Business plan for developing a mobile application. How to make money on mobile applications for corporations How to open a mobile application development company

Ilya Mikhailov talks about how to work in a highly competitive niche and why a team is more important than investments

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

“You have to be prepared for a huge amount of work”

Since my second year, I have been quite deeply immersed in the IT field. He wrote programs and worked for a company that served large customers in Chelyabinsk. Gradually, not only experience was accumulated, but also an understanding of which processes or projects can significantly help a particular business, - says Ilya. “However, for various reasons, many of these ideas and initiatives could not be implemented at the 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 Young Entrepreneurs shift. I decided to get the most out of this event, so I attended all the master classes, lectures and meetings, listened to all the curators. I didn’t catch the cultural program: when everyone returned from concerts to sleep, I still “overcame” the already tired teachers and experts, we must pay tribute to their patience. In my opinion, 70% of the guys came to have fun, and the ideas for starting a business were so-so. I thought that if people come and open “slipper sewing” companies, then I simply have to start my own business in IT!

Upon arrival, I met a friend who 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 prepared for a huge amount of work, huge emotional investments, to understand that you will have to take risks and make mistakes. You have to live it! Nothing goes smoothly. In addition, the competition in this area is quite high. 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. It is often necessary to jointly invent 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 of a legal entity, legal services and organizational costs for starting “marketing things”: website design, corporate identity, business cards, and more. Everything paid off after the first order.

We also didn’t invest much in advertising, as the earth is full of rumors. Networking helps a lot. First of all, he told everyone who he could what we were doing. In social networks I have many friends from the IT field. They, in turn, at the first opportunity and the mention of a mobile application, refer 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 was remembered forever. It was an app for the World Judo Championship. One fine day, the Organizing Committee called and asked if it was possible to make an application for the World Cup. I looked at the calendar: there were three weeks left before the event. I didn’t have a designer or a well-organized team then. I think they turned to me because the task was almost unrealistic: ten days and no budget.

"I've never been so lucky"

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 from my main job and began to "cut". I did everything myself: design based on the corporate identity of the World Cup, I came up with the functionality in the course of development, the server part and the database, agreed with the integration of tickets into the application - all the same. 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. Sleep little, work hard. I sent the application for moderation and waited.

There were some problems: already after the launch, they 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 notifications about changes in the schedule. But, in general, with the exception of some moments, everything went smoothly, the application became available to users three days before the World Cup. So I've never been lucky.

Then, in a week and a half, we went through the development cycle, which we now do 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 concentrated only on the application. After such a frantic pace, a week later, the normal mode came to its senses.

"Personal contact with the team is important"

Our studio format is more like not 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 make cool and high-profile projects.

It is not enough to just be a good manager, invest 100 thousand to register a legal entity, rent an office, hire a couple of developers and a sales manager. Although, who knows, maybe it’s possible, but it’s 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. The company is registered in Chelyabinsk. Geographically - Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Kiev. Distance is not a barrier - 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 meet with clients, to professional events, many of which are in other cities. Mobility is much more important to our business than just sitting in the office. There is no work schedule in the classical sense either, because sometimes we work 24/7.

“The main thing is not to panic”

The most difficult in the beginning was the state of uncertainty. There were moments when the order was coming to an end, and the next one was either not agreed yet, or it did not exist at all. And you need to pay. At first, this moment was simultaneously stimulating and oppressive. 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 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, the 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 went wrong. The customer operated with very general terms and phrases: “the project does not see a systematic approach”, “there are security problems”, and so on. I was very angry then, first of all, at myself. It was not so much the missed opportunity to earn a solid amount of money that was frustrating and unsettling, but the lack of understanding 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 bugs” 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, a bunch of similar ones immediately appear. Therefore, you constantly need to monitor competitors, follow their updates, reviews, ratings.

Now I already understand: it was a good kick that made me think over the work of the team, abandon the old tools, and 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 also all the activities of employees. The designer made a layout, everyone saw it, the task immediately fell to the developers. The developer has released a build, everyone knows about it, testers look at errors, send tasks to developers. An error has 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, also enough of them).

In general, it is very difficult to work with government agencies: a lot of approvals and paperwork affects the timing and interactions in the project. But this is something that you are not insured against, 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 you just wait for approval for two or three weeks. We are for free communication and trust, we meet halfway and sometimes take on the development, when our lawyers are still finalizing the documents. There is a certain risk. But after all, the client also trusts us with his data - appearances, 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 the project is a clear, well-coordinated mechanism. And only then the result is 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 the tutorials on the Internet and think that they alone can make a good product for a very small cost. They come to customers and talk about it. Guys, a good app cannot 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, a bunch of similar ones immediately appear. Therefore, you constantly need to track competitors, follow their updates, reviews, ratings.

“For a successful business, money is not the main thing”

I can say for sure that money is not the main thing for a successful business, 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 smoothly. Sometimes, as in any business, force majeure happens, you have to urgently raise everyone. It's great that we have reached mutual understanding with everyone in this regard.

It may seem that opening an IT studio is quite simple and everyone can do it, but this is only in words everything is simple. In reality, we worked hard day and night. Behind the external ease and simplicity of the process, there are many pitfalls. Some have already been mentioned. It is important to understand that you will have to invest a lot of personal time and sacrifice other things, priorities. The ideal situation is when there is an order immediately and guarantees for the next ones. Because when you hire people, you take responsibility: they need to be provided with work and wages, even if there are no orders. And this is not profitable in the studio, therefore, when starting a business, it is important to immediately establish a regular flow of orders.

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

Zhdanova Ksenia Denisovna

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

Annotation: “Have you ever faced such a problem: your parents use Viber, your friends use WhatsApp and Telegramm, and your work colleagues use exclusively Facebook? If your answer is yes, then our &WVTF app is just 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.

Keywords: Business plan, A. Osterwalder 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 is 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. PROJECT SUMMARY

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

Our enterprise will be engaged in the production, implementation and maintenance of the &WVTF mobile application, which will aggregate several popular 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 different 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 users and Android users. The age segment of buyers is from 7 to 99 years.

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

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

Long term perspectives are:

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

Initial funding needs 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, the income for the first month in the amount of 100,000 rubles is planned.

Suppose that starting from the 2nd month from the start of sales, it is planned to sell 2500 applications per month, the income will be equal to 150,000 rubles + sales income of 100,000 rubles = 250,000 rubles per month. TOTAL \u003d 400,000 + 11 * 250,000 \u003d 400,000 + 2,750,000 \u003d 3,150,000 rubles

Organizational and legal form of the enterprise - Individual entrepreneur

To implement the project, it is planned to attract 5 employees:

1. Chief programmer,

2. Programmer,

3. Technical support specialist (2 employees),

4. Manager.

2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

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 Russian Federation, and after a successful launch, we plan to expand the coverage area and allow our application to be used 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, your friends use WhatsApp and Telegramm, and your work colleagues use only 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 for Viber, WhatsApp, Telegramm and Facebook. This will be done through the API (Application Programming Interface). The API defines the functionality that a 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 PARTICIPANTS OF THE PROJECT

Story:

There is no history of the borrower, because this is the first startup.

The main participants of 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 a TOR in accordance with GOST No. 34 and transfer it to the chief programmer, as well as conclude contracts for access to WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, FaceBook servers. In turn, the main programmer brings the programmer up to date to start creating the application. After the allotted time, programmers are required to show the preliminary version to the manager for approval and further work.

Organizational plan:

Starting 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 begins to make a profit.

Table 1. Calculation of required investments

4. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Product program:

We offer you a new &WVTF messenger:

1) Convenient intuitive interface

2) Ability to purchase a free version

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

4) Our app is available for Android and IOS smartphones

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

We will provide 2 view of our application:

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

b. Website appleinsider.ru/obzory-prilozhenij - for a fee

c. Appstudio.org/ios-apps - for a fee (7000 rubles)

2) For Android users:

a. Site androidinsider.ru - for a fee

b. Site ferra.ru/ru/apps/ - for a fee

c. Site android4all.ru/soft - is free

1. Gathering a team

2. Payment for programmer services

3. Writing applications for IOS and Android operating systems

4. Obtaining a patent for the application

6. Implementation of applications in Google Play and AppStore

7. Development of a marketing strategy to attract new customers

8. Technical user support

9. FINANCIAL PLAN (OUTLOOK REPORTING, INDICATORS)

Project performance indicators:

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

2) NPV (NET PRESENT INCOME). One of the key indicators of the project, which is the current (discounted) amount of net cash flows from 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 amount of 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 RETURN). Along with NPV, it is one of the key indicators of the project and characterizes the degree of return on 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 - a discount rate at which the NPV of the project is 0. IRR allows you to compare the effectiveness of investments in a project with alternative financial investment options (for example, in other, more profitable projects) and shows the relative profitability of the project per unit of invested funds. This figure must exceed 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 the initial investment. Shows the relative profitability of the project compared to other projects with a comparable amount of 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:

Mobile applications in the last decade began to play a big role in people's lives. Their functions often seem insignificant, but, nevertheless, they help smartphone and tablet users to solve various everyday tasks. Creating even a simple mobile application is painstaking and hard work, which takes a lot of time and effort and does not at all guarantee high profits in the future. However, really high-quality and necessary applications can “shoot” in the AppStore or GooglePlay and bring a lot of money to their developers. We invite novice entrepreneurs to turn their attention to a typical business plan for the development of mobile applications with calculations, which is presented in this material. First of all, he will help you navigate the financial side of the issue and understand whether the game is worth the candle.

Investments at the start of a mobile application development business will need to be made in the amount of 350 thousand rubles. This money is quite enough to build a stable business in this high-tech area from scratch. The source of initial investment can be both personal savings of a novice developer, and loan funds received from a bank.

Brief description of the concept

The business of creating applications for mobile platforms, an example of the organization of which is presented in this article, must be registered as an individual entrepreneur. The best form of taxation for such a business is the STS (“simplified”) with a tax rate of 15% (income minus expenses). Declarations in this system are filled almost intuitively, so the company does not need the help of a professional accountant. The processing of financial reports is best done using the services of online accounting. Official registration of a business for the development of mobile applications will not do without choosing the appropriate OKVED codes:

• 62.0 "Computer software development, consulting services in this field and other related services."
• 62.01 "Development of computer software".

How much to invest in opening

The costs that are inevitable at the initial stage of establishing a mobile application development business are presented in the following table:

Not surprisingly, the main items of expenditure will be the purchase of computer equipment and licensed software. The specifics of this business obliges the entrepreneur to pay special attention to the quality of equipment and software. After all, the equipment on which mobile applications are developed must simply work stably and without failures, and information must be well protected.

Production plan

The office of the mobile application development company is a compact space, the area of ​​which does not exceed 40 square meters. There are no special requirements for the location of the office. It can be located both in a modern business center and in a semi-basement in the old part of the city. The main thing is that all the necessary communications and stable high-speed Internet are connected to the office premises.

Also, the entrepreneur should take care of ensuring the security of the office, as it will contain expensive equipment and important development data. You can conclude an agreement with a security agency or simply install strong bars on the windows and a solid metal door.

Marketing plan

As for marketing and promotion of mobile applications for smartphones and tablets, everything is extremely simple here - advertising can be ordered in the AppStore and GooglePlay at a very reasonable cost. Advertising on popular YouTube channels also has a good effect.

The cost of one download of an average mobile application is 1.5 dollars, or about 100 rubles. Good apps quickly catch on with users, and it is quite possible to hope that they can be downloaded 5,000 times or more in a month. Accordingly, at such a rate, the monthly revenue of the developer company can be up to half a million rubles, and the annual "dirty" income - up to 6 million "wooden".

Staff

The work schedule of a mobile application development company is a standard five-day workday, but with some peculiarities. As a rule, at the final stages of mobile application development, work goes non-stop - without days off and almost without breaks. This nuance should be taken into account by the entrepreneur in order to appropriately reward dedicated employees in monetary terms. Below is the most optimal scheduling option:

• Monday - Friday: from 09:00 to 18:00.
• Saturday - Sunday: Closed.

The list of employees of the mobile application development company is given in the following table:

Calculations of income and expenses

You can find a list of the monthly expenses of a mobile application development company in this table:

The profitability of a mobile app development company is shown in this table:

According to our calculations, the amount of net annual profit of a company that develops mobile applications, after taxes, will be 2.8 million rubles. This is subject to the high quality of applications and the development time for each of them is no more than three months. Accordingly, the profitability of this business will be around 47% - an excellent result for a young ambitious company.

Possible risks

The mobile app development business is a very risky business. It is impossible to take into account absolutely all the pitfalls of this undertaking, and quite often the principle of "make or break" accompanies the creation of any application until the end of its development. Below is a list of the most obvious risk factors that could negatively affect the development of this business:

• Leakage of information about the features of projects and, as a result, the possible "borrowing" of their concept by other developers.
• The need to attract additional funding when launching expensive or time-consuming projects.
• Increased development time for individual applications, associated with additional costs.
• Insufficient level of qualification of employees, their incompetence in highly specialized aspects of working on the creation of mobile applications.

In conclusion, we note that developers who are passionate about their work and create really high-quality software products for mobile platforms never remain in the red. World practice proves this perfectly.

To assess the market, you must first determine the volume of planned investments and the niche that is most interesting to you.

It is highly desirable that this interest be supported by some theoretical, and even better, practical knowledge about the development process, available tools and methodologies. You can analyze the demand and the level of competition in the chosen niche based on the data provided by the rating agencies. In almost every segment, even such a highly specialized one as the development of online stores, there are fairly detailed ratings that compare flagship companies in terms of turnover, average bill, number of projects, and other parameters that give a fairly clear picture.

Competition

Our niche is highly competitive only at first glance. In fact, this is the same level of competition as between BMW and AvtoVAZ - segmentation is primarily determined by the price of services and the class of customers. It's no secret that the price range for the same site development can be from 5 thousand to 5 million rubles. It all depends on what needs to be done, what level of quality to ensure, what tools to use, how big a name the IT company has, how well-known clients are present in its portfolio.

As a result, if you work in the price range of 5-25 thousand rubles, companies with projects from 1 million rubles will obviously not be your competitors, and vice versa.

To get ahead of competitors, you must first determine in which price segment you will provide services. Then it is worth analyzing direct competitors from the same price segment that provide the same services: see what development tools they offer, what additional services they include in the development cost, what clients and projects they work with.

At the same time, it is quite important to objectively evaluate your own strengths - will you be able to ensure the quality is not worse? Can you offer similar services at the same price? Next, it's important to highlight your unique advantage over your competitors: how are you better? Why should clients work with you?

If you have formulated such an advantage on an intuitive level, without external confirmation, it is better to check it in advance: conduct a survey of friends, acquaintances, random interlocutors. Find out if they really care about this advantage, or if your hypothesis is untenable. The sample should be large enough to give the most accurate representation possible.

How to decide on a set of services that the company will provide?

It depends primarily on your level of knowledge about the field and technology, as well as on the level of initial investment. For example, the average salary of an experienced Symfony programmer is 80-100 thousand rubles, i.e. 3 months of his work will cost the company 240-300 thousand rubles. At the same time, projects of this level, as a rule, are complex, expensive and require not only a programmer, but a full-fledged team: a designer, tester, project manager, analyst, etc. It is highly desirable that the owner of the company has at least one of the key competencies, otherwise it will be difficult to control the processes.

The most common situation on the market is when an experienced developer opens his own company, and rightly so. He already has an understanding of what pitfalls await him, what difficulties the company may face, how to properly build processes.

It is important to remember: additional services are good, but only when they do not divert most of the company's resources.

Sometimes occupying a narrow niche is more profitable than offering customers the widest possible range of services.

Who is the main target audience?

If we talk about the IT services market in general, then the target audience is almost any business, without restrictions. But to determine the target audience of your company, you need to create the most accurate portrait of the client:

• how much money the client is willing to spend on your services;
• what is the main service he needs;
• what additional services he may need;
• if you have a regional link, most companies from another region are most likely to be eliminated from the target audience;
• in what area your client works (often clients choose a developer who has projects in the portfolio made for the same industry);
• who makes the decision in the client company (if you work mainly with small businesses, these are usually the owners; if you work with enterprises, these are middle managers, and they have a completely different level of motivation to start development and finish the project quickly );
• whether there are requirements for the tools used in the development (some clients indicate as the main requirement what the development should be done on, for example, what programming language should be used, which graphic editor, which CMS).

Beginners should remember that reaching large customers without prior preparation is a very difficult task. Our target audience immediately became a medium-sized business that needs some kind of non-standard solution for automating processes.

The key difference between companies operating in a higher price segment is that customers stay with them for a long time.

The thing is that products in this segment are complex, they require support. Moreover, they rely on business processes, and this is a flexible thing, and over time it changes. Therefore, the product usually evolves with the company.

Investment size

To optimize the cost of an office, you can rent it in a place that is not very accessible, because. its location is not very important - customers rarely come themselves. Or you can act radically and abandon the office altogether, transferring employees to remote work.

But this option is not suitable for everyone. We decided to take this step only after we were 100% convinced that all our clients prefer meetings in their office or in a cafe, and also after realizing that all our employees have been working in the company’s staff for more than 2 years and are quite capable of doing their job responsibly without binding to the office chair.

Saving on salaries, if you want to ensure high quality projects, is definitely not worth it. But it is possible to reduce costs if employees are involved in additional services on a project-by-project basis, paying them only for the work that was actually done, and using KPI to evaluate the work of full-time employees. All of our employees are somehow tied to the profits of the company.

The absence of an office and the use of part of the staff on a project-by-project basis allowed us to minimize equipment costs - most of the employees use their own computers, and we only bear the cost of their depreciation.

Step-by-step instruction

Having decided on a niche, having studied competitors, recruiting the first customers and renting a room, you can already proceed to the next stage of opening - the purchase of equipment. Mandatory equipment, without which we cannot imagine work:

• The company's own server (including for demonstrating work to clients and the operation of the project management system);
• Virtual PBX;
• Laptops or desktop computers of employees with sufficient power for the type of work performed;
• Office equipment.

It was quite easy to find suppliers, since many of them were eliminated at the stage of the first request - they did not answer for a long time, they issued an invoice for a long time, they could not competently answer our questions. As a result, those suppliers of equipment and services with whom we constantly work do not change for years.

For example, we maintain our own company server in the provider's data center, which has not been changed for 4 years. His prices are not the lowest, but the speed of response to our requests is no more than 10 minutes.

Thus, the main criteria for choosing suppliers for us are:

• The speed of response to our request (especially if these are permanent services);
• Equipment quality;
• Cost of equipment.

Of course, no equipment will work without specialists. For an IT company, they are the foundation of success. The number of employees of the firm depends on what services are key and how many projects are being carried out simultaneously. For example, we are a technology company, and this means that programmers must have a high level of training, while there should be at least two of them on the staff, and preferably 3-4, in order to ensure interchangeability and speed of project implementation. But only one designer is enough.

At the moment our staff consists of:

• sales manager;
• project manager;
• technical writer;
• Designer;
• Three programmers;
• tester;
• Copywriter and content manager.

Depending on the direction of the projects, the ratio of designers and programmers in the company may change, and some employees may combine several positions.

Often there is a situation when the project manager also performs the functions of a technical writer and tester. And HTML-layout can be performed, depending on the company and its business processes, by a designer, a programmer or an individual employee.

There is a big problem with highly qualified employees in the labor market.

It is very difficult to find such employees “from the street”, and the process of infusing them into the team is quite painful. You should always keep in mind that regardless of the skill level of a newcomer, he will fully join the work process only 1-2 months after the start of work. When hiring such employees, they go through several stages of selection. At the beginning, we look at resumes and study portfolios, then we give a test task. According to the results of the test task, the applicant is interviewed by the lead programmer, and after it - an interview with the director.

The final hiring decision is made on the basis of the combined results of each of these steps, with the opinion of the lead developer taking precedence, since it is with him that the new employee will interact in the first place.

Low-skilled employees are much easier to find. We usually work with them on one or two test projects and only after that we hire them. The selection process in this case is different from the first option. At the first stage, we also look at the resume and portfolio, if any, after that the project manager conducts an interview and decides on cooperation. If the cooperation was successful, the employee remains on the staff or is entered into the database of remote employees and is subsequently involved in projects as needed.

The working hours of an IT company are determined depending on the working hours of the main clients.

The bulk of our customers are located in Moscow, so our working day is from 10.00 to 19.00 Moscow time, regardless of where our employees are located. Some employees can vary their work schedule, observing the rule - at least 8 hours a day, and some employees are deprived of such a privilege. If clients work from 10 to 19, sales managers and project managers must be in touch at the same time.

The execution time for one order varies from several days to several months, depending on the complexity, urgency and scope of the task. At the same time, you need to understand that not a single person will be able to work 24 hours a day, no matter how much the director of the company or clients would like. In order to avoid missed deadlines, overlapping tasks and constantly switching employees from one task to another, we use a planning system. Thanks to this, each employee knows exactly what he will do tomorrow, has a fairly clear work plan for the next week and an approximate work plan for the month.

All tasks received from clients are formulated in the system, assigned to a specialist and scheduled by date and time. The only exceptions are very urgent tasks:

if a client has something broken in a running project, this is a very good reason to postpone all other tasks and throw resources into fixing the problem.

Our practice has shown that the location of the office does not matter for clients, it is much more convenient for them to meet on their territory. The presence of an office in the center can confirm the high status of the company, but it is definitely not worth incurring huge costs because of this. Therefore, when choosing an office, one can only take into account how convenient it will be for employees to get to it, and it is quite possible to place it on the outskirts, but within transport accessibility.

If employees work in an office, it is also advisable to consider how convenient it will be for them to go to lunch - are there canteens, cafes and restaurants nearby, or is it easier to arrange lunch delivery to the office. It is highly desirable to have a cooler, tea, coffee and sweets in the office. The presence of a microwave and a multicooker is also not a direct necessity, but adds convenience.

We have given up the office and our employees are happy because they do not need to spend time on the road, and they are free to choose a place to work. ​​​​​​​

There are no requirements for IT companies in terms of layout and ceiling height, but the room should be bright and spacious enough so that employees do not sit on each other's heads. It is advisable to plan the placement of specialists in such a way that they have a sense of isolation from each other.

The maximum area depends on the number of employees simultaneously in the office and common sense. The office should be spacious and comfortable enough for all employees to feel comfortable in it. At the same time, people working on the same project should be directly accessible to each other.

As for contracts and documents for the premises, as a rule, an IT company chooses an office in the office center, and there the owner of the premises or the management company deals with these issues. Therefore, an IT company only needs a lease agreement. However, this contract must be carefully considered at the conclusion to avoid the pitfalls of a sudden increase in rent or an unexpected request to urgently vacate the premises.

Documentation

EmployeesIT companies produce an intellectual product, so it is necessary to resolve the issue of copyright for it.

When it comes to working with a customer, there are two options. In the first, we reserve copyright. And in the second, if an individual design or individual visualization elements is being developed, we transfer non-exclusive rights to them to the customer. That is, he can use them, but cannot resell them. In this case, the authorship remains with us. This is necessary so that we can add the work to our portfolio and put authorship on the client’s website.

Opening checklist

Is it profitable to open

In order to determine the cost of fulfilling an order, you first need to understand exactly what the cost of an hour of a company's work is. It consists of fixed and variable costs divided by the average number of working hours per month.

Knowing the cost is important, first of all, because at the initial stage of work, without a good portfolio, it will be very difficult to receive expensive projects and you will have to be content with little, and sometimes even give additional discounts. Knowing the cost, it will be possible to rely on it, understanding exactly how much you can move in price, incurring allowable costs.

The order fulfillment price is determined based on the costs that the company will incur for its implementation, the risks involved and the desired profit. With a long-term existence of the company and work on standard orders, some types of work can later be included in the price list, since the average cost of these works will be known in advance.

In general, the calculation is performed based on an estimate of the projected time for the project. For the most accurate estimate, it is important at the design stage to break the project into small tasks so that each of them takes no more than 8-12 hours. This will keep the chance of error to a minimum. ​​​​​​​

In general terms, our calculation looks something like this: the number of estimated hours * the cost of an hour of work of the company * 1.3 (corrective risk factor; may vary) * N, where N is the profit factor. The owner of the company determines it independently, guided by common sense and his own greed.

A very important aspect of the company's work is the preparation of technical specifications for projects. Determining the exact cost of a project without a detailed technical specification is the biggest mistake that company employees can make.

In our company, the work on the project is built as follows:

• Getting a problem statement
• Preparation of a proposal with a preliminary assessment
• Conclusion of a contract for TK
• Design, development of detailed TOR and project prototypes
• Coordination of technical specifications and prototypes
• Signing of closing documents for the development of technical specifications
• Preparation of a detailed budget for the project
• Signing a contract for the development of the project
• Execution of project work
• Signing the closing documents for the project.

Depending on the scope of the project, the work can be divided into additional stages performed under separate contracts.

It is very difficult to orientate by the number of orders and the average check, since projects can be of very different levels. Theoretically, 3 projects with a check of 150 thousand rubles will be equivalent to 30 projects with a check of 15 thousand rubles. But in fact, 2 projects of 300 thousand rubles each can be in operation at the same time. with a scope of work for 2 months and an even distribution of project amounts for this period, 3 projects for 100 thousand and 5 projects for 25 thousand each. All of them can be at different stages, performed by different specialists and form receivables that accumulate over time.

The payback period depends on the costs at the initial stage, as well as on the amount of operating expenses of the company, including the level of salaries of specialists.

It is important to realistically assess opportunities in terms of the number and level of projects that can be contracted at an early stage.

If you hired an employee with a salary of 100 thousand rubles, and sign 2 contracts per month for 25 thousand rubles, you will definitely not last long.

Another important point: the more complex projects you want to receive, the higher the cost of attracting a client and the longer the period from the moment of the first contact to the conclusion of the contract.

In this case, with the same employee on a salary of 100 thousand rubles, the following situation may arise: you have a potential client with a project for 1 million rubles, you happily hire an employee, pay him a salary of 2-3 months while you are negotiating with a client, and only after that you receive the first tranche from the client. Well, if he covers the costs incurred, but what if the deal falls through? This probability also exists exactly until the money arrives in your current account.

If you build processes as flexibly as possible and keep in mind the possibility of the described situations, the payback period may well be 3-4 months, or even less.

The main way to increase profits is to reduce development costs, reduce risks and provide related services to customers.

Debugging business processes allows you to reduce development costs. Each employee must know exactly what to do depending on the situation that has arisen, understand who is responsible and who to run to if something goes wrong. We have several simple regulations and a project management system for this.

Risk reduction occurs due to more thorough preparatory work with the client before the conclusion of the contract. We do not set ourselves the task of concluding an agreement at any cost. Our main task is to build long-term relationships with each client, and this is possible only when he trusts us as professionals, and we trust him as a customer.

There are several risks, we faced all of them:

• Insolvency of the client - the client starts a large-scale project, but in the middle of the project he runs out of funds, or the project becomes irrelevant. To minimize this risk, we break large projects into many stages with payment tied to them. This allows you to understand in time that funding is stopping, and to lose a minimum of time and money.
• Lack of technical specifications - sometimes sales managers have a great temptation: "Guys, we have a client for 500 thousand, let's work as soon as possible, sign an agreement, to hell with it, with technical specifications." And then it turns out that the client has a million Wishlist, and he refuses to pay for them, arguing this as follows: “But your manager promised me that everything would be as I want.”
• Incorrect estimation of the project - sometimes it happens that specialists are mistaken in estimating the scope of work. In this case, in order to save face and reputation, one has to work at a loss. Breaking up the project into small pieces is also great to eliminate this risk.

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

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

In a mobile application company, employees can be roughly divided into three groups - technical specialists, specialists working with the client, and marketing. All of them are equally important for business and are valued in the labor market.

Technical specialists:

Designer
Responsible for the appearance and 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 design a mobile application with high quality, since a mobile application designer needs other 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 coding. He must understand that each of the platforms has its own design guidelines (iOS, Android, Windows), and be able to actually make three different designs for each of the platforms.”

“If we talk about the 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,” Vyacheslav Semenchuk explained to the website correspondent. “In the gaming industry, the price tag can be even higher.”

Programmer
Writes the application code, attaches the design to it, and makes everything work. “Just like designers, programmers are rarely generalists,” writes Semenchuk. - The work 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, this work is done by three different programmers. The salary level fluctuates 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 smooth 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 offer this studio can make, given your budget,” Vyacheslav writes. “Or calculate the budget for the application that you described in the terms of reference.”

The sales manager should have an idea about 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 decide on 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 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 can include 5 or 50 people,” explains the author of the book. - Each developer does their job and has no idea what the other is doing. Therefore, in order for them not only to know about each other, but also to 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.