The story of Amperka

Habrarider, hello!

Our company’s blog is about to expire on a paid period. We definitely will not have time to prepare some interesting and non-banal material about DIY electronics before its end. Therefore, taking this opportunity, I’ll tell you better about how Amperka came about, and how we came to what we have now and why we never have time for anything.

So, if you are interested in the story of the emergence of one small business, I ask for cat.

Background

It all started in 2010, when I worked as a programmer for another game development company and wanted to introduce another fashionable feature into the process. It was a practice of Continuous Integration. You know, probably: this is when there is a lamp in the room that glows green, if everything is ok with the code and lights up red, if someone has committed changes that break the assembly or tests.

I did not know how to do this and had no idea about resistors, transistors, and even more so about microcontrollers. Google then led me to the side of semi-finished solutions for a smart home. They were expensive and generally resembled shooting from a cannon at sparrows. And then a ray of light - Arduino! Just what you need! It's funny, but Google didn’t tell me about cheap penny raw microcontrollers.

So, it was decided: I urgently need an Arduino and a heap of parts to quickly deal with all this. It was impossible to buy the flagship Arduino Duemilanove in Moscow, so I had to order it in Germany, as I recall, at Waterott Electronics.

The package arrived and I began to blink with interest in the LEDs. I finally began to understand why we needed resistors, transistors and diodes, which I heard about at school the last time. It seemed to me that such a circuitry for dummies would appeal to a lot of people.

At the same time, I really wanted to stir up some kind of IT startup. Fortunately, I already had 3 failed projects of my own and one that was never launched. Arduino seemed so interesting and unfairly undeveloped in Russia that I forgot about Continuous Integration and began to research the issue of xDuino production in Russia. The platform is in open source. Without thinking anything in the production of electronics, I counted 200-300 rubles per unit.

I caught fire. I understood that here it is: both an IT start-up and real production are very interesting and not very banal. Springing and rejoicing, I decided to tell my friend about the idea. He, by the way, was a humanitarian and often did not understand who needed "these are your techie stuff." But the Arduino concept turned out to be so simple and straightforward that it also got hooked. We decided to do it. So the company was born.

Before dealing with production issues, the partner suggested trying to buy a little Arduin in Europe and sell it with a minimal margin to understand if anyone needs them at all. This was the first time that one of us saved the other from an idiotic decision. After all, I did not know then that I was mistaken in calculating the unit cost more than π times.

First investment

We chipped in 20 thousand and began to form the first order in Robot Italy for our private satisfied persons. I remember that these were seven Arduino Duemilanove, one Arduino Mega, several breadboards, bulk, two LCD screens, a power supply and two servos. Now it causes a smile. We clicked the “checkout” button on April 4th, 2010. This was the official birthday of Amperka.

While our first batch was traveling by Russian Post, it was necessary to raise the platform of the online store. I was a developer at that time for 7 years, of which 2 years I was engaged in web development in Python. What a blessing that I did not find any sane e-commerce platform in Python. I had to choose something from SaaS. I decided to use InSales because I heard something about them. And this was another right decision, chosen by chance. Successful not because InSales is a super-duper (now it’s a bit crowded in their functionality), but because someone else was engaged in hosting, backups, updates, reflection of DDoS. I just did not imagine then that the stupid “buy-sell” model would throw on our heads a basilion of petty worries. The last thing I would like to see then in the morning, when it is time to run to my main job, is “504. Gateway Timeout "by nginx.

I also decided that just Arduino is cool, but any sets that include the necessary body kit are even better. Mikhail, my partner, was very skeptical of the idea, justifying it with the fact that “you never understand what exactly a person needs”, “why should he overpay” and other arguments. I insisted and this was another anti-idiotic decision. So there were sets of Milimatryoshka, Kilomatryoshka and Megamatryoshka. They appeared virtually, because the goods we have not yet waited.

Here our megaparty finally arrived, but there were still a number of pre-launch questions: an agreement with a courier service, a direct telephone number, cardboard boxes, company stickers, zip packages for small things and other nonsense. At first it was not at all obvious that all this was not born from the air. We worked at our full-time jobs, so the business was not moving very fast, but it was moving. All the evenings and weekends we enthusiastically spent on preparing for the start.

Launch

As a result, on June 27th we started, which was announced on Habré . I often say that our 7 arduin snapped up in the first 7 minutes. This is not entirely true. In fact, it took us 48 hours. The announcement in a very right place is another star from those that have formed in a row and allowed to go further.

Suddenly, the first of those mundane tasks appeared that I had never thought about. They call the store, and you're at work. I had to constantly run into the corridor. If during a conversation you needed something on the computer, it turned out uncomfortable, stupid and ridiculous. Someone wanted to pick it up by themselves: I had to call to the office where I worked and talk for a long time about how to get in an undertone. Couriers for orders arrived, of course, also during working hours. All this caused the sidelong glances of my colleagues and gave me emotional discomfort. But there weren’t much options.

Evening was approaching and it was necessary to do something worldly again. I remember there weren’t enough jumpers on the sets. Mikhail had to ride Chip-i-Deepam to close the hole. As a result, a couple of large pencil cases were bought, of which, sitting on the floor with tweezers, I counted out 65 pieces declared by us and shoved them into mail envelopes. That’s another lesson.

In general, the first product was sold out, the fuss ended up and it became clear that this could be sold.

Go

It immediately became obvious that carrying the goods over was an option that did not scale at all. Therefore, we exhaled, made money and ordered a commercial lot. 35 Arduino Duemilanove and all sorts of details. Mikhail dealt with the issue of import, and since he did it for the first time, the party epic stuck at customs.

A long customs history dragged on. By the beginning of September, we understood that the party and money were lost, because everything was done wrong. Michael immediately received 10 level-ups for the ability to "import", but that was no sweeter. Personal money was not endless. Friends, I remember, sympathized, but when they found out that the party was only touched by 50 thousand rubles and said that it was nothing. But for us, 50K is not a trifle, but most importantly, we lost time.

At our own risk, we ordered a double of the batch. The 10th level in terms of “import” was still enough to drag the party. We were delighted and set to work. There were many plans: interesting articles, a forum, partnerships with bloggers, but it all instantly crashed into packing radio components in bags, problems with couriers and other mundane matters. Michael said that because of these things, at work it smells fried and we need a manager. I agreed, although obviously it would not be free.

First employees

We found a student for 15 thousand plus a percentage of orders. They handed him all the goods, put him to the bomb on the Six and sent him home. For two days everything went well, but then it just disappeared: neither e-mail nor the phone answered. But we idiots didn’t even make a copy of the passport. After 3 days, he showed up and talked some nonsense about the lost phone. We nodded, paid and took the goods.

In the meantime, that first, stuck lot crept through a miracle. I again plunged into operational matters, and Mikhail, drinking a cup after a cup of coffee on a stream in the cafe closest to work, filtered out new candidates. Finally, a miracle happened, and we found a funny guy who was on an academic vacation, sociable and even by car.

Parties in 30-50 arduin already seemed not our caliber, so it was necessary to take more. And personal money is over. Investors? To the bathhouse. There was little experience in communicating with them; There was a loan. Not a single bank will give a loan to a microcompany, which does not even have an office, I worked without personal income tax, so they refused me. My father helped out by issuing 350K for himself. Amperka devoured this money for a couple of months and in one gulp. Turnover increased, the number of orders grew (especially on New Year's Eve), and there was not enough money more and more.

Failure to understand why this is happening, led to passions, regular scandals with a partner, and in general almost led to a decision to curtail, remaining with credit and an unfulfilled dream. We then only heard about what the Balance Sheet and Income Statement are, but did not understand that these were not corporate accounting papers, but fundamental indicators of financial health.

Inventing these documents again, I managed to prove crookedly that there is money, it’s just that they all ride in the form of cash on delivery orders and new lots. And that at least some profit can we see only when demand is slowing down. I convinced you. Michael got a loan for 800K.

No braking occurred and the new money was still quickly melting before our eyes. At that time, the next shop was already the main job, where I became the technical director. There was a lot of work, but they also paid 150K. This was very useful, because part could sometimes be thrown into the mouth of Amperka.

Sitting on two chairs was extremely difficult. We needed to develop a wiki, make descriptions of a large number of new products, conduct experiments in order to answer technical questions from customers, monitor product balances and much more. Therefore, in June 2011, I raised the question that I need a salary and I will spend 100% of the time on the store. We stopped at the amount of 70K, which after 150K, of course, was not a fountain, but this is really earned money in this own company! And the development prospects inspired even more.

End of career

In June, I told the employer that I was leaving for my business. The uncle was severe and for the first time I was scared to talk about dismissal. To my surprise, something like this sounded: "Your business?" This is the only good reason you can leave! Blow ". I was delighted with a little accumulated money, before the new achievements the girl and I went on summer vacation. It was worrying: is it possible to leave your brainchild unattended for 2 weeks? But Michael was not going anywhere, it inspired a certain certainty. In addition, I was so sick of it that I needed to get distracted.

The founder of the company from which I just quit added fuel to the fire. He called the day before departure and offered to book on vacation, return for a month and a half before the next milestone, and if I run a certain list of features, he pays a million on hand at once.

Perhaps, I did not have such a temptation in life either before or after. I rushed about the room, weighing the pros and cons. Perhaps it’s just that I was completely unsure of my abilities, that I could 100% realize the necessary things, that the rally servers would withstand a huge influx of players, I gritted my teeth, said “No”.

This was the last full-time work as a programmer. So ended my hired career.

"Free swimming"

The vacation was over, more and more people recognized about Arduino, different companies began to turn to us with offers of all kinds of partnerships, interaction in the field of education and other concepts. We began to feel a little more than a tiny store.

Somehow the guys from Ufa contacted us and said that they needed a couple of robots for the festival organized by Google, and asked for a discount. This was probably the first request of the hundreds that followed, so we gave ourselves at a loss at half price, expecting some kind of miracle.

And a miracle happened! Google contacted us and bought his event for the prize pool .30 sets of Matryoshka Z. It was an explosion and panic. It was at that moment that something was stuck with us at customs, we were already going to go with backpacks to Italy to Massimo Banzi and pick up the Arduins by ourselves. Just not to let go of Google. At the last moment the party passed and was slightly relieved. There was very little time left. We had to form 30 sets in 1 evening.

With sore backs and sweaty faces, the manager and I tirelessly pored over the equipment, occupying the floor of the entire apartment that I rented. The task was aggravated by the fact that Matryoshka Z had not yet been released: Google bought their very first copies, even before they appeared in our store. The new line had a new package, new parts, new everything. And the first time it, as always, did not fit in, crumbled and fell out. I had to invent a raid, but everything worked out.

We are again faced with the effect when the company sells and everything is fine with it, but there was no money either. Only this time the effect was much more powerful. There was no talk of any salary. A few months later, the money for food ran out. In the hope that everything was about to recover, I borrowed money from my father for 2-3 months of a super-economical regime.

Naturally, it was at this moment that the laptop burned out the display. I had to buy an external monitor. A month later, the laptop itself died. There was already a negative amount of money. I also had to borrow from Michael.

Amperka had at least henna. On the contrary, everything was fine with her: the number of orders grew, one manager could not cope, one more was needed. So the second employee appeared, who was also not free.

Depression began. There is no money, there is nowhere to wait for them, I am in debt, like in silk. Around everything, like white people, they buy cars, apartments spawn from somewhere, they rush to and fro. And here I am in all this rampage sitting with my fucking nesting doll and bare ass. Mikhail argued that you still need to get somewhere around 50K, pump it into the company and then we will live. The calculations probably had little to do with reality. Cash gaps were already measured in hundreds of thousands of rubles. And if you borrow this amount from someone, give it away with milk?

Back to uncle

In general, I realized that I set sail too soon. “Burn it all with a horse,” I thought, and began to look for a normal programmer job. So since January 2012 I have been working again. The shop was very boring, dull and uninteresting, but I agreed that I would work from home. The main thing for me then was money, and so that they did not stand above the soul.

After the New Year's hysteria, the very inhibition of demand first occurred. At least some money appeared in the company. In addition, for several months, Michael knocked out a loan vacation.

More and more often I found myself on the fact that sometimes I do not do anything at work for several days in a row. All attention was paid to our company. Moreover, the first sprouts of hope appeared. I was engaged in the production of content, spinning all sorts of IT pieces to the store. The number of cases grew and grew and again deja vu: if you do not get out of work, Amperka will flourish for another 10 years. We agreed directly with reinforced concrete with Mikhail that I would have a salary of 60K (I gave 38K for an apartment) and not according to the residual principle, as before.

So in April 2012, I left the last office. For the first time, I probably quit without bringing anything useful to the employer company. It's a shame, but such is life. Forgive me, "Optimism." This time I left forever.

Office again

We made a purchase of a company with a name. For decent amounts, charity foundations, various schools and colleges were purchased a couple of times. Collaboration was offered by Digital October, RC toy stores, book publishers and magazines.

We never hid that we were working without an office, but we also did not build Mann, Ivanov and Ferber from ourselves. The meetings in the cafes seemed unprofessional.

My room, balcony and closet looked more and more like an industrial warehouse. When the party arrived, it was like a robbery in a garbage dump. Torn cardboard, polyethylene, foam balls, scraps of bubble wrap, and a mountain of boxes in the center of the room for recounting and grouping were lying everywhere: these are under the table, these are in the corner, these are on the washing machine, and this is not afraid of cold - on the balcony.

It looked just hard for me to imagine what the manager's room looked like.

More and more often there were stories like:
- Hey, Vit, we have ended Mega. Will I drop by in the evening?
- How did it end? Well, yesterday I gave 11 pieces!
- Uhhh ... really?
- Yes, look
- [hour of the night, MMS with photo] Ahhh, found, found)))))))) !!! 111

It was not very funny anymore. I needed an office. To convince of this had a long and painful. I even calculated some ROI: expenses, yes, more - but the profit will grow. All this, of course, was sucked out of the finger, but in the end we both agreed.

The technical business process “Try to rent an office in Moscow” has begun. 200 m² - no problem. And if money does not matter, then at least in any building. But we needed something for 40K a month from strength. And since we were sure that the place matters, we searched only inside the metro ring.

Mikhail looked at 7 options, but it was all terrible garbage dumps 3 kilometers from the metro, in the basement, with the smells of the toilet soaking right into the walls. “What did you boys want for that kind of money?” - the agents marveled.

And now - a nice office on Dobryninskaya, cheers! We were about to move there, but Mikhail, using his experience as a lawyer, asked the landlord for the necessary pile of papers for review and the landlord was skis. As it turned out later, they were scammers. All over again.

We were ready to take an office next to the funeral agency, in a building that seemed to be about to fall. An attic office with boarded up windows overlooking the noisy Bolotnaya Embankment was proposed. In the summer, we would definitely die there and become clients of our neighbors.

Then a miracle happened, and we looked at the last, control version. Office 38 m² on the Taganskaya metro station, with normal repair, in a quiet place. Got it! We bought a couple of Expedit shelves in Ikea and placed all the goods in them.

So since March 2012, I was back in the office. I am writing to you from him now. But this is a completely different feeling.

Development directions

From that moment, acute financial problems ended. Money was close, but cash flow ceased to be negative. The long-awaited breakeven point has come. We carefully maintained the optimal warehouse level, kept the turnover ratio at a fantastic level of 10-16 (industry standard 3-4). This was the only way not to roll back.

We began to think not about extinguishing fires, but about some kind of conscious development: SEO, context, social media. Bitten here and there. There was an effect in the number of visits, but not in rubles.

I eagerly read several books about marketing. And if you take the average idea in the context of Amperka, it all boiled down to the fact that "do awesome content, love customers and everything will be." It's funny, but we got up on that, and then for some reason climbed into those areas in which we did not understand. The same SEO and context make sense only in a developed market, and the microcontroller DIY electronics market at that time was tiny and it was pulled by only a few locomotives, among which we were. It is good that this deviation of development did not eat much time and money - we came to our senses in time.

The main problem was time. The current operational tasks: procurement, shipping, monitoring, analytics, technical support, and IT completion took most of the time. Very little was possible to write. Therefore, I convinced the partner that we needed a person who would pick pieces of iron and write on wiki and Habr.

This is a waste again. I tried to show in calculations that such a person would pay for himself after 3 months. But now I understand that it was rather an attempt to deceive myself and justify the decision to hire a new one. It is quite obvious now that such an employee is extremely useful to us, but in no case could we expect serious returns in the first months. Content is what justifies itself, at least, in a year.

Who could we take for 35-40 thousand? That's right - a student. So we got in touch with the first student since our first, slurred manager for 2 days. Egor was a great guy, but without work experience. To hell with him, that for an hour of his work he had to spend his hour to bring the material to a form suitable for publication. Most of all I was upset by the inability to distribute our strengths, use the search on the Internet and the fact that gradually the institute began to eat away much more time than we stipulated. So after two and a half months we said goodbye to him.

We decided to step on the rake again. The newcomer demonstrated exactly the same qualities and went to graduate in Germany. “What did you boys want for that kind of money?” - We thought and left the idea with a technical writer until better times.

In parallel with the wiki writer, we decided to try to produce some kind of board-shield for Arduino. We were recommended one person who was engaged in electronic engineering at KB Almaz. To test the pen, Troyka Shield was chosen, which is currently sold by us. The fee is simple but useful for beginners.

I had no idea how the boards are made, and when our new engineer dragged the prototype a week later, I was pleasantly excited. It was a brown freak from a bare PCB, on which everything that could be mixed up was mixed up. But that was not important. The main thing is that here it is - the beginning of the path to its own electronics. After a month and a half, we still ordered the first batch.

Then we decided to make a Motor Shield. Here everything is stuck. How our C400 missile systems work, I have not understood since. An engineer came to us about 15 times, probably with new prototypes that “worked perfectly at home!” And every time the demonstration ended in smoke, flame and the smell of burnt plastic.

Enough money has been spent on the development of Motor Shield to repel them for the next couple of years. Direction turned off.

Popular Mechanics

Everything returned to its former course, when we were engaged in the routine and could not afford something new magical for further development.

But here, in the September issue of 2012, “Popular Mechanics” suddenly wrote about us. And it’s not that she mentioned, but a complete reversal! This came as a complete surprise. Our office literally lined up queues for orders. It’s clear that we were attacked by some new layer of customers. Less well-worn than the audience with Habré and their friends.

A huge number of requests for advice and small orders rained down. Not far off was the New Year, which this time we decided not to click and use to the fullest. All this further increased the burden on us. Current tasks again began to take up most of the time.

In the rare breaks between the procurement and loading business and communication with customers, we tried to work on at least something from the list of strategic plans. The goal was a set proposed by Mikhail adapted for educational needs.

It was clear that with such a load, even if the product came out, we simply did not have enough strength to promote it in a new market for us.

Evangelists

In our forum, by that time life was already seething.

I once wrote in a personal letter to a person who said that he really likes what we do and with what approach. He even offered to promote our products in parent communities so that Arduins would also be delivered to adults, but still financially insolvent children. Corresponded with a month.

Why could I not understand this for him? I don’t understand hints at all. I invited the forum member to drop by our office to get to know each other. "Finally!" - he said.

Met, he turned out to be a sales manager with extensive experience. We found many opportunities for interaction. Payment was supposed to be bonus, so we did not see a big risk in trying. Moreover, a person was so well versed in what needs to be sold.

So in February 2013, Ruslan appeared, who is now the director of the sales department.

A month later, on the forum, I wrote to another regular. It turned out that he is a pro in electronics design who loves Arduino. Usually such people belong to the class of arduinonavatnikov, and this one loved.

We decided to try Motor Shield again - it went. So we got a cool engineer Aleksey, who by the current moment had already designed two dozen pieces of iron. You have not seen many yet, if you follow the assortment, but you will definitely see it soon.

Super manager

Everything went well, but slowly. The company gradually appeared money. But we did not succeed in doing what we really want: to create new interesting products, write interesting articles and become the undisputed leaders of DIY electronics in Russia.

Since previous experience with students showed us that you won’t make porridge like that, I told Mikhail that we needed Philip Kirkorov in the state. By this image, we mean a superstar man who, yes, will be expensive, but will be able to independently engage in both pre-production and the production of new goods, control the activity of creating content, in general, everything that we wanted to do, but failed.

Michael expressed doubts that we can find such a person. But I was relentless. Then we went for advice to my former classmate, so that he looked at the situation from the side.

- What do you guys want?
- Well, man, so that this and that, and cool to do
- Cool, how is that?
- Well, there the products are first-class, marketing is effective, then
hmmm ... I realized that I didn’t understand anything, but I know one thing, I

’ll introduce you. We met with the recommended super-manager. And that was compare a tub of ice water to your head. The man said that he was engaged in products, production, all kinds of bi-tu-bi, synergy and other things. But not a single direct, specific question like “What kind of product, for whom?”, “How was it promoted?”, “What exactly did you do there?” We never received an answer.

Mentor - well done! He sent us exactly what he was looking for: we cannot clearly articulate what we need - the super manager cannot say what he can do.

At this point, without really making a conclusion what to do, I went on vacation. Wallowing at sea for 14 days is mortal longing. But the girl insisted: “Look, Natasha and Olka go to rest 4 times a year, and you ... and you ...”. Well, right, let's go. To pass the time, I downloaded my Kindle with all sorts of business books to the eyeballs.

Most of the books told something that you need at the start. It was necessary, as a whale filters water, filter book after book to catch at least a little krill, i.e. new knowledge.

One of the books was a revelation. Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. I read the preface and was dumbfounded: the current disposition of Amperka was laid out there practically in private! How we do not have enough time, how we are constantly distracted by unnecessary things, how we cannot bring anything to mind. “If you want to fix everything, go to chapter 1,” the preface said. I sucked. I was lying in front of the sea and amid the screeching of children from a banana and the noise of motor boats with excitement absorbed page by page.

The book, in fact, did not tell anything new. The author simply put the brain in its place and hinted: "shut up and don't panic." But I realized this only recently.

Traction

In the book you can find a lot of new ideas and techniques, but not for the programmer. After all, I was an adherent of Edge, poker planning and all that was so fashionable. And why did I immediately forget about it all, how did I stop programming in the team ?!

I returned from vacation with a scribbled notebook and a bunch of simple ideas that were streamlined.

- In programming, there are iterations, sprints, tasks and regular meetings. Why do not we have them? Introduced.
- In programming, there is a feature list sorted by importance and weighted in “parrots” by labor. Why is this not with us? Introduced.
- In programming, I wrote algorithms in Python. Why is it impossible to formalize business processes by writing them in Russian so that everyone knows what is on our mind? We introduce a little.

And so on and so forth.

We began to clearly understand who we needed. Michael picked up the right words, which he explained to his roommates that we needed their office. They agreed.

At Terra Nova, we took at once the person who is involved in social networks and YouTube, took the person who is responsible for the exhibitions and, finally, the technical expert who showed good results.

It's funny, but we did not have two unsuccessful experiments with students. For the role of an expert, we took a graduate student who did his job well, but after a couple of months he practically stopped appearing every time with new reasons. Everything, since then we officially have no business with full-time students.

Since we knew who we needed, we set about looking for another tech expert. They searched painfully, but it was worth it. We are 100% satisfied with the work of Vasily. At last, we finally started regularly putting out new things that used to be a dead load in the warehouse, articles on wikis began to appear , timely testing of prototypes and the development of third-party hardware, customer support came to life on all fronts. Videos on YouTube and various demo exhibits at exhibitions and may not appear without his help.

With the advent of these people, I realized that I’m already getting a buzz not from what I did with my own hands, whether it be a publication, device, video or something else, but generally from any positive results that someone gives in the company.

I understand that in the near future I will be able to do something big and beautiful with my own hands, but now it does not upset me at all.

2014

I would not say that the evolution and staging of Amperka on absolutely even tracks has been completed. On the contrary, there is still a lot of work, but at least it’s clear what exactly needs to be done so that we all will be fine.

We gradually capture new rooms in the building. By the way, we already have 200 m², which 2 years ago seemed fantastic. As necessary, we take people who can solve different problems better than ourselves. Now we are 10 people in the office and 5 people remotely at part-time. And we do not plan to stop.

Just the other day we grabbed another room. We want to find a partner Vasily: we are clearly not enough of one technical expert. Amperka has a ton of new interesting things. Including revitalization of the blog on Habré, several new large own products, a train of topics for publication and special projects. Such is the story.

If you can recommend someone, I will be very grateful! Write in a personal. Or, we have a vacancy .