Founder's advice. Victor Koch, Slinky

The Founder Boards once again acquaint Megamind’s readers with the stars of the Russian IT market, the founders and managers of their own business.



Victor Koch is the founder of Slinky.me , the largest repository of GIF files and a search engine for them. Victor managed to work in large companies, including Google and Pinterest, in order to gain experience and at one point move towards creating his own business.

Do not be lazy to talk about your product where it is appropriate.

Behind my back, the launch of more than 5 mass products and each of them developed from discussion with people. This kind of approach solves the problem that you feel the need of people for this product. Sometimes you know how ... people create empty products that no one needs, and then such entrepreneurs end up suicide or alcoholism. Talk about the product to your colleagues, friends, girl (often a girl who does not work in IT business will ask exactly the same questions as everyone else ... of course, if you have a good relationship). The main thing is to have a measure, otherwise you will tire everyone with your ideas about improving the world, and then you will be considered a rare balabola.

If you have funds, then invest them in your own development and in your own reputation.

By this I mean not getting the left crust from Vasi Pupkin, but a full development for personal understanding of things. Only when you can feel the market will you feel its importance to it. Without this understanding, in principle, you should not do anything serious at all, because The chance that something new and interesting will turn out is extremely small. On average, this kind of evolution should take at least ± 6 years, or even more, it all depends on your tenacity with desire. Money is also required, so set aside at least 2,000,000 rubles for all experiments and searches for yourself.

Make the product sexy so everyone thinks that there is a leadership spirit on this team.

At this point there are a lot of nuances and one of them comes precisely from the leader (the founder of the product), since if you are a dull "poop", then it is hardly worth risking everything (money, time and yourself) to get to the goal. Just go to work in the bank and in other places where you are waiting. As practice shows, only 1 person out of 1 million is really adapted to creating products from the zero point.

Keep your head in a mental order and be ready for blows in the groin

This item I consider the main and most important. Over the past 8 years, I have seen so much of everything that it is time to take sedative pills. I'm not joking, because went through several stages of rise and fall, which completely knocked me out of the rut in which I was. It was this terrible experience that made me move carefully (sometimes I feel like a panther) and not start my mental state.

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Again, if you are poorly adapted to stress, then you absolutely should not start a startup. The technological market is the most difficult and exceeds the industrial market in risks by 6-8 times. If you are not patient in life and simply can’t work through “I don’t want,” then the conclusion is unlikely to console you. Look at yourself from the side and ask your girlfriend / wife about how stress resistant you are in the most terrible situations. If you do not have such a rod, then I fear you will be soaked like a flea right after release. Criticism will destroy you and destroy your motivation.



Believe me, but people hate wise men, and even more so those who are trying to change their habits. Prepare for the fact that you will want to die every day and you just have to swallow it without a single deviation. You kind of lived and lived, and then once: “You are the enemy! You freak! You're a thief! You are a liar! ”Pay attention to how people react when they take their toothbrush (this is the weakest comparison). On a subconscious level, something similar is happening in people's heads.

"Who am I in the system?" Or personal deformation

Everyone knows that any work postpones the imprint, but there is no stronger influence than from the processes when you create a product that initially seems amazing to you, and then it fails with a crash. A huge number of people are discouraged and give up after the first failure. According to statistics of such entrepreneurs about 98%. I will give an example.



You put all yourselves in. You like to raise a child. You do not feel sorry for yourself. You see the future. but one day you come to understand that you were wrong. Only 1 tech company out of 10,000 lives more than a year. Awful right? Scared? If yes, then it's time to drink poison.



I can say for myself that after the first disappointment I was so depressed ... and there was no one around me who could support me. In the end, this led to the fact that I had a psychological deformation. Only by the will of fate and other factors of self-destruction, I came to what is called self-control. On this account, I read a lot of materials and learned for myself the terrible truth that severe depression in the mix with stress, disappointment, and personal defeat cuts within almost everything that is alive, so keep your finger on the pulse. The higher the rise, the more serious the fall. You can fall and break, and it will be impossible to fix the person.

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