How I was looking for an idea for a startup in Silicon Valley

Greetings, Habrazhiteli! In this post I want to talk about how I went to look for an idea in Silicon Valley, which resulted in a cashback service kubish.ru


Just over a year ago I mentioned in an interview on Habré that I was moving to California. I traveled to Silicon Valley to find an idea that would motivate 24 hours a day. The idea to go somewhere has arisen for a long time and was inspired by the experience of successful services that were created abroad such as LinguaLeo and Aviasales.
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I tried to create projects in Russia, but I would not say that at least one shot would be sufficient. There were dozens of closed projects, there were those who worked and brought something, but not at the level we would like. My main business - the web studio already did not inspire me and the feeling that there must be something more than ordinary custom development did not give rest.

To go somewhere far is very difficult, and even more difficult if you do not know why you are going. In the end, I went to the heart of innovation in search of a better life, partners and team.

Why Silicon Valley? Because the largest number of successful startups are created there, the smartest people flock there, and it seemed to me that if I touched this, then perhaps this would help me to think of something worthwhile.

I rented a small cozy apartment with internet and unfurnished in the city of San Jose. It is not as cold as San Francisco and is considered the center of Silicon Valley.


The first months were a lot of activities, dating, travel, parties with friends. It was all but what I came for - a worthwhile idea.


Hiking to hackathons made it possible to make many new acquaintances and absorb the energy of Silicon Valley. When you see a number of people who have created multibillion-dollar companies, then you begin to approach startups differently. I want to do something right away.


Once a week we were going to play volleyball or board games, which also made it possible to start a lot of dating and energize visiting entrepreneurs, to find out the latest trends from hackers and programmers. Many also launched startups or received new investment rounds, which also motivated them to move faster.

It took four months of life in the Valley, before I found a partner. He is a man from the Valley, who created several successful businesses in Russia. He, like me, came to the Valley to open up new horizons. He somewhere on the Internet found my post that I was going to California, wrote to me, and we met.

I liked what he was talking about. The idea was to create a user-friendly service that would allow you to buy goods all over the world and receive cashback - a cash refund from purchases. I was impressed that the project he was proposing to create was aimed at developing a mechanism for making money, and not just another social network designed to beg for money from investors. And we started work.

We immediately saw many competitors, many of whom have worked in the western market for decades. They were not invested by anyone, because they themselves quickly learned how to make money. The press appeared only rare reports of someone's absorption. It was a very good sign for us confirming the efficiency of this business model.

We also saw their flaws, we saw their lack of understanding of modern trends, which simply need to be embedded in services. On the one hand, we had someone to equal ourselves with in order to take the best from them, on the other hand, we had to move much faster to catch up. However, in my opinion, for web services, as well as for iron, there is an analogue of Moore's law, which allows us to recruit users every year faster than in previous periods.

Now I had a project for which I could go to bed late and get up early. There was something that motivated and inspired me. Yes, I did not invent it myself, but this is not necessary. My life hacking was to declare my desire to the world - to find an idea and a partner, and I did it!

In the next post we will talk about how the international project kubish.ru was done !