May 27, 2009 at 12:59 The story of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich were looking for investments
It's no secret that the current IT community has long plunged into the fever of startups (which the crisis does not particularly hinder), I personally do not know a single person from my circle of friends of web-oriented specialists who would not have his ingenious idea . Someone has already started and spends nights with programming with burning eyes, some digging languidly at the beginning a year or two ago. I don’t want to judge whether it’s good or bad and talk about where someone is heading to, I just would like to tell a story from the life of startups, from which I propose to draw conclusions myself.
Actually, I want to tell you about how a group of comrades almost got an investment, which by all indications it could not get, by the way, collapsing the company. I will not name names, names and dates, so as not to compromise the participants, well, I just would like to tell this story in an anonymous form (although the participants in the events will, of course, recognize themselves). The story will be long, get ready.
I happened to work in one small company with three small web projects that brought a steady profit. The company was managed by an ambitious, at that time successful, but not understanding anything in web technologies director. In fact, the main profit was brought by one project, which was almost the first in its niche, had good traffic and excellent makings of the leader of the direction. But as already mentioned, the director of the company was far from the realities of the market and was constantly dreaming of a multiple increase in profits by stamping projects according to the template of his first and successful flagship.
I came to the company just at the moment when the people who made the first project spat out with the director and the company arrived in deep depression - money seems to be dripping, but the projects stand still - that the programmers, that the managers were left on their own, sat without fear on classmates and without reproach cut into casual flash games.
My initial task was to smash the chicken house of the technical department, set up its work and begin to develop projects in the right direction. The task was interesting, and I embarked on it with the utmost enthusiasm. At the end of 6 months of work, the results were quite satisfactory to me, the prospects were the most promising, even despite the very specific approach of the director of the company to work - he could fire a person in one day, change plans several times a week (sometimes in one day he could change), well, in general, most of the day I did not know what to do with myself.
And at that moment he picked up a startup fever - he set about trying to get an investment, and he had no idea under any project, or in any way.
My director met one friend, and he met in a very original way - by playing online chess (see. I did not know what to do with myself). We will call him comrade S. I don’t know how, but they started talking about business and investments. It turned out that Comrade S. had some experience in investor circles and himself had some relation to them. The next month they spent in entrancing rides on each other's ears and set up such plans that when I heard I did not know what to do - to quit or laugh.
A good dozen of the best ideas and business plans passed, our joint work resembled a nonexistent film with Charlie Chaplin about firefighters and pyromaniacs - two comrades ran to funny music and lit a fire of crazy ideas here and there, and I ran after them in a funny fire uniform and put out them. At first it was fun, then it became a pity for the lost time. Most of all I was waiting for this theater of the absurd to end and I could return to my main tasks. It all ended, oddly enough, with a pretty good idea of a service that, due to its features, was supposed to compete with Yandex.Market. A helpless and completely irrelevant business plan was immediately written. The numbers in it were taken from the ceiling, the data was so monstrous that only a person very far from the web could believe them,
For many, this may come as a surprise, but finding an investment is a rather expensive process. Traveling, meeting with people (meeting with the right people is not free), the services of auditors and lawyers, Comrade S. himself worked not only for the future share, but also for the monthly salary. At that time, my department consisted of three programmers and several remote employees. In order to save resources and redistribute resources for new purposes, it was decided to fire everyone, my salary was raised, working projects switched exclusively to supporting life, my task was to provide technical consultations, write technical specifications and other documentation, meet with technical experts from potential investors. The work of several months was buried, the team created with great difficulty was dissolved. The company kept me only a heating pocket rather big salary and an acute desire to still witness the denouement of this somewhat absurd, to some extent funny story. Well, I admit, even I had a ghostly hope that something could come of it.
Then there were months of preparatory work, funny conversations between the deaf and the blind, several trips to Western investors and the final fun trip to one of the largest European venture investors in the field of Internet projects.
To be continued. If, of course, it will be interesting to the habr community.
The story of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich were looking for investments. Part 2.
Actually, I want to tell you about how a group of comrades almost got an investment, which by all indications it could not get, by the way, collapsing the company. I will not name names, names and dates, so as not to compromise the participants, well, I just would like to tell this story in an anonymous form (although the participants in the events will, of course, recognize themselves). The story will be long, get ready.
Background
I happened to work in one small company with three small web projects that brought a steady profit. The company was managed by an ambitious, at that time successful, but not understanding anything in web technologies director. In fact, the main profit was brought by one project, which was almost the first in its niche, had good traffic and excellent makings of the leader of the direction. But as already mentioned, the director of the company was far from the realities of the market and was constantly dreaming of a multiple increase in profits by stamping projects according to the template of his first and successful flagship.
I came to the company just at the moment when the people who made the first project spat out with the director and the company arrived in deep depression - money seems to be dripping, but the projects stand still - that the programmers, that the managers were left on their own, sat without fear on classmates and without reproach cut into casual flash games.
My initial task was to smash the chicken house of the technical department, set up its work and begin to develop projects in the right direction. The task was interesting, and I embarked on it with the utmost enthusiasm. At the end of 6 months of work, the results were quite satisfactory to me, the prospects were the most promising, even despite the very specific approach of the director of the company to work - he could fire a person in one day, change plans several times a week (sometimes in one day he could change), well, in general, most of the day I did not know what to do with myself.
And at that moment he picked up a startup fever - he set about trying to get an investment, and he had no idea under any project, or in any way.
The coming of the prophet
My director met one friend, and he met in a very original way - by playing online chess (see. I did not know what to do with myself). We will call him comrade S. I don’t know how, but they started talking about business and investments. It turned out that Comrade S. had some experience in investor circles and himself had some relation to them. The next month they spent in entrancing rides on each other's ears and set up such plans that when I heard I did not know what to do - to quit or laugh.
A good dozen of the best ideas and business plans passed, our joint work resembled a nonexistent film with Charlie Chaplin about firefighters and pyromaniacs - two comrades ran to funny music and lit a fire of crazy ideas here and there, and I ran after them in a funny fire uniform and put out them. At first it was fun, then it became a pity for the lost time. Most of all I was waiting for this theater of the absurd to end and I could return to my main tasks. It all ended, oddly enough, with a pretty good idea of a service that, due to its features, was supposed to compete with Yandex.Market. A helpless and completely irrelevant business plan was immediately written. The numbers in it were taken from the ceiling, the data was so monstrous that only a person very far from the web could believe them,
All to the front
For many, this may come as a surprise, but finding an investment is a rather expensive process. Traveling, meeting with people (meeting with the right people is not free), the services of auditors and lawyers, Comrade S. himself worked not only for the future share, but also for the monthly salary. At that time, my department consisted of three programmers and several remote employees. In order to save resources and redistribute resources for new purposes, it was decided to fire everyone, my salary was raised, working projects switched exclusively to supporting life, my task was to provide technical consultations, write technical specifications and other documentation, meet with technical experts from potential investors. The work of several months was buried, the team created with great difficulty was dissolved. The company kept me only a heating pocket rather big salary and an acute desire to still witness the denouement of this somewhat absurd, to some extent funny story. Well, I admit, even I had a ghostly hope that something could come of it.
Then there were months of preparatory work, funny conversations between the deaf and the blind, several trips to Western investors and the final fun trip to one of the largest European venture investors in the field of Internet projects.
To be continued. If, of course, it will be interesting to the habr community.
The story of how Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich were looking for investments. Part 2.