How to create a company with a short history of operations
In general, no one seeks to create a company with short operational activities, right? No not like this. Judging by Wikipedia, this is just a definition of the word “startup”. And today they are launched by everyone. This is probably why this term completely discredited itself from the beginning of 2011 (it had begun to discredit itself earlier, but if it could still be pronounced in a decent society before 2011, now it’s kind of awkward - after another six months when pronouncing this word in decent society will laugh out loud).
So, in the “I PR” section, I want to introduce you my company with a short history of operating activities. A year has passed since the launch of our JJC.Ru project . I will share some experience, maybe it will be useful to someone. Although I strongly doubt it.
In smart books they write: go to the project if it is interesting to you. And they also write: give birth to original ideas. And they also write: die for your project. With the latter, I seem to have gone too far - nobody writes like that, but that, in general, doesn’t matter. The project was initially uninteresting to me. There was no original idea in it. I did not want to die for the project. It was all very casual and banal. Internet guru and just a very smart person German KlimenkoI was being urged for a couple of months - let's make a portal for foreign real estate. Say, the topic is interesting, it will fit in any way for the future. In short, pressed me to the wall. It was impossible to repulse further, I agreed. He gave me a website - a domain + a bare engine launched a couple of months ago. The site was already in the index, had a search and a half people. So I became - I promise not to swear anymore! - a startup.
A few words about yourself. This, in general, is not very important, but interesting - to understand the economics of the project. By this moment I was the owner of this SEO agency, we were engaged in such a difficult and not to say very high-margin business, like traffic website promotion. To make it clear, traffic promotion is not when you have a name, as, for example, a well-known SEO guru, whose last name begins with A and ends with Shmanov, and you can sell reports for big or very big money. Well, or as a last resort - for very, very, very big money. Traffic promotion is when you invest in a foreign site before a fig and you earn crumbs, since there are a lot of project costs, and aeroflot and Gazprom are not listed in the clients. The staff included (well, in general, even now there are) copywriters, seo-analysts, seo-optimizers and customer service managers. They grew up slowly, they didn’t take money out especially (and they didn’t row with shovels), they spent on development. In short, they earned hard, labor money. I gathered everyone in the office, said - we are doing our project. People scratched Bosko, tried to kick back (it’s understandable, who want to take on extra work, and even for free), but they realized that there are no options. They began to work.
The tasks of the project were the most common. Minimum objective: start making money as quickly as possible. The task of the medium: to tear everyone in the overseas property market to shreds. The maximum task: to create robots and put them in their place to engage in the development of the project. What about a business plan? I have not written a business plan so far.
In business literature, they usually write: agree on everything ashore. In open swimming it will be extremely difficult to do. We agreed with Herman simply: he gives me a programmer, helps me at the start of the context, gives me the reins of government and lets us float freely. Sail out - good. We won’t swim out - it’s our own fault. From me - content, again content, again content and search engine promotion.
Everything was simple. We attracted the first round of investment - $ 3 million. Then the second round - 12.4 million dollars. Then the third round. Then they went to an IPO - and with this money they decided to start.
Joke.
There was, in general, no money to start. Not that they were not at all, but not for this project. It was dumb to invest: if it works out, it won’t work out, but what for. Ask Herman - well, to be honest, conscience did not allow. On the other hand - why the budget? What is he for? A budget, in general, is needed to enter the market and marketing. We, in fact, could do all the work of default. For this, I had everything. Yes, I already wrote about this in my first post on Habré, I will repeat again. It is up to you to maintain the project team yourself; the investor is not interested. If you are not an Islet, of course (and you are not an Islet). And if you want to get investments for the content of the team, then you probably need to hang out in Cambridge and stand for a while, work in Siliconova, get some connections there. I think finding a way to contain a team is less time-consuming than all of the above.
It’s a pleasant thing to guard against stepping on a standard rake from the perspective of such a guru. But ineffective. Anyway, each topic will have its own rake, and all that is needed should simply be stepped on - in order. The first thing we started to do was change the design. The engine was standard, for a couple of hundred dollars, respectively, the default skin and all other charms. We shoveled it a bit, increased the functionality and redesigned it. Then they realized that the functionality was not enough for us, and began to gradually increase it. This process is ongoing with us. And in general, I learned the first lesson: whenever you make a redesign, it will still not be on time, and soon - if the project grows and develops functionally - new information blocks will appear that will need to be plugged into existing ones templates. Now I take it philosophically. You just need to redesign periodically. And put up with the fact that in a couple of months you will need to wedge something into existing layouts.
My second rake. In autumn, we went the first traffic. Together with the context highlighted by us, we reached quite decent indicators for the topic (in the TOP-10 in an extremely competitive market), and it became clear that we did not know what to do with this traffic, how to monetize it. Traf, I note, went high-quality. From the very beginning, Pageview was one of the best on the market (and remains so until now). And most importantly, there were real deals between real estate buyers and realtors who posted ads on the site (I won’t go into details about how we tracked this, but we know about that for sure). So, the question arose of monetization.
There were several models here. It was possible to develop a classic portal according to the advertising model, but it is clear that you can earn more if you fit into the market itself. On the whole, this dilemma remained unresolved throughout the winter, and all spring, and even all summer. It is clear that the loss of time is easy to develop.
Finally, the third rake through which it was necessary to go through gave birth to the following maxim in me - re-evaluation of our own forces threatens to collapse. There are no completely free niches on the Internet today. Do not underestimate the market. You can not overestimate yourself. You can’t build anything with an idea. Only daily hard work on a micron brings you closer to your goal. Goals? I said goals? I made a reservation. Because there is no purpose. There is a way. You just need to embark on this path, or rather even harness yourself. Like a draft horse. And drag this wagon. Doing at least something daily that improves the project.
A year later, we have twofold indicators. On the one hand, they are small - a little more than a thousand people a day. Probably a year ago this would not be enough for me. On the other hand, today I look at the market differently. I understand that this is really a very tough, very competitive market. In which very strong budgets are invested. But we have come a long way. The market leader is still very, very far away, but in front of it there are, in general, few sites, all of them can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And you know, even if this does not sound modest, none of them are already scary to us.
We did not have enough funds for the project. We are the entire Tecterra team”, - in addition to the project, they are still forced to do their main job (Internet marketing) in order to pay their salaries and feed their families. And this, as it turned out, is quite possible.
Do I like to do it today? Am I interested in the project? Never in my life I thought that I would be interested in real estate, especially foreign. But, in general, there was no other way out. We came to a strange glade. We had pluses, but there were also very significant disadvantages - the lack of sufficient competence in the real estate sphere, in the relations of a real estate agent and a buyer. In this, we, too, have already passed a noticeable path, and it is simply a pity not to go any further.
This, by the way, is my second post on Habré, the first became the "Best in 24 hours." Let's continue in the same vein. I need your opinions on the project. Any opinions. By functionality, by design. More opinions - good and different.
And in a separate line, I thank German Sergeyich for bringing me into this venture.
Well, something like this.
So, in the “I PR” section, I want to introduce you my company with a short history of operating activities. A year has passed since the launch of our JJC.Ru project . I will share some experience, maybe it will be useful to someone. Although I strongly doubt it.
Project idea
In smart books they write: go to the project if it is interesting to you. And they also write: give birth to original ideas. And they also write: die for your project. With the latter, I seem to have gone too far - nobody writes like that, but that, in general, doesn’t matter. The project was initially uninteresting to me. There was no original idea in it. I did not want to die for the project. It was all very casual and banal. Internet guru and just a very smart person German KlimenkoI was being urged for a couple of months - let's make a portal for foreign real estate. Say, the topic is interesting, it will fit in any way for the future. In short, pressed me to the wall. It was impossible to repulse further, I agreed. He gave me a website - a domain + a bare engine launched a couple of months ago. The site was already in the index, had a search and a half people. So I became - I promise not to swear anymore! - a startup.
Retreat
A few words about yourself. This, in general, is not very important, but interesting - to understand the economics of the project. By this moment I was the owner of this SEO agency, we were engaged in such a difficult and not to say very high-margin business, like traffic website promotion. To make it clear, traffic promotion is not when you have a name, as, for example, a well-known SEO guru, whose last name begins with A and ends with Shmanov, and you can sell reports for big or very big money. Well, or as a last resort - for very, very, very big money. Traffic promotion is when you invest in a foreign site before a fig and you earn crumbs, since there are a lot of project costs, and aeroflot and Gazprom are not listed in the clients. The staff included (well, in general, even now there are) copywriters, seo-analysts, seo-optimizers and customer service managers. They grew up slowly, they didn’t take money out especially (and they didn’t row with shovels), they spent on development. In short, they earned hard, labor money. I gathered everyone in the office, said - we are doing our project. People scratched Bosko, tried to kick back (it’s understandable, who want to take on extra work, and even for free), but they realized that there are no options. They began to work.
Project Objectives and Business Plan Development
The tasks of the project were the most common. Minimum objective: start making money as quickly as possible. The task of the medium: to tear everyone in the overseas property market to shreds. The maximum task: to create robots and put them in their place to engage in the development of the project. What about a business plan? I have not written a business plan so far.
Project roles
In business literature, they usually write: agree on everything ashore. In open swimming it will be extremely difficult to do. We agreed with Herman simply: he gives me a programmer, helps me at the start of the context, gives me the reins of government and lets us float freely. Sail out - good. We won’t swim out - it’s our own fault. From me - content, again content, again content and search engine promotion.
Project budget
Everything was simple. We attracted the first round of investment - $ 3 million. Then the second round - 12.4 million dollars. Then the third round. Then they went to an IPO - and with this money they decided to start.
Joke.
There was, in general, no money to start. Not that they were not at all, but not for this project. It was dumb to invest: if it works out, it won’t work out, but what for. Ask Herman - well, to be honest, conscience did not allow. On the other hand - why the budget? What is he for? A budget, in general, is needed to enter the market and marketing. We, in fact, could do all the work of default. For this, I had everything. Yes, I already wrote about this in my first post on Habré, I will repeat again. It is up to you to maintain the project team yourself; the investor is not interested. If you are not an Islet, of course (and you are not an Islet). And if you want to get investments for the content of the team, then you probably need to hang out in Cambridge and stand for a while, work in Siliconova, get some connections there. I think finding a way to contain a team is less time-consuming than all of the above.
Standard rake
It’s a pleasant thing to guard against stepping on a standard rake from the perspective of such a guru. But ineffective. Anyway, each topic will have its own rake, and all that is needed should simply be stepped on - in order. The first thing we started to do was change the design. The engine was standard, for a couple of hundred dollars, respectively, the default skin and all other charms. We shoveled it a bit, increased the functionality and redesigned it. Then they realized that the functionality was not enough for us, and began to gradually increase it. This process is ongoing with us. And in general, I learned the first lesson: whenever you make a redesign, it will still not be on time, and soon - if the project grows and develops functionally - new information blocks will appear that will need to be plugged into existing ones templates. Now I take it philosophically. You just need to redesign periodically. And put up with the fact that in a couple of months you will need to wedge something into existing layouts.
My second rake. In autumn, we went the first traffic. Together with the context highlighted by us, we reached quite decent indicators for the topic (in the TOP-10 in an extremely competitive market), and it became clear that we did not know what to do with this traffic, how to monetize it. Traf, I note, went high-quality. From the very beginning, Pageview was one of the best on the market (and remains so until now). And most importantly, there were real deals between real estate buyers and realtors who posted ads on the site (I won’t go into details about how we tracked this, but we know about that for sure). So, the question arose of monetization.
There were several models here. It was possible to develop a classic portal according to the advertising model, but it is clear that you can earn more if you fit into the market itself. On the whole, this dilemma remained unresolved throughout the winter, and all spring, and even all summer. It is clear that the loss of time is easy to develop.
Finally, the third rake through which it was necessary to go through gave birth to the following maxim in me - re-evaluation of our own forces threatens to collapse. There are no completely free niches on the Internet today. Do not underestimate the market. You can not overestimate yourself. You can’t build anything with an idea. Only daily hard work on a micron brings you closer to your goal. Goals? I said goals? I made a reservation. Because there is no purpose. There is a way. You just need to embark on this path, or rather even harness yourself. Like a draft horse. And drag this wagon. Doing at least something daily that improves the project.
Summary
A year later, we have twofold indicators. On the one hand, they are small - a little more than a thousand people a day. Probably a year ago this would not be enough for me. On the other hand, today I look at the market differently. I understand that this is really a very tough, very competitive market. In which very strong budgets are invested. But we have come a long way. The market leader is still very, very far away, but in front of it there are, in general, few sites, all of them can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And you know, even if this does not sound modest, none of them are already scary to us.
We did not have enough funds for the project. We are the entire Tecterra team”, - in addition to the project, they are still forced to do their main job (Internet marketing) in order to pay their salaries and feed their families. And this, as it turned out, is quite possible.
Do I like to do it today? Am I interested in the project? Never in my life I thought that I would be interested in real estate, especially foreign. But, in general, there was no other way out. We came to a strange glade. We had pluses, but there were also very significant disadvantages - the lack of sufficient competence in the real estate sphere, in the relations of a real estate agent and a buyer. In this, we, too, have already passed a noticeable path, and it is simply a pity not to go any further.
In conclusion
This, by the way, is my second post on Habré, the first became the "Best in 24 hours." Let's continue in the same vein. I need your opinions on the project. Any opinions. By functionality, by design. More opinions - good and different.
And in a separate line, I thank German Sergeyich for bringing me into this venture.
Well, something like this.