Alexander Kovalsky, CreativePeople: From Design Punks to Design Evangelists
Hi, Megamind!
Today it’s time to talk about the success story of CreativePeople . I think these guys no longer need representation. These are the true design evangelists of the web with a beard and a squirrel in hand.
Someone will say that their story is banal. Students gathered, made websites for several years, and eventually became famous. But what a fame! Their work in designer collections around the world, and on the shelves in the office are awards of famous advertising festivals and competitions sites. In addition, for several years they have been members of the jury of the international competition Awwwards, and now they are judging sites on the Runet Rating.
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In general, the guys have something to brag about, but today they will not do that. Alexander Kovalsky, general and creative director of CreativePeople, honestly tells how they from the freelance cooperative became a creative agency. And along the way about your approach to business and design, about partners you shouldn’t work with, about unworthy PR and relations with Photoshop, which is still the working tool of the CEO.
Want to get an avalanche of inspiration? Then read.
PS Do you know how CreativePeople captured the Crimea? It took a little over a year and Sergey Prokofiev, commercial director, told me this story. Literally in a few days, it will appear on the Megamind. Subscribe to our blog if you do not want to miss.
“For many, if not all, CreativePeople is associated with a bearded man and a squirrel. How did you come to this? Where does this visual image come from and is it related to your story?
- The image of a bearded man appeared only after five years of work of our agency. And in the form that it is now, and even more. But still it is connected with our history, it is a tribute to the path traveled ...
In the beginning, we were really design punks. It was 2003. We were students and came off at work. It should be noted that in those years, the concept of "freelancing" in the form of a layer of free specialists, working for different customers, did not exist. There were people who officially worked during the day, and at night and on weekends they worked on additional, third-party orders. It is difficult to imagine a situation when someone then worked without a salary, waiting for incoming customers. Due to the lack of a freelancing market, in those years there was the appearance of studios named after themselves: the studio of Artemy Lebedev, the studio of Bolotov, the bureau of Pirogov. If you wanted to draw something of your own, you had to open your own studio. We were lucky with the name a little more.
As it often happens, our company appeared by chance, from an adventure. My friend worked as a technical director on a major project of the American Internet auction. The client wanted to leave this company and was looking for new developers. It was a big win, and we decided to offer him ourselves as performers. So that everything looked respectable, we rented an office, gathered a small team, equipped workplaces ... In a month it became clear that the client would not leave the old contractor, the risks were too great. We parted with my main partner, who was responsible for the technical part (he went to another company), and began to engage in design. A colleague left the project immediately, and I decided to continue.
For several years, CreativePeople resembled a freelance team rather than a business. We studied together at the same institute, ate one "Doshirak", sat in the same room and smoked Java cigarettes. I still hate the smell of a bull stewed in Lipton tea. The following tenants, who entered our office, had to burn the carpet, so it was soaked with our tears, then alcohol and cigarettes. Sometimes we could not go to a meeting with a client just because we had no money for the metro. But it was the best time.
- How many people were on your team?
- Creating a studio, I called a few people to the team. After some permutations there was a team of 4 people. The first employees appeared a couple of years later.
A few years later, the co-owner, the technical director, left us and there were three of us left: me, Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Kalyuzhny. In this structure, we are still managing the company.
Each of us (co-owners) took on any work. They called me a werewolf director: in the afternoon I was a manager, an accountant, I sold and invented, and at night I drew for our main treasure - a huge 22-inch monitor. Until 2008, I drew all the design concepts of Creative People. Probably the only thing I have not tried in this business is hardcore programming.
Almost every project was a test for us, so we constantly studied and pumped our skills. The market developed rapidly. Design education did not exist (and now it is not, to be honest). Experience gained by trial and error.
- Where did you find the first customers?
The first client appeared simply. I chose some of the most sonorous domains and wrote them by mail. Someone answered, and a day later there was a meeting.
It was necessary to sell on the fingers: when you come to a client without a site, without a portfolio, a name in the market, a team and sell, in fact, a new solution even for you. It pumped us incredibly like salespeople. But most importantly, it taught the team to adapt to the needs of the client. We did not sell what was the strongest of all, but what we are ready to understand. It was a fair exchange. The client understood the risk, but he was comfortable working with us for a low price.
- Did you even have your site was not? At least a portfolio in the form of a presentation?
- We were and remain perfectionists. We have always looked at the best abroad. For the first few years, it seemed to us that our work was not good enough to show them to everyone (it was). At the same time, we made inexpensive websites, logos and could not break into a new level of complexity in order to make more visible and expensive projects. It was a vicious circle. Perfectionism almost ruined us. We ourselves did not notice how we grew up, became qualitatively better, but still hid the portfolio in folders. Now, when each icon is laid out on Dribbble, it seems more than strange. But we worked on ourselves, and it was great.
2009 could be the last in our history, but in fact was the first year of the company that you know as CreativePeople. Restarting the site and the portfolio raised us immediately to 52nd place in Tagline, and the quality of work was enough to talk about us. The site with a bearded man and a squirrel remembered by everyone.
- What was on the site?
Only portfolio. At that time, it did not make sense to do complex cases, as only real projects, submitted to real customers and published on the web, were valued. Maximum for submission: picture, title and link.
However, more importantly, the site was remembered from the first time. A huge photorealistic illustration and animated navigation through sections - for 2008 it was unusual enough to get into dozens of collections on foreign design resources in a few months.
There were two bearded men. The first was drawn overnight. In the basement where we were sitting, an unshaven Prokofiev was placed against the wall, photographed with a piece of paper (which was supposed to cover his face) and a cigarette lighter (an accident). No point, just wanted to make an illustration. A month later, foreign traffic to the site went off scale, thousands of people still did not like it, but simply shared this link in forums and in chat rooms. We even came up with the slogan Light it up! ("They ignite").
On many foreign sites, we have emerged as the “best agency website”, “the best portfolio website” or the “best one-page”. It should be understood that it was 2008 and about 100 people knew about us in Russia, we sat in the basement and I alone drew around the clock so much that I loaded four of our programmers.
Less than a year later, we restarted the site. There was a story with a squirrel. But if I painted the first site intuitively, then in the second I applied a conscious visual move. The remake was more successful than the name, logo or slogan. Today it is an easily recognizable part of our visual image, which is as difficult to change as the name. In general, he is very similar to us - in his opinion, in his mood ... Maybe because he is not a real person, but a collage made by me from the three founders of the agency.
- 2008, the most crisis - a bad time to restart ...
- In 2009, we entered TOP99 Creative Agency Awards (Belgium), becoming the agency that started the list of the best independent creative agencies in Europe. Were placed on the first page of the book, which has circulated throughout the world.
In 2010, the authoritative publishing house Design Index included several of our works in the annual compilation of the best web sites in the world and asked for permission to place an illustration on the cover from the CreativePeople website. This book is still sold in bookstores in Europe.
But this happened later, and in the winter of 2008 - 2009, for four months, not a single ruble appeared at the box office and we gave all our money to our employees, because the most important thing is to save the team. A few months before the crisis, we parted with our partner (he was the technical director of the studio), all the programmers went with him, except for one (we are still working with him). This defined our development as a creative and design agency.
- Yes, I know, many heads of agencies mark this time as transitional for their companies. How did you overcome it?
For me, this is the time when I was tempered as an entrepreneur. Having survived for four long months, the market began to recover: clients from larger and more expensive studios began to move to us.
At that time we were about 10 people. We were visited by customers who made websites with Lebedev, DEFA, ADV. This migration allowed us to survive, close the cash gap and build the right business model. During this period, all gained experience was useful. If we did not provide the right quality for these customers, our cooperation would end as quickly as it began.
- Your brightest first projects?
- They are just related to this stage. In 2009, VTB24 applied to us, they ordered a flash-game for their three-year anniversary. More than 15,000 disks should have been scattered around the country in a month. And we did it in 4 weeks, from the idea to the packaging of discs in boxes. Although never created anything like it.
The second project was an animated social network with several games and chat for Malabar chewing gum . We made it in three months. Three months for several games, chats, animation, contests and admin panel in Python. Honestly, we would not undertake such a project today, although we have a lot of experience. But then we took on any projects and learned from them.
In general, in 2009 we created our strongest portfolio. 6 years have passed, and many of our works are relevant and are still working. For example, Paradigma advertising agency uses the site, which was created in 2009. It is technically outdated, but still looks good. Then for him we received our first award - silver at the Kiev advertising festival.
- Do you remember all your awards?
- Good question. In 2011, I was on the jury at the “White Square” festival and there I met the head of the Baltic agency. I asked how many awards they had, and the answer baffled me: "When we received our hundredth award, we stopped counting." Then I was horrified, his answer seemed very arrogant to me. And today, I also can not say the approximate number of our awards. For example, in the contest of the “Runet Rating” sites, the results of which were summed up two weeks ago, we won seven awards, but I don’t know how many now they were ... confirm these awards every year, with any team, with any customers.
Therefore, when we participate in a tender, we only talk about what we have done over the past year. This is usually enough to be competitive.
We have such companies on the market that are haunted by the ghost of the past. Once they had a success, and now they live by their previous achievements, not having real ones.
I would not want to turn into a ghost.
- CreativePeople is a creative agency. Do you specialize in creativity?
- Not really. Our specialization is quality strategies, ideas and production. That is, we and the head and hands. We create a comprehensive service. For example, we took some Western agencies that are long-distance partners for clients. For example, we work with Yota and do everything for them that concerns design in interactive. This makes it possible to merge with the client so much that you can offer some things for the future, be proactive. Such long projects can save on sales, to be more profitable.
- How many people do you have in a team that you can cover the client’s need for a complex of works?
- Now we have about 50 people. We try to keep this balance and deliberately do not inflate the state for three years now. Companies employing 50 and 100 people can have the same profit at different speeds. Our task is to be more marginal and more efficient due to streamlined business processes, quality optimization, rejection of high-risk projects.
- Do all 50 people work at CreativePeople?
- No, they are divided into several business units. We have a creative agency CreativePeople, production Pirateode, the company Western Jack, which is engaged in the creation of advertising prints. It works in a completely different market, but is also integrated into our structure.
- Are you positioning as a group of companies?
- No, this is a matter of business ethics. Piratecode and Western Jack work not only for us (we load them by no more than a third). They outsource tasks to external customers, the same web studios or advertising agencies that could potentially look like our competitors. This is a great responsibility. Therefore, Piratecode is handled by Sergei Prokofiev, and I have no idea what clients he works with and what tasks they solve. Moreover, experts working with CreativePeople and other agencies do not overlap.
- Who are the co-owners of the agency today?
Sergey Prokofiev - executive and commercial director. He controls all processes related to finance, planning, etc., and also manages our unit Piratecode.
Sergey Kalyuzhny, creative director, is responsible for the digital cluster, the vision of SMM and creativity.
I am the general director, I have operational management, strategy and everything related to design and quality. Sometimes I can draw a design concept myself and do it whenever there is such an opportunity.
- You do not have conflicts on the basis of the intersection of areas of responsibility?
- Not now. But there was a time when we all grew up as managers and started pushing with elbows. Then we found a very simple way out. We divided a piece of paper into three parts and divided who does what. This method for 4 years determined how we delegate authority to each other. We repeat this procedure every six months - a year, depending on the dynamics of growth. It works great.
- So, we come to the topic of sales in the web studio. Where do customers come to you from?
- It seems that other issues of the agency are no longer interested. Design studios, web studios, creative agencies do not think about what and how they do, but discuss in articles and at conferences, how to sell, what kind of marginality, sales funnel, conversion, etc. As if sales depend on which chain you take to the customer.
I don’t know any other way to get quality leads except to make good projects. If you made a website for a fitness club and it became the best, all fitness clubs will recognize it and come to you for the same. What works is that your projects fall into the client's collections, and not your performance at a hundred conferences.
We are experimenting with banners in ratings, working at specialized conferences. We build hypotheses, confirm or refute them. But I can say that the main thing is not the incoming call, but the formed desire of the person on the other end to work with you. Your portfolio should sell for you.
It is not the crowd who comes to the meeting, but the one who can give high-quality feedback, consider the task, immediately propose a solution. You do not need a large sales force if you need to take six good projects a month.
- How does your sales system work? It is surprising how a fairly simple mechanism for the work of the sales department can be completely different in individual companies. My experience with web studio managers proves this every time.
- I will try to fit my description in a concise, but very clear scheme.
The sales process is divided into three stages. The first is the processing of an incoming request. This is done by a separate specialist. He assesses the client and his request: how serious, adequate and falls into our specialization.
At the second stage, if the request has passed the initial filter and the primary communication, the project gets to highly qualified specialists. This may be the head of the direction, me or Sergei Prokofiev. That is, to the one who is as close as possible in terms of qualifications and will be able to give the most competent answer about the vision of the project, its cost and deadlines.
The third stage is the rationale for the meeting. The client either agrees or refuses to cooperate. Just like everyone else.
When the sale is completed, the project goes to the appropriate department of creation under the wing of the account. He accompanies the activity on this project throughout the history of communication.
The main indicator of our sales system is the minimum cost. I am smiled by the words of some representatives of our market that the four of them go to meetings with a client. Yes, this is a priceless sale. It costs a lot of money. Winning it does not help.
Most profitable to work with upsale. This is our account that is closely acquainted with the client. He understands the tasks and can offer something useful. We will not vparivat, for a long relationship it is like poison, which can kill faith in you.
- What is your project-manager busy with? Is there such a unit in your project management system?
- Of course. He is responsible for developing a single process. For example, for the client, we have many activities, one of which is an online store. PM deals with it. In this case, he can communicate directly with the client, and can communicate through an account.
- Alexander, share your personal recipe for winning tenders.
- First, the primary screening. Properly selected tender will save you time and money. Because there are initially low-quality or custom tenders.As a result, you invest only in those projects where you have the maximum chance of winning.
For example, we avoid tenders, where we need to do design for free. About two years ago we participated in 10 tenders, where we completely drew the design concept. We won only two. At the same time, our design competence is at a high level. What does this mean?The selection criterion for the contractor is reduced to a subjective assessment of the image. Now we offer a concept, a sketch, the logic of the project, because the project is a long way from the beginning of the project to the design.
Those resources that we spent on work for presale, now we can sell expensive. To earn more, you need to spend less.
Secondly, you should understand that every time you sell something specific at the tender: your approach (when you know how to solve the problem), your experience (when you have done something similar), the predicted result, the team (those people with whom the customer will have to communicate for a long time).
I consider as the most important the predicted result. This is a huge risk for the customer in the tender, and if you take it off, the cost criterion goes into the background.
- Do you use CRM?
- We use an application for Google-mail, which reflects the sales funnel. All history of communications, cooled and potential leads are stored there.
We did not need special software. The fact is that our main task - to automatically sift out poor-quality leads - is not solved by any CRM.
It all depends on the business scheme. If you have 40 programmers and you make websites for 200 thousand rubles, you need to scroll through a huge amount of monthly incoming. Almost every request will be of high quality. And we have a lead with a budget of 5 million rubles may be of poor quality due to the fact that its tasks are not within our specialization. He will eat a lot of resources and will not allow to earn.
- I will ask one more question, a very interesting community of studio managers and agencies. How do you fight with receivables?
- We don't have it. All our projects are divided into stages, after each client can leave with peace of mind (but not leave). Each stage is documented and closed by acts of reception and transmission and payment. Therefore, we have no accounts receivable in the classic sense, when you have completed the project and wait for several months to pay. We have a waiting time of a maximum of 10 days and only within a separate stage.
Sometimes we can lend to regular customers, working with postpay, but this scheme can only be a support department.
- Do you take teams to outsource?
- This is a separate story. One of the biggest disappointments of recent years is connected with outsourcing.
Three years ago, we at CreativePeople focused exclusively on design and engineering. We decided to do the most qualitatively what is strong. We tried to completely abandon our own production department. But, the market was not ready for this - everyone needed a finished product (design + assembly).
Customers did not want to share work between several customers. We attracted contractors, but the long-term relationship did not come out: after several successful projects, the contractors ceased to perceive subcontracting as a partnership model. They had ambitions that they could do similar projects themselves. We hired a designer, a project manager and started selling. Relations have deteriorated, since they put our interests at the lowest priority.
The boiling point was the situation when, by showing your portfolio at a regular meeting with a client, it became clear that contractors use cooperation with us only for self-promotion: “Why do you show us this site? There were guys in front of you, they said that you only painted it, they did the main work, ”we heard such words from the client. You can convince the client that the design - it is 1/10 of the project, a few pictures. Keeping silent about the task of the site, animation scripts, design. Often this front of work can take 4 months, whereas pure programming is 1. They did not swear. But the question with the contractors was closed.
“Doesn't the NDA rule out such situations?”
- From the very beginning, we sought to create a system in which the customer understands who he works with. We boldly said that our partners would participate in the project. Outsourcing development is effective only if the project is fast and alienable: without naming the subcontractors to the client, you quickly transfer the work, take it back and give it to the client.
It so happened that we anticipated the events and burned ourselves. Now the situation has changed. Projects have become so large and complex that the client has to increase the competence of producing and involve several teams in the project. For example, we act as designers and designers, the front-end team comes separately and the back-end pulls up. So we have been working with Yota for over a year now. There are no teams in the market that could fully pull their project. The client would have to buy the entire studio, which would deal only with them.
But all that is done, for the better. Now we have established business processes of such a partnership, and we are ready to work with the market according to their rules.
By the way, sometimes at meetings we are told that before us there were studios in the meeting room who say they do everything for us (draw and program). We know them by name and send rays of anger in their direction.
- What are you targeting, picking up people in the team? Who is involved in the selection? Do you have HR?
We never had pr-managers and headhunters. There is no work for them.
As I said, 50 people is the best state. Since 2009, we have had constant growth, we eagerly recruited people. But the specifics of the market are such that it is difficult to make money for the future. You need to be profitable at the moment, then it does not happen. We add people slowly and consciously.
Job seekers are selected by department heads. If they pass this filter, the candidates get an interview with me. I estimate how much they will join our environment, the team.
I had a case when we took an excellent sales manager, but in two months he “tired” the team so much that I had to fire him. I thought that if I left him, I would lose much more than I would get.
- Do you develop corporate culture?
- If you select the right people, they themselves form a corporate culture.
We do not have a declared mission and values - we have the excitement and desire to grow professionally. I believe that corporate culture is the atmosphere that prevails in the company. If the atmosphere is healthy, there are no contradictions, scandals, people will gladly go to work.
- And what about the pivbar at work or scooters typical of creative companies? Do I need it?
- For a while, we introduced such things into the working life of the staff, but people didn’t use them, they were busy. At the same time, they themselves regularly organize joint activities, such as alcoholics or a collective vacation trip. If people are chosen correctly, they turn into a self-regulating community, creating their own rules and emotional background.
- How do you motivate the team?
- For me, motivation consists of two aspects. The first is the emotional component that the corporate culture actually creates. And the second is professional growth. And it seems to me that this is objectively the main component of motivation.
What are we doing? We index the salary every year, but not because the employee has been working in the company for one more year. Every year we set before the specialist certain goals to which he should grow. And raise the salary in accordance with the achievement of these goals. The person understands that in order to get a big salary, you do not need to go to another company. And the market raises the bar of quality and productivity so much, it tests each of us so much that this growth is needed at least in order to keep up with the realities of the market.
By the way, there is one factor that protects us from headhunters. Our people are trained on our internal processes and in other conditions are ineffective. Employees who left us did not become even steeper in other conditions. But it was also the case that we did not manage to open up, and in another company he showed excellent results. This is normal.
- Do you have any advanced training system? How do you train newbies?
“Over the entire existence of CreativePeople, we have not found a better way to raise the level of an employee than the master and apprentice. In a creative environment, the principle of succession works best.
We send employees to external training, but, honestly, I have never heard that it turned out to be more useful than half a year of work in the thick of it. As a manager, I would gladly give money to accelerate the growth of my designer. But I do not see such stories in the market.
- And where do you yourself learn and get knowledge that helps you grow as a designer and as a manager?
- By education I am a lawyer in the specialty “Business Law”. I graduated from the Higher School of Economics, and honestly tried to hold out for all 3 years of graduate school. I didn’t have enough for my thesis, CreativePeople absorbed all my time. I like to be a designer, but objectively I am a manager, engaged in strategy, planning, profitability, products and services. This versatility has become my career choice.
Market forces to learn. But this is mostly self-education. I will not give you specific courses that will make you a specialist or an effective manager. I read an insane amount of books in an attempt to understand my own processes and come up with new ones. Constantly introducing new ideas into life, trying, measuring.
In addition, we work closely with customers and understand how their business is organized. It turns out that CreativePeople for me is an MBA. Every day, before my eyes, I have real business cases with performance indicators, comments and experience of top companies, with analysis and KPIs that they want to go to. It remains only to take this information and use for themselves in the future.
I often and often communicate with colleagues from foreign studios. In Runet Rating, we have collected a foreign jury for one of the nominations. Themselves judged in the overseas Awwwards ranking. I can say that they have a completely different business model. Now we are equal to several other foreign agencies. We have a lot to learn from Russian studios, but we are on the same level and in the same dynamics of development. Their experience does not allow to look beyond the horizon in a year or two.
While there is no place to study design in Russia. It works only their own experience, practice and looking at other people's work. For the training of designers inside CreativePeople I have made my own model, it is simple, clear and has been working for more than one year.
- The need to join an association has proven to be quite a controversial issue in our market. Tell us what associations CreativePeople is and what does it give you?
- We are a member of the Association of Interactive Agencies, AKAR and some other not-so-formal societies. We actively support Design Weekend and Re: vision.
Why do we need it? We operate in a very dynamic market. Five years ago, no one thought about what to do if the complexity of the sites in terms of technology will change so much. And in 2003, no one could have imagined that there would be such a story as Digital. Dozens of new directions are flying past - SMM, games in social networks, public. The more communications you have with other market players, the more accurately you forecast.
There are companies that left the web development market in time and started making games. They caught this trend. And someone went there last and flew. Someone managed to distribute elephants, when several key players broke through the digital theme. And there were companies that did not believe in SMM, while others grew up in SMM monsters and now serve all major brands.
- What is your attitude to ratings, of which there are a great many in Russia, in contrast to the western market?
- In fact, there are also many ratings, but they are not local, but global. Russian customers do not look there. And then the market offered a solution. The situation coincided with the very moment when our advertising market threw out an entire web development industry. "Rating Runet" picked up the fallen banner and organized a contest sites. Tagline, too, once came to the scorched earth and gave the customers what they wanted.
Ratings are an excellent phenomenon, they provide an opportunity for young agencies and studios to compete on a par with companies that have long been known in the market.
- What is your PR strategy aimed at?
- For a long time, we focused on design. We like to understand this, design is a constant part of our communication.
Now, when it seems that all agencies have switched to pumping sales departments, we remain in this area among a very small number of like-minded people. In articles, at conferences, in social networks everyone is interested only in how to make money on the client. We turned off from this PR race. Now, again, I feel that we have a new vision of design that we are ready to enter the conference with. And the market has this need.
At the awards ceremony of the Rating Runet, I spoke with many studio leaders and asked the question: “How do you control the quality of design and creativity?” The answer is no way. And we have our own system of internal audit of a creative product. There is nothing to compare it yet. This is our competitive advantage.
In addition, we have something to tell about processes, strategy, and large complex projects that are being created within the framework of annual budgets. But everyone is asking again and again only about sales :)
It was Alexander's opinion, and you have something to argue with?
By the way, if you develop websites and participate in work contests, you have a great opportunity to learn from CreativePeople managers, what criteria guides the jury of these competitions and how to get the coveted statuette. I am pleased to hear your comments. And together with Alexander Kovalsky I will answer any questions.
I am Maria Azizova, editor of the blog of business ideas Simtech Development
Today it’s time to talk about the success story of CreativePeople . I think these guys no longer need representation. These are the true design evangelists of the web with a beard and a squirrel in hand.
Someone will say that their story is banal. Students gathered, made websites for several years, and eventually became famous. But what a fame! Their work in designer collections around the world, and on the shelves in the office are awards of famous advertising festivals and competitions sites. In addition, for several years they have been members of the jury of the international competition Awwwards, and now they are judging sites on the Runet Rating.
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In general, the guys have something to brag about, but today they will not do that. Alexander Kovalsky, general and creative director of CreativePeople, honestly tells how they from the freelance cooperative became a creative agency. And along the way about your approach to business and design, about partners you shouldn’t work with, about unworthy PR and relations with Photoshop, which is still the working tool of the CEO.
Want to get an avalanche of inspiration? Then read.
PS Do you know how CreativePeople captured the Crimea? It took a little over a year and Sergey Prokofiev, commercial director, told me this story. Literally in a few days, it will appear on the Megamind. Subscribe to our blog if you do not want to miss.
Company Overview:
Positioning: interactive creative agency
Brands: YOTA, VitrA, KIA, Canon, Otkritie Bank, Econika, Amway, Bank of Moscow
Offices: Moscow, Sevastopol
Staff: 50 employees
Ratings: 11th place (“Tagline 2015”), 13th place (Ruward 2015), 1st place Creativity rating “Rating Runet 2015”.
Background: how we caught a squirrel
“For many, if not all, CreativePeople is associated with a bearded man and a squirrel. How did you come to this? Where does this visual image come from and is it related to your story?
- The image of a bearded man appeared only after five years of work of our agency. And in the form that it is now, and even more. But still it is connected with our history, it is a tribute to the path traveled ...
In the beginning, we were really design punks. It was 2003. We were students and came off at work. It should be noted that in those years, the concept of "freelancing" in the form of a layer of free specialists, working for different customers, did not exist. There were people who officially worked during the day, and at night and on weekends they worked on additional, third-party orders. It is difficult to imagine a situation when someone then worked without a salary, waiting for incoming customers. Due to the lack of a freelancing market, in those years there was the appearance of studios named after themselves: the studio of Artemy Lebedev, the studio of Bolotov, the bureau of Pirogov. If you wanted to draw something of your own, you had to open your own studio. We were lucky with the name a little more.
As it often happens, our company appeared by chance, from an adventure. My friend worked as a technical director on a major project of the American Internet auction. The client wanted to leave this company and was looking for new developers. It was a big win, and we decided to offer him ourselves as performers. So that everything looked respectable, we rented an office, gathered a small team, equipped workplaces ... In a month it became clear that the client would not leave the old contractor, the risks were too great. We parted with my main partner, who was responsible for the technical part (he went to another company), and began to engage in design. A colleague left the project immediately, and I decided to continue.
For several years, CreativePeople resembled a freelance team rather than a business. We studied together at the same institute, ate one "Doshirak", sat in the same room and smoked Java cigarettes. I still hate the smell of a bull stewed in Lipton tea. The following tenants, who entered our office, had to burn the carpet, so it was soaked with our tears, then alcohol and cigarettes. Sometimes we could not go to a meeting with a client just because we had no money for the metro. But it was the best time.
- How many people were on your team?
- Creating a studio, I called a few people to the team. After some permutations there was a team of 4 people. The first employees appeared a couple of years later.
A few years later, the co-owner, the technical director, left us and there were three of us left: me, Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Kalyuzhny. In this structure, we are still managing the company.
Each of us (co-owners) took on any work. They called me a werewolf director: in the afternoon I was a manager, an accountant, I sold and invented, and at night I drew for our main treasure - a huge 22-inch monitor. Until 2008, I drew all the design concepts of Creative People. Probably the only thing I have not tried in this business is hardcore programming.
Almost every project was a test for us, so we constantly studied and pumped our skills. The market developed rapidly. Design education did not exist (and now it is not, to be honest). Experience gained by trial and error.
- Where did you find the first customers?
The first client appeared simply. I chose some of the most sonorous domains and wrote them by mail. Someone answered, and a day later there was a meeting.
It was necessary to sell on the fingers: when you come to a client without a site, without a portfolio, a name in the market, a team and sell, in fact, a new solution even for you. It pumped us incredibly like salespeople. But most importantly, it taught the team to adapt to the needs of the client. We did not sell what was the strongest of all, but what we are ready to understand. It was a fair exchange. The client understood the risk, but he was comfortable working with us for a low price.
- Did you even have your site was not? At least a portfolio in the form of a presentation?
- We were and remain perfectionists. We have always looked at the best abroad. For the first few years, it seemed to us that our work was not good enough to show them to everyone (it was). At the same time, we made inexpensive websites, logos and could not break into a new level of complexity in order to make more visible and expensive projects. It was a vicious circle. Perfectionism almost ruined us. We ourselves did not notice how we grew up, became qualitatively better, but still hid the portfolio in folders. Now, when each icon is laid out on Dribbble, it seems more than strange. But we worked on ourselves, and it was great.
2009 could be the last in our history, but in fact was the first year of the company that you know as CreativePeople. Restarting the site and the portfolio raised us immediately to 52nd place in Tagline, and the quality of work was enough to talk about us. The site with a bearded man and a squirrel remembered by everyone.
- What was on the site?
Only portfolio. At that time, it did not make sense to do complex cases, as only real projects, submitted to real customers and published on the web, were valued. Maximum for submission: picture, title and link.
However, more importantly, the site was remembered from the first time. A huge photorealistic illustration and animated navigation through sections - for 2008 it was unusual enough to get into dozens of collections on foreign design resources in a few months.
There were two bearded men. The first was drawn overnight. In the basement where we were sitting, an unshaven Prokofiev was placed against the wall, photographed with a piece of paper (which was supposed to cover his face) and a cigarette lighter (an accident). No point, just wanted to make an illustration. A month later, foreign traffic to the site went off scale, thousands of people still did not like it, but simply shared this link in forums and in chat rooms. We even came up with the slogan Light it up! ("They ignite").
On many foreign sites, we have emerged as the “best agency website”, “the best portfolio website” or the “best one-page”. It should be understood that it was 2008 and about 100 people knew about us in Russia, we sat in the basement and I alone drew around the clock so much that I loaded four of our programmers.
Less than a year later, we restarted the site. There was a story with a squirrel. But if I painted the first site intuitively, then in the second I applied a conscious visual move. The remake was more successful than the name, logo or slogan. Today it is an easily recognizable part of our visual image, which is as difficult to change as the name. In general, he is very similar to us - in his opinion, in his mood ... Maybe because he is not a real person, but a collage made by me from the three founders of the agency.
- 2008, the most crisis - a bad time to restart ...
- In 2009, we entered TOP99 Creative Agency Awards (Belgium), becoming the agency that started the list of the best independent creative agencies in Europe. Were placed on the first page of the book, which has circulated throughout the world.
In 2010, the authoritative publishing house Design Index included several of our works in the annual compilation of the best web sites in the world and asked for permission to place an illustration on the cover from the CreativePeople website. This book is still sold in bookstores in Europe.
But this happened later, and in the winter of 2008 - 2009, for four months, not a single ruble appeared at the box office and we gave all our money to our employees, because the most important thing is to save the team. A few months before the crisis, we parted with our partner (he was the technical director of the studio), all the programmers went with him, except for one (we are still working with him). This defined our development as a creative and design agency.
- Yes, I know, many heads of agencies mark this time as transitional for their companies. How did you overcome it?
For me, this is the time when I was tempered as an entrepreneur. Having survived for four long months, the market began to recover: clients from larger and more expensive studios began to move to us.
At that time we were about 10 people. We were visited by customers who made websites with Lebedev, DEFA, ADV. This migration allowed us to survive, close the cash gap and build the right business model. During this period, all gained experience was useful. If we did not provide the right quality for these customers, our cooperation would end as quickly as it began.
- Your brightest first projects?
- They are just related to this stage. In 2009, VTB24 applied to us, they ordered a flash-game for their three-year anniversary. More than 15,000 disks should have been scattered around the country in a month. And we did it in 4 weeks, from the idea to the packaging of discs in boxes. Although never created anything like it.
The second project was an animated social network with several games and chat for Malabar chewing gum . We made it in three months. Three months for several games, chats, animation, contests and admin panel in Python. Honestly, we would not undertake such a project today, although we have a lot of experience. But then we took on any projects and learned from them.
In general, in 2009 we created our strongest portfolio. 6 years have passed, and many of our works are relevant and are still working. For example, Paradigma advertising agency uses the site, which was created in 2009. It is technically outdated, but still looks good. Then for him we received our first award - silver at the Kiev advertising festival.
- Do you remember all your awards?
- Good question. In 2011, I was on the jury at the “White Square” festival and there I met the head of the Baltic agency. I asked how many awards they had, and the answer baffled me: "When we received our hundredth award, we stopped counting." Then I was horrified, his answer seemed very arrogant to me. And today, I also can not say the approximate number of our awards. For example, in the contest of the “Runet Rating” sites, the results of which were summed up two weeks ago, we won seven awards, but I don’t know how many now they were ... confirm these awards every year, with any team, with any customers.
Therefore, when we participate in a tender, we only talk about what we have done over the past year. This is usually enough to be competitive.
We have such companies on the market that are haunted by the ghost of the past. Once they had a success, and now they live by their previous achievements, not having real ones.
I would not want to turn into a ghost.
We are not positioned as a group of companies.
- CreativePeople is a creative agency. Do you specialize in creativity?
- Not really. Our specialization is quality strategies, ideas and production. That is, we and the head and hands. We create a comprehensive service. For example, we took some Western agencies that are long-distance partners for clients. For example, we work with Yota and do everything for them that concerns design in interactive. This makes it possible to merge with the client so much that you can offer some things for the future, be proactive. Such long projects can save on sales, to be more profitable.
- How many people do you have in a team that you can cover the client’s need for a complex of works?
- Now we have about 50 people. We try to keep this balance and deliberately do not inflate the state for three years now. Companies employing 50 and 100 people can have the same profit at different speeds. Our task is to be more marginal and more efficient due to streamlined business processes, quality optimization, rejection of high-risk projects.
- Do all 50 people work at CreativePeople?
- No, they are divided into several business units. We have a creative agency CreativePeople, production Pirateode, the company Western Jack, which is engaged in the creation of advertising prints. It works in a completely different market, but is also integrated into our structure.
- Are you positioning as a group of companies?
- No, this is a matter of business ethics. Piratecode and Western Jack work not only for us (we load them by no more than a third). They outsource tasks to external customers, the same web studios or advertising agencies that could potentially look like our competitors. This is a great responsibility. Therefore, Piratecode is handled by Sergei Prokofiev, and I have no idea what clients he works with and what tasks they solve. Moreover, experts working with CreativePeople and other agencies do not overlap.
- Who are the co-owners of the agency today?
Sergey Prokofiev - executive and commercial director. He controls all processes related to finance, planning, etc., and also manages our unit Piratecode.
Sergey Kalyuzhny, creative director, is responsible for the digital cluster, the vision of SMM and creativity.
I am the general director, I have operational management, strategy and everything related to design and quality. Sometimes I can draw a design concept myself and do it whenever there is such an opportunity.
- You do not have conflicts on the basis of the intersection of areas of responsibility?
- Not now. But there was a time when we all grew up as managers and started pushing with elbows. Then we found a very simple way out. We divided a piece of paper into three parts and divided who does what. This method for 4 years determined how we delegate authority to each other. We repeat this procedure every six months - a year, depending on the dynamics of growth. It works great.
We do not have a sales department
- So, we come to the topic of sales in the web studio. Where do customers come to you from?
- It seems that other issues of the agency are no longer interested. Design studios, web studios, creative agencies do not think about what and how they do, but discuss in articles and at conferences, how to sell, what kind of marginality, sales funnel, conversion, etc. As if sales depend on which chain you take to the customer.
I don’t know any other way to get quality leads except to make good projects. If you made a website for a fitness club and it became the best, all fitness clubs will recognize it and come to you for the same. What works is that your projects fall into the client's collections, and not your performance at a hundred conferences.
We are experimenting with banners in ratings, working at specialized conferences. We build hypotheses, confirm or refute them. But I can say that the main thing is not the incoming call, but the formed desire of the person on the other end to work with you. Your portfolio should sell for you.
It is not the crowd who comes to the meeting, but the one who can give high-quality feedback, consider the task, immediately propose a solution. You do not need a large sales force if you need to take six good projects a month.
- How does your sales system work? It is surprising how a fairly simple mechanism for the work of the sales department can be completely different in individual companies. My experience with web studio managers proves this every time.
- I will try to fit my description in a concise, but very clear scheme.
The sales process is divided into three stages. The first is the processing of an incoming request. This is done by a separate specialist. He assesses the client and his request: how serious, adequate and falls into our specialization.
At the second stage, if the request has passed the initial filter and the primary communication, the project gets to highly qualified specialists. This may be the head of the direction, me or Sergei Prokofiev. That is, to the one who is as close as possible in terms of qualifications and will be able to give the most competent answer about the vision of the project, its cost and deadlines.
The third stage is the rationale for the meeting. The client either agrees or refuses to cooperate. Just like everyone else.
When the sale is completed, the project goes to the appropriate department of creation under the wing of the account. He accompanies the activity on this project throughout the history of communication.
The main indicator of our sales system is the minimum cost. I am smiled by the words of some representatives of our market that the four of them go to meetings with a client. Yes, this is a priceless sale. It costs a lot of money. Winning it does not help.
Most profitable to work with upsale. This is our account that is closely acquainted with the client. He understands the tasks and can offer something useful. We will not vparivat, for a long relationship it is like poison, which can kill faith in you.
- What is your project-manager busy with? Is there such a unit in your project management system?
- Of course. He is responsible for developing a single process. For example, for the client, we have many activities, one of which is an online store. PM deals with it. In this case, he can communicate directly with the client, and can communicate through an account.
- Alexander, share your personal recipe for winning tenders.
- First, the primary screening. Properly selected tender will save you time and money. Because there are initially low-quality or custom tenders.As a result, you invest only in those projects where you have the maximum chance of winning.
For example, we avoid tenders, where we need to do design for free. About two years ago we participated in 10 tenders, where we completely drew the design concept. We won only two. At the same time, our design competence is at a high level. What does this mean?The selection criterion for the contractor is reduced to a subjective assessment of the image. Now we offer a concept, a sketch, the logic of the project, because the project is a long way from the beginning of the project to the design.
Those resources that we spent on work for presale, now we can sell expensive. To earn more, you need to spend less.
Secondly, you should understand that every time you sell something specific at the tender: your approach (when you know how to solve the problem), your experience (when you have done something similar), the predicted result, the team (those people with whom the customer will have to communicate for a long time).
I consider as the most important the predicted result. This is a huge risk for the customer in the tender, and if you take it off, the cost criterion goes into the background.
- Do you use CRM?
- We use an application for Google-mail, which reflects the sales funnel. All history of communications, cooled and potential leads are stored there.
We did not need special software. The fact is that our main task - to automatically sift out poor-quality leads - is not solved by any CRM.
It all depends on the business scheme. If you have 40 programmers and you make websites for 200 thousand rubles, you need to scroll through a huge amount of monthly incoming. Almost every request will be of high quality. And we have a lead with a budget of 5 million rubles may be of poor quality due to the fact that its tasks are not within our specialization. He will eat a lot of resources and will not allow to earn.
- I will ask one more question, a very interesting community of studio managers and agencies. How do you fight with receivables?
- We don't have it. All our projects are divided into stages, after each client can leave with peace of mind (but not leave). Each stage is documented and closed by acts of reception and transmission and payment. Therefore, we have no accounts receivable in the classic sense, when you have completed the project and wait for several months to pay. We have a waiting time of a maximum of 10 days and only within a separate stage.
Sometimes we can lend to regular customers, working with postpay, but this scheme can only be a support department.
Work with subcontractors: the customer must understand with whom he works
- Do you take teams to outsource?
- This is a separate story. One of the biggest disappointments of recent years is connected with outsourcing.
Three years ago, we at CreativePeople focused exclusively on design and engineering. We decided to do the most qualitatively what is strong. We tried to completely abandon our own production department. But, the market was not ready for this - everyone needed a finished product (design + assembly).
Customers did not want to share work between several customers. We attracted contractors, but the long-term relationship did not come out: after several successful projects, the contractors ceased to perceive subcontracting as a partnership model. They had ambitions that they could do similar projects themselves. We hired a designer, a project manager and started selling. Relations have deteriorated, since they put our interests at the lowest priority.
The boiling point was the situation when, by showing your portfolio at a regular meeting with a client, it became clear that contractors use cooperation with us only for self-promotion: “Why do you show us this site? There were guys in front of you, they said that you only painted it, they did the main work, ”we heard such words from the client. You can convince the client that the design - it is 1/10 of the project, a few pictures. Keeping silent about the task of the site, animation scripts, design. Often this front of work can take 4 months, whereas pure programming is 1. They did not swear. But the question with the contractors was closed.
“Doesn't the NDA rule out such situations?”
- From the very beginning, we sought to create a system in which the customer understands who he works with. We boldly said that our partners would participate in the project. Outsourcing development is effective only if the project is fast and alienable: without naming the subcontractors to the client, you quickly transfer the work, take it back and give it to the client.
It so happened that we anticipated the events and burned ourselves. Now the situation has changed. Projects have become so large and complex that the client has to increase the competence of producing and involve several teams in the project. For example, we act as designers and designers, the front-end team comes separately and the back-end pulls up. So we have been working with Yota for over a year now. There are no teams in the market that could fully pull their project. The client would have to buy the entire studio, which would deal only with them.
But all that is done, for the better. Now we have established business processes of such a partnership, and we are ready to work with the market according to their rules.
By the way, sometimes at meetings we are told that before us there were studios in the meeting room who say they do everything for us (draw and program). We know them by name and send rays of anger in their direction.
The right team is a self-regulatory community.
- What are you targeting, picking up people in the team? Who is involved in the selection? Do you have HR?
We never had pr-managers and headhunters. There is no work for them.
As I said, 50 people is the best state. Since 2009, we have had constant growth, we eagerly recruited people. But the specifics of the market are such that it is difficult to make money for the future. You need to be profitable at the moment, then it does not happen. We add people slowly and consciously.
Job seekers are selected by department heads. If they pass this filter, the candidates get an interview with me. I estimate how much they will join our environment, the team.
I had a case when we took an excellent sales manager, but in two months he “tired” the team so much that I had to fire him. I thought that if I left him, I would lose much more than I would get.
- Do you develop corporate culture?
- If you select the right people, they themselves form a corporate culture.
We do not have a declared mission and values - we have the excitement and desire to grow professionally. I believe that corporate culture is the atmosphere that prevails in the company. If the atmosphere is healthy, there are no contradictions, scandals, people will gladly go to work.
- And what about the pivbar at work or scooters typical of creative companies? Do I need it?
- For a while, we introduced such things into the working life of the staff, but people didn’t use them, they were busy. At the same time, they themselves regularly organize joint activities, such as alcoholics or a collective vacation trip. If people are chosen correctly, they turn into a self-regulating community, creating their own rules and emotional background.
- How do you motivate the team?
- For me, motivation consists of two aspects. The first is the emotional component that the corporate culture actually creates. And the second is professional growth. And it seems to me that this is objectively the main component of motivation.
What are we doing? We index the salary every year, but not because the employee has been working in the company for one more year. Every year we set before the specialist certain goals to which he should grow. And raise the salary in accordance with the achievement of these goals. The person understands that in order to get a big salary, you do not need to go to another company. And the market raises the bar of quality and productivity so much, it tests each of us so much that this growth is needed at least in order to keep up with the realities of the market.
By the way, there is one factor that protects us from headhunters. Our people are trained on our internal processes and in other conditions are ineffective. Employees who left us did not become even steeper in other conditions. But it was also the case that we did not manage to open up, and in another company he showed excellent results. This is normal.
- Do you have any advanced training system? How do you train newbies?
“Over the entire existence of CreativePeople, we have not found a better way to raise the level of an employee than the master and apprentice. In a creative environment, the principle of succession works best.
We send employees to external training, but, honestly, I have never heard that it turned out to be more useful than half a year of work in the thick of it. As a manager, I would gladly give money to accelerate the growth of my designer. But I do not see such stories in the market.
- And where do you yourself learn and get knowledge that helps you grow as a designer and as a manager?
- By education I am a lawyer in the specialty “Business Law”. I graduated from the Higher School of Economics, and honestly tried to hold out for all 3 years of graduate school. I didn’t have enough for my thesis, CreativePeople absorbed all my time. I like to be a designer, but objectively I am a manager, engaged in strategy, planning, profitability, products and services. This versatility has become my career choice.
Market forces to learn. But this is mostly self-education. I will not give you specific courses that will make you a specialist or an effective manager. I read an insane amount of books in an attempt to understand my own processes and come up with new ones. Constantly introducing new ideas into life, trying, measuring.
In addition, we work closely with customers and understand how their business is organized. It turns out that CreativePeople for me is an MBA. Every day, before my eyes, I have real business cases with performance indicators, comments and experience of top companies, with analysis and KPIs that they want to go to. It remains only to take this information and use for themselves in the future.
I often and often communicate with colleagues from foreign studios. In Runet Rating, we have collected a foreign jury for one of the nominations. Themselves judged in the overseas Awwwards ranking. I can say that they have a completely different business model. Now we are equal to several other foreign agencies. We have a lot to learn from Russian studios, but we are on the same level and in the same dynamics of development. Their experience does not allow to look beyond the horizon in a year or two.
While there is no place to study design in Russia. It works only their own experience, practice and looking at other people's work. For the training of designers inside CreativePeople I have made my own model, it is simple, clear and has been working for more than one year.
Associations and ratings
- The need to join an association has proven to be quite a controversial issue in our market. Tell us what associations CreativePeople is and what does it give you?
- We are a member of the Association of Interactive Agencies, AKAR and some other not-so-formal societies. We actively support Design Weekend and Re: vision.
Why do we need it? We operate in a very dynamic market. Five years ago, no one thought about what to do if the complexity of the sites in terms of technology will change so much. And in 2003, no one could have imagined that there would be such a story as Digital. Dozens of new directions are flying past - SMM, games in social networks, public. The more communications you have with other market players, the more accurately you forecast.
There are companies that left the web development market in time and started making games. They caught this trend. And someone went there last and flew. Someone managed to distribute elephants, when several key players broke through the digital theme. And there were companies that did not believe in SMM, while others grew up in SMM monsters and now serve all major brands.
- What is your attitude to ratings, of which there are a great many in Russia, in contrast to the western market?
- In fact, there are also many ratings, but they are not local, but global. Russian customers do not look there. And then the market offered a solution. The situation coincided with the very moment when our advertising market threw out an entire web development industry. "Rating Runet" picked up the fallen banner and organized a contest sites. Tagline, too, once came to the scorched earth and gave the customers what they wanted.
Ratings are an excellent phenomenon, they provide an opportunity for young agencies and studios to compete on a par with companies that have long been known in the market.
- What is your PR strategy aimed at?
- For a long time, we focused on design. We like to understand this, design is a constant part of our communication.
Now, when it seems that all agencies have switched to pumping sales departments, we remain in this area among a very small number of like-minded people. In articles, at conferences, in social networks everyone is interested only in how to make money on the client. We turned off from this PR race. Now, again, I feel that we have a new vision of design that we are ready to enter the conference with. And the market has this need.
At the awards ceremony of the Rating Runet, I spoke with many studio leaders and asked the question: “How do you control the quality of design and creativity?” The answer is no way. And we have our own system of internal audit of a creative product. There is nothing to compare it yet. This is our competitive advantage.
In addition, we have something to tell about processes, strategy, and large complex projects that are being created within the framework of annual budgets. But everyone is asking again and again only about sales :)
It was Alexander's opinion, and you have something to argue with?
By the way, if you develop websites and participate in work contests, you have a great opportunity to learn from CreativePeople managers, what criteria guides the jury of these competitions and how to get the coveted statuette. I am pleased to hear your comments. And together with Alexander Kovalsky I will answer any questions.
I am Maria Azizova, editor of the blog of business ideas Simtech DevelopmentSource: https://habr.com/ru/post/293006/
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