Fictional history of starting your own business with a sad ending
Friday evening. Why not read one story with a sad ending? On Habré after all are not taken like that?
The other day, I left a comment in which I wrote in a nutshell that my business had been destroyed in its infancy. Judging by questions in a pm on Habré and in vk, the topic is relevant. Well, I'll try to write about how everything was, although I do not promise accuracy. I will not write about the fact that I am D'Artagnan, and I am not going to be all villains, because you need an instructive story, not a story-justification for another loser.
Immediately make a reservation, I do not remember which city / district I am talking about, and in which state it happened, if it was. Also I can not remember the names and exact positions. Therefore, any coincidences are random and have nothing to do with any authority, official or unofficial.
I'll start with the background, which has nothing to do with the topic topic. However, this background is a good example of why you can hate our power. In 2009, we moved with our family in the Ulyanovsk region and stood in a queue at the forest for the repair of housing. The queue was small, there was a forest, but business did not reach us. Nevertheless, the forest was allocated regularly for the “needy,” and several people who cut log houses for sale received it. A year has passed, the queue has not reached, and I was sent on the third round of cabinets. At one point, I spat, asked to give an official refusal, which I will appeal to Moscow. I was sent in a rather rude form. I must say that due to the fact that the town is small, there are fewer leadership positions, and all of them are occupied by acquaintances who act in concert. This kind of kings. In general, I wrote a letter to Moscow about the fraud of the Administration with photocopies of documents. After 2 weeks, I received a reply that the letter was submitted to Ulyanovsk for consideration. After another 2 weeks, a reply came from Ulyanovsk that the letter was submitted to the local Administration ... A week later, a letter came from those I wrote a complaint in which my letter was attached, and a response in the spirit of “wait in line”, in which definitely felt sarcasm. Here is a background. Power covers up power. There is no one to complain (not a beautiful word, yes?).
')
And now to the topic topic. In my previous articles, I was cunning. I did not say a word about being a director. No not like this. At that time, when I got a current job, there were 3 Internet service providers in the city:
- The first. The oldest provider. In general, they provide telephony, but they began to provide the Internet as well, although it did not stick with it. Last year, they actively moved, since they began to take positions. Since provide telephony - maximum coverage.
- The second provider. It's all complicated. Absolute superiority in the number of subscribers. The most promoted provider. The owners of the company are not those who are listed on paper. Hence many problems. They work only in the multi-unit sector, the private sector is not interesting.
- The third provider. The one where I settled. Provide the Internet and in apartments and the private sector, subscribers are the least.
At that moment, the third provider was simply destroyed by the owners of the second, I came just at that moment. Cut out the optics (uplink) at night. Between the second and third there was a struggle for apartments. This is well known to the population of the town. How many hassles was in the first few months of work only a few employees know. I have never heard so much mate and curses.
As I wrote earlier, I was taken to work after a few minutes of interviews and asked to leave today. Our provider was purchased by another, not previously present in the city. Problems with optics disappeared, certain agreements were reached with the owners of the second provider. We were forbidden to adjust the tariff plans, about 10 high-rise buildings still remain inaccessible to us, although it has been 3 years. Nevertheless, we were able to work normally. In the course of interviewing employees with new owners, it was decided that they do not need the services of the current technician co-founder of the company, and they take me as the head of the technical department. Plus, I connect to the development of billing, and work for the entire network, and not just for the local provider. So, after the first month of work and received shameful 10k rubles, I stepped over to the next level and received 20, and another 25 months later.
Perhaps I digress. I want you to plunge into my life, and understand why I did so, and not otherwise, what was going on, what I wanted. No matter how impudent it may sound, I consider myself to be a category of smart, thinking people, and I see that there are not so many of them. What has attracted me to Habr is that, besides the trolls (well, as without them), the community of guys who live by the idea, do crazy unnecessary things for fun, are looking for themselves. Imagine, DI HALT, the publications of which I read another year in 2005, when I worked in the repair of cellular, is here and we can discuss some topics that interest both. When I talk about smart people, I don’t mean excellent students, who often turn out to be more smart-ass (forgive me UFO), rather than smart. This is not about those who opened a business thanks to their stubbornness (examples of blonde girls who are building up nails at home, and then bringing up beauty salons?).
So, I consider myself in this category and therefore plunged into work with the head. Iron, programming, telephony, maps, riding with a navigator and drawing houses in osm, everything was interesting. And most importantly - the scope for work, it was necessary to do tens and hundreds of tasks. There is something to work on, not like past works, where in a few months you will learn everything, and you can tell what you will do in a year or three or ten at the same place. Here everything was wrong. Small providers bought up, networks were rebuilt, scripts were written. Thanks to my wife and daughter for enduring these my infinitely long working days. Year and a half to sleep together, we have never laid down, except perhaps for a few days during the holidays, which also had to take a laptop and a router with a usb whistle.
But at the same time, the post of the head of the technical department hung on me. Somewhere about six months ago, I began to write a post with the title “You are not the boss, boy, drop it,” but spat. So, when you come to a well-established team, and you see, there is really no way to see that some of the employees are sheep, something must be done with this. The current head, one of the remaining creators of this company, once took just acquaintances to work, not paying attention to their knowledge. I want to say that I respect our former director and now I understand perfectly why he left. So, there was a problem. He is a kind person by nature, and since all the workers are familiar, they got away with it all the time. Regular delays of 15-30 minutes are common. I had to go to a conflict with the two parties, began to penalize for being late, I was fined for it. However, the goal was achieved - they began to arrive on time. We said goodbye to the part of installers who refused to relearn. What can I say, if a person who sets up connections has no computer at home and all he knows is the standard “start menu-> network connections ..”. What are there wilanas ... Although it was fun, regular corporate events. Nonetheless, the manager was distanced, interviews with new employees were conducted by me, he appeared less and less at work. Typically, this is half an hour an hour a day in the morning. So, in May last year, he left.
In its place, the founders brought a person, how to tell you, absolutely far from it. In general, our founders love the military. Apparently, they can solve issues. They know the art of licking perfectly, not all of them, of course, but many of those who have had to communicate lately are of this type.
Completely out of my head. When a larger provider bought us, the new management made a decision - on the 1st of this month, all subscribers must switch from connecting through the traffic of the inspector to VPN. From the first day they broke off the contract with the backers and transferred us to their channel. So, practice has shown that out of 2 with a few thousand subscribers, about 200-300 have passed to a new connection. And you can imagine what happened 1 number? Crowds of people, infuriated people rushed to us. 1300 subscribers - the price that the company paid for it. People did not wait in the queues for new settings, they did not wait for the installers to be free to come to them. Imagine? People bought a company with 2,300 subscribers, and lost 1,300 by their actions. To say that the reputation was spoiled is to say nothing. That was in 2010.
So, you should understand that our position is leadership in the market, and for this you needed to make up for that case, break the current impression of the company with the quality of services provided, with tariffs (which cannot be corrected, remember yes?). And this former military man came. Unfortunately, we did not write down his phrases, but you can imagine - stupid military phrases in the provider view without understanding the words with which the person operates. His leadership lasted about 2 months, during which time the installers transferred under his leadership began again to be late for work, to have lunch for 2 hours, to lie, to laugh at him openly, in front of the subscribers. The person interrupted the communication of cashiers with subscribers, got in with the comments that they needed to buy a black box (router), and enter it through Yandex and find the Internet cell field there ... In general, he did not understand anything, and all attempts to teach at least something ended in failure. Cross = equipment competitors. Perhaps not many people will understand me now, but when you live by a firm, you support every negative review in our direction, you find really cool specialists, and it all collapses about the moron-leader, he begins to enrage his appearance. It so happened that his share fell check SvyazNadzor. You know what he was carrying, it is impossible to even collect this proposal, how did he manage to do it? He made a stupid face and laughed approvingly at every inspector's joke, he began to mumble some nonsense when asked questions. The inspectors looked at me and in the eyes read the question - what does he carry? They assigned me to be responsible for the change, the network was handed over (not without jambs of course). But the fact is that at that time I was interested in more global tasks, and not a waste of time on the branch. In the meantime, we started losing customers again, the director of one school asked to transfer the switching point from the computer class to the attic or they would turn off, he gave the green light to turn off ... Ie he did not carry out the tasks that confront the supervisor at all. In general, these two months have turned my life to some extent. We started going to meetings in another city together, questions were mostly asked to me, he frankly lied (apparently not realizing that the number of connections, spent materials and other things is fixed).
Created all the prerequisites for his departure and my appointment. Actually, we came to this. Two of the three founders supported my candidacy, the third doubted, but he also approved, though with some introductory instructions in person. Friends supported, so I was appointed to the position of acting director with a probation period of 3 months. I must say that in the first year of work, the salary grew to 40k, and now it was agreed that in the event of a successful appointment there will be an increase of 10k and the further salary depends on the number of subscribers, more precisely, on their increase.
I became the director ahead of time, after a month and a half. He managed to code and distribute tasks in the morning. At that time, we had an administrator working with iron and these duties were removed from me. Therefore, I only had programming, branch management and duty on day after 5 for the entire network. I will not begin to paint everything, I will just say that after working in this company, I definitely built the model of the correct director - this is a stupid, uncomplaining creature who does not have his own opinion, puts signatures in all the papers that are required and absolutely not the main link in the work provider, moreover, it is one of the lowest positions. Maybe somewhere it is not, but in my case it is. After six months of such a life, I began to realize that I was constantly losing my relatives, I had nowhere to lose weight, and I was losing weight. Although the founders were satisfied. Why, I'm doubly the director. At the meetings, only I, and the founder-communicator could talk about the technical component of the issues under discussion and discuss the timing of the implementation of the new functionality. Closer to December of last year, the final understanding came that we are no longer on the way. When company leaders who are unattainable for you are plunged into the mat at meetings, jokes about the parents of employees, when they lie, these figures fall into the mud and their goals with them.
Then there was a series of events related to our competitors. The second provider announced that they are sold and will include speeds of 10 Mbit / 350 rubles from day to day. I must say that at that time we managed to recapture some of the subscribers. It was even when meeting with the owner of one of the competitors, he noted that with my joining the company, they noticed changes for the better. So, the rumor about incredible speeds for small money went through the city, my management decided that we include similar tariffs (which we can technically give, but do not give due to the fact that at any moment in response to this cost of renting the supports will rise from 25 rubles to 1000 per support, multiply by 600 and decide what amounts we are talking about). Nevertheless, the decision was made, we cut in new tariffs, the people pushed us. The deal with the purchase of the second provider fell through (the reasons are unknown), the calls started ... In general, the second provider tried to present the situation so that they would not let the duck in, this is my fiction, and we violated the agreement. All ads they removed. And only the local forum, which adminily not they, saved messages with their ads. I defended my name to the founders, but the very fact that my words are being questioned has finally put an end to this story. We repeatedly talked about my future (which is actually amazing, I repeatedly saw people parting with others), painted prospects for buying this provider and appointing me to the management of both. In the spring I left. He brought another man in his stead and left. Someone said that I'm a fool, those who know the kitchen from the inside, supported. It does not matter. We agreed on lowering salaries from 50k to 30k and my further work only remotely. I was removed from duty, communication with installers. In general, everything except the development.
Maybe I did not tell everything, but it is impossible, so ask questions, if the information is not secret, I will answer.
Everything that happened to me, more and more pushed to the thought of starting my own business. You see, in my understanding of the business should be built a little differently. On the one hand, a valuable specialist should generate income and pay maximum attention to work and business should protect a person from everyday problems (this is an example for those who have to talk about work - “You move to us.” No, you’ll rent an apartment for me, my daughter Provide a place in a normal kindergarten, and then I can immerse myself in working with my head). On the other hand, the business must evolve according to the interests of employees. We all faced the fact that the person needed in this company leaves, simply because the company has nowhere to grow. Those. knowledge and experience exceed the necessary tasks. So it is necessary to develop new directions and to keep a person, he should grow here, and not let him go and take just anyone. There are several dozens of such examples in my practice.
In general, my friend and I had long thought about opening another provider. It was a really considered decision. We did not build any illusions about the cost of opening, the cost part, money cutlets to the right people. In our case, the situation was as follows - there is a private sector within the city limits and even larger in size outside the city. As the head of the provider, I knew the relevance of the Internet in the private sector. This is the future. A piece that is not divided. All these apartments are rubbish, they are divided, they are sawed there, sawed by stocks, and there are no significant blanket hauling. Several dozen of them roam here and there. Plans for the three providers are known. Only my provider had some views on him, but one of the founders there flatly refused to finance private sector coverage, and therefore there are no connections for about one and a half years. In general, a preliminary assessment of the market showed that we do not affect not whose interests. It was agreed that a relative of some person joins the founders of our company. Knowing the real alignment of forces in the city, we can safely say that this is 100, there is not even a 1000% solution of all our possible problems. I can not say no post, no name, no surname. Just take the word. We received good, I think there are people with similar experience who will confirm that you first need to get an informal welcome for activities. Gone work.Obtaining 2 licenses, close communication with SvyazNadzor, with backbone operators, opening an office (they made a cool repair, I wanted a person to come to us, he understood that he was in a modern company). We were told - write an application for a cable hanger, in a month you will receive good. In the meantime, get to work. And we started, scattered flyers (several thousand flyers), bought servers (without cissock yet, but also for starters with a capacity reserve), optics, switches, pulled out a 5 km trunk, boiled, connected to the backer. We bought Elteksovskaya gpon-head with terminals, ftth, quick connectors, splitter, couplings, suspended hooks with a margin. Well, in general, were to begin work on June 1. All was good. And then bang. Failure by pillars. The one who was supposed to join the founders pulled away. No explanation.I went a series of meetings with an attempt to resolve this issue. Connected epaulettes of various structures, criminals, deputies, businessmen. It was not possible to solve. This story can be described more extensively, but then the names of people involved in all these events will become clear, but I do not want this. They tried to solve the issue through the regional center, and even through Moscow. But those who said no, an order of magnitude higher than those who tried to help. In one of the topics we talked about this topic and IIn one of the topics we talked about this topic and IIn one of the topics we talked about this topic and Iadvised to bribe the Administration. Yes it works. Yes, an agreement is reached on the laying of cable even during the construction of houses. It's like that. Passed through. In this case, the question was not how much we should give. At all.There was no talk of any means. No matter how many people are connected during this time, people who solve quite serious questions, they all turned out to be powerless. There are several reasons for this outcome. The first one that was voiced to us is that all providers working today in the town see us as strong competitors. It seems like we may have little private sector and we will step into the apartments, although there are no 100% of such goals (with the exception of two-storey buildings, which are found only in the private sector). Moreover, we ourselves would not risk climbing into this cut (we had enough nerves for ourselves), what is there to share in these apartments? We set goals for others, the Internet, then video surveillance and try to work on different variations of the smart home.
And the second reason, apparently, the most real, is the founders of the company in which I work. We met twice. In addition to the fact that I heard quite real threats, we were offered to donate a company with all the equipment to them. What is our miscalculation, we did not understand. The private sector as did not include any, and do not include. I know that the first provider began to master gpon outside the city, about which I told them at that moment when we were talking heart-to-heart, and their director said what a burden this private sector had. Like this.I do not know who we crossed the road. In general, the cable was removed, the office was closed, thanks to the Eltex company for taking the equipment back. Here is the outcome. The company is not yet closed, there are proposals to build a network in other localities, with their financing, but honestly, there is no desire yet. We have not been able to fully understand the root cause of this failure. One big conclusion can be made, and I hope I bring it to you, do not believe anyone. I have known people for years that they have agreed, and if they promise, they do it. But not at this time. Therefore, first paper. While there are no papers - do not listen to empty promises, do not invest money. In general, in the process of opening and communicating with potential investors, I realized that such situations happened to everyone, to everyone.
Most likely, I did not say much that I wanted to say, I will not reread. Now I work on a remote in a native organization that has already become. The founders even wanted to dismiss me, they told everyone, but then they called and apologized, they said that they did not refuse their obligations about my work. The comrade suffered more severely our collapse, he is more serious about money - for me it was a business of his own, in which it was possible to realize the technologies I was interested in, to gather smart guys in a small town, and not to watch how they strive for Moscow. He also saved money for Moscow and lost it.
PS Please do not argue on the topic in which city this happened, otherwise I will transfer it to drafts.
The other day, I left a comment in which I wrote in a nutshell that my business had been destroyed in its infancy. Judging by questions in a pm on Habré and in vk, the topic is relevant. Well, I'll try to write about how everything was, although I do not promise accuracy. I will not write about the fact that I am D'Artagnan, and I am not going to be all villains, because you need an instructive story, not a story-justification for another loser.
Immediately make a reservation, I do not remember which city / district I am talking about, and in which state it happened, if it was. Also I can not remember the names and exact positions. Therefore, any coincidences are random and have nothing to do with any authority, official or unofficial.
I'll start with the background, which has nothing to do with the topic topic. However, this background is a good example of why you can hate our power. In 2009, we moved with our family in the Ulyanovsk region and stood in a queue at the forest for the repair of housing. The queue was small, there was a forest, but business did not reach us. Nevertheless, the forest was allocated regularly for the “needy,” and several people who cut log houses for sale received it. A year has passed, the queue has not reached, and I was sent on the third round of cabinets. At one point, I spat, asked to give an official refusal, which I will appeal to Moscow. I was sent in a rather rude form. I must say that due to the fact that the town is small, there are fewer leadership positions, and all of them are occupied by acquaintances who act in concert. This kind of kings. In general, I wrote a letter to Moscow about the fraud of the Administration with photocopies of documents. After 2 weeks, I received a reply that the letter was submitted to Ulyanovsk for consideration. After another 2 weeks, a reply came from Ulyanovsk that the letter was submitted to the local Administration ... A week later, a letter came from those I wrote a complaint in which my letter was attached, and a response in the spirit of “wait in line”, in which definitely felt sarcasm. Here is a background. Power covers up power. There is no one to complain (not a beautiful word, yes?).
')
And now to the topic topic. In my previous articles, I was cunning. I did not say a word about being a director. No not like this. At that time, when I got a current job, there were 3 Internet service providers in the city:
- The first. The oldest provider. In general, they provide telephony, but they began to provide the Internet as well, although it did not stick with it. Last year, they actively moved, since they began to take positions. Since provide telephony - maximum coverage.
- The second provider. It's all complicated. Absolute superiority in the number of subscribers. The most promoted provider. The owners of the company are not those who are listed on paper. Hence many problems. They work only in the multi-unit sector, the private sector is not interesting.
- The third provider. The one where I settled. Provide the Internet and in apartments and the private sector, subscribers are the least.
At that moment, the third provider was simply destroyed by the owners of the second, I came just at that moment. Cut out the optics (uplink) at night. Between the second and third there was a struggle for apartments. This is well known to the population of the town. How many hassles was in the first few months of work only a few employees know. I have never heard so much mate and curses.
As I wrote earlier, I was taken to work after a few minutes of interviews and asked to leave today. Our provider was purchased by another, not previously present in the city. Problems with optics disappeared, certain agreements were reached with the owners of the second provider. We were forbidden to adjust the tariff plans, about 10 high-rise buildings still remain inaccessible to us, although it has been 3 years. Nevertheless, we were able to work normally. In the course of interviewing employees with new owners, it was decided that they do not need the services of the current technician co-founder of the company, and they take me as the head of the technical department. Plus, I connect to the development of billing, and work for the entire network, and not just for the local provider. So, after the first month of work and received shameful 10k rubles, I stepped over to the next level and received 20, and another 25 months later.
Perhaps I digress. I want you to plunge into my life, and understand why I did so, and not otherwise, what was going on, what I wanted. No matter how impudent it may sound, I consider myself to be a category of smart, thinking people, and I see that there are not so many of them. What has attracted me to Habr is that, besides the trolls (well, as without them), the community of guys who live by the idea, do crazy unnecessary things for fun, are looking for themselves. Imagine, DI HALT, the publications of which I read another year in 2005, when I worked in the repair of cellular, is here and we can discuss some topics that interest both. When I talk about smart people, I don’t mean excellent students, who often turn out to be more smart-ass (forgive me UFO), rather than smart. This is not about those who opened a business thanks to their stubbornness (examples of blonde girls who are building up nails at home, and then bringing up beauty salons?).
So, I consider myself in this category and therefore plunged into work with the head. Iron, programming, telephony, maps, riding with a navigator and drawing houses in osm, everything was interesting. And most importantly - the scope for work, it was necessary to do tens and hundreds of tasks. There is something to work on, not like past works, where in a few months you will learn everything, and you can tell what you will do in a year or three or ten at the same place. Here everything was wrong. Small providers bought up, networks were rebuilt, scripts were written. Thanks to my wife and daughter for enduring these my infinitely long working days. Year and a half to sleep together, we have never laid down, except perhaps for a few days during the holidays, which also had to take a laptop and a router with a usb whistle.
But at the same time, the post of the head of the technical department hung on me. Somewhere about six months ago, I began to write a post with the title “You are not the boss, boy, drop it,” but spat. So, when you come to a well-established team, and you see, there is really no way to see that some of the employees are sheep, something must be done with this. The current head, one of the remaining creators of this company, once took just acquaintances to work, not paying attention to their knowledge. I want to say that I respect our former director and now I understand perfectly why he left. So, there was a problem. He is a kind person by nature, and since all the workers are familiar, they got away with it all the time. Regular delays of 15-30 minutes are common. I had to go to a conflict with the two parties, began to penalize for being late, I was fined for it. However, the goal was achieved - they began to arrive on time. We said goodbye to the part of installers who refused to relearn. What can I say, if a person who sets up connections has no computer at home and all he knows is the standard “start menu-> network connections ..”. What are there wilanas ... Although it was fun, regular corporate events. Nonetheless, the manager was distanced, interviews with new employees were conducted by me, he appeared less and less at work. Typically, this is half an hour an hour a day in the morning. So, in May last year, he left.
In its place, the founders brought a person, how to tell you, absolutely far from it. In general, our founders love the military. Apparently, they can solve issues. They know the art of licking perfectly, not all of them, of course, but many of those who have had to communicate lately are of this type.
Completely out of my head. When a larger provider bought us, the new management made a decision - on the 1st of this month, all subscribers must switch from connecting through the traffic of the inspector to VPN. From the first day they broke off the contract with the backers and transferred us to their channel. So, practice has shown that out of 2 with a few thousand subscribers, about 200-300 have passed to a new connection. And you can imagine what happened 1 number? Crowds of people, infuriated people rushed to us. 1300 subscribers - the price that the company paid for it. People did not wait in the queues for new settings, they did not wait for the installers to be free to come to them. Imagine? People bought a company with 2,300 subscribers, and lost 1,300 by their actions. To say that the reputation was spoiled is to say nothing. That was in 2010.
So, you should understand that our position is leadership in the market, and for this you needed to make up for that case, break the current impression of the company with the quality of services provided, with tariffs (which cannot be corrected, remember yes?). And this former military man came. Unfortunately, we did not write down his phrases, but you can imagine - stupid military phrases in the provider view without understanding the words with which the person operates. His leadership lasted about 2 months, during which time the installers transferred under his leadership began again to be late for work, to have lunch for 2 hours, to lie, to laugh at him openly, in front of the subscribers. The person interrupted the communication of cashiers with subscribers, got in with the comments that they needed to buy a black box (router), and enter it through Yandex and find the Internet cell field there ... In general, he did not understand anything, and all attempts to teach at least something ended in failure. Cross = equipment competitors. Perhaps not many people will understand me now, but when you live by a firm, you support every negative review in our direction, you find really cool specialists, and it all collapses about the moron-leader, he begins to enrage his appearance. It so happened that his share fell check SvyazNadzor. You know what he was carrying, it is impossible to even collect this proposal, how did he manage to do it? He made a stupid face and laughed approvingly at every inspector's joke, he began to mumble some nonsense when asked questions. The inspectors looked at me and in the eyes read the question - what does he carry? They assigned me to be responsible for the change, the network was handed over (not without jambs of course). But the fact is that at that time I was interested in more global tasks, and not a waste of time on the branch. In the meantime, we started losing customers again, the director of one school asked to transfer the switching point from the computer class to the attic or they would turn off, he gave the green light to turn off ... Ie he did not carry out the tasks that confront the supervisor at all. In general, these two months have turned my life to some extent. We started going to meetings in another city together, questions were mostly asked to me, he frankly lied (apparently not realizing that the number of connections, spent materials and other things is fixed).
Created all the prerequisites for his departure and my appointment. Actually, we came to this. Two of the three founders supported my candidacy, the third doubted, but he also approved, though with some introductory instructions in person. Friends supported, so I was appointed to the position of acting director with a probation period of 3 months. I must say that in the first year of work, the salary grew to 40k, and now it was agreed that in the event of a successful appointment there will be an increase of 10k and the further salary depends on the number of subscribers, more precisely, on their increase.
I became the director ahead of time, after a month and a half. He managed to code and distribute tasks in the morning. At that time, we had an administrator working with iron and these duties were removed from me. Therefore, I only had programming, branch management and duty on day after 5 for the entire network. I will not begin to paint everything, I will just say that after working in this company, I definitely built the model of the correct director - this is a stupid, uncomplaining creature who does not have his own opinion, puts signatures in all the papers that are required and absolutely not the main link in the work provider, moreover, it is one of the lowest positions. Maybe somewhere it is not, but in my case it is. After six months of such a life, I began to realize that I was constantly losing my relatives, I had nowhere to lose weight, and I was losing weight. Although the founders were satisfied. Why, I'm doubly the director. At the meetings, only I, and the founder-communicator could talk about the technical component of the issues under discussion and discuss the timing of the implementation of the new functionality. Closer to December of last year, the final understanding came that we are no longer on the way. When company leaders who are unattainable for you are plunged into the mat at meetings, jokes about the parents of employees, when they lie, these figures fall into the mud and their goals with them.
Then there was a series of events related to our competitors. The second provider announced that they are sold and will include speeds of 10 Mbit / 350 rubles from day to day. I must say that at that time we managed to recapture some of the subscribers. It was even when meeting with the owner of one of the competitors, he noted that with my joining the company, they noticed changes for the better. So, the rumor about incredible speeds for small money went through the city, my management decided that we include similar tariffs (which we can technically give, but do not give due to the fact that at any moment in response to this cost of renting the supports will rise from 25 rubles to 1000 per support, multiply by 600 and decide what amounts we are talking about). Nevertheless, the decision was made, we cut in new tariffs, the people pushed us. The deal with the purchase of the second provider fell through (the reasons are unknown), the calls started ... In general, the second provider tried to present the situation so that they would not let the duck in, this is my fiction, and we violated the agreement. All ads they removed. And only the local forum, which adminily not they, saved messages with their ads. I defended my name to the founders, but the very fact that my words are being questioned has finally put an end to this story. We repeatedly talked about my future (which is actually amazing, I repeatedly saw people parting with others), painted prospects for buying this provider and appointing me to the management of both. In the spring I left. He brought another man in his stead and left. Someone said that I'm a fool, those who know the kitchen from the inside, supported. It does not matter. We agreed on lowering salaries from 50k to 30k and my further work only remotely. I was removed from duty, communication with installers. In general, everything except the development.
Maybe I did not tell everything, but it is impossible, so ask questions, if the information is not secret, I will answer.
Everything that happened to me, more and more pushed to the thought of starting my own business. You see, in my understanding of the business should be built a little differently. On the one hand, a valuable specialist should generate income and pay maximum attention to work and business should protect a person from everyday problems (this is an example for those who have to talk about work - “You move to us.” No, you’ll rent an apartment for me, my daughter Provide a place in a normal kindergarten, and then I can immerse myself in working with my head). On the other hand, the business must evolve according to the interests of employees. We all faced the fact that the person needed in this company leaves, simply because the company has nowhere to grow. Those. knowledge and experience exceed the necessary tasks. So it is necessary to develop new directions and to keep a person, he should grow here, and not let him go and take just anyone. There are several dozens of such examples in my practice.
In general, my friend and I had long thought about opening another provider. It was a really considered decision. We did not build any illusions about the cost of opening, the cost part, money cutlets to the right people. In our case, the situation was as follows - there is a private sector within the city limits and even larger in size outside the city. As the head of the provider, I knew the relevance of the Internet in the private sector. This is the future. A piece that is not divided. All these apartments are rubbish, they are divided, they are sawed there, sawed by stocks, and there are no significant blanket hauling. Several dozen of them roam here and there. Plans for the three providers are known. Only my provider had some views on him, but one of the founders there flatly refused to finance private sector coverage, and therefore there are no connections for about one and a half years. In general, a preliminary assessment of the market showed that we do not affect not whose interests. It was agreed that a relative of some person joins the founders of our company. Knowing the real alignment of forces in the city, we can safely say that this is 100, there is not even a 1000% solution of all our possible problems. I can not say no post, no name, no surname. Just take the word. We received good, I think there are people with similar experience who will confirm that you first need to get an informal welcome for activities. Gone work.Obtaining 2 licenses, close communication with SvyazNadzor, with backbone operators, opening an office (they made a cool repair, I wanted a person to come to us, he understood that he was in a modern company). We were told - write an application for a cable hanger, in a month you will receive good. In the meantime, get to work. And we started, scattered flyers (several thousand flyers), bought servers (without cissock yet, but also for starters with a capacity reserve), optics, switches, pulled out a 5 km trunk, boiled, connected to the backer. We bought Elteksovskaya gpon-head with terminals, ftth, quick connectors, splitter, couplings, suspended hooks with a margin. Well, in general, were to begin work on June 1. All was good. And then bang. Failure by pillars. The one who was supposed to join the founders pulled away. No explanation.I went a series of meetings with an attempt to resolve this issue. Connected epaulettes of various structures, criminals, deputies, businessmen. It was not possible to solve. This story can be described more extensively, but then the names of people involved in all these events will become clear, but I do not want this. They tried to solve the issue through the regional center, and even through Moscow. But those who said no, an order of magnitude higher than those who tried to help. In one of the topics we talked about this topic and IIn one of the topics we talked about this topic and IIn one of the topics we talked about this topic and Iadvised to bribe the Administration. Yes it works. Yes, an agreement is reached on the laying of cable even during the construction of houses. It's like that. Passed through. In this case, the question was not how much we should give. At all.There was no talk of any means. No matter how many people are connected during this time, people who solve quite serious questions, they all turned out to be powerless. There are several reasons for this outcome. The first one that was voiced to us is that all providers working today in the town see us as strong competitors. It seems like we may have little private sector and we will step into the apartments, although there are no 100% of such goals (with the exception of two-storey buildings, which are found only in the private sector). Moreover, we ourselves would not risk climbing into this cut (we had enough nerves for ourselves), what is there to share in these apartments? We set goals for others, the Internet, then video surveillance and try to work on different variations of the smart home.
And the second reason, apparently, the most real, is the founders of the company in which I work. We met twice. In addition to the fact that I heard quite real threats, we were offered to donate a company with all the equipment to them. What is our miscalculation, we did not understand. The private sector as did not include any, and do not include. I know that the first provider began to master gpon outside the city, about which I told them at that moment when we were talking heart-to-heart, and their director said what a burden this private sector had. Like this.I do not know who we crossed the road. In general, the cable was removed, the office was closed, thanks to the Eltex company for taking the equipment back. Here is the outcome. The company is not yet closed, there are proposals to build a network in other localities, with their financing, but honestly, there is no desire yet. We have not been able to fully understand the root cause of this failure. One big conclusion can be made, and I hope I bring it to you, do not believe anyone. I have known people for years that they have agreed, and if they promise, they do it. But not at this time. Therefore, first paper. While there are no papers - do not listen to empty promises, do not invest money. In general, in the process of opening and communicating with potential investors, I realized that such situations happened to everyone, to everyone.
Most likely, I did not say much that I wanted to say, I will not reread. Now I work on a remote in a native organization that has already become. The founders even wanted to dismiss me, they told everyone, but then they called and apologized, they said that they did not refuse their obligations about my work. The comrade suffered more severely our collapse, he is more serious about money - for me it was a business of his own, in which it was possible to realize the technologies I was interested in, to gather smart guys in a small town, and not to watch how they strive for Moscow. He also saved money for Moscow and lost it.
PS Please do not argue on the topic in which city this happened, otherwise I will transfer it to drafts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/297008/
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