Success story: entrepreneur of the year Andrei Romanenko (Qiwi, Run Capital)
Co-founder of the QIWI group, founder of Run Capital, Andrei Romanenko, won the World Finance Awards in the Entrepreneurs of the Year 2015 nomination in the Financial Services sector.
The Kommersant publication has published a detailed story of its success.
"Megamind" gives the most interesting facts.
')
In Andrei Romanenko’s office on Spiridonovka there are several dozens of kiwi birds: plush, wooden, kiwi in paintings and on furniture. He has been collecting this museum for several years now, since the kiwi bird has become the symbol of its main offspring, the Qiwi company. But now the office of Romanenko and the office of Qiwi are in different places. This year, the businessman officially announced that he was leaving the company to focus on his venture fund Run Capital.
Qiwi still keeps the hipster style created by Romanenko: in Northern Chertanovo ottomans are placed all over the room, swings are suspended from the ceiling, there are even sleep booths, the staff all walk in sneakers and jeans and communicate mainly via instant messengers. And Romanenko himself today wears a suit more often than jeans, and spends a lot of time abroad, plunging into the venture capital business.
Andrey Romanenko started his business at seventeen: he recorded computer games on floppy disks and sold them.
In the third year, Romanenko volunteered to sell for a friend (he was an employee of one of the operating companies) payment cards. In the 1990s, this was the main way to recharge a mobile phone. Thus, the first business, a prototype of Qiwi, the Plastic Card Store, which quickly occupied 70% of the market, was born.
In many ways, success was ensured by branding worthy at that time and good advertising promotion. Co-owner of this, like all subsequent businesses Romanenko, was his father, Nikolai Romanenko. In the USSR, Romanenko Sr. led the Vneshtorgizdat, and in 1989 became one of the founders of the Russian branch of the American advertising agency BBDO , which he later headed for many years.
The partners were engaged in selling cards for a short time: this business was not so profitable, and its competitors with payment terminals slowly began to crowd out. For example, a few months earlier, Avtokard-Holding (specializing in prepaid gasoline cards) spun off Boris Kim's company. E-port .
To counter the new technology, Romanenko decides to unite with other plastic card vendors: together with several small players, he creates the Unified Instant Payment System (OSMP), which by 2004 will occupy almost the entire market. Although the ability to unite Romanenko useful more than once, then the victory in the market it did not bring him: payment terminals clearly won, and Romanenko thought about changing strategies. Initially, he bought the same POS-terminals, as from competitors, and began to promote them, but later noticed the payment terminals of the company "Eleksnet" . This competitor Romanenko became the first in Russia to accept payments for mobile communication through massive anti-vandal iron boxes called payment terminals.
Romanenko was fascinated by the idea of ​​terminals, but the business strategy of Eleksnet was creatively reworked. Eleksnet owned all its terminals, which made distribution difficult and made the company cumbersome, and Romanenko decided to work on the principle of franchise. The devices were also improved: instead of massive boxes with iron buttons of “Eleksnet”, more elegant terminals with touchscreen appeared.
The change of strategy made it possible to attract investments: in 2003, the owner of the First Processing Bank, Sergey Solonin, became seriously interested in the idea of ​​electronic payments. In a few years, he will become the main owner and CEO of Qiwi.
However, even with the money the company had a real chance of being late. There were a lot of competitors by 2004: in addition to Elexnet, Rapida , WebMoney and PayCash , which formed the basis of Yandex.Money, worked on the market - and they were also armed with money and technology. The main business of Eleksnet already had investments from the Scandinavian fund Mint Capital , the ability to deposit money on Visa cards, payment of utility bills and about a thousand terminals throughout the country.
Practically leaping into the last car, Romanenko nevertheless prepared a surprise for competitors: he offered his terminals twice cheaper than other sellers - at $ 4,000 (at the 2005 rate).
Thanks to the cheapness and good design of the terminals, as well as the agency model of network development, already in 2007, the former card sellers were the first in the country in terms of the number of payments, and they had 26,000 terminals. The franchise made it possible for Qiwi to grow rapidly and even begin expansion into the markets of the CIS countries.
“Eleksnet” with a network of a couple of thousand of its own terminals was now far behind, and the main competitor was the e-port, in which billionaire Yury Milner invested.
In all respects, this situation should have resulted in a price war that would have bled the two sides, but Andrei Romanenko again offered the competitor to unite. Boris Kim accepted the offer, and in 2007, Qiwi appeared.
In the CIS, the company became crowded, and Romanenko went to other countries, and, unlike competitors, succeeded there. Now terminals can be seen in South America and in Africa, although financially this is not a very successful undertaking. “The main business for them is Russian, and abroad their income is very small, as shown by the final figures,” concludes, based on the company's financial reporting history, VTB Capital analyst Vladimir Bespalov.
Such rapid development by 2013 provided Qiwi with a network of 200 thousand terminals around the world, 35% profitability and a net profit of 2.17 billion rubles. The same year, an IPO on the NASDAQ took place. Although the USA did not even hear about the payment terminals, investors were impressed with the company's growth rate and valued it at $ 884 million. Qiwi's management earned more than $ 200 million on an IPO, and about $ 300 million more during the autumn SPO. As a result of these placements, Romanenko sold almost all his shares, according to various estimates, earning $ 50-60 million, after which he withdrew from the operational management of the company and engaged in other projects.
By 2013, he became interested in working with venture funds. The entrepreneur’s acquaintances say that the departure to the venture business was largely due to acquaintance with Yuri Milner - he became an example to follow in the new stage of Romanenko’s life.
But Andrei Romanenko, of course, did not succeed in repeating Milner’s success in his meadow, although there are certain achievements. Since 2011, with the participation of Romanenko, the seed investment fund AddVenture was created (the most well-known investments are the Delivery Club food delivery service and product delivery for a specific Sheffmarket recipe) and the iTech Capital venture fund (known for investing in the Aviasales ticket purchase service and entertainment events Ticketland ).
However, in addition to the listed investments, which can be considered successful, the funds of Andrey Romanenko were one big mistake: Romanenko did not dare to invest in an application for calling Gett taxi, although there was such an opportunity.
Now Andrei Romanenko has gone headlong into his new business - Run Capital investment fund, which invests in startups in the early stages of development. Many of Qiwi’s co-founders, Nikolay Romanenko, Igor Mikhailov, Sergey Fedyushchenko and Andrei Muravyev, also appeared in Run Capital (all of them participated in iTech Capital and AddVenture funds).
The Kommersant publication has published a detailed story of its success.
"Megamind" gives the most interesting facts.
')
Office museum
In Andrei Romanenko’s office on Spiridonovka there are several dozens of kiwi birds: plush, wooden, kiwi in paintings and on furniture. He has been collecting this museum for several years now, since the kiwi bird has become the symbol of its main offspring, the Qiwi company. But now the office of Romanenko and the office of Qiwi are in different places. This year, the businessman officially announced that he was leaving the company to focus on his venture fund Run Capital.
Qiwi still keeps the hipster style created by Romanenko: in Northern Chertanovo ottomans are placed all over the room, swings are suspended from the ceiling, there are even sleep booths, the staff all walk in sneakers and jeans and communicate mainly via instant messengers. And Romanenko himself today wears a suit more often than jeans, and spends a lot of time abroad, plunging into the venture capital business.
Quick success
Andrey Romanenko started his business at seventeen: he recorded computer games on floppy disks and sold them.
In the third year, Romanenko volunteered to sell for a friend (he was an employee of one of the operating companies) payment cards. In the 1990s, this was the main way to recharge a mobile phone. Thus, the first business, a prototype of Qiwi, the Plastic Card Store, which quickly occupied 70% of the market, was born.
In many ways, success was ensured by branding worthy at that time and good advertising promotion. Co-owner of this, like all subsequent businesses Romanenko, was his father, Nikolai Romanenko. In the USSR, Romanenko Sr. led the Vneshtorgizdat, and in 1989 became one of the founders of the Russian branch of the American advertising agency BBDO , which he later headed for many years.
The partners were engaged in selling cards for a short time: this business was not so profitable, and its competitors with payment terminals slowly began to crowd out. For example, a few months earlier, Avtokard-Holding (specializing in prepaid gasoline cards) spun off Boris Kim's company. E-port .
The first unification and change of strategy
To counter the new technology, Romanenko decides to unite with other plastic card vendors: together with several small players, he creates the Unified Instant Payment System (OSMP), which by 2004 will occupy almost the entire market. Although the ability to unite Romanenko useful more than once, then the victory in the market it did not bring him: payment terminals clearly won, and Romanenko thought about changing strategies. Initially, he bought the same POS-terminals, as from competitors, and began to promote them, but later noticed the payment terminals of the company "Eleksnet" . This competitor Romanenko became the first in Russia to accept payments for mobile communication through massive anti-vandal iron boxes called payment terminals.
Romanenko was fascinated by the idea of ​​terminals, but the business strategy of Eleksnet was creatively reworked. Eleksnet owned all its terminals, which made distribution difficult and made the company cumbersome, and Romanenko decided to work on the principle of franchise. The devices were also improved: instead of massive boxes with iron buttons of “Eleksnet”, more elegant terminals with touchscreen appeared.
The last car
The change of strategy made it possible to attract investments: in 2003, the owner of the First Processing Bank, Sergey Solonin, became seriously interested in the idea of ​​electronic payments. In a few years, he will become the main owner and CEO of Qiwi.
However, even with the money the company had a real chance of being late. There were a lot of competitors by 2004: in addition to Elexnet, Rapida , WebMoney and PayCash , which formed the basis of Yandex.Money, worked on the market - and they were also armed with money and technology. The main business of Eleksnet already had investments from the Scandinavian fund Mint Capital , the ability to deposit money on Visa cards, payment of utility bills and about a thousand terminals throughout the country.
Practically leaping into the last car, Romanenko nevertheless prepared a surprise for competitors: he offered his terminals twice cheaper than other sellers - at $ 4,000 (at the 2005 rate).
Thanks to the cheapness and good design of the terminals, as well as the agency model of network development, already in 2007, the former card sellers were the first in the country in terms of the number of payments, and they had 26,000 terminals. The franchise made it possible for Qiwi to grow rapidly and even begin expansion into the markets of the CIS countries.
“Eleksnet” with a network of a couple of thousand of its own terminals was now far behind, and the main competitor was the e-port, in which billionaire Yury Milner invested.
Second merger and IPO
In all respects, this situation should have resulted in a price war that would have bled the two sides, but Andrei Romanenko again offered the competitor to unite. Boris Kim accepted the offer, and in 2007, Qiwi appeared.
In the CIS, the company became crowded, and Romanenko went to other countries, and, unlike competitors, succeeded there. Now terminals can be seen in South America and in Africa, although financially this is not a very successful undertaking. “The main business for them is Russian, and abroad their income is very small, as shown by the final figures,” concludes, based on the company's financial reporting history, VTB Capital analyst Vladimir Bespalov.
Such rapid development by 2013 provided Qiwi with a network of 200 thousand terminals around the world, 35% profitability and a net profit of 2.17 billion rubles. The same year, an IPO on the NASDAQ took place. Although the USA did not even hear about the payment terminals, investors were impressed with the company's growth rate and valued it at $ 884 million. Qiwi's management earned more than $ 200 million on an IPO, and about $ 300 million more during the autumn SPO. As a result of these placements, Romanenko sold almost all his shares, according to various estimates, earning $ 50-60 million, after which he withdrew from the operational management of the company and engaged in other projects.
New projects
By 2013, he became interested in working with venture funds. The entrepreneur’s acquaintances say that the departure to the venture business was largely due to acquaintance with Yuri Milner - he became an example to follow in the new stage of Romanenko’s life.
But Andrei Romanenko, of course, did not succeed in repeating Milner’s success in his meadow, although there are certain achievements. Since 2011, with the participation of Romanenko, the seed investment fund AddVenture was created (the most well-known investments are the Delivery Club food delivery service and product delivery for a specific Sheffmarket recipe) and the iTech Capital venture fund (known for investing in the Aviasales ticket purchase service and entertainment events Ticketland ).
However, in addition to the listed investments, which can be considered successful, the funds of Andrey Romanenko were one big mistake: Romanenko did not dare to invest in an application for calling Gett taxi, although there was such an opportunity.
Now Andrei Romanenko has gone headlong into his new business - Run Capital investment fund, which invests in startups in the early stages of development. Many of Qiwi’s co-founders, Nikolay Romanenko, Igor Mikhailov, Sergey Fedyushchenko and Andrei Muravyev, also appeared in Run Capital (all of them participated in iTech Capital and AddVenture funds).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/297272/
All Articles