Silicon Valley business secrets. How to build a successful business without attracting investment. Ilya Semin, founder of startup Datanyze



    Ilya, one of the young IT entrepreneurs who came to conquer Silicon Valley from a small town near Moscow - Troitsk, several years ago. Ilya from scratch created his own company without attracting investment, which has recently been found less and less. Recently, VentureBeat , one of Silicon Valley's most popular online publications, published an article about Datanyze , which was also translated and published by Zuckerberg Call.

    A year ago, we already published an interview with Ilya , which caused a stir on Habré, overtaking most other publicationsabout Silicon Valley. Therefore, we decided to do another interview, where Ilya talks about how he left work and started a business from scratch, how he attracted the first clients, how he found a partner, began to delegate responsibilities, etc.

    The following is the full text of the interview - for those who prefer text over video. Interview and transcript made by the Habraautor - venture

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    Interview with Ilya Syomin
    host: Pavel Kholyavkin

    Pavel: Hello everyone! I’m Pavel Kholyavkin. And today our guest is ...

    Ilya: Ilya Semin.

    Pavel: Ilya Semin. Hello!

    Ilya:Wow!

    Pavel: Ilya is a co-founder and, one might say, the inspirer of one of the most sensational startups now. Have you been to VentureBeat recently? Was there an article about you a week ago?

    Ilya: Yes, the article was published on Monday. We have been on their homepage all this week.

    Pavel: Tell us briefly about the company: what you do and how to find you.

    Ilya: The company is called Datanyze. My mother says "detonize", so it’s like anyone else there. The company is committed to bypassing millions of sites daily and collecting technology information that is used on these sites. That is, different widgets or analytics, all kinds of tools, buttons are different and so on.
    We look at the html-code of sites and on the basis of it we already know what technologies are used on these sites. Next, what are we doing? We collect all this information in one database and then we can also, say, provide historical information.
    That is, let's say we look at the site and yesterday we did not find any interesting technologies. Today we are checking again, we are looking - there is full of some kind of new technologies. That is, we know that during the day they added some specific technologies that, for example, our customers might be interested in.

    Pavel: Cool. And can you bring some use case, that is, how can your product be used?

    Ilya:Yes. Let's say our first customer was a company called KISSmetrics and their main competitor is Mixpanel. And, in fact, the guys from KISSmetrics every day tracked who started using Mixpanel. Since Mixpanel has a free period, two weeks, let's say ...

    Paul: Trial?

    Ilya: Yes, trial. At this time, KISSmetrics sales simply called all those who started this period with Mixpanel and told them something like this: “It seems to us that you are investing in web analytics now and if you are ready, you can also consider our product. If you did not know, it is three times better than Mixpanel. If you sign up within a week, we will give you a 30% discount, since you are our favorite website, we visit you every day. ”
    I explained in a very exaggerated way, but, in principle, they intercepted people at a very early stage when they see that they are ready to invest in such a solution and thus they completely changed the process of how they made sales.
    That is, before they found some lists of people, they tried to buy these lists and it worked very inefficiently. Then they completely switched to Datanyze and they built the whole process on the basis of the information that we provided to them.

    Pavel: Please tell me when you started, what year and how many active users you have.

    Ilya:I started this in May 2012. A month later, I signed KISSmetrics, then I signed a second company, Dyn (this is a DNS provider). Then it began to increase more and more, customers began to come and come.
    The second person who joined me was the head of the sales department of KISSmetrics, who saw how effective this product was and he immediately became my adviser. He helped me build a product, gave me ideas on what can be added or how to improve a product. Then I persuaded him to quit KISSmetrics and come to me full time, so to speak.
    He joined me last year. We said that he is a co-founder, too, because we did everything together initially. And now we still have a third person who does marketing. His great merit is that we appeared at VentureBeat this week, he did all this work.

    Pavel: Interesting. And how many active users do you have now?

    Ilya: After the past week, it's already hard to say. Somewhere around 50 customers who pay. That is, who pay money monthly. And there are many more who are negotiating with. Somewhere else, probably the same.
    Pavel: Potential customers?

    Ilya: Yes.

    Pavel: How much is your average subscription cost?

    Ilya:The cheapest plan is $ 250 per month, then $ 500 per month and $ 1200 per month (for large companies). There already also depending on how many people in this company use the product. We are trying to sell large companies for big money, small companies - for little money. On average, now about $ 1000 is the average price that the client pays us.

    Pavel: That is, on average ... I'm just trying to somehow calculate the number. Still, about the business conversation, the figure matters.

    Ilya: Yes, you roughly presented, but I can’t say the exact number.

    Pavel: You are only the first steps. Do you have any further?

    Ilya:Yes, we have just begun, we have Napoleonic plans. It took us a lot of time to understand our target audience, to understand to whom we will sell, to understand how much we can sell. That is, all these things, plus the company completely ... we did not take any investments. To grow quickly, you need to have a supply of money: pay salaries to people, pay our expenses (servers and so on) - all this requires money.
    At first, we tried to somehow understand all these problems, how we will solve them. Now we have understood a lot of problems, how we will solve it. Now we will have such a phase of very active growth, especially given this increased, simply huge interest after the publication of the article. Now a lot of people are interested.

    Paul:Listen, interestingly, you are the whole project ... You say you started in general yourself?

    Ilya: Yes.

    Pavel: Did you do programming?

    Ilya: Yes, I was ... Six months ago you would be looking at the whole Datanyze company together, it was just me.

    Pavel: You yourself developed from scratch, that is, you did not attract any investments?

    Ilya: No, initially I had a goal - to build a company myself and at least bring it to a certain level. Because so many people are now, I don’t want to criticize anyone, just very many people - their goal is to raise investments, and then how the business will work, they try to understand later.
    I tried to immediately find a way to make money. That is, for me, business is primarily a machine for making money. That is, I set myself such criteria and it helped me a lot. That is, it helped me to focus, focus on the main thing: on clients who pay money, and not on creating some kind of brand or something else. Thus, the company quickly became profitable.

    Pavel: Interesting. Listen, tell me briefly about your life story, life lessons that you could learn and tell our subscribers about this.

    Ilya: History ... Do you want to start with diapers?

    Pavel: From the moment you started your active life, an active publication, some kind of training is possible.

    Ilya:I was born in Moscow. Grew up in Troitsk near Moscow, now it has become Moscow, but at that time it was Moscow Region. Then he graduated from school there, went to college - Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation (in Moscow). I studied there for five and a half years.
    I started going to America on summer programs starting in my third year. Work and Travel, then I had Internship - this is also such a program (temporary) to come here and gain experience.

    Pavel: That is, to work for some company?

    Ilya: Yes, by profession. This is a requirement of the program, that is, you cannot come here just like that.

    Pavel: And the specialty was related to the training that you received?

    Ilya:In fact, I came as a programmer to work. That is, it should not be strictly in that specialty. It should be at least roughly similar. So I arrived, found my first job there (internship). Probably paid as much as the McDonalds pay, if not less.

    Pavel: But the fact itself!

    Ilya: Yes, the fact itself. And the first kind of working experience appeared. It was very important. So I went for the summer. He arrived - he studied again for nine months, and again went for the summer. While I was studying in Moscow, I remotely worked for the same company. When the internship is over, they say: “Listen, let’s you work from home.”
    Thus, my first pocket money appeared for beer. The only thing was difficult - I studied in the morning, then I came and the rest who worked all day, went to bed - in the morning I got up, studied, worked. Then the institute faded into the background, I slipped from an excellent student to, God forbid, three-year-old.

    Pavel: But did you finish your studies?

    Ilya: I finished my studies, I got a diploma. In principle, what I wanted from study, I already got everything. Therefore, I already had priority. As soon as I graduated, two weeks later I moved here. I already waited, could not wait until all my studies were over. I packed some minimal things, moved to Boston (where my first internship was).
    In Boston, I lived for two and a half years. I changed a couple of companies there, graduated from college in Boston, received my second degree (already in business) - MBA (Master of Business Administration).

    Pavel: Your commercial vein?

    Ilya: I was always interested in this. I had such a case when my visa was running out and I had to do something about it. Almost everyone in this case goes somewhere to study: some take English courses, some still somewhere. I thought that I was interested in business, entrepreneurship.
    In Boston, it turned out to be the best college in all world ratings for entrepreneurship. Stands above Harvard, Stanford and so on. Very small. I filed there, they took me, I was very happy. There was an opportunity to take classes after work. That is, I worked during the day, and took classes (classes) in the evening. For two years I studied there, worked at that time, changed a couple of companies. I have worked at Nokia.
    I tried all this time to make a green card (residence permit). Nothing worked out at all. Started several times - nothing worked. I left everything, moved to California. At that moment, I just won the green card in the lottery.

    Pavel: Wow! This is awesome!

    Ilya:I continued, I worked here in one startup. While the green card was being issued, I had to work somewhere, just so as not to violate my status of staying in the country. As soon as we received the green card, I said: “That's it, I have enough work, I want to go about my business.” Then, in fact, I did Datanyze.

    Pavel: Listen, interesting! That is, a success story from the very beginning to what it is now. As I understand it, are you at your peak? Tell me what's going on? I understand that we somehow pulled you out for an interview, are you very, very busy right now?

    Ilya:Yes, now, after the publication of the article (exactly a week ago - last Monday it was published), we have a collapse. We have such a model that we do not give customers something to do. We just say: “Request a dump from us. We will dump for you, we want to talk with you, understand your needs and explain to you how the product will help you solve any of your problems. ”
    There is a form on the button for filling in to let us know that they want to talk to us. On average, we had such requests somewhere around 2-3 per week. On the first day the article came out, we had more than 150 requests.

    Pavel: In a day?

    Ilya:For the day, yes. On the second day - about a hundred. And further downward, when the article receded into the background. At the same time, we still have a popular forum where various articles are being discussed - this is Y Combinator - this is a very popular incubator, this is his project. Called Hacker News.
    We got to Hacker News on the first page, which in itself in so many cases ended up just dropping the site that Hacker News links to. We were simply afraid that our site would fall, and we could not just do anything.
    Thank God everything worked out fine, everything worked. Now just a huge number of calls. For example, today, with co-founderom, we and I made about 8 calls, and we had to work in parallel.
    I hadn’t been involved in sales until the previous week, but now we just can’t cope, and I have to participate in all these demos, do it myself and so on.

    Pavel: Co-founder, you say you have it. What is his role and how did you start with him?

    Ilya: He was a sales manager at KISSmetrics, my first customer. Actually, I hired him for this, so that he would be engaged in sales already here in Datanyze.
    I, in turn, am not an American, although I learned the language here and can speak normally, but people still hear the accent. No matter how many years you live, you know, all the same, people feel it.

    Pavel: The culture is different.

    Ilya:Yes, the culture is different, maybe. My co-founder cannot build a product. He can sell, he succeeds well, let him sell, I will be engaged in the product, I will add all sorts of new things to the product, do some things that our customers ask us to do.
    The separation of duties began, because before that I did everything starting with product sales. And he swept in the office, and threw out the garbage, and everything else. That is, as I said, I was one person in the company.
    Now the separation has already begun and with the third person the separation is even greater. That is, everyone will do his own thing, and not that everything will fall into a heap. I say, when we will already pass this stream, and I will already focus on the product.
    That is, the goal was that he was engaged in sales, I would be engaged in a product. Since I built this entire product, I wrote all the code myself, this is what I really enjoy most of all. I don’t really like sales, frankly, but I had to learn this for these two years.

    Pavel: I wonder how you got this first client (KISSmetrics)? When did you make the product, what were the steps? Especially if the sale was not yours?

    Ilya: Yes, listen, there is such a proverb that I really like: “If you want to get a client, ask for your opinion on your product. If you want to get an opinion about your product - ask them to buy your product - they will tell you why they will not buy and what is your problem. ”
    Initially, I’m just all mine ...

    Pavel: So you asked for advice?

    Ilya: Yes, I just came. I had a friend from Boston whom I knew. Arriving here, he began working at KISSmetrics. I say: “Listen, can you imagine me, will we go and have some coffee or beer?” I just want to understand how interesting this idea is to someone. Because I don’t want to build a product until they say that this is money, I’m ready to pay you if you build it. ”
    He introduced me, we went with him, sat (his name is Ben). He immediately told me: “Listen, we will buy this product 100%. I do not know how much we are ready to pay money for it - it depends on what results we will have from this information. But the product will definitely be needed. Do not worry about that".
    The product was not yet ready, I showed him just the layouts. I did not tell him that he was not ready. I said that everything works like that. I figured out which links I would click on, but everything was static. He still does not know about it.
    All my life I have been engaged in crawling sites, that is, writing such robots that go around sites. I had a lot of experience. In a week I was able to make the first version of the product. I came to them, I said: “Behold, everything is ready. Give me money". He says: “Wait, wait! Now I am you ... ”
    Then I had a long process - negotiations with a couple of their co-founders (KISSmetrics) - they were also very interested. I had to drop the price very much. I started with a thousand dollars, then in the end the first time - $ 300.

    Pavel: Did you immediately sell them a subscription?

    Ilya:Yes, I told them: "This will be a subscription." I say: "It will be $ 1000 per month." They say: "No, we are ready to pay $ 100 a month for this." I say: “What are you? We need at least 500! ”In general, as a result, we agreed on 300 for the first time, then their value gradually increased, as far as they saw the results.

    Pavel: And they didn’t want to buy this technology from you right away?

    Ilya: Maybe they wanted to. But they did not want to do this. They wanted to first test how the technology works. They say, “Let's check.” For them, $ 300 a month is a penny. They say: "Let's see what results we get from all this."
    Then, naturally, I had another client who told me the same thing. After that, probably a month passed, they wanted to immediately buy a company, so that they just had it inside. But then I said that it was very early, I just started, you want to chop off my wings, I have not had time to fly up yet.
    I did not sell the company, but yes, there were such offers, especially at first. Then it was too late, because ...
    Pavel: How did they begin to find you? You started to advise?

    Ilya: There at first almost all my new customers came from old customers. Old customers call a friend, say: “Listen, this is such a cool technology! Stopudovo try. " Then their friends came to me, they said: “Listen, our friends recommended you here, let’s try.”

    Pavel: This is said to be the best kind of marketing.

    Ilya: Yes. It is necessary to make a product that will sell itself. Then there will already be people. I still did a lot at first, it was very uncomfortable, I don’t know how much time I spent since that, but I called the company myself and said that I had such a product. Or wrote an e-mail: “I have such a product. Will you be interested in it? ”
    Or I said this:“ I am a beginner entrepreneur. I have such an idea. ” Again, I ask about advice.

    Pavel: Do you ask for advice?

    Ilya:Yes, advice. I specifically found the right person. I said: “You are such an active person, you advise many startups that you would advise me?” They are there: “Oh, this is interesting. Maybe we could use your technology? "I say:" If so, it would be generally perfect. "
    That is, you try, you give them too. You say: “I respect your opinion very much,” and in fact it should be so, because it makes no sense to lie here, they read right away.
    I tried to find people who are being listened to, they are active on Twitter, a lot of people are following them. Gradually, it all accumulates, accumulates - then it’s like a snowball, that is, it’s getting better, better and better. Therefore, you are already sitting, as it is now, and you are thinking how to cope with all this.

    Paul:How to process these orders, yes? How many people do you have on the team now?

    Ilya: Now, it turns out, three. And there will be a fourth next month. I don’t even know how to go. We have a plus to the fact that clients have started to come now, a lot of people write: “I really like your technology, I want to work with you in any capacity. I can do this for you. Please consider me ”and so on. This is very cool for us.

    Pavel: Search for some possible partnerships. Interesting.

    Ilya: This is also a side effect of this kind of article, which is becoming popular.

    Pavel: I wonder how many visits you had after the article.

    Ilya:Somewhere, probably, on the day of unique visits, there were around 5000. That is, not so many, but of these 5000, I said, a fairly large percentage requested demo. At the same time, I know that so many people just don’t like to request demo. That is, if they do not have the opportunity to immediately see how the product works, they immediately leave.
    And we just don’t want to mess with such people. We want to sell more to large companies that are already accustomed to such a process that they take them by the pen and show them everything. We are focused on this.

    Pavel: As far as I know, you say that I came with an demo today for an interview. It was precisely today that he conducted this kind of demonstration to large companies?

    Ilya:Yes. I’m saying, now about 6-8 pieces a day, starting from 7 in the morning. Because on the east coast it is 10 in their opinion. That is, someone from Boston or Washington, New York - they are already from 7 am - 7-8-9-10.

    Pavel: So you do it on the Internet?

    Ilya: Yes, mainly on the Internet. But there are a lot of companies here.

    Pavel: Local.

    Ilya: Of course, this is such a place. Somewhere - twice a week we go to their office, we come to San Francisco. We ourselves are, in fact, asking ourselves. Because when you meet like this face to face, then immediately a little different conversation occurs, people smile, jokes, jokes. There is no such thing on the phone, it helps.

    Paul:Listen, as I understand it, now, in principle, you do not need investments? That is, if someone comes, he will say: “We want to give some amount of money for a certain percentage” ... What do you need now, what are you looking for now?

    Ilya: This, by the way, is another side effect of this article. We have 90% of the venture capitalists that I know are here, they write to us over the past week, they say: "Let's meet."
    Today we met one. A very large company, I can’t name names yet, but a very large company, they invested a lot of famous startups. They come to us and say: "We are very interested in what you are doing, let us if you want to raise money, we are ready to invest in you."
    But, in fact, at this stage we are already profitable. We earn more than we spend per month. That is, we, in principle, have such a small gap where we can hire a couple of people, to grow quite quickly without capital ourselves.
    Therefore, we tell them: “Listen, we are interested, maybe it will be.” You understand what the matter is, the more we grow, the more the estimated value of the company becomes. The higher the estimated value of the company, the more money they will give us at a lower percentage.
    That is, we want to postpone this business as much as possible, so that later we get a very, very profitable deal, which will make some sense that the company will grow, there will be 5 times more employees. I do not want to look too far ahead, but I do not plan to.

    Paul:This is an interesting practice. It turns out that in your case, you first create a company that is profitable, then maximally last it ...

    Ilya: Bootstrap.

    Pavel: Bootstrap, yes. And then, only at the end, are you already raising investments, so that at a minimum percentage it turns out?

    Ilya: In fact, there are so many examples of such companies. Let's say GitHub, where they are stored for programmers ... a place for code storage, a repository - they did just that for a long time, then they raised a venture round - in my opinion, they had a company valuation of $ 100 million. I don’t remember the exact amount, but they made a very good deal and they had very good investors.
    This is also important. It’s right not only to take money at a good percentage, but also to take from good investors who can help not only with money, but also with their connections, present them to the right people. Immediately they can lead several customers. Just right away. Therefore, all this must be kept in mind when such negotiations are underway.

    Pavel: What is the plan for the next five years?

    Ilya: For the next five years? I think the company will sell. For five years, I think we will sell. I have always had the opinion that your first company is, first of all, you learn, even from your mistakes, how to do it, how to build a company, how to reach the level of profitability, what kind of people you need to hire, what kind of people you need to hire, which you do not need to hire - this is even more important.
    That is, you can read as many books as you like, but when you have such experience building a company, it really is much more important in terms of experience.
    And so I always wanted my first company to be ... it would not be a billionth company, most likely. This will not be the new Facebook. And maybe some people when they ask now: “What are you doing?” I say: “This is not a new social network or a new Instagram, Pinterest, when the company is heard”.
    We remain in the shadows, but it gives me a lot of experience on how I can build a company. A large company. As a result, this experience will be very useful to me in the future.
    Therefore, the plan for Datanyze is to make a good product, first of all, so that customers are happy, they talked about us and so on. To get certain connections, because here I had no connections before I started. Now, naturally, you will already have a lot of connections at the time when you are building a company.
    As I said already, this is a very good experience. After I sell the company, there will be some such little freedom - what to do, where to live, what ideas to work on. Probably, I will already make the next company larger. Maybe I’ll go to some market, which is a little bigger, where more money is spinning.
    I really want to make some kind of product or service that will affect the lives of many people. Somehow make a contribution to something. But the first product is very difficult to do.
    I understand that everyone has an example of the founder of Facebook and so on, but this is an exception. People win jackpots - it happens too. Usually there must be some such way to go through, learn, and then the next company ...
    I want to make several companies in life. I hope that each will be larger than the previous one. I have a lot of ideas that I want to bring to life.
    Therefore, for the next five years, I think, maybe in 3-4 years, I think, Datanyze will exist. Now there are already a lot of companies interested in buying.
    It's just that if I sell it now, I won’t learn much. All the same, I would like to gain experience and then, when it becomes completely boring, it will be possible to sell. I hope to make some money on this.

    Paul:Imagine such a situation that you find yourself in such a new world in which everything is the same, but you have no connections, you don't know anyone, you have no resources except your accumulated knowledge, and you have a laptop and $ 500 in the pocket. What would you do in the next 7 days?

    Ilya: If you roll back two years ago and would like to start something else? No, I would not want to. Because I know that this company ... I know that there are people who are willing to pay for the product, I know that we can be profitable, I know that we can sell the company. This is a very good place where we are now.
    Probably, 90% of companies are still trying to solve the problem, to whom to sell, how to achieve profitability and so on. I was very lucky in this regard, I was able to find an idea that can meet all these requirements. At first, it cost much less than $ 500, it was a penny. And she immediately began to bring some money.
    This is a very cool way, actually. I think that the next company will be created with approximately the same approach, that first customers are sought, that is, companies are found first (most likely, these will be companies, because it is much easier for companies to sell than people).
    Most likely, companies that are willing to pay for a particular product or service will be searched, and a product will be made for them when I already know that there is a demand for it. Therefore, my philosophy is this.
    Paul:An interesting approach. In particular, if you look now at what trend is observed, people are making a product, and then they start looking for someone to sell it to.
    Ilya: Yes, I usually call it "they are trying to find a problem for their solution." It happens. And, in fact, a lot of people find the problem as a result, find people who are willing to pay for it.
    But in so many cases, companies simply do not go for profitability. Perhaps they even raise money, there are some investors.
    Now something has been happening lately, after the first round, when they raise money, if investors do not see any positive results, the second round does not happen anymore. That is, the company spends more than it receives, and the company simply leaves the business because they are running out of money, and investors, seeing no positive results, refuse to invest.

    Pavel: What was your biggest failure, biggest failure, with the help of which you learned something interesting? Tell me.

    Ilya:I’ll go from afar. When you start to create your company, especially when you are alone, it is very difficult, especially emotionally. Because each time you either just have a very big emotional upsurge when you sign, for example, new customers, or a very big recession when you want to lock yourself in a room and say: “Don’t touch me at all, I’ve gone into a bout for a week.”
    And that’s it, you don’t want to see anyone. It just happens all the time, you don’t have any more gray stripes, you have everything divided into black and white, black and white. And these are just periods of decline and rise - they are always, simply always.
    I had situations when a client, who at that time was the largest client, he was ready to sign up, then they said no, we won’t sign up for some strange reasons. Apparently, something did not grow together there.
    It's hard, but you get up and continue to do it all, because this is not the first and not the last client in your life.
    We had a situation where a company that was interested in buying and a company that I really like, I would like to work there, and they were very interested.

    Pavel: Buy yours?

    Ilya:Yes, buy one. Negotiated. But they ended in nothing. First of all, we could not meet the price, secondly, I would still get my millions, but the people I work with (my second co-founder and third person) - they simply would not get enough, which I think they would have to earn. They deserve much more.
    Therefore, the deal did not take place. It was very difficult for me. They said why they believe that the company does not cost as much as we asked for it. And this was a great lesson for us in which direction we should move, so that in the end we would come to this goal.
    They eventually became our customers instead of buying us. They have become our customers and we have a partnership with them, they use our data for their product and so on. That is, we were able to create something positive from the negative.
    This was such a big lesson for me, that not everything that is initially perceived in the negative, it is really negative. Perhaps it was just a sign for us that we are not yet ready to sell, we need to go forward.

    Pavel: And if at any such moment, you know how the “aha” moment is said. When you “understood, chip, how did you not think of this before?”

    Ilya: I really won’t say that there were such moments, but there are some things, let’s say, which I doubted, but when I did them, I realized that I did the very right thing.
    Let's say one of these things ... There is such a company called Salesforce (this is CRM), it is the largest company that almost all of our customers use.
    For us, integration with this Salesforce was a very big step forward, when we were just able to do it ... when people saw: “Ah, it all works this way automatically and it all syncs, and it takes 90 seconds to make it work.”
    When they saw this, they were simply ecstatic, they said: “Ah, that's it! Tell me how much it costs. ”
    Until the last month, we did not even write prices on the site. What did we do? Just when we saw such a reaction ... Before that, we, for example, thought: "We will ask them a thousand dollars." When we saw such a reaction, we said: "Actually, $ 3,000 is usually, but we can make a discount, if we subscribe now, we can sell it for 2750."

    Pavel: And how? Selling?

    Ilya: No, they then say: “No, let's still be reasonable. 2000 we will pay. " We say: "Good, 2000 is not bad."
    Yes, probably, such an “aha” moment was that I realized that for the information that ... Very often people just ask for very little money for their product. They see examples when some thing that is sold, again, to specific people, not companies, they cost 9.99. And they think: "Damn, I need something there ... Oh, I will do 19.99 and I think that is a lot."
    Do not be afraid to make prices high. Because even your price indicates the quality of service. Why do people buy Macs and not some Lenovo or HP? Including because Macs are expensive. That is, even the price itself suggests that this product is premium. Compared to competitors, you are better.
    And when people, especially they can’t compare, they think: “Listen, I’ll pay a couple hundred dollars more here, but I get a cool product.” You say: "I will pay $ 300 more, but I will have the coolest laptop that can only be."
    That is, you understand it in your brain that the price corresponds to quality. Therefore, you should not be afraid to make a high price, because it will say that you have a quality product.

    Pavel: If you could recommend one habit that you have, you do something for some time every day that helps you to achieve your success, what would it be? What would you recommend?

    Ilya:First of all, when I get up and start working, the first thing I always do not look at is mail, I do not look at any social networks, VKontakte is not. The first thing I do is the thing that I consider a priority for this day.
    Usually I try to do it, if this is a large project - I break it into several small projects and do it piece by piece every day. I know that I am an early bird, I have the most productive time in the morning, as soon as I get up.
    I get up, have breakfast, the first thing I do is do this thing. After that, I ... If only now the blockage, it all went astray. In general, the first thing done is priority. After that, everything else.

    Paul:This can be summed up. We have a concluding section of this, at the end I ask our guests to turn to the camera and imagine that a guy from Moscow, 17-20 years old, is thinking and living, watching us, thinks what to do. He has some idea, maybe even he tried something. What would you recommend to him with the experience that you have?

    Ilya: How to say? I would recommend, first of all, to try some ideas. When you are young, especially if you don’t have a family, children and so on, it’s very important to try many things. It is important to travel, it is important to open your own companies, it is important to try to do something yourself, take some initiatives, do something yourself.
    While you are young, while you are healthy, you are full of strength - try it. It's the most important.
    I was lucky, I was able to get to America - in this regard, I'm not sure that I could create such a business in Russia simply because of its features.
    Therefore, it is very important to travel, it is very important to try to do some new things, not to be afraid to try. Because it doesn’t matter how many times you, roughly speaking, fail, you try an idea - it doesn’t work, you try an idea - it doesn’t work. The fifth time you try the idea, it will turn out - you will become a millionaire. It will change your whole life.

    Pavel: Thank you, Ilya, for the interview. I wish you success, your startup. I think that in a few, maybe months, we will meet again, and you will already tell us some more interesting figures.

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