Creation of an international startup

    Today, many entrepreneurs from the countries of the former USSR are thinking or are already creating startups in the field of information technology that focus on the whole world as a whole, and not their own separate region. I talked about this approach with Vladimir L. Pavlov, an international IT expert and lecturer at the Technological Innovation Cup entrepreneurial school.

    Under the cut, you can read about the features of startups after working in IT giants, a world without borders, project management, the Silicon Valley Bible and much more.

    Expert dossier:
    image Vladimir Pavlov ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/vlpavlov )
    Born in Ukraine in 1974. In 1991 he entered the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of Dnipropetrovsk State University. In 1996, he began his career as a programmer in a large outsourcing company. After 5 years, he left her as the technical director to start his own business in software development.

    In 2004-2005, he worked as a director at Intel. From 2005 to 2007 he was the head of one of the departments at Microsoft Rus. Since the spring of 2010, he has been developing the startup rollApp.

    Lives in California, USA. It works all over the world.

    Yuri Bryzgalov (Cup of Innovation): Thank you, Vladimir, for agreeing to a meeting. I would like to talk with you about the practical aspects of international it-entrepreneurship. How did you come to the creation and development of your startup?

    Vladimir Pavlov:My career is not quite standard. Usually, people start as an entrepreneur, and then (after buying a startup by a large company) they go over to corporate officials. I did the opposite.

    In 1996, I went to work as a programmer in an outsourcing company that wrote software for the medical equipment market. The work was not easy - human lives depended on this software. Our parent company was one of the top three US market leaders in its segment.
    In 2001, I went to Florida to this parent company. He worked there as a middle-ranking official, met people and made a small but proud startup in the field of developing high-tech software. Our customers were Microsoft, Nokia, Vodafone, etc.

    In parallel, I conducted social activities. At that time, the international standard Computing Curricula , on how to teach computer students, became popular in the world . We Andrey Terekhov organized a translation project it into Russian. They began to call me at the conference. At one of them we met Lyudmila Nesterenko ( copy ), who was then director of technology and development of the Russian Intel. After some time, I received an offer from Intel, where I started working as a director for outsourcing and support for software development processes.

    However, a year and a half later, Microsoft received an offer that I could not refuse, and went to lead an arrogant department that was trying to change the structure of the Russian economy. Make programming more focused. In mature economies such as Western Europe, the share of the software industry is between 1 and 2.5 percent of GDP. In Russia five years ago, it was 0.17%.

    YB: And when did you decide to start your own projects? image

    VP: In 2007, I decided that it was enough for me to do official work, I had to go do something useful. There were several other stellar people with me. We consulted together. And they decided to spend the money thus earned on the startup incubator.
    When we got our first projects ready to hatch from the nest, a crisis happened. Funds were not ready to invest in new companies, only to support or close old ones. As a result, our enterprise went bankrupt, but I took it calmly, on the principle of “two unbeaten give for one beaten.”

    Last spring, I came up with the startup I’m doing now - rollApp .

    YB: How has your experience in IT giants affected you? How do you make decisions?

    V.P .:Firstly, it showed that there are no borders in the world. They really are not. A number of IT giants have an annual budget larger than the budget of some CIS countries. They live in their own world. For example, if you need to talk with someone, you go to him, completely not thinking where the interlocutor is. At Intel, you, as a new employee, are required to take a number of courses during the first quarter, for example, on how to conduct effective meetings. One of the key ideas of this course is as follows: if you need to talk with someone - get on a plane and fly to talk, if you can’t fly - then make a video conference, if you can’t again - call, if this also doesn’t work, then only write an e-mail. And it is really effective. Such trips become a lifestyle.

    Secondly, it showed that there are no unsolvable problems. When a problem arises before you, there are two approaches to it. The first approach is a two-step algorithm. Initial step: assess the realism, I will do it or not. And the next step, if you decide that you will master, then you think exactly how to do it. The second approach - there is no initial step in it. As a result, believing that everything is implemented by default, living on the principle of the presumption of attainability of goals, you begin to look at the world in a completely different way. Half of the tasks that others abandon become possible. Microsoft in this sense has instilled a good culture: just grab it and do it; there are no unrealizable tasks.

    Yu.B.: Interesting principles. But it’s good to follow them when there are resources of a large company. For a small startup, doing so is more difficult.

    V.P .:What do resources mean? The main resource is not money, not a brand, but time. This is exactly the resource that a small startup has, but a large Microsoft does not. A Microsoft official is burdened with so many formal responsibilities that he has less time left to work than a person who can fully devote himself to a specific task. In this sense, a young entrepreneur has more resources than people who work in large companies.
    Plus freedom. Any large company is bureaucratic. There are rules, procedures, etc., and in a startup you are free. If you need to radically expand your business, you can do it.

    YB: Can you recommend entrepreneurs to first work in a good company, and then take on their own business?

    VP: It’s right that you said it was “good”. It does not have to be a giant multinational, it can be a medium or small company. The main thing is to work not just in the good, but in the best. If you gain experience in teams that are the best in something in the world, then you increase your value in terms of resume. But usually such groups and from a financial point of view are very promising.

    YB: What are the biggest difficulties you encountered in the field of entrepreneurship? And how were they allowed?

    V.P .:The first difficulty is the first contracts. Working with real clients is important not because it brings money (you can always report it from your pocket, call an investor, etc.). It is important as an indicator that you are doing something really useful to people. If it is not just about the client, but about the client with a famous name - this is even better.

    Once (during my first startup), I promised Microsoft to do what they did not ask. They liked the result. And when it turned out that we were ready to give the product for free, they began to ask: “How much money will you give?” And in the end, they paid even more than we would bill ourselves. But I didn’t have a task to take money from them, it was important to get them on the list of clients.
    We must look for non-trivial steps. There is nothing wrong with your dad working as the director of an enterprise located next to the company you want to sell to. If you come and just charm and sell, then this is also fine. The art of management is to make an event come true.

    If you believe the modern propaganda of Silicon Valley, you need to do everything cheaply, first get a client who will pay you for something, and then create a product. This is what is called customer development. That is, if the client really needs something, then he is ready to pay in advance, even if you do not already have it.

    YB: What other important point can you name for an entrepreneur?

    V.P .:The second is people. Unfortunately, a person is not free. If you look at yourself, you will notice that you are a mirror, you “reflect” those people with whom you communicate. It’s hard for the brain to be creative, it’s easier to copy. This is manifested not only in the little things, but also in the big. The main freedom that you and I have is freedom of choice: whom to “reflect”, with whom to be together.
    Those people who come to the company at the very beginning shape its face and future. I was lucky with people. I think this luck is determined by my attitude towards them. You need to hire people who have something that you don’t have.

    YB: What three tips can you give to young IT entrepreneurs?

    V.P .:First, since the world is flat, it does not make sense to do something that can become a leader or is competitive in the local market. Even if you are the “first guy in the village”, then tomorrow anyway Microsoft or Intel will come, which is the same, but sells much better in America, and it will crush you. Of course, there is always a chance that you will become Nuraliev or Volozh, but these are more likely exceptions that confirm the rule. We must immediately try to do something that will be competitive in the global market.

    The next practical conclusion is to learn English. As a member of the program committees of various conferences, I review articles whose abstracts people write in English. Sorry, but often it’s like in that movie: “My coming yesterday, you will not be caught.”

    English is a working language. A person in the IT field who does not speak English is simply prof. Point. It is necessary to stop what he is teaching now - C ++ or how to program a new controller - let him forget about it, and burrow into textbooks for several months, listen to notes, etc. And then let him return to the study of Straustrap books - but already in the original, in English.

    Another practical recommendation - do not take state. money. Never state. the official will not think like an investor investing his own funds. In the best case, he will take care that his prosecutor’s office doesn’t imprison him, and make responsible decisions by the “collegial” method - here the motivation is not to get the result, but to cover the ass. About the worst case - when the prosecutor’s office really has something to plant for - you yourself can think of. As a result, later you will have nowhere to go from any checks, reports. And decent investors will shy away, knowing that the structure that creates additional burden has already invested in you.

    YB: Thank you, Vladimir, for your advice. During an hour-long conversation, it is impossible to cover all the issues on our topic. Could you name a few books where you can get useful information from?

    VP: There is a Bible in our area. The Old Testament is Jeffrey Moore's book on bridging the abyss. The “New Testament” is Steve Blanc’s books about the four steps to insight and a team led by Alexander Osterwalder about business model templates. And also a couple of additional books that I recommend, although they have not yet acquired the status of “sacred texts” of Silicon Valley in the mass entrepreneurial consciousness:
    • Geoffrey Moor. “Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers”
    • Steven Blank. “Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win”
    • Alexander Osterwalder “Business Model Generation”
    • Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson. “Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist”
    • David Cohen, Brad Feld. “Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup”


    Electronic versions of three of these five books can be purchased on Amazon in a few seconds.

    YB: Thank you, Vladimir, for the conversation.

    V.P .: Thank you, Yuri. I want to inform you that we have several vacancies in rollApp: HTML 5 and JavaScript Ninja and Mobile Apps Virtuoso . I would be glad if the readers of Habrahabr respond to them.

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