Your audio guide. The story of a startup
Resident accelerator QIWI Universe , one of the authors of the project "Your Audio Guide" , Kirill Shishaev talks about the difficult path from the idea to the application, which already brings the first profit.
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Start
Each of us sooner or later comes to mind to do telekinesis. Some people succeed in telekinesis easily and quickly, others slowly and with difficulty.
Anatoly Glanz, “Modedes Pavlovich’s Weekdays”
I think that the idea of ​​starting a business occurred to almost everyone. Someone she quickly gave way to more sensible beginnings, someone left to return after some time already strong and becoming first in desire, and then in the first real action. I think that I would be so vital at the level of ideas, looking at how others embody them in life. However, in May 2013, Dima, my colleague in one of the past works, stunned me with an offer to take part in the project “Your Audio Guide”, which he sawed for the last six months. I realized that if I refused now, I’d risk never to start, and I agreed without a second thought.
At that time, the concept of the product looked like this:
The service will be an intermediary between suppliers of tourist audio content (guides, museums), consumers (independent tourists, business tourists) and advertisers (cafes, restaurants, shops, museums, exhibitions).
Fortunately, both for me and for the project, at that time I did not know how to evaluate the economy and the market. Otherwise, the story could not end.
Experiments with the prototype
- How do you write together?
- Very simply, one runs around the editorial staff, and the second manages the manuscript so as not to steal friends.
I. Ilf and E. Petrov
So, the original idea was to make a service where guides and enthusiasts could create audio tours, and ordinary users would buy them.
While Dima was making the first version of the application for iOs and CMS for working with content, I phoned guides around the world and quickly found a number of unpleasant moments. First, most of the guides were not eager to create something. Secondly, most of those who expressed interest in the project were not ready (and could not technically) prepare a high-quality recording.
A significant role was played by the fact that I had no sales skills. This is partly why our idea of ​​working with museums failed. Without further ado, we hired a man for cold calling to museums, who honestly phoned them all with exhaust like an electric car. It is now I understand that I had to do it myself, formulate hypotheses and needs, etc. But what has been done cannot be returned. And we moved on.
We decided to evaluate how difficult it is to create audio tours on our own. We found enthusiasts who prepared texts for us, hired speakers and got a very good result. With only one “but”: we realized that we could not make enough content with our own funds. The production of one excursion cost 15-20 thousand rubles, the return on investment was estimated over the years.
After that we came to the current model (which is used by most similar projects): search for partners who already have ready content, and work with them on the principle of profit sharing. This allowed us to increase the amount of content 5 times in the last 3 months!
New stage
When at the end of last summer we received the first statistics and started counting, it turned out that we need to buy installs of 2-3 rubles each, which can be considered unreal. It became clear that something needs to be changed. Only here it was not clear what. And here, very on time, we met Efim Pykov, who became the mentor of our project. With its help, we came to the conclusion that we began to count the economy normally, went into the fields and began to conduct user surveys, learn how to formulate and test hypotheses.
At the end of last year, I quit my job and began to devote a significant part of my time to the project. Just after that, we began to actively look for partners, launched the development of the Android version, finally made a website and realized that we needed knowledge and money. I started going to various meetings with investors and submitting applications where possible. The first experience was FRIA. It took me probably 80 hours to prepare the questionnaire, but it was worth it. We tried without fools (like, our market is $ 5 billion, and we will take 1% there) to count our market, we analyzed competitors, in general, we did a lot of things that had to be done and so, but did not reach out.
Then the telephone interviews began. It is very difficult to talk about the project incendiary and quickly answer tricky questions when you have a cold. As a result, we got a place in the correspondence accelerator. That is, we had access to knowledge, but there was no investment. The summer began, and the financial situation was getting tense. Ahead payback for the Android version loomed, money from one-time part-time work, to put it mildly, was not enough. I wanted to go the traditional way of a startup and sell a car, but I remembered that it was my wife’s car :)
QIWI Universe
And then events began to develop rapidly! One Sunday evening, a letter came from QIWI Universe, where we applied, that we passed to the semifinals, and we need to come tomorrow with the whole team and tell about ourselves. The meeting was successful, judging by the fact that it lasted twice as long as the designated schedule. True, there was a suspicion that part of the semifinalists simply did not see the letter on time.
A week later we received an invitation to the final. Half a day of preparation of the pitch with a stopwatch at the mirror, the struggle with the projector in place, the performance, and ... not a single question after. For the sake of calmness of the nervous system, I decided to treat it as a good sign and I was not mistaken. The very next day we were informed that we had passed!
Now behind is half acceleration. We were able to multiply the income of the project and plan to do it again in the next two months. Received and completed the first order in the B2B market. We have strengthened our team and are trying to quickly generate and test new hypotheses.
Conclusion
“We need to run as fast as possible, just to stay in place, but to get somewhere, you must run at least twice as fast!”
Lewis Carroll, "Alice through the looking glass"
Looking back, it is surprising how slowly we did everything at the beginning and how gradually we increased our speed. At first, I thought that this was due solely to the fact that in the beginning we spent less time on the project. But now I understand that when you look back, you just see the point where you were a month or a year ago, forgetting that the path was littered with pits, dead ends and a rake. Moreover, the further, the more I see that the development of the project is like the unwinding of a heavy flywheel. At first, you spend a lot of energy, but you don’t see any return, and therefore it is very easy to give up a venture or turn it in half. But if you do not give up, then gradually you begin to note that all the spent forces begin to bear fruit. In the form of experience, skills, necessary contacts. And you also understand that the most important thing is the team and good support, which is often more important than a good idea.
')
Start
Each of us sooner or later comes to mind to do telekinesis. Some people succeed in telekinesis easily and quickly, others slowly and with difficulty.
Anatoly Glanz, “Modedes Pavlovich’s Weekdays”
I think that the idea of ​​starting a business occurred to almost everyone. Someone she quickly gave way to more sensible beginnings, someone left to return after some time already strong and becoming first in desire, and then in the first real action. I think that I would be so vital at the level of ideas, looking at how others embody them in life. However, in May 2013, Dima, my colleague in one of the past works, stunned me with an offer to take part in the project “Your Audio Guide”, which he sawed for the last six months. I realized that if I refused now, I’d risk never to start, and I agreed without a second thought.
At that time, the concept of the product looked like this:
The service will be an intermediary between suppliers of tourist audio content (guides, museums), consumers (independent tourists, business tourists) and advertisers (cafes, restaurants, shops, museums, exhibitions).
Fortunately, both for me and for the project, at that time I did not know how to evaluate the economy and the market. Otherwise, the story could not end.
Experiments with the prototype
- How do you write together?
- Very simply, one runs around the editorial staff, and the second manages the manuscript so as not to steal friends.
I. Ilf and E. Petrov
So, the original idea was to make a service where guides and enthusiasts could create audio tours, and ordinary users would buy them.
While Dima was making the first version of the application for iOs and CMS for working with content, I phoned guides around the world and quickly found a number of unpleasant moments. First, most of the guides were not eager to create something. Secondly, most of those who expressed interest in the project were not ready (and could not technically) prepare a high-quality recording.
A significant role was played by the fact that I had no sales skills. This is partly why our idea of ​​working with museums failed. Without further ado, we hired a man for cold calling to museums, who honestly phoned them all with exhaust like an electric car. It is now I understand that I had to do it myself, formulate hypotheses and needs, etc. But what has been done cannot be returned. And we moved on.
We decided to evaluate how difficult it is to create audio tours on our own. We found enthusiasts who prepared texts for us, hired speakers and got a very good result. With only one “but”: we realized that we could not make enough content with our own funds. The production of one excursion cost 15-20 thousand rubles, the return on investment was estimated over the years.
After that we came to the current model (which is used by most similar projects): search for partners who already have ready content, and work with them on the principle of profit sharing. This allowed us to increase the amount of content 5 times in the last 3 months!
New stage
When at the end of last summer we received the first statistics and started counting, it turned out that we need to buy installs of 2-3 rubles each, which can be considered unreal. It became clear that something needs to be changed. Only here it was not clear what. And here, very on time, we met Efim Pykov, who became the mentor of our project. With its help, we came to the conclusion that we began to count the economy normally, went into the fields and began to conduct user surveys, learn how to formulate and test hypotheses.
At the end of last year, I quit my job and began to devote a significant part of my time to the project. Just after that, we began to actively look for partners, launched the development of the Android version, finally made a website and realized that we needed knowledge and money. I started going to various meetings with investors and submitting applications where possible. The first experience was FRIA. It took me probably 80 hours to prepare the questionnaire, but it was worth it. We tried without fools (like, our market is $ 5 billion, and we will take 1% there) to count our market, we analyzed competitors, in general, we did a lot of things that had to be done and so, but did not reach out.
Then the telephone interviews began. It is very difficult to talk about the project incendiary and quickly answer tricky questions when you have a cold. As a result, we got a place in the correspondence accelerator. That is, we had access to knowledge, but there was no investment. The summer began, and the financial situation was getting tense. Ahead payback for the Android version loomed, money from one-time part-time work, to put it mildly, was not enough. I wanted to go the traditional way of a startup and sell a car, but I remembered that it was my wife’s car :)
QIWI Universe
And then events began to develop rapidly! One Sunday evening, a letter came from QIWI Universe, where we applied, that we passed to the semifinals, and we need to come tomorrow with the whole team and tell about ourselves. The meeting was successful, judging by the fact that it lasted twice as long as the designated schedule. True, there was a suspicion that part of the semifinalists simply did not see the letter on time.
A week later we received an invitation to the final. Half a day of preparation of the pitch with a stopwatch at the mirror, the struggle with the projector in place, the performance, and ... not a single question after. For the sake of calmness of the nervous system, I decided to treat it as a good sign and I was not mistaken. The very next day we were informed that we had passed!
Now behind is half acceleration. We were able to multiply the income of the project and plan to do it again in the next two months. Received and completed the first order in the B2B market. We have strengthened our team and are trying to quickly generate and test new hypotheses.
Conclusion
“We need to run as fast as possible, just to stay in place, but to get somewhere, you must run at least twice as fast!”
Lewis Carroll, "Alice through the looking glass"
Looking back, it is surprising how slowly we did everything at the beginning and how gradually we increased our speed. At first, I thought that this was due solely to the fact that in the beginning we spent less time on the project. But now I understand that when you look back, you just see the point where you were a month or a year ago, forgetting that the path was littered with pits, dead ends and a rake. Moreover, the further, the more I see that the development of the project is like the unwinding of a heavy flywheel. At first, you spend a lot of energy, but you don’t see any return, and therefore it is very easy to give up a venture or turn it in half. But if you do not give up, then gradually you begin to note that all the spent forces begin to bear fruit. In the form of experience, skills, necessary contacts. And you also understand that the most important thing is the team and good support, which is often more important than a good idea.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/238615/
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