Sergey Fage, CEO of Ostrovok.ru, about chaos, morning marathons and corporate culture

Today we invite you to read an interview with the CEO of one of the leading Russian startups. Sergey Fage, co-founder of Ostrovok.ru, told us his story, gave advice to budding entrepreneurs and explained why he is not like everyone else.

// About education and first experience

I studied in England and in America. In England - at the School, in America - at the university: at Cornell (ed. Cornell University), and then at the business school at Stanford. Very early and rather accidentally became interested in Internet business. Even when I was 14 years old, it seems. Since then, this has been cooking for a long, long time. When I studied at a business school, I founded the company TokBox, which was eventually bought by a large mobile operator Telefonica. This was my first great experience. For some reason, history is silent about the fact that before that there were a lot of attempts to start something, which fell at a stage that can not even be called shameful, because nothing was done at all.

I was then 20 years old and this was my first management experience. There were a lot of mistakes in it, including basic ones: my co-founder and I constantly argued and once even fought in front of all the employees.

// About "why Russia"

After I finished with my previous company in the USA, it was interesting to either stay and do something there, or go to Russia. I was attracted to Russia: an open developing market, where there is little competition, many talented developers, and, of course, adventures - I was interested.
By the time I came here, I already had some experience, in fact, it was not so big: in my previous company there was a maximum of 10-15 people. Now 100-150 people work in Ostrovka, I sometimes even forget how much.

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// What the story is silent about

There were a lot of mistakes. We can say about my previous company: when we started it, we had ambitions to build something global. At that moment, Skype became quite successful - the company that created the telecommunications product, which costs tens of billions of dollars. When we did TokBox, we tried to build a large-scale product, but in fact we did not succeed.

I am not like everyone else, because I believe that in life you can only do one thing well. One.

I was then 20 years old and this was my first management experience. There were a lot of mistakes in it, including basic ones: my co-founder and I constantly argued and once even fought in front of all the employees. When you are an employee of the company, and its founders are fighting in front of you, to put it mildly, it does not inspire positive and trust.

History is always silent about the fact that people did not succeed. In most cases, people tried a lot of things before they did something. And one of the things that I don’t like in our open world of social networks is that everyone represents only the positive side of their own history and personality. And often this provokes other people's thoughts from the category “Damn what a loser I am! And here at the person on all photos everything is cool! ”. Everyone has this feeling. I sometimes open some Instagram and think why everyone is having fun all the time, and I haven’t done anything like that for a long time. It should be understood that people are always trying to present themselves with a positive side, but in fact everything is more complicated than it seems.

// About my work day

I wake up around 5:30 am, going to one of five favorite cafes in Moscow. I work there from six to eleven in the morning. Then I finish the work I have planned for myself, plus I get tired of sitting alone and I go to the office.

We do not tolerate a relationship: "does not work, well, I went." We just do not want to work with such people. We want a person to have a sick soul for what he does.

I hold several meetings in the office. Once a week, for example, I meet with a senior project manager to discuss what priorities he has now, what difficulties he faces and how I can help him.
Then I have dinner, then I sleep half an hour or meditate, because otherwise I stop functioning normally. Then I continue to work for a couple of hours, after doing sports. We have a gym in our office. I run or train with a coach. And by 10 I try to go to bed already.
By the way, you asked me about the working day, and I am telling you about things like sports / food / sleep and so on. For me there is no working or non-working day. I believe that dividing life into work / non-work is wrong. Because non-working life, that is, how you eat or sleep, obviously increases or decreases your working capacity. There is no such separation in the modern world, especially if you like what you are doing. And I like what I do.

// About not like all

I am not like everyone else, because I believe that in life you can only do one thing well. One. And even if you make only two, then you will do one of them mediocre relative to the person who is engaged in only one. In my life I choose to practice practically only the Island, I think that this is understandable from my working day. By the way, this schedule applies to weekends. I like it, and I don't want to do anything else.

But I am constantly confronted with the fact that I try to apply this same standard to other people and get angry when someone is not ready to go for it. And at such moments, I understand that in some respects I am irrational - you cannot demand this from other people. But on the other hand, we have a lot of people in our company who are ready to give all the best.

People are no longer motivated by money. People are motivated by the opportunity to do something meaningful, to develop within it.

And here we turn to the question of the culture of the company, which, it seems to me, is largely built up by its leaders and how they behave. Not by what they say, but by how they actually behave. Those who are exclusively committed to their work come and become successful in the Islet. If a person has some idea that he does not want to do something, because it is a weekend, then he does not take root. If you love your job and you are interested, there is no division for you. Weekends are just the day when you don’t come to the office, but you still think that you are interested.
It is impossible to simulate. To pretend all the time that you like something when you are really bored - this is wrong. We love and attract those people who are committed to their work on the verge of abnormality. This is one of the key points.

// About corporate culture

“About the result” - we don’t waste time on paper, filling out memos and other nonsense. Thanks a lot to the accounting team and lawyers who are trying to protect everyone else from the harsh realities of Russian reality.
“About the result” - it makes no difference to me, when a person works, it is important for me that he did it, and if he didn’t succeed, then his soul ached for it. And he went and actively tried to do better. We do not tolerate a relationship: "does not work, well, I went." We just do not want to work with such people. We want a person to have a sick soul for what he does.
"About the data" - we have a strong focus on information within the company, almost everywhere. We have a huge number of monitors around the office, they are usually statistical and analytical data. About sales, about expenses, about customers, about complaints. In the kitchen there is a monitor, from which a large piece is allocated to customer complaints. We want everyone to see that because we didn’t finish something, the client had a bad experience with us. We want everyone to see that the eye is burning, because then people will want to fix it.

// About motivation

People are no longer motivated by money. People are motivated by the opportunity to do something meaningful, to develop within it. There is a video of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (TED) - people need autonomy, they need to develop, they need a goal. We try to give people the opportunity to improve the product: if something is wrong, then people bring information, and we try to fix everything quickly. This does not always work: there are often other priorities, and sometimes the problem is complicated. But we in every possible way among employees encourage.

One of the tips for starting a career is not to focus on how much money you will earn by cash tomorrow. It is important that there will be in 10-15 years.

// About scale

I believe that in almost any business, if you try hard and long, you can beat industry leaders. And from time to time people prove it. One of my favorite companies, Xiaomi, defeated Apple in China over several years. They produce smartphones, and now Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone maker in the world, despite the fact that they started from scratch 4-5 years ago. I truly believe that by concentrating on one industry with the right people for a long time, you can do better than anyone else. Full examples: Tesla, Google, Xiaomi.
Choosing what to do, choose something big. For example, the hotel industry: people spend on hotels 500 billion dollars a year. This is a very large amount, 5-10% of the global economy falls on the tourism sector. In a developed industry, it is easier to build something big. It is better to travel when the wind blows you in the sails, on a big wave.

// About tips

One of the tips for starting a career is not to focus on how much money you will earn by cash tomorrow. It is important that there will be in 10-15 years.
I would say that it is better to become a professional in what you love. We must try different things. Most companies are now becoming more and more complex. What I mean? The entire global economy is built on the fact that companies perform fairly specialized functions in the structure of partnerships. For some, it will be a surprise, but Apple does not produce the iPhone, it does not even collect them. She designs them, produces specifications. There is a company in China, so she collects them. They have thousands of contractors who assemble individual components, there are those who hold only glass for the iPhone

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At a university like Stanford, there are billionaires spinning around you, Zuckerberg, Gates. You obviously: I can too. They are here. They are not from magazine covers. They are ordinary people.

The global economy is super-specialized, and as a result, specialists are very valuable. I think everyone needs to try to be a specialist. At the same time it is also important to have a certain outlook. If you are a super specialist, but you do not know anything at all outside your sphere, then this will make work in your sphere of lower quality. Because, let's say, if you know the statistics perfectly, but you don’t know anything about psychology, you may not be able to interpret the results of your analysis. Analyzed the behavior of people and trying to understand why this is so. But you can not.

// How to find yourself

Most of my friends, even at 30, do not necessarily know what exactly they want to do in life. I was lucky, I understood it at an early age and was not mistaken. It seems to me that this is a difficult question. I would recommend to allocate time for a regular retrospective. Suppose you can write down for yourself on paper, at what points you were good and what were bad and try to isolate what led to this. Did you communicate with people at this moment? If you talked and you liked it - this is a hint. If you thought at that time too. I am happier when I think, than when I communicate with people. I am an introvert.

I would not say that success is something tangible. Success is when you are the coolest person in something. And what - this is your choice.

You need to understand what might be interesting to you. And then communicate with people in the area that becomes potentially interesting to you. If you surround yourself with specialists in a certain area, then they pull you up. If you surround yourself with people of your level, then this is, of course, pleasant for you, but it pulls you down.
At a university like Stanford, there are billionaires spinning around you, Zuckerberg, Gates. You obviously: I can too. They are here. They are not from magazine covers. They are ordinary people. Not ordinary really, but they are understandable. This increases your ambition and confidence. The key to this is to communicate with talented people in an area that interests you. The internet makes it easy.

// About success

I would not say that success is something tangible. Success is when you are the coolest person in something. And what - this is your choice. This is the goal you set. Success is when you have a realized talent for something. It could be anything. A certain type of design, policy direction, organizational management — anything. It may even be something bad. Success is when something happens at a level where almost no one can do it. This is my personal understanding of success.

Hooray to all who read to the end! We hope you were interested. And now you can read the story from the life of Boomstarter CEO Ruslan Tugushev.