Founder's advice. Evgeny Kobzev, technical director and co-founder of the company "Button"

Cases where people from a large company, having gained enough experience, run their own startup, are not uncommon. After that, the newly created market player tries to compete with those to whom he owes a lot. However, the founders of the “Button” went a different way: they created a service that plays on a slightly different field.

The project team managed to attract investment without writing a single line of code. We can say that they were lucky with investors who believed in the viability and potential success of the project.

We talked with the co-founder of the “Button” and found out which way the project went, at what stage of development it is now. Evgeny Kobzev, technical director and co-founder of the company, spoke about his experience and gave some tips on doing business in IT.
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How it all began? Why did you decide to develop business in this particular area?

Prior to the launch of the “Button”, I spent several years working with my friends in accounting and reporting systems for accountants and entrepreneurs. And we worked in SKB-contour in Yekaterinburg. There was some success, but we wanted to do something different. Well, since we had just such an experience, we found the best option and investors.

How much time has passed since launch? What are your progress to the current moment? What does your team look like? How big is she?

We began to create a project in February 2013. Publicly declared themselves in July 2013. It turns out, pretty quickly launched MVP and immediately launched sales. We are not freemium: all customers pay us.

The company employs 160 people. In July 2016, we ended the month with a profit for the first time. So far every month after this was breakeven. I cannot disclose the amount of investments.

By the end of 2016, we will earn about 200 million revenue. December is a very important month for a product like ours. Usually at this time record sales are obtained: we also provide an accounting service.

We have back office for small and medium businesses. We provide the client with a team in which there is an accountant, lawyer, business assistant and the software itself.

While we do not know how to serve thousands of clients with one accountant. We are looking for ways to automate with machine learning. But for now, most of the company's employees are accountants - they are about 80 people. Lawyers and business assistants - a few dozen. The development team is the smallest - only 15 people: these are system administrators, programmers, testers and UX-designers.

Admins support our cloud "1C" issue trackers and other infrastructure. There are five of them.

How did your former superiors from the SKB react to the fact that you became their competitors?

This is not to say that we have become their competitors. SKB-contour makes software, and we provide services. We can render them on SKB software as well. We use different systems in our work - not only “1C”.

What is your relationship with 1C? This is a monopolist in the Russian market?

We have a good relationship with 1C. At first, we simply used their software, but did not communicate closely. At some point, we met closer.

We have thousands of customers who use "1C". We even wrote on Habré an article about how to quickly update multiple 1C databases simultaneously. The guys from "1C" read it and said that it is possible to solve the problem easier. We agreed to meet and consult.

It turned out that they have a specially cloudy solution 1C: Fresh, but few people know about it yet. Since then, we have worked closely with them. There are, of course, flaws in their software, but in general it makes life much easier for us. And in terms of compliance with the law, which is constantly changing, their software is always relevant. The developers of "1C" constantly rewrite their products to meet the standards.

Therefore, we do not need to take care of this. Our task is to facilitate the process of building the financial statements. If we go beyond the Russian market, we will find partners there who will also provide us with software similar to 1C.

What are the main lessons you can learn from the history of the company to the current moment?

We were originally hired employees. When we began to create our own project, we had nothing but ideas and experience. Investors usually need more - a working prototype. But we just came to people with ideas and were able to inspire confidence.

After that, it was necessary to motivate the team to work and demonstrate some kind of result. However, I think that it’s not worth starting any options or stocks at the start. After all, they may unexpectedly leave the project, and they will have a share in the company.

While the rest will continue to work and add value to the project. Therefore, we do not need such passengers. It's good that we didn't have to share with anyone at the start.

I believe that investors and their lawyers are usually much wiser than startups in this regard. And at first, the company was not taken apart due to them. On the other hand, an intelligent investor has nothing to blur the shares of the team that came up with the project and actually produces the product if he himself is not ready to take on his shoulders his development and development.

Therefore, I recommend not worrying about the fact that investors could potentially do wrong with you or even “throw”. There is always a risk, but you should try to build a truly trusting relationship with them.

Well, and then, when the first results appeared, our investor himself suggested how to evaluate and encourage everyone’s contribution to the work on projects.

What are the most difficult tasks you had to solve while working on a project?

When I first started working in a large company, I thought that the boss could even dismiss someone and even hire someone, and this is what solves all the problems. But often, the dismissal does not solve any problems, you need to immerse yourself in the process yourself, become an expert in it and find weaknesses.

And I realized that people work with you as long as your goals coincide. Otherwise, it is difficult to stop them.

What advice would you give to those who have no such experience, who are only at the beginning of the path?

The first thing I can say is that it will be difficult. It may seem that you, as the head of a small company, control the situation, but this is not so. If, for example, you need to urgently finish a new feature of the project, and at this time the lights are turned off in the office, you will have to somehow solve this problem. If the landlord refuses to extend the lease or raises prices - you will also have to figure it out. And this is not counting the everyday difficulties that are directly related to the work on the project.

Therefore, you need to be prepared that you are responsible for everything. And you can’t go anywhere, run away from your company. When you are employed, you can leave at any time, if something does not suit you, if you decide that there are too many “fools” working in this company.
But in your company you can dismiss all the "fools", and the situation does not change for the better: because the main "fool" will remain in place.

This is a rewarding experience, but there are sometimes very difficult moments.

There are, for example, such a situation when there is little time: you need to quickly launch a project and pay off. In such a situation, you may be capricious: you do not like it, it does not like it.
Here we, for example, use JIRA. I personally don’t like her very much, but the team without her cannot work yet and replace her with something.

Some things I still do not like. But when the project is on the verge of survival, you have to turn a blind eye to everything - as long as it works. Therefore, in any situation you need to find a solution. When this is your own project - you just can not not look.