Family business in IT. How we sold our startup

Foreword

Yes, yes, we did it. Energoslon has a new owner, and we ... we live on. Why sold? How? What are we doing now? And what, after all, is happening at all? Easy, friends. Now we will understand everything. Pour coffee and sit back. Today I am going to talk about what we have done in the past two years.

Hard times again

As you remember, in the fall of 2014, we launched the Energloslon position verification service. We understood: development is not even 50% of work on a startup. But in the depths of his soul, they still hoped: "Now we will launch the Elephant and finally rest." Not here it was ...

Marketing, public relations, constant improvements, communication with users ... Work has become even more, and time is even less. But most importantly - we ran out of money. I already wrote that the development of Energoslon instead of the planned five months took as much as eleven. All this time we did not take new orders, existed at the expense of savings and regular customers on seo. Considering the modest finances, we came to a disappointing conclusion: we will have to resume the work of the web studio. Again meetings, offers, contracts, technical tasks ... Brrr! How we are tired of all this! However, the Elephant asked for money, and we had to get it.

This time we decided not to take on all the work, but to hire an employee who would take over the operational management of the studio. The plan was:
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1. Find a reliable partner and offer him a part of the profits.
2. Teach partner to manage a web studio.
3. Spend a minimum of time on the studio and a maximum of the Elephant.

Oddly enough, we coped with the first point of the plan pretty quickly. They offered a partnership to my school friend Lena. She had long dreamed of changing the scope of her activities, and we perfectly understood that more decent people simply did not exist.

In November, Lena moved to Krasnodar, and now the three of us were harnessed to a team called the Malinka Internet Marketing Agency. Such hard times as the next six months, we have long been not ...

Old rake at a new angle

Do you know why a business owner should manage and not waste time on current tasks? No, not because he is too cool to make TK and communicate with customers. And not because in this case, the business turns into some meaningless place of self-construction. And not even because a rational delegation of tasks at times increases profits. No, it's all about the routine.

Routine is the main enemy of the entrepreneur. It draws into its networks, discourages the desire to think and develop. Routine sucks all the energy out of you, makes you go with the flow, live in the breakfast-work-coffee-work-coffee-work-work-dinner-work-sleep mode. Sometimes the thought awakens before going to bed: “We should sit down and evaluate the current state of affairs, understand how to proceed.” But in the morning you return to the routine again, and there is no strength to do anything out of the hateful schedule. We are mired.

Sasha worked on improving the Elephant, in parallel, controlling the development of client sites. Lena and I used to wander around the meetings, in the evening we thought out marketing strategies for clients, wrote texts and drew prototypes. In addition, Lena studied Internet marketing courses, and I pulled all the accounting papers and led client advertising campaigns.

With such a crazy download, I somehow managed to answer the questions of users in the Elephant and lecture on seo in the school of Internet marketing. No fun, gray monotonous weekdays, working days off, fatigue and a complete lack of motivation. In general, plow, until you die.

In May, I decided to write a new article on Habra and, re-reading the old material, I stumbled upon my own three golden rules . “It's a pretty thing,” I thought, “you give advice to others, but you don’t follow them.” My third and perhaps most important rule was: you need to rest at least twice a year. Therefore, Sasha and I turned off the phones, left our laptops at home and rushed to Egypt.

We just ate, slept, bathed ... Relaxed atmosphere, unhurried conversations, evening walks. Some five days, it would seem! But these five days helped me make one very important decision. I suddenly realized what I really wanted to do. I realized what I want to devote myself entirely.

We returned home, and work days began again. But now I tried to appear less often in the office. And every free minute I worked on my new project.

Got sick! Change life by 179 degrees

By the end of the summer, Lena assumed almost all operational tasks. Sasha and I sighed a little more freely. They began to rest more often and devote more time to planning. Web Studio brought a steady income. The elephant gradually gained momentum, the number of users grew, and we were able to reach the break-even point.

In fact, a web studio rarely works in the negative. However, in this business everything is tied to people. It is necessary for someone to leave, and the whole structure can suddenly fall apart. In August, Masha retired. She said she did not want to do more web design and plans to devote herself to illustrations. We have worked together for almost five years, and my language has not turned to dissuade her. Yes, I knew that finding a new designer would be very difficult. But humanly I understood Masha. She made the same choice as I had a few months earlier - I decided to do what I loved. How could this be resisted?

At first we tried to find a designer in the state. Then with two experts tried to work on the project. It turned out not bad, but “not bad” never suited us. A month later, Sasha offered to change the course a bit. Why not convert the studio to technical tasks? Excellent specialists worked for us - the maker-up and the developer. Lena communicated with clients and was engaged in setting tasks. Peter promoted sites. We collaborated with the content provider remotely.

Sasha and I had several meetings with the owners of other web studios. And they were surprised to find that many are interested in such services. The idea looked quite sensible and, gathering our strength, we began to implement it.

One evening we stayed late at work. Calculated estimates for new partners and discussed the strategy for further development. And then Sasha suddenly looked at me attentively and said something that probably did not happen in my head for the first month: “Well, may he all? Let's just close? ”

In just five minutes, we made a decision that I never regretted over the following year.

Life in paradise

I was worried about how the staff would take the news. Of course, the guys were upset. But we tried to make the changes as easy as possible. Petya was transferred to remote work, he still promotes the sites of our regular customers. Developers were paid a double salary so that they could easily find a job. Lena was given a percentage of the web-studio's capital due by the partnership agreement. They sold out furniture and computers, terminated the office lease agreement, and woke up free people on the first of November.

This is an amazing feeling. You sit at home, you don't need to run anywhere, nobody needs to call. We had only three sites in operation. For several clients, I led advertising campaigns, and with a dozen we promoted in search results. But these were mere trifles compared with the recent download. We no longer needed to hold meetings, prepare KP and prototypes. The available income was enough to live in your pleasure.

Three days passed, and we understood: in Krasnodar, we have nothing to do. That same evening we bought tickets to Thailand, where we had always dreamed of visiting. And a week later they flew to warm countries. For three months.

So from entrepreneurs we turned into freelancers. The most interesting thing: personal income has tripled, while we work no more than 4 hours a day. I think it makes no sense to tell how cool we were in Thailand. Sea, fruit, amazing food, interesting places ... And most importantly - a lot of free time to do your favorite thing.

By the end of the year I finished my first book. And from the middle of January I started writing the second one. A little later, when we returned to Krasnodar, I went through several literary courses and realized that it was better not to show people the first detective story. But the second, if you work hard on it, deserves publication. A teacher of writing skills confirmed this idea, and I began to work even harder.

“And what about Energoslon?” - you ask. "And in any way ..." - I will answer and sigh heavily. Elephant hopes we never met.

Another tough decision

Arriving in Thailand, we gave ourselves a clear statement: to engage in the development of Energoslon. Time passed, and we all put off our direct responsibility. The elephant lived its own life. New users appeared, positions were checked, a small income arrived. And we all were going to “tomorrow” come to grips with the development of our startup. Time passed, but "tomorrow" did not come.

Every spare minute I spent on the book. Sasha was engaged in a new project. We are so tired of business and Energloslon that we couldn’t even make ourselves think in that direction. In the spring, before returning home, we agreed that if after three months the desire to develop the Elephant does not wake up, we will close the service.

Desire never woke up. Spring is over, summer has come. And we all delayed a difficult decision. Probably, to understand our feelings, you need to go through all this. We invested all the available forces in Energoslon, he pulled everything from us without a trace. And even the thought that he needed to give him time again was depressing. And then the Elephant broke.

It happened in September. Google has once again changed something in the logic of collecting positions. The Elephant algorithm needed some work. At that time I was already preparing the book for publication and was completely absorbed in the process. Sasha was engaged in a new project and also did not feel the desire to solve the problem. In general, we ventured to do what we had long gathered and sent out to users a letter with a message about the closure of the service.

Surprisingly, over the next three days we received three offers to buy. Not to say that they were very profitable. But on the other hand, it's better than just bury all the work invested in the Elephant. One of three potential buyers was interested in the further development of Energoslon. Two others wanted to buy it for their own use. It is clear that we gave preference to the first.

Not to say that everything went smoothly. New developers are not immediately able to fix Google. We warned in advance about the problem, but still we heard a lot of unflattering comments about us. One way or another, we have not remained good friends with the new owner of Energoslon. I will not develop this unpleasant topic, but my advice to you is: when selling a business, try to personally meet with the buyer. The point is not that someone is worse or better. All people are different, and sometimes it is simply impossible to find a common language with a person. Two completely opposite points of view rarely lead to a compromise. And yes, first the money and documents - then the code. We took this into account, for which, after no time have we thanked ourselves.

What's next

I think my IT career is over. It was an incredibly interesting and productive period in my life, but that’s how I’m arranged: you need to move on. Writing books captured me entirely. I can't think of anything else, I don't want to do anything. For almost a year I worked on my fantastic detective story. Masha drew an amazing cover, and the book has already been published in all popular online stores. In the meantime, I am writing the next detective story and expect to finish it by summer.

On this I put an end to the series of articles "Family Business in IT". Thank you, friends, for your support and inspiration. Successes! May this year bring a sea of ​​positive! Do not waste your time on the routine, drink coffee and go ahead - change your life for the better!


PS previous publications:

• Family business in IT
• My three golden rules
• Time making money
• Who is Energoslon?
• How we put together a team
• Organization of online broadcast of the prize draw
• The first six months of our startup life