A moment of surrealism. An abandoned railway crossing in a remote Siberian village. Almost the middle between Vladivostok and Moscow. Blinks dimly double red traffic light. The beep does not work for a year. Towards each other, scattering snow dust, freight trains are approaching. One of them consists almost entirely of containers ZhelDorEkspeditsii. On some you can see the logo Exist.ru. Another composition belongs to the HCV group, and everywhere there is their brand, as well as the emblem IsNext.ru. Both carry all kinds of auto parts to warehouses and from warehouses - orders in online stores. Somehow miraculously lost in Siberia, Vladislav Domoratsky stops on his car before this move. Looks at such a railway coincidence. And at the moment when one logo equals another for a split second, Domoratsky thinks into emptiness: “And if they go to meet one way - who will win? Is HCV a partner of Russian Railways or ZheldorEx - a protégé of the Alpha Group? .. Nonsense ... It's good that I left ... ”
Now this is exactly a different photo. Or not? ')
An hour of realism. Perhaps, these freight lines are already going one way towards each other. Or maybe in parallel in one direction, and soon someone will have to give up at the denouement. But one thing is certain: it is good that Domoratsky has left. This is true as well: it’s bad that Domoratsky, the man who built one of the largest Internet companies in Russia from scratch, left his own company like this.
Random development
It all started with the "hood on the hump." Twelve employees, a warehouse - part-time office in 50 squares, loaded bags with spare parts that need to be delivered daily to the conductor of the passenger train. The end of the 90s. Domoratsky came into the auto business from scrap metal. The dark matter, after which even had to leave for the cordon for a while - the exact motives and reasons are unknown. Returning after and learning from friends about the high margin for parts, caused by the willingness of the owners of foreign cars to overpay many times for the welfare of their “swallows”, Domoratsky decides to delve into this business. Not because of the long ruble - it’s better for him in the oil and gas or other industrial sector - but I didn’t want to go there - I wanted something interesting, new and “enough for bread”. Well, the case is, of course - there were no acquaintances from oil and gas, but friends in the auto business asked for help.
Some believe that the ship will sail as you call it. Others monitor the quality of the masts, steering, general condition, as well as the crew. Domoratsky decided that the boat can still be called it somehow, the main thing is to issue a legal entity. And it is possible to fill with content and hit the road with any name. So he became the owner of the first accidentally purchased LLC “Exist” (according to other data, the
company is the oldest of all the found “Exists” under the management of Domoratsky - 1997). Which gave the name of the chain of stores. However, the philosophical name is beneficial for any enterprise - whether it is the Stoicism online lingerie store or Sophistika beerhouse around the corner - even the bottom has a deeper meaning (if you think about it for a long time). The existential philosophy came up to the auto parts, maybe a little more.
At first, the “existentialists” did everything independently, even customs clearance. But after they got 25 stamps in one piece of paper because of the lost part, we decided to delegate at least customs clearance to the broker.
The turnover of $ 300k was not easily achieved (“hoods on the humps!”), But quickly. The question arose of the first expansion, which was resolved shortly after the bumper fell on the client in a close office. The client did not suffer, and the company moved prudently.
The site Exist.ru appeared in 1999. Before its introduction, the existential was distinguished by very sophisticated requirements for personnel. Employees had to understand English or German at the level of the auto parts catalog, know the device of any car by heart, and also be able to transfer this knowledge and understanding in a digestible form to a client who came to the office and explained the order with fingers or (much worse) telephoned.
Most of the employees who completed the first existential school worked there until 2016. There were also programmers automating the internal sales process. They took the initiative and made the site. Domoratsky took it as a tribute to fashion, despite the fact that it was possible to take orders through the site - and this is an additional sales channel. The first six months did not notice that the site exists. But the fact (the main fact that predetermined the split of the business) that the site and the trademark were made, apart from Domoratsky, by a trio of programmers, hardly speaks of the owner's blindness. Rather, his thanks to the team for the work. Otherwise, he would not divide the already existing business into several hundred thousand with his managers - Maxim Martynov and Alexey Belov. Therefore, the most successful programmers of the company - Yuri Bukovnikov, Valery Chikin and Yuri Polyakov - also became co-owners of the Existential, or rather its information technology side (
A + a Exist-Info LLC ).
Source: rusprofile.ruTwo years later, the site has become more than just an additional sales channel. Digitized catalogs were loaded there, the buyer was able to place an order online, and also to track up to 97 operations in his personal account with his order. And everything happened again in time - when the flow of customers stopped growing, since it was impossible to deal with existing ones. Began the process of actively pulling customers online. By 2016, the site daily processed 2 million requests and issued more than 100 million offers for details. In 2001, the Existential Company already had an annual turnover of $ 6 million.
In the same 2001, regional expansion began. There are two explanations for the fact that the existential did not require third-party investments. The first is the highest margin on detail. The second is a franchise. The lack of desire to certainly open their own representation in each region allowed, so to speak, to live within our means. There is money - they opened it, no - they gave it to the franchise. The task was facilitated by the presence even in the smallest town of a multitude of auto parts sales points. You just had to choose the largest one. At the same time, Domoratsky and the team acted wisely - if the city already has their franchise partner, then they opened their representative office in another city. As a result, sales through partners took at the end of happy times a solid 40% of the Exist turnover.
And one more step that allowed the Existential to become the
first among online stores in 2015. These are negotiations with official and unofficial distributors of foreign details about the placement of their catalogs on the site. It took two years for Domoratsky to negotiate with the first of them. Then all the suppliers themselves have asked for the catalogs to the existential. And the developed system of percentages of details (automatic search in catalogs, the formation of analogs and actual prices) freed the managers from the huge amount of work. And eased the task to customers.
As a result, for 2016 the existential had the following figures:
- 6066824 registered on the client's site;
- 30 million unique visitors (for 2015);
- 7363955 cars in the “Garage” section (social network for car lovers from Exist);
- 1,670 suppliers working with the company;
- 3816 electronic parts catalogs.
- The aforementioned first place in terms of turnover in the top online stores.
And all this again without third-party investments.
Conflict
Existential smoker. Behind him - existential healthy person.In March 2016, the
first and only long interview with Vladislav Domoratsky and his closest partners was published in the Forbes Russian edition. A few months after it, all existential shareholder issues surfaced. Burst out. But even from this interview indirectly, one can guess that it all started much earlier.
- In addition to Domoratsky, 7 more top managers took part in the interview, but among them there were no representatives from the company's IT division - Bukovnikov, Chikin and Polyakov. In an interview about them it is said casually, in the photo and in the text, except Domratsky, only the names of Martynov and Belov appear. That is, already or even there was tension or misunderstanding.
- In the interview there are words of Domoratsky about the ongoing consolidation of the company's assets. Given the previous point, it is unlikely that the share of IT people in these assets was supposed to be in the future, which could also witness to the conflict. And now directly to the reasons.
Perhaps the existential conflict stems from those ancient times when the first manager on Earth gave the task to the first programmer. And the incomprehensible and impossible task started spinning from one to another with clarifications and perplexities, and the early deadlines were replaced by late ones, until our days came. The eternal conflict of managers and IT people, in other words. But maybe not so simple. Domoratsky
says that insurmountable disagreements began from the moment that the deadline for the delivery of the samopisnaya ERP-system, which was supervised by Bukovnikov and which was supposed to connect the new logistics center and the site, came. The deadline was determined - by May 15, 2015. But a month before the delivery of the project, Bukovnikov said that he would not write this system. As a result, in a hurry, we had to switch to a
popular SAP (which was already equipped with a logistics center), the torment lasted 8 months, which was very badly felt by buyers - the quality and timeliness of delivery of auto parts fell.
After this incident, Domoratsky decided to part with Bukovnikov, offering to redeem his share and shares of Chikin and Polyakov, and also offering the last two to remain in the company for a salary.
The trio of the owners of it-shnik (mostly Chikin), without going into the reasons for the delivery of the ERP system, said that Domoratsky forced them to sell shares at a lower price (total $ 25 million against $ 10 million), and also imposed strange conditions for further work. It is unlikely that the software itself was the cause of the conflict. Most likely, personal insults, misunderstanding or just fatigue from each other. Here's how to live with a person of a different worldview for 20 years? And the manager and the programmer are people, at least different vectors, as a maximum, and views on life. But the true reasons are given to know only from primary sources, who are still silent.
When the owners could not compromise compromise, on the initiative of Bukovnikov, the regulars of shareholder conflicts, representatives of alpha-banking group A1, intervened. They themselves like to call these conflicts “special situations” and are drawn into them solely for the sake of “special remuneration,” namely, a profitable share or “their” person in the leadership.
And at this moment Domoratsky, seeing the discharge and, possibly, watching Yulmart, who was already
mired in the courts and in which the Alpha groups also came, makes a very elegant and seemingly noble move. Offers to buy his share in A + a Exist-Info for the same amount that he asked for for the share of Bukovnikov, Chikin and Polyakov - $ 10 million.
The result of the round - the business is split in two. Domoratsky will part forever with the team of leading developers, as well as the trademark, website, royalties from the franchisee and the percentage of the company's turnover.
Collect is harder than destroyIsNext'entia
It was necessary to do something urgently with Exist-M - the main company that remained with Domoratsky. On it and on her daughters were listed warehouses, shops, equipment, as well as relationships with suppliers. There were two options - either to sell the "remnants" at a bargain price, or to solve something with IT. Staying in a contractual relationship with “A + a Exist-Info” was expensive, mutually inflated due to the split prices for services did not suit anyone. Domoratsky chose the second path. And in the beginning of 2017, Exist-M had a new website - IsNext.ru. At this point, the main share of “A + a Exist-Info” migrated to the head of “ZhelDorEkspeditsii” - the largest transport company - Evgenia Nazarova. And the customer base from the Exist.ru website suddenly appeared on IsNext.ru, about which there were many disputes, including court disputes, which, however, did not end, because nothing was said about the sale of the Domoratsky share. In addition, part of the franchise partners began to reissue contracts with Iznext. In this connection, the existential had to look for new representatives in almost every city.
Enext managed to hold out only until October 2017. Domoratsky noted the positive dynamics of development, and the fact that in the allotted time the company will not be able to break even, and therefore can not pay off debts with suppliers. For the first time he began to look for an investor, but nothing happened right away. In October 2017, it turned out that Exist-M and a number of associated companies are being liquidated.
Source: rusprofile.ruWhat is characteristic:
Over the past three years, Exist-M has consistently increased both planned and unscheduled inspections by state agencies, as well as the number of administrative violations, especially at the time of disorder in 2016.
Source: rusprofile.ruAt the same time Exist + Info has no checks.
Administrative resource involved Alpha Group? Or is it just the fact that Exist-M is closer to the earth and reality than the virtual Exist + Info? Unanswered questions.
And the crown of the whole history of the split (at the moment). In December 2017, Domoratsky did find a buyer. Ironically or by calculation, it
turned out to
be the railway “Management Company
VGS Group ” (as usual in Russia, with offshore owners). The company, which already has warehouses and transport, purchased a brand, a customer base, 103 stores, a supplier base with contracts and the largest logistics center from Domoratsky for an undisclosed amount (by the way, find the difference in
this and
this video). On 01.02.2018, all documents were reissued from Exist-M to
Inext-Avto LLC .
And here
the main mystery in this story - Iznekst-Avto LLC appeared on the arena only in 2018. From 01.02.2018, this company hung all relations with suppliers and customers and the
processing of personal data. But it was registered on November 1, 2016 (!). This is the moment when the split was already
obvious , but it was not even known that Domoratsky
wanted to sell his share. Leave no comments. Too many different guesses.
Effects
1. Of course, the conflict that occurred caused a rollback from the previous positions of the existential.
For example, the existential visitors in 2015 were 30 million, in 2017-18 the number fell by half.
According to SimilarWeb
Information from the site Exist.ruIznext could not have such a number, but since the start of the liquidation of Exist-M in October, the figure has also dropped significantly - from 3 million to 1.5 million.
According to SimilarWeb2. It seems that there is competition - but whether it will be healthy, that is another question. It all depends on the administrative resource, which theoretically can be applied, as is the case with the same Yulmart.
3. Due to the conflict, the Belarusian branch of Exist (10 million euros in annual turnover and 16 offices) was completely
lost and their website was closed. In Exist + Info did not even begin to delve into the problems, they simply determined the percentage, which, due to a different tax system in Belarus, turned out to be extremely unprofitable.
4. The quality of service during this period of timelessness clearly fell.
5. There is a plus - an Exist appeared on the railroad, and after him E-text - how it will be organized - and whether it is such a plus - we will see, but the prospect is great. In any case, it will be interesting to follow the competition of “railway workers” in online sales of auto parts.
6. It is noteworthy that none of the existente's closest competitors took advantage of this conflict and did not get ahead. Neither for Emex.ru, nor for Autodoc.ru, an outstanding development was observed in a year and a half. This can be explained by another business model and segment.
In general, the auto parts market is
growing , despite the crisis (and thanks to it, too), the growth rate and, accordingly, the prices of foreign parts. It grows both globally and in
Russia . Therefore, the existential with Iznekst can coexist peacefully with each other, rolling on the railway in all directions. But this is still hard to believe.
And two more things in the end.
- The “Divide and Conquer” principle works only outside. If you apply it within the company - to rule and control alone will not work in any way - you need to reckon with the opinion of other leaders. There is, of course, the hope that the emergence of new types of decentralized organizations will help look at this old and hardly good principle from the other side or change it to something like “divide, delegate and co-manage”. But in Russia at the global level, everything is sad. And on the local everything is local.
- In Russia, it is still difficult to develop business independently. It hurts many who want to come to the ready, plenty to eat and throw scraps. This is an indicator of our development, the culture of our business. And the indicator is consistently low compared to the West, where for one hundred years for the company in one hand is the norm. Need to change. But from the head, from the tail or from the inside - that is the question.