instudies.com: first blood

This story is about how a team of three young professionals ended up in the startup world. We walked a difficult path, stuffing a bunch of cones, losing faith, and sometimes even dropping our hands. But, despite all this, we managed to come to our original goal and launch our own project. The story promises to be long, so get comfortable.

Background

The last days of 2009. I (Yegor, graphic designer) and Lesha (layout designer) decided to meet in one of the city cafes - we had something to discuss, because we had known each other for several years and at that time both worked through the free-lance.ru exchange. Word for word, we have come to the conclusion that it is time to do your own project. So there was enthusiasm and the first idea, and with them the feeling that we were on the verge of something very important. Inspired by the idea, we headed to Valik (a programmer), who is also freelanced.

Interrupting each other, Lesha and I told Valik about our plans, inspiring him as well. Meetings began in city cafes, where we came with laptops, discussed the concept of the site, thought over the functionality and drew a preliminary design. Very soon, we realized that it was impossible to fully work in such an environment, but it was problematic to get together at someone's home - at that time we all lived with our parents. Perhaps it is worth noting that I was 20 years old, Lesha - 18, and Valik - 17.

The year 2010 has come, and we decided that for a full-fledged work on the project a place is needed where no one will interfere. So already in mid-February we received the keys to a spacious three-room apartment. It’s difficult to convey those feelings: on the one hand, we finally got our own “office”, on the other - damn it, we live separately from our parents!

The holiday did not last long - of course, we started work on the project, and I even completely drew the design of all the layouts. However, without noticing it, each of us plunged into our own freelance orders, as we had to eat something, pay rent and utilities. So the first breakdowns of the deadlines and the loss of faith in the project appeared - we almost completely “went” into everyday life, sometimes casually recalling our project, but nobody's eyes burned from these words and thoughts. We needed a new breath of air, a new idea and inspiration. We did not have to wait long: the next conversation, idea, inspiration, in other words, a new project. I only note that we nevertheless embodied this idea into reality, but did not give it life. Everything died out again when we were facing a direct launch and no one had the strength to change anything.

The end of September 2010. Lesha and I transport our things back to their parents. The roller moves to a rented one-room apartment. For seven and a half months of living together we did not achieve anything, and there was no desire to talk about it.

A new beginning

Mid November 2010 Luck smiled at me - I get the keys to a rented three-room apartment, which I immediately move to. A few days later, with a laptop under his arm, Alex came to visit us, and we watched the film "Social Network", which simply excited our consciousness!

Old new idea

Even during the lease of the first apartment, Lesha kept saying that it would be convenient to have a website for exchanging educational information and for communicating within the same class / group, but for some reason we did not listen to him, but for some reason he did not insist on his own .

After watching the above film, this idea again surfaced, and we looked at it from a completely different angle. As a result, Lesha had to move to me for 2 weeks. Almost all the time we spent working on a detailed concept of our new project - instudies . Of course, we told Valik everything, and, fortunately, he agreed.

The team was again assembled, although everyone lived in different apartments (by the way, Lesha, like us, managed to separate from his parents again). Now we had the opportunity to get together, without weaving into the work of the same "household". It was very comfortable, and most importantly - brought its results.

Stage 1. Smoke from the ears

In a very short time, we registered domains, began to draw a design, typeset the first layouts and implement the basic functionality. We talked about instudies around the clock , fell asleep with the thought of him, and devoted all our free time to our new brainchild.

It is worth noting that each of us is a student of a university, therefore, in the process of implementing the project, we were faced with problems that our service was going to solve. We knew exactly why we do instudies , and it was very important.





Note: At that time, the release of the alpha version of the project was planned for the end of January (beginning of the second semester).

Stage 2. Smoke break

The end of December 2010. The pace of work is noticeably reduced. For some reason, the design of new layouts is not drawn, the remains of the finished layouts for some reason do not make up, and there is really nothing to program.

At the next meeting, we promise ourselves that from the second of January we will begin to work hard and start, as planned, by the beginning of the second semester. But the holidays did their job - we practically did not sit down to develop the project. Perhaps it is worth noting that we did not lose inspiration and continued to talk about instudies .

Stage 3. Peace

By the end of January, we continued development. They didn’t have time by the scheduled date, but their hands didn’t fall. It seems to me that by that time, each of us had matured in some way. There were, of course, nerves, and deadlines and unfulfilled promises during this period. But looking back, these events do not cause anything but a smile. We looked like sharply grown children who sometimes still threw out magic tricks, but the reaction to them was already completely different.

Everyone plunged into their work on the project. I clearly understood that in addition to developing the project itself, it would take a long time to work with it in the future, so I sat down with all kinds of books about startups and started reading Habr daily. Reading articles on startups has become commonplace for us, and in a very short time we began to feel like fish in water in this area.

Stage 4. Alpha Version

April 2011. We finally approached the launch of the alpha version of the project. Being an activist in my life, I quickly planted the university group in which I studied at instudies. It was my classmates who became our first real users, and I carefully listened to everything that they said. But the main thing - they liked the project, and the best reward was their words of gratitude!

Stage 5. The official launch of the alpha version

May 17, 2011. The school year was coming to an end, and the most illogical would be to launch the project at this time. But we did not care about the logic, and each of us published a link to the project on the social networks in which it was registered. Of course, this gave little effect, but it was extremely important for us to know that we still reached a certain result, that the project officially began its life. The good news was that we were able to overcome the bad experience of the past and, in the end, achieve the desired result.

Stage 6. Business plan, investors and all that.

On the twentieth of May, I told one of my customers about our project. After hearing rave reviews, he asked how we were going to develop it and I replied that while we were doing this on our own and by means, but the investment would be a very good incentive and acceleration for us. So our first potential investor appeared who demanded a business plan. None of us had experience in business planning, and since I took on the role of project manager, this task fell on me. I spent several days reading articles and books on business planning, several nights I dreamed about these business plans, and after 10 days our own was written. Now, of course, I understand that this was more of a note for a friend than a business plan, but this was an important stage in our development.

That potential investor did not become real (otherwise everything would be too rosy, wouldn’t it?), But I am very grateful to him for the direction that he himself, without suspecting it, indicated to us.

A few days later I met with another potential investor. He listened with pleasure to my story about the project, and then, for an hour and a half, asked me questions that were not related to startups at all, but to business. By the way, I was ready for questions, as they are repeatedly touched on in various literature on startups (for which my advice is to you - read everything that comes to your hand). As a result, this company did not invest in us, because it wanted to merge our project with its own, which we could not agree with. But even after that, they called us and wondered how our affairs were going. It pleased!

After there were a few more conversations with other investors. And here’s what I’ll tell you: set up meetings for investors, speak with them, argue and listen very carefully to them. It was thanks to investors, or rather their comments, that we were able to look at the project from a business perspective, significantly strengthen the business model, and it simply came to understand how to proceed.

Stage 7. Beta

September 2011. We launched the beta version, adding a small amount of new functionality. Soon we will be advertising, we are going to go on television, we are completing a new business plan, and we will continue to write to investors. In the meantime, we are developing everything on our own and by no means are we going to give up!

A short summary:

Website address: www.instudies.com
Project objective: to provide students with simple and convenient tools for organizing the educational process.
We are on facebook: on.fb.me/qih74O
We are on twitter: www.twitter.com/instudies

UPD: Read about how we got to Silicon Valley