home » Thing » Business plan for developing a mobile application. Applications for business: types and development plan

Business plan for developing a mobile application. Applications for business: types and development plan

Mobile applications are already a part of our lives; we use them every day, not just once, but dozens of times a day.

This includes programs for smartphones - maps, games, traffic jams, programs to quit smoking, and so on. But not many of us thought that you can also make money from this. Let's consider a business plan for creating mobile applications.

In the modern world, it is difficult to find a person who has never held a smartphone, iPhone, or tablet in their hands.

This article will talk about the types of applications, as well as the nuances of adding them to stores. Google Play(Android Market) and Apple Store, we present illustrative examples and cost calculations, we will talk about profitability and payback.

Most popular apps

Quest
Action
Action games
Information application (news, articles, etc.)
Application for everyday use (maps, traffic jams, translator)

And so let's look at the action movie. The very first thing we need is to find a developer (preferably one who knows how to write for iOS) if you know how, you can write it yourself.

But, it is best to create informational or applications for everyday use, since games can quickly get boring and people will not return to this game, and an informational application is suitable for both older people and minors, and download statistics will only grow and grow.

Read also: Pet store business plan with calculations 2018

Creating an Android application

First, let's talk about Android. It’s much easier to find a developer for it than for iOS, and so you’ve already decided on the genre of your application.

Creating an application for smartphones and tablets on Android

How much does it cost to create an Android app?

So, the initial costs for a developer are about 30-50 tr, provided that we need an application that does not have the most advanced graphics and capabilities.

Next is creating an account in the store. Android games(an account in the game store costs $25), it’s not so complicated, you need to register and confirm documents and a bank account (if the application is paid) if you connect advertising, you need to register in the account of the platform with which you will place advertising (the developer must be warned that you you will embed advertising).

How much does it cost to develop an Android app?

For voice acting you need to find people or order professional voice acting which will cost about 20-30 tr.

You will also need music, for which you must also have funds, the price here varies depending on your preferences (you can buy music from Britney spears, which will cost about hundreds of thousands of dollars).

You also need pictures, screensavers, logos for the application, unfortunately you also have to pay for this, unless of course you don’t have skills in Photoshop, if you have it you can draw it yourself.

Read also: Business plan for a bathhouse (sauna) with calculations for 2018

This seems to be all, but this list can be expanded endlessly depending on your budget.

Creating an iOS application

Applications for IOS. Everything here is much more complicated, both from the technical, financial and legal sides.
Let's start with the fact that developers for iOS are valued more than for Android, and the first point will already be an order of magnitude more expensive.

Creating an application for iPhone and iPad

How much does it cost to create an application on iOS?

A developer costs around 50-70 thousand rubles and it is not so easy to find him, because the demand for them is quite high.
Next comes creating an account in their application store; it costs $50 for a year, but you need a lot of documents that you will have to tinker with quite a bit.
Advertising in their store should be quite aggressive, since there are a lot of high-quality applications; in order to get to the top you will need to work hard and apply a fairly small budget to it. To start you need at least 200 tr.
Just like Android, you will need voice acting, music and general sound.
But the most important thing is the content of the application; anything inappropriate will not be allowed into the store, and you can wait quite a long time for publication; deadlines can reach up to 1 year, and in rare cases even more.

In fact, IOS is a rather capricious system and there are many, many pitfalls; before you start, you need to familiarize yourself with all the nuances in detail.
But, still, if you do everything correctly and approach it responsibly, you can achieve very good results. All top developers started somewhere.

* The calculations use average data for Russia

Interview with an entrepreneur:

Entrepreneur Evgeny Ponomarenkov will share his own experience of opening his own successful business on mobile applications from scratch with us.

Evgeniy, tell us about your business. Are there any differences between running a mobile app business and others?

I've only been in the mobile business for a year. I realized in time that it was worth moving in this direction. In my city, no one had yet worked on mobile applications, and I became, one might say, a pioneer in the market. And I still have no serious competitors.

Business on mobile applications differs from the usual one primarily in that the entry threshold is extremely low. In addition, you don’t need any equipment at all, you don’t need a large staff, you don’t need to rent premises... This is a virtual business, in a new modern format. If you like, this is the business of the future. And no other type of business can compare with it in terms of ease of implementation and minimal costs.

Still, business is serious. Not everyone decides to just take it and open their own business. What could you say to those who are just dreaming about it?

Yes, that's right. Almost everyone, probably in this life, has at least once thought about opening their own business, but few people end up opening it. And further less people then it stays afloat. The “area of ignorance” is too large, because, in fact, this is not taught anywhere. The market is developing too quickly, and no one educational institution unable to provide real, non-outdated knowledge.

And here again business on mobile applications has an advantage. If you buy a franchise, you receive a full set of all the necessary tools: marketing materials, a business plan, a ready-made website, a designer for creating mobile applications, business development training, consultations.

That is, you are no longer tormented by doubts about how and what to do. You are not left alone with your problems. There is a clear scheme, a plan for your movement. Therefore, even absolute beginners in business can use mobile applications.

And at one time I did exactly that. Before that, I had little experience - I ran a small store, but had to close due to unprofitability.

How did you come up with the idea of starting this particular business?

Ready ideas for your business

I often travel abroad and always keep an eye on what is happening there. Still, we are still a couple of decades behind them in terms of technology development. I saw a very promising niche and I wanted to do it here in Russia.

I saw a huge need for mobile applications. After all, we can no longer imagine our lives without mobile phones. And a business that doesn't take this into account simply won't be able to stay afloat. And I, having bought a franchise, solve this problem - I help various enterprises create their mobile applications using a very simple designer.

What are the difficulties in initial stages business you are faced with?

As I say, we are a little behind the West. People don't yet fully understand the capabilities of applications. They don’t see the future, they don’t understand the prospects. And now I’m not talking about ordinary people, I mean businessmen. Introducing something new is always worth the effort.

Therefore, I had to tell and show a lot, and meet with clients a lot. Being first to market is great, but it takes time for people to realize these new opportunities and want them. Essentially I had to implement new idea to the masses, and this process is not yet completed.

Here, of course, it is very easy to “merge” at the first stage. People don't know what apps are, why they are needed, or how they can help them. It's great when you can show a demo version right away - it always has an amazing effect. It’s one thing to try to explain something on your fingers, and quite another to show it live on a mobile phone.

Human consciousness resists change. Many companies don’t even have a website and don’t want one. They don't understand the value of internet marketing. It is almost useless to talk to such people. You can't prove anything to them.

Why, exactly, are these mobile applications needed, and who are they for?

Mobile applications increase company income and make business more efficient.

Well, for example, I make mobile applications for restaurants.

Ready ideas for your business

A person who has downloaded such an application will be able to order any dishes from this restaurant to their home in a couple of clicks. Get a discount. Find out when the restaurant is running a promotion. See the route to the establishment on the map to make it easier to get there.

That is, the restaurant client receives a convenient and useful service. This means that he becomes a loyal customer who will definitely talk about it and attract even more customers to the restaurant.

Mobile technologies are developing extremely quickly and are already surpassing personal computers in many ways. If a businessman wants to provide himself with the fastest communication channel with his customers, then mobile applications will help do this.

However, the businessman himself will not be able and will not want to bother with the creation of such applications. And my task is to solve this problem. I make applications for a specific company and then charge a monthly service fee.

We are transferring more and more functions and work from a computer to a tablet or smartphone. And we do this not under the influence of fashion, but because it is convenient and practical, saves time and increases efficiency in general. Every day the range of mobile applications is growing and expanding, making our daily life. Increasingly, we use our phones or tablets to view email, work with documents, plan meetings and our own affairs, communicate with colleagues, and so on.

Ready ideas for your business

A company that creates a mobile application for its business will actually bind the client to itself. Will always be in touch, at hand.

According to your estimates, what is the minimum amount with which you can start this business today? What equipment will be needed?

Perhaps this is the minimum entry threshold. Buying a franchise costs 50-100 thousand rubles, plus payment for registering the application on Google Play or App Store(up to $100 per year). Of course, you also need a computer and Internet access.

That's all, actually. What other business can match this accessibility? At the same time, the payback is incredibly high, even if you make the bare minimum of body movements.

Do you need any special knowledge or skills to open such a business?

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have programming skills in IT technologies, but here’s what was good - in addition to the business itself in the box, I was also provided with detailed training with video materials, which clearly showed how to create applications on the platform.

There is also an extensive Knowledge Base in which you can find answers to almost any question about working with the service. This Database is constantly supplemented and updated.

In addition, when I had questions, I simply called technical support and received an answer. I admit, it is very convenient. No one advised my first business, and I simply did not have enough knowledge. And here there is constant help, and trainings are also held regularly.

In short, I quickly figured out the application designer and created my first application. I liked it: it’s somewhat similar to a computer game).

Are there any additional administrative requirements (for premises, experience of specialists, etc.)?

Basically, you don't need any of this at all. Your office is on the Internet. You are working with the mobile application designer on your computer. You don't need an office or employees. Then, if you want to expand, you will need an assistant, plus a sales manager, but it’s quite possible to handle it yourself.

However, you can immediately hire an assistant. This will stimulate you - additional responsibility will also discipline you. The assistant will be able to take 90% of the routine off your hands and free up your time.

At first, I was interested in understanding the designer, but when I designed my 20th application, it became a chore. Clients ask the same questions and ask for endless adjustments. Everything needs to be agreed upon, discussed, and controlled for the hundredth time. So I hired an employee and my turnover immediately increased. And my interest in business did not fade; I was already getting additional drive from closing deals.

And my advice to you is to have a couple of assistants on hand. At least potential ones. Don't do everything yourself, it's very bad for business.

Your employee can sell for you, draw up and send documents, look for clients, work with freelancers, carry out service control, make cold calls, and support the website.

And without delegating your work, you will never rise and will not be able to scale your business. You should be above the business, not in it.

Another tip - while you're just starting out, you don't pay anyone anything. You take a person on probation. You give him the task of finding you an order. If he finds it, you take it, and you have something to pay your salary from. If you can't cope, you hire the next one. Be prudent, otherwise you will not see success. At the same time, learn how to fire people. There is no way without this. And people will work better knowing they are not the only ones.

The task of an entrepreneur is to organize the process, and not to do everything himself.

What can you save on and what should you not save on?

You can try to register the application yourself and not pay specialists. However, both Android and iOS applications have a lot of specific requirements, and it’s not so easy to figure them out right away. So I don’t recommend saving here. You'll just waste time.

Well, you can save on employees. As I already said, at first this is possible. But again, if you want to develop quickly, it is better to hire an assistant and pay your salary upon completion of tasks. But not in advance.

How long did it take you to recoup your initial investment? What are the prospects for this business?

The investment pays off within the first month. Amazing, right? Income from 35 to 70 thousand rubles for each application created! In addition, you receive a monthly subscription fee for the maintenance of all created mobile applications.

You can also charge for consultations, for help, for promotion of a mobile application.

What can you say about the competition in this business?

There are practically no competitors. Only provides the maximum functional range in this area. Gives clients the maximum possible. But the need for mobile applications is simply colossal. Even in major cities More than 95% of businesses remain unreached. They need mobile applications for development, to strengthen their business, but practically no one offers them such a service.

So you don’t have to be afraid of competition in this type of business for at least another couple of years!

Based on your experience, what advice would you give to those who are just planning to start this business?

As the wise saying goes, if you try to talk to everyone at the same time, you will not talk to anyone. Determine a specific niche (area) to work on and concentrate your marketing efforts on it. In Russia, as elsewhere, there are a lot of types of small businesses, which in fact turned out to be very profitable clients for mobile application developers (for example, restaurants, law firms, real estate agencies, and many others). Choose the right area and focus on it, and then your efforts will be rewarded.

In addition, you need to constantly pump yourself up, always be up to speed. And don’t reinvent the wheel, don’t invent new methods - everything has already been tested a long time ago, and several really working methods have been developed. You don't want a prize for originality, you want profit. So take advantage of other people’s successful experiences for your health.

And constantly learn. You can’t study something and stop there. And he constantly conducts training - gives the latest developments in world trends. It's very cool and incredibly stimulating.

Our world is changing, and the rules of doing business are also changing. Today, to successfully start a new business or scale an existing one, you need to play a completely different game than before. Conditions have become different: buyers are more sophisticated, sales methods are more complex. Now, when we need something, we increasingly turn to the Internet.

A successful businessman will be the one who keeps up with the times, which means the one who uses all the latest business opportunities.

Therefore, try to figure out who in your environment needs a mobile application, sketch out an action plan for yourself for the next month, make a list of the first important steps to create your new business and move forward to success! I'm sure everything will work out for you, just like it did for me.

436 people are studying this business today.

In 30 days, this business was viewed 29,570 times.

Calculator for calculating the profitability of this business

Business on targeted leads: searching and selling “warm” clients

The costs of starting a business to find and sell “warm” clients cannot be called high. Renting a room will cost from 30 thousand rubles, setting up an office will cost about 100 thousand, and also about 2...

Running your own channel on Youtube can hardly be called a full-fledged business, but to some extent it refers to entrepreneurial activity. Moreover, today there is real examples T...

Minimum amount to open electronic library- about 200 thousand rubles, and taking into account the wage fund - at least 250 thousand rubles, but many companies invest millions of rubles for...

A computer club with 20 seats will require 500 thousand rubles, taking into account the purchase of relatively good cars. If there is still a bias towards an Internet cafe, then you can order devices for 15-20 thousand - they are used...

Here is a set of typical stages in creating a mobile application from scratch, which the Componentix studio applies to its activities.

Business analysis target market

At this stage, the customer should decide why he plans to use the application, what is the final goal of developing a mobile communication tool with the audience. Here is a list of indicative questions to which you should find answers before formulating technical specifications and ordering application development:

What goals do you plan to achieve by creating and releasing your own mobile application?
Are sales/conversion of transitions into the sale of goods and services planned within the application?
Who is your target audience and from whom can it be replenished?
How high is the competition in the area in which you plan to work (including with the application)?
What applications does your audience and the audience of your competitors use, do they overlap? Are they ready to use your app instead of similar apps?
What is the budget for the development and promotion of the resulting application?

Development of an agreed solution

Before starting development, you must obtain from the customer technical task(TK) or provide him with a brief to fill out and further work according to this document.

After receiving the completed brief and/or technical specifications, you can begin prototyping and drawing up user profiles to assess the capabilities of the final product.

Based on the designer’s vision, business assessment and agreement on the details of the technical specifications, the development process can be launched.

Prototyping

Prototypes are developed by the designer and can be either static or interactive. To do this, you can use one or more of the prototyping tools we talked about earlier.

Static prototypes and interactive mockups should be designed taking into account the technical and software base that is planned to be used to create the application.

Writing code and implementing technologies

With the finished design, the application goes to the developers: they will have to create a mobile application based on programming languages, frameworks and various technologies in accordance with the technical specifications, brief and approved prototype.

Testing

At various stages of application development, internal testing of the application is mandatory both on simulators and on real devices. The purpose of testing is to make sure that the interaction of the application with the hardware and software platform of smartphones and tablets will be exactly as expected at the prototyping stage.

Creating a pre-release version

As a result of a series of tests and improvements to the application, a working version of the application should be obtained. It is this version that will be added to the application store: Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone application store (depending on which platform the development is being carried out for) or any similar service for distributing applications.

Adding an application to the store

The final stage of the studio’s work is adding the application for review to one of the above application stores (in the case of Componentix we are talking about the App Store or Google Play).

Optional stage: further technical support and marketing promotion of the application

Since these services are provided separately from the main package of services, they are paid separately. In addition to marketing and technical support, it is also possible to publish the application in the App Store or Google Play on behalf of the customer (White Label service), and provide server support for the application.

If you're ready order a package of basic and/or additional services for developing a native application - write: we will discuss with you the timing, cost, and help draw up technical specifications and fill out a brief . And after a month or two you will have your own mobile application for iPhone, iPad or Android smartphones and tablets.

By clicking on the "Download archive" button, you will download the file you need completely free of charge.
Before downloading this file, remember those good essays, tests, term papers, theses, articles and other documents that lie unclaimed on your computer. This is your work, it should participate in the development of society and benefit people. Find these works and submit them to the knowledge base.
We and all students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

To download an archive with a document, enter a five-digit number in the field below and click the "Download archive" button

Business idea and venture funds as a source of investment - what to expect?

So - our story. In the fall of 2013, within the team, which by the way is quite old - I believe that average age 35-37 years old, there was a feeling that we could enter the market with the idea of “Mobile application designer for online stores.” Well, you know, this is when mobile applications are assembled from ready-made templates in html(5). By the way, there are such projects on the market - myapps.com, ibuildapp.com - among those that are “heard of”. Assuming that our competitive difference lies in the coverage of all mobile platforms (ios, android, windows 8 and winphone) and native development (more precisely, we use products from Khamarin), we began to develop a business plan to find an investor. And although from the very beginning I had a vague feeling that our venture funds, let’s say, were not exactly eager to see us and were focused on projects in a more mature state, the idea was precisely to send out a beautiful presentation to the main funds.

Our venture funds... It’s a strange industry, probably due to the fact that I haven’t worked in it personally, and you can’t understand it with your mind and the available bits of information. The presentation took us about a month. In April 2013, I compiled a list of funds operating in Russia and began sending out cover letter. Looking back, I understand that the presentation was, to put it mildly, not very good, because... it contained few beautiful graphs (exponential upward!) and tables, but more text with a detailed description of the project. But we proceeded from the fact that in order to make a decision on investment, people, even at the first stage, must carefully study what is written and only then, if they like it, invite them to a meeting. In total, about 15 letters were sent to the most famous funds. Only one responded - he wrote that he would answer in 2 weeks. But apparently he got wrapped up and forgot. Therefore, if you have a business at the very beginning stage, when you have a team, some groundwork and a good (as it seems) idea, do not expect strong attention from funds. They can be understood because... The highest risks are precisely at the zero stage of starting a business, although here you can expect the highest returns.

And one more note - if your business includes a fund, then most often its task is to come out with a profit in 3-5 years, selling its share for more than the investment made. Accordingly, business profits may fade into the background, because All of it will be asked to be used to increase the size of the business itself - increasing capitalization. If we talk about a private investor, then most likely he will be interested not in the capitalization of the company, but in the profit distributed in the form of dividends.

To be fair, it is worth noting that now the situation with support for the early stages is changing and a pro-state fund, IIDF (Internet Initiatives Development Fund), has appeared. It's easy to find on the Internet, and I advise very young teams to consider it quite seriously. Looking ahead, I’ll note that we were nominated for the very first IIDF intake in 2013 (in the fall) and made it to the TOP 30 projects, among, it seems, 750 applications. I will also tell you about our experience with IIDF and the reasons why we ultimately did not receive (or we did not take - depending on how you look at it) investments, but in general my impressions of this organization are positive and, frankly speaking, due to my current knowledge of the venture capital industry, I don’t see any alternatives for teams at the earliest stage of development in the Russian Federation.

Returning to the issue of investment. Our partner had access to investors in St. Petersburg, who believed in us and were interested in the idea itself, and after a number of meetings with them, it was decided to open investment for us. At the same time, the investor received a 51% share in the new business. This process took us a little over a month (3-4 meetings, usually in one of the cafes) and the first days of May 2013 we could celebrate as Victory Day in the Second World War and the birth of our company. I note that we asked for investments for the initial business plan, which, in addition to describing the business process, also contained financial calculations of expected income and expenses. Naturally, as we began work, it turned out that the ideas laid down and, accordingly, the costs had nothing to do with reality, and in this regard, I advise you to make a reasonable reserve, unless your life and management experience allows you to give a detailed forecast. In relation to us, we budgeted an amount of 10,000,000 rubles, but the excess of this amount, according to our cautious forecasts, will be about 6-7,000,000 rubles.

As far as I know, it is extremely rare for venture funds to ask for a 51% stake in a business, but I assume that this is more often applicable to a situation where there is already some incoming financial flow, an interesting and proven business idea and a cohesive team. We definitely did not fall under this definition, because... I had an idea, some ideas from developers from old places of work, and a business plan. All. It seems to me that this is a completely normal “price” for the high risk of investments from zero, because otherwise (smaller share in the investor’s authorized capital), they may offer parity investment.

From my experience, let me recommend some other points in communicating with investors. There is no need to assure of success, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. Investors are serious people and, of course, expecting a return on investment many times over, they understand that market conditions are not a greenhouse for growing cucumbers with fertilizers, but not a very welcoming environment for beginners. Therefore, when assessing your chances, try to be extremely honest with yourself and with people who are ready to invest. Doubts are completely normal; I will assume that irrepressible optimism can simply do harm.

Next, write down the terms of the dividend policy. At least verbalize them. It's clear that we all want to "change the world", but the purpose of business is ultimately income and it's good to hear the investor's position on their vision for sharing future dividends. Ask a question about the future co-investor and whether your investor will be ready to dilute his stake. For example, we are currently conducting a number of negotiations on co-investment, because as already mentioned, our expectations did not coincide with reality, and the new co-investor can further allow the business to develop, while possibly returning the invested funds of your first investor to buy out part of his share (partially or completely).

What does this look like in practice? In our case, the investor is ready (theoretically) to sell 25% of his 51% in the authorized capital, subject to not just a redemption, but also the opening of additional investment in the amount agreed upon by the parties. And, by the way, this model is quite convenient, because a co-investor comes to an already operating business that shows some financial indicators, having an established client base, etc. It is worth noting here, from the experience of communicating with venture funds, it is very rarely intended to simply buy out the share of the founders (only if this is not a profitable, fast-growing business), but to receive a share in exchange for future investments. For example, I recently held a dialogue with a German fund, which outlined its position - 25% of shares for opening an investment horizon of 40-50,000,000 rubles. for 3 years (namely opening financing in exchange for shares).

Of course, the investor first of all wants to return the investment, remain with a certain block of shares (preferably blocking), not invest further and expect dividends. At the same time, a new co-investor, considering a company with a negative operating balance, may resist the repurchase of a share and here it is possible to propose a scheme in which the repurchase of a share does not occur, the new co-investor continues to invest in the company, but when it reaches self-sufficiency and receives the first profits , the first investor receives dividends based on his original share until he returns his investment.

Separately, I would like to note that we were extremely lucky with investors, because... we are free to make any management decisions, which, of course, are aimed at increasing income. Some might argue with this assertion, rationally pointing out that an investor who participates in strategic management may somewhere be able to “open his eyes” to a number of important issues. But there is a fine line between sensitive participation and a situation where the investor actually interferes in operational management, simply creating a nervous situation in the team.

Organizational issues of starting a company - how it happened

Returning to the launch of our business. We spent the whole of May 2013 on organizational issues - registering a legal entity, opening a bank account (we chose the rather conservative Nordea bank - Scandinavian roots, because there were familiar managers there, and the bank’s “pedigree” inspired confidence) and search premises. I don’t think it’s worth dwelling on this, because... The processes are quite simple and have been described many times, including on Habré. As for the nuances, I categorically do not advise separating the legal address from the actual one, because Our fiscal authorities are now monitoring this quite strictly and... well, why do you need these problems at the launch? Upon registration, you can use the services of an intermediary or do it yourself.

We decided to name the company after the domain name. And we started searching for the latter, keeping in mind the domain in the zone.com, because... After all, we made a construction set, which means the whole world should be subject to us! Not everything worked out for us, except for purchasing the domain - notissimus.com; the word notissimus from Latin can be translated as “well-known”, “recognizable”. The main thing is that the domain was free and a search for trademarks in the United States also did not give any matches (I searched on the website www.uspto.gov/trademarks), although logic dictates that when registering a trademark, I usually immediately register the domain name). It is pronounced as notissimus with emphasis, sometimes they call us funny. When opening a bank account (we have a legal entity with the same name as the domain - NOTISSIMUS LLC), a funny story turned out. The bank employee asked again for the name of the legal entity, and then asked: “What does this mean?” Having heard the translation from Latin: they say “it’s well-known,” she apologized and said that she didn’t know, although it seemed like the term was widely known to everyone :) .

We were lucky to find a room in the city center, next to St. Isaac's Cathedral with a more than reasonable rate of 1,100 rubles. per m2. How did you search? We used all available free resources (no agents), plus I personally drove around the city center by car and looked for the intriguing “for rent” sign - this is a fairly effective method. It was important for us and the investor to find an office in the center, near the metro (this is convenient for both employees and clients whom we invite to visit, and it also adds a little importance to the young company when you say that the office is near St. Isaac's Cathedral). We are still working in this room, gradually expanding with adjacent rooms - a class “C” business center, which in plans should turn into class “A” (with all the ensuing consequences, including those “leaked” by us). The room (45 m2) was redecorated to make it pleasing to the eye, spending about 45,000 rubles on it. along with materials (guests from the southern republics worked). We allowed ourselves to rent two parking spaces, because... in the center of St. Petersburg near Isaac there is no chance of finding parking and we understood that this would be a permanent irritating factor at the beginning of the working day (5,000 rubles for one space - looking back, I clearly understand that it was definitely worth it).

In our business plan, we included funds for a one-time purchase of fixed assets (fixed assets) to launch the company. What does this include? Computer equipment, peripherals, tables, chairs, etc. All purchases were made on the website ulmart.ru, at the same time receiving quite a few bonus points to the account - convenient, because You’ll definitely forget something small, like a cable or an extension cord. Everything was bought reasonably - simple - necessary (sometimes very simple, then I had to improve the PC - buy more memory, so I advise you not to completely reduce the cost of equipment for daily work). Below is a fragment of our management p/l (income - expenses) for May 2013. No one from the team has received a salary yet, only rental costs (partially, I don’t remember why this amount), purchase of fixed assets, opening an account, registration of a legal entity and so on. No income, only expenses in the amount of 517,000 rubles. (contribution of the founder to the company account as an investment loan).

Fragment of management reporting for May 2013 - operational activities are not yet ongoing

Financial results of work a few months after launch

Management balance sheet May-September 2013 and we are gradually spending investors’ money

If you look at p/l until September 2013, you can see an increase in costs for the wage fund and the purchase of fixed assets (administrative expenses - repairs, notary expenses, office supplies, some non-IT operating systems, office goodies, water, etc.) . But a portfolio also appeared on our website (modest of course). Legal expenses - we engaged a one-time third party to review our application development agreement. The main emphasis was placed on exclusive rights to the results of the work. Our work model does not imply the transfer of exclusive rights to the source code. There are several reasons for this, and the most important is that we have a central server part, which is common to all projects, plus we very “generously” replicate the developments of one client for others. By transferring exclusive rights, we expose ourselves to too high a risk of possible disputes with clients. Therefore, we transfer non-exclusive rights, and the client can, according to the contract, do whatever he wants with the applications. During all the time of our work, there have not yet been any special disputes with the legal departments of customers, because... we position the solution as a platform that you can connect to. The contract contains a clause according to which, if our company cannot fulfill its obligations (bankrupt), then we undertake to transfer everything source codes and conduct training for customer specialists. It has been noticed that small online stores are most afraid of not receiving exclusive rights, while large companies They take this very calmly. There were requests for the transfer of source codes, and we came to an intermediate decision for ourselves that we could rely on the experience of the 1c-bitrix company: the source codes are for sale. But in a year of work, no one has ever bought it, which allows us to conclude that most companies only in words need source codes and exclusive development rights, but in reality they just need a working solution, quickly and inexpensively. To be fair, it is worth noting that for a number of large projects with famous brands, we, for some parts of the development, prescribe exclusive rights to the result. Over the course of a year of work, we have formed a fairly loyal agreement, which is actually an agreement for the support of basic functionality. To it, there is an additional agreement for modifications, which are drawn up with order forms. This approach is quite convenient and understandable for clients.

TO early autumn 2013 the concept of our business clearly crystallized. We only take on projects for companies in the retail segment that sell via the Internet and/or have an assortment that is available for ordering for pickup (of course, I’m painting a portrait of the customer too clearly, there are different clients, but the basis is the assortment around which it is already built further logic - loyalty, payments, push, etc.). We developed applications for free, including design (naturally, trying to rely as much as possible on our developments) and basically offered 3 platforms: Apple iPhone, Apple iPad, Google Android. Quite unusual, but even taking into account the free development for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, clients rarely asked for these applications to be made for them. The support amounted to 15,000 rubles. per month (excluding VAT, since we are simplified) for all platforms.

Gradually, we even stopped actively offering these two platforms (Windows 8 and Windows Phone), because... at that time for us this would have been a completely prohibitive burden for developers, because there are deadlines specified in the contract (40 working days, this is naturally with a reserve). By the way, looking ahead, I will say that at the time of writing these lines we adhere to the same approach to development, only we have made small changes, because portfolio and developments already allow us to slightly improve the conditions for us: now the support is 18,000 rubles. per month for all platforms, development is still free, and design, if we do it ourselves, is 18,000 rubles. for each platform one time. At the same time, clients do not really want to do the design themselves, although it would seem that they can save money. The conclusion is quite simple - the cost of the issue is not so critical that the company diverts internal resources to this work. To be honest, the figures given are not the result of some thoughtful mathematics and market analysis, but an empirical assessment of comfort for the customer. But this approach only works if you are involved in a narrow segment of the market and have experience both in program code and in a general understanding of the customer’s processes.

It’s worth saying a little about what “basic functionality” is, which we offer for free. In fact, this is all that is needed to launch the first version of applications for a retail company with delivery or pickup. Moreover, we are gradually expanding the functional basic capabilities, adding, for example, output related products, reviews, product ratings, banner management, push notifications (with personal account), etc. Naturally, no functionality will cover all the client’s needs and most often we ask for a one-time payment for integration with the back office (registration, authorization, Personal Area and other “delights”). How much are we asking? Here, simply, based on experience, the figure is in the range of 70 - 90,000 rubles. If something is familiar (1C-Bitrix, for example), it’s cheaper. In the near future we will add interesting things to the basic functionality, for example: geofencing - sending push notifications when entering a given radius from a retail outlet, paying with cards directly from the application (bypassing the Apple Store with their commission), etc.

Pros and cons of the business path we have chosen

I would like to reveal our business model a little, show its pros and cons. First, about the cons. There are two sources of monetization: improvements from existing clients and payment for technical support (18,000 rubles per month). Therefore, we need to constantly expand our client base, while trying as hard as possible to convince the client to make applications progressively, using our developments, without immediately “falling” into some complex, multifunctional projects. Mostly this works, but there are exceptions. Any exception slows down our work, and we risk moving into the realm of purely custom development. Custom work will allow you to receive a larger one-time payment, but it will greatly distract the developers, which means that other projects will sag. But! Surprisingly, for the client, progressive work is a big plus too! Risks are reduced, the time it takes to release applications with sufficient basic functionality is reduced, a client base begins to grow, feedback is received, etc. The downside, of course, is that we need to do the work, often without receiving any money, which requires investment to fuel the business. Therefore, I do not recommend this model of work for a team that develops at its own expense.

Pros? Concentration on one business segment ( retail sales) allows you to feel quite confident in negotiations, because in the process of work, you gain real competence in how applications can help (or cannot, if the business is lazy to promote them). Free development within the framework of basic functionality is a definite plus and quite significant. Often a client, not knowing the value of applications, is ready to try, then it is easier for him to budget 18,000 rubles. per month of marketing funds, than to “extort” a one-time payment of hundreds of thousands of rubles from the management, realizing that if it doesn’t work out with us, they will refuse. We are not making any obstacles to this and our agreement is more than loyal. And, I think, the most important plus is that companies in the retail segment have similar processes and any improvements (and they happen regularly) can become part of the basic functionality in the future, and in the present they can be offered to other clients for little money (adaptation, in essence). For example, one company asked for geofencing functionality. What's the point? We, through a personal account on our website, make it possible to set up push notifications on different platforms if a person has entered a given radius from selected stores (say 500 m). What should I send via push? For example, a reminder about a promotion or a mobile coupon... you never know what a business will come up with. The company paid a one-time payment of about 45,000 rubles for the modification, which is not so much, because we understood the value of the functionality for other clients. And yes, indeed, many people liked it and people are asking to implement it (we call it adaptation). I can’t say that improvements for one company are always applicable to others, but roughly speaking, it works in half the cases.

It is worth noting one feature of mobile applications, which I am sure is familiar to Habr readers - applications need to be promoted. If we talk about retail companies, then, as a rule, everything is not bad with their promotion channels. There is usually a visited site where you can post various kinds a banner with calls to install applications, and, most importantly, there is a retail network with visitors. Even simple stickers with a QR code and brief information placed at checkouts can give a good return on installations. It’s paradoxical, but we often encounter the fact that a company, having received mobile applications, is simply too lazy to engage in active (and free for it) promotion, then complaining to us about the small number of orders (although we even write instructions with advice on what and how to do). In general, analytics of the behavior of retail customers in mobile applications is the topic of a separate and large post. Now I’ll note that orders go to different categories of goods (the horeca segment is best, then fashion and at the end of BT&E), and their amount varies from 20,000 rubles per day (fashion, small average bill, but high margin) up to 600,000 rub. and higher for businesses delivering products (sushi, pizza) to your home. Now through all our released mobile applications we see a turnover of over 30,000,000 rubles per month, which is not much for a good, strong online store, but not bad for a young, in general, industry called “mobile applications of retail companies.”

The most important thing is finding clients, believe me, this is simply extremely important!

How do we find clients? A strange development for 0 rubles allows us to work well on cold calls. For the first 6 months of the life of the business, I did this (it worked out terribly, because I don’t know how, and I’m embarrassed), now we have a wonderful Yulia, who works on attracting clients by phone, and I go to meetings (St. Petersburg, Moscow). You can hear her laying out her last trump card - “so our development costs 0 rubles, and there are clients from your business sector who have done this and can give recommendations.” The client’s level of interest immediately increases slightly. Naturally, even such a model does not always lead to the conclusion of an agreement, and the point is not in distrust of us (we offer a portfolio and recommendations), but in the company’s unpreparedness for applications. Naturally, there are advanced companies that clearly understand the value of applications for themselves, but more often they have to carry out explanatory work. Now we have an average of 1-2 contracts per month, clients are mainly from St. Petersburg and Moscow, although interested parties from the regions have begun to appear. The average time from the first call to the conclusion of a contract is about 1.5 months, and another about 2 months for application development. Not surprisingly, a sales scheme works well in which we refer to the experience (case) of a similar business, and ideally a competitor. Without being able to disclose all the data, we simply provide some general analytics, often impersonal.

I want to give advice that I myself would like to receive at the very beginning of our business - you need to immediately have an employee on staff who will systematically deal with cold sales, if your business is similar to ours. You can’t do this from time to time, distracted by other various tasks - wrote a blog, talked to clients, talked to developers, hurried payment, went to a meeting and started calling again. We now have a little less than 1,000 companies in our CRM database that have had at least one cold contact. And it cannot be said that there is a line of people who want to let us earn money. Call, letter, letter, call, etc. We work in a cycle with a gradual increase in the customer base and this should be done by a separate employee. In the office. I really regret that we didn’t get to this point right away and only after 5-6 months of work did we realize the need to hire, initially focusing on production (developers, designer), and not on sales. I understand that this debate is eternal, what comes first - the chicken or the egg, but I personally came to the conclusion that in the b2b segment sales come first, and only then development (production). Even if you feel some kind of “failure” in production capacity, keep in mind that the sales organization cycle is not instantaneous (in cases similar to ours, of course) and it is more important to have a client and a contract, with reserves built in on time, than strong production without constant flow of clients. For CRM, we use the free version of bitrix24 (it’s free for up to 12 employees) and that’s more than enough. If you look at the statistics, Yulia makes about 50-60 calls on average per working day (this includes both new and repeat calls). In addition to the call, you need to enter information into the CRM.

I admit that we are not very good at selling our services over the phone, but we can estimate the conversion of cold calls into concluded contracts. Something around 0.5-0.8% in a very good case. Keep in mind the seasonal factor - in the summer there is a certain period of calm, people making decisions go on vacation or simply do not really want to engage in serious discussions of new projects before it. In general, it’s not strange, if you think about it, there isn’t much time in Russia when business activity is high, people are on the ground and ready for new breakthroughs :). Moreover, we observe that Lately staff rotation is high. I often hear Yulia trying to figure out who in the marketing department can talk to her now, because... the previous person quit. And everything has to start again.

All this is great, of course, but is there any benefit from mobile applications?

There is little return on mobile applications for business, or rather retail trade. Almost every client asks for an assessment of the expected result, even taking into account the minimum investment. Here it is worth separating different segments trading business, because compare sales via apps consumer electronics and prepared foods are simply not practical. Based on our experience, we can give the following average figures. The fashion segment is absolutely possible to receive orders worth up to 1,500,000 rubles. per month after 4-6 months of application operation. If you have a business selling sushi, pizza, woks with home delivery, then with due diligence in promotion, you can collect orders up to 300,000 rubles per day (for our clients, the numbers range from 100,000 to 300,000 per day). Household appliances and electronics - up to RUB 1,000,000. per month, exactly like the “Children’s products” category. The given figures are valid for companies with an online store (maybe a retail chain). I would like to emphasize that, of course, there are much better and much worse results. There is a very clear dependence of the number of orders on the number of application installations, which, in turn, depend on the desire to talk about them.

An example of the number of daily app installations for a company in the fashion segment

An example of the number of daily installations of applications for a company in the H&E segment

Customer losses... yes, yes, this happens too

Separately, I would like to dwell on companies that refuse further cooperation. At first it was an unpleasant surprise for us - there are installations, orders are coming and... how can you refuse? After some time, an understanding of the main motives came. Our monetization model (minimum initial fee) has another significant drawback - companies that really don’t really want the application are just trying it out. There is no investment, so why not try? Expecting a fantastic return right away, they are faced with the reality of spending their time on somehow promoting what they have done with their resources. It reaches the point of absolute absurdity, which probably partially characterizes the thinking of some managers. A chain of stores, they made apps - everyone is happy. After 4-5 months they write, saying we want to refuse, because... we don’t feel any recoil. Well, this is the client’s right, but we are trying to retain it and send analytics - guys, your installations are going, screen views are growing, orders are coming! Yes, there may not be so many orders that you begin to consider mobile applications as a stable sales channel, but forgive me - the process is still in its infancy! We need to wait, accumulate an audience. Here are examples of similar businesses. It doesn’t work out, we are determined. Okay, we suggest - let's leave the applications - let them work, we don't support them, but they will work. Everything is free. We are glad, we left it, but after a while they write again - we are removing the applications altogether, because... orders for goods began to arrive again from the application, but they forgot to update the upload (xml) (!!! Apparently the robot was turned off), so customers order goods with the wrong price. We are amazed at the powerful mind of managers, but we delete the applications. We sigh and forget about the client, but he doesn’t forget about us. It says that customers who managed to install the application earlier continue (the bastards) to order goods at the old price. Do something, we are not happy with such orders and clients, and we don’t want to update the xml, because... We’re actually making a mobile website and we don’t have time for you. Hmm... strange - but how can you force those who installed them to delete the applications? The client, worried and happy that he has found a way to finish what he has done, suggests - let’s send a push to the clients that that’s it, we won’t work with you! Yes, the idea is sound, but support for push notifications has not yet been made, so we, laughing out loud, send the client an offer - let you pay for the implementation of support for push notifications, we will do it, clients who have installed will update the applications, and then We’ll tell you that we don’t want to work with you. In general, this whole story ends here.

Unfortunately, only about 10% of all incoming requests relate to the segment retail. I sometimes don’t understand what people are counting on when they ask to make a chat with photo exchange, a clone of Yandex.Taxi or others; it is doubtful that there will be successful applications in the future. We give such projects to different companies, but in all the time of our work (a year) I have not yet heard that the project has even begun, and prices start from 700,000 rubles. for development. On average, we now receive about 3-4 “incoming” requests from the site per month (they write more often than call) given the current traffic to our site. Every time, handing over a project for implementation (even without “exhaust”), I am excruciatingly offended, but realistically assessing the situation, it is simply not possible for us to complete complex projects outside the b2c/b2b sphere at the present time with the current workload. In order to cut off those who were simply curious, I began to ask the question: “Are you ready to consider the project if the price is within 300,000 rubles?” for one platform or not?

There is an informal reward on the market in the amount of 10% from each transferred client (if the project starts, of course), but we have not received anything, and I don’t think we will receive anything. But analyzing the situation, you clearly begin to understand why mobile applications for each platform cost their money when custom developed and that specializing only in a certain area of activity allows you to maintain a high pace of development. More than once, while within the team discussing the next request for, for example, an insurance company or a carrier, I carefully raised the question, saying, “Should we somehow try to fit in sideways...?” but the guys in charge of production always paid reasonable attention to the current tasks, and I forwarded the application to a third-party studio. For it is said that “a flying arrow does not wag its tail” :) and although this sounds beautiful in a situation of constant replenishment with investment money...

IIDF and other sources of financing

Returning to our story, as I already mentioned, in the fall of 2013 we submitted our application to the IIDF accelerator and, miraculously, we first made it into the TOP100 projects, and then into the list of those who were invited to the acceleration program in Moscow. The IIDF fund then had two types of participation - online acceleration (full-time) and offline (correspondence). We were offered a full-time program and for it the fund asked for 7% of the business and gave money (something about 1,000,000 rubles, and part of it goes directly to training). The interesting thing is that we were chosen somewhere at all, because... in fact, we were not very different from a regular studio, except that we developed our platform and concentrated on retail. I think that the reason is that the fund categorically lacked more or less “intelligible” projects that showed at least some results. I’ll say right away that I in no way criticize the foundation; on the contrary, I think that they are doing a great job in Russia, because at the most early stages A young company doesn’t have many options where to go. And FRII is a good alternative. Moreover, their first set, in fact, was also a startup with all the ensuing consequences. Now they seem to be on their fourth or fifth recruitment, but I still have the feeling that the problem is not with the availability of money, but with strong teams with good ideas, which can then actually be monetized.

In general, if you think about it, the requirements put forward by funds look like a trap. Judge for yourself - the project must be scalable, clearly monetized, there must be a team (preferably 2-3 founders). It’s not very easy to imagine that 3 adults who have to feed themselves and their family get together and make a prototype for a while, in order to then have a small chance of getting investment. What do they eat in between? Moreover, if you look at the same IIDF, then a few teams from all sets generally received more or less serious investments.

We abandoned the face-to-face scheme because... They couldn’t just quit their business and study in Moscow for 3 months and then communicated with their mentor via correspondence (video conferences on Skype once a week). Naturally, we had access to all the materials via email. video from the full-time program, but frankly speaking, I personally did not see their value for myself. As a result, we were invited to demo day - the day of presentation to investors, or rather to a rehearsal for this day. Considering that it was too luxurious to go to Moscow for 10 minutes of rehearsal, we asked to immediately come to demo day and... we weren’t invited anywhere else :). This is absolutely our fault, because... From the very beginning we did not feel, at that time, any urgent need for additional. investments and were generally surprised that we were selected for the short list of participants. In any case, I wish the guys good luck, they were often criticized in the media, ridiculing the companies they supported, but the industry is young, they have not yet accumulated experience, and they are pioneers somewhere.

But there are programs in Russia that we would like to get into, but they no longer accept us. This is a Microsoft technology grant that is awarded twice a year. Here I will make a small digression. In our work we use all Microsoft products, and in particular cloud services Azure. The client part is developed using Xamarin (formerly Mono) (they recently received the status of a partner of this company) in C#. In May 2013, we applied for participation in the Microsoft BizPark program and I really want to say a sincere “thank you” to Microsoft for having the opportunity to completely legally use all the software we need, including paid Azure cloud resources (there is a limitation, but we have not yet reached it - we optimize server calculations as much as possible).

At the beginning of 2014, we received Microsoft Startup Accelerator status, which gives more technological support and significantly expanding cloud resources paid for by Microsoft ($60,000 per year). We have a curator and I must admit, it’s very comfortable to work with. Given our focus on Microsoft products, we really counted on receiving the grant. I won’t go into depth about the grant itself; you can read everything on the website ms-start.ru. Let me just say that we applied twice in 2013 and were rejected both times. The reasons for the refusal are not stated, but in fact they are on the surface - we have a kind of hybrid business model: neither custom work nor an application designer. Semi-automatic This model is not scalable, it has significant disadvantages, and it was our disadvantages that forced us to try new projects.

In May 2014, we applied for a grant again, but this time to support our tapki project, which is a much more scalable business. I’ll tell you what happened in the end in part 2, which I’m already preparing for publication on Habré.

What do we have today?

Returning to the story - what do we have in our assets now, after a little more than a year of work? A team of 15 people (most of them developers), ~32 concluded contracts (some are still being developed and there are no payments) and a little less clients at the conclusion stage (they think). It would seem - super (except for profit), and everything that has been said about the advantages of our business is of course great, but we are linear. Trying to work in the “triangle”: application quality, price, deadlines - we get neat mobile applications, but there is another dimension - resources! The more clients we have, the more developers we need, the further the break-even point moves away. This is another disadvantage, which actually forced us to simultaneously take on a new project - tapki (again increasing costs, having secured the support of investors for the project in advance). To be fair, I note that there is no absolutely clear linear relationship between the number of people in a business and the number of clients. Some clients “freeze” for months without requiring modifications (and therefore attention) and we switch to new projects. This fact allows us to estimate the break-even point and predict profit. I would even say that we have a small but “positive expectation” in our business.

Below is our management balance sheet from May 2013 (starting the business) to March 2014. It is clear that there is an increase in income, but, to our great regret, an increase in expenses. The reason for the increase in costs is that by this time we had gained a more or less significant customer base, but in addition to simply concluding an agreement, we also need to make applications. And here we have fallen into a new trap - lack of resources. Those. we had enough resources to support the created applications, but not enough to create new ones. If we were talking about mobile application designers, then there would be no customization for clients. And here they started. The table shows that 50% is maintenance, 50% is improvements, and this ratio remains, plus or minus, to this day. The growth of personnel led to the need for us to expand space - the rent increased. What I want to draw your attention to is the unevenness of receipts Money. Our income consists of payments for support and improvements. If support can still be considered a guaranteed income for some foreseeable period of time, then improvements are an extremely chaotic matter. Naturally, we make efforts to stimulate the development of applications, but it doesn’t happen all the time. Naturally, as the client base develops, there is a general increase in turnover, but there are months when there are no improvements at all, and we “fail” in financial planning. It is also worth noting that the noticeable increase in costs from December 13 to March 14 is due precisely to the fact that we began to strengthen the team to conduct a new project, but we have not yet divided the costs. As I already noted, we do not observe a completely linear relationship between the number of clients and programmers. The fact is that the load is very uneven both for initial development and for modifications. We have a client (a large fashion chain), work on which began a little less than a year ago, and it’s not our fault - because... The company is very large, approval processes take time.

Management balance sheet May 2013 - March 2014 - increasing clients, employees and... losses

The company operates under a simplified taxation system (STS) and in 99.9% of cases we have not encountered problems with the lack of VAT on the part of customers. We chose for ourselves a scheme of 10% of the difference between income and expenses, but since... Our final balance is negative, at the end of the year we pay 1% of income to the state (this can be seen in March 2014 - 7,460 rubles - tax for 2013). At the beginning of 2014, we increased the size of the occupied space (an increase in costs for this item is visible), because They simply didn’t fit anymore (an adjacent room, a hole in the wall - it’s all very simple). We have a small income from electronic money and, accordingly, have expenses (to pay for a vacancy on hh.ru, for example), but this is an exception to the rule, because we work under a contract.

Starting in April 2014, we began to divide management balances - part of the team continued to develop mobile applications, and part - tapki. Our investors supported the idea itself (more on it a little later) and the fact that we are beginning to isolate one project from another. In July 2014, we came to the conclusion that it is necessary not only to divide according to internal accounting - the division must be done at the accounting level too (individual legal entities). More precisely, we were simply advised to do this by the guys from IIDF, explaining that this is the only way to attract investment money to a new project. It is worth recognizing that in the world of mobile application development, only pure developers are considered by investors to be tasty scalable projects where it makes sense to invest. And we, even the name of the platform, continue (this is a fact) to engage in custom projects. At the same time, tapki is a scalable project and if we want to attract investments into it, it needs to be separated as much as possible from the parent company.

We applied for registration of a new legal entity "TAPKI" LLC (in general, I advise, if possible, to name the legal entity the same as the brand - somehow it turns out more accurately) and at the end of August we completely transferred part of the team responsible for the new project to this legal entity. I understand that the side project, which we did not separate from the parent company, introduced certain distortions into the figures, but the understanding that it was necessary to divide did not come immediately, because Any new project goes through a number of stages, and only starting from a certain stage do you assess how many resources it actually consumes.

Management balance sheet of the company until July 2014

If we take July 2014 as a basis, we can draw the following conclusion - for our business with the current load, “cleared” monthly costs will be about 900,000 rubles (this amount also includes one-time costs, for example - purchased air conditioning this summer, or an additional monitor for the programmer... although such payments should, in an amicable way, be isolated). In July 2014, we had more incoming payments for improvements than for support, but, as you can see from the table, this is not always true. But I can definitely note that the more clients you have, the more incoming requests you will have for various kinds of improvements.

Below are (on one graph) income, expenses and final results (from May 2013 to July 2014 inclusive). It is clear that the notissimus project, as noted, is still an investment project, but there is hope that by the winter of 2014 we will reach zero and begin to return the funds invested by the investor. It is worth noting here that since we have exceeded the initial requests for investment allocation, then we will return 100% of the profit (when it occurs) to the investor, and not according to shares in the authorized capital. When we return the amount exceeding the initially requested investment, then (I hope) we will begin to discuss how to divide the profit. Globally speaking, investors give money as a loan, otherwise all shareholders would have to contribute money to the project, according to their shares in the business. At the same time, when the company makes a profit, it begins to repay this loan in the amount as agreed.

The red line is the final result of the activity, numbers in brackets, because they are negative. The numbers starting from April 14 can be considered basic for a studio that only develops mobile applications, without side projects. Can Habr readers use this to analyze the launch of their business? I think so, because... we worked in the absence of large anchor clients from the very start (Russian Post, tender for 19,000,000 rubles for mobile applications), although, of course, we need to make a significant adjustment for two factors: we have an investor and we have chosen a rather strange monetization model and very niche work.

Graph of the company’s management results for just over a year

I made myself, among others, an important conclusion - you shouldn’t be shy about asking for money for quality work, even if the company is very young, and it is necessary (!) to insist on an advance payment if the work to be done is a little more than small. You won’t believe how many times we regretted at the start of the next project that we did not receive at least some funds into our account. This is not about customers being deceived, it’s just that this is not a grocery store - you received the goods in your hands (for example, a loaf of bread) and gave the seller money. This does NOT work here (I'm not talking about government tenders with bank guarantees). Development is not the finished proverbial loaf of bread, but a constant dialogue with the client who changes his mind, forgets, gets angry, has hopes and all this together, multiplied by accelerating input from management, etc. And if the work is carried out in advance, then all the risks are transferred to the studio. And in those projects where there were advance payments, the situation quickly moved into a constructive plane. Moreover, now, for complex tasks, we insist on 100% prepayment, trying to explain to the client why this is so.

What is tapki? When creating mobile applications for retail, you willy-nilly think about bringing together your experience and customers into something aggregating and scalable. In March 2014, these ideas floating in the air acquired something more or less intelligible and we decided for ourselves that we needed to allocate part of our internal resources to this project. This is an aggregator of goods (in the future, maybe services) from retail companies in different segments, working on all platforms, with an emphasis on product promotions and sales. It sounds a little banal, but frankly speaking, we still do not have a “hard-won” business model for the project that would have received confirmation of its viability in practice. Although it is already clear that making a competitor to Yandex.Market is simply stupid, so we see non-standard and interesting solutions in terms of bringing online to offline using ibeacon technology.

The name itself came about by chance, one morning they started discussing options for the name, made a list, and then, during lunch, one of the guys suggested this name and we were hooked. Not everyone liked it right away, but gradually, the most ardent opponents of the name got involved. The domains tapki.ru and tapki.com turned out to be occupied (and not surprisingly) and I, not expecting any response, wrote to the owners of tapki.com, reasoning that, all other things being equal, the domain in the.com zone is more interesting and promising. The answer came the next day with a price of $1875. No haggling. It was proposed to buy a domain through the intermediary service escrow.com, which asked about $100 for its services and, having no experience working with foreign squatters, decided to overpay. The scheme is simple - the money is deposited by the intermediary and transferred to the seller from the moment the whois data is changed (by credit card paid). The entire purchase procedure took about a week and about 77,000 rubles in money. Not cheap, but it seems to me that for a long-term project it is a reasonable investment. It’s interesting that when I told my friends on Facebook about buying the tapki.com domain, they advised me to also register fapki.com, because people can make typing mistakes. It was in the morning, around 11.00, I looked and was surprised that the fapki.com domain was free, and when I finally decided to register, after lunch the domain was taken - squatters are not asleep, in short. It would be great to buy the tapki.ru domain at the same time - but it’s not clear who to write to, because... There are no contacts in whois.

Views