The story of how Ivan Ivanovich Ivan Ivaniforovich looking for investment. Part 2
The story of how Ivan Ivanovich Ivan Ivaniforovich looking for investment. Part 1.
So, the director and his friend S. went to London to meet with the bigwigs of the business. The calculation was this - the people to whom our delegates went to, poorly understood the Internet business, did not even smell like a crisis at that time, the hysterics around start-up profits were at their peak. It is worth noting that at that time from the technical documentation were only sketches of ideas and a general description, which outlined the scope of the project. Plus an estimate of the primary costs and the approximate cost of development for the first two years of life.
As I understood further from communicating with people with big money, but little knowledge in the subject area, it’s absolutely impossible to scare them with technical tasks and geek slang. The main thing they want to see is how much money they need to invest and where they will start to make a profit. By inexperience, I tried to talk about the technical side of the project, but in the end I realized that populist loud statements are much more useful for creating a general impression (namely, it leads to a conversation about money). At that moment, I also realized that all these delusional discussions at the birth stage of the product idea were not so delusional, it seemed that these people were all crazy and, apparently, therefore, so rich.
I got a little distracted. They returned from London with nothing - as it turned out (!) It would be good to make some kind of presentation and a document called Due Diligence . My hopes for professionalism and any knowledge of the investment issues of Comrade S. were scattered about the wall of facts. But, oddly enough, several serious people from London were still interested in the project and were ready to meet again as soon as Due Diligence appeared.
')
Somehow by hook or by crook, Comrade S. came out (and maybe he was always familiar, only in that case it’s not clear why he didn’t know the simplest things in attracting investments) to one fairly well-known and influential American who had already taken root for 15 years in Russia and quite successfully engaged in business in the regions. Through him, it was planned to go to representatives of serious investment funds and he was ready to become something like a guarantor and guarantor, without whom serious people would not want to talk to anyone. Let's call an American a companion R. He was also the chairman of a single niche investment fund, who had no interests on the Internet, so the question about the investments of his fund was not.
Comrade R. opened our eyes to many things (the same Due diligence), dissuaded the director and comrade S. to look for money among funds of a different direction and, moreover, serious, but not knowledgeable people with money. Investing from them is really much easier to get, but in the future the demand for the results will be completely different, just as there will be attempts to control and penetrate the operational management of the company. Well, do not forget that these people are often associated with crime (which I had no doubt after some meetings and communication with representatives of interested investors of this type). On the contrary, funds focused on Internet projects can become not only a source of money, but also a source of practical advice and may save you from many mistakes at the initial stage.
The work went more fun, but also much more intense. In addition to the standard set of documents, some materials clarifying and clarifying certain issues were constantly required. It often happened that at 10 pm Comrade S. called me and asked me to prepare one or another document by morning. One time he woke me up at one in the morning and said that 5 people from such a fund were sitting next to him - he puts the phone on the speakerphone, and I need to briefly tell about the technical aspects of the project and answer some questions.
Instead of a working prototype, it was decided to draw design layouts - there was neither the resources nor the time for the development. We painted the layouts of the main pages (about 10 layouts in total), the design was very successful - I looked at the layouts and believed in the viability of the project more and more. I put the layouts on the project domain and relinked the pictures in such a way that there was a feeling of going over different pages of the site. As it turned out, the decision was very successful - the impression was very positive. For obvious reasons, there were no bugs, everything is beautiful and neat, plus intriguing understatement. All this caused a desire to quickly do the project and climb on it yourself.
After some time, comrades S. and R. came to one very famous venture capital fund, which had already raised more than one successful web project. After several rounds of negotiations, in which I participated only through the documentation generated by me and telephone conversations (that same call at one o'clock in the morning), we were invited to the final presentation with the participation of the founders of the foundation to headquarters in one small beautiful European city.
It was just a crazy feeling of the incredible that happened, until the last moment I refused to believe that all this fussing could lead to something like that - we are going to ourselves! I already began to make plans in my thoughts, first for my future salary, then for a share of the sale of the company (up to this point I called it “dula”) - now it’s very funny to remember.
For a while I lived in France and therefore speak French quite well (because of this I am very confused when speaking in English), most of the founders are also French-speaking - thus they decided that I would conduct my part of the presentation in French. At first I relaxed, but then I realized that I had received all my main professional experience already in Russia and I know most of the terms either in Russian or in English. It was a shock - to speak like I say, but in the case I cannot really say anything. What had to be done had to study French Wikipedia for a month, write and memorize speeches, invent questions and prepare answers to them. I was worried and worried terribly, it was unbearable to think that I could screw up the business of the whole year with my inarticulate language.
On the eve of the trip, everyone suddenly realized that our presentation was terrible. Most of the night before departure, in the train to the airport, at the airport, on the plane - we copied the presentation. In parallel, I painfully memorized his speeches. Exhausted flew in, settled into the hotel, at 8 o'clock in the evening with glass eyes went out to the lobby to drink something and began to wait for comrade R., who had flown in specially from meetings in England.
Having arrived, first of all, comrade R. criticized the presentation and said that it would not work that way, everything had to be redone. Having squeezed out of ourselves from where the forces that had come from, we could rewrite the presentation with Comrade S. until two in the morning. Having entered my room, I thought that I would fall exhausted and fall asleep right in the clothes a meter from the bed. What is there! I didn’t sleep most of the night, rehearsed again and memorized my speeches and answers to questions, trained the pronunciation.
For some time, I still forgot to sleep, but then the alarm clock rang and I was on cotton legs with the full feeling that a terrible trial awaited me, got out of bed. Removing the ironed suit and shirt from the hanger, I realized with horror that I had forgotten a belt for trousers at home - this was the apogee of that nightmare that had been haunting me for the whole day. Buttoning up my jacket and noting with relief that the pants didn’t even fall off me, I went downstairs, where the director, comrade S. and the always cheerful and good-natured comrade, R., always picked up the coffee. The meeting was scheduled for 10 am.
We arrived at a beautiful mansion, which the foundation had recently moved to, a lovely girl took us to the third floor and offered coffee. The tension of everyone except Comrade R. was unreal - we nervously hunted jokes and tried to convince each other that we would show them right now (first the presentation, then the mother, or the opposite). The same sweet girl appeared and confusedly announced that the meeting had been rescheduled for 12 - an e-mail was sent to comrade S.
With some relief, we went to the cafe for a late breakfast and here we all let go. It may not have made the difference to us, but much easier, the tension receded and, returning at 12 o'clock, I was already in quite a good and fighting mood.
All partners of the foundation attended the meeting, if my memory serves me - 6 or 7 people. Opening speech by comrades S. and R., opening remarks by the director in terrible English, the beginning of the presentation. 2 or 3 people with boring faces looked at the slides, one generally looked somewhere past us and thought about something of his own, at that moment it seemed to me that there was no point in continuing, everything was gone. But somehow it turned out that the conversation gradually drew all the participants, we argued, laughed, all my prepared speeches and answers were absolutely not needed. I adapted the architecture for tricky questions on the go, gave out ideas that came along during the conversation for our secret preparations (according to my observations, financial issues were resolved by Comrade S. in this way), and in general everything went very easily and in a good atmosphere.
After a three-hour conversation, the partners retired to the meeting, after 10 minutes they returned and one of the senior partners told us: “We will give you money”. The euphoria after the invitation to the presentation was nothing compared to what I felt at that moment. We left the building, got into a taxi, arrived at the hotel. All this time we were smiling stupidly and did not know what to say. In the elevator, our director, who rarely shows emotion and generally wants to be like a harsh mafia, hugged us in turn, patted us on the back and said, “You are great, we are great!”. Throughout the following evening, disagreements, resentment, fatigue, everything faded into the background - we had dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city, drank excellent wine and sincerely rejoiced at our incredible success. At the hotel, I talked face to face with Comrade R. - as I expected, he turned out to be an exceptionally intelligent and interesting person, communication with him was worth every minute of difficulties in this whole story. What surprised me the most was that Comrade S. and the director did not listen to him at all in some matters, and could have avoided so many problems. The next day we walked around the city, made plans for the future, argued about the nuances of organizing a new company. They returned to Moscow winners.
When the euphoria of success subsided, we began to prepare for the next steps, as the promise in the words “give money” meant almost nothing (although the word respected people, as you know, is more valuable than money). Then we signed the so-called “agreement of intent” and we were waited for by the return visit of the representative of the fund, a thorough study of our affairs, discussion of the details of the transaction, legal and other subtleties. The forecast of Comrade R. at that time was 90%, that the money would still be given.
Representatives of the foundation arrived, there were several meetings without my participation. After some time, the director calls me - the fund refused. According to him, due to the fact that they did not agree on the division of shares. Maybe this is so, and maybe other reasons. Maybe something was wrong with the financial statements, maybe, with more thorough discussions, the incompetence of the director and comrade S. came to light, and maybe on the wave of success they really decided to bargain, but the guys are not simple - this does not work with them. I can only guess, but the result remains the same - a bummer.
After that, there were several more attempts to negotiate with the funds, in parallel, they took up the old projects, because the money ran out, but it was already too late - to venture onto the cliff without insurance is a risky event, if you break down - there will be no second chance. The company had two ways - to rush headlong into the investment race, or to put existing projects on its feet. For myself, I have learned a great number of lessons and invaluable experience from this story, so I don’t regret a single second, although my hopes were not justified. If you try to choose the main lesson of this period of life, I could not choose between the two - nothing is in vain and it is always worth trying.
First pancakes
So, the director and his friend S. went to London to meet with the bigwigs of the business. The calculation was this - the people to whom our delegates went to, poorly understood the Internet business, did not even smell like a crisis at that time, the hysterics around start-up profits were at their peak. It is worth noting that at that time from the technical documentation were only sketches of ideas and a general description, which outlined the scope of the project. Plus an estimate of the primary costs and the approximate cost of development for the first two years of life.
As I understood further from communicating with people with big money, but little knowledge in the subject area, it’s absolutely impossible to scare them with technical tasks and geek slang. The main thing they want to see is how much money they need to invest and where they will start to make a profit. By inexperience, I tried to talk about the technical side of the project, but in the end I realized that populist loud statements are much more useful for creating a general impression (namely, it leads to a conversation about money). At that moment, I also realized that all these delusional discussions at the birth stage of the product idea were not so delusional, it seemed that these people were all crazy and, apparently, therefore, so rich.
I got a little distracted. They returned from London with nothing - as it turned out (!) It would be good to make some kind of presentation and a document called Due Diligence . My hopes for professionalism and any knowledge of the investment issues of Comrade S. were scattered about the wall of facts. But, oddly enough, several serious people from London were still interested in the project and were ready to meet again as soon as Due Diligence appeared.
')
Another prophet.
Somehow by hook or by crook, Comrade S. came out (and maybe he was always familiar, only in that case it’s not clear why he didn’t know the simplest things in attracting investments) to one fairly well-known and influential American who had already taken root for 15 years in Russia and quite successfully engaged in business in the regions. Through him, it was planned to go to representatives of serious investment funds and he was ready to become something like a guarantor and guarantor, without whom serious people would not want to talk to anyone. Let's call an American a companion R. He was also the chairman of a single niche investment fund, who had no interests on the Internet, so the question about the investments of his fund was not.
Comrade R. opened our eyes to many things (the same Due diligence), dissuaded the director and comrade S. to look for money among funds of a different direction and, moreover, serious, but not knowledgeable people with money. Investing from them is really much easier to get, but in the future the demand for the results will be completely different, just as there will be attempts to control and penetrate the operational management of the company. Well, do not forget that these people are often associated with crime (which I had no doubt after some meetings and communication with representatives of interested investors of this type). On the contrary, funds focused on Internet projects can become not only a source of money, but also a source of practical advice and may save you from many mistakes at the initial stage.
Hard to learn
The work went more fun, but also much more intense. In addition to the standard set of documents, some materials clarifying and clarifying certain issues were constantly required. It often happened that at 10 pm Comrade S. called me and asked me to prepare one or another document by morning. One time he woke me up at one in the morning and said that 5 people from such a fund were sitting next to him - he puts the phone on the speakerphone, and I need to briefly tell about the technical aspects of the project and answer some questions.
Instead of a working prototype, it was decided to draw design layouts - there was neither the resources nor the time for the development. We painted the layouts of the main pages (about 10 layouts in total), the design was very successful - I looked at the layouts and believed in the viability of the project more and more. I put the layouts on the project domain and relinked the pictures in such a way that there was a feeling of going over different pages of the site. As it turned out, the decision was very successful - the impression was very positive. For obvious reasons, there were no bugs, everything is beautiful and neat, plus intriguing understatement. All this caused a desire to quickly do the project and climb on it yourself.
We go further
After some time, comrades S. and R. came to one very famous venture capital fund, which had already raised more than one successful web project. After several rounds of negotiations, in which I participated only through the documentation generated by me and telephone conversations (that same call at one o'clock in the morning), we were invited to the final presentation with the participation of the founders of the foundation to headquarters in one small beautiful European city.
It was just a crazy feeling of the incredible that happened, until the last moment I refused to believe that all this fussing could lead to something like that - we are going to ourselves! I already began to make plans in my thoughts, first for my future salary, then for a share of the sale of the company (up to this point I called it “dula”) - now it’s very funny to remember.
For a while I lived in France and therefore speak French quite well (because of this I am very confused when speaking in English), most of the founders are also French-speaking - thus they decided that I would conduct my part of the presentation in French. At first I relaxed, but then I realized that I had received all my main professional experience already in Russia and I know most of the terms either in Russian or in English. It was a shock - to speak like I say, but in the case I cannot really say anything. What had to be done had to study French Wikipedia for a month, write and memorize speeches, invent questions and prepare answers to them. I was worried and worried terribly, it was unbearable to think that I could screw up the business of the whole year with my inarticulate language.
On the eve of the trip, everyone suddenly realized that our presentation was terrible. Most of the night before departure, in the train to the airport, at the airport, on the plane - we copied the presentation. In parallel, I painfully memorized his speeches. Exhausted flew in, settled into the hotel, at 8 o'clock in the evening with glass eyes went out to the lobby to drink something and began to wait for comrade R., who had flown in specially from meetings in England.
Having arrived, first of all, comrade R. criticized the presentation and said that it would not work that way, everything had to be redone. Having squeezed out of ourselves from where the forces that had come from, we could rewrite the presentation with Comrade S. until two in the morning. Having entered my room, I thought that I would fall exhausted and fall asleep right in the clothes a meter from the bed. What is there! I didn’t sleep most of the night, rehearsed again and memorized my speeches and answers to questions, trained the pronunciation.
Last Judgment
For some time, I still forgot to sleep, but then the alarm clock rang and I was on cotton legs with the full feeling that a terrible trial awaited me, got out of bed. Removing the ironed suit and shirt from the hanger, I realized with horror that I had forgotten a belt for trousers at home - this was the apogee of that nightmare that had been haunting me for the whole day. Buttoning up my jacket and noting with relief that the pants didn’t even fall off me, I went downstairs, where the director, comrade S. and the always cheerful and good-natured comrade, R., always picked up the coffee. The meeting was scheduled for 10 am.
We arrived at a beautiful mansion, which the foundation had recently moved to, a lovely girl took us to the third floor and offered coffee. The tension of everyone except Comrade R. was unreal - we nervously hunted jokes and tried to convince each other that we would show them right now (first the presentation, then the mother, or the opposite). The same sweet girl appeared and confusedly announced that the meeting had been rescheduled for 12 - an e-mail was sent to comrade S.
With some relief, we went to the cafe for a late breakfast and here we all let go. It may not have made the difference to us, but much easier, the tension receded and, returning at 12 o'clock, I was already in quite a good and fighting mood.
All partners of the foundation attended the meeting, if my memory serves me - 6 or 7 people. Opening speech by comrades S. and R., opening remarks by the director in terrible English, the beginning of the presentation. 2 or 3 people with boring faces looked at the slides, one generally looked somewhere past us and thought about something of his own, at that moment it seemed to me that there was no point in continuing, everything was gone. But somehow it turned out that the conversation gradually drew all the participants, we argued, laughed, all my prepared speeches and answers were absolutely not needed. I adapted the architecture for tricky questions on the go, gave out ideas that came along during the conversation for our secret preparations (according to my observations, financial issues were resolved by Comrade S. in this way), and in general everything went very easily and in a good atmosphere.
After a three-hour conversation, the partners retired to the meeting, after 10 minutes they returned and one of the senior partners told us: “We will give you money”. The euphoria after the invitation to the presentation was nothing compared to what I felt at that moment. We left the building, got into a taxi, arrived at the hotel. All this time we were smiling stupidly and did not know what to say. In the elevator, our director, who rarely shows emotion and generally wants to be like a harsh mafia, hugged us in turn, patted us on the back and said, “You are great, we are great!”. Throughout the following evening, disagreements, resentment, fatigue, everything faded into the background - we had dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city, drank excellent wine and sincerely rejoiced at our incredible success. At the hotel, I talked face to face with Comrade R. - as I expected, he turned out to be an exceptionally intelligent and interesting person, communication with him was worth every minute of difficulties in this whole story. What surprised me the most was that Comrade S. and the director did not listen to him at all in some matters, and could have avoided so many problems. The next day we walked around the city, made plans for the future, argued about the nuances of organizing a new company. They returned to Moscow winners.
Return visit
When the euphoria of success subsided, we began to prepare for the next steps, as the promise in the words “give money” meant almost nothing (although the word respected people, as you know, is more valuable than money). Then we signed the so-called “agreement of intent” and we were waited for by the return visit of the representative of the fund, a thorough study of our affairs, discussion of the details of the transaction, legal and other subtleties. The forecast of Comrade R. at that time was 90%, that the money would still be given.
Representatives of the foundation arrived, there were several meetings without my participation. After some time, the director calls me - the fund refused. According to him, due to the fact that they did not agree on the division of shares. Maybe this is so, and maybe other reasons. Maybe something was wrong with the financial statements, maybe, with more thorough discussions, the incompetence of the director and comrade S. came to light, and maybe on the wave of success they really decided to bargain, but the guys are not simple - this does not work with them. I can only guess, but the result remains the same - a bummer.
Conclusion
After that, there were several more attempts to negotiate with the funds, in parallel, they took up the old projects, because the money ran out, but it was already too late - to venture onto the cliff without insurance is a risky event, if you break down - there will be no second chance. The company had two ways - to rush headlong into the investment race, or to put existing projects on its feet. For myself, I have learned a great number of lessons and invaluable experience from this story, so I don’t regret a single second, although my hopes were not justified. If you try to choose the main lesson of this period of life, I could not choose between the two - nothing is in vain and it is always worth trying.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/60626/
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