Family business in the field of IT. Who is Energoslon?

If you are not familiar with the background, be sure to read:

• about how we started doing business
• how to make mistakes and draw conclusions
• how to restructure the business and increase profits

Foreword

Back in the past, in September 2011. Then for the first time we seriously thought about launching our project. I say “seriously” because this time we did not confine ourselves to discussing the idea and dreams about the future. They calculated everything, prepared a business plan and began to look for investors.

The idea was to develop online accounting for individual entrepreneurs and LLC simplified. Surely you know the service Elba, a subsidiary of the multi-million dollar SKB Kontur company? So, the founders of the Elbe and do not realize that in 2011 their business was under threat. Young and ambitious Anya and Sasha from Krasnodar were determined to compete with them.

Now I just wonder how we could stop in time and not get involved in this adventure. You know, the most interesting thing about this story is that we found an investor. But let's get everything in order.

According to the business plan, we needed 11 million rubles, while the self-sufficiency point came 32 months after the start of work. The calculations looked very real, we thoroughly prepared and went into battle.
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There were 5 meetings with potential investors. And one of them agreed to allocate 10 million for the project. But under 10% per annum. And initially 100% of the company will belong to him. After the project goes into profit, and it returns all the money invested plus interest, we will receive our share in the business - 30%.

We could hardly claim anything more without having a penny. We had only an idea and a great desire to work. We thought hard. It may happen that we will work for 3 years, and as a result we will be left with nothing. First of all, who knows how honest our investor will be? And secondly, we were not completely sure that we would cope with such a difficult task.

In general, we decided to postpone and postpone the idea of ​​developing our own project on the spot. So Elba can sleep peacefully, and by the way, we have since been her regular customer.

Our days

The next 2 years were devoted to the development of the web studio's business. We were more and more interested in marketing, could sit for hours with customers, discussing ideas for the development of their business. And then they got incredible pleasure from the fact that these ideas worked and brought profit to our customers.

Together with the business of our customers, our company also grew. Slower than we would like, but we earned a little capital. Now they had to make another very important decision for the business: where to invest the money.

We saw two ways. The first is to continue developing a web-studio: hire new employees, take even more clients for SEO. The second is to realize an old dream and launch your own project.

The advantages of the first scenario were obvious:

• scheme of the studio work debugged,
• configured inbound client flow,
• business brings stable profit.

In general, the web studio was where to grow and develop. But on the other hand, this option had its drawbacks:

• business is firmly tied to us with my husband, and it is unlikely to ever get out of it,
• after some time, we will rest on the ceiling, because such a business has its limits on profits.

We realized that sooner or later we would still come to the second possible scenario. Most likely, by that time the capital will be larger, and there will be more free time. But what the hell! Who does not risk, he does not drink champagne! We decided it was time to develop our own project. Especially since we just had an idea that I could not wait to bring to life.

Work on two fronts

I am sure that at least your first project should be developed in the area in which you understand. No need to develop social. network for doctors, if you think nothing about medicine. It is important to understand the needs of your target audience, to see what the market lacks.

We saw and experienced the lack of a tool to monitor the effectiveness of SEO. Such a tool would become a reliable assistant for data processing and analysis for SEO.

We understood how it should be and knew how to realize our idea. In addition, we were confident that we would cope with the development of such a service. But for a start it was necessary to calculate and think over everything, so we drew up a business plan.

Calculations have shown that we will not have enough money ... If we now stop the work of the web studio, then somewhere in six months we will have to take out a loan or look for an investor. We absolutely did not want to depend on someone, so it was decided to work on two fronts. The husband’s share was in charge of overseeing the development of our project. From me it was required to save the income from a web studio to minimize the forthcoming losses.

Thus, we continued to promote the websites of current customers, sometimes taking orders to create logos, corporate identity and design. However, I had to completely abandon new customers to develop sites.

And you can not imagine how difficult it is: do not take new customers! Especially when you suffer even if planned, but losses. The profit curve went down steadily, and so wanted to at least briefly delay its fall. I confess, we broke down several times and took the next “most recent” client.

And then we realized that we were marking time, and new orders were working more for harm than for good. Spending time developing websites, we don’t really develop a web-studio, and we delay the launch period of our project. I had to clench my teeth, incur losses, but decisively refuse all potential customers.

From the originally planned schedule we were six months behind: instead of 5 months, it took 11 to develop. And it was not only the inability to refuse new customers, but also damned perfectionism. Everything had to be perfect. We simply could not afford to market the raw product.

Down with the intrigue! It's time to promote

So, I promised in the previous article that I would be promoting. Therefore, I am pleased to present you our Energoslon !



The service turned out exactly as we planned. A simple and modern interface will be understood not only by SEOs, but also by studio managers and website owners.

For SEO it is a powerful analytics tool. It allows you to follow the changes in the positions of each phrase, compare your data with the competitors on the charts. Analyze, draw conclusions and take appropriate action.

Heads of SEO-department Energlonon helps to always be aware of the overall dynamics of website promotion, without delving into the details of the promotion process itself.

At the same time, analytics remain simple and visual, even for large sites promoted through several thousand key phrases and in several regions.

I can just endlessly tell you about Energloslon, and those features that we have implemented. But let's better see for yourself? Sign up and get the first 200 checks for free.

At what stage is the project now?

Three months the project was in the stage of closed testing. Today Energoslon works in full-fledged mode and will be glad to new users.

20 users took part in the testing, and they were given absolutely free access to the service.

No matter how carefully we approached our work, anyway, during testing, bugs surfaced. And many thanks to our testers, who not only helped to identify these bugs, but offered to implement interesting features that made the service even better.

In appreciation for the work done, the next six months, testers will receive monthly from 200 to 4,000 free checks in the Elephant. We determined the exact quantity for each tester individually, depending on the contribution he made to the development of the service.

And we have a tradition once a month to give our users a positive view of the bright screen saver on your desktop.

In July, Energoslon just gained momentum:


In August, we decided to invite the first paid users:

Elephant face 100% conveys my feelings then.

And in September, the Elephant is rapidly rushing forward, because we propiaril it on Habré.


If you like me madly like these illustrations, download any one in the necessary resolution and install it on your desktop.

What's next?

I am sure that our team is still waiting for the mass of tests. And we are still optimistic and ready to cope with any difficulties.
Let's agree this way: in a year I will write a continuation of a series of articles about family business in IT. I will tell you about how we developed Energoslon and what we were able to achieve. I'm very curious about what happens.

However, this does not mean that I will not write anything for a whole year. I still have lots of interesting things in stock. And the developers, while working on Elephant, discovered a lot of new things for themselves, and I will definitely get them to share their experience with habrovchan.

PS By the way, if you do not want to wait a whole year, you have a unique opportunity to witness the events. In the near future, we plan to look to the front-end developer team. Interested in the details? Write to me in PM!