interesting products, write interesting articles and become the undisputed leaders of DIY electronics in Russia.

Since previous experience with students showed us that you cannot cook porridge like this, I told Michael that we needed Philip Kirkorov staff. This image was understood as a superstar man, who, yes, will be expensive, but will be able to independently engage in both preproduction and producing new products, control content creation activities, in general, everything that we wanted to do, but did not work.

Michael expressed doubts that we could find such a person. But I was inexorable. Then we went for advice to my former classmate, so that he would look at the situation from the outside.

- What do you want guys?
- Well, man, so that this and that, and so cool to do
- Cool is how?
- Well, there are first-class products, marketing effective, then yes
- Hmmm ... I realized that I did not understand anything, but I know one thing, I will introduce you.

We met with the recommended super-manager. And it was like a tub of ice water on the head. The man said that he was engaged in food production, bi-tu-bi all sorts, synergy and other things. But not one direct, specific question such as “What kind of product, for whom?”, “How did you promote?”, “What exactly did you do there?” We never received an answer.

Mentor - well done! He sent us exactly the one you were looking for: we cannot clearly articulate what we need - the super-manager cannot say what he can do.

At this moment, without really making a conclusion how to be, I went on vacation. Lying on the sea for 14 days is a mortal longing. But the girl insisted: “Get out, Natasha and Olka 4 times a year, they go to have a rest, and you ... and you ...”. Well, right, let's go. To pass the time, I downloaded my Kindle with all sorts of business books to the eyeballs.

Most of the books told something that was needed at the start. It was necessary, as a whale filters water, to filter book by book, to catch even a little krill, i.e. new knowledge.

One of the books turned out to be a discovery. Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. I read the preface and was stunned: there was stated the current disposition of Ampere almost one to one! As we do not have enough time, as we are constantly distracted by unnecessary things, as we can not bring anything to mind. “If you want to fix everything, go to Chapter 1,” the foreword said. I was sucked. I lay in front of the sea and amid the squeals of children with a banana and the noise of motor boats with excitement absorbed page after page.

The book, in fact, did not tell anything new. The author simply put the brain in place and hinted: "shut up and do not panic." But I realized this only recently.

Traction

In the book you can find a lot of new ideas and techniques, but not the programmer. After all, I was an adept of Ejail, poker planning and all such fashionable. And why did I immediately forget about it all, how did I stop programming in the team ?!

I returned from vacation with a written notebook and a bunch of simple ideas that were streamlined.

- In programming, there are iterations, sprints, tasks and regular meetings. Why we do not have them? Entered.
- In programming there is a feature list, sorted by importance and weighted in “parrots” by labor costs. Why do we not have this? Entered.
- In programming, I wrote algorithms on Python. Why it is impossible to formalize business processes, writing them in Russian, so that everyone knows what we have in mind? We introduce a little.

And so on and so forth.

We began to clearly understand who we need. Mikhail picked up the right words that he explained to his neighbors on the floor that we need their office. They agreed.

At Terra Nova, we took at once a person who deals with social networks and YouTube, took a person who is responsible for the exhibitions and, finally, a technical expert who showed good results.

It's funny, but we lacked two unsuccessful experiences with students. We took a graduate student as an expert, who did his job well, but after a couple of months, it practically ceased to appear every time with new reasons. Everything, since we officially do not deal with full-time students.

Since we knew who we needed, we set about searching for another technical expert. Searched painfully, but it was worth it. The work of Basil, we are now 100% satisfied. We finally started to regularly lay out new items that used to be a dead weight in stock, articles began to appear on the wiki , timely test prototypes and the development of third-party hardware, customer support came to life on all fronts. Video on YouTube and various demo exhibits at exhibitions also appear not without his help.

With the advent of these people, I realized that I was already getting a buzz not from what I did with my own hands, be it a publication, device, video or something else, but in general from any positive results that someone in the company gives.

I understand that in the near future I can manage to do something big and beautiful with my own hands, but now it doesn’t upset me at all.

2014

I would not say that the evolution and production of Amperka on absolutely flat rails is complete. On the contrary, there is still a lot of work, but at least it is clear what needs to be done, so that all of us would be fine.

We are gradually capturing new rooms in the building. By the way, we already have 200 m², which 2 years ago seemed fantastic. We, as needed, take people who can solve different tasks better than ourselves. Now we have 10 people in the office and 5 people remotely on part-time. And we do not plan to stop.

Just the other day we grabbed another room. We want to find a partner Vasily: we obviously lack one technical expert. Ampere has a ton of new interesting cases. Including, the revitalization of the blog on Habré, several new large own products, a wagon for the publication and special projects. Such is the story.

- , ! . , .