December 25, 2012 at 18:43How to Sell a Company Twice or a CleverPumpkin History
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The first news is an interview with former CleverPumpkin CEO Ivan Kozlov. Ivan told how he sold the team to his studio AviaSales, and then a large share of the same studio to a business angel. From the interesting: Ivan’s business partner left Mobile Up, and the current director of the studio from the infamous MediaPhone.
The history of the creation of CleverPumpkin is quite banal: in the summer of 2011, Ivan Kozlov proposed to his development friendVsevolod Billevich from Vstrechera (now Mobile UP ) to open his mobile studio.
Ivan Kozlov, photo from Facebook The
search for customers began with cold sales. Ivan compiled a list of potential customers and ordered it alphabetically. The first on the list was Aviasales . Ivan found Kostya Kalinov’s contacts on the site and wrote him a letter. The guys were lucky and in August 2011 they signed an agreement.
Interestingly, the application interface was designed by Usability Lab .
In the process, Aviasales received several offers to buy a team. But Ivan constantly joked, as there was nothing to sell except for the founders, two programmers and computers. Work on the project ended in May 2012.
CleverPumpkin continued to develop, recruited people, an office appeared. In June 2012, a purchase proposal was received again. Ivan and Vsevolod agreed. At that time, the company had 4 programmers, a designer and 5 remote developers. All full-time employees and both founders have become part of the Aviasales team. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
Max Krainov , CEO of Aviasales, comments on the CPU deal :
The CleverPumpkin brand, office, contracts with customers were no longer needed. They wanted to close the studio, but there was an undisclosed business angel who bought a large stake in the company. Ivan and Vsevolod became minority shareholders.
A new team was recruited into the studio, hired director, school friend of Ivan, Denis Germanenko came . Denis worked at RipDev with Slava Karpenko and Alex Patsay, and later moved to the infamous Media Phone SA. The restart process took two and a half months. Some customers did not even know about the changes.
Today CleverPumpkin has 12 employees (half remotely). Main customers: Sports.ru and two corporate customers. New customers come themselves, thanks to a good portfolio. Other sales channels are practically not used.
UPD: judging by the 180th issue of Runetology, a mysterious business angel was found, this is Ivan's father, Viktor Kozlov. Victor participated in the creation of companies Reksoft, OZON.ru and ASSIST.
The first news is an interview with former CleverPumpkin CEO Ivan Kozlov. Ivan told how he sold the team to his studio AviaSales, and then a large share of the same studio to a business angel. From the interesting: Ivan’s business partner left Mobile Up, and the current director of the studio from the infamous MediaPhone.
The history of the creation of CleverPumpkin is quite banal: in the summer of 2011, Ivan Kozlov proposed to his development friendVsevolod Billevich from Vstrechera (now Mobile UP ) to open his mobile studio.
Ivan Kozlov, photo from Facebook The
search for customers began with cold sales. Ivan compiled a list of potential customers and ordered it alphabetically. The first on the list was Aviasales . Ivan found Kostya Kalinov’s contacts on the site and wrote him a letter. The guys were lucky and in August 2011 they signed an agreement.
Interestingly, the application interface was designed by Usability Lab .
In the process, Aviasales received several offers to buy a team. But Ivan constantly joked, as there was nothing to sell except for the founders, two programmers and computers. Work on the project ended in May 2012.
CleverPumpkin continued to develop, recruited people, an office appeared. In June 2012, a purchase proposal was received again. Ivan and Vsevolod agreed. At that time, the company had 4 programmers, a designer and 5 remote developers. All full-time employees and both founders have become part of the Aviasales team. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
Max Krainov , CEO of Aviasales, comments on the CPU deal :
... After we saw how professional the guys at Clever Pumpkin were, we decided that we needed them on staff.
1.1. General advice: mobile developers are needed precisely in the state, because more ideas than any studio can realize. The problem is not even in money, but in time ...
The CleverPumpkin brand, office, contracts with customers were no longer needed. They wanted to close the studio, but there was an undisclosed business angel who bought a large stake in the company. Ivan and Vsevolod became minority shareholders.
A new team was recruited into the studio, hired director, school friend of Ivan, Denis Germanenko came . Denis worked at RipDev with Slava Karpenko and Alex Patsay, and later moved to the infamous Media Phone SA. The restart process took two and a half months. Some customers did not even know about the changes.
Today CleverPumpkin has 12 employees (half remotely). Main customers: Sports.ru and two corporate customers. New customers come themselves, thanks to a good portfolio. Other sales channels are practically not used.
UPD: judging by the 180th issue of Runetology, a mysterious business angel was found, this is Ivan's father, Viktor Kozlov. Victor participated in the creation of companies Reksoft, OZON.ru and ASSIST.