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Startup: "Idea", "Implementation", "Sales" ...



The topic of “start-ups” of IT products was very popular a couple of years ago ... Today, the “start-up” was not done only by the lazy. How many of them are “failed” projects? Thousands, tens of thousands? ..
Startups “forget” about simple truth: “An idea is worth nothing without implementation. Implementation costs nothing without sales. ”What do you need for a“ successful ”implementation? "Good team? The "correct" project management methodology? And what is needed for sales? ..

This and much more is described in this publication, and not unfounded, but on the example of a particular “startup”.
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Attention! Under habrokat VERY long article ...


Startup - “Idea”


... or a story about what research is in search of an idea


Each “released” software solution goes a long way to the product. Through design, through development, through a dozen prototypes and hundreds of versions, through focus groups and testing ...

... But it all starts with an idea, a thought that is not much different from many others. Thought-assumptions are called hypotheses. Any hypothesis must meet the criterion of the scientific Popper (checked for falsifiability), otherwise it is not a hypothesis, but nonsense.

The idea for a business, for a product, for a startup should not only be checked for “whether it is not nonsense”, but also for how much it has “high potential for financial success”. Business ideas, hypotheses arise constantly, for each of them you will not take. Therefore, the “criterion of belonging to ideas with a high potential for financial success” was introduced - a basic principle for which any new idea is tested. This thesis, though banal, but for some reason many people forget about it, it sounds like this:

Any Idea cannot be considered successful without Realization. Any Sales success is made only by Sales. The success of the Idea will be only when you can implement and sell it.


The question of whether it is worth taking up ideas that are different from the notion of “successful”, (just for fun for example), is left outside the scope of this article. Assuming that since this is a “business idea,” it must be successful.

In order not to be "unfounded", we will tell the story about our current project - the Ahoba service (;, which will be briefly described below. We will also refer to several already closed products, in the development of which we participated.

“Ancestor” of the project Ahoba (; service XYZ *


* in the first version of the article instead of “XYZ” there was the real name of our old project, but for some marketing reasons we had to replace it with the conditional “XYZ”, please do not judge me.

What does “ancestor” mean in relation to a web project? To clarify this, I’ll tell one legend that does not correspond to reality , about how a tank was invented ...

We all know a type of military equipment “tanks” - heavy, armored vehicles with a cannon in the turret, on crawler tracks. And how did they come about, how were they invented? It is logical to assume that there was a task: the army needed a self-propelled gun, protected from light weapons by armor, with high maneuverability, etc., and designed the tank for these requirements. No matter how wrong!

For agriculture, a different technique was invented long ago — a tractor (well, there, plowing fields, carrying hay) ...


In one of the military conflicts due to the lack of weapons, armor was mounted on a conventional rural tractor and a light gun was installed. This design proved so successful that it gave rise to a new type of military equipment - tanks ...


Functionally, the inheritance “from tractor to tank” goes like “from ancestor to descendant”. This can be proved by a simple example: the tractor cannot shoot, but for the tank it is quite possible to hook the plow and plow the field ...

We will not dwell on the authenticity of this legend. This is just a joke-example that a tractor could be an ancestor of a tank. It is only important that this legend clearly illustrates the analogy of the ancestor-descendant connection: XYZ is a tractor, and the project Ahoba (; - tank ...

The XYZ service was conceived in the following way - “a specialized website builder, a narrow subject: promotional sites for X”. Strange as it may sound, the idea is rather viable. Entering the search engine “Y”, we will see examples of such promotional sites, i.e. there is a demand for them. We thought that there would be a demand for a tool to create them. There is also a competitive advantage - the “specialization” of the solution, and there is an effective business model based on active sales.

But ... The market of “site designers” is overloaded, as evidenced by numerous publications. Already from the title of one of the articles - “40 powerful free online site builders” - it is clear:

In another article - “Review of the market of designers of websites and online stores, Russia and the CIS, 2014” (http://www.setup.ru/about/market-review) - you can get acquainted with specific figures, see the distribution of shares, how many years this or that project ...

The market of “site designers” is occupied by large players, and it’s almost impossible for a small team to break through on it. Nevertheless, the XYZ service has its own niche and its limited circle of users; however, its general development and support are both financially and user-defined (too small and narrow Central Asia) irrational actions.

Conventionally, the functionality of all site designers can be divided into hosting-service and content functions. The first ones are responsible for publishing the site, for SEO-tools and the like, the second ones allow to “collect” the site from text, graphic and other content. In turn, according to the principles of working with content, all website designers are divided into “sample” and “free” solutions, their various combinations.

Sample solutions are more common. Template - ready-made design for the site as a whole, or for a separate web page, in which the user “inserts” their content. Modification of templates, and accordingly design, is available with restrictions.
A typical example of such an approach - ucoz.ru

The free solution allows you to “collect” web pages with a design that is not tied to the template. It can be based on a visual designer, on a text editor of html \ css code, or on their combination.
An example of this approach is roxer.com

Early alpha versions of the XYZ service were designed and built on the “Template Solution” principle. The mentors with whom we cooperate questioned that our strength would be enough to satisfy the user need for a variety of patterns. Therefore, it was decided to give users the opportunity to create their own design. Thus, the XYZ service radically changed the concept and took the path of website designers with a “free solution” in design.

We needed to make a simple visual designer so that employees of the marketing and advertising department or those involved in the sales department could use it. Those. People with PC skills that are not higher than that of a regular secretary. At the same time, we are a development team, behind which there are several rather big web projects. The programmer and tester are familiar with the “tricked” IDE, the designer with Photoshop, the designer with many different specialized editors, etc. We have our own idea of ​​the complexity and convenience of interfaces. Thus, the concepts of “average simplicity” were born: a mixture of requirements “for dummies” and a relationship “pleasing to professionals”

The first "user" of our service was our own designer. He made examples of sites that can be assembled on the designer. The phrase was heard from him: “Hmm, yes, on our constructor, layouts are easier and faster to do than in Photoshop ...”

Prerequisites for the creation of the project Ahoba (;


There is a common need - “Make a website”.

To realize this need, you need to solve the tasks:
  1. Design the structure and functionality of the site;
  2. Prepare content;
  3. Develop a design;
  4. Roll up the frontend;
  5. If necessary, configure \ program the backend;
  6. Place your site on the Internet.

What tools are used to solve these problems?

Tasks 1. and 2., as a rule, are solved by the forces of the human mind, for them we can offer only auxiliary tools - text and graphic editors, spreadsheets and the like. For other tasks, professionals use highly specialized tools:

Work on the design is done by means of any ready-made templates, or by developing a design from scratch, i.e. from the layout. Layouts are usually done in various graphic editors, such as Photoshop.

If there is a problem of programming the frontend or backend, it can be solved using a plain text editor, but it is much more convenient to work using the IDE.

The site is published on a shared hosting, VDS \ VPS or dedicated server.

For “non-professionals” and particular cases, simplified, generic, universal tools are offered. For example, tasks 3-6 are solved by means of site designers, and 3-5 can be solved by any CMS.

Accordingly, the market for tools to meet the need to “make a website” is divided between: site designers, CMS systems and various specialized editors.

Remember the legend about the appearance of the tank? Many technical solutions in general, and software products in particular, developed “from the particular to the general”. Engineers solved the problem "here and now", marketers or users of the solution, seeing the potential in it, "expanded" the scope of use. But legends are legends, but here are a couple of real examples:

PHP is a universal language of web development, used today everywhere from business card sites to social. networks with a multi-million dollar visit, originally called "Personal Home Pages tools" and was nothing more than a "tool for creating personal home pages."

“VKontakte” is a popular social network with the widest coverage of the audience, initially positioned as a “Closed reference book of students and graduates of elite universities of Russia”.

There are many similar examples ... Often, the transition from the particular to the general through functional development or simply rebranding is commercially justified, at least - pleasant and useful for the user.

Service XYZ went beyond the "specialized solution for creating promotional sites X". Our programmer, not well versed in design, “assembled” the tolerable site of his favorite hockey team. The designer seriously thought, he could take “kalyms” to develop not only layouts, but also their layout - using our designer, we created an imprinted page from the layout in the editor, just click “Save as ...” in the browser.



Our product simplified the development of layouts and completely automated the layout, but initially it was not made for this ....

Everyone understood that it was necessary to move from the particular to the general, and there were three options for such a transition:

Competition in the market of site designers was discussed in the first part of the article; it is not worth explaining about competition in the CMS market either. There was a third way - a specialized editor.

From the abstract "specialized editor" to "Ahoba (; Online tool for a happy design and a magical layout"


In this narrative, thoughts are more or less clearly stated, and the sequence of reasoning is coherent and logical. When the team of the ancestor service XYZ first touched these questions, everyone “felt” the above, knew it somewhere on a subconscious level, but could not formulate it.

There are two types of very close, related products: site designers and site editors. By “close” we mean tools created according to the principles of WYSIWYG “What you see is what you get” ( wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG ). Conventionally, the site builder is a trimmed editor, but with the capabilities of hosting and other related tools. Our service was exactly the “site builder”, we studied this type of products well, but almost nothing was known about the “site editors”.

Thanks to the occasion for the article that came across quite by chance: “14 tools for web design and web development for 2014” ( http://habrahabr.ru/post/209362 ), namely for this offer:

“... Macaw promises the same flexibility as the image editor, but it will write semantic HTML and concise CSS.”

This phrase to some extent described the sensations of using our designer.

What kind of bird is “Macaw”? ”, We asked Google, and Google answered us:“ sensational ”company on Kickstarter, then a couple of marketing descriptions, and then a comparative article of Macaw with 2 (TWO) competitors - WebFlow and Adobe Edge Reflow CC. And, of course, the site of the project itself, where you can download a free 30-day version - macaw.co .

That's how we learned about the variety of software "visual editor sites." In simple terms, its functions can be described as:

We “draw” the layout, as in Photoshop, and at the same time we immediately get a ready-made web page from html, css, JS and graphic files, as if the front-end developer had “folded” it.

Are similar products on the market?

For Macaw's more than successful Kickstarter, for the popularity of its main competitors, we can say that yes.

So, we move from the particular to the general - from the specialized designer of promotional sites we make an editor for a pleasant and fast design and automated layout. In addition, we will not be limited to “web page design”, a handy tool and automated layout will be useful for creating e-mails with html design, PDF documents, presentations and ...

In the same “Photoshop” they draw both software interfaces and process photos, create graphic content, etc. Why limit the scope of the future online editor for design? It is only necessary to expand the set of formats of the final files for different areas of use.

This idea itself dictates the target audience - both professional designers and novice amateurs. We want to make the work of those and others pleasant, and to present an automated layout in the quality code “on the verge of a miracle”. Thus was born the motto description: “Online tool for a happy design and a magical layout.” Later, after working on the interesting part of the branding - “naming” , the meaningless, but provocatively sounding name Ahoba was born with an emoticon that emphasizes the mood of the project (;

The idea of ​​the project was born in such research and reasoning. Having dealt with the question of "ideas", proceed to the story of how to translate the "idea" in the "implementation".

Startup - "Implementation"


“... was there a boy? ..”


No, well, really? What is a “startup”? Incubators, get-together, search for investors? Shoot or not shoot? “Not working for an uncle?” Freedom? By the way, yes. “Freedom”, is it “free schedule”, “lack of commitment” or what?

I, like many, do not like the word “startup”. It so happened that “not the same” associations arise with him. Much nicer to say "novice grocery company." And ironically answer the clarifying question: “Aha, we sell buns ...”


Later, however, we will clarify what “hides” the definition of “novice grocery”, and who has the right to be called “company”.

All commercial software development can be divided into two camps: custom and product. There are companies (or departments within companies) that “earn” on the development of custom software - they have a customer, the customer has tasks that are solved by means of written software. Other companies are developing “software products” - software that has no customers, but there are customers whose tasks it is intended to solve.

Both those and others do the same thing - software. All have similar teams of similar specialists, almost the same tools and methodologies, but different financial and marketing positioning of the final result of labor.

Calling the software company "grocery", we just mean that the software that it produces will have customers, not customers. From such “trifles” the financial planning strategy, the list of works of the “marketing department”, business analyst, etc. completely change. And these changes occur, of course, with respect to the production of custom-made companies. This is no more complicated, no simpler, but you will not find the notorious “freedom” (in this context, obviously, it means “freedom from the customer”), this is just different.

About the word "beginner". As one memetic “politician” would say:
For any company, the word “beginner” does not have any sacred meanings. But it is possible, “sacredly speaking”, to designate the stage: “we did not exist yesterday, and today we are”. Accordingly, as with everything that was not “yesterday”, we have standard tasks: we need to solve and organize everything necessary to be “today”. Therefore, we need more than the “already started company” to organize the “conditions” instead of using these “conditions” and simply “being”.

And most importantly: What is a “company”? This is a financial asset *, everything else is secondary.
___
* here and hereinafter, “asset” means “event that generates income”, conditionally disregarding the issues of “increasing the market value” of this event.

For example, when a startup takes money from an investor and starts spending it - this is a liability, i.e. what money is spent on. As long as a startup does not have its income, you can’t call it an asset, and therefore, you won’t call it a company. Yes, founders receive their “ZP” from investor's money and have personal income, but this does not make their “venture” an asset.

Note, I deliberately did not consider the stage “the startup has not yet received third-party infusions”, when all of the “financial” flows from it have only cash and temporary investments of the participants. You can characterize it by analogy.

How to manage a “beginner, product”, not a company, but a startup? Just like any commercial event: minimize costs, maximize revenues.

What are the expenses of a “grocery” software company (it is not so important whether it is a beginner):

All this - no more than 10-20% of expenses, the remaining 80% are distributed between two other items of expenditure:

There is much to say about minimizing the costs of each of these items and the impact of this “on the common cause”. Everyone has their own somehow reasonable understanding of "minimization." If there is no understanding, then you should not take on the business of creating and managing a company, although some exceptions “learn in the process”, but they are also “exceptions”.

The second part of the thesis is “maximize revenues”.
Revenues at a grocery company are, oddly enough, product sales. Sales are boosted, not only by improvements in the product itself, but also by marketing and advertising. These tools need to be able to use. Everybody knows it. A startup problem: “we don’t have a product yet, and there’s nothing to sell to us yet.”

This is where a situation arises when a “start-up capital” is needed in order to make the first effective version of the product. There are not so many sources where it can be obtained: investments, crowdfunding, credit or loan, and personal savings (both financial and man-hour investments). What to choose from this, everyone decides for himself, but the “culture of startup” promotes the first two sources, somehow forgetting about the latter, closer to the concept of entrepreneurship ...

No matter how you name your activity - at least “start-ups”, even “entrepreneurship” - it remains a commercial event. And any commercial event has three first stages: the initial investment, the exit to self-sufficiency, the payback of the initial investment.

At the “initial investments” stage, reluctantly call our venture a “start-up”. But as soon as we move on to the “gaining self-sufficiency” stage, we will forget this word, like a bad dream, at last becoming a “company”.

A project or team, an egg or a chicken?


In the industrial era, the main resources were: the means of production and low-skilled labor. Look at the list of the richest companies of the first half of the last century - American steel, automobile production. Their resources - factories, equipment - and made them the richest.



Globalization: global market, global transport network and logistics, etc. reduced the value of the means of production of the industrial society. Let me explain, though very arbitrarily: it is more profitable to keep the plant where it is warmer and you can pay less for the workers, and the delivery of the goods has almost no effect on the value added. This circumstance, together with the general development and cheapening of high-tech technologies in general, and in particular with the emergence and spread of the Internet, the popularization of high-tech products among households, etc., finally “finished” the value of industrial resources.

All of this led to the industrialization of the third world countries, and the “advanced” west moved into a new economic era — the post-industrial, or information society. Which companies are the richest today? Software and mass-proposing high-tech products: Apple, Google, Microsoft ...

The US economy remains the first in the world, they consume almost everything that they produce, and import even more. For import you have to pay by export, and what does the USA export? Every year the share of exports of industrial (industrial) goods decreases, while the share of information and high-tech products increases accordingly. Hollywood films, software, modern engineering solutions implemented in devices, etc. - The income from sales of these “intangible” products is growing.

How can we move from macroeconomics to practical issues of working on a specific startup? The basis of many management theories is work with resources.Macroeconomic trends say that in the era of a post-industrial society, engineers who are able to create competitive products suitable for export are becoming a major resource; marketers capable of managing the sales of this exported product are equally valuable; here comes the management and analytics. Highly qualified personnel is the main resource of any high-tech company. In the framework of the terminology of “start-ups,” they are called “team”:

What is the software product company? From Product and Sales. All this is called the Project, and makes it a team.

Primarily that makes the company an asset (read, brings income). In our case, it is Sales. What goes in second place? There are two conceptually different approaches to answering this question:

The first: “After the income is important product, because he creates sales. ”

Second: “After the income, the team is important, because she makes a product that creates sales. ”

In both cases, the primary income that we receive, selling the product that makes the team. What is the difference?

In the first case, we rely on the product, it is not so important to us who and how it does - outsourcers, full-time employees or even “one-time” freelancers. "The code is primary." The employee left - it does not matter, the code remains. Replace it with another programmer, let it continue. Yes, there will be costs for “learning someone else's code,” but specifications and standards can minimize them.

In the second case, the primary command. The project was unsuccessful - it does not matter, the main thing is to save the team. Let's throw out all the code, throw out the old ideas, we have a team, and we will redo everything. This approach is “recommended” by some investors and venture funds. They follow the rule: “you need to invest in resources that will pay back investments”. According to macroeconomic trends, the main resource is highly qualified personnel. Therefore, gentlemen investing claim: “we are first laid out in the team; even if the project itself is not so successful, but the team is good - we invest. ”

It is impossible to say unequivocally which of these approaches is “correct”. They both have the right to life. And, however cynically it may sound, in the absence of a shortage of engineers, the first approach will probably be more effective. But if there is a drawback, it is better to stick with the second. You have to admit: people, as specialists, are just a resource. It is especially difficult to recognize and accept this, remembering the story, and seeing the stay of your team ...

Ahoba project team (;


How many programmers do you need to replace a light bulb? And how much - to launch a startup? The correct answer is: “N man-hours”.

And who else is needed, except for programmers? And what is a “programmer”? How is it different from the coder? And from the developer? But the system architect and timlid also write code - who are they? How does a tester differ from a QA specialist, and how does usability relate to designer work? What does a project manager do? What about a business analyst? Technical writer? System Administrator?

And this is only if you go over the roles in the “development department”, without affecting the technology. In addition to the development, there is also a financial, marketing department, accounting ... Why am I doing this?

Our team is Ahoba (;- four people. Just as much as it takes to develop a product and organize a company around it for an adequate number of man-hours, naturally within the scope of our project. Four people are engaged in everything, but conditionally we call each other according to our main responsibilities, areas of responsibility: Programmer, Tester, Designer, Project Manager (PM). Remember that in reality these names are conditional: our “tester” can deal with content management, collection of database clients, etc .; PM is engaged in business analytics, marketing, etc .; and all other roles are “conditional” and are introduced only to facilitate the narration.

Where did our team come from, the story is brief:
There was one software company that released several software products whose business model for sales was based on pirated content and closed format. The management of that company decided to invest free finance in “legalization” - the development and release of a web-SaaS software product. For this, a team was recruited, part of which was all the above-mentioned persons. What happened to that company, the software and the business model, as well as the web-SaaS project, is a dark, partly sad story, not without the Themis overseas and cunning Arabs, but this is not the case. The team that worked for two years was almost without a job at the same time. As is often the case, someone has wandered off: who is freelancing, who is in salary, who has changed the line of business altogether. This story could and will end ...

... But, it just so happened that despite the sad ending of that story, the company itself was one of the most beautiful places to work, a sort of “Google” in its best times, reduced to a team of two dozen people. Democracy, the power of engineers, standard buns with a clogged refrigerator and game consoles, non-standard - with acoustic drums and half a dozen different guitars, remotes and combo amps, paid corporate parties and other team-building. And most importantly - we ourselves chose those with whom we will work. Practically anyone could take part in an interview and select candidates, influence the decision whether or not to take a particular person. As a result, the team was selected ideally balanced by combinations: professional skills, personal qualities, psychological, emotional and other compatibility.Often the whole team gathered outside working hours, arranged joint rest and leisure.



After the company no longer became, and everyone worked in different places, we still continued to get together and communicate, just as friends, not colleagues ...

Once during these gatherings, the idea of ​​mood was collegially expressed:
We were well-coordinated professional team, capable of solving any task from its field of activity, limited only by man-hours. Why do we work incomprehensibly where and for whom for a salary at best with bonuses, when we can do useful projects for an honest percentage of the margin?

Co-founders and spouses


What is marriage? If we discard the emotional and socio-ethical aspects of this concept, then what do we get in the “dry” residue? Registered act of civil relations, regulating only the financial side of the interaction of two adults. A family, children can be made with the observance of all rights and responsibilities without marriage registration, as well as other legal issues.

“The stamp in the passport” gives only what Eddie Murphy so aptly described in his timeless show “Without Cuts” with just one word - “Half”. Yes, no matter how much you earn, what property you acquire, if you are married, half of what you own belongs to your spouse (or spouse). Those.marriage only regulates the rights and shares of ownership and disposal of joint property and income.

If you choose your future wife (husband), guided only by logic, then the main criterion will be the ability of your chosen one to “manage with finances”. Yes, marriage is a kind of LLC “Family” with two co-founders with equal shares, where their joint household is the property of this LLC, and their salary is their income.

However, human nature will never allow rejecting the “emotional and socio-ethical aspects” of marriage, and this is good. “Family is the cell of society”, a social group of at least two people who regularly interact with each other. And this “interaction” is not limited to finances: you sleep, eat, talk, spiritually and mentally support each other. In general, this can be described by the phrase: “spend time together”.

So, marriage is a regulated financial interaction and diverse joint pastime. The analogy of marriage and LLC in terms of financial interaction has already been carried out above. As for “hanging out” ... Have you ever wondered: how much time do you spend at work in your team?



If marriage is so similar to “its own business”, then the level of trust and interaction between founders should be no less than in marriage between spouses. Just imagine that you trust your co-owner programmer and know him as well as your wife. Is it always useful for a common cause? In life there are both strong and happy marriages, and successful joint ventures. And in contrast, they have divorced couples and bankrupt companies. In any case, there is a reason to treat the co-founder of his business as the closest relative.
Employees can be compared with distant relatives. They are supposed to get along with them, it is desirable to live in friendship and harmony and remember that they can also claim to be part of your finances and help.

Do not take the above mentioned seriously and close to your heart, especially if your world view is closer to “this is only business, nothing personal”. Similar conclusions were made, rather, about our team, and I do not claim that they will be suitable for everyone and in all situations.

“How to manage cats” (c) in the Gospel version of the leadership of the Ahoba project team (;


Who is a professional, “highly qualified staff”? Suppose this is a person who has natural talents to the business in which he is engaged, with a well-learned theoretical base, supported by years of solving practical problems. Speaking of engineers, we add - we need a high level of intelligence, analytical skills, and developed systems thinking. What else to demand from the "professional"?

And there is something ... An employee must have good health: what is the use of all these qualities, if you can not use them in connection with the disease. Also, “emotions” - they affect both physical and intellectual productivity. A distinctive feature of “true professionals” is to work equally well in any emotional background. This should also add the ability to find a common language with people - almost all professions require at least a minimum of communication skills. Etc. etc.

A true professional is a robot who forgets about privacy in his office, turning off all emotions and using his mind and body to the maximum. The dream of any employer ... I had to “interview” about 200 people - this is not much, and not a few, but among them there was not a single Real Professional; as, however, there are no such among all my friends. We are all human, and engineers are often even more “human” than representatives of other specialties.

Now imagine our team and the situation in the relationship when we started a joint project:

We spend more than 2 years in the same room for 8-10 hours 5-6 days a week, doing a common thing. They managed not to hate each other and regularly get together for socializing and relaxing during non-working hours. We all know about each other: about personal life, about financial situation, about dreams and plans of each other. And most importantly, we know everything about each other professionally: who knows what, who knows what, who learns what, how does work ...

What does this mean in practice?Trust, 100% confidence in the result, the ability to accurately predict the timing.

An example of absolute confidence in each other is the “problem of motivation”. When working in other teams with hired employees constantly had to consider issues of increasing productivity and quality of work. Motivation in this case was and remains one of the key components.

While working on a joint project, I forgot about the phrase “increasing the motivation of employees,” only the medical “do no harm” remains. When we found funding and started working on our projects for full time, the first 3 months worked 6-7 days a week from 8.00 to 20.00-21.00 without holidays and with one “Sunday” for two weeks. By the fourth month, the vitality was over for everyone, the productivity dropped. Although we were ready (motivated) to work further in the same graph, it did not give the previous results. I had to force myself to limit myself and go on to the usual five-day week and a 9-10 hour working day.

We did not have a “classic”, painful choice / search for tools and technologies for development, management and other things. We are not “rushing” like other new teams, going through everything. Everything was chosen and tested while working on the previous project. It remained to take the best and, removing the unnecessary, unnecessary to us motivational and controlling bureaucracy, to start working.



As a separate article told about the process of branding and naming, we will promise to write a separate article about our tools and methodologies, about how, what and why was chosen. Now we will not dwell on this ...

Selfish question


It is good to start a startup when you are a “student”: you live with your mom-dad who will feed you, give a roof over your head, still embrace and dress you up, give you “pocket money” to rest and entertainment. Why in such circumstances not fanatically plunge into the implementation of their projects?

It is good to be a “hired specialist”: they will choose a methodology for you, write up job descriptions, write out your role in the project, limit the area of ​​responsibility. They will come up with a transparent motivational payment system for your work, where it is clear how to work to get your bonus. A specialist is only required to work, observing all the rules. There is one “but” - to find this company, where all of the above is and is organized not through one place ... Although for a good specialist this is “but” conditional.

It's also a good idea to be a “freelancer”: to answer only for yourself and not to report to anyone except yourself. Work while working, in the conditions that he created. Making friends with regular customers, choosing a fatter order ... Of course, not without their "but" ...

IT-sphere, like other areas of modern life, provide many ways of professional and financial self-realization, and many of them are “good”. But now you are no longer a student, and “by the will of hormones” you spent your student life, enjoying riotous youth, having missed the opportunity to work carelessly on your projects “under the wing of parents”. Worked as a hired specialist, including in the “right” companies. They wanted to manage their activities more, and not just to be a good performer, they filed into management or freelancing. Maybe you had this way, maybe some other one, it doesn't matter. What matters is the circumstances in which you are now.

You have a family or at least you yourself. You need to live somewhere, something is, in something to dress ... It is in an ideal case. In the not perfect - a person still does not know how to control his consumer decisions: he gets dozens of useless gadgets, a prestigious car on credit, large housing with a mortgage, new furniture in installments ... He lives "according to the trends of" modern consumer society - "it is necessary to increase the rate of economic growth by price living in debt. ” A person has a lot of necessary and not very things for which he will pay for many more years ...

When you create a family, you, together with your chosen one (chosen one), choose a model of your financial behavior, the purpose of which is “improving the quality of life”. Conventionally, all people can be divided into three categories: some will be content with the old grandmother's sofa, got “for thanks” until they earn / save for a new one; others will immediately take on a new installment / loan; and the third - “those who want to live without a sofa at all” - leave it outside the scope of this article.

The creation of our company began on December 31, 2013 with an analysis of the current “financial and employment” situation and a couch-and-credit attitude to life among all co-founders participating in a future project. We gathered in our programmer's mortgage apartment, first began to consider / discuss who spends how much on life, who has how much debt. Then we tried to collectively minimize the expenses of each other, right up to the phrases from the series “Anya (our tester), you will still be sitting in the office with three of us, and no one but you can see us, let's reduce spending on cosmetics to 500 rubles .. . ” So, we got the number N - the amount, how much the minimum is necessary for the four of us in a month so as not to “stretch our legs”. The number N is also one of the two large items of expenditure of any software company: employees.

Having decided on the calculation and minimization of the amount - the first big item of our future expenses, in the second part of the conversation we made a plan of work for the next 10 days, and agreeing to begin the implementation of the next day, we went to celebrate the New Year.

In our country, from January 1 to 10, there are paid holidays, and this time we receive as a gift from employers. This “gift” was decided not to use, as is customary, to rest. We started the implementation of the first stage of any startup: prototyping; calculating the funds required for the promotion and advertising of our future product (which, together with the number N, multiplied by the planned development time, formed the budget of the project); preparation of documentation for attracting investments.

We did not know how long it would take to search and attract investors, so we developed a strategy for the development and development of our company, based on the current situation. It was decided to develop an uncomplicated B2B-service that solves one popular task, and to organize its promotion by means of sales outsourcing. As a result, it was planned to get an asset that does not require our constant attention and brings a small income, comparable to the calculated number N. This would give us the opportunity, without worrying about “our daily bread,” to work on a larger project.

The budget and the “larger project” were calculated, documentation was prepared for its presentation to investors, e-mails and Skype conversations began… In total, I “sorted out” about 30 different funds and private investors. We were interested in 7 of them, 4 offered specific conditions. The conditions according to our standards are very strange: we were offered 2-3 times more money than we requested, but the share we set at 30-49% increased to 60-75%. For obvious reasons, it did not suit us. It was decided to do our first project in free from “nursing work” time, and when it starts, it is already to switch to full time to work on a large project.

My “nursing job” was then freelancing, and I “buried” in orders — I earned good money, but there was no free time. Reduce the number of orders - to lose loyal customers, to deprive yourself of a steady income. The dilemma: there was no time left to work on my project, and if you allocate it, there will be no means of subsistence, and there will be no time for your project. Therefore, I decided to again find “office work” in order to be busy from “call to call”, and after 100 pm it was 100% to have free time for my projects ...

At the first interview instead of hired employment, I suddenly found investors. Answering the standard question in the spirit of: “What do you see yourself in 5 years?”, - honestly said: “The head of your grocery company”. And in response to a reasonable remark: “How so? You are settling in as a project manager, ”- he told about his“ evening ”work in his team on common projects ... The conversation went in a different direction.

The company - my failed employer - was not professionally engaged in investments, and I didn’t have enough available funds, however, we were able to find a mutually beneficial agreement. Without being greedy, we gave 40%, for which we received an office space with all the necessary infrastructure, mentoring support and a monthly payment during the year, which is exactly that calculated amount N. Total (12 * N + cost of the office with the infrastructure) payments will be approximately 50% of the amount we originally sought. Not what was planned, but much better than nothing, and the main thing - it allowed to keep the “control” share and quickly start, having a pleasant chronology:

January 1 - in their free time they began work on a prototype, project and financial and marketing documentation;

April 1 - the found investment went to work in the office at full time;

August 1 - began selling our first product - service XYZ. At the same time, we decide that we need to make a tank out of a tractor, and in today's conditions, a tank is more in demand, we are starting rework.

October 1 - launched the first public version of the service Ahoba (;

This is the story of our "implementation", not quite ordinary, slightly abstract, but we succeeded in this. We turn to the final part - "sales."

Startup - “Sales”


... creating a marketing strategy to promote the project


Finally, let's talk about the main thing for any commercial undertaking - sales ...

Having worked in game development, and having studied the process of creating games, you can transfer some game development tools to the software development process. According to one of the methodologies, the work on a new game project begins with the creation of a “concept document” - a small text describing key points: both functional features and the marketing, artistic component of the project. Good concept documents for games worth their weight in gold. Many game designers collect and store them, using them as examples in their work ...

Elaboration of ideas to promote our project, it was decided to start by creating a “marketing concept document” with something similar to the “concept document for a game project.” By analogy with useful for many examples of game concepts, we hope someone will be useful example of our "marketing concept."

Concept paper: “Marketing Strategy for Promoting the Ahoba Project (;”


Short marketing description


“Ahoba (; an online tool for happy design and magical layout.”

Domain Name Area


* .co

Short formal description


Ahoba is a simple and convenient visual online editor designed for the rapid development of layouts of web pages, templates of popular CMS systems, various printed materials (booklets, flyers), electronic documents, etc. With the auto-wrap function in the “html \ CSS \ JS pages”, PDF documents, JPG and PNG images, etc.

Prerequisites for the creation of the project Ahoba (;


Ahoba is a “descendant” project of XYZ service. Those. It is based on a highly specialized editor and improved to a full-fledged tool for developing various layouts. From the “ancestor” service Ahoba (; inherits only part of the functionality; marketing positioning, business model and promotion strategy should be developed anew according to the concept: “Selling to a wide range of users related to IT and design development tasks and layout of something”.

The XYZ service is positioned as a highly specialized B2B solution for a cheap (~ $ 500 / sale) price range. The Ahoba project (; will have a more mass audience with an average (for this market) price (~ $ 20 a monthly subscription). With similar labor costs for promotion and development, it is more profitable to develop the Ahoba project.

Solvable problem


Make the design of various layouts simple, fast, convenient. Available for users with any level of computer literacy. Automate the process of layout layout in the final document, web page, template.

The target audience


Any PC users who are faced with the task of developing a design, impose something. We can distinguish the subgroups of CA:
  • Professional designers, layout designers;
  • Beginner designers and design lovers;
  • Webmasters who need to change or create the design and layout of any web pages, CMS templates;
  • People who have a need to create a simple static website with a unique design.

Sales geography


Initially - the Russian-speaking audience. The first marketing and advertising works should be directed to it, but from the early versions to implement multilingualism: to translate the interface, the promotional website into English. Later develop a strategy for entering English-speaking markets.

Overview of Major Competitors




Marketing positioning


The company's positioning is “open, public, always ready for an honest and frank dialogue with its user on any topic.”

Ahoba product positioning is “a universal tool, useful to many people working in the IT field or simply working, studying using a PC, and solving the problem of developing the design of something.”

The main competitive advantage is a harmonious combination of 4 factors, which competitors do not have:
  • Online solution that does not require downloading and installation, with cloud storage and the ability to publish data on the Internet;
  • The unique functionality of the “automation” of the layout, implemented by just a few similar solutions;
  • The maximum possible visualization (constantly see what we have, without distraction to the “service elements”);
  • Simple and convenient editor interface based on a combination of popular technologies: “click and drag”, “drag and drop”, “click to move“ and the best classical “WYSIWYG text widget”, allowing a person with any level of computer literacy to deal with it literally minutes away.

Business model and monetization


Start “sales” from the very first versions to get additional funds that will speed up the development and promotion of the project. To “justify” the users of the “right to sell” earlier versions of the product to use elements of “crowdfunding”.

That is, firstly, to “sell” without fixed tariffs on the principle “everyone pays as much as he wants”. Secondly, openly report: “You are not paying for the finished product, but for the future a full-fledged solution, with the ability to now see and try what you get.”

For additional motivation to “purchase” use typical crowdfunding techniques:
  • Everyone who supported the project with their “purchase”, regardless of the “price” they paid, will have to give a license, which later (after the final release) will have to be bought for an amount ten times higher than the price for crowdfunding;
  • Depending on the amount that the user decided to spend on “purchase”, send him a souvenir with the symbols of the project. (For example: for a “purchase” for any amount up to 250 rubles - to send a calendar with symbols, for 250 rubles to send a magnet, for a purchase in 900 rubles - a mug with a logo, etc.);
  • Set several goals to collect certain amounts with a guarantee of the implementation of the functional. (For example: if 200 tr is collected over a month, then after 2 months we will release a release with support for saving in the format of templates such CMS; if we type 300 tr, then after 3 months we’ll make a version of the editor working on popular tablets, etc.);
  • Regularly interact with the project community: in social. networks, blogging project. To ask “to spread information about the project and the crowdfunding fundraising for it”. Publish reports on how much money was raised, and what guaranteed functionality we will now develop. Justify, as we calculated, one or another amount for the purpose (for example: to release a version running on tablets, you need to purchase these same tablets for the test, which increases the amount of the goal by 50 tr. Etc.)


Later, the final versions of the project should be sold at rates calculated on the basis of “load on iron”, namely, the number of projects available for one-time creation and editing. (For example: “Amateur” tariff - cost: free, 1 project is available; “Newbie” tariff - 600 rubles / month, 10 projects are available; “Profi” tariff - 1200 rubles / month, 50 projects are available; Studio tariff "- cost 3000r. / Per month, the number of projects is not limited).

Plan concept of project promotion at the initial stage


Step 1. Develop a promotional website where you can tell about the product “Ahoba (;”, what it can and for whom it is intended. Also explain why and in what form (according to the “crowdfunding” model), it is now “for sale”.

Tasks that must be addressed by the promo site:
  • Inform the user about the product;
  • All those belonging to Central Asia are encouraged to “register and try now, but as it is”;
  • Those who liked the project, to motivate to join the community in any way convenient for them: to join the community in the social. networks, subscribe to one of the blogs;
  • Community members are motivated to participate in the crowdfunding “purchase” by supporting the project at an early stage, which will allow you to get a souvenir and save on licenses in the future.

Step 2. Create in 4 popular soc. networks (Google+, Twitter, Vkontakte, FaceBook) accounts (community). Write and publish 10-30 unique and interesting posts related to the theme of the project “design and design tools”. Invite your friends to the groups, establish connections with popular thematic design communities, etc.

Step 3. Collect SIA (semantic core), associated with the subject of the project. Perform on it a marketing analysis of the interests of potential users. By creating a plan for thematic publications in the blog on the site. Write and publish the first 10-20 posts according to the received publication plan in compliance with the rules of internal SEO.

Step 4. Build a database of contacts for the following topics: Software, IT, Startup, Design, Design tools for receiving press releases. Consider the services of mailing and publication of press releases. Directly prepare materials for the press release and distribute it, publish it on the collected base.

Step 5. Create a corporate blog on the Habrahabr resource, write and publish a series of 3 articles about our project and team, as well as 3-5 interesting subject articles from participants of our project.

Step 6. Convert incoming traffic to the first users of the community - registered users on the Ahoba service who liked it and who became community subscribers in the social. networks, blog on the site and on the Habré itself.

Step 7. Increase the number of community, additionally using Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords.

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Comments on the marketing concept


The “concept document” format implies a brief, concise description of the key points. You should not “inflate” it with unnecessary details, but you should not miss important aspects. The sequence of points is not fundamental, the main thing is to convey the picture as a whole, clearly delimiting the description: they conveyed the essence of the project, now we will describe Central Asia, its needs, then move on to the promotion work, etc. The “scheme” is understandable, consider it on the example of our sequence:

Product and Challenge


We started with the description of the project in the format of “lift presentation”, i.e. a couple of sentences that allow anyone to immediately understand "what it is about." After explaining “what it is about us”, it’s worth telling “why it is necessary”, for this purpose there are sections “prerequisites” and “problem to be solved”.

Lecture hall


Next comes the “target audience” section. Generally, it is worth doing more. Describe specific people, focus groups, their reaction to the “lift presentation”, a prototype.

Why didn't we do this?

The first is that the team already has experience in selling such services; we are familiar with the general principles of distributing software products for B2B and “mass” audiences. The second is this project “for ourselves”. We can solve our own everyday and professional tasks by means of our product. And third, the audience will be too “motley.” Many of our friends liked the project: among them were pretentious designers living on the “fashion wave”, there were also archaic engineers who loved minimalism, dullness and neatness. We simply do not have the resources to scale the audience, to draw useful conclusions.

Therefore, it was decided to follow the “reconnaissance in force” principle - to give everyone the information and prototype of the product, after the fact having studied the needs that at this stage can be easily turned into wishes and implementation.

Competitors


Having dealt with the audience, go to the competitors. You can treat them differently, talk about them differently. There are three sides: their decision, the decision of competitors and users, the latter must choose one of the first two. For many software products, the entire marketing policy revolves around this “choice.”

There are different approaches: someone scolds similar decisions, subjectively or objectively highlighting the advantages of their product. Someone even tries to keep silent about competitors so that their users “God forbid they do not know, and do not go to others”.

Our attitude to competing products is dictated by our potential users. One part of the audience consists of professionals who will choose a convenient and reliable tool - it “feeds” them. Here there is a choice of pure logic, and PR with advertising act on it weakly. The second part of users is amateur beginners, on the contrary, their logical choice is weakly grounded, and they choose with emotions, but in this case it is easier to affect emotions by sensations from using the product than by stories about it.

It turns out that neither from professionals nor from amateurs, there is no sense in hiding or “denigrating” competitors. Everyone will “try” himself, logically or emotionally choose what he likes. And if they choose us, this is a merit of successful engineering solutions and frankness with the community, and not a “thoughtful” attitude towards competitors. Our audience still belongs to the world of IT, and not from the world of glamor, and such an assessment is much more valuable than the others ... Therefore, on this blog, on our website, we publish a detailed objective review of similar solutions.

Regarding the content of the columns in the table with an overview of competitors. They are few, you can collect more information, but in the concept you need only a key one:

Such a small set of information collected in a 4-hour “study” allowed to draw useful conclusions:

On the basis of these theses we make a general conclusion:
The need for a similar product exists, since there are products that partially satisfy it, and their users. The general idea is promising, as they consider it in large companies, which probably conducted more detailed research. Our project has several objective competitive advantages: a unique functionality, focus on free lift, not overcrowded common niche, the possibility of price competition. In addition, subjectively - our solution is the easiest to learn and easy to use.

So, at the concept level, it is possible to identify how successful the project will be (naturally, if the implementation is also “successful”). When data on competitors and conclusions are different, it may not be worth taking up the project.

About planning


It remains to comment on the last two topics described in the concept: how the project will be sold and promoted, and what it will be able to do. It is important to note: for our startup this plan is a concept for only 2-5 months, not more. You need to be flexible, to monitor the reaction of the audience, to change the functionality and methods of promotion, if the initial ones turned out to be ineffective. Therefore, it is not necessary to plan “for the years ahead” until there will be at least the first results. But to admit the situation “there is no plan at all, let's figure it out”, it is impossible. You always need to know what to do in the next few months. Yes, your plans may be erroneous, but at least you can realize that you are mistaken, in contrast to the situation when you act at random.

Promotion


Promotion and sales ... Someone said: "A startup should start selling as soon as possible." In the second part of the publication, arguing that as long as we have no income, no self-sufficiency, we are not a company, and a loss-making liability, at best, with potential, came to a similar conclusion. However, when there are no funds for development, only for their daily bread - you think about their daily bread, and not about development.

Financing development can and should be organized from sales, but how to sell early alpha? Even if someone likes it, someone will be ready to buy it, the conscience of the developers will still suffer. In the “early alpha” there is still so much to fix, so much to implement, so many mistakes that we still do not suspect ...

I do not want to break with my conscience. It is good that the decision came by itself - crowdfunding. If other teams do not hesitate to take money “for an idea” without having anything else, then why can't we ask for support, having at least an early but still finished version of the product? So the strategy of “crowdfunding sales” was born. Perhaps it does not justify itself, but at least it is honest with respect to those for whom all this was started - to our users.

With the desire for “justice and honesty,” a second concept-strategy of promotion appeared: “frank dialogue with the community”. First, since we ask for support, not for purchases, it is necessary to clarify who this support will be provided without telling who we are, where we come from, what we do, what we want to give to the audience, what we dream of getting in return. Secondly, even though the topic of “start-ups” is losing its popularity, many members of our audience are interested in reading stories about young companies, such “publications” may motivate them to learn from the mistakes of others. By combining the first and second, they came up with the format of “Friday Fiction” - an open spatial dialogue with the community.

In fact, marketing concept documents should not be disclosed at all outside the “team and investors”. If you think about it, they describe how the manufacturer’s user is going to “fool” for the sake of financial gain. Which consumer would like it? Will “durilovo” work if you talk about it? We do not want to ask such questions, it is more pleasant for us to “make a bet” on the positive - logic, analytical thinking, interest, demand ... In the world of commerce this is not always possible, but if the format of the event allows you to choose this marketing model, the choice is obvious for us.

Implementation


The latter is in the concept, although it is a “marketing” implementation. It is impossible to think about how “something” will move forward without specifying what is meant by this “something”. In the typical concept, from which they start, without having even a single line of code, in the implementation section, you need to answer two questions: “ What will the product be able to do? ” And “ How will it know how? ”

It was easier for us: we had an “ancestor” service, thanks to which we already received an answer to the question “How ..?”. Therefore, our concept is not “typical”, and we only had to answer the question “What ..?”. This fits well with the strategy of crown-selling sales and frank dialogue with the community: everyone can read what comes out; those who wish can register, see “how” it will be and, if they like it, support the project. This allowed us to limit ourselves to a list of features and a description of the overall vector of the project’s development without detailed elaboration of interfaces and usability at the concept level. Although in any other situation where there is no prototype on hand, these surveys are necessary!



We will no longer bother with verbiage, the following articles from the promised ones only in the case, let's start with this: “The tools and methodology for managing the team and the project, using the example of the startup Ahoba (;”.

Thank you all again for your attention and for sustaining such a bulky text .

Kirill,
Project Manager Online tool for Design SketchBuilder
Time from the account of our tester Ani ( 407th )

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/240337/

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