Experience in building a b2b product: 3 continents in 6 years and half a bucket of cones

    Today, we, the company Maxifier Development , are turning 6 years old ... Well, well, I lied, not today. In fact, it happened about two weeks ago, but only now, when I return from our New York office back to my native Samara, finally got the hang of something to write about this.

    In six years, we have gone from an idea on a piece of paper to an international company worth tens of millions of dollars. They created a complex software product in the field of optimizing Internet advertising, which is used daily by large media companies in Europe and America and Russia is already pulling up. We have opened offices in the USA, Japan and England.

    And they made a 1001 mistake along the way, making many things slower and worse than they could and should have done. But only now we have accumulated enough courage and strength to acknowledge this publicly, to share our successes and failures, to teach others from our own experience and, having received feedback, it is better to learn for ourselves.

    I hope that now we will regularly publish articles related to both our subject area and simply devoted to issues of development, management, customer interaction and other “interests” in IT. But in this initial article I just want to look back at the main milestones of our company’s development.
    our humble conquests

    To dilute the boring chronology, I will associate with each milestone a small sketch or comment, but in order not to clutter up the text, they all open by click.
    Igor Minakov

    Early 2007: Search for an Idea
    Whatever the idea and implementation, it’s hard to take off in B2B without good salespeople. We confirm this - by 2007 we already had experience working in a startup company and not a dozen completed projects, but not one of them has turned into a full-fledged product.

    And all because it rocked us in previous years from logistics to biology, from insurance to recruiting, from medicine to electronic commerce. And although all the projects were created on a common engine (multi-agent systems + knowledge management + data / text mining + optimization engine), each remained in a single copy, solving the problems of a particular customer. And all sales were carried out according to the residual principle, if somewhere it was possible to catch the tongues with the right people.

    Therefore, when we finally managed to hire a salesperson who was ready to purposefully develop the direction of knowledge management, we already had a list of 20 ideas, each of which, with due zeal, was supposed to bring millions.

    Some of those ideas still seem promising, the rest during this time have already been invented and implemented by others and, as far as I know, the creators have not brought much wealth. Therefore, the fact that we have chosen the field of online advertising as a result is, to some extent, luck.


    July 2007: take off. The first TK preserved in our archives (from which we consider Maxifier's birthday)
    When we say that we are engaged in optimizing online advertising, for some reason many people associate with SEO. Slightly more advanced remember Google.AdSense and Yandex.Direct. Some people think that we create ads ourselves, determining which video to shoot or which marketing slogan to convey.

    In fact, almost none of our developers even sees what banners and commercials of advertised goods and services look like. We solve a difficult optimization task - how to adjust their progress on the basis of statistics from many advertising campaigns in such a way as to maximize certain performance indicators for each specific campaign and the entire advertising network as a whole.
    Our main focus is optimization of premium inventory of display advertising on large sites - those where there are hundreds and thousands of advertising campaigns competing with each other for impressions. In general terms, we intellectually automate a process that is extremely difficult to control manually.

    And since we all in ordinary life do not like advertising a little for importunity and irrelevance, we have chosen for ourselves an extremely simple mission - to make Internet advertising more useful, maximizing the likelihood that each individual will be shown only what he personally is interested in, and only there and when it may interest him. Thus, everyone is the winner - both advertisers and users.
    Our birthday cake.  And on it is the first code written in Maxifier

    Now it’s interesting to look at the very first terms of reference and layouts that we showed to our earliest potential customers. Maybe 10% of what is there, eventually entered the system. And not to say that the remaining 90% were completely irrelevant - these were real problems. It’s just not so painful that customers want to pay for their decision. But the Pareto principle has once again shown its applicability - the remaining 10% was more than enough for us to build a business.

    December 2007: showing the working prototype to our very first customers - MediaRun advertising agency
    We were very lucky with the first client - and at the same time pretty unlucky. It was fortunate that they turned out to be experts in their field, well able to optimize advertising manually - since as an advertising agency, in accordance with the specifics of the UK market, they lived solely on the earned margin between what they bought from site owners and what they sold to advertisers. And we learned a lot from them and spied.

    And no luck, because at that moment, having not enough experience in this market, we began to develop the product, assuming that all players are as smart as these guys from MediaRun. Therefore, the first version of the interface in complexity was very similar to the dashboard of the aircraft.

    We have created a very complex system of intellectual decision support, with a training mode, a huge number of options and configurations, customization options for ourselves and so on and so forth. And then, for all subsequent years, they were forced to simplify, hide and minimize everything. For, as it turned out, the dream of an ordinary client is one button "Do me good." Well, plus, the reporting system for the bosses of the form "I have everything under control."

    May - July 2008: a complete remake of the prototype, testing and implementation of the first real customer - Bauer Media Group
    Unfortunately, we lost the very first client before we started working (it was bought by another company, AdKnowledge, and their priorities changed). Therefore, in order not to lose pace, they decided to introduce themselves at the next comer. But we were given access to the data after a decision was made on the implementation and coordination of deadlines, as a result of which it turned out that the new client was working on a different advertising server (for definiteness - AdTech Helios), which we had not seen in our eyes until that moment. And if the data integration and the interface at the time of delivery somehow managed to be completed, then the whole system logic (recommendations for improving advertising campaigns and forecasting the behavior of the advertising network) was in a state of deep rethinking and processing.

    So, the delivery process was as follows: for a month, every day, we told the client how much better automatic optimization was than what an experienced team of operators could do manually. At the same time, they specified exactly how they are optimizing now in a particular situation. And then at night with pens they did what they themselves convinced the client was impossible to do. And the next morning they gave out results for a set of recommendations counted by the program at night to improve the network. Received feedback where and what the program did not take into account, and promised to finalize. And they "refined" literally the next night. And in parallel, they shared with programmers knowledge of how optimization should work.

    But after a month of such activity, we not only had a system that could automatically do everything that was previously considered hands. As a bonus, we became experts in the internal logic of the advertising server, understanding it no worse than its developers. Which in the future made it possible to win many clients at the first meetings, due to the demonstration of those knowledge and techniques that the most experienced of the technical and operational specialists on the customer side did not know.

    October - December 2008: finalization of the system for another ad server and its implementation for the second client - Channel 4. A modest victory over Google.
    We arrived at Channel 4, already fully armed. And because they were on an ad server with which we initially integrated (OpenAdStream by 24/7 Media). Plus, unlike the first client, our system already really knew how to work itself.

    Not to say that everything went smoothly. By the time we arrived, they were just deciding which ad server to switch to, choosing between OpenAdStream and Google DART for Publishers.

    Although optimization was critical for them, the situation was complicated by the fact that Google had an optimization solution - DART Adapt. Moreover, it was provided to the client free of charge and was part of the general offer.

    And we had to directly compete with Google. A number of test advertising campaigns were launched on one ad server, their “twins” on another, and then after a while the results were compared.

    We won. There are two reasons (well, except that our solution is really good and of high quality). Firstly, the “man + computer” connection is usually always stronger than just a computer - and by that time we could already give a head start to the computer, at least at a short distance. And secondly, Google and I were seriously competing, but he didn’t hear about us then, so he didn’t make any special efforts.

    And launched a full implementation. As always, not without problems and stocks. In constant attempts to justify the benefits of the solution, and sometimes just find out how the client himself calculates the ROI from his own actions. But once…

    Once their customers, an advertising agency, called their sales department. And they literally stated the following: “We do not know what exactly you did there at your place. But over the past few months, the effectiveness of all our campaigns that go on your sites is 50-100% higher than their performance on all the others. Therefore, do not want to - do not tell, but you are great, continue in the same vein - we already have new contracts for you.
    After this, signing a long-term contract with Channel 4 was a matter of technology.

    January - September 2009: change of CEO. Time of Troubles
    At this moment, almost on take-off, the first serious development failure occurred. The classic situation is the division of the skin of an unkilled bear. The salesman and CEO did not share the annual bonuses laid down for the first successes, quarreled, the seller quit, and we lost the only person who could really sell, and not just get puffed up, inflating from our own greatness.

    No, we still have sellers, but these were tears. From week to week, they talked about progress, reporting the same Excel file that had not changed for months (they probably thought we had a bad memory). We ourselves had to prepare all the marketing materials, including what advantages we need to tell our customers, what we need to talk about competitors, etc.

    Moreover, seeing the complete impotence on the sales side, we formed our own lists of potential customers - those who had sufficient volumes and used the advertising servers we needed. A separate question is that such information is not publicly available, and we had to write a web crawler that recognizes by tags which advertising server the client is using (at the time there were no solutions like ghostery yet). But calling from faraway Russia to large European corporations and explaining in broken English the advantages of a product they did not even suspect existed is not the fastest way to success.

    In general, the rule for sellers is extremely simple - on the base salary, he must be a beggar. And if, through the bonus system, he earns more than the CEO, then this is wonderful, because in this case he will bring an order of magnitude more money to the company. But if he is already comfortable on the base salary ... Especially taking into account the fact that in B2B even good sellers spend about 4-6 months in a new place before the first sale.

    The situation worsened and the director general himself, who, by analogy, received a very good salary and did not really want to bother. And for all the requirements about the change of sellers, intensive sales, marketing research, etc. he only complacently patted us on the shoulder, they say, the little ones are still not mature enough, you don’t understand how a serious business works.

    A favorite illustration of that time is a typical first show to a potential customer. The show is carried out live (say, in London), and our technical specialist is on the phone in Samara. And the gender is very solid and confidently tells the introductory part about the company, for three minutes. Then he passes the word to the learned monkey to a technical specialist who already shows the system, talking about its advantages and, in fact, selling as much as possible. And absolutely any question addressed to the General Director, having made a significant pause, will necessarily redirect back to us (simply because it is in such high matters, where any knowledge about the product and the subject area is completely superfluous).

    August - October 2009: failure with British Sky Broadcasting
    The apotheosis (or, more precisely, nadir) of our failures and throwings was the introduction of Sky. By that time, it was the largest and most complex client, with almost unrealistic requirements and volumes that were several times higher than our maximum productivity.

    Therefore, we made a typical mistake of techies - solving those problems that we like to solve, and in which we are well versed. But completely without addressing or controlling those that ultimately caused the failure. During the implementation period, we accelerated the system several times. We achieved all the performance and performance indicators specified in the contract. And, nevertheless, the client safely ignored the signed contract, and a long-term agreement was never concluded.

    And because we need to pay more attention to client management - as it turned out already at the very end, there were three competing groups in Sky itself, each of which promoted its decision (and if successful, it had an additional budget, career growth, fame, money and other worldly pleasures ) And the competition was won by no means with bare figures of productivity and efficiency.
    And we should either recognize all these problems from the beginning and not get involved in this adventure, or even then fully unleash the Gordian knot, participating in all political games within the client.

    By the way, which is significant: just recently they came to us with their own initiative with a proposal for cooperation. But out of more than 10 people who were members of those three warring factions, not one is already working there. The snake devoured itself.

    December 2009 - April 2010: great luck - successful implementation at The Guardian
    At this point, investors finally realized that something was wrong.
    Yes, investors are a different story altogether. Even in a personal conversation, it is almost impossible to reach them. They operate exclusively with money and prospects. And until they themselves see the risks, who will listen to the crazy bear from Russia?

    When, finally, they stopped blindly trusting the words of the CEO and asked about the real numbers, the decision to find any worthy alternative to the existing CEO was obvious. And what's more, for the first time they seriously thought about the prospect of a business as such.

    Here we are very lucky. By this time, we had been successfully cooperating with Channel 4 for more than a year, and since everyone in this industry knows each other, rumors about our product slowly spread, at least in the UK, and Guardian came to us, very interested in increasing the monetization of his online content due to possible optimization.

    In fact, it was a decisive moment. At the beginning of the journey, the failure of even one major implementation can seriously shake the company (both in monetary terms and in reputation). And two failures in a row - and you can go home.

    And we threw all our strength - the best technical specialists went to implement, improvements to the customer’s requirements were completed faster than immediately, for a month and a half the leading business analyst sat with 15 operators every day, like a hen, training to work with our system, clarifying the requirements, answering every question. And literally every week the client received a new release, including one or another of his “Wishlist”.

    But again - we are very, very lucky with the client. In the Guardian, absolutely fantastic guys - smart, demanding, open to everything new. After they were convinced that the system really gives a tangible increase, they became our hottest fans. We sent each next client to the Guardian for feedback on our work and they “sold” much more for us than all our own sellers put together.

    January - March 2010: Formal partnership with 24/7 Media
    A white streak began. Channel 4 and Guardian were two of the UK’s largest OpenAdStream (24/7 Media) ad server clients. And we have demonstrated that we can consistently achieve good results.

    I must say, the war of advertising servers is ongoing - because large site owners usually sign a contract for two or three years, and each time they carefully monitor the market - whether there is a more profitable solution for money or functionality. And without hesitation, sites migrate from one vendor to another almost every year. To a greater extent, this applies again to the Western market, since in Russia each major player has its own solution.

    Therefore, the competition in terms of the functionality provided is one of the most fierce in business - whether it is the possibility of targeting by geography or demographic characteristics, support for keywords, or, as in our case, increasing the efficiency of advertising campaigns.

    At that stage, Google had the DART Adapt solution (of course, suitable only for their server), and the competing OpenAdStream with its own optimization was at a fairly basic level. What is generally typical and explainable - because the required set of skills for creating an advertising server differs significantly from the experience required for a high-quality optimization solution. Moreover, the budget for the team is always limited.

    And so 24/7 Media signed an exclusive partnership agreement with us; we became the official optimization solution on their server and all their customers, if they wanted optimization, could only cooperate with us.

    June 2010: Winning the prestigious “Top Ad Technology Platform” nomination at the Association of Online Publishers' (AOP's) Digital Publishing Awards in London
    The Guardian was so pleased with the first results (and we really allowed him to raise his revenue from premium advertising by about a third) that he agreed to nominate us for one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.

    And we won it, including defeating solutions from Google (DART) and from Microsoft (Atlas).

    In many ways, of course, the victory was due to the fact that we first seriously lit up at such events and on our side there was a novelty effect. And the fact that Guardian and 24/7 Media played together with us. But the victory, nevertheless, was unexpected and absolutely honest. And she happened very on time.

    September 2010: CEO change. New York office opened
    Partnership agreement with one of the five largest advertising servers in the world. Satisfied Guardian. Won reward. Investors were convinced of the enormous potential of the project. And we were ready for serious investments - primarily in the US market, because there are at least 50% of the total advertising budget in the world.

    But by this moment, we were already so full of mistakes and incompetence of some of our colleagues that we were ready to stop immediately if a number of organizational issues were not radically corrected and we no longer had the opportunity to influence the process of company development.

    Therefore, the time has come to seriously talk and agree on what the company will be.
    What can I say now, after a few years? If you conclude an agreement by twisting your partner’s hands (or simply if the partner perceives it this way), then do not hope that the agreements will be respected by the time the partner can twist your hands. And no agreements will save from this. As a result, we managed to find a fragile balance that suits both parties, but cannot return the time and effort spent on internal squabbles.

    Thus, somehow we agreed, found and hired a new CEO in New York on our own, completely changed the sales team and moved optimistically into the bright tomorrow.

    November 2010 - May 2011: development of a system for the largest advertising server (DART) at that time for one of the world's leading telecommunications operators
    While the white streak continued. Winning the competition, in which all the largest European players in the online advertising market participated, made it possible to illuminate the name as before we could only dream. The company began to appear in reviews and on classic slides of the eco-systems of the advertising market in Europe and the USA.

    But more importantly, potential customers began to find us themselves. That is how the leading European telecommunications company came to us, whose name I can’t name according to the NDA, but it will soon be three years since we successfully cooperate with them.

    At that time they were sitting on Google DART for Publishers, which we did not yet support. Plus, they already had an optimization solution - DART Adapt. But, since the volumes are very large, even a small increase in efficiency eventually results in hundreds of thousands of euros per month. Therefore, they were ready to experiment with our approach.

    As a result, we got involved in another heroic project, while simultaneously integrating with the new ad server and maximally satisfying the largest client at that time.

    And the client, in turn, was gushing with ideas, pleased that at some time they came to life in weeks, and not in a few years. At some point, it came to the point that more than half of the company worked only for this project. And he just stopped paying off. Despite the considerable money that we were paid, we spent much more on it, and therefore could not develop further - to refine the product, connect new smaller customers, etc.

    We had to stop the process quite hard by laying out all the cards and demanding an increase in payment plus a decrease in work (a dream, right?). But by that time, we had so much hooked the client on convenience, quality and additional functionality that, after the time befitting for negotiations, he gladly agreed.

    December 2010 - December 2011: unsuccessful choice of the next product for the online advertising market - AIR (Advertising Intelligent Reporting)
    At this moment, we made another serious mistake, which cost us a lot of time and resources. Instead of stabilizing the existing solution and reaping the benefits from those potential customers whose product functionality has already covered, the thirst for money and obligations to investors drove us to new exploits.

    Among all the possible products, we, as "wiser", chose the one that our new sellers promised to sell as quickly as possible, a lot and easily.

    Needless to say, in the end they did not manage to sell what they ordered at all? To nobody. At all.
    The idea, in general, was not bad - we were going to provide an analytical solution to assess the effectiveness of inventory monetization - profit and sales efficiency of its various parts, the performance of advertising campaigns, problem areas, etc.

    But instead of focusing on analysis, trends and forecast (i.e., things are complicated and quite non-trivial, for which, by the way, to this day there is no decent solution on the market), for some reason we focused on reports (that considered completely standard and therefore worthless). Even in the name reflected.

    Plus, for a quick launch to the market, we decided, after a long analysis of competitors (and here we are fools), to use the SAP Business Objects solution (Oh, are there words in the world that can describe the degree of my current dislike of SAP ?!)

    We add the donkey stubbornness of our sellers and the reluctance to show the first prototypes to potential customers, which is why fast development did not work and we had to go deeper and deeper into SAP, and it came up less and less for the required improvements.

    In the end, when these sales people, not having crowned themselves with fame, were kicked off the stage in disgrace, the new sales team simply refused to offer customers the product in the form in which it
    was conceived and made.

    By that time, we had gained experience and knew how to build and sell a product. But the train left - the company's priorities and sales focus have already changed

    September - November 2011: signing a contract with Forbes
    Sales always have inertia. And just as you should expect returns from a good salesman only after a few months, other successful actions will bring results when you no longer count.

    Forbes came to us on his own, following the results of our previous big implementation on DART. He said that he drew attention to us back in 2010, with the filing of the Guardian, but he waited for us to finally integrate with the advertising server he needed.

    Surprisingly meticulous and demanding client - besides working 24/7 and expecting the same from business partners. I still remember how the president of Forbes Digital, even before the moment we met, wrote to me on Skype at 10 pm on Sunday to find out some urgent questions about the normal daily functioning of the system (despite the fact that seller, and standard support channel). It's just that a person is deeply personally interested and devoted to work.

    This was a good incentive for us to move from 24/5 support to full 24/7 support.

    But when they are satisfied, there is no more loyal customer. When, after a year, they decided to switch from DART to DFP6, they volunteered to be experimental rabbits and endure all the hardships of the transition, while we were integrating with the new advertising server so as not to lose the opportunity to optimize their campaigns.

    September - December 2011: failed implementation in the Financial Times
    I always had the illusion that sales are a systemic process. Product features are revealed. The target audience. A SWOT analysis is done. A list of potential customers is being formed. Prioritized. Looking for customer exits. Etc.

    But for some reason I have not met sellers operating under this scheme. Almost everyone sells to friends in the industry. Sometimes it ends well - if the seller understands the specifics of the business and the needs of the client.

    But this time it ended sadly. We easily went out to big fish and received very flattering reviews from our current customers. But, unfortunately, they promised FT to do what we had in our development plans only in a year (to be more precise, a forecasting and reservation system for inventory).
    And although the salesman gave us tremendous tantrums and shouted that he (in this case, she) had already promised everything and now we must do it, unfortunately, the patient was more dead than alive. We were not even in time with the maximum tension of all resources, even close. And therefore, they refused further cooperation with FT on time in order to be able to return to them one day once, when we are ready.

    And since for the sellers over the entire period of their one-year work this was the only successfully closed transaction that they initiated (plus the previously mentioned failure with AIR), the sales team was again updated in full force.

    February - May 2012: entry to the Japanese market. Implement Recruit
    And again I must say about luck. Of course, lucky one who is lucky. But at the same time, one or another choice can save you six months or a year, and maybe vice versa. If we get lucky.
    Here we were surprisingly lucky with new salespeople. For two, they had thirty years of experience in the Japanese market. And in this market in the field of online advertising they knew almost everyone.

    Therefore, almost all the doors opened almost immediately, especially after mentioning Forbes and another name, which, as I said, I can’t name.
    Maxifier CTO with colleagues from Tokyo
    Having a fairly large selection, we logically began to develop the market with those customers who simultaneously have a strong name, but are relatively easy to implement.

    Frankly, we overestimated the ease, and the number of improvements did not seem enough, but by that time they were much easier.

    But the main problem encountered was the time difference. In general, with all clients, as you can see from my story, we tried to provide as high a level of support as possible. And it completely paid off. Yes, the system was not licked and stable, there were crashes, jambs, errors. But when any angry letter is answered at any time of the day or night in 15-30 minutes, when any problem is corrected promptly, and if it doesn’t work out, then there is complete transparency why, when and whether there are alternative solutions — this is incredibly valuable. What is most interesting - even large customers are not accustomed to this at all. Perhaps because most of their b2b suppliers, in turn, are large companies with a high level of bureaucracy.

    Be that as it may - until there was Japan, we could provide support 24/7. With the advent of customers in the Land of the Rising Sun, it became necessary to rebuild the team, look for people in New York and Tokyo.

    A separate surprise was the fact that to find an adequate person in Japan with good English and normal business and / or technical skills is a big problem. We had the illusion that in such a high-tech country, almost everyone speaks English. A very serious misconception - a surprisingly large deficit, apparently, all the speakers are dismantled "still puppies."

    But after such a person was found, and together with him, our technical specialist spent a month on the customer side, introducing the system, the entire subsequent process went completely as usual, without any excesses and surprises.

    By the way, a separate observation is almost always introductions, where both sellers and technical specialists come together for personal delivery to the customer, ending much more successfully than when the sellers acted alone. But since this is a much more costly method, we regularly had to save. Sometimes they guessed, sometimes not.

    March - September 2012: failed implementation at Monster.com
    The vile echo of war. We started working with Monster.com even with the previous sales team and also promised them a forecasting system, which then just started, and had to be ready, at least in beta, after another six months - by the fourth quarter of 2012.

    But, since the client it’s a big one, it’s a resounding name, and almost half a year has passed since the failure of the Financial Times, the new sales team decided that we can deliver what we have, the customer will use it, and until it comes to him that not all the functionality he needs is available - we are time to finish it.

    The plan was initially risky. He worsened even more from the fact that our sellers, communicating with a client, did not yet fully understand what is and what is not yet in the system. As a result, the amount of conflicting and even knowingly erroneous information received by the client exceeded all possible limits.

    Therefore, by the time the system was really ready for implementation and testing, the client no longer believed anything and shuddered at the sound of our voices.

    That's how we ruined our relations with a good and interesting client. It may still be possible to work with them, but regaining trust is always more expensive than initially gaining it.

    August 2012: Dentsu investment
    As we introduced ourselves to the Japanese market, more and more large players began to look at us. And once Dentsu, the largest Japanese advertising and communication holding, turned to us with an offer to invest. By that time, we had interacted with only one of the many holding agencies, and were hardly of interest for tactical reasons - we did not have a special impact on their business.

    But, in a sense, this became a strategic investment for them - our seller worked very hard, and they increasingly heard the name Maxifier from different sides and eventually decided to invest in something that could potentially shoot.

    We did not need a new round of investment then, but the offer was too good to refuse.

    September - November 2012: Caught Whale - 24/7 US (Access)
    The event is quite significant: 24/7 Media entrusted us with the optimization of the largest client - its own advertising network in the USA.

    Even with all that we saw earlier, their volumes were truly gigantic. But it broke not where one might have expected. I couldn’t stand my own advertising server engine - their API was simply unable to transfer all the reports we needed for work in an acceptable time.

    And here, finally, happiness came from working with a large client (in this case, also with the owner of the business). If usually our complaints that something does not work and needs to be fixed are planned for the next advertising server in six months, or even longer (in a record case, we waited 3.5 years until the necessary functionality becomes available), then here everything It was fixed by the first priority for a couple of months, and the level of escalation was so high that we received a daily progress report from their technical specialists.

    January - May 2013. Many, many large deployments. Test of strength
    A lot, a lot of work. The product is already stable enough and scalable for implementation to large customers, but still, each case is individual, and consumes pretty much resources. The scale is growing - the giants of national markets are entering us: the largest online store in Japan, top English and American magazine publishers (I don’t name - again, the NDA).

    But what is particularly pleasing in this situation is the client, whose demands and volumes would have caused shock and awe a year ago, now awakens nothing more than a condescending smile to us then.

    The most difficult thing at this moment is not to be torn apart, trying to follow the requirements of large customers. Their gain as clients, in addition to money, brings many potential opportunities for further cooperation. And each one demands something in return. And resources are limited.

    Therefore, the need to manage their expectations comes to the fore, say no, "put in line." And to balance. For we are not so cool as to risk losing at least one of the whales of the market. And the reality, of course, is that a large client always has the opportunity to influence the development of the product. But, nevertheless, we are making a dream product, and therefore we must make sure that it is relevant in new markets and meets the requirements of both today and tomorrow.
    In this regard, I love the quote from Henry Ford: “If I asked people what they want, they would ask for a faster horse.”

    Today
    Recently, I was preparing another presentation for investors and, for the sake of curiosity, I calculated, and what percentage of the market belongs to us. If we take information exclusively from open sources such as IAB and ComScore (the total market size and the total volume of our customers), then at the moment we cover the display advertising markets in terms of total impressions: US - 6%, UK - 11%, Europe (w / o UK) - 4%, Japan - 10%.

    The numbers give me a certain reason for pride. At the same time, not everything is so rosy. Unfortunately, even good numbers are not always directly projected into revenue. We still have some technical support issues. And with multiple simultaneous implementations. And with a large number of requests for customization. With the specificity of every second client. With attempts to grasp the immensity and simultaneously move in all directions at once.

    Nevertheless, much more positive. We have a line of customers eager to implement our optimization solution, and on various advertising servers. We have big plans for a new product related to forecasting and analyzing inventory - a problem that is becoming increasingly relevant and in demand on the market. We are expanding optimization to other ad servers. In the end, we are developing into new markets - Asia, Latin America. And yet - I really want to introduce our solutions one day in the homeland, in Russia.

    Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. Perhaps the flight is expected to be long, successful and cloudless. Or maybe we will be buried under the weight of the structure. But no matter what, we will do our best to not be ashamed of our work. As they say, do what you must. And whatever happens.

    Also popular now: