How I opened an IT studio for the development of mobile applications. Mobile application development business plan Mobile application development business

Zhdanova Ksenia Denisovna

Faculty of Mathematical Economics, Statistics and Informatics, PRUE G.V. Plekhanov Moscow, Russia

Annotation: “Have you ever faced such a problem: do your parents use Viber, friends of WhatsApp and Telegramm, and colleagues at work exclusively use Facebook? If your answer is yes, then our & WVTF app is especially for you! " The value of this idea lies in the fact that a person who uses several software products such as Viber, WhatsApp, Telegramm and Facebook, will be able to communicate with all contacts from one application, without having to switch between several programs.

Keywords: Business plan, A. Osterwalder's business model, mobile application, Investment, innovation model

Developing a business plan of mobile applications & WVTF

Zhdanova Ksenia Denisovna

Faculty of Mathematical Economics, Statistics and Informatics Plekhanov Russian University of Economics Moscow, Russia

Abstract: The purpose of the project - to create a unique mobile application to aggregate messages from different messengers. "Have you ever faced such a problem: your parents use Viber, WhatsApp and friends Telegramm, and colleagues are extremely Facebook? If your answer is" yes ", then our application" & WVTF "especially for you!" The value of this idea is that a person using multiple software products, such as Viber, WhatsApp, Telegramm and Facebook, will be able to chat with all your contacts from a single application, without the need to switch between multiple programs.

Keywords: The business plan, business model of A.Ostervalder, mobile application, investment, innovation model

1. SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT

The business idea is to create an application that aggregates the most popular instant messengers.

Our company will be engaged in the production, implementation and maintenance of the & WVTF mobile application, which will aggregate several popular instant messengers at once, such as:

1) WHATSAPP,

2) VIBER,

3) Facebook,

4) TELEGRAM

The goal of this project is to create a unique mobile application for aggregating messages from different messengers.

Our customers will be people who use several instant messengers at once, because the interlocutors use various programs (due to the peculiarities of the phone's operating system and preferences). Thus, people will be able to communicate without having to switch between different programs and windows. The buyers will be both IOS and Android users. The age segment of buyers is from 7 to 99 years old.

We will deliver information to customers via the Internet, namely through the AppStore and GooglePlay applications. Advertising using the Vkontakte group and Yandex.Direct

Our competitors are Nimbuzz and Snowball apps. The main difference is the messengers included in our application. These are the most popular messengers.

The long term prospects are:

• Increase in the number of clients
• Adding the most popular and demanded instant messengers to our application, i.e. development of a mobile application.

Start-up funding requirements and income after project implementation:

Starting capital = 300,000 rubles

For the first MONTH of work, it is planned to sell 5000 paid versions of the application at a price of $ 1 / version. Thus, the sales income for the first month will be 300,000 rubles.

When selling free versions, in which pop-up ads appear, an income for the first month is planned in the amount of 100,000 rubles.

Suppose that starting from the 2nd month from the start of sales, it is planned to sell 2,500 applications per month, the income will be 150,000 rubles + sales income of 100,000 rubles = 250,000 rubles per month. TOTAL = 400,000 + 11 * 250,000 = 400,000 + 2,750,000 = 3,150,000 rubles

Organizational and legal form of the enterprise - Individual entrepreneur

It is planned to attract 5 employees:

1. Chief programmer,

2. Programmer,

3. Technical support specialist (2 employees),

4. Manager.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

The type of our investment project is the creation of a project "from scratch", because the project is innovative and has no previous versions.

At the moment, the project is at the stage of “Gathering a team” and “Creating a concept”.

At the time of launch, it is planned to implement the project throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, and after a successful launch, we plan to expand the area of ​​action and allow using our application all over the world.

The goal of this project is to create a unique mobile application for aggregating messages from different messengers.

How our business idea was born: “Have you ever faced such a problem: your parents use Viber, friends of WhatsApp and Telegramm, and colleagues at work exclusively use Facebook? If your answer is “yes”, then our application “& WVTF" especially for you!"

The value of this idea lies in the fact that a person using several software products at once, such as Viber, WhatsApp, Telegramm and Facebook, will be able to communicate with all contacts from one application, without having to switch between several programs.

To achieve the goal of our project, it is necessary to sign contracts for the provision of servers from Viber, WhatsApp, Telegramm and Facebook. This will be done through the API (Application Programming Interface). The API defines the functionality that the program (module, library) provides, while the API allows you to abstract from how exactly this functionality is implemented.

The term for achieving the goal of the project - from the beginning of the creation of the application to the publication of applications in the AppStore and GooglePlay - will not exceed 2 months.

3. INFORMATION ABOUT THE MAIN PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

History:

There is no story about the borrower, because this is the first startup.

The main participants in the project:

• Chief programmer
• Programmer

The order of interaction in the project- the founder of the business (he is also a manager) concludes a contract with the above specialists, specifying their job responsibilities.

The manager is obliged to write the TK in accordance with GOST No. 34 and transfer it to the chief programmer, as well as conclude contracts for access to the WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, FaceBook servers. In turn, the chief programmer brings the programmer up to date to start building the application. After the allotted time, the programmers are obliged to show the preliminary version to the manager for approval and further work.

Organizational plan:

A start-up capital of 300,000 rubles is required, which will be financed by the founder of the business.

The first 2 months will be a waste of start-up capital, then the startup starts to make a profit.

Table 1. Calculation of the required investments

4. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Product program:

We offer you a new messenger & WVTF:

1) Convenient intuitive interface

2) Ability to purchase a free version

3) Save battery power and memory in your smartphone by using one messenger instead of 4!

4) Our app is available for Android and IOS smartphones

5) Ability to use one application instead of 4 without losing the functionality of all programs

We will provide 2 view of our application:

a. Website iphones.ru is free(under testing)

b. Website appleinsider.ru/obzory-prilozhenij - paid

c. Website appstudio.org/ios-apps - paid (7000 rubles)

2) For Android users:

a. Website androidinsider.ru - paid

b. Website ferra.ru/ru/apps/ - paid

c. Website android4all.ru/soft - is free

1. Gathering the team

2. Payment for the services of a programmer

3. Writing applications for operating systems IOS and Android

4. Obtaining a patent for the application

6. Implementation of applications in Google Play and AppStore

7. Development marketing strategy to attract new customers

8. Technical support for users

9. FINANCIAL PLAN (FORECAST STATEMENTS, INDICATORS)

Project performance indicators:

1) DPBP (DISCOUNTED PAYBACK PERIOD). This is the time for which the current (discounted) net cash flow of the project will exceed the initial investment. This indicator reflects the period after which all the money invested in the project is returned, provided that the discount rate is correctly selected. The indicator should not exceed the duration of the project, otherwise the project will be considered unprofitable.

2) NPV (NET PRESENT INCOME). One of key indicators of the project, which is the current (discounted) amount of net cash flows from the project implementation (the difference between all cash inflows and outflows), calculated taking into account the expected change in the value of money. Shows the absolute value Money(income) that the bank or investor will receive from investing money in your project. Allows you to compare projects of equal duration and takes into account their scale. For a project to be considered profitable, this indicator must be at least greater than zero.

3) IRR (INTERNAL RATE OF PROFITABILITY). Along with NPV, it is one of the key indicators of the project and characterizes the degree of profitability of the invested money, taking into account the time factor and subject to full coverage of all project costs from income. It is calculated as a barrier rate - the discount rate at which the NPV of the project is 0. IRR allows you to compare the efficiency of investments in the project with alternative options for financial investments (for example, in other more profitable projects) and shows the relative profitability of the project per unit of invested funds. This figure should be higher than the discount rate.

4) PI (PROJECT PROFITABILITY INDEX). It is also one of the key indicators of the project and is calculated as the ratio of NPV to initial investment. Shows the relative profitability of a project compared to other projects with a comparable initial investment. If the index value is equal to one or less, it loses to other projects and investments and actually makes the project of little interest to the bank or investor.

Investment size:

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

Business analysis of the 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 the TOR and ordering the development of the application:

• What goals do you plan to achieve by creating and releasing your own mobile application?
• Are there any plans for sales / conversion of conversions to sales of goods and services within the application?
• Who is your the target audience and at whose expense can it be replenished?
• How strong is the competition in the field in which you plan to work (including with the application)?
• What applications do your audience and the audience of your competitors use, do they overlap? Are they ready to use your app instead of analog apps?
• What is the budget for the development and promotion of the resulting application?

Before starting the development, it is necessary to receive a technical assignment (TOR) from the customer or provide him with a brief for filling out and further work on this document.

After receiving the completed brief and / or technical specification, you can start 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 TOR, the development process can be launched.

Prototyping

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

Static prototypes and interactive layouts should be made taking into account the technical and software base that you plan to use to create the application.

Coding and technology implementation

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

Testing

At various stages of application development, it is mandatory to test the application internally 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 modifications of 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, application store Windows Phone(depending on what platform you are developing for) or any similar service for distributing applications.

Adding an app 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 step: 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 place an application in the App Store or Google Play on behalf of the customer (White Label service), provide server support for the application.

If you are ready order a package of basic and / or additional services for the development of a native application - write: we will discuss with you the terms, cost, help draw up a technical assignment 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.

Ilya Mikhailov - on how to work in a super-competitive niche and why a team is more important than investments

Ilya Mikhailov, co-owner and team lead of the Utro IT company (Chelyabinsk). The main specialization of the company is development mobile applications and software, implementation of complex IT solutions.

"You need to be ready for a huge amount of work"

Even from the second year I immersed myself in the IT sphere quite tightly. I wrote programs and worked for a company that served large customers in Chelyabinsk. Gradually, not only experience has been accumulated, but also an understanding of which processes or projects can significantly help a particular business, - says Ilya. “However, many of these ideas and initiatives, for various reasons, could not be implemented in a previous job. I wanted more freedom in making decisions and implementing new projects.

Last summer I happened to be at the youth forum in the shift "Young Entrepreneurs". I decided to get the most out of this event, so I attended all master classes, lectures and meetings, listened to all the curators. I didn’t find the cultural program: when everyone was returning from concerts to sleep, I was still "overpowering" the already tired teachers and experts, we must pay tribute to their patience. In my opinion, 70% of the guys came to "pamper", and the ideas for starting a business were so-so. I thought that if people come and open firms "making slippers", then I simply have to start my own business in IT!

Upon arrival, I met a friend who had also just returned from another event. The first thing he suggested to me was to open a company. So so be it. The main thing is to be ready for a huge amount of work, colossal emotional investments, to understand that you will have to take risks and make mistakes. We'll have to live it! Nothing goes smoothly. In addition, there is a fairly high level of competition in this area. But we receive many orders precisely because of the “informal” approach to business. Clients often do not understand the whole technology, so there is no specific technical task. Quite often it is necessary to jointly come up with a mobile service almost from scratch. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why I enjoy doing this.

There were few investments. Basically, registration legal entity, legal services and organizational costs for starting "marketing things": site design, form style, business cards and more. Everything paid off after the first order.

We also did not invest much in advertising, since the earth is full of rumors. Networking helps a lot. First of all, he told what we were doing to everyone he could. I have many friends from the IT sphere on social networks. They, in turn, at the first opportunity and the mention of the mobile application, link to me. While this is enough, with each new project we have, no matter how trite it sounds, satisfied customers. They recommend to their colleagues, friends, partners and so on. Word of mouth works.

The first commercial project will be remembered forever. This was the app for the judo world championship. One fine day there was a call from the organizing committee - they asked if it was realistic to make an application for the World Cup. I looked at the calendar: there were three weeks left before the event. At that time I had neither a designer nor a well-organized team. I think they turned to me because the task was almost unrealistic: ten days and no budget.

"I've never been so lucky before."

But I agreed, for me it was a kind of "challenge" (in English - a challenge). We met the next day, discussed the main functionality. I dropped all other tasks, took a few days off at my main job and started to "saw". He did everything himself: design based on the corporate identity of the World Cup, came up with the functionality during development, the server side and the database, agreed with the integration of tickets into the application - all one. For the English version, I connected a translator. As a result, two designs were developed in ten days and the structure of the application was changed several times. I slept a little, worked a lot. I sent the application for moderation and waited.

There were some problems: after the launch, we found several errors in the schedule of events that could mislead users, and the application was already actively downloaded in the stores. I had to quickly update and send out notifications about changes in the schedule. But, in general, with the exception of some points, everything went smoothly, the application became available to users three days before the World Cup. I've never been so lucky.

Then, in a week and a half, we went through the development cycle, which now we are doing with the team in a month. I would call it an intense dive. It was hard: these days I didn't seem to perceive the surrounding reality, I was focused only on the application. After such a frantic pace, the normal regime came to its senses for another week.

"Personal contact with the team is important"

In terms of format, our studio is not like a proven business model, but a startup, where a lot is done on the enthusiasm and ambitions of the team. And it is personal contact with colleagues that is important - to be on the same wavelength in order to do cool and high-profile projects.

It's not enough to be just good manager, invest 100 thousand on registration of a legal entity, rent a cabinet, hire a couple of developers and a sales manager. Although, who knows, maybe this is possible, but this is definitely not about our idea and not about our business.

The team now has ten people. We have an excellent accountant, we love him very much. We don’t make contracts ourselves, we have a lawyer for that. Of course, you can be greedy and try to do everything yourself, but it's not worth it, I tried it. The company is registered in Chelyabinsk. Geographically - Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Kiev. Distance is not an obstacle - communications are well established. Of course, there is an office, but, to be honest, I think that you need a smartphone, a laptop and the Internet to work. My "office" is always with me: I have to travel a lot to meetings with clients, to professional events, many of which are in other cities. For our business, mobility is much more important than routine office sitting. There is no work schedule in the classical sense either, because sometimes we work in a 24/7 format.

"The main thing is not to allow panic"

The most difficult at the beginning was the state of uncertainty. There were moments when the order came to an end, and on the next one either had not yet agreed, or it was not at all. And you have to pay. At first, this moment was both stimulating and depressing. It's hard to be in a state where you don't understand what will happen in a couple of weeks, but then you get used to it. The main thing is not to allow panic, it is demoralizing. Calm confidence, as they say: "Do what you must and be what will be." Therefore, I just gather my thoughts, start looking for orders and work. The result is not long in coming.

Of course, there were some difficulties with clients. A very difficult project was with a foreign customer. All preliminary agreements were reached, agreements of intent were signed, work was in full swing. As a result, when the first part was published, we were told: "Thank you, we will not work further." I felt that something had gone wrong. The customer used very general terms and phrases: “not visible in the project systems approach"," There are security problems "and so on. At that time I was very angry, first of all, with myself. It was not so much the missed opportunity to earn a substantial sum that frustrated and knocked out of the rut, but the misunderstanding of what exactly we did wrong in the project. We re-read a bunch of literature, studied a huge number of development methodologies, carried out "work on errors" by leaps and bounds.

“When you launch a product on the market, you immediately have a dozen competitors. And even if your application is unique and shoots out, a bunch of similar ones immediately appear. Therefore, you constantly need to track your competitors, follow their updates, reviews, ratings "

Now I understand: it was a good kick, which made me think over the work of the team, abandon old tools, raise everyone to a new level. If earlier communication took place in chats, mail, skype, by phone, now it is a centralized program that receives not only messages, but all the activities of employees. The designer made the layout, everyone saw, the task immediately fell to the developers. The developer has released a build, everyone knows about it, testers look at bugs, throw off tasks to developers. An error occurred with the user, he does not even need to write a review, bypassing everyone, a bug report is immediately created. Operational activities are fully automated, I only observe the process and turn on if there are problems (there are, however, enough of them too).

In general, it is very difficult to work with government agencies: a lot of approvals and paperwork leaves an imprint on the timing and interactions in the project. But this is something that you are not insured against when working with commercial companies - colleagues in the shop will understand. It happens that you develop or implement some complex functionality in a few days, and then just wait for two or three weeks for approval. We stand for free communication and trust, we meet halfway and sometimes undertake the development, when our lawyers are still finalizing the documents. There is a certain risk. But the client also trusts us with his data - attendance, passwords to sites, and so on.

There is another pressing problem in this business. Everyone in the team should have a narrow specialization, then work on a project is a clear, well-coordinated mechanism. And only then is the result guaranteed. We have experts who have been in the industry for 15 years, there are “young” and ambitious, but already proven specialists who have eaten more than one dog in their business. But there are always enthusiasts on the market who have looked at lessons on the Internet and think that they alone are capable of making a good product at a very low cost. They come to customers and talk about it. Guys, can't good app cost 30,000 rubles.

But on the Internet, in app stores, there is a real battle for each user. When you launch a product on the market, you immediately have a dozen competitors. And even if your application is unique and shoots out, a bunch of similar ones immediately appear. Therefore, you constantly need to track your competitors, follow their updates, reviews, ratings.

"For a successful business, money is not the main thing"

I can say for sure that for successful business money is not the main thing, the main investments are people. It is very difficult to assemble a team that is professionally ready to perform complex tasks, has certain visions in this area and is able to work harmoniously. Sometimes, as in any business, force majeure happens, you have to urgently raise everyone. It's great that we have reached an understanding with everyone in this regard.

Perhaps one gets the impression that opening an IT studio is quite simple and everyone can do it, but this is just in words everything is simple. In reality, we worked hard day and night. There are many pitfalls behind the external lightness and simplicity of the process. I have already told about some of them. It is important to understand that you will have to invest a lot of personal time and sacrifice other things, priorities. An ideal alignment when there is an order immediately and guarantees for the following. Because by hiring people, you take responsibility: they need to be provided with jobs and wages, even if there are no orders. And this is unprofitable in the studio, therefore, when starting a business, it is important to immediately establish a regular flow of orders.

At the present time we are planning to improve the quality of the development, to further adjust to each other. We also plan to make several of our large projects and shift the balance in their direction, but for now we are in search of a sensible idea that we all believe in.

Statistically, we look at the smartphone screen every six minutes. We spend most of our time on mobile apps. Mobile app development has already become an independent industry that needs its own specialists.

In the book Mobile Applications as a Business Tool, a startup surgeon, creator of the Creators art bureau, Vyacheslav Semenchuk, talks about who works in the industry and which specialist is responsible for what.

In a mobile applications company, employees can be roughly divided into three groups - technicians, customer service specialists, and marketing. All of them are equally important for business and are valued in the labor market.

Technical specialists:

Designer
Responsible for appearance and the usability of the mobile application. If the application is ugly, no one will pay attention to it, and if it is also inconvenient, then this is a complete failure.

“A designer cannot be a universal specialist,” warns Vyacheslav Semenchuk. - A web designer will not be able to make a high-quality print design, and a printer will not be able to make a web design. Neither one nor the other will be able to make a high-quality design of a mobile application, since a mobile application designer needs different skills. He must have a good understanding of the mobile development process and create a design that is not only beautiful and user-friendly, but can also be the basis for high-quality writing of software code. He must understand that each platform has its own design guidelines (iOS, Android, Windows), and be able to do actually three different designs for each platform. "

“If we talk about a designer of mobile applications, then in a small studio he can count on 100-150 thousand rubles a month, in a large company - from 150 thousand, - explained the website Vyacheslav Semenchuk to the reporter. "In the gaming industry, the price tag could be even higher."

Programmer
Writes the application code, attaches the design to it and makes everything work. “Just like designers, programmers are rarely universal specialists,” Semenchuk writes. - The job of a web programmer is much easier, and the programmer who writes the code for your mobile application has to write three different codes for different platforms (iOS, Android, Windows). In large studios, three different programmers do this job. The salary level varies depending on the experience of the specialist, on average from 80 thousand for the entry-level and from 200 thousand for the "stars". "

System Administrator
, which should ensure the uninterrupted operation of the company's servers with which mobile applications work, their fine-tuning and optimization.
The average level of salaries in the market is from 40 to 90-100 thousand rubles.

Work with clients

Sales Manager
“Such a person will analyze your request to say what kind of proposal this studio can make, given your budget,” writes Vyacheslav. - Or calculate the budget of the app you described in terms of reference».

A sales manager should have an understanding of the stages of writing a mobile application, the complexity of the work and the resources that may be required. His task is not only to sell the contract, but also to help the client determine the functionality of the mobile application within the budget, so that in the end everyone is satisfied.
The salary of a sales manager in this industry differs little from all the others: 30-50 thousand a fixed part and a percentage of sales.

Project manager
The person who will be responsible for communication between the customer and the team. Of course, he also needs to be aware of the internal "kitchen" of developments. “The manager organizes and coordinates the work of the development team, which may include 5 or 50 people,” explains the author of the book. - Each developer does his job and has no idea what the other is doing. Therefore, so that they not only know about each other, but also do everything with the same speed and quality, someone must lead them and coordinate their work. The project manager does just that. "
The salary of a project manager depends on the size of the company and the functionality. According to Vyacheslav Semenchuk, on average in the industry, it can be about 80-100 thousand rubles.

In 2008, the first iPhone was in the hands of Maxim Voloshin. New Product I liked Apple so much that, together with his colleagues, Maxim decided to start developing applications for the Apple App Store. In the first three months, the mobile IQ Test brought developers 4 thousand dollars. Then there were several games. But when the big game companies entered the app market, the startup's sales dropped. Then Redmadrobot decided to create custom mobile applications. Today, the company's clients include publishing houses, mobile operators and banks. This year, the proceeds should be 90 million rubles.

Redmadrobot

field of activity: mobile application development

Date of creation: November 2008

Money to start: 50 thousand rubles

Business idea

Maxim Voloshin

founder of Redmadrobot

When I was 18 years old, in the evenings I studied to be an engineer at MIREA, and during the day I worked as a courier in a design studio. I was proactive, so I soon became an assistant manager, then a manager, by the age of 25 - a project director. We have developed corporate identity, logos, brand books and more.

In the studio, I met Alexander Alyokhin, a web interface specialist, and Nikolai Satunkin, project manager, with whom we later launched Redmadrobot.

In 2008, the first iPhone was released, and we immediately ordered three of them from America. A couple of months later, the App Store started working. It was almost empty, and we thought, why don't we make a couple of iPhone apps.

Success and disappointment

The simplest thing you could think of was the mobile IQ Test. There was nothing to invent here: a ready-made algorithm, an easy interface. We found a programmer, bought him a white MacBook for 30 thousand rubles (without a MacBook it is impossible to write code for iOS) and paid 20 thousand rubles for development. This was our start-up capital.

It turned out to be easy to register an account in the App Store, while it was more difficult to draw up documents for receiving money from downloads. Organizational and legal issues took three months. We sold the app for $ 1.99, of which Apple got 30%, minus tax, the rest to us. For three months the application was downloaded by about 3 thousand people.

I still remember the moment when I received a long SMS in English. I was driving around the city and did not immediately figure out what was going on there. It turned out that I received 4 thousand dollars from the installs of our application.

At that moment, it became clear to us that it was possible to earn money on applications. We released several arcade and quest games and came up with Redmadrobot. We really liked the word “robot”, “Red” is our favorite color, “Mad” is the rejection of stereotypes. Money started to drip from the sale of our applications, and we left the studio. But a couple of months later, large gaming companies rushed to the App Store, investing 500 thousand dollars in the development of their products. It became clear that we will not build a business on gaming applications.

Growth problems

By 2011, media holdings, banks, and mobile operators decided all at once that they needed a mobile application. Everyone was in a hurry to get around the competition. Some did something on their own, others turned to offices that promised to do something quickly and cheaply. And so and so it turned out badly. Then they started looking for outsourcing companies that have a staff and at least some kind of portfolio, and they often found Redmadrobot.

A dozen orders hit us. At first we were delighted, but quickly realized that we were not coping. Our experience and team were lacking. Large clients assumed a completely different level of development, which we did not really match (at that moment no one on the market matched it). For example, just to properly test applications, it was necessary to increase the team by a third, which we could not afford right off the bat.

Deadlines flew, applications crashed, customers were indignant. The situation was critical. We urgently needed programmers, designers, test engineers, business analysts, high-level managers.

Before that, we subcontracted part of the work, with the arrival of large companies it became clear that this was a mistake: it is impossible to control subcontractors without strong internal expertise either in terms of time or quality. We abandoned such a scheme and promptly hired a powerful backbone of the team - top managers with experience in large IT companies, who increased the staff and built our production processes... And we began to work faster and better, but a new problem arose - the threat of a cash gap.

Large client companies work without prepayment. In fact, we had to credit projects for these monsters of the market for free. All the money we earned on small orders was immediately used to cover salary gaps in large projects. The company was on the brink of survival. But there was no other option: we understood that if we didn’t get involved in a big game, we wouldn’t improve ourselves.

Market and competition

It's easy to enter the mobile app market today. Basic iOS and Android development tools are free: online courses, books, forums. According to our estimates, there are already a couple of hundred small companies on the market that cook in one "soup" - carry out small one-time orders for the development of corporate and promotional applications. There is a lot of competition among these companies.

A separate story is the professional industrial development of mobile business applications. I mean long-term projects with millions of users in different regions. Here we need experts in the field of coding and usability, as well as an infrastructure that can carry out complex integration with all systems of the client company, implement technical support and mobile product development.

There are three or four companies in the Russian market that can take on such projects, including Redmadrobot, and there is no serious competition in this market. There are enough clients for all of us. For example, now all 60 of our employees are busy, and if tomorrow comes new client, we will need to find resources for it. Among the clients are Beeline, the Life group, the Kommersant publishing house and others.

Of course, those companies that are now stewing in a common "soup" understand that they need to reach a new level. But I do not think that they will pump over at once and start competing with us.

Plans

By the end of this year, our revenue will amount to 90-100 million rubles. By the end of next year we plan to reach 150-170 million rubles. Of course, our company can grow a factory with a staff of a thousand people. At the same time, there are great risks of losing quality. Finding even 50 professionals of the level we need on the labor market is a difficult task. We'd rather lead 10-15 clients a year and make really cool products for them with a team of 100-150 people.

Our global goal is to increase the value of the company while maintaining the existing staff. This will become possible if we make a profit not only from the development of mobile applications, but also from the sale of our own products.

So, we have already launched electronic library Business.Books for mobile platforms - a joint project with Alpina Publisher paid off in eight months. This is an open source reader and corporate solution. To order, we create branded applications with the right companies a set of books. We have over 50 contracts with leading pharmaceutical companies, retailers, banks, carriers, telecom operators.

Through such projects over the next five years, we want to receive capital that we can invest in educational and scientific projects.

PHOTO: Anton Berkasov