Founder's advice. Sergey Gribnyak, Singree

“Founder Councils” once again acquaint Megamind’s readers with IT market stars, founders and managers of their own business.

Sergey greebn9k Gribnyak come from Odessa. Organized his company Singree in 2009. Before that he worked in several digital companies, and the business began as a simple freelancer.

Now the company has 2 offices in Odessa and New York. Main activities: SEO and PPC promotion, website development and mobile applications. PHP programming, Node.js.
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Sergiy entitled his publication as follows: “What I learned in the process of bringing the Ukrainian web studio to the US market”.

Mistakes of our experts about the US market

It’s probably worth starting with debunking some of the myths that our experts have about the American one. Here are the most typical ones:

We are cheap
Undoubtedly, we are cheaper than local specialists. But we must remember, Hindus, Chinese, Pakistanis and many others take much less for their work. They have both disadvantages and clear advantages over us.

We're the best
This is also not the case. Objectively, when you look at American sites from Ukraine, it seems that "they do not know how there, but we are really doing cool - we will come, we will be torn off with our hands." This is not true. To be honest, 95% of Ukrainian companies are not ready to work with a direct client; 80% are not ready to work, even with the help of American intermediaries.

Example 1:
The application is being configured on ASP.NET for a very large American company (in a dozen advertising companies in the country). They have an outsource team in Ukraine. The level of payment of performers is more than worthy.

Situation: the application is poured on production and something naturally does not work. And it begins: “Turn on this service, turn off this service, turn on this one”, etc.

Often it was necessary to explain that “there was an image of the server, there was time for testing, there was a testing protocol, you cannot do this in production. People go there. ”And if it were a large Ukrainian online store (Rosette, Hallo or a company like Foxtrot), then people would understand that this should not be so. And when this is some kind of far, overseas company, then it has to be explained.

Example 2:
Another situation. Promoted resource. Works Odessa team. The customer refers to them that they call a little. Stimulates in this way to action. What does the team do?

He writes negative reviews to all his competitors, and to him positive. And all this with a “Russian accent” and from one group of accounts. Yes, the US market is bigger, but it is still calculated. Here, for this really can be planted.

Example 3:
Setting up the server infrastructure of the Kharkov team. The client did not provide access in advance. Instead of asking, they begin to gain access by resetting passwords to a specific server without studying the infrastructure. They reset, and a third-party server was connected to this server through the same access details, using these details to access the API. Result: the entire infrastructure falls.

There are many more examples.

The best option is to work with “Russian” intermediaries. They are more adapted to our style of work. But here, too, there are drawbacks, because the “Russian” intermediaries are quite economical and often prefer to work with Hindus and Chinese.

In general, abroad, the “Russians” try not to work with the “Russians”, the Chinese with the Chinese, and the Hindus with the Indians. This must be remembered.

We make several intermediate conclusions:

• We are on average better, but more expensive than Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese (This is not a proven truth. This is a reputation in the market.)
• We are worse, but cheaper than Europeans
• We are better than South America and in the same price category, however they speak English and we don’t

Given all this, we need to understand that in order to compete, we must act as firms with an average price and an average quality.

When you cannot provide the highest quality or the lowest price, you should focus on a specific niche. And there, due to the experience in it, to win the competition.

This niche can be a language or national identity, a market niche, a region, etc. For example: "We promote websites to all Russian dentists in Brooklyn." Or "We do content marketing for east coast financiers."

Let us return to the typical misconceptions of our experts about the US market.

Ukraine is a big player in the IT market

It seems so only in Ukraine itself. Since IT is one of the few industries that our officials have not yet managed to reach, many people go there to work, and it seems that IT professionals are unreal many.

In 2013, about 250,000 specialists worked in IT in Ukraine. Now, they are probably a little more due to retraining, or slightly less - due to those who have moved and residents of the lost territories.

For comparison: the market of IT-specialists in Guangzhou, China, about 150,000 people, and this is only one, and not the largest, city in China. Therefore, do not harbor illusions. We are more than Belarus, but less than Europe and South America (the same Brazil). There is nothing to say about China and India.

There is no competition in the SEO market

In the CIS, the SEO market is designed in such a way that there are large companies that everyone sees and everyone knows and that do “everything for everyone”. In the US, these companies are not visible. And, at first glance, the market looks like our 7-8 years ago. In fact, it is not.

When we added our company to directories like Yelp and Google, we started receiving 5-15 calls per day from various companies that offer SEO services. It lasted for 2 months.

Apparently they had a parser that just parsed the update. They called blindly and they were absolutely not embarrassed by the fact that we ourselves offer SEO services. And yet, I think that when you register, for example, a clinic, the number of calls and letters increases at least twice. And even more.

There are also a huge number of niche companies that process customers only from specific niches. In general, there is a strong suspicion that large companies are positioning themselves as a network of small ones, but it has not yet been possible to verify this for certain.

The price of the services of companies ranged from $ 100 - one-time or 2 months with a guarantee. In fact, on cheap packages they do nothing and do not guarantee, but it sounds like.

Because of this, when we tried to work with inexpensive packages for small businesses, we had to convince us that we were still working. Distrust was very large.

Features of interaction with the client

Well, now it is worth talking about some features of interaction with American clients. The difference with "ours" is very big.

Promotional packages for 100-200 dollars and sites from 300
They are present on the market for a long time. Many people know about such opportunities, but try not to use them. There is a choice here. Americans understand that buying cheap, you buy low-quality. Therefore, positioning in terms of cheapness does not work well.

Customers don't like package deals.
It is clear that they are easier to sell and offer. But they do not like. Everyone knows about template sites here too, but they don’t like to order them. The same thing happens with SEO package deals. No trust.

Customers do not like "experts in everything"
Here it is necessary to clarify that in fact it is very convenient for them to work with those who have “everything in one bottle”, but it is difficult to overcome the barrier of trust. The first thought of the client: "Do you really know how to do all this and qualitatively?".

In general, it is customary to order from different specialists, according to their specializations. Similarly, specializing in one thing is much easier to position in the market. We do not do that, because in our case everything is more complicated.

A huge level of distrust of foreign companies
I suspect that because of the packages, "a website for $ 300 and SEO for $ 100 is a one-time guarantee." Of course, not only foreigners do this, but it still does not increase the trust in our brother. Generally, to outsource a huge level of mistrust. As long as you do not have an office with Americans in it who “do and work”, very often you have to face suspicion.

This is due to the fact that there are rumors in the market about Indian companies that sell their services at $ 5-7 per hour, but one employee in it costs 5-10 computers and this “work lasts forever and cheaper to order from local ones”.

Customers love to get a lot of attention.

Americans generally speak much more than Russians and Europeans. Their letters are also longer. This is such a polite. Therefore, when working with them, you need to be prepared for the fact that a lot of attention will have to be paid to communication.

Clients love when you have the experience of promoting the same businesses as they have

For example, industry companies have assembled niche lead generation systems. They themselves immediately offer a niche package (texts, videos, niche directories (sometimes their own), etc.). They know the specifics and know what services bring the main profit. Conclusion: explore the niche of your customers.

Telephone marketing and mailings do not work
Attraction methods through telephone calls and mailings do not work. That is, once in a lifetime, of course, the stick shoots, but nonetheless. Americans are too accustomed to phone calls and mailings and do not pay any attention to them.

Commercial offers read
Commercial ones are really big and full, they are not read in the way that in many of our companies - “diagonally”. A team that makes a decision, reads and examines the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal. The process of team decision making is present not only in big business. Small and medium businesses use all the techniques that are described in the textbooks on management and that we have somewhere used, and somewhere not.

As I said above, the strategy that companies with average price and average quality lead often leads to the following: positioning themselves - niche offers with narrow specialization.

I do not want to offend anyone. There are companies that give quality above average. But we are not talking about particular cases, but about statistics.

To be honest, it is difficult to work directly with clients without a serious base (office, employees). Creating such a base, even if you have money, takes a lot of time.

Another conclusion that suggests itself: advance through Upwork (oDesk) and Elance. There are companies that have risen strongly with the help of these services. These companies can be easily found on Google.

If you're a freelancer, keep working remotely. Arriving, you are unlikely to receive more of what you already get at home. You will not have the right to work, and unofficially no one wants to hire you - it is inconvenient (and illegal) in terms of taxation. There is a prospect, but you have to go through a difficult emigrant path until you get a work permit and you can get an American salary. This path takes at least several years. With the American salary, you will receive American taxes and American costs, which are also very high. I do not dissuade. Perhaps it is worth it, but are you ready to drop everything and build again? It will take a long time for you to succeed ... if possible. Frustrated and returned, too short.

In the case of a web studio, you must have money to register and design, hire employees, office infrastructure and promotion / advertising. This is all very expensive compared to similar costs in our country.

Features of work in terms of the process of providing services

Now we will touch on a few important points regarding what features of service provision in the USA are. Only personal experience.

Knowledge of language
What we are taught in school is not the kind of English that people in these countries speak. In addition, native speakers are also different. American English is different from British and Indian. Not just pronunciation. At first, everyone pays little attention to the issue of the language: “This is not difficult. We will understand. But when it comes to business, it turns out that language plays a big role, and its ignorance becomes a problem. This is especially so when you work with a “white” business for ordinary people. There can not be a broken language, as in black and gray niches.

Links are expensive and hard to get.
This is also a fact. Sape is still working. I have seen sites that are promoted by sape links and are a success. True, in not very competitive niches, and it works all worse. Everything else is at times (sometimes tens or hundreds of times) more expensive. Moreover, there is no such assortment as we have on Sape in the USA. That is, this is all done of course, but it takes much more time and effort than for Runet.

Specialization
Partially comes from the previous one, because when you work in a specific niche, you already have established links with webmasters, with sites. Your copywriters and posters already know what and where to write, where to publish, etc.

Google works differently
It's true. That is, there are common patterns, of course, and, of course, it's all about texts, link building and behavioral, but still different. You can talk about this for a long time and, perhaps, we will post something about it in a blog or make a report, but there is a difference and it is noticeable.

In the TOP there are much more sites that are looked at by some quality links. That is what Matt Cutts talked about a couple of years ago that “one quality link will play a greater role than 10 low-quality ones, even if they are not spam,” is now working. I think this is due to the fact that the so-called “niche trust” is much more developed in the United States and other Western countries.

Also in different niches there are different patterns by which quality sites are determined. For example, for clinics this one, for travel or lawyers another. This again speaks in favor of targeting a specific niche, rather than "we do everything for everyone."

Vulnerabilities and real attacks

Botnets and DDOS attacks, about which most people in their homeland know only theoretically, are used here. Especially in black and gray niches. In ordinary niches, I would not say that it has a strong effect, but it is important to understand that security needs to be given much more attention than is customary in our country.

For example, when we reached the top of the “replica watches”, we were very much started off by DDOS. We were not ready for this from the very beginning, and this greatly hindered. It interfered even later, but we were ready to work more and learn how to work in such conditions.

Protection of competitors from scanning and parsing
Your competitors know about vulnerabilities and attacks. Therefore, parsing their sites for the purpose of analysis is also more difficult. It is done, but harder.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am glad that SEO is less and less “a site on Joomla + links to Sape”, and more and more thoughtful, detailed work focused on a specific niche with specific tasks. This makes it more professional both the SEO market of companies and the market of providers of promoted services.

Thanks for attention!

Editorial note: if you have a desire to participate in the “Founder’s Tips” section, write to us at editor (at) megamozg.ru