The owner of the largest coffee bar chain in russia explained its sale. "Fakapes Happen": Why Three Russian Restaurants Failed

Find a sought-after business idea that will benefit people. The list contains seven stories of Russian entrepreneurs who have succeeded: Pavel Durov, Evgeny Demin, Tatyana Bakalchuk, Petr Osipov, Vsevolod Strak, Dmitry Khrapov, Maxim Nogotkov.

 

Is it easy to open your own business without experience and initial capital? The answer is easy to open. But making 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 their own business from scratch, but managed to succeed and earn a lot of money.

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

Table 1: 7 Russians who built a business from scratch

	The age at which you opened your first business	Starting a business	First business	Current (in 2017) business
Pavel Durov
Evgeny Demin			Firm "Conversion" for the sale of dietary supplements	"Splat-Cosmetics", toothpastes, cosmetics, household chemicals
Tatiana Bakalchuk			Wildberries online store	Wildberries, clothing, footwear accessories
Peter Osipov			"Business Youth", the largest community of entrepreneurs	"Business youth"
Vsevolod Fear			"Sotmarket", an online store selling data cables	Goldprice.ru, online jewelry service
Dmitry Khrapov			Tutu.ru, ticket booking service
Maxim Nogotkov			"Maxus", "Messenger"	In 2015 he left for the USA

Pavel Durov (Vkontakte, Telegram)

Pavel Durov is the creator of the Vkontakte social network. This man is called the "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. In 2011, the fortune of Pavel Durov was estimated at 7.9 billion rubles, and in the list of "The richest Russian billionaires" Durov took 350th place.

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

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 success begin? Tatiana - former teacher in English while on maternity leave - in 2004, she began to order clothes from the Otto and Quelle catalogs. The warehouse of goods was located in the apartment where Tatyana lived with her husband Vyacheslav. She picked up the parcels from the post office herself, traveling by public transport. I only had enough money to develop the site.

A banner for 1,500 rubles was placed as an advertisement. a month on one of the women's sites. Orders began to arrive literally on the very first day. A year later, the apartment turned out to be too small for use as a warehouse, and Tatiana and her husband rented a small office and a warehouse. We hired couriers and operators.

To that small home-based business has grown into an online retail giant and the most recognizable online store, fueled by several innovations that were introduced by its founder:

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

Tatiana is not photographed and does not communicate with the press. She was interviewed only once by the online commerce magazine Shopolog. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is:

“Don't be afraid to start. Don't be afraid to be wrong. Take risks, contrary to the majority opinion, if you know that clients need it. To have close people nearby, able to support ”.

Petr Osipov ("Business Youth")

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

Peter was born and raised in Cheboksary. There he also got his first experience of working in election campaigns and holding public speeches. 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 aspiring entrepreneurs (and not only beginners) to increase their income and the efficiency of their business.

As Petr Osipov says 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 ambitious community of entrepreneurs in Russia. The training is carried out in several programs: the intensive "Business Start", the in-depth program "Shop", the 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.

BM has representative offices in more than 200 cities in Russia and neighboring countries. Annual revenue is over 900 million rubles. The project is hotly debated: someone calls BM a sect, for someone training really helps. 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 started his business in 2005, when he was 17 years old, he was in 11th grade. Initial investments in the business amounted to 20 thousand rubles. I managed to accumulate this amount in three years from the money that my parents gave.

Through a familiar shuttle that carried goods from China, Vsevolod ordered data cables (devices with which data is transferred between digital devices).

Created a website with an uncomplicated name sotmarket.ru. I sent the first orders to clients with my own hand, paying the postal workers ten rubles for each issued parcel.

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 college, Fear rented a small office space, 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: from mobile accessories to gardening tools. The revenue of Sotmarket in 2012 amounted to 4.15 billion rubles and became the third online electronics retailer in the country by this indicator.

However, due to the fact that Vsevolod took a lot of loans to expand the 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 the director of e-commerce at the Tele2 mobile operator.

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

Watch a video from the "Business Secrets" TV series: Oleg Tinkov asks Vsevolod Fear questions about the start, establishment and development of a business:

Vadim Dymov

Founder and owner of the companies "Dymovskoe sausage production", "Suzdal ceramics", "Respublika" (chain bookstores) and "Rubezh" (cafes and restaurants)

Now you can start any business based on import substitution from Europe. It might be something simple. You just need to analyze what was bought in large quantities. To do this, you can simply refer to customs statistics... It can also be food. How to do this kind of business? Yes, exactly the same: hands and feet, with a cold head and a warm heart. The crisis has not really changed anything, the people are the same, the officials are the same. Probably, purchasing power has changed, and then for a while. It doesn't matter for a startup, either.

We need to be engaged in agriculture. For example, as my brother Yegor [Duda] suggests to me: we all leave for the Far East, take "Putin's land" (but not 1 hectare, but 100 hectares) and start growing soybeans in the risky farming zone, and then sell it to China. Soy is a great business. Milk is good too.

What else? Small-scale engineering logistics or components for assembly. In small towns, it is now possible to create small warehouses and develop services for medium and small businesses. We have these niches empty. You can make Russian furniture. I just want to build a carpentry workshop. Suddenly? Well, and what, it's nice to sit and eat at the furniture that he made himself. And you can also become an official, get money and a term later, too, but that's another story.

Oleg Tinkov

The founder of the St. Petersburg network Technoshock and the dumplings brand Daria, in 2003 he created the Tinkoff brewing company, and in 2006 - the Tinkoff Bank bank.

The near future belongs to medical startups, everything related to medicine: dietary supplements and medicines, pharmacies, clinics and the hospital sector. And if there is no adequate investment for this, then you can tackle online consulting and gadget-based recommendations applications - there is a whole expanse here. We have begun to live longer, our bodies have begun to age more actively, and they need care. In this sense, Russia has lagged behind world developments by 15-20 years, but this gives an opportunity for copypaste. Ideally, it would be nice to invest in R&D and medical development, but it is expensive and takes a long time to pay off - we are not used to doing that.

Fedor Ovchinnikov

Founder of the Power of the Mind bookstore chain and the DoDo Pizza pizza chain

In difficult times of crisis, you can start absolutely any business, because a crisis is only a new coordinate system, life does not stop, only the rules of the game change. It is not "what" that is important here, but "how."

"Mercedes" will always buy, regardless of the crisis, you just need to find a competitive business model to win in the new conditions. At the same time, new players definitely have chances, because they can start from scratch, building a business in new coordinates.

After my first major setback in my "entrepreneurial career" [selling bookstores for next to nothing], I start any business as if it were a bad crisis. I immediately ask myself the question: "What will happen to my business when everything is bad, even if now everything is very good?" It seems to me that now the country has a great opportunity to start a healthy and strong business.

David Yakobashvili

He started as a co-owner of the Metelitsa casino on Novy Arbat and the Trinity Motors car dealer, was one of the founders of the Wimm-Bill-Dann company, and now develops the Bioenergy corporation (peat processing)

In the current situation, it is worth focusing on a business that can bring pleasure, peace and tranquility. I would advise startups to do a business that they don’t mind investing in, a business that can bring positive emotions. After all, talking now about a new business that could become profitable is difficult: unfortunately, the refinancing rate today leaves much to be desired. So, as the minister advised us all economic development Alexey Ulyukaev, - “It's time to take care of your family and spiritual development”.

Sergey Belousov

Co-founder of Rolsen and software companies Parallels and Acronis, as well as venture capital fund Runa Capital

It is difficult to give a concrete answer to such a question, but you can start from simple facts. The first - in Russia, a qualified work force, people became more loyal to their employers, they began to work harder. As a result, any export business received serious competitive advantages. In particular, this applies to the export IT business, which develops technologies in Russia and sells them all over the world. I see this perfectly in the example of Acronis, Parallels and the Runa Capital portfolio. These companies are doing very well, and NGINX is the best example here. So you can advise to start with such a business.

The second fact is that in a recession, the presence of cash is a big advantage, and its absence is a serious risk. Those who are good at keeping track of their cash, usually have the opportunity to buy other businesses inexpensively during a crisis. And for those who do not pay attention to this, there is a risk of being bought, on the contrary. You must be ready to take advantage of both opportunities.

Alexander Kravtsov

Founder and owner of the Ruyan company, through which he first traded shoe care products and mosquito repellents. Then he created the Expedition umbrella brand, under which goods for tourists and gifts are sold. Owns several restaurants and organizes various expeditions.

Now you can start any business, if there are strong people, they can do it. It is important to maintain good spirits, to put your soul into the project. If you are not afraid, do not bury your head in the sand, then everything will definitely work out.

I have always believed that crises do not exist. There are a ton of collapsing markets right now. But I know many businesses that are overwhelmed with orders. For example, in Russia there is the only company that sews backpacks, they have a lot of orders. Extremely interesting topics- this is food, domestic tourism. All markets are interesting, and especially those from which foreigners left. If you drive along the Garden Ring in Moscow now, you will see many rental offers, a year ago this was not the case.

But now you need to be careful with fixed costs. Significant changes are taking place on the market, the employer's market is returning: before, workers were fastidious, there were few people with high qualifications, but now there are many free specialists. Healthy management cynicism is important today: not have unnecessary expenses, not pay high salaries, expensive rent, and not invest in what you would have invested in before.

Photo: TASS, PhotoXPress, Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBK, facebook.com/ovchinnikov.fedor

There were not enough vegetarians in Smolensk, the Sochi residents did not understand the gastropub format, and Muscovites preferred the variety of the Central Market to the fashionable Asian project. Not only beginners, but also experienced restaurateurs were defeated

Ruslan Shcherbakov (Photo: From personal archive)

The Russian restaurant market has been going through hard times over the past three years: visitors prefer cheap fast food to original projects. But many restaurants fail to achieve payback not only because of the fall in household income. Often the reason for the failure is the wrong location, misunderstanding of their audience, a self-confident attempt to transfer the format that has gone in Moscow to the outback. Among those who overestimated their experience and strength are the owners of the RESTart Vasilchuk Brothers holding Alexey and Dmitry Vasilchuk, as well as the owner of Hurma, Dmitry Levitsky. With this article, RBC begins a series of publications about startups from different business areas that had to stop working in the last year and a half.

Neither grass nor meat

Back in 2007, 37-year-old Ruslan Shcherbakov decided to open a restaurant for vegetarians in Smolensk. “I myself am a vegetarian and have always suffered from the fact that there were no such establishments in my hometown,” the entrepreneur recalls. “After talking with friends, I realized that this format would be interesting not only for me.”

Despite the relevance of the idea, the launch had to be postponed: the opening of the "dream restaurant" required considerable investments by regional standards, which Shcherbakov did not have. He invested all his money in the development of another business - a network of stalls with hot corn, hot dogs and other fast food (later the entrepreneur opened points in Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod and several other cities). This business brought little - only 50-70 thousand rubles. arrived per month. “I sighed, thought about the prospects, but I didn’t start the restaurant yet - I wanted to do everything efficiently and wisely, and this required both time and money,” explains Shcherbakov.

He got the opportunity to start a new project only at the beginning of 2015. By that time, due to management difficulties, he sold stalls in other cities (only the Smolensk point remained). Shcherbakov told a friend about the idea of ​​a vegetarian restaurant, who agreed to become an investor. First of all, the partners found a room of 250 sq. m in the center of Smolensk, on Bolshaya Sovetskaya, then they hired a designer, with whom they began to develop the interior.

They spent a total of eight months and about RUB 10 million on launching the Green House vegetarian restaurant. - twice the planned costs. The reason for the delays and additional expenses was the decoration of the premises, Shcherbakov admits. “I wanted to open a place like no other in the city,” he says. “I came up with an eco-style design - with phytowalls, hanging plants, small cascading waterfalls and wooden furniture.” The entrepreneurs spent more than 5 million rubles on the creation of all interior elements, the rest of the funds went to equipment and rental of premises.

At the end of December 2015, Green House finally opened. The restaurant had 70 seats, the vegetarian menu consisted of 180 dishes from different cuisines of the world. It seemed that the stake on the eco-component paid off: for the first six months the project worked at full capacity and brought in up to 150 thousand rubles. revenue per day (net profit was about 40% of this amount).

Shcherbakov was already going to expand, but in the middle of 2016 the excitement began to subside. “At first, thanks to the unusual green interior that could be seen through the windows, even meat-eaters came to us: everyone went to HYIP, sometimes without knowing that we were a vegetarian restaurant,” says the entrepreneur. “But as soon as people found out that we had no meat or alcohol, they immediately forgot about our establishment. In principle, I did not want to enter these positions in the menu, but the quantities regular customers it wasn’t even enough to get to zero ”.

The partners closed 2016 with a minus of RUB 1.2 million. In 2017, despite the launch of catering services at events (for example, fitness meetings or yoga classes), the business brought them about 1 million rubles more. loss. “I had seen enough of vegetarian cafes in Europe and Moscow - I thought that this would be in demand here too,” says Shcherbakov. - But it turned out that there are very few people in Smolensk and in the regions who take care of their diet in comparison with those for whom it is not important. If we had cutlets and vodka, we would have developed, and without them, we would have become a restaurant for a limited circle of people. "

By May 2018, the restaurant's daily revenue fell to RUB 10,000, and the entrepreneurs decided to close it. The total loss of the project (including investments) amounted to more than RUB 12 million. Shcherbakov himself, however, did not abandon vegetarian experiments: he started producing natural products (for example, soy meat, eco-mayonnaise, etc.) under his own Vegetarian brand. Now his goods are purchased by the Smolensk stores "Organics" and "Harmony". Business brings from 200 thousand to 300 thousand rubles. net profit monthly.

Left without a sweet

According to RBC Market Research, the share of Russians who abandoned catering increased from 2% to 7% from 2012 to 2018. This is mainly due to the fall in income, the researchers say. Those who still visit cafes and restaurants have begun to pay more attention to the price tag. The most popular format among Russians is fast food: 71.2% of citizens visit fast food establishments. The least popular are expensive, mostly non-chain restaurants: today only 10% of Russians visit them.

“Consumers expect more and more from brands, and it is important for them that the service and quality of food remain at the same level or higher, and the price does not change or decrease. More and more Russians are looking for lucrative price offers and are actively using coupons, discounts and loyalty programs, ”- RBC Market Research Daniel Rubinovski, Sales Marketing Director of KFC Russia. In addition, consumers are becoming more and more conservative in their choice of establishments, says Igor Podstreshny, founder of Burger Heroes. “People are taking less risk in favoring proven establishments,” he says.

Life at your fingertips

The LocAsian Bar restaurant on Tsvetnoy Boulevard was not saved from failure either by its location or by the names of its founders - Alexei and Dmitry Vasilchukov, owners of the RESTart Vasilchuk Brothers holding, which includes projects such as Chaikhona No. 1, Ruski, Insight, Steak IT Easy, Obed Bufet other. The restaurant worked for only five months - from March to August 2018, after which it closed with a cumulative loss of RUB 30 million.

Alexey Vasilchuk (Photo: From personal archive)

At first, the founders were absolutely sure that the project would succeed, Aleksey Vasilchuk admits. “When in December 2017 the owners of the closed Buddha Bar offered me to occupy their site, I immediately agreed: the location was interesting, it seemed that the name of the brand would be enough to rock it, even despite the size of 2 thousand square meters. m ", - says the restaurateur. The concept he came up with connected the cuisines of different Asian countries. The Vasilchuk brothers, together with Vladislav Andreev, the head of the DBA-Group architectural studio, set about renovating the interior left over from the previous tenant. Instead of wooden panels, they tiled the walls with stone, hung chandeliers with colorful balls, decorated the halls with new furniture and lots of living plants.

A little over two months later, in March 2018, LocAsian Bar opened. On a vast territory (four floors with a terrace), the brothers managed to create a cozy space with a stylish design. The Pan-Asian menu included dishes of Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese and several other cuisines of the East - visitors could order at least a tom-yam with shrimps, at least a Tashkent salad.

Investments in the launch amounted to about RUB 90 million. Most of the funds went to the repair and purchase of kitchen equipment, furniture and utensils, 6-7 million rubles. the rent cost a month.

“Within a month and a half, after the LocAsian Bar opened, I realized that the project had not gone well,” says Alexey Vasilchuk. Its launch coincided with the opening of the Central Market on Trubnaya Square - office workers went to lunch not at the LocAsian Bar, but at the food court located in the market. For this reason, the restaurant was empty in the morning and at lunchtime, Vasilchuk believes: LocAsian Bar was visited by an average of 200 people a day (the number of seats was 400), 80% of whom came in the evening. “We thought that we would have much more people in the daytime,” the entrepreneur admits. - But it turned out that the Central Market took all this audience away from us. We did not take into account that food on the markets is in trend now. Plus, many people were afraid to visit us - they thought it was the same Buddha Bar with a tarnished reputation just changed its name. "

If the restaurant "does not fly", it must be closed or reformatted so as not to accumulate losses, argues Vasilchuk. Say goodbye to own project After a month and a half, the brothers were offended, so they decided to revive him: to attract customers, they introduced 30 percent discounts on all menus at lunchtime, and began to hold parties on Fridays and Saturdays. “We filled the nights, but the daytime audience - office employees - could not be lured,” the entrepreneur sighs.

As a result, on August 13, 2018, due to daytime downtime, high rental and salary burden, LocAsian Bar nevertheless closed. The total loss, according to Vasilchuk, amounted to about 30 million rubles. On August 15, on the site of LocAsian Bar, Chaikhona No. 1 was opened - it, unlike the Asian restaurant, works in a plus.

“Fakups happen to everyone - both beginners and experienced restaurateurs,” says the entrepreneur. - This market lives at your fingertips: for a project to take off, you need to have a lot of factors. For example, we misunderstood the name and location of the pilot project, underestimated the rental load and neighbors, and therefore failed. The lesson I personally learned from this is to work through the entire business model in my head from the very beginning and not rely on the strength of the brand if there are doubts about breaking through. "

Caught in a thunderstorm

“Sochi lacked a modern, in the spirit of large Russian cities, restaurant: after the Olympics, a large number of business-oriented young people moved there, who, as it seemed to us, wanted something different from the usual Sochi cuisine,” recalls Dmitry Levitsky, president of the restaurant Alliance "Real", co-founder of the group of companies Hurma Group (network "Darling, I'll call you back ...", Take It Easy bar, Darling, Meat Puppets restaurant, etc.). "But, as they say, you shouldn't go to a strange monastery with your own charter."

Dmitry Levitsky (Photo: From personal archive)

The idea to launch a restaurant project in Sochi came to Levitsky in the spring of 2016. By that time, he managed to hold the annual gastronomic festival Gastreet several times in Krasnaya Polyana (the turnover of each such event was about 100 million rubles) and opened the Yolochka bar there, which brought in up to 1-2 million rubles. arrived a month, but only worked during the ski season - from December to May.

The opening of a second establishment, located lower, by the sea, will make it possible not to depend on the seasonality factor, concluded the restaurateur. He set about finding suitable premises. The entrepreneur hoped to launch the project in the summer - this would also allow capturing tourists who come to Sochi on summer vacations. It was possible to find the site quickly: a few weeks later, Levitsky had already launched the construction of a room for 80 seats not far from the local Central Department Store and the railway station. However, the construction was delayed for almost six months. “The quality of construction services in Sochi turned out to be much lower than in Moscow. We brought all the materials from the capital, but we had to put up with the pace of work of the builders, ”the entrepreneur explains.

A gastronomic pub with an unpretentious name Groza, which served unusual dishes (for example, chicken with mint couscous, risotto with fried mini-squid and rice chips), did not open until the fall of 2016. Investments amounted to almost 30 million rubles. About 13 million rubles. of which went to repair the premises, 10 million rubles. - for the purchase of furniture and interior decoration, 5 million rubles. - for the purchase of equipment, another 600 thousand rubles. the rent cost a month.

“The opening was loud - almost the entire Sochi elite came to us, we immediately got into the top 10 according to reviews on TripAdvisor,” recalls Levitsky. “But after the first month it became clear that something was going wrong. When you open a restaurant, people usually start coming through word of mouth without advertising. The restaurant spins up by itself due to the organic growth of attendance. Unfortunately, we have not seen this growth. "

Out of the blue: why Groza closed

1. An impassable place not on the main street was chosen as a location.

2. The gastropub format was irrelevant and incomprehensible to local residents.

3. The institution did not have a pronounced direction, for example, it was tied to the cuisine of a certain country. At the same time, the prices for the dishes were quite high.

The revenue for the first month of operation was about 1.5 million rubles, the loss was 1 million rubles. The main expenses were paid for salaries and rent. Until spring, Groza did not succeed in getting a plus. “If we were to open this restaurant in Moscow, we would immediately get worried and start taking some action,” says Levitsky. “And here, in an unfamiliar market, everything was attributed to the general decline associated with the same Black Sea seasonality.”

All hope was for the summer, but it did not bring the restaurant out of the crisis either. The loss for this season amounted to about 1.2 million rubles, and Levitsky decided to close the restaurant. Total losses, including investments, reached RUB 45 million. “I didn’t see any sense to continue: it was obvious that we were wrong both with how passable the location was and with how interesting the format of a modern gastropub could be in Sochi,” he concludes. - Making a restaurant to the taste of Muscovites, we really created something that does not exist in Sochi, but no one needed it. For me, this failure was a good lesson: now I understand that it is better to work in those markets that I fully understand - from the energy of the streets to the taste preferences of the audience. "

View from the outside

"Great professionals considered themselves multi-brand restaurateurs"

Sergey Mironov, owner of the "Meat & Ryba" restaurant chain, founder of the "RestConsult" agency

“Due to the protracted crisis, the restaurant market is becoming a purely professional one, with a small layer of those who are just lucky. However, in the last year and a half, not only non-professional projects of newcomers were closed, but also non-core experimental establishments of fairly well-known restaurateurs. Great professionals considered themselves multi-brand restaurateurs who can open various establishments, departing from their core concept. But this does not work: this is the same business where uniform technologies and a single concept are important.

All major players, as a rule, work in their well-functioning formats, which have been tested both by time and by the number of establishments. When they discover something fundamentally new, in theory they have enough knowledge and experience to go through it all over again. But they cannot allocate enough resources: they invest most of their time and money in the development of their main directions. This is exactly what happened with LocAsian Bar and Groza - their formats were non-core for restaurateurs. As for Green House, the vegetarian format does not work at all either in the regions or in Moscow. Vegetarians do not go to vegetarian restaurants: more often they are in the company of meat-eaters and go to a regular restaurant, where they order a dish that suits them. The Jagannat network is rather an exception to the rule. "

"People are being led by the very name" canteen "

Ekaterina Severova, manager of the Sochi restaurant "Barabulya"

“Now in Sochi, the concept of dining rooms with a fashionable design is relevant. Moreover, the price tag in such places is not necessarily low. People fall for the very name "canteen", thinking that it is cheap there, but in fact they pay at least 500 rubles for lunch. A lot of such canteens have opened Lately in the city and they thrive. In addition, Caucasian cuisine will always be popular: it is food for every day, it is loved by both tourists and locals. The brand also has power. For example, we have Arkady Novikov's 5642 Height and the White Rabbit Family flourishing, and we have a strong local network of the London Group. People sometimes go for names and quality standards.

When opening a restaurant in Sochi, in addition to choosing the right concept, you need to be prepared for the high cost of rent and utilities. I would not recommend opening an institution in an impassable place. In general, I think that in the next couple of years, narrowly focused street food projects will develop, which are now very relevant in Moscow. Here play a role like low price dishes for the consumer, and a high return on investment. "

Elena Chuikova (Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

The founder of the Yoho company, Elena Chuikova, decided that cardboard is the ideal material for a toy. It is cheap and environmentally friendly, it can be painted in any color, and when you are tired of the toy, do not mind throwing it away. And buyers liked the new product retail chains- it hit the shelves large stores... But the networks are paying for the goods for a long time. Customers need to demonstrate and promote a non-standard constructor at points of sale. Due to the cash gap, the company began to bring losses. The way out of the crisis was suggested by buyers who use a cardboard construction set in educational programs.

Racketeer in a skirt

Elena Chuikova, 39, was born in Togliatti and graduated from the Povolzhskiy Technological Institute of Service. At the age of 19, she opened an advertising agency "Togliatti Inform" with friends: they printed reference books, travel guides and posters of events. Then she made the monthly magazine Afisha Togliatti (she has nothing to do with the Moscow magazine and the Afisha website) and the city prize of the same name. “When you collect money every month for advertising from the same advertisers in a city where everyone knows each other, they already look at you as a racketeer in a skirt. I had to come up with a lot of interesting and creative things, ”says Chuikova.

In 2012, Chuikova received an MBA at RANEPA, and a year later she decided to leave her partner: customers began to cut advertising budgets, gave boring and routine tasks. “I'm tired of serving railroad workers. There was not enough freedom and self-realization, ”explains the entrepreneur. Chuikova sold her share to a partner and began to look for new idea for business.

Mistake # 1

In early 2014, a friend invited Elena Chuikova to an exhibition of children's goods. “And it dawned on me - well, here it is: I know the printing industry, contractors, I can make cardboard toys,” the entrepreneur recalls. Cardboard is an inexpensive and environmentally friendly material, it is produced in Russia. Abroad, the trend for eco-toys and furniture was already gaining popularity, and the entrepreneur decided to position the company as Dutch or Scandinavian - together with designer Irina Buchelnikova, she came up with the Yoho brand. She also helped construct a prototype of a child-sized cardboard house for coloring.

Money was needed to start. The entrepreneur began to "call everyone in a row", and Igor Golikov, the owner trading company"Ergarda". “Interests converged. Elena was on fire with this project, and I had a great desire to try myself as a business angel, ”Golikov comments. In the summer of 2014, he invested 9 million rubles. in exchange for 80% of the company. With this money, they ordered the production of a test batch, rented an office and a warehouse, hired the first employees. We agreed on cooperation with the Metro network and several online stores, where the house was sold at a price of about 3 thousand rubles. According to SPARK, the revenue of Yoho LLC in 2015 amounted to RUB 3.7 million, profit - RUB 143 thousand.

But it soon became clear that the entrepreneurs made a mistake in choosing a product - the large dimensions of the toy made it difficult to sell it: the assembled house required a lot of space in the store, and when folded, few people paid attention to it. In addition, other manufacturers began to produce cardboard houses.

New games

Chuikova decided to create a new product - less cumbersome and at the same time unique, so that it could be patented. She was inspired by the products of the Riga company GiGi Bloks, which produces construction sets from cardboard. However, Chuikova and Buchelnikova developed their designer from scratch: the size of the frame, the lineup and the fastening methods were different from those in Riga. It took three months to create the prototype. In March 2015, Chuikova applied for a Russian patent for an invention and trade mark Yohokub, and received it in 2017.

During the production phase, the company faced new challenges. For the cubes, cardboard of a certain hardness was needed. Chuikova had to change three contractors. “They gave us different things that passed according to the GOST parameters, but looked like a rag,” Chuikova recalls. As a result, we settled on the Kirov factory "Interkarton", which, after long negotiations and the first unsuccessful batch, began to produce a special kind of cardboard - hard and thin. According to Igor Kuzenkov, the head of the Interkarton factory, this material is noticeably different from the cardboard for boxes and packaging, to which the average person is accustomed: "It bends well and at the same time keeps its shape."

Chuikova orders raw materials every three to five months. The finished cardboard goes to a factory near Moscow, which cuts out blanks for cubes from it. Warehouse stocks are also stored there. The design of the cubes was refined three times: first, the corners were rounded, then "locks" were added that hold the parts in the fasteners, and then round holes appeared in the center of each face for decoration and joining parts. The final version was ready by the fall of 2016, and a year later "Yohokub" received a "silver" for design at the international competition A 'International Design Awards in Italy.

In the Yohokuba line there are 50 names of designers from 500 to 2 thousand rubles, which are divided into the series: “YohoCity: Architecture”, “YohoSpace: Space”, “YohoMobile: Cars and steam locomotives”, “YohoTechnic: Technics”, “YohoBot : Robots "and others. Chuikova bought licenses to depict the characters of the cartoon" Yoko ", but, according to her, the experiment was unsuccessful, these toys were not in demand. The entrepreneur hoped that the construction set would be bought by children over seven years old. But focus groups have shown that three-year-olds can cope with adult prompts.

The new product was less bulky than cabins and cheaper. Chuikova quickly managed to negotiate supplies in the Ozon, Wildberries, Respublika, Mosigra, Hamleys networks and with several distributors. “The interest in the product appeared after the City Day 2016. We and "Yohokuba" had sites nearby at the event, and our guys drew attention to the obvious excitement among the neighbors. We went on a visit, looked, took part and brought impressions to the office, ”recalls Irina Pochinskaya, assortment manager of Mosigra.

Revenue of Yoho LLC for 2016, according to SPARK, amounted to 4.7 million rubles, profit - 1 million rubles.

Inhospitable abroad

Chuikova planned to go abroad, where consumers are already familiar with cardboard toys. The first try was cooperation with Amazon in the German market. "Amazon very carefully checked all participants in the delivery process, they even asked to confirm that such a person exists and pays the rent at the specified address of residence," Elena recalls. It took more than five months to agree on all the details, the logistics were organized through a Czech company. Sales started in March 2017, but the product was not in great demand - Chuikova believes that she did not take into account the mentality of the Germans. “They are not inclined to spontaneous online purchases of new unusual things, it is easier for them to go to an offline store, make sure the quality of the goods, even overpay so as not to risk the delivery of an unknown product,” the entrepreneur believes. The situation was aggravated by language barriers: the staff of "Yohokuba" made a translation of the instructions with errors. As a result, the project was frozen.

The second attempt was related to China, where a baby boom began after the ban on the second child was lifted. Chuikova decided to join - she found a Russian entrepreneur in China, agreed on cooperation: she transferred the technology for production in the Celestial Empire, counting on future commissions. Now the goods are on display in the largest online store Taobao, but Chuikov's commission has not yet been received.

According to the entrepreneur, in general, the attitude towards Russian entrepreneurs in European markets has deteriorated markedly. “Amazon tested us for an unprecedentedly long time, and one Dutchman simply did not shake hands,” recalls the experience of visiting one of Chuikov's exhibitions. Therefore, she is now focused on the domestic market.

Mistake # 2

In the summer of 2017, it became clear that betting on retail chains was a mistake. The fact is that the product is new and unusual: falling on the same shelf with famous brands, he was lost, the buyers did not understand what it was and how to use the cardboard construction set. Chuikova had to train store employees every three months at her own expense, as well as arrange master classes for customers. “The peak of sales fell on the periods of promotions and activities on summer grounds. But without marketing support, sales showed negative dynamics, ”recalls Irina Pochinskaya from Mosigra.

Elena Chuikova (Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

And the main problem is that the networks usually paid for deliveries in two or three months. In 2017, small and medium-sized distributors began to close, and payment delays became even greater. The company faced a cash gap - accounts receivable were growing, and the company itself ran out of money for promotion. Sales were poor without promoters and advertising, and there was nothing to order new lots.

“There was a difficult period when the money we invested began to run out. And the project was on the verge of cutting everything that was possible, ”recalls Igor Golikov. The Yoho company completed 2017 with a revenue of 2.5 million rubles. and a loss of 706 thousand rubles.

Chuikova decided to withdraw children's homes from sale and develop direct sales of the designer. She threw all her efforts into finding new investors: she participated in exhibitions and events for startups. As a result, in August 2017, she managed to attract another 7 million rubles for business development. from private investors. Among them are Golikov's business partner Timur Kazantsev, as well as entrepreneurs Ragimkhan Muradkhanov, Rustam Huseynov and Denis Dedkov. Chuikova's share, according to SPARK, dropped to 10.78%, and Golikov's - to 40.69%.

In October 2017, the company had its own online store, on the development of which Chuikova spent 75 thousand rubles. The margin of sales through your website reaches 70-80%, and most importantly, the money comes immediately. Special projects with “adult” brands have become an additional sales channel. For example, in the fall of 2017, the company created an installation in the coworking space "Environment Space". 10 thousand yohokubiks were used to make furniture, robots and other art objects. And the Medsi clinic ordered branded souvenirs from the company.

Knowledge is power

Having started direct sales, the entrepreneur noticed that some buyers are buying up the designer in bulk. She phoned them and found out that it was kindergarten teachers who were purchasing a construction kit for classes: it was light, simple and cheap, the children could take the crafts with them. With the help of a cardboard construction set, teachers develop fine motor skills and imagination.

For example, the kindergarten "Castle of Childhood" at the State Farm named after Lenin organized a circle on modeling from a cardboard set and holds thematic exhibitions. The presidential elections fueled interest in everything related to Pavel Grudinin, the director of the state farm. Therefore, expositions from a cardboard construction set began to fall into the frame of journalistic chronicles, teachers from other educational institutions drew attention to the "Yohokub".

“We are completely changing our program and introducing the steam-approach in education (a popular technique abroad that combines creativity, mathematics and engineering. - RBK). I started looking for someone else in Russia doing this, and I realized that Yohokub is the only direction similar to us at the moment. Therefore, we are happy to include it in our program, ”says Natalya Pichugova, head of the Point of Growth network of children's centers.

Elena Chuikova decided to develop an educational direction. She began organizing workshops for children, which Yoho employees give at Anderson and Monster Hills restaurants. The lesson costs an average of 600 rubles. per participant, the organizers divide the proceeds in half with the institution. Now she develops educational courses at the intersection of science and art. It works like this: teachers for a royalty of 10% are invited to create a curriculum, where "Yohokub" will be the main material. Target audience: kindergartens, schools and children's creativity centers.

The first course - YohoTronic, where wires, light bulbs, electrical circuits and light-sensitive sensors were added to the cardboard constructor - is devoted to the study of the laws of physics and the collection of the simplest electrical circuits. It was invented by engineer Ivan Shivarev. With its help, the entrepreneur plans to attract children over seven years old. The supervisor is working on the second year children's center at the Jewish Museum Irina Dvoretskaya. These courses will start in the summer of 2018.

Diversification helped to get out of the crisis - by the spring of 2018 the company had reached self-sufficiency, and by the start of the school season in September, there should be a profit. More than half of Yoho's revenue now comes from educational projects and sales on its own website.

View from the outside

"Yohokub lost the competition for the shelf space"

Irina Pochinskaya, assortment manager, Mosigra

“We have made the decision to withdraw the Yohokub from the assortment. Yohokub lost the internal competition of goods for shelf space. Minecraft-style constructors - it was great and trendy. But the cardboard ... The cardboard spoils everything. Our people do not like to give money for what they perceive as packaging. We are not used to the fact that intelligent development itself can already cost money.

The assortment existed for a little over a year. The thing is cool! But maybe she needs a different target audience or a different sales channel. For example, through master classes and development centers. In any case, I would like to see more such projects that include a high pedagogical potential ”.

"Market with a high level of competition"

Vyacheslav Ivaschenko, director of assortment development, Wildberries online store

“We are seeing an increase in demand for the“ Toys ”category: at the beginning of 2017, 16 thousand articles were presented at Wildberries, and as of May 2018 - already 23 thousand. But the toy market is a highly competitive market. Now, in addition to traditional players, publishers and some Russian manufacturers plastic, and companies working with the economic group. Launching our brand, especially in a highly competitive environment, is the beginning of a long and difficult journey, and we are always happy to help companies like Yohokub develop.

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

Ayaz Shabutdinov (Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

26-year-old entrepreneur Ayaz Shabutdinov told RBC about the reasons for selling his stake in the Coffee Like chain, which included retail coffee shops in Izhevsk and Moscow, the management company Coffee Like LLC (engaged in the sale of franchises) and Logistics Coffee LLC (responsible for delivery of coffee and other consumables to partners' points). Coffee Like, which is considered the largest chain of takeaway coffee outlets in Russia, was acquired by a group of private investors. The estimated cost 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 for 75.5%. Of these, 50.6% belonged to me as to an individual and another 24.9% through the Like Business company. The co-owners not only stayed with the company, but also decided to take part in the deal and increase their share in the business. " According to SPARK, the co-owners of Coffee Like LLC are entrepreneurs Ivan Ermilov and Alexander Nudin: each of them has 12.25% of the company. This suggests that at least part of Shabutdinov's share 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. "This would not allow Coffee Like to grow as fast as its market potential."

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

Shabutdinov selects several projects from the applications of the graduates of his courses, which continue to develop with the help of investments of the Like group of companies. “At the moment, our pool of potentially interesting projects includes 63 companies with which we are at different stages of work: we are just getting to know someone and conduct an audit, while 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 or 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, in the first eight months of 2018 - 744.8 RUB million “A considerable part of the sales is made by our partners in the regions, so there are about 74.7% of our money 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 now, a predominantly Russian-speaking audience comes to study, - Shabutdinov admits. “Part of the proceeds from the sale of Coffee Like will go towards the expansion of the project abroad.”

In addition to educational project the entrepreneur decided to develop a real estate project. He plans to acquire ownership of properties ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 sq. m in different cities of Russia, uniting them in networks of residential and work smart-spaces. “Standard apartments and offices, in my opinion, are archaism, especially for generations Z and Y,” says Shabutdinov. “They want to sign an agreement today, give away the money and start living or working in a room where everything is equipped. And then - 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 receive income higher than the average for the real estate market. "

Part of the target audience new network there should be entrepreneurs who study in educational centers Like. “We think we understand their problems quite well, so we decided to create“ our own place ”for them. We built the concept, relying on the already existing world experience, our own research, in-depth interviews and, ultimately, on our own needs, since we ourselves are target audience", - says Shabutdinov.

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