Founder's advice. Alexey Makin, CEO RedMadRobot

Today, Megamind announces the Founder Boards column. The guests of our new column will be the founders of well-known IT-companies. They will share with the readers of "Megamind" their accumulated experience and will give invaluable advice to young entrepreneurs, as well as to all who expect to start their own business in the future.



The first who agreed to participate was Aleksey Makin, co-founder and CEO of RedMadRobot . This company is already known to the audience of "Habrahabra" and "Megamind" for its publications in the corporate blog . "Red Robot", at the moment, one of the leaders of mobile development in Russia.

Sometimes there are men who somewhere cut down the attendants and urgently want to shove them somewhere. IT investments are still in trend. These men are not professional investors, they cannot sensibly evaluate a company, a team, an idea. Working with them is dangerous for two reasons. First of all, these men are not ready to lose their money, they don’t even allow such thoughts - they invest in anyone, and then they demand to return everything or bury it in a ditch. Secondly, such quasi-investors are ruining the business - for those to whom they give money, there is a feeling that everything is already fine, there is no need to develop in terms of processes and marketing; one concern remains - how to spend. When a team finishes spending, it ends up in a ditch.

Who are professional investors?

Professional investors explain why they do not immediately give money, and what companies need to do to get money.

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In contact with the business, a professional investor begins to evaluate it - knocking the arrogance of managers, he shows their immaturity, underdevelopment of processes, crazy risks. The investor asks questions, thereby pumping over the business - answering the investor's questions, the company's top managers see where they are in fact, and where they should be and what they need to do to do this.



Investors help to understand the market and show how to run a business, how to do business, how to turn from a small company into a medium-sized business. Financial management, strategizing, etc. This is the biggest investor contribution. Because after that you get the money is not a problem. But the paradox is that you simply don’t need this money.

How to start a startup

Set the correct goal. Cutting dough is not a goal. Taking investments is not a goal. The goal is to make a business.



At the idea stage, you need to stay away from investors. I’ll clarify that this is about IT start-ups, and not scientific ones that require investments in the development of a complex technology.



Next, we typologize the holder of the idea, or rather its competence, expressed not only in the availability of theoretical knowledge, but also in practical experience.

• Sales, marketing, promotion
• Control
• Technology

An idea without competence is nothing. We see a lot of people with burning eyes (“I think it will trample!”), But they really can't do anything.



If you do not have competencies, go to recruit them - get a job and work hard. I worked as a programmer for 6 years, then I went to an advertising agency and I studied selling for 4 years - I knew that I needed these skills to create my business, and I collected them.



Ideal - the presence of all three competencies, but at least one - at least. Then you either get the missing parts and the team brings the project to the market to start earning, or you turn to the investor - not for money, but for lacking knowledge.

Where to get a salary

The most important deception and self-deception of all startups - they are not looking for money to launch or develop a project, they are looking for money for their salaries. And this is called self-employment. A normal wage investor will not give you money. Because as soon as he gave people money for wages, they sat on the ass and did nothing more. That's the way a person works - he will burn other people's money. And it does not matter - the little one was given him a salary or a big one. That's it, he was hired to work. This is self-employment.

How to find a strategic investor

If you were able to raise the project to your “pocket” in your spare time, brought a startup to the market, and went cash flow, you can think about a strategic partner - to develop a business, rebuild mature business processes.



A strategic investor either knows the market to which you want to go (he can give contacts that will pull you to a new level), or he understands management (and will not make mistakes that will lead to the death of your company). And he has enough money to pull you by the ears so that you can go through the “death valley” while you are learning business.



To choose an adequate partner who does not take away a business, helps build business processes and does not ruin a project with financial injections, you need to look at those who have already successfully built a company. What you want to come to is there and look for a partner. Technological company, IT company ...



And it is important that the partner was a man-system, not a man-fire. So he taught you to do business, and not himself began to cut. A serial entrepreneur with his project start-up team that can drive a business into a management system. Take, for example, Ingvar Kamprad, who was able to build IKEA around the world just like that. He had his own launch team, which he landed on a new territory, he raised, say, a new shopping center or a network of shopping centers in the country in a super-short period of time, set up a management system and left, and the system continued to work. It is to such a person that you need to attach your startup.

What will a strategic investor teach?

A strategic investor grows a business out of a project and first learns to live for profit. As soon as a company starts living at a profit, other financing tools arise that help grow and do not harm. For example, a strategic investor can open a credit line for you without washing out your share.



An important point. If an investor takes a too large share of your company (“OK, man, you are with us, but we take 51% of ourselves or even more”), then gradually you begin to feel in this business as a hired employee. And then ... For each smart-ass investor, there will be a smart-ass start-up who will open a clone company and bring half of the orders there.

How to properly sell yourself

While you are in a bad situation and you need money, no one will give you money, because you have a bad situation - a vicious circle. And here the skill of persuasion and sale is important. You need to convince a strategic investor that you need to invest in (and time is also an investment). You can call it strong vision, adventurism, self-confidence - the investor must believe in you, in every member of your team, in the young guys he sees. An experienced person looks at the potential, studies your track-record (well, if you did a small project with an investor, showed your capabilities, your honesty, your principles), wonders what your startup will achieve when you apply its efforts. At the junction of its value and your team, it should be a business that multiplies the investor’s investments.

Where to look for an idea for a startup

Most Russian startups are looking for gold around the lantern. Move a little further - there are a huge number of scenarios and business processes that can be automated, modernized. For example, there is the Eurasian Economic Community (“EurAsEC”), which includes a number of countries (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, etc.). There are a lot of breaks in this space now - do some Internet waste accounting for labor migration for enterprises or an online exchange platform for goods exchange - and become billionaires. Look at what needs can be closed on the territory of Russia and the CIS. This is a gold mine.



Normal companies will immediately invest in the prototype of the system that EurAsEC needs. Enough cooking in a boiler of round investments with incubators and financial investors, enough to serve this industry.

Example of a startup

Redmadrobot brought a startup to the market without attracting investments. Two competencies have emerged - our technological experience and the publishing experience of Alpina Publisher. We created a joint company Alpina Digital, developed a platform for an electronic library with elements of e-lerning, to which legal content from the world's leading publishers is supplied. The project was self-sustaining in 8 months and now has a multi-million annual budget, selling hybrid books to users and corporate libraries to large companies.