Complex constructor: how a startup got rid of the dictatorship of retail chains. Brutal bloggers: how to make money on training in physical labor

The general director of the Vologda CJSC Mezon told RBC Vologda Oblast why the company is a successful trader computer technology I decided to get into precision metalworking.

In 1994, the company, just created by a young Vologda engineer, a graduate of the local Polytechnic University, took up a trendy and extremely popular business at that time - the sale of computer equipment, in fact creating a new, previously non-existent market in the region. And now, a new direction for the Vologda region of innovative engineering, which is being developed by Mezon, is once again becoming the “forefront” of the domestic economy…

Is such a choice a business logic or a character trait?
“Probably both. When we opened the enterprise, there really was not enough computer equipment in the country. But then we chose rather complicated paths - we didn’t just sell ready-made ones, but first we organized our own assembly of computers. And then, in addition to sales, assembly and service, they also organized a training center to train users for our product. The center is still working and up to 1500 children are trained there. And after 2010 we started production activities— We now have both serious metalworking equipment and specialization in the field of precision metalworking.

- What is your interest here?
— To some extent, our choice is connected with the history of the enterprise. A number of our employees back in the Soviet 80s at the then Vologda Polytechnic Institute worked at the department of flexible production systems. There, models of future production were tested, where it was supposed to use computer technology, robots, machine tools with numerical program management and learning about it all. So we probably didn't invent anything particularly new. If in the 1990s there were not enough strengths and opportunities to solve production problems, then after 2010 we pulled up people, mobilized reserves. Our production site today is entirely focused on modern technologies, machine tools with digital software equipment, there are areas related to robotics. We do not forget about education. If in the 1990s we started with children, teaching them computer literacy, now we already have two basic departments at Vologda State University.

— What is the peculiarity of the new market niche chosen by Maison?
- The specificity is that we did not create production for the production of any specific product, relatively speaking, spoons, forks, plates, or some kind of equipment. We immediately created a kind of technological platform that will do high-quality and accurate metalworking. It is focused on cooperation with very large companies, but also with small ones, however, too. We have mastered the technological niche, we can process parts with micron precision. Our customers are in Vologda, we cooperate with the Vologda Bearing Plant, the optical-mechanical plant, with Cherepovets companies, for example, with Severstal ...

- Do you have any orders?
- Enough. Why are such large companies working with us, such as, for example, the leader of the domestic engine building UEC-Saturn, because we take on complex tasks. For example, our partner is preparing new products, or prototypes that require high engineering costs, problematic products or have a large number of defects in some details - all this is what we do. This, of course, is not easy. But these are precisely the competencies that attract large, serious companies and force them to work with us.

— What is the development prospect, how big is the competition in this market?
— I think this direction will develop. In Soviet times, the plant, creating some new products, organized the entire technological chain from beginning to end. Because of this, huge factories sprang up, and the world watched in amazement at what large factories built the USSR. Now this is not. Industrial capacity has been significantly reduced. Everyone counts costs. I think the future lies with distributed production, outsourcing, when companies join forces and make a quality product “in parts”, occupying their technological niches. This is a worldwide trend...

– How, in this sense, Mezon CJSC plans to develop, relatively speaking, “in breadth”, increasing production capacity, or "in depth", developing competencies?
“We have an understanding that it is necessary to create a research and production center at the enterprise, to solve the problems of developing new technologies in terms of creating some new products and producing some of the most complex components and parts for these products. On our own site, but in cooperation with large companies. In the foreseeable future, we strive to become the most science-intensive, and not the largest.

Does this plan require significant financial investments?
- We have not needed any "super amounts" so far, but recently the issue of a high-quality and reliable partner - a financial institution - has become acute. Let me explain with an example. For a long time we focused on working with small regional banks. Because there was an impression that they work more flexibly and quickly. For a long time, this was how it was: when questions arose about loans, paperwork, such issues in small banks were always resolved more quickly. But in recent years, a well-known process has been going on in the banking sector, when small banks disappear, leaving large ones. The last straw was the situation with Vologdabank, which lost its license, which forced us to look for a new major partner. Sberbank has become such a partner for us, which managed to prove that it is possible to work with it.

Was it a specific loan?
- The situation is this. When Vologdabank disappeared, the loans that we took from him (several tens of millions of rubles - this is good money for us) became "no one's". It was necessary to refinance, start working with another bank. In addition, with the disappearance of Vologdabank, our development did not stop. We needed financial institution, with which we could work in the future, which can provide us with the solution of both current and operational, strategic tasks. The decision to cooperate with Sberbank was not easy. Sberbank is large, fairly overregulated. But we must pay tribute to the heads of the bank branch in Vologda - they made a lot of efforts to build normal relations with us, we also tried. All credit obligations that we had at Vologdabank were transferred to Sberbank on more favorable terms for us. We love it. In addition, questions began to arise on obtaining guarantees. Moreover, big company, with which we signed a contract, put forward very high requirements for the guarantor bank. Sberbank issued these guarantees very quickly. They explain this by the fact that since we have become their client, they will resolve all issues promptly. So far, Sberbank is fulfilling its promises. Let's see what will happen next.

- You have been in business for a long time, for sure, the readers of our business portal will be interested in the principles of doing business that you have been guided by all these years ...
- I probably won’t be original, because I consider the basic rules for myself that were declared in the USSR when they said that you need to work honestly, that money is the embodied work and the assessment of this work. First of all, you are valuable for what you have done, what has arisen as a result of your work. Therefore, we have such projects - training centers, basic departments, production... The level of approaches is traditionally conservative. It is necessary to take on a difficult task, to solve it qualitatively, to do everything honestly, without bribes and kickbacks. Perhaps because of this we are not developing as fast as we would like, but we have been developing for many years. And this approach of ours especially helps us in times of crisis - in these conditions, on the contrary, we begin to develop more actively, because it is situations of crisis that the amount of work that you invest begins to play an especially important role ...

— What advice would you like to give businessman Yelgaev to young entrepreneurs?
— Unfortunately, many people think that business is easy. Although you need to be aware that a person who decides to do entrepreneurial activity, takes on a very difficult task, and it is far from a fact that this should be done. You have to think a hundred times whether to create something of your own or not. We are told on every corner - "we need new entrepreneurs." It seems to me that often the people to whom these calls are addressed do not indicate the level of responsibility and the seriousness of the matter that they take upon themselves. I think people should be honest...

The entrepreneur, who will receive 151 million rubles as a result of the transaction, decided to focus on the development of Like educational centers abroad and the launch of a network of living and working smart spaces in Russia

Ayaz Shabutdinov (Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

26-year-old entrepreneur Ayaz Shabutdinov told RBC about the reasons for the sale of his stake in the Coffee Like network, which included retail coffee houses in Izhevsk and Moscow, Management Company LLC Coffee Like (is engaged in the sale of franchises) and LLC Coffee Logistics (responsible for the supply of coffee and other Supplies at partner points). Coffee Like, considered Russia's largest take-away coffee chain, has been acquired by a group of private investors. The estimated value of the company is 200 million rubles, as a result of the transaction, Shabutdinov will receive 151 million rubles.

The entrepreneur does not name their names, but specifies: “The network belonged to me by 75.5%. Of these, 50.6% belonged to me as to an individual and another 24.9% through Like Business. The co-owners not only stayed with the company, but also decided to take part in the deal and increase their stake in the business.” According to SPARK, the co-owners of Coffee Like LLC are entrepreneurs Ivan Ermilov and Alexander Nudin: each of them owns 12.25% of the company. This suggests that at least part of Shabutdinov's stake was acquired by his former partners.

“The reason for the sale of Coffee Like was the change in the focus of the Like group of companies towards other projects,” says Shabutdinov. — It would not allow to provide Coffee Like that fast growth which allows its market potential".

The decision to sell the coffee shop chain was made in early 2018. At this time, Shabutdinov was already focusing on the development of Like educational centers. The centers run face-to-face courses for entrepreneurs, which Shabutdinov launched in the spring of 2015 as a follow-up to his VKontakte business blog (649,000 subscribers) and YouTube videos (224,000 subscribers). Today, Like educational centers are represented in 241 Russian cities. According to the entrepreneur, in three years educational programs 831 thousand people passed. There were 237 thousand paying customers with an average check of 4.5 thousand rubles. from one person. Price paid programs- from 500 rubles. (three-day course) up to 1.5 million rubles. (six months in mini-groups with invited experts and tracking).

From the applications of graduates of his courses, Shabutdinov selects several projects that continue to develop with the help of investments from the Like group of companies. "IN this moment in our pool of potentially interesting projects there are 63 companies with which we are at different stages of work: we are just getting acquainted with someone and conducting an audit, and someone has already made an offer and are negotiating a price,” says Shabutdinov. According to him, out of 50 proposals received, about ten are considered by the investment committee, after which the company acquires a stake in one to three projects.

According to Shabutdinov, Like Center has a high growth rate: in 2015, the revenue of the network of educational centers amounted to 48.5 million rubles, in 2017 - already 327.5 million rubles, for the first eight months of 2018 - 744.8 million rubles. “A large part of sales is made by our partners in the regions, so our money is about 74.7% there.” Now Shabutdinov is preparing Like centers to enter the Western market. “The first educational events have already been successfully held in Los Angeles, New York and London. True, for the time being, a predominantly Russian-speaking audience comes to study, - Shabutdinov admits. “Part of the proceeds from the sale of Coffee Like will go just to expand the project abroad.”

Apart from educational project the entrepreneur decided to develop a project in the field of real estate. He plans to acquire ownership of objects ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 square meters. m in different cities of Russia, uniting them into a network of residential and working smart spaces. “Standard apartments and offices, in my opinion, are archaic, especially for generations Z and Y,” says Shabutdinov. “They want to sign an agreement today, give money and start living or working in a room where everything is equipped. And after - also without difficulty to be able to move out. We decided to combine smart spaces with the sharing economy. Thanks to the IT system for managing prices for premises, we will be able to effectively use each square meter and generate income higher than the average for the real estate market.”​

Part of the target audience new network should become entrepreneurs who are trained in educational centers like. “It seems to us that we understand their problems quite well, so we decided to create their own place for them. We built the concept based on the already existing world experience, our own research, in-depth interviews and, in the end, on our own needs, since we ourselves are the target audience,” says Shabutdinov.

Ayaz Shabutdinov is a co-owner of more than 20 companies (hostels, barbershops, a language school, etc.), some of which are franchised. Coffee Like is one of the first projects of the Like family. Shabutdinov launched the network in 2013 together with Izhevsk entrepreneur Zufar Garipov. At the time of the sale, the network consisted of 408 outlets, most of which were franchised. In 2017, Garipov sold his share to Shabutdinov and started developing a network of laser hair removal salons.

Find a popular business idea that will benefit people. There are seven stories on the list. Russian entrepreneurs who succeeded: Pavel Durov, Evgeny Demin, Tatyana Bakalchuk, Petr Osipov, Vsevolod Fear, Dmitry Khrapov, Maxim Nogotkov.

 

Is it easy to start your own business without experience and initial capital? The answer is easy to open. But to make it successful is much more difficult. We have prepared stories of the ups and downs of young Russians who not only know how to start a business from scratch, but have managed to succeed and earn a lot of money.

The list does not include the children of oligarchs and government officials who inherited fortunes, as well as those who made money on the privatization of state property.

Table 1: 7 Russians who built a business from scratch

	Age at which the first business was opened	Starting a business	First business	Current (in 2017) business
Pavel Durov
Evgeny Demin			Firm "Conversion" for the sale of bioadditives	"Splat-Cosmetics", toothpastes, cosmetics, household chemicals
Tatyana Bakalchuk			Wildberries online store	Wildberries, clothes, shoes accessories
Petr Osipov			"Business Youth", the largest community of entrepreneurs	"Business youth"
Vsevolod Fear			"Sotmarket", online store selling data cables	Goldprice.ru, online jewelry service
Dmitry Khrapov			Tutu.ru, ticket booking service
Maxim Nogotkov			"Maxus", "Svyaznoy"	Moved to USA in 2015

Pavel Durov (Vkontakte, Telegram)

Pavel Durov is the creator of the social network Vkontakte. This person is called "Russian Zuckerberg". From childhood, Pavel was fond of programming and from his school years he was distinguished by eccentric behavior. He was denied access to computers, but he cracked any passwords.

While studying at the university, Durov created several non-commercial Internet projects. These were the forum of the university and the library of abstracts. These projects were not particularly successful, as users were hiding behind fictitious names.

From his friend, who returned from America, Pavel learned about the Facebook social network, he decided to implement something similar in Russia. This is how the Student.ru project appeared, the name of which was later changed to Vkontakte. Durov, together with his brother Nikolai, founded Vkontakte LLC and launched a social network in October 2006.

Already in 2008 the number of users exceeded 20 million people. In 2011, the fortune of Pavel Durov was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles, and in the list of "The richest Russian billionaires» Durov ranked 350th.

In 2014, Durov resigned as CEO of Vkontakte, now social network belongs to the holding of Alisher Usmanov Mail.Ru Group. Durov new project- cross-platform messenger Telegram.

In 2016, Tatyana ranked 3rd in the ranking of the 25 richest women in Russia according to the Forbes online magazine (with a fortune of $ 500 million), and her clothing, footwear and accessories store Wildberries.ru is one of the largest online stores in Russia.

How did the success come about? Tatyana - former teacher in English, sitting on maternity leave - in 2004, she began to order clothes from the Otto and Quelle catalogs. The goods warehouse was located in the apartment where Tatyana lived with her husband Vyacheslav. She picked up the parcels from the post office herself, getting on public transport. The money was enough only for the development of the site.

A banner for 1,500 rubles was placed as an advertisement. per month on one of the women's sites. Orders started arriving on the very first day. A year later, the apartment turned out to be too small to be used as a warehouse, and Tatyana and her husband rented a small office and storage space. We hired couriers and operators.

For being small home business has grown into an online retail giant and the most recognizable online store, contributed to several innovations that were introduced by its founder:

• the first significant decision, in addition to selling clothes, was the start of selling shoes via the Internet, although then no one was doing this and many were skeptical of such an idea;
• the second starting point in the successful building of a business is a free fitting at the points of issue of orders;
• and the third factor is free shipping.

Tatyana does not take pictures and does not communicate with the press. Only once did she give an interview to the online commerce publication Shopolog. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is as follows:

“Don't be afraid to start. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Take risks, contrary to the opinion of the majority, if you know that it is necessary for clients. To have close people nearby, able to support.

Petr Osipov ("Business Youth")

Young entrepreneur Petr Osipov and his high-profile project "Business Youth" (molodost.bz) also made our list.

Peter was born and raised in Cheboksary. It was also there that he gained his first experience of working in election campaigns and holding public speaking. After school he moved to Moscow. He studied, worked as an assistant to a deputy, conducted trainings in oratory.

In 2010, Osipov and his friend Mikhail Dashkevich organized the Business Youth (BM) project. Its essence is to help young novice entrepreneurs (and not only beginners) to increase their income and the efficiency of their business.

As Peter Osipov tells in one of his videos, the impetus for opening his own company was the training of Radislav Gandapas, which Peter attended for 25 thousand rubles.

The project is positioned as the most grandiose community of entrepreneurs in Russia. The training is carried out in several programs: intensive "Business Start", in-depth program "Workshop", programs "Billion for a Million", "Real Direct", "Real Email Marketing", "Million for a Hundred", "Real Marketing", "From unpacking to packaging" and others. Participants are given tasks and step by step instructions achieving success.

There are representative offices of BM in more than 200 cities of Russia and neighboring countries. Annual revenue is more than 900 million rubles. The project causes heated debate: someone calls BM a sect, someone really helps training. But in this article we will not understand the essence of the project itself. Below are links to the company's website, Petr Osipov's personal blog and Vkontakte profile.

Vsevolod Fear (Sotmarket, Goldprice.ru)

Vsevolod Fear is one of the youngest members of our list. He set up his business in 2005 when he was 17 years old and in 11th grade. The initial investment in the business amounted to 20 thousand rubles. This amount was accumulated over three years from the money that my parents gave.

Vsevolod ordered data cables (devices that transfer data between digital devices) through a familiar shuttle that transported goods from China.

Created a website with the uncomplicated name sotmarket.ru. He sent the first orders to clients personally, paying the postal workers ten rubles for each package.

Start-up capital in the amount of 20 thousand rubles ended in a month and a half and the newly-made entrepreneur, already, fell into despair, but unexpectedly received the first proceeds in the amount of 27 thousand rubles, which Vsevolod invested in the goods.

By the time he entered the institute, Fear rented a small room for an office, a warehouse and hired an employee. He studied at the Faculty of Business Informatics and wrote the inventory program for his company himself. In addition to data cables, Sotmarket now sold many additional products: ranging from mobile accessories and ending with garden tools. Sotmarket's revenue in 2012 amounted to 4.15 billion rubles and became the third online electronics retailer in the country in this indicator.

However, due to the fact that Vsevolod took a lot of loans to expand his business, the company did not bring profit and a 51% stake was sold to the IQ One fund. Since the fall of 2015, Fear has worked as a director of ecommerce mobile operator Tele 2.

Since the beginning of spring 2017, according to the RBC Internet portal, Vsevolod Fear has become CEO jewelry online service Goldprice.ru.

Watch the video from the series "Business Secrets": Oleg Tinkov asks Vsevolod Strakh questions about the beginning, formation and development of a business:

Alexander Kasumov (Photo: personal archive)

YouTube and Instagram users are used to the idea that a popular blogger is a young man who entertains the audience with stand-ups, selfies and videos about his travels, and if he teaches something, then by all means some graceful occupation, for example, how to paint eyelashes or bake cakes. But recently, people who do the most rough work, those who build houses or forge iron, have succumbed to bloggers. Some of them managed to promote their business with the help of a blog, turning some of their subscribers into customers.

One of the main advantages of such bloggers is that they give users practical information that they can apply in Everyday life. This makes such people interesting for a more mature and attractive audience for advertisers. “Brutal” and age bloggers are being looked at more closely advertising agencies and even companies like Sberbank.

Live by blogging

41-year-old Alexander Kasumov, founder and owner of SV-Fundament, since 2010 has been engaged in quite ordinary construction business- laying foundations. Hoping to increase the number of orders, the entrepreneur tried to advertise the company on the Internet. “I made a website, started paying Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords- says Kasumov. “But the competition was constantly growing – more and more money was leaving, and the return remained low.” At the beginning of 2015, he spent 200-300 thousand rubles on online advertising. per month.

Dreaming of eventually moving from foundations to building entire houses, Kasumov free time I watched YouTube videos about various building tricks. “So the idea came up: why not make my own channel?” says the entrepreneur. Kasumov launched the YouTube channel "Build and Live" in April 2016. “I hired an operator with the cheapest, for 16 thousand rubles, video camera. When we started recording videos, the partners twisted their fingers to their heads: you are doing some kind of nonsense! Kasumov recalls.

For the first six months, the channel really did not bring any result: users sometimes watched videos, but did not even subscribe. “But I was already immersed in the process, and I began to like it - we went to my construction sites and filmed everything.” For the first three months, Kasumov built a house for one of his friends, then for another. He perfected video blogging methods right on the construction site.

Now, the salary of the operator, to whom Kasumov paid 45 thousand rubles, was added to the previous expenses. per month, but there were no subscribers. The entrepreneur took comfort in the fact that, thanks to the canal, he managed to fulfill an old dream - to start building houses. “And only six months later, the first creaky customer appeared,” Kasumov recalls. - We erected a house for him practically at cost, but with the video of the construction of this house, the first normal orders went. But it was in winter, when it is usually very difficult to find a client.” In the next three months, the channel brought Kasumov five new customers.

During the first year of its existence, the channel "Build and Live" attracted only 1 thousand subscribers. “I lacked the experience of working for the Internet audience,” explains Kasumov. - The subscribers themselves helped: they suggested what they were missing, what else they needed to tell. As a result, I took the audience with what I explain in a simple and understandable language. By the end of 2017, the channel already had 20 thousand subscribers, now it has almost 150 thousand. The number of orders for the construction of foundations remained about the same as before, but the number of orders for houses grew every month.

SPARK data confirms: having promoted the blog, Kasumov increased financial indicators"SV-Fundament" several times. If in 2016 the company's revenue was 14.6 million rubles, and profit - 2.8 million rubles. (about the same as a year earlier), then in 2017 - already 62 million and 9.3 million rubles. respectively. Thanks to the channel, Kasumov opened several representative offices of SV-Fundament - two in Moscow, one in Krasnodar Territory, Kazan, Rostov region, Irkutsk and other cities.

This year, the entrepreneur rented about 20 finished houses every month in Leningrad region, 10-12 in Moscow and two or three in all other regions. On average, for one house, the company receives 1.5 million rubles. revenue. All clients come thanks to the YouTube channel. “Now I don’t spend a dime on ordinary advertising,” the entrepreneur proudly says. “For two and a half years of the channel’s existence, I didn’t even have a website.”

Now Kasumov releases new videos almost every day: exploring the insides of houses under construction and boldly climbing the roof, the entrepreneur tells how to properly lay metal tiles and what to do if the piles finished house suddenly sank. In addition to the YouTube channel, he also maintains an Instagram page: 16.5 thousand people have already subscribed to it. We sometimes arrange offline meetings for all subscribers: first I talk about the company, and then people ask me different questions about construction, ”says the entrepreneur. At least a hundred people come to such meetings.

View from the outside

“Those who can win a solvent audience first will be very lucky”

Alexander Balkovsky, co-founder of Z Agency, father of popular video blogger Sasha Spielberg

“YouTube and Instagram are primarily entertainment platforms that have been mastered by children and youth. But the advertiser needs a solvent target audience. Older people already know from their children that bloggers are getting rich and famous fast, and many older people are trying to enter this market. But vloggers are hard to please adult audience: television and show business are powerful industries that are difficult to compete with. Only specific types of blogging can attract an age audience - channels of experts in various fields, as well as bloggers broadcasting useful information. There is no place for real expertise in the traditional media space - the format does not allow it. And so sooner or later all the experts will be on YouTube.

Those who can win a solvent audience first will be very lucky. The price tags will differ from the youth sector of social networks by several times, and maybe by a whole zero. Adult bloggers with 100 thousand subscribers will be paid the same as youth "millionaires".

counting board

Ever since the collapse of the USSR, 56-year-old Andrei Muntyan has been a well-known banker in Izhevsk: he was a member of the board of local Bystrobank, Mobilbank, etc. However, in the early 2010s, when these credit organizations began to bring losses, he sold his share and thought about what to do next. His hobby was manual production cutting boards. Muntean knew that decorative boards are very popular abroad, and in Russia there were almost no craftsmen who would make them. In 2010, the entrepreneur created a website and began to upload photos of his best boards there, which he made under the MTM wood brand he invented. At the same time, he equipped a workshop (he spent a total of more than 5 million rubles on its construction, purchase of equipment and wood).

Andrei Muntyan (Photo: personal archive)

Muntean hoped to quickly unwind, because the supply of decorative boards in the country was negligible. But in reality, even investments in advertising did not help. Twice the entrepreneur spent 50 thousand rubles on Internet promotion, but only three or four boards were sold per month. “Regular advertising didn’t work—the product was completely new to Russia,” says Muntyan. In the summer of 2012, looking for new opportunities to spread the word about his products, Muntian created the mtmwood YouTube channel. “I wanted to show what I can do with cutting boards,” says the entrepreneur. - I recorded the videos myself and without voice acting. For the first three years, no one watched me at all.

The popularity of the channel came when Muntyan at the end of 2013 posted a video on how to make a butterfly board: an unusual board is glued from bars in such a way that a person who looks at its front side sees a three-dimensional pattern. “I myself came up with the technology for its manufacture, and it is so complicated that even many years later I cannot assemble this board from memory - only according to my own drawings,” says the entrepreneur. “To an outsider, at first glance, it’s generally incomprehensible how this can be done.” The 3D-board played a happy role in the fate of the channel: American users paid attention to it. It is very popular in the USA, and its participants began to share links to a video about an intricate board with each other. “There is no prophet in his own country,” Muntyan complains, but the interest of American bloggers has done its job: the video has received more than 3 million views, and the channel has been included in the list of recommended by YouTube.

The number of subscribers and views began to grow exponentially. Even the fact that the video was without voice acting turned out to be a plus - it was more interesting for foreigners to watch videos in this way, and not with voice-over text in a language they do not understand. Muntean began to receive requests from the US and Europe to make boards: in 2015-2016, foreign orders accounted for 80-90% of all incoming orders. Gradually, due to the high viewing rates, the Russians became interested in the videos as well.

Muntean does not invest much in video production - from the very beginning he made all the recordings on his own, with a camera on a tripod, which he once acquired to shoot children's birthdays. Unless I bought a professional camera two years ago. When the Russians began to make up about a quarter of the subscribers, he began to record voice-over text. He expanded the subject - now he talked not only about boards, but also about types of wood, shared carpentry secrets. It turned out to be more profitable to send boards across Russia due to the difference in shipping prices: for example, the same board travels to a Russian city for $5, and to an American city for $30.

Now the mtmwood channel has 315 thousand subscribers, and the entrepreneur earns about 170 thousand rubles on the boards. net profit per month. Together with hired assistants, he makes more than 300 boards every month. About $1,000 more a month is brought to him by the partnership program with YouTube – this is how much the service pays for the number of views of his videos and the opportunity to show his video ads in them. From time to time they contacted him and various companies with offers to advertise their products, but Muntyan agreed only three times. “I don’t advertise coffee grinders, blenders, or anything that doesn’t relate to my channel,” he says. “And sometimes it happens like this: they offer to advertise a hammer drill, and then buy it from them with a 30 percent discount - and no money. I refuse, of course."

Thanks to the influx of customers (still 60-70% of customers come from YouTube), Muntean expanded the workshop and opened two stores - in Izhevsk and Moscow. “Neither one nor the other has yet paid off: too high rental costs,” says the entrepreneur. Renting a store in Izhevsk costs 15,000 rubles a month, and a small “island” in the Aviapark shopping mall on Khodynskoye Pole costs 180,000 rubles. But the entrepreneur saves on advertising. “Since I launched the channel, I have not spent a dime on advertising,” says Muntean. - And SEO has never been engaged, although in the issuance of "Yandex" and Google on request " cutting boards we stand tall. It’s just that few people make such boards in Russia.”

Forge the iron

Some entrepreneurs follow the path more familiar to video bloggers: the initial motivation for them is to talk about something, and the understanding that the promoted channel can be used to make money comes later. “I started my YouTube blog three years ago to review Soviet newspapers,” says Roman Grigoriev, 42, a blacksmith from Izhevsk, founder of the grrombk cold forging YouTube channel. “I found a pile of these at the dacha - they seemed cool, but it turned out to be crumpled, uninteresting to talk about them.”

Grigoriev decided to switch to a more familiar area - blacksmith craft, which he did in a small industrial company. “Everyone went home, and I stayed in the company, recorded videos, mastered editing,” the blogger recalls. He posted the first video on February 1, 2016. "I tried to teach people lessons cold forging Grigoriev says. “Later, I realized that the teaching message makes the videos boring, and I began to talk about how I do certain things without a teacher’s tone.” A month later, the number of subscribers reached a hundred, a year and a half later it exceeded 10 thousand.

In July 2016, Grigoriev left his employer and opened his own business: he began to make decorative iron products to order - floor hangers, stair railings, wrought iron chairs, etc. “At first I was afraid that I would not be able to earn a living on my own, but in the end I succeeded,” he says. It is curious that for all the time, directly from the YouTube channel, he received only one order for a forged fence from Chekhov (its production brought the blogger 70 thousand rubles in revenue, 45 thousand of which was eaten by the cost of production). But the channel glorified him - customers began to come thanks to word of mouth. Later, the entrepreneur began to order advertising on Avito and Yulia. The processing of orders and the acquisition of materials is managed by Grigoriev's partner, who plays the role of a manager in a two-person enterprise.

Now the business brings about 200 thousand rubles to the project. revenue and 60-70 thousand rubles. profit per month, 60% of which is received by Grigoriev, and 40% by his partner. In addition, YouTube pays the blacksmith for advertising $ 25-30 per month. The channel already has more than 20 thousand subscribers. “But each video has few views - about 1-2 thousand, because the topic is narrow,” explains Grigoriev. But he is pleased with the educational value of the channel and several groups that he started in social networks. “Let's say a subscriber of my VKontakte group writes that he cannot make a wrought iron fence. Watch the video - and everything turns out for him. A year and a half ago, a 64-year-old subscriber wrote to me: he looked, they say, your video and realized that he had been doing the wrong thing all his life. This is the best praise. For the sake of this, I continue to run the channel, ”the blacksmith admits.

Looking for retired bloggers

Age bloggers are already interesting for companies. “So far we spend less than half of our budget on digital, but we invest a lot in youth bloggers and see a strong return on investment. We are looking for older bloggers, especially 55+, but so far there are not many of them,” said Alexey Giyazov, Marketing Director retail business Sberbank, at the press breakfast of the Atlanta business community on September 17.

However, in Russia there are bloggers, even over the age of 80, for whom making money in social networks is a good addition to their pension. Such is 82-year-old resident of Nakhodka Valentina Glamazdina, who has been running Instagram since June 2016. ​The bab__valya account, which her grandson started for a woman as a joke, now has more than 38,000 subscribers. The pensioner posts photos from the kitchen and from the garden, as well as her thoughts on the news. “At the peak of popularity, in 2017, one photo in my grandmother’s account cost 10 thousand rubles, now it costs 5 thousand rubles,” says Sergey Garin, Glamazdina’s grandson. According to Garin, advertising on the blog was ordered by Sberbank, Vladkhleb, the largest bread producer in Primorye, and Vladlink, a local Internet provider.​