General Director of Skolkovo Technopark spoke about the results of work and future plans

    At the age of 19, in 1995, Renat Batyrov created the Pilot company. Her specialization was IT services. In 2012, he launched Fabrika private IT park in Astrakhan. In February 2014, Batyrov took the post of General Director of the Skolkovo Technopark. The editors of Rusbase talked with Renat Batyrov about his past companies, about the results and prospects of Skolkovo.

    "Megamind" gives the most interesting statements from the interview .

    About the reasons for the transition to Skolkovo


    I have never had a resume in my life, and I have never looked for work. At 19, I had my own company, all my thoughts were dedicated to her. Probably, the magic of the word “Skolkovo” or my love for technology parks played. At that moment I was on a business trip in Moscow and was able to respond promptly, to come for an interview. After that there were 4 or 5 more stages. And each is more interesting. I recognized what inspired me, bribed me. This is not money, but the opportunities and ambitions of the project that I did not even know about a year ago, although I was part of the party.
    The key to my decision was that a lot of smart people now work around me - they are smarter than me and I learn from them. This was not enough for me in Astrakhan.

    Why did you choose me? I dont know. Probably because I managed to make my Astrakhan IT-park successful. And the labor market in this area is small.

    About his former company Pilot


    I had to leave my business. I must say, it was not difficult to do this. It was necessary even earlier. A few years ago, I transferred the operational management to partners and acted as a manager, trainer, mentor for my colleagues.

    About the IT factory “Factory” and its connection with the “Pilot”


    Our CFO predicted that the payback of this project will come only after 248 years. Reality turned out to be better.
    There were several goals. Firstly, it was necessary to protect the already earned profit. Secondly, it was necessary to ensure that this money brought money. And we began to lease this property, but not to anyone, but to friendly companies from the Astrakhan region. We combined marketing budgets, back office budgets with them, and our accountants and lawyers began to serve them.

    Then we learned that, it turns out, this can be called an IT park. We went and looked what was happening in Kazan. And they realized that we need startups, we need to grow new companies. So the incubator appeared.

    After that, we went to Silicon Valley and found out what an accelerator is. And they realized that for companies to grow rapidly, they need help in development, in commercialization, in entering the market, in attracting investments.

    And then we realized that, it turns out, it’s possible to make an IT park, in which there is an incubator, accelerator, laboratories, residents, and all this can help Pilot. Because now we do not need to have our own project teams for one or another specialization. We can take residents to the project, and then return them.

    About work in Skolkovo


    The load has increased several times, at times. The previous three years I worked in the regime of "two weeks in Astarahan, two weeks traveling around the world." I had free time, now it is gone. There will be more laboratory facilities, at the "Factory" there were almost none.
    There are a lot of differences. We had a focus on IT, there are much more areas: biomed, energy efficiency, space technology and others. There is much more international cooperation.

    On interaction with regional technology parks


    I saw not problems, but opportunities. In my opinion, one of the major opportunities that we have realized is building relationships with regional technology parks. To do this, I had to overcome the barrier - the myth that Skolkovo is a competitor, an enemy and a vacuum cleaner for them. At some point, each startup needs to enter the federal, and then the international market, receive international expertise. At this moment, Skolkovo may come to his aid.

    Collaboration is ongoing. For example, we organize competitions together with clusters based on regional technology parks, and the winners of these competitions become our residents. We understand that the whole company will not move. It’s just that she will have an R&D office or a promotion office here. Revenue will be generated here to maintain an office that will remain in the region.

    On the attitude to Skolkovo abroad


    At first they were surprised and shocked. They did not know about Skolkovo. Everyone was getting round eyes.
    Today are good. Everyone wants to collaborate, exchange startups, use our resources when entering the Russian market, or, conversely, provide opportunities for our startups when entering their markets.
    At one mention of Skolkovo in a negative connotation, I see 200 positive references. Of course, there will always be those who criticize us and often fairly. But it doesn’t happen to “please everyone”.

    About ways to go abroad


    Now, at any moment, we have some kind of Road-show of our companies specially selected for the foreign market. We are preparing a road show in China. We have a very large international agenda. We drove about 40 of our companies to Slush. We are waiting for representatives from several dozen countries here at Startup Village, this is an opportunity to speak to foreign investors and technology parks. Today we have 400 technology parks in our partner network: American, Canadian, Dutch ... From Botswana to Japan, from Scandinavia to Brazil.

    About the brain drain


    She goes in two directions. And they leave, and they come to us. Our task is to make sure that more people come to us than they leave. To do this, we have a special softlanding program: we offer foreign companies to come to us and stay for six months, try to live and enter the Russian market. By the end of the year, we are waiting for a dozen or more foreign companies.

    About Technopark plans


    Our task is to brew the broth, in which investors, entrepreneurs, startups, experts, scientists and specialists will cook. So that they mix and enrich each other. Russian, international ...
    We will find out what is needed at a rally of technology parks. We communicate with startups without leaving the dining room. Cluster colleagues come and say: “Could you still do this for us?” We took over the function of calling and reporting. We act as one window for the entire fund. We look at what is good in other technology parks in the world.

    The technopark has grown in people by 1.5 times. We now have more features than it was a year ago.

    When the large industrial park is completed, we will have to be ready to populate it. To convince several hundred companies to move there is not difficult, there is already a queue. The same goes for the laboratory: 24 laboratories should not be filled for state money. We attract operators who have their equipment on the balance sheet. For our part, we give orders traffic from our startups.
    The next challenge is to attract investments from other countries to our site, from both Asian and European. Collaboration continues no matter what.

    About the business climate in Russia


    I think our business climate is excellent. And those people who talk about its deterioration - they just do much worse.
    In 1998 and in 2008, I had a serious crisis in the company. And I always came out with a profit, I earned on these crises. For some, sanctions, for someone - import substitution. For some, a decrease in income in rubles, for someone - the possibility of developing IT outsourcing.
    If you work in a foreign market, then everything should be fine with you. Rent in Moscow fell somewhere by 30% - class. You just need to understand where one of your options is located.

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