Gleb Kudryavtsev, Skyeng: how to make a product of $ 100 million, work remotely and learn important skills for a product manager

I spoke with Gleb Kudryavtsev, the manager of the product management of Skyeng 's online school for children . This is one of a series of interviews of PonchikNews with the masters of their business about the grocery approach, entrepreneurship and behavior change.

We are talking in San Francisco now. What brought you to California?

Dima Dumik (co-founder and CEO of ChatFuel) called me. I took part in the Chatfuel contest, it was interesting to talk to us, and we became friends.

This is my first time in the States. San Francisco is a strange place. For example, in the center of some wild number of homeless people: I do not understand how all this high-tech culture could have appeared here. In Singapore, for example, the whole city is riddled with technology, I was there everything was very clear about the "tech".

It seems that San Francisco as a city lives in parallel with the IT industry. Of course, there are a lot of Uber and electric scooters, but manufacturability is not felt.

Pro product

Tell me about Skyeng.

Skyeng is an educational service in a broad sense. Last year we were estimated at $ 100 million, we have 5,000 teachers (10% of all English teachers in the country) and 50,000 students (also about 10% of all those who teach). We spent more than 3 million lessons. The main audience is the CIS, now we are experimenting with China and Turkey.

Initially, we focused on learning English, but now we have expanded our vision. Skyeng is not just an educational company, but a technology company. We optimize many of the costs through artificial intelligence and machine learning. We create our own content and techniques.

We are compared to Uber for learning languages. But we still have more service. That is, we do not just associate the client and the teacher, but give the methodology and content, monitor the quality and so on. It’s as if Uber owned a fleet of vehicles and trained drivers himself.

We give teachers a stream of clients and money. We take on educational materials, automation, administration and other headaches. For example, an average tutor needs half an hour to prepare for a lesson. It takes much less from our teachers, and homework is checked automatically.

We give pupils a simple and effective remote learning. We do it so that it is easy to learn, to see our progress, to change teachers, if something is wrong, and so on. We offer work with high-quality specialists, remove unnecessary options, make decision making easy.

Skyeng office

Sounds like the " Paradox of Choice " by Barry Schwartz.

And there is. Our clients already need to make many different decisions, so that we try to take over the uncritical. Look, every student needs to decide about the teacher:

• Should he be a native speaker?
• Do I need the ability to work with children?
• What certificate should it have?
• Can he fit in the schedule of the student?

This is already too much. Therefore, we try to make the choice easier by taking all this scoring on ourselves.

The main question really is whether the teacher will coincide with the student. Matching between client and teacher in our business is the most important thing.

To achieve high compatibility, we try to understand the psycho-types of both teachers and students. We conduct experiments on scoring teachers using psychological tests during the selection process.

It is more difficult with clients, they have much less time, so we use expert evaluation and feedback on the results of the first session. This allows us to offer customers several options. Since the scoring is done manually, there is a chance of errors. We are thinking about using machine learning to evaluate emotions in videos.

As with any automation, the main problem is the human factor. There are people who say when they do not like something, and there are those who are shy. The latter create less signal and help them harder.

What are you doing as a product director?

I lead product management for children. We work in several markets, started with adults, gradually began to grow in the corporate and children's direction.

By the beginning of 2020, the EGE in English will become compulsory, and instead of 70 thousand schoolchildren learning English with the help of additional education, we expect 600-700 thousand.

Children are an important market for us. It is very segmented, everything is not easy there. For different ages need their own decisions. Nine years and high school students need different training. This affects the product strategy.

For example, do children need another personal account - not like adults? Many argue that the interface for children should be your own. I would argue.

About remote work

You and your team in different cities. Does it make it difficult?

Yes and no. Skyeng has always been a remote company, so there’s nothing strange about it. I live in Helsinki. My team is scattered around the world.

In my opinion, the main difficulties of remote work arise when the majority of people are in the office, and a minority are at a distance. When most employees work remotely, everything is easier. There are good habits: pushing all the agreements into the cloud, booking different calls for calls, even if people are in the same office, and so on.

I have been working remotely for three years and spent three workshops about it last year. I am a big fan of remote work, and I have something to say on this topic.

• If a person goes to the office, it does not mean that he is effective. There are many people who are social in the office and seem to be doing something, but do not move the work, but create an appearance.
• The remote will teach to objective monitoring. You can't say: “Vasya did a good job”, just on the basis of the fact that he was sitting and doing something, this is a good thing for the management. I am convinced that every manager needs to learn how to manage remote teams. If they fail with remote employees, they may not even notice local problems.
• One-on-one meetings are wildly important. In the office, you can spread a few words here and there, there is no such option on the remote, so the manager needs to regularly communicate with subordinates. I have an hourly appointment with each of my employees on a weekly basis, and I do not miss them. It is an investment of time, but worth it.
• I am a big fan of stand-ups for 15 minutes at the beginning of the day. Firstly, stand-ups charge with energy, and secondly, they allow the manager to control some operational things.
• We can compete with Moscow companies for the best employees. We offer them a good salary, comparable to the capital, but allow them to work from their regions. It is difficult for many people to move, so we are very much in demand as an employer.
• Purely Russian specifics. Here you can always arrange a mask show, but if you do not have an office, then no one will paralyze all your work with an unexpected test.
• Of the minuses - the office is much cooler to do brainstorming and strategic sessions. We try to meet every six months for such things. Sometimes in Moscow, sometimes in other places.

About competitors

Skyeng office

Who does Skyeng compete with?

Naturally, with traditional educational institutions and tutors. There are aggregators like Profi.ru or Italki . There are self-education services like Lingua Leo , Memrise , DuoLingo .

But the toughest competition is with all those who claim to be a student. For example, in the children's segment this is karate, modeling and any other section. And YouTube and TV.

If we compare with the latter, our positions are generally stronger, since any parent understands that education is an investment in the future of the child. But at the same time weaker ones, as long as YouTube and toys are more interesting. But we are working on it.

About teachers

How do you work with teachers?

We have more than 5,000 teachers (we count only those who conducted the lesson for the last month). The total number of English teachers in Russia is 50 thousand. That is, about 10% work with us. We are now the largest employer in this market in the CIS.

Teachers for us - the backbone. We are constantly thinking about how best to find them, hire and retain them. We have a whole center of advanced training for teachers with different training courses. There is a master's program in teaching digital technology.

What unites your top teachers?

• They are charismatic personalities. It is interesting to spend time with them.
• They are interested in the student's personality, and not only in his academic performance.
• They are experts in English and know the methods of teaching.

About behavior change

Skyeng interface

It is difficult to learn, but you do a lot to change the behavior of users. Tell me about it.

The main thing is training with a teacher, not self-education or mass courses. This creates social obligations that are simply not in self-education. For example, if you fail to come to the lesson, then you do not just merge into nowhere - the teacher will offer to transfer the lesson to another day. You feel responsible and engaged, even if today is not in the mood. This all gives the result.

Most educational self-study learning projects have trouble holding. The lion's share of users "merges" after the second or third lesson. Experience shows that for 95% of people, education is a necessary necessity. This is not about fun.

Yes, there are 4–5% of people who are little, let's say, moved on the topic of education. They have a dopamine complex tied to enjoy the training, it’s just a thrill. But for us it is rather a deviation.

People go to learn languages ​​with two goals:

• Direct goal (20% of students): go to college, take an exam, move abroad, work in an international company.
• Lifestyle goal (80% of students): knowing English is important in order to consider yourself educated, read articles and the like. Not the fact that they will ever need to really speak English.

For me personally, this is lifestyle. During the last two years I studied one lesson a week, that is, in the amount of about 100 hours, I didn’t really do my homework. My level is now something like upper intermediate, starting with lower intermid. If I did homework and took a couple of lessons a week, it would take much less time.

Behavior change is influenced by interesting content . We have very engaging materials. We rate and explore our content qualitatively and quantitatively, making it relevant to students. We look at cultural phenomena (cinema, music) to embed them in the content of the lessons. We want to use machine learning more to improve content.

There are also game mechanics , they also make learning more interesting. The word "gamification" is now used by everyone, but I often see when it is embedded in the product sucks. We did a couple of approaches, well, so-so it turns out, there is room to grow.

By the way, about the content. We have a content producer vacancy. This is a magician who knows how to make learning content, from which everyone will get high. To make me like this: “Catch a batch of me in Dota or read about the rules for conjugating verbs in Skyeng? Of course, read about the rules of conjugation! ". This is what content should be. Such people are hard to find, but this is a wildly interesting task. So if you have such talent, please contact us.

About secret sauce

Skyeng is a fairly successful product. Tell me the three main secrets.

• Successful business model. When we first started, we put on a learning model with a teacher. They did not go to self-education, although then it was fashionable. Well, on time it all did.
• Own quality content. We create it ourselves, and we have it really cool.
• We are a school. We have high-quality specialists, high selection bar, interchangeable teachers, unified program.

According to my observations, successful companies combine two things:

1. Founders who can really pull it all.
2. The right business model at the right moment.

You started talking about the founders. Tell us about them in a nutshell.

Skyeng has very cool, mutually complementary founders. They are very different.

Georgy Soloviev, our CEO, is a master of sales, a hustler. Khariton Matveyev is a very cool product with a vision and an understanding of where it all goes. Denis Smetnev - very logical, the guru of the operating system. Andrei Jaunzem - super deep technical brain.

There is also an early investor, Alexander Laryanovsky, who helped a lot with the business model, the community, and mentoring.

Pro product skills

Top 3 steep product skills?

• Horizon. A cool product should think with high-level concepts, see patterns and be able to tie particular phenomena to a common vision.
• Soft Skills. Communication, negotiations, achieving goals with the help of other people.
• Analytical skills. There should always be doubt in everything and a desire to check - in relation to the product and to itself.

Since we started talking about soft skills, what do you think, what skills do you need to have a professional in 2019?

I usually ask myself this question: “What would I teach my children in the first place?”.

• The ability to sell. For example, you sold the idea of ​​this interview well to your Ponchik News channel : talked about the audience, thought why it was interesting to me, and offered a simple way to have a conversation. The ability to sell is based on empathy and the ability to give others what they need.
• Empathy. The ability to virtually get into the head of another person and understand what he lives, what he feels, how he thinks and what he wants. It is necessary for sale.
• System thinking. The key here is to doubt everything you do and be able to verify it. Mathematics and logic are important for this skill, they wean them from answering “obviously” any questions.

Pro product rating

Top 3 Russian-speaking products?

Difficult question, criteria are not clear. Let's say those who come to mind?

• Bronislav Labetsky (CEO of WazzApps , mobile games). Very clear, systematic, cool decomposes complex things.
• Khariton Matveyev ( Skyeng ). He has a very cool vision and the ability to change himself for new tasks.
• Dima Dumik ( ChatFuel ). Well, I’m visiting him, of course, I have to name :) Well, seriously, respect for having created a cool international product, it’s very difficult.

The most important thing for me is that the person himself created a successful grocery business. When he can build a good product and a successful company, it means that he, as a product, is a top specialist.

For example, the founders of JetBrains . I am not personally acquainted with them, but whoever directs the products there, he is a great fellow.

Want to create your own company?

Yes, I definitely want to someday. But a lot of interests. Perhaps in education.

What would you recommend to a person who wants to become a successful product?

• Broaden your horizons.
• Learn to sell.
• Cut into marketing.

Product skills important for development depend on what a person already knows. I would recommend to find your weaknesses and figure out how to develop them.

It is often said that developing strengths is better, and learning to replace weak ones, for example, through working with complementary colleagues. What do you think about this?

I think there is a difference between selling yourself at an interview and developing as a product manager. I think that when you talk, it is important for you to show your strengths. The more a person is specialized, the easier the sale.

For example, everyone knows that Alena Vladimirskaya is a head hunter of All Russia. But if you want to leave the comfort zone and really change something, you need to find your blind zones and somehow develop in them. It is more difficult for a generalist to sell himself than a specialist, but PM is a job for a generalist.

About your blog and interests

Are you blogging?

Yes, called PM Life in Telegram. I sometimes have any thoughts that I want to think about. And the text is a complete form of thought. That is, the transformation of deliberation into a result so that it can be put on the shelf and for some time not to return to it. Well, at the same time you can share with others. They tell me that I sometimes write interestingly, so why not do it.

Anything you say to readers in the end?

A topic that has been worrying me a lot lately is how to make education embedded in everyday life. How to make it valuable, enjoyable, without suffering. I think you can think of some ways to integrate learning into our dopamine cycles, marry with our desires, habits and behavior.

I would like to build such an engaging educational product. Anything that could compete with other entertainment. If readers have ideas for this, I would love to listen to them. Write to Telegram, Facebook.

Gleb Channel about product management - PMlife .
Alexey's Channel - Ponchik News .