Ready solutions # 1. Dorji Tsydenov
Away - Dorji Tsydenov
Presenter - Sergey Gorshenin
Hello friends, colleagues! The INFOSTART.RU community team prepared a surprise: today we are presenting a series of podcasts called “Ready Solutions”. As part of this program, we will invite experts from our industry to our studio who will share their secrets and professional experience. And today I am doubly pleased to introduce our guest. Many people know him under the nickname Support, many know him as the CEO of Infostart, but I know him as Dorzhi Tsydenova. Dorji, hello!
Hello, Sergey! Hello colleagues!
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Tsydenov Dorzhi Valeryevich was born in Leningrad in 1977, he studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University with a degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics, since 2000 he has been a 1C programmer, subsequently a manager of large automation projects, including the Alliance and Velikie Luki Milky Factory combine ". In 2006, he founded the INFOSTART.RU community, the general director of Infostart, lives and works in St. Petersburg.
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')
Dorji, I have a first question for you: we know that you are the founder of the company, we know that you are the CEO of Infostart, tell us about yourself and what happened before that?
I, like all the main participants in our community, started as a 1C programmer. In the last courses of the university I went to work in a franchisee company and automated a small business, I came across a retail network of pharmacies, motor transport enterprises, and construction organizations. Gradually I grew as a specialist, and this became my profession. Then I took up larger projects. The first such major project was the automation of the Alliance Leather Factory, and the last was the Velikoluksky Dairy Plant.
That is, is it possible to say that already then you had an idea for Infostart.ru ?
Infostart.ru was originally launched as a commercial project. Moving from one project to another, I have programmed, one might say, a universal set of reporting, as well as a tool for the database. And from project to project, the tool was improved, and at some point I realized that I wanted to make a lottery solution that could be sold. Then the Internet was just developing, and I realized that this is a new sales channel. This was the impetus. I have been looking for a name for a long time, looking for a free domain so that the domain name and the company match. Although the Internet was small, all pre-letter domains of popular words were already taken. Even Artemy Lebedev did not disdain it, was engaged in cybersquatting, took the domains "spoon", "plate.Ru". The two-letter domains were not yet taken, so I took information technologies - the words “Info” and “start”, because I assumed that this would be the site from which business automation begins.
We have now touched on the topic of the internet of that time. Do you remember when you first encountered the Internet?
This is a unique technology, as you know. Even fiction writers could not have imagined that such a thing would arise. And this, it turns out, was the end of the 90s. And I studied, just entered the university. My friends and I, three friends, threw off $ 100 each and bought the first computer for three, that is, he was with me one week, one week with my friend and another week with the third. And then the Internet had to go through a modem, dial up to some phone number, buy a card from the subway. Then for the first time we discovered the Internet.
Yes, it will be difficult for our children to believe this when they have three or four gadgets. And then what was Infostart devoted to, was it rather a thematic site, or a tool?
So, Infostart as a company was registered in 2004. Already 10 years ago. I had been in my desk for two years, but my product was being prepared, and I realized that my main costs of making it a lot of production are not in the actual programming, but in promoting the solution. Competent marketing - in order to bring the product to the end consumer in high quality - was expensive. It is this understanding that gave impetus to the creation of a certain community on the basis of the site Infostart.ru, in order to unite all commercial authors who will place their software products in one site, and to attract potential consumers to this site.
Did you have a team, or were you one for all?
You could say it was almost a hobby because it was the main work: automation of enterprises, only at that moment I was working on food distributors, and at the same time I had a project site where my own solutions were sold, and other solutions also started to be sold third-party developers.
Do you remember any difficulties or difficulties at the initial stage?
Hardship? I can say that there were no special difficulties. At first it was a bet on the sale of advertising, but it turned out that the audience of programmers to advertisers is not particularly interesting. In general, the industry only developed, and as such, sales via the Internet were rare. Income is not enough for normal development. For several years I was accumulating a certain potential, that is, I created a user base, a development base. And only, probably, in 2012 I was able to monetize all this.
Monetization is good, but maybe there were some other successes in six months, a year? Anything to say "yes, we have achieved some success." Perhaps a certain number of visitors or a certain figure registered on the portal.
Well, of course! When I started the project, we were happy for the first 100 visitors. When the counter grew over 100 visitors a day, we even arranged a holiday and celebrated. Then the number of visitors exceeded 1,000 people per day, and we also noted this, and then, when there were several thousand of them ...
Sorry, but 100 visitors is what? Is it registered or logged in?
Visitors throughout the day. On the day, 100 people visited the site - this was an event for us.
I am a programmer in the past, and I remember that in addition to Infostart there were a number of other similar sites. There was a forum Kuban.ru, which still lives, there was a forum of Stanislav Mitichkin "Mista.ru", there was a forum Proclub. How did Infostart differ from all these sites?
At that time, all our colleagues on the Internet mostly communicated on forums, we also provided some kind of platform on which to post files and communicate, and, moreover, in 2006 several social know-how were used, which are now considered standard facto I say that initially in 2006, when we opened, we immediately came up with a system of likes: one user could give another one a point (“+1”) for publishing it. Surprisingly, it worked.
As I recall, these were stars.
We displayed them in the form of stars or pluses. You could put +1 or –1. Maybe now this technology does not surprise anyone, but at that time it was quite difficult to get these voices, it was some kind of asset that does not repeat. A person registers on the site, places the program, someone likes it, votes for the program. How many “pluses”, so many people voted, and it is impossible to fake it.
In fact, it is a system of a certain rating, and a social one.
So far on our site there is this rating, there are TOP-100 authors. Since 2006, they accumulate these "pluses". As experience and time have shown, thanks to this system, quite interesting and unique solutions emerge.
You talked about the community before. Infostart differs from many similar portals in cohesion. As far as I remember, you even conducted club trips, chose to rest somewhere with the guys, held meetings in St. Petersburg. Can you say a few words about this?
Yes, when we started to unite all members of the community, we held meetings not only on-line, but also off-line. We went on picnics, rode a catamaran in the Gulf of Finland, even organized the first bowling championship with the name "Roll the Balls - do not automate."
This is very curious: after all, when you launched the portal as a kind of commercial product, you had to imagine an image of a potential audience. Was that image very different from the people with whom you have already met live?
My main audience is 1C programmers, like me, so we speak the same language. In general, I believe that programming is creativity, in any case, I refer programmers to the creative class, because these are people who, like painters and sculptors, create an object - a program out of nothing. No wonder that in the fourth chapter of the Civil Code, programs are equated to literary works, and it would probably be worth mentioning Lev Tolstoy, who said, "If you can not write, do not write." So a programmer, he can not write programs. He always creates, he is a creator who, like an artist or a sculptor, creates some essence.
Is it possible, on the basis of the above, to compare Infostart with a certain gallery where the results of creativity are placed?
Yes, Infostart is also at the initial stage, and now is a gallery for programmers, where they, as artists, come and exhibit their works. After launching, Infostart.ru offered users, after registering, the opportunity to place their program on the court of the community, which was claimed, everyone accepted the rules of the game and began to participate.
You just said that you can submit your development to the public at once, that is, there was no moderation?
There was no pre-moderation, there was some post-moderation. I was looking through new material, and if there really was some spam, I deleted it. But at the time there were no “trolls” or “haters”. A new platform for communication was perceived with a bang, no one especially did a hooligan, so moderation was minimal.
By the way, I have now opened the page “About the site” on the portal and here it says that InfoStart is a professional automation community. We touched on the community issue. Can you tell when the site and users have really become a community? After all, community is something more.
Yes, Infoostart was originally just a development catalog and was built on the ideology of Web 2.0: it was a fashionable name for websites that are organized according to the user content generation, that is, users fill it themselves. That is, any user could register on Infostart.ru and add their own content, which other participants are discussing. We tried to be progressive and I understood that for further communication there were not enough personal messages, groups ... The participants demanded more functionality, so when we switched to 1C-Bitrix, and 1C-Bitrix later released a special module "social network", we were the first to even the Beta version and on this Bete have completed their infostart. And when the official release of Bitrix came out, the very next day, the Infoostart functional was rolled out, and even in the first press releases of Beatrix modulo social networks, our company featured as an example. In general, Infostart has always been at the forefront of progress, even now we have launched a redesign based on an adapted site. Now not all sites have an adaptation.
Can you tell us more about this?
An adapted site is a site that is built on the principle that it looks correct on any device.
Well, that is, I will have a tablet, it will look correct, if I have a phone - it will adjust to the phone.
The same optimized for the iPhone, on a laptop - this is the third type, and on the large monitor you can make the fourth. And this is all at the same address. That is - there is no mobile version, there is no normal version. One version that adapts to any device.
Returning to the topic of differences in Infostart from other similar sites, the following question arose: there was a moment when you announced that all banned users could return to the site and continue communication there without any repressive actions. Where did these banned users come from?
At first, communication was, so to speak, intimate. We were a little, we placed the program, developed. In order to grow further, it was necessary to use other methods, that is, those who wanted to share their programs were already shared, and the situation was that the content accumulated on Infostarte was no longer appreciated, because it was free and accessible without restriction. And then I came up with a certain system that called for "sharing my own in order to get someone else's." In the end, now all the authors who are present on the site, who have created their publications, fully get access to all the accumulated knowledge. This is not the moment everyone fully understood.
I understand correctly that this was supposed to be a kind of driver for further growth?
Yes. It became a driver. Approximately as the principle of the early torrent: "distribute, to download from others." This is about the same thing, only on Infostart there is a virtual currency, and some measure: what you have shared, you can download so much from other users. This was the growth driver, but it divided the community into 2 camps: those who suddenly began to hate Infostart, and those who accepted the new rules of the game. Naturally, as history has shown, this was the right decision. Now in the Infostart catalog there are more than 30,000 reports and treatments accumulated in one way or another during this time.
I understand this is not counting the various thematic articles and threads on the forum.
It's all together. In one publication there can be several files, and there are just articles, without files. In total, about 30,000 files. And all - complete, ready-made solutions that can be downloaded to your task.
Good. Continuing the topic of innovations on the site: I remember that not so long ago you presented new sections on the site: "Jobs" and "Companies". Can you tell about them in detail? What is it, and, most importantly, what can it give to end users?
We are developing further as a community, and the question of opening a section for job search has long been raised, and we have opened 4 new sections: "Vacancies", "Resume", "Projects" and "Companies". I recently wrote in detail about this article on Infostarte, but now I’ll briefly say. “Vacancies” is a classic service of vacancies, naturally, with the specifics of searching for specialists in 1C.
That is, it is a kind of local job search site on Infostart.
Yes. Resumes that we have posted have a social rating that has been accumulated over the years. And all profiles turned into a portfolio of applicants. In the "Jobs" section there is a search for 1C specifics, that is, you can specify the platforms for which you are looking for an employee, configurations that he should know, in the "Summary" the same. Then a whole section “Projects” for freelancers, there you can leave applications for remote development, as well as tenders, contests. We are developing in different directions.
In 2006, you focused mainly on programmers, and to whom Infopostart now focuses? As I understand it, not only programmers are users of the site.
Yes, it seems that almost all 1C programmers know about Infostarte, and one way or another they are registered there. This is confirmed by the fact that we annually collect a full hall at the conference. 2 mailings are enough for 500 people from all over Russia and the CIS countries to come, and therefore we want to further popularize the accumulated knowledge base, the entire catalog, in the direction of the user. Just recently, new tariffs were launched, just targeted at users. For example, the “Accountant” tariff plan includes technical support from our side, that is, we are ready to advise on the solution found, select a solution from the catalog for the existing task, and even this is not all: Infostart is ready to help with installing and implementing this solution.
Now you mentioned that you invite 500 people to the Infostar conference. Not many even large Internet portals can boast of such a large-scale event. How did you manage to make such an event?
We actually did not plan. Previously, as I said, met offline, but these were informal meetings. I understood that people have a need for professional communication, and at some point the idea came to bring together all the industry experts. Virtual experts who are popular on the portal, bring together, and invite members. I thought, 50-100 people we will find, and this is thanks God. But when we announced the start of sales, literally one week we bought 150 tickets, and people continued to call and leave requests for us to accept them. And the room where they planned to hold the event was not designed for so many guests.
I remember that it was a whole cinema.
No, at first it was a small coworking center on Ligovsky. Then, when we realized that demand exceeds the number of seats in the hall, we quickly navigated and found a nearby establishment, it turned out to be the “Colosseum” - a concert hall on Nevsky, 100, which seats 600 people. We continued to sell, and literally over a week, we gathered another 150 participants, and then another 150. So, the first conference was gathered in a month and a half. This is from idea to implementation. That is, one and a half months we pondered the idea, got ready, two weeks later we announced the set and after a month we had 500 people.
If you translate into business terminology, the payback is very high.
500 people came from all over Russia, Ukraine, from Kazakhstan, from Kyrgyzstan.
That is to say, is it even an international conference?
Yes, I even said that at the opening remarks. By right, it can be called the first international conference.
This is an example of some very positive innovations that the community took to cheers, but were there any situations when some innovations had to be canceled due to mass discontent?
Because of mass discontent? That's when the monetization was, when they introduced the virtual currency "startmani", then I realized that the unit of exchange is money invented by humanity. Nothing more universal has yet been invented, so I invented virtual money inside my world - “startmoney”, and it was the currency with which it was used to estimate how much the file was in demand. Downloading from you means you can download the same amount from others. And then, when the internal structure of the entire catalog broke, then, of course, supporters and opponents appeared. Most accepted, but some did not want to accept.
Until now, there is a certain division, or did opponents have loyalty?
I was worried about this, but then I read the words of Guy Kawasaki - this is the evangelist and ideologue of Apple. He said that the world should be polarized, otherwise there will be no product, it’s okay that there are those who do not like this product, because on the opposite side there are those who love. And those who love your product, they will love even more, because there are haters.
In fact, without one, there would be no second.
Yes, therefore the polarization of the world is, one can say, the business task of any brand. I once read one message on the forum: “I used to visit InfoStart every day, talked on the forum, and now just to find something for work.” So he wrote to me in a reproach. And in fact, this is the best praise, because I created such a resource, which is necessary for it to work. In order to chat and read jokes, there are lots of other sites. But if the site is needed for work, you will use this service. That is, I created some value that will be used regardless of my attitude.
I can't disagree here, because one of my colleagues recently asked me, having my nickname and account, just to download some file for him, that is, a trifle, it would seem, but probably nice. In general, you, as the founder, have already passed the ten-year line of your “child” ...
... I want to note that not 10 years, but 8 more, because the official opening was in 2006. In 2004, the company was registered as a legal entity, so I still consider 2006th the date of birth of the site as a community. After 2 years there will be 10 years for the community, and we will probably be celebrating big this event. But it is too early to say, we must live.
Well, imagine that you are celebrating a decade and a young start-up startup asks you a question: “Is it difficult to create such a site or a startup like Infostart.ru?” What would you say to him?
This is a difficult question, of course, now there are other budgets. The only thing I can advise novice startups to look for the blue ocean again. Absolutely new niches that are not occupied by anyone. We are also not lagging behind, for example, we launched this series of video podcasts, take an example from us.
On the question of the blue ocean: I remember that for a long time the Beta logo was hanging on the site, now it is not there. Can we say that the site has reached its apogee?
Well, the Beta badge is such a trendy thing. There was an ideology that we never stand still, develop and never become a complete product, and always have a Beta version. It came from America.
It is, rather, the ideology of the programmer. I remember, when I was a programmer, I always had the feeling that there is something that can be changed and improved in my product.
Yes, any software product can be called Beta. The site is also a kind of software product, we also created it, it was also in Beta state. A fashion has passed - we have removed this badge, but still we continue to constantly evolve, do not stand still. Almost every week we release a new feature to improve the functionality, the type of site, recently, for example, we made a mobile video section. I just recently launched not just a newsletter, but a blog where I’ll share the news.
So this is a kind of personal blog?
I write something all the time: either articles on the site, then posts on social networks, then I talk about innovations in newsletters. But all this is rather fragmented, and I thought that I need to create one channel through which I will communicate with my users. Well, and since I am the first person of the company, I will personally, on my own behalf, tell everyone about what appeared new and on my own behalf to write the details: why it was done, how it was done, why.
And, perhaps, perhaps, the last question for today - can you remember two or three moments when someone told you words of gratitude - precisely thanks - for creating Infostart?
In general, you rarely hear gratitude, but ... No, why? Was. Infostart actually changed quite a few destinies, because at one of the last conferences my colleague approached me and thanked him warmly, saying that thanks to Infostart he developed, found a niche for his commercial product, left the company, engaged in selling his commercial product, He created his own company, hired employees already and now came to our conference to learn how to manage them.
That is, in fact - he found his blue ocean.
In principle, any commercial development that exists on Infostarta is a small niche, many small niches in which the authors of these solutions find their realization. Again - any software product can be improved, because there is no limit to perfection. For example, on the site there is such a product, called the "Alcohol Declaration", taking into account all changes in the legislation with alcohol. The author released this product one of the first and very successfully occupied this niche. And really: it is almost a large software package that solves all the problems associated with the alcohol declaration: unloading, loading, reporting, automatic updating, etc. Just need to find this niche. Each development on the site is a small startup.
Today the guest of the studio was Dorji Tsydenov - the founder of the company “Infostart”. With you there was a program "Ready-made solutions" and I, Sergey Gorshenin. The end of the procedure.
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You can watch and listen to us here:
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Presenter - Sergey Gorshenin
Hello friends, colleagues! The INFOSTART.RU community team prepared a surprise: today we are presenting a series of podcasts called “Ready Solutions”. As part of this program, we will invite experts from our industry to our studio who will share their secrets and professional experience. And today I am doubly pleased to introduce our guest. Many people know him under the nickname Support, many know him as the CEO of Infostart, but I know him as Dorzhi Tsydenova. Dorji, hello!
Hello, Sergey! Hello colleagues!
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Chronological reference
Tsydenov Dorzhi Valeryevich was born in Leningrad in 1977, he studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University with a degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics, since 2000 he has been a 1C programmer, subsequently a manager of large automation projects, including the Alliance and Velikie Luki Milky Factory combine ". In 2006, he founded the INFOSTART.RU community, the general director of Infostart, lives and works in St. Petersburg.
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Preparing to start
Dorji, I have a first question for you: we know that you are the founder of the company, we know that you are the CEO of Infostart, tell us about yourself and what happened before that?
I, like all the main participants in our community, started as a 1C programmer. In the last courses of the university I went to work in a franchisee company and automated a small business, I came across a retail network of pharmacies, motor transport enterprises, and construction organizations. Gradually I grew as a specialist, and this became my profession. Then I took up larger projects. The first such major project was the automation of the Alliance Leather Factory, and the last was the Velikoluksky Dairy Plant.
That is, is it possible to say that already then you had an idea for Infostart.ru ?
Infostart.ru was originally launched as a commercial project. Moving from one project to another, I have programmed, one might say, a universal set of reporting, as well as a tool for the database. And from project to project, the tool was improved, and at some point I realized that I wanted to make a lottery solution that could be sold. Then the Internet was just developing, and I realized that this is a new sales channel. This was the impetus. I have been looking for a name for a long time, looking for a free domain so that the domain name and the company match. Although the Internet was small, all pre-letter domains of popular words were already taken. Even Artemy Lebedev did not disdain it, was engaged in cybersquatting, took the domains "spoon", "plate.Ru". The two-letter domains were not yet taken, so I took information technologies - the words “Info” and “start”, because I assumed that this would be the site from which business automation begins.
About the appearance of the Internet in Russia
We have now touched on the topic of the internet of that time. Do you remember when you first encountered the Internet?
This is a unique technology, as you know. Even fiction writers could not have imagined that such a thing would arise. And this, it turns out, was the end of the 90s. And I studied, just entered the university. My friends and I, three friends, threw off $ 100 each and bought the first computer for three, that is, he was with me one week, one week with my friend and another week with the third. And then the Internet had to go through a modem, dial up to some phone number, buy a card from the subway. Then for the first time we discovered the Internet.
Yes, it will be difficult for our children to believe this when they have three or four gadgets. And then what was Infostart devoted to, was it rather a thematic site, or a tool?
So, Infostart as a company was registered in 2004. Already 10 years ago. I had been in my desk for two years, but my product was being prepared, and I realized that my main costs of making it a lot of production are not in the actual programming, but in promoting the solution. Competent marketing - in order to bring the product to the end consumer in high quality - was expensive. It is this understanding that gave impetus to the creation of a certain community on the basis of the site Infostart.ru, in order to unite all commercial authors who will place their software products in one site, and to attract potential consumers to this site.
“MAJOR COSTS NOT IN PROGRAMMING, BUT IN PROMOTION”
Did you have a team, or were you one for all?
You could say it was almost a hobby because it was the main work: automation of enterprises, only at that moment I was working on food distributors, and at the same time I had a project site where my own solutions were sold, and other solutions also started to be sold third-party developers.
Do you remember any difficulties or difficulties at the initial stage?
Hardship? I can say that there were no special difficulties. At first it was a bet on the sale of advertising, but it turned out that the audience of programmers to advertisers is not particularly interesting. In general, the industry only developed, and as such, sales via the Internet were rare. Income is not enough for normal development. For several years I was accumulating a certain potential, that is, I created a user base, a development base. And only, probably, in 2012 I was able to monetize all this.
About the first successes
Monetization is good, but maybe there were some other successes in six months, a year? Anything to say "yes, we have achieved some success." Perhaps a certain number of visitors or a certain figure registered on the portal.
Well, of course! When I started the project, we were happy for the first 100 visitors. When the counter grew over 100 visitors a day, we even arranged a holiday and celebrated. Then the number of visitors exceeded 1,000 people per day, and we also noted this, and then, when there were several thousand of them ...
Sorry, but 100 visitors is what? Is it registered or logged in?
Visitors throughout the day. On the day, 100 people visited the site - this was an event for us.
I am a programmer in the past, and I remember that in addition to Infostart there were a number of other similar sites. There was a forum Kuban.ru, which still lives, there was a forum of Stanislav Mitichkin "Mista.ru", there was a forum Proclub. How did Infostart differ from all these sites?
At that time, all our colleagues on the Internet mostly communicated on forums, we also provided some kind of platform on which to post files and communicate, and, moreover, in 2006 several social know-how were used, which are now considered standard facto I say that initially in 2006, when we opened, we immediately came up with a system of likes: one user could give another one a point (“+1”) for publishing it. Surprisingly, it worked.
As I recall, these were stars.
We displayed them in the form of stars or pluses. You could put +1 or –1. Maybe now this technology does not surprise anyone, but at that time it was quite difficult to get these voices, it was some kind of asset that does not repeat. A person registers on the site, places the program, someone likes it, votes for the program. How many “pluses”, so many people voted, and it is impossible to fake it.
In fact, it is a system of a certain rating, and a social one.
So far on our site there is this rating, there are TOP-100 authors. Since 2006, they accumulate these "pluses". As experience and time have shown, thanks to this system, quite interesting and unique solutions emerge.
About community cohesion
You talked about the community before. Infostart differs from many similar portals in cohesion. As far as I remember, you even conducted club trips, chose to rest somewhere with the guys, held meetings in St. Petersburg. Can you say a few words about this?
Yes, when we started to unite all members of the community, we held meetings not only on-line, but also off-line. We went on picnics, rode a catamaran in the Gulf of Finland, even organized the first bowling championship with the name "Roll the Balls - do not automate."
This is very curious: after all, when you launched the portal as a kind of commercial product, you had to imagine an image of a potential audience. Was that image very different from the people with whom you have already met live?
My main audience is 1C programmers, like me, so we speak the same language. In general, I believe that programming is creativity, in any case, I refer programmers to the creative class, because these are people who, like painters and sculptors, create an object - a program out of nothing. No wonder that in the fourth chapter of the Civil Code, programs are equated to literary works, and it would probably be worth mentioning Lev Tolstoy, who said, "If you can not write, do not write." So a programmer, he can not write programs. He always creates, he is a creator who, like an artist or a sculptor, creates some essence.
“PROGRAMMING IS CREATIVITY”
Is it possible, on the basis of the above, to compare Infostart with a certain gallery where the results of creativity are placed?
Yes, Infostart is also at the initial stage, and now is a gallery for programmers, where they, as artists, come and exhibit their works. After launching, Infostart.ru offered users, after registering, the opportunity to place their program on the court of the community, which was claimed, everyone accepted the rules of the game and began to participate.
About moderation and the "Court of the Public"
You just said that you can submit your development to the public at once, that is, there was no moderation?
There was no pre-moderation, there was some post-moderation. I was looking through new material, and if there really was some spam, I deleted it. But at the time there were no “trolls” or “haters”. A new platform for communication was perceived with a bang, no one especially did a hooligan, so moderation was minimal.
From Web 2.0 to the cutting edge
By the way, I have now opened the page “About the site” on the portal and here it says that InfoStart is a professional automation community. We touched on the community issue. Can you tell when the site and users have really become a community? After all, community is something more.
Yes, Infoostart was originally just a development catalog and was built on the ideology of Web 2.0: it was a fashionable name for websites that are organized according to the user content generation, that is, users fill it themselves. That is, any user could register on Infostart.ru and add their own content, which other participants are discussing. We tried to be progressive and I understood that for further communication there were not enough personal messages, groups ... The participants demanded more functionality, so when we switched to 1C-Bitrix, and 1C-Bitrix later released a special module "social network", we were the first to even the Beta version and on this Bete have completed their infostart. And when the official release of Bitrix came out, the very next day, the Infoostart functional was rolled out, and even in the first press releases of Beatrix modulo social networks, our company featured as an example. In general, Infostart has always been at the forefront of progress, even now we have launched a redesign based on an adapted site. Now not all sites have an adaptation.
Can you tell us more about this?
An adapted site is a site that is built on the principle that it looks correct on any device.
Well, that is, I will have a tablet, it will look correct, if I have a phone - it will adjust to the phone.
The same optimized for the iPhone, on a laptop - this is the third type, and on the large monitor you can make the fourth. And this is all at the same address. That is - there is no mobile version, there is no normal version. One version that adapts to any device.
About baggage knowledge
Returning to the topic of differences in Infostart from other similar sites, the following question arose: there was a moment when you announced that all banned users could return to the site and continue communication there without any repressive actions. Where did these banned users come from?
At first, communication was, so to speak, intimate. We were a little, we placed the program, developed. In order to grow further, it was necessary to use other methods, that is, those who wanted to share their programs were already shared, and the situation was that the content accumulated on Infostarte was no longer appreciated, because it was free and accessible without restriction. And then I came up with a certain system that called for "sharing my own in order to get someone else's." In the end, now all the authors who are present on the site, who have created their publications, fully get access to all the accumulated knowledge. This is not the moment everyone fully understood.
“SHARE YOURSELF TO GET ANYTHING”
I understand correctly that this was supposed to be a kind of driver for further growth?
Yes. It became a driver. Approximately as the principle of the early torrent: "distribute, to download from others." This is about the same thing, only on Infostart there is a virtual currency, and some measure: what you have shared, you can download so much from other users. This was the growth driver, but it divided the community into 2 camps: those who suddenly began to hate Infostart, and those who accepted the new rules of the game. Naturally, as history has shown, this was the right decision. Now in the Infostart catalog there are more than 30,000 reports and treatments accumulated in one way or another during this time.
I understand this is not counting the various thematic articles and threads on the forum.
It's all together. In one publication there can be several files, and there are just articles, without files. In total, about 30,000 files. And all - complete, ready-made solutions that can be downloaded to your task.
About new services INFOSTART.RU
Good. Continuing the topic of innovations on the site: I remember that not so long ago you presented new sections on the site: "Jobs" and "Companies". Can you tell about them in detail? What is it, and, most importantly, what can it give to end users?
We are developing further as a community, and the question of opening a section for job search has long been raised, and we have opened 4 new sections: "Vacancies", "Resume", "Projects" and "Companies". I recently wrote in detail about this article on Infostarte, but now I’ll briefly say. “Vacancies” is a classic service of vacancies, naturally, with the specifics of searching for specialists in 1C.
That is, it is a kind of local job search site on Infostart.
Yes. Resumes that we have posted have a social rating that has been accumulated over the years. And all profiles turned into a portfolio of applicants. In the "Jobs" section there is a search for 1C specifics, that is, you can specify the platforms for which you are looking for an employee, configurations that he should know, in the "Summary" the same. Then a whole section “Projects” for freelancers, there you can leave applications for remote development, as well as tenders, contests. We are developing in different directions.
In 2006, you focused mainly on programmers, and to whom Infopostart now focuses? As I understand it, not only programmers are users of the site.
Yes, it seems that almost all 1C programmers know about Infostarte, and one way or another they are registered there. This is confirmed by the fact that we annually collect a full hall at the conference. 2 mailings are enough for 500 people from all over Russia and the CIS countries to come, and therefore we want to further popularize the accumulated knowledge base, the entire catalog, in the direction of the user. Just recently, new tariffs were launched, just targeted at users. For example, the “Accountant” tariff plan includes technical support from our side, that is, we are ready to advise on the solution found, select a solution from the catalog for the existing task, and even this is not all: Infostart is ready to help with installing and implementing this solution.
About INFOSTART EVENT conference: how to gather 500 people in 2 months
Now you mentioned that you invite 500 people to the Infostar conference. Not many even large Internet portals can boast of such a large-scale event. How did you manage to make such an event?
We actually did not plan. Previously, as I said, met offline, but these were informal meetings. I understood that people have a need for professional communication, and at some point the idea came to bring together all the industry experts. Virtual experts who are popular on the portal, bring together, and invite members. I thought, 50-100 people we will find, and this is thanks God. But when we announced the start of sales, literally one week we bought 150 tickets, and people continued to call and leave requests for us to accept them. And the room where they planned to hold the event was not designed for so many guests.
I remember that it was a whole cinema.
No, at first it was a small coworking center on Ligovsky. Then, when we realized that demand exceeds the number of seats in the hall, we quickly navigated and found a nearby establishment, it turned out to be the “Colosseum” - a concert hall on Nevsky, 100, which seats 600 people. We continued to sell, and literally over a week, we gathered another 150 participants, and then another 150. So, the first conference was gathered in a month and a half. This is from idea to implementation. That is, one and a half months we pondered the idea, got ready, two weeks later we announced the set and after a month we had 500 people.
If you translate into business terminology, the payback is very high.
500 people came from all over Russia, Ukraine, from Kazakhstan, from Kyrgyzstan.
That is to say, is it even an international conference?
Yes, I even said that at the opening remarks. By right, it can be called the first international conference.
About discontent and haters
This is an example of some very positive innovations that the community took to cheers, but were there any situations when some innovations had to be canceled due to mass discontent?
Because of mass discontent? That's when the monetization was, when they introduced the virtual currency "startmani", then I realized that the unit of exchange is money invented by humanity. Nothing more universal has yet been invented, so I invented virtual money inside my world - “startmoney”, and it was the currency with which it was used to estimate how much the file was in demand. Downloading from you means you can download the same amount from others. And then, when the internal structure of the entire catalog broke, then, of course, supporters and opponents appeared. Most accepted, but some did not want to accept.
“UNIVERSAL UNIT OF EXCHANGE - MONEY”
Until now, there is a certain division, or did opponents have loyalty?
I was worried about this, but then I read the words of Guy Kawasaki - this is the evangelist and ideologue of Apple. He said that the world should be polarized, otherwise there will be no product, it’s okay that there are those who do not like this product, because on the opposite side there are those who love. And those who love your product, they will love even more, because there are haters.
"POLARIZATION OF THE WORLD - BUSINESS PROBLEM OF ANY BRAND"
In fact, without one, there would be no second.
Yes, therefore the polarization of the world is, one can say, the business task of any brand. I once read one message on the forum: “I used to visit InfoStart every day, talked on the forum, and now just to find something for work.” So he wrote to me in a reproach. And in fact, this is the best praise, because I created such a resource, which is necessary for it to work. In order to chat and read jokes, there are lots of other sites. But if the site is needed for work, you will use this service. That is, I created some value that will be used regardless of my attitude.
About the "blue oceans"
I can't disagree here, because one of my colleagues recently asked me, having my nickname and account, just to download some file for him, that is, a trifle, it would seem, but probably nice. In general, you, as the founder, have already passed the ten-year line of your “child” ...
... I want to note that not 10 years, but 8 more, because the official opening was in 2006. In 2004, the company was registered as a legal entity, so I still consider 2006th the date of birth of the site as a community. After 2 years there will be 10 years for the community, and we will probably be celebrating big this event. But it is too early to say, we must live.
Well, imagine that you are celebrating a decade and a young start-up startup asks you a question: “Is it difficult to create such a site or a startup like Infostart.ru?” What would you say to him?
This is a difficult question, of course, now there are other budgets. The only thing I can advise novice startups to look for the blue ocean again. Absolutely new niches that are not occupied by anyone. We are also not lagging behind, for example, we launched this series of video podcasts, take an example from us.
“LOOK FOR YOUR BLUE OCEAN”
On the question of the blue ocean: I remember that for a long time the Beta logo was hanging on the site, now it is not there. Can we say that the site has reached its apogee?
Well, the Beta badge is such a trendy thing. There was an ideology that we never stand still, develop and never become a complete product, and always have a Beta version. It came from America.
It is, rather, the ideology of the programmer. I remember, when I was a programmer, I always had the feeling that there is something that can be changed and improved in my product.
Yes, any software product can be called Beta. The site is also a kind of software product, we also created it, it was also in Beta state. A fashion has passed - we have removed this badge, but still we continue to constantly evolve, do not stand still. Almost every week we release a new feature to improve the functionality, the type of site, recently, for example, we made a mobile video section. I just recently launched not just a newsletter, but a blog where I’ll share the news.
About personal blog
So this is a kind of personal blog?
I write something all the time: either articles on the site, then posts on social networks, then I talk about innovations in newsletters. But all this is rather fragmented, and I thought that I need to create one channel through which I will communicate with my users. Well, and since I am the first person of the company, I will personally, on my own behalf, tell everyone about what appeared new and on my own behalf to write the details: why it was done, how it was done, why.
About thanks
And, perhaps, perhaps, the last question for today - can you remember two or three moments when someone told you words of gratitude - precisely thanks - for creating Infostart?
In general, you rarely hear gratitude, but ... No, why? Was. Infostart actually changed quite a few destinies, because at one of the last conferences my colleague approached me and thanked him warmly, saying that thanks to Infostart he developed, found a niche for his commercial product, left the company, engaged in selling his commercial product, He created his own company, hired employees already and now came to our conference to learn how to manage them.
That is, in fact - he found his blue ocean.
In principle, any commercial development that exists on Infostarta is a small niche, many small niches in which the authors of these solutions find their realization. Again - any software product can be improved, because there is no limit to perfection. For example, on the site there is such a product, called the "Alcohol Declaration", taking into account all changes in the legislation with alcohol. The author released this product one of the first and very successfully occupied this niche. And really: it is almost a large software package that solves all the problems associated with the alcohol declaration: unloading, loading, reporting, automatic updating, etc. Just need to find this niche. Each development on the site is a small startup.
“EACH DEVELOPMENT ON THE SITE IS A SMALL STARTUP”
Today the guest of the studio was Dorji Tsydenov - the founder of the company “Infostart”. With you there was a program "Ready-made solutions" and I, Sergey Gorshenin. The end of the procedure.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289584/
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