Founder's advice. Dmitry Barychev, “Track parcel.rf”

Not everyone is satisfied with the quality of the work of the Russian Post. In particular, the problem with monitoring the status of parcels is quite common.

Dmitry Barychev offered his own way to solve this problem and launched the corresponding Internet service.

We talked with the co-founder of the company “Track parcel.rf” and found out which way the project has gone, at what stage of development it is now. Dmitry also spoke about his experience and gave some tips on doing business in IT.

At what point did it become clear that such a business could generate income? What has it all grown to the current moment?
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I started doing this because I needed money. About the fact that it will generate revenue, it was clear before the launch. The online stores have such a “pain”: low redemption of orders by cash on delivery. Then the market was not ready service for this business.

I had an online store before. We traded vinyl stickers. Faced with this problem, we first made a decision for ourselves, and then it became a full-fledged service.

How were you looking for an investment? What is the size of the team at the moment? What were the difficulties in product development? Are you developing or outsourcing?

Team - 6 people at full employment. Part-time from 5 to 10 people. My partner and I started it all with our own money, having invested literally 20 thousand rubles.

We have never attracted investments, we have always developed on working capital. In November, our monthly revenue was 4 million rubles.

We develop the product mainly on our own, but sometimes we give some tasks to outsource. The technical side of the project is my partner.

What is the main lesson you have learned from your personal experience related to the business up to now?

There are several:

• I was convinced from my experience that you should never stop learning.
• We need to find time for something other than business. Not to devote all his time to him, but to develop in some other directions.
• Need to trust people more.

What is the most difficult task you had to solve?

This is an emotional burnout that I have been experiencing for a year.

How to cope?

First, do not give up what you are doing, no matter how much you would like. Secondly, to distract from the business, to develop in some other areas, while not letting the business take its course.

If five years ago I told you where you are now, would you do this?

I think I would. This type of activity - entrepreneurship - develops a person very well as a person.

What advice can you give to young people who are just starting their way into the IT business?

If it’s just about making money, you don’t have to go into business. You can simply get a high-paying job. In my opinion, you need to do business in the event that you want to create something new.

And here it is first and foremost important to find a good idea. It should be an idea of ​​what is not on the market, which, without doubt, is necessary for people.

Our service is an example of such an idea. Another example is that publishers of mobile games lose a lot of money on piracy.

Their games are stolen and posted on pirate sites. And 95% of downloads come from there. One of the publishers of games has invented a special feature to be built into the code of his application that pirates cannot detect. A couple of weeks after the theft of the game, when the pirates publish it on their websites, this feature is activated, and the game begins to show users ads. And in the advertisement displays a link to the publisher of the game.

That is, it turns out that people earn on the piracy. Very good idea.

However, you can come up with such ideas only if you are immersed in some kind of environment: you are engaged in online commerce, for example, or computer games - as in the second example.

Therefore, you first need to be in this environment: it is better to go to work where you like. And then try to find gaps in reality that can be eliminated by implementing a breakthrough idea.

What advice can you give to more experienced people?

Creating a company, you need to look for partners who can close those blocks that you can not close yourself. Now I will tell you how to search ...

If you are looking for a technical director, you can publish a task somewhere on the stock exchange. Offer to make it, for example, 20 candidates. If there is a person who makes the best of all, for an adequate price, with high quality and on time, then you need to communicate with him in more detail. It turns out such a microtender.

I also wanted to say about investments.

Do not take them. In my opinion, you need to do a project for your money. Investments discourage, and people very often make mistakes in this state. And when you have every month as the last, you are very collected and make only the right decisions or ... close.

As for the workflow ...

You must immediately try to automate repetitive work or delegate it. Do not overwork: it is better to work in standard mode 5/2.

Another tip is to keep an eye on finances.

I, for example, the first year or two, when the money was running out, sat down in the middle of the month and watched the pace of income. By the end of the middle of the month, I predicted whether I would have money to pay my employees and myself. If I understood that there was not enough money, I began to quickly look for ways to earn them.

In our case, we did custom development, advertising, promotion - and survived. And it seems to me that this is more correct than taking investments.

We also tested various promotion methods, and it helped us.

And which method was the most effective for you?

Article advertising on various Internet resources. In addition, integration with popular CMS (Bitrix, inSales) worked well.

How do you see the future of the project?

We have two options: either sell it and go somewhere else, or continue to develop. In the latter case, it is of interest to me to enter the international market. I see prospects there: there we have only one noticeable competitor, and we are no worse, and in many respects even better than him. So we have the opportunity to take some share there.

Imagine such a situation: the Post of Russia comes and offers you twice as much money as you expected in your wildest dreams. Will you sell the company?

I think yes. But she will not come and will not offer (smiles).