How to find $ 1,000,000?

After the publication of our post on working with e-mail , habra people asked what we were doing and how the past 4 years had been developing in Russia. We decided to share some of our business ideas, too, maybe you will be useful.

The first story is how we found 1,000,000 USD .

Almost all anti-virus manufacturers can buy a license for 2 years, but they are sold so-so. Although it’s profitable - cheaper, people just don’t think about it and buy their most advanced IT users, usually less than 1% of all users. In early 2008 , with the release of version 3.0, we decided to draw attention to such licenses.

At firstIt is beneficial to the buyer. Although not much, but cheaper than buying a box for 1 year, and after a year renewal for it (in the case of NOD32 it is 1080 rubles + 648 rubles = 1728 rubles, and immediately for 2 years = 1620 rubles). The user saves about 100 rubles (a discount of about 6% ) and solves the “problem” of the antivirus for 2 years - you don’t have to think where to buy, wait for delivery, whether it has expired, etc. Plus, there is a risk that in a year it will be more expensive - inflation, surges course, etc.

Secondly , it is beneficial to our company - ESET. Since we get the money right away (no need to wait a year) and “tie” the client for 2 years.

Thirdly , it is beneficial to the store, it earns more from a percentage of sales. Those. such a product is beneficial to everyone!

We made a special, separate box (all others can only be bought online - the key) and called it Platinum (sold only in Russia), in fact it is no different except for the inscription and another password for 2 years. Those. production costs almost do not differ from the circulation of ordinary boxes and Platinum (the difference is a few rubles), and the money is 1.5times more! Thus, we also save here. The most difficult thing was to persuade retail stores to put them on the shelves; stores did not believe that they would be in demand. And an increase in purchases, logistics, and calculations is a risk for the store. However, we guys are persistent and were able to persuade them. Let us give credit that some networks, say ION , immediately realized the mutual benefit.

So what? Sales of 2 annual licenses for 1 month increased 20 times !!!
And they continue to grow. According to the results of 2008 , we earned more than USD 1,000,000 on boxes of the Platinum series (i.e., this is the difference if the buyer would buy for 1 year, not 2) Now we have the largest assortment of boxes in retail - 8 items.

From the idea to the start of sales of a new box, we spent only 1 month.

PS None of the competitors in Russia have been able to repeat this in retail stores (or did not understand the chip). NOD32 the fastest antivirus! :)