IIDF: Acceleration Experience of ISDEF Member Companies
Dmitry Kalaev, director of the IIDF accelerator, has been making presentations at ISDEF for three years now. On the eve of the 16th autumn ISDEF 2017 conference, Dmitry spoke about the acceleration of companies owned by participants of the iSpring Association, LeaderTask , FSPro Labs , Daminion , and how difficult it is for a veteran of the market to “plow” his business model.
How is ISDEF useful for you in terms of recruiting projects into an accelerator?
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Dmitry Kalaev: Firstly, ISDEF is a fairly high-quality community with already established entrepreneurs. Maybe they have not yet built their Google or Apple, but at least these are people with managerial experience, significant sales experience, including sales outside Russia. This is very good baggage with which you can grow a large company. And second, ISDEF is a platform in which there are more technology entrepreneurs. That is, not those who have learned to sell well, working, for example, in Microsoft, or in another reputable company with well-built sales. On the contrary, those who grew out of technology. As a base, they already have a rather complicated product that is difficult to copy. These companies have competitors, but they at least have something to scale.
What made ISDEF participating companies catch your attention?
Dmitry Kalaev: For example, iSpring is a big company with a complex structure of changes that makes a top global product in e-learning, while in Yoshkar-Ola. This is a fairly large business in which we, as an accelerator, change the course of the ship. If you have a ship with only five oarsmen, then you simply turn the steering wheel. When you have 140 oarsmen on your ship, you need to rebuild the rhythm of knocking on drums, then turning the ship takes another time. But overall, iSpring is the most interesting project, including because it has more revenue.
There is a team that we have not yet been able to convince of joining work for three months in Moscow, but we are very interested in it. Iridium Mobile evokes respect for the fact that the team makes a world-class product for IoT, while in Nizhny Tagil. All this turns the view of Russia and the regions. In a remote region, it turns out, there are technical expertise, entrepreneurial experience, and an understanding of international markets, which allows selling not only in Russia, but also abroad, to be in leading positions.
And what is the composition of the accelerator portfolio in terms of regional binding?
Dmitry Kalaev: Today, in our portfolio 50% of projects are Moscow, 50% are all that is outside of Moscow. Although more often it is still millionaire cities. On the contrary, Nizhny Tagil and Yoshkar-Ola are not even millionaires, but more unexpected cities for the emergence of world leaders. And since the main flow we do cities like Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and others. Although, if we are not talking about ISDEF, over the past couple of years Arkhangelsk has surprised me, who led three companies at once. In fact, this is a big separate topic that there are companies in the regions that can do business for the entire Russian market or even for the global one.
I would also mention colleagues from the Moscow-based company Driver Pack Solutions . The company makes a product by solving a problem that a giant like Microsoft hasn’t been able to solve for decades. We must pay tribute to Artur Kuzyakov, who builds the company not on the side of money, but on the side of the client. Their competitors are quite tough in relation to users - without asking, they put a lot of left-side software, which they did not plan to install. This allows them, on the one hand, to earn more, but, on the other hand, they treat their users completely non-ecological. Naturally, there is a large level of discontent, and now Arthur is building his business just according to a different model, when he explains what software is openly and why it is installed. The revenue is less than that of the “evil” competitors, but in my opinion this is a completely correct approach. You bring some improvements to the world and you earn money from it.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of these projects can you highlight?
Dmitry Kalaev: In fact, at the same time, the strength is weakness. Companies built by developers. I do not see anything wrong with this, because I myself was a developer, but the last time the code was written was 13-14 years ago. The bottom line is that these are companies that are well versed in what to do with the product, but there are expertise gaps in sales, marketing, in communicating with the customer, in finding out the customer's needs, because we, as programmers, come more from our sense of beauty. . But this is exactly what we, as an accelerator, are strong at. We do not teach how best to program, plan iterations, distribute tasks within a team. We help to find out the value for the client, segment the clients into those who help us earn, and those who, on the contrary, destroy our revenue and our brand. I would say that this turns out to be an ideal match between the competence of the founders and our competencies.
Tell me how the acceleration of projects?
Dmitry Kalaev: Step number one is what we call diagnostics. The team wants to double the revenue, increase profits, or start building responsibility areas within the team. It is necessary to understand where the company is now located, who the client is, who we sell to, what competencies there are, and what competencies are lacking. The second step is to change the founder’s vision of the world. He is no longer a start-up who does his first business, but an entrepreneur whose business has existed for 3, 5, 10 years. This means that the founder has already developed certain habits of making decisions, delegating tasks, a way to think about a client. By and large, at the second step habits have to be revised. It is very important that the founder himself is ready for this. Because without the willingness to change something no result will not work. Fortunately, developers are very flexible people, who in their lives have changed, most likely, not by one programming language. And these people are very often ready to reconsider their view of life. In contrast to the more conservative founders who come to us from traditional industries, for example, the automotive or construction business.
The third step is speed. We have a hypothesis about the increase in prices, about the reduction of the trial period, hypotheses about the new customer segments that need to be tested. There are no such hypotheses that are realized with one hundred percent probability. It is very important that the whole company starts working as a test laboratory. We conducted an experiment, obtained results, made conclusions, repeated the experiment, and so on. Our laboratory is not driven by product metrics of new functions or, by the metrics of the number of errors in the final release, but by revenue metrics. Thus, we are rebuilding the company to increase profits. Now we have added the function “profit increased”, “profit decreased” or “profit is the same as it was”.
Our goal is to rebuild the team into this mode and run the business hypotheses as quickly as possible, so that we can run the entire cycle from the design of the tool to receiving the data a week, and plan the next experiment. This is such a fundamental restructuring of the understanding of the business and the speed of the company. Usually it is difficult. Because, as a rule, you already have a business that makes a profit. And in this business, you have a choice between “I already feel good” and “whether it will be better”. Among programmers, it is widely believed that the best is the enemy of the good. If now I try to improve something, I won’t break what I already have. Naturally, we never offer to immediately extend the changes to the entire incoming stream of customers. First, the experiment is done on a sample sufficient to make a decision. If the result on this sample is positive, then it can be scaled to the entire client base. If it turns out that the hypothesis does not work, then we will do another experiment.
What is the motivation of the company to come to the accelerator?
Dmitry Kalaev: Most people say that they come to the accelerator with a desire to increase their revenues. But I can say that in actual fact the motivation is beyond the scope of money. That is, half of the founders with whom we work have enough money, and there is a desire for development, a desire to use time and their resources more efficiently. At least for those coming from ISDEF.
What projects at this stage seem to be the most interesting?
Dmitry Kalaev: First of all, these are companies that completely change the existing ways of working in any field.
For example, one of the leaders of our portfolio is the company Stafory (robot “Vera”). It changes the principle of recruitment in companies. Previously, a recruiter went to HeadHunter, dialed numbers, called, invited to a meeting, and now this part is made by a robot who parses websites, qualifies a client, invites to a meeting. The task is quite simple - voice IVR interfaces have existed for decades. But in this context, it has not yet been applied.
Another example is the company SemantiHub, a team with a strong scientific component (of the three founders, two candidates of science and one doctor of science), came up with a technology for semantics and was looking for where to apply their solution. By and large, they have learned to take meaning from the text. For example, by launching a product promotion, you can choose from forums and discussions automatically words and phrases that are product markers based on actual customer discussions and include them in a marketing campaign. Now they have moved to the pharmaceutical industry. For example, someone invents a new molecule that will go into the composition of the apparatus. Since thousands of teams around the world are doing this at the same time, the likelihood that someone has already invented such a molecule is very high. And in order to find the results of these studies, you need to read a lot of texts. Their first customers are investors who are developing new drugs. In this way, they reduce the risks that such and such a substance has already been laid in the basis of the drug and at the same time caused side effects. One of the founders is 70+ years old. Do not often meet these startups. This shows that old age is not in the date of birth, but in the head.
PS: Until the end of the week, it is possible to register for the conference for FRII33 promo code for 12,000 rubles instead of 18,000. The conference itself will be held on September 29 and 30, Dmitry Kalaev is on it all day September 29, see schedule # ISDEF2017 .
How is ISDEF useful for you in terms of recruiting projects into an accelerator?
')
Dmitry Kalaev: Firstly, ISDEF is a fairly high-quality community with already established entrepreneurs. Maybe they have not yet built their Google or Apple, but at least these are people with managerial experience, significant sales experience, including sales outside Russia. This is very good baggage with which you can grow a large company. And second, ISDEF is a platform in which there are more technology entrepreneurs. That is, not those who have learned to sell well, working, for example, in Microsoft, or in another reputable company with well-built sales. On the contrary, those who grew out of technology. As a base, they already have a rather complicated product that is difficult to copy. These companies have competitors, but they at least have something to scale.
What made ISDEF participating companies catch your attention?
Dmitry Kalaev: For example, iSpring is a big company with a complex structure of changes that makes a top global product in e-learning, while in Yoshkar-Ola. This is a fairly large business in which we, as an accelerator, change the course of the ship. If you have a ship with only five oarsmen, then you simply turn the steering wheel. When you have 140 oarsmen on your ship, you need to rebuild the rhythm of knocking on drums, then turning the ship takes another time. But overall, iSpring is the most interesting project, including because it has more revenue.
There is a team that we have not yet been able to convince of joining work for three months in Moscow, but we are very interested in it. Iridium Mobile evokes respect for the fact that the team makes a world-class product for IoT, while in Nizhny Tagil. All this turns the view of Russia and the regions. In a remote region, it turns out, there are technical expertise, entrepreneurial experience, and an understanding of international markets, which allows selling not only in Russia, but also abroad, to be in leading positions.
And what is the composition of the accelerator portfolio in terms of regional binding?
Dmitry Kalaev: Today, in our portfolio 50% of projects are Moscow, 50% are all that is outside of Moscow. Although more often it is still millionaire cities. On the contrary, Nizhny Tagil and Yoshkar-Ola are not even millionaires, but more unexpected cities for the emergence of world leaders. And since the main flow we do cities like Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and others. Although, if we are not talking about ISDEF, over the past couple of years Arkhangelsk has surprised me, who led three companies at once. In fact, this is a big separate topic that there are companies in the regions that can do business for the entire Russian market or even for the global one.
I would also mention colleagues from the Moscow-based company Driver Pack Solutions . The company makes a product by solving a problem that a giant like Microsoft hasn’t been able to solve for decades. We must pay tribute to Artur Kuzyakov, who builds the company not on the side of money, but on the side of the client. Their competitors are quite tough in relation to users - without asking, they put a lot of left-side software, which they did not plan to install. This allows them, on the one hand, to earn more, but, on the other hand, they treat their users completely non-ecological. Naturally, there is a large level of discontent, and now Arthur is building his business just according to a different model, when he explains what software is openly and why it is installed. The revenue is less than that of the “evil” competitors, but in my opinion this is a completely correct approach. You bring some improvements to the world and you earn money from it.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of these projects can you highlight?
Dmitry Kalaev: In fact, at the same time, the strength is weakness. Companies built by developers. I do not see anything wrong with this, because I myself was a developer, but the last time the code was written was 13-14 years ago. The bottom line is that these are companies that are well versed in what to do with the product, but there are expertise gaps in sales, marketing, in communicating with the customer, in finding out the customer's needs, because we, as programmers, come more from our sense of beauty. . But this is exactly what we, as an accelerator, are strong at. We do not teach how best to program, plan iterations, distribute tasks within a team. We help to find out the value for the client, segment the clients into those who help us earn, and those who, on the contrary, destroy our revenue and our brand. I would say that this turns out to be an ideal match between the competence of the founders and our competencies.
Tell me how the acceleration of projects?
Dmitry Kalaev: Step number one is what we call diagnostics. The team wants to double the revenue, increase profits, or start building responsibility areas within the team. It is necessary to understand where the company is now located, who the client is, who we sell to, what competencies there are, and what competencies are lacking. The second step is to change the founder’s vision of the world. He is no longer a start-up who does his first business, but an entrepreneur whose business has existed for 3, 5, 10 years. This means that the founder has already developed certain habits of making decisions, delegating tasks, a way to think about a client. By and large, at the second step habits have to be revised. It is very important that the founder himself is ready for this. Because without the willingness to change something no result will not work. Fortunately, developers are very flexible people, who in their lives have changed, most likely, not by one programming language. And these people are very often ready to reconsider their view of life. In contrast to the more conservative founders who come to us from traditional industries, for example, the automotive or construction business.
The third step is speed. We have a hypothesis about the increase in prices, about the reduction of the trial period, hypotheses about the new customer segments that need to be tested. There are no such hypotheses that are realized with one hundred percent probability. It is very important that the whole company starts working as a test laboratory. We conducted an experiment, obtained results, made conclusions, repeated the experiment, and so on. Our laboratory is not driven by product metrics of new functions or, by the metrics of the number of errors in the final release, but by revenue metrics. Thus, we are rebuilding the company to increase profits. Now we have added the function “profit increased”, “profit decreased” or “profit is the same as it was”.
Our goal is to rebuild the team into this mode and run the business hypotheses as quickly as possible, so that we can run the entire cycle from the design of the tool to receiving the data a week, and plan the next experiment. This is such a fundamental restructuring of the understanding of the business and the speed of the company. Usually it is difficult. Because, as a rule, you already have a business that makes a profit. And in this business, you have a choice between “I already feel good” and “whether it will be better”. Among programmers, it is widely believed that the best is the enemy of the good. If now I try to improve something, I won’t break what I already have. Naturally, we never offer to immediately extend the changes to the entire incoming stream of customers. First, the experiment is done on a sample sufficient to make a decision. If the result on this sample is positive, then it can be scaled to the entire client base. If it turns out that the hypothesis does not work, then we will do another experiment.
What is the motivation of the company to come to the accelerator?
Dmitry Kalaev: Most people say that they come to the accelerator with a desire to increase their revenues. But I can say that in actual fact the motivation is beyond the scope of money. That is, half of the founders with whom we work have enough money, and there is a desire for development, a desire to use time and their resources more efficiently. At least for those coming from ISDEF.
What projects at this stage seem to be the most interesting?
Dmitry Kalaev: First of all, these are companies that completely change the existing ways of working in any field.
For example, one of the leaders of our portfolio is the company Stafory (robot “Vera”). It changes the principle of recruitment in companies. Previously, a recruiter went to HeadHunter, dialed numbers, called, invited to a meeting, and now this part is made by a robot who parses websites, qualifies a client, invites to a meeting. The task is quite simple - voice IVR interfaces have existed for decades. But in this context, it has not yet been applied.
Another example is the company SemantiHub, a team with a strong scientific component (of the three founders, two candidates of science and one doctor of science), came up with a technology for semantics and was looking for where to apply their solution. By and large, they have learned to take meaning from the text. For example, by launching a product promotion, you can choose from forums and discussions automatically words and phrases that are product markers based on actual customer discussions and include them in a marketing campaign. Now they have moved to the pharmaceutical industry. For example, someone invents a new molecule that will go into the composition of the apparatus. Since thousands of teams around the world are doing this at the same time, the likelihood that someone has already invented such a molecule is very high. And in order to find the results of these studies, you need to read a lot of texts. Their first customers are investors who are developing new drugs. In this way, they reduce the risks that such and such a substance has already been laid in the basis of the drug and at the same time caused side effects. One of the founders is 70+ years old. Do not often meet these startups. This shows that old age is not in the date of birth, but in the head.
PS: Until the end of the week, it is possible to register for the conference for FRII33 promo code for 12,000 rubles instead of 18,000. The conference itself will be held on September 29 and 30, Dmitry Kalaev is on it all day September 29, see schedule # ISDEF2017 .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/338284/
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