20 years of Fast Reports “The product was created in one breath, just a thrill ...”
Many people know Mikhail Filippenko, the organizer and partner of ISDEF conferences, but in Fast Reports there is also a “shadow leader” whom we asked to get out of the shadows. Interview with the founder of the company Fast Reports Alexander Tsyganenko.
- Tell me, please, how it all began.
')
- A production necessity has arisen. When I was working ... Prior to this, he was engaged in development. Periodically there was a need to print something.
At first, some simple little programs were written. Then they became more and more difficult, in the end, he began to look towards normal solutions. In my opinion, in the creation of accountability normal decisions then was not. Then he began to write something of their own. When this was all overgrown with the necessary functionality, I began to think about whether it would not make it more versatile and arrange it in the form of a product that can be offered to others.
- This thought originated in 1998?
- No, early, perhaps, may be the beginning of 1997, the middle. In 1998, this product already had the name “FastReport”. When exactly, I will not say, because I do not remember, the correspondence was not preserved all. Approximately one can say the middle of 1998, it was already a more or less decorated product. Around the same time, he brought the first money, while still on the Russian market. But after about a year, it began selling in foreign markets.
- That is, this year, it turns out, the anniversary of the product.
- But the company, naturally, was opened much later. If we take Fast Reports LLC, it was opened 10 years later. Prior to this, there was a product, there were other ways of selling, promoting, it was done initially as a private person, then an individual entrepreneur. Then all this is in the form of LLC
took shape.
- How important is this anniversary for you, this date, 20 years. Does she evoke any thoughts about debriefing?
- From the point of view of a programmer, 20 years is not quite a round number, because we have a hexadecimal numbering system. You could say the round date was 16 years old. 20 and 20 is nothing special. I see that the product was viable. There are many, many years ahead. While it cannot be said that some important epoch is left behind, something new is ahead.
- How did you mark it for yourself? Is there an understanding in your head that this is a holiday or is it a regular year like everyone else?
- No, for me there are almost no holidays left, everything is perceived as an ordinary routine.
- And in the company, as you note, are there any traditions that have developed over the past 20 years?
- The tradition has appeared good lately. These are corporate parties to arrange, New Year's. What other traditions? The company can be said to be young. 10 years, if you take the company itself.
This year, almost all companies have such 20-year anniversaries. At the same Googla. All at one time began.
- What do you think, why did it happen that everyone is the same age, what was the impetus at the time that so many companies appeared on the market? Long-lived companies, in essence.
- In fact, companies appear every year for many thousands, but not everyone lives to the date of 20 years. In this case, Google appeared 20 years ago, continues to exist, feels great, lucky. In the same way as us, in principle.
- Do you think luck played a big role?
- I think that it is not small, not at all small. In fact, as a matter of fact, what I did then could, in principle, be done by any person who was more or less seriously engaged in programming, but I did it.
- In 20 years, were there any serious achievements, steps and were there any failures? When did you develop and understand that you are moving in the wrong direction?
- I can not say that there were some failures, some serious achievements. It can be called an achievement that we rather quickly built up our client base, gained many fans of the product, who still use our product. In principle, our development consisted in the fact that we released new versions of our products for new and new frameworks, kept up with the times, so to speak. Because of this, now we feel good. Did not dwell on some outdated technology.
- The main secret to keep up with the times, following the rest of the technology and keeping up with them?
- Since we are not trendsetters in the field of programming, we need to adapt to the companies that are: “Microsoft” and the same “Borland”, which is not “Borland”, which produce development tools.
- So they dictate?
- Yes, they kind of set trends in programming, our task is to keep close together and release our own versions, updates or new versions.
- But nevertheless, development was probably non-linear, there were crises in our country for 20 years, in particular. Did they or did they not?
- In this regard, it is probably better to ask a question to those who were involved in accounting. Have they affected strongly or not strongly. We survived the crisis and it is absolutely clear. There were crises from the company, which produced, in particular, Borland produced development tools, our favorite Delphi. There was a crisis at this company, it was at a crossroads for a long time, did not know what to do with this. But somehow they won it all, survived, also continue to develop, not so, unfortunately, dynamically, as before. In principle, it helped us to withstand the crisis that we did not stay on the old technology, but began to move towards new development environments. So that we have not one medium, not one product under one medium, but several products under different ones.
- As I understand it, you started one at all, now there is a development team, how much are you now involved in creating new products and following the development of the product? How deep are you into business?
- I don’t participate in any way now, I’m not immersed in business in any way, we have well-established directions, well-established teams that deal with these directions. So far for myself, I do not see anything new that I could and would like to do. I do not see any new development environments of interest to me. Previously, there was one such environment, it was Delphi, then Microsoft .Net appeared, it became interesting to do everything, including me, and then there was an impetus to the appearance of the product.
- What is your participation in the life of the company now? As I know, you always keep abreast, answer tickets and work with customers from time to time.
- I haven't been doing this for a long time. Difficult questions that cause difficulties, because there is a part of the code that I wrote a long time ago, and no one ever picked and tritely knows the possibilities, but I still remember something and therefore, in such difficult cases, they turn to me. Otherwise, the guys cope. I can already see that I, in fact, can not really help. All they do well.
- Tell me again, what was the most difficult for all this time for you, for example. What moments, the transition to a new platform can be?
- There were no difficulties at all. The product was created in the same breath, it was just a thrill. Sit down, after a year to get up from the place where he sat down, and say, here is a new product, look how cool it is. That is, all this was written in pleasure, on courage and I do not remember any particular difficulties. This is not rocket technology, there is nothing particularly complicated. You just have to sit down and write.
“ When was the last time you wrote the code?” Directly "kodil" myself?
- Recently, when, in particular, a problem arose, they forwarded this ticket to me, I sat down, looked, I still remember something. I wrote a little bit. In fact, such cases, to sit down something huge to write, a piece of code, this, probably, was not the year two.
- What do you think, what qualities should a developer have? A lot of developers, on the other hand, your product has found its place in the market and it turned out. The rest of the guys are writing, developers are also, but they cannot create. What is the difference between you? A successful project and a project that is not implemented until the end.
- Let's just say, the notorious luck, you can not discount it. Being in the right place at the right time is just a big part of success. If you wrote something, it seems to you just super, you're lucky, you could just promote to the masses, not to mention the fact of selling. Everything, most likely, someone needs such a project and it will be developed.
- And the role of like-minded people in this process? Or can one person create a company and be successful? Or you need some people who help develop.
- I do not know, in fact, how these tips or thoughts will help - they will not help those who are now going to do something of their own, to promote. When we did it 20 years ago, the conjuncture was completely different. Therefore, one could write anything, i.e. the simplest of some kind of program, and she could bring money.
- The market was practically empty, now there is high competition. Do you mean that?
- I can not say that it was empty, but then somehow everything was very willingly bought and sold. And in general, it was possible, with a minimum of effort, to make the masses of people know about your program. Now with this somehow much more difficult, in my opinion.
But nevertheless, the product is successful now, in demand, what is the secret? Why are products that are being created now more difficult to enter the market than products with a history?
I think that now there are a lot of various solutions, for all occasions, one can say. And the market is just crammed with just about anything. If there is some talented person who creates a "diamond". I think that he will not have any particular problems to promote, sell and become successful in the end.
- Question about the quality of the product, after all?
- A question in novelty, revolutionism. Now there are a lot of quality products, a lot of products. The question is to come up with something new, unusual.
- What pitfalls can be in the sphere of development, in the sphere of bringing some software product to the market, in your opinion? It is difficult to come up with something new, because a lot of everything is different. And what else can wait for developers in this market?
- Here, rather, Michael will tell more, this is not mine. My here is something to come up with, to implement it all by yourself and as a result to get pleasure from the process of writing. And what will happen next, this is already ... I never liked to do this. Therefore, the company was formed in such a way that I wrote something, but in order to sell it, I need another person, because I myself will not pull it. It will not bring me any joy, and in general ...
- At what point did you realize that the product is successful, that people need it, and that this is really interesting. Not only you, for your personal needs, but also to other people. Not deposited in the memory? Maybe someone wrote something, a certain number of sales, hits.
- Honestly, I do not remember what strengthened me in this thought that the product is successful, it is necessary to develop further. I saw that quite a lot of people enjoyed. In general, I saw a positive reaction of people, it warmed up, I wanted to write something new, rewrite, invent, improve the product.
- At what point did you leave for free swimming, stopped working for someone and decided that this product would feed you? This product, it was also called Fast, was first sold on the Russian market.
- But then you still worked, had a stable salary.
- Yes, I went to work, naturally, even then there were thoughts that the work was already beginning to quietly interfere with the product. After the product began to be sold in foreign markets, I finally consolidated myself in this. For myself, I decided that it was enough to spend time on “someone else's uncle”, it is necessary to work for myself.
- Was it difficult to refuse stability, guaranteed wages?
By that time, a guaranteed salary was already a much smaller part of the profits.
- Has there ever been a desire to drop everything and do something else, a project not related to Fast Reports? Do not develop this product, but come up with something completely new, or something that is interested and do it.
- Unfortunately, nothing new comes absolutely new, I would like to do something with joy.
- That is, not a report generator, but something directly radically different. Some direction in the development or something.
- So far, the necessary thoughts do not come to mind.
- Any thoughts? Or so fascinated by this project that the rest is not so interesting. For 20 years, there must have been some thoughts.
- I can say that I already have a creative stagnation in this plan, which has already been podzatyanulsya a little, of course, but maybe sooner or later something will come up right in my head, I will do it. Maybe it will be a new project, maybe it will be an integral part of the current project, which is not yet available. I can not say yet, I do not know.
- What are you dreaming about? There are some thoughts, maybe not related to the business. Not immediate plans, but dreams, like distant things, forecasts.
- You can say, I dream that the company celebrates its 40th anniversary, then the 60th anniversary, maybe someday not during our lifetime, of course. To appear on the page inscription in English "hundreth anniversary", "century".
- Do you plan to transfer business to children? You have 2 sons.
- I'm not sure yet that they will follow my path, I can not say anything.
- You would like them to be engaged in the development, as far as you think it is promising?
- I believe that the development of software, or other creative activities related to the creation of some product of a new product or something else, is, in principle, the most interesting thing in life. When a person creates, does something, creates, it brings satisfaction to him. And well, if it also makes a profit, it becomes a source of income. I think that my children may not become programmers, will not engage in this project, maybe they will become creators in some other areas. While it is not a question of transferring business to your children as a family business. I still do not see that someone is an explicit programmer. The next 5 years will show.
- Do you consider the work of a programmer, developer, a creative process? This is not writing codes, as for the machine, is it creativity, intellectual work, the ability to be realized? Just different approaches exist for programming.
- I think yes. But again, it’s necessary to look, if a person works as a programmer at a factory or somewhere else, there, naturally, there is no creativity and, roughly speaking, he does what he was told from above, rigid frameworks, beyond which one cannot go, just write according to the technical task. There is, of course, a certain amount of creativity, there is room for maneuver, but what I personally did was a little different. You put yourself a technical task for yourself, you think it over yourself, you do it if you don’t like something, you rewrite it, you modify it, you modify it. That is, the work in this case, “to the uncle” and to yourself, when you are the director yourself, are a little different things.
- And what are the pros and cons of such work. The pros are clear, is this independence, the opportunity to somehow be realized, and there are disadvantages to this kind of work?
- There are downsides. If this work does not bring you any income, and you do it on pure “bare” enthusiasm, sooner or later the enthusiasm will end, and you will be engaged in some other activity.
- But there are open-source projects, people work there, devote a lot of time to this, but, nevertheless, work does not bring direct income. What do you think about it?
- I cannot say anything about open-source projects, most likely these developers have enthusiasm in the early stages, and then how much enthusiasm there is to be engaged in this business. It may well be that the project in a year will grow into something more serious.
- That is, it is temporary. Any work must be financially rewarded.
- Well, if there is a reward of such work, it encourages the further development of the project. If not, too, in principle, well, I worked, it can be said, I enjoyed it.
- Tell me, please, how it all began.
')
- A production necessity has arisen. When I was working ... Prior to this, he was engaged in development. Periodically there was a need to print something.
At first, some simple little programs were written. Then they became more and more difficult, in the end, he began to look towards normal solutions. In my opinion, in the creation of accountability normal decisions then was not. Then he began to write something of their own. When this was all overgrown with the necessary functionality, I began to think about whether it would not make it more versatile and arrange it in the form of a product that can be offered to others.
- This thought originated in 1998?
- No, early, perhaps, may be the beginning of 1997, the middle. In 1998, this product already had the name “FastReport”. When exactly, I will not say, because I do not remember, the correspondence was not preserved all. Approximately one can say the middle of 1998, it was already a more or less decorated product. Around the same time, he brought the first money, while still on the Russian market. But after about a year, it began selling in foreign markets.
- That is, this year, it turns out, the anniversary of the product.
- But the company, naturally, was opened much later. If we take Fast Reports LLC, it was opened 10 years later. Prior to this, there was a product, there were other ways of selling, promoting, it was done initially as a private person, then an individual entrepreneur. Then all this is in the form of LLC
took shape.
- How important is this anniversary for you, this date, 20 years. Does she evoke any thoughts about debriefing?
- From the point of view of a programmer, 20 years is not quite a round number, because we have a hexadecimal numbering system. You could say the round date was 16 years old. 20 and 20 is nothing special. I see that the product was viable. There are many, many years ahead. While it cannot be said that some important epoch is left behind, something new is ahead.
- How did you mark it for yourself? Is there an understanding in your head that this is a holiday or is it a regular year like everyone else?
- No, for me there are almost no holidays left, everything is perceived as an ordinary routine.
- And in the company, as you note, are there any traditions that have developed over the past 20 years?
- The tradition has appeared good lately. These are corporate parties to arrange, New Year's. What other traditions? The company can be said to be young. 10 years, if you take the company itself.
This year, almost all companies have such 20-year anniversaries. At the same Googla. All at one time began.
- What do you think, why did it happen that everyone is the same age, what was the impetus at the time that so many companies appeared on the market? Long-lived companies, in essence.
- In fact, companies appear every year for many thousands, but not everyone lives to the date of 20 years. In this case, Google appeared 20 years ago, continues to exist, feels great, lucky. In the same way as us, in principle.
- Do you think luck played a big role?
- I think that it is not small, not at all small. In fact, as a matter of fact, what I did then could, in principle, be done by any person who was more or less seriously engaged in programming, but I did it.
- In 20 years, were there any serious achievements, steps and were there any failures? When did you develop and understand that you are moving in the wrong direction?
- I can not say that there were some failures, some serious achievements. It can be called an achievement that we rather quickly built up our client base, gained many fans of the product, who still use our product. In principle, our development consisted in the fact that we released new versions of our products for new and new frameworks, kept up with the times, so to speak. Because of this, now we feel good. Did not dwell on some outdated technology.
- The main secret to keep up with the times, following the rest of the technology and keeping up with them?
- Since we are not trendsetters in the field of programming, we need to adapt to the companies that are: “Microsoft” and the same “Borland”, which is not “Borland”, which produce development tools.
- So they dictate?
- Yes, they kind of set trends in programming, our task is to keep close together and release our own versions, updates or new versions.
- But nevertheless, development was probably non-linear, there were crises in our country for 20 years, in particular. Did they or did they not?
- In this regard, it is probably better to ask a question to those who were involved in accounting. Have they affected strongly or not strongly. We survived the crisis and it is absolutely clear. There were crises from the company, which produced, in particular, Borland produced development tools, our favorite Delphi. There was a crisis at this company, it was at a crossroads for a long time, did not know what to do with this. But somehow they won it all, survived, also continue to develop, not so, unfortunately, dynamically, as before. In principle, it helped us to withstand the crisis that we did not stay on the old technology, but began to move towards new development environments. So that we have not one medium, not one product under one medium, but several products under different ones.
- As I understand it, you started one at all, now there is a development team, how much are you now involved in creating new products and following the development of the product? How deep are you into business?
- I don’t participate in any way now, I’m not immersed in business in any way, we have well-established directions, well-established teams that deal with these directions. So far for myself, I do not see anything new that I could and would like to do. I do not see any new development environments of interest to me. Previously, there was one such environment, it was Delphi, then Microsoft .Net appeared, it became interesting to do everything, including me, and then there was an impetus to the appearance of the product.
- What is your participation in the life of the company now? As I know, you always keep abreast, answer tickets and work with customers from time to time.
- I haven't been doing this for a long time. Difficult questions that cause difficulties, because there is a part of the code that I wrote a long time ago, and no one ever picked and tritely knows the possibilities, but I still remember something and therefore, in such difficult cases, they turn to me. Otherwise, the guys cope. I can already see that I, in fact, can not really help. All they do well.
- Tell me again, what was the most difficult for all this time for you, for example. What moments, the transition to a new platform can be?
- There were no difficulties at all. The product was created in the same breath, it was just a thrill. Sit down, after a year to get up from the place where he sat down, and say, here is a new product, look how cool it is. That is, all this was written in pleasure, on courage and I do not remember any particular difficulties. This is not rocket technology, there is nothing particularly complicated. You just have to sit down and write.
“ When was the last time you wrote the code?” Directly "kodil" myself?
- Recently, when, in particular, a problem arose, they forwarded this ticket to me, I sat down, looked, I still remember something. I wrote a little bit. In fact, such cases, to sit down something huge to write, a piece of code, this, probably, was not the year two.
- What do you think, what qualities should a developer have? A lot of developers, on the other hand, your product has found its place in the market and it turned out. The rest of the guys are writing, developers are also, but they cannot create. What is the difference between you? A successful project and a project that is not implemented until the end.
- Let's just say, the notorious luck, you can not discount it. Being in the right place at the right time is just a big part of success. If you wrote something, it seems to you just super, you're lucky, you could just promote to the masses, not to mention the fact of selling. Everything, most likely, someone needs such a project and it will be developed.
- And the role of like-minded people in this process? Or can one person create a company and be successful? Or you need some people who help develop.
- I do not know, in fact, how these tips or thoughts will help - they will not help those who are now going to do something of their own, to promote. When we did it 20 years ago, the conjuncture was completely different. Therefore, one could write anything, i.e. the simplest of some kind of program, and she could bring money.
- The market was practically empty, now there is high competition. Do you mean that?
- I can not say that it was empty, but then somehow everything was very willingly bought and sold. And in general, it was possible, with a minimum of effort, to make the masses of people know about your program. Now with this somehow much more difficult, in my opinion.
But nevertheless, the product is successful now, in demand, what is the secret? Why are products that are being created now more difficult to enter the market than products with a history?
I think that now there are a lot of various solutions, for all occasions, one can say. And the market is just crammed with just about anything. If there is some talented person who creates a "diamond". I think that he will not have any particular problems to promote, sell and become successful in the end.
- Question about the quality of the product, after all?
- A question in novelty, revolutionism. Now there are a lot of quality products, a lot of products. The question is to come up with something new, unusual.
- What pitfalls can be in the sphere of development, in the sphere of bringing some software product to the market, in your opinion? It is difficult to come up with something new, because a lot of everything is different. And what else can wait for developers in this market?
- Here, rather, Michael will tell more, this is not mine. My here is something to come up with, to implement it all by yourself and as a result to get pleasure from the process of writing. And what will happen next, this is already ... I never liked to do this. Therefore, the company was formed in such a way that I wrote something, but in order to sell it, I need another person, because I myself will not pull it. It will not bring me any joy, and in general ...
- At what point did you realize that the product is successful, that people need it, and that this is really interesting. Not only you, for your personal needs, but also to other people. Not deposited in the memory? Maybe someone wrote something, a certain number of sales, hits.
- Honestly, I do not remember what strengthened me in this thought that the product is successful, it is necessary to develop further. I saw that quite a lot of people enjoyed. In general, I saw a positive reaction of people, it warmed up, I wanted to write something new, rewrite, invent, improve the product.
- At what point did you leave for free swimming, stopped working for someone and decided that this product would feed you? This product, it was also called Fast, was first sold on the Russian market.
- But then you still worked, had a stable salary.
- Yes, I went to work, naturally, even then there were thoughts that the work was already beginning to quietly interfere with the product. After the product began to be sold in foreign markets, I finally consolidated myself in this. For myself, I decided that it was enough to spend time on “someone else's uncle”, it is necessary to work for myself.
- Was it difficult to refuse stability, guaranteed wages?
By that time, a guaranteed salary was already a much smaller part of the profits.
- Has there ever been a desire to drop everything and do something else, a project not related to Fast Reports? Do not develop this product, but come up with something completely new, or something that is interested and do it.
- Unfortunately, nothing new comes absolutely new, I would like to do something with joy.
- That is, not a report generator, but something directly radically different. Some direction in the development or something.
- So far, the necessary thoughts do not come to mind.
- Any thoughts? Or so fascinated by this project that the rest is not so interesting. For 20 years, there must have been some thoughts.
- I can say that I already have a creative stagnation in this plan, which has already been podzatyanulsya a little, of course, but maybe sooner or later something will come up right in my head, I will do it. Maybe it will be a new project, maybe it will be an integral part of the current project, which is not yet available. I can not say yet, I do not know.
- What are you dreaming about? There are some thoughts, maybe not related to the business. Not immediate plans, but dreams, like distant things, forecasts.
- You can say, I dream that the company celebrates its 40th anniversary, then the 60th anniversary, maybe someday not during our lifetime, of course. To appear on the page inscription in English "hundreth anniversary", "century".
- Do you plan to transfer business to children? You have 2 sons.
- I'm not sure yet that they will follow my path, I can not say anything.
- You would like them to be engaged in the development, as far as you think it is promising?
- I believe that the development of software, or other creative activities related to the creation of some product of a new product or something else, is, in principle, the most interesting thing in life. When a person creates, does something, creates, it brings satisfaction to him. And well, if it also makes a profit, it becomes a source of income. I think that my children may not become programmers, will not engage in this project, maybe they will become creators in some other areas. While it is not a question of transferring business to your children as a family business. I still do not see that someone is an explicit programmer. The next 5 years will show.
- Do you consider the work of a programmer, developer, a creative process? This is not writing codes, as for the machine, is it creativity, intellectual work, the ability to be realized? Just different approaches exist for programming.
- I think yes. But again, it’s necessary to look, if a person works as a programmer at a factory or somewhere else, there, naturally, there is no creativity and, roughly speaking, he does what he was told from above, rigid frameworks, beyond which one cannot go, just write according to the technical task. There is, of course, a certain amount of creativity, there is room for maneuver, but what I personally did was a little different. You put yourself a technical task for yourself, you think it over yourself, you do it if you don’t like something, you rewrite it, you modify it, you modify it. That is, the work in this case, “to the uncle” and to yourself, when you are the director yourself, are a little different things.
- And what are the pros and cons of such work. The pros are clear, is this independence, the opportunity to somehow be realized, and there are disadvantages to this kind of work?
- There are downsides. If this work does not bring you any income, and you do it on pure “bare” enthusiasm, sooner or later the enthusiasm will end, and you will be engaged in some other activity.
- But there are open-source projects, people work there, devote a lot of time to this, but, nevertheless, work does not bring direct income. What do you think about it?
- I cannot say anything about open-source projects, most likely these developers have enthusiasm in the early stages, and then how much enthusiasm there is to be engaged in this business. It may well be that the project in a year will grow into something more serious.
- That is, it is temporary. Any work must be financially rewarded.
- Well, if there is a reward of such work, it encourages the further development of the project. If not, too, in principle, well, I worked, it can be said, I enjoyed it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/434504/
All Articles