Five success stories of IT business from Russia in Silicon Valley

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Telephone systems, server testers, Internet telephony. In this and other areas, small companies of Russians compete with giants, writes Victoria Kostoeva in material for Forbes.ru. ForumDaily publishes an article with abbreviations.

Well-known Russian IT companies in the world are not only ABBYY David Yang or Evernote Stepan Pachikov, whose office is most prominently located on the road from San Francisco Airport to Silicon Valley. The Russian community of start-ups running there is one of the most influential in the Valley. Here are five stories about small but successful companies founded by immigrants from Russia.

Hidden treasure

Company: Zultys

Year established: 2009

Founder: Vladimir Movshovich, Moscow

Scope: development of telephone systems

Inspirer and founder Zultys - 53-year-old Vladimir Movshovich. In 1993, he arrived in San Francisco at the invitation of a former employee of the Institute for System Studies, who made a pattern recognition startup in California. “I took one sweater with me — I thought I came for a couple of months,” recalls Movshovich. It turned out differently. Soon he started working at a startup. Zarak (Founder Jan Milns) engaged in the production of testers for the telecommunications industry. Business proved successful: by the end of 1990's Zarak occupied half of the American market testers and got into the customers of such telecom giants as Cisco and AT&T. In 2000 year Zarak changed the owner, Movshovich was fired, providing an option. There was enough money to buy a house in Mountain View.

In 2001, the team of Movshovich and Mils from former Russian engineers began developing software for telephone systems - a startup was named Zultys. "Tester market in which he worked Zarak, limited, and the market for telephone systems is huge, ”Movshovich explains the change of course. Zultys offered clients a set of simultaneously running services: call document-centre, operator, secretary, voice mail, fax, "client" on the desktop and on gadgets. American rivals closest rivals Mytell, Storetell, Avaya, Cisco. In general, the volume of the American market of telephone systems is estimated at $ 10 billion.

But with all the merits of the product, customers initially did not stand in line. “We have never had a really good marketing - this is our main mistake,” admits Movshovich. The situation improved in 2008, when Neal Lichtman, an American, was taken to the position of CEO - sales doubled in a year. The dealers' stimulation strategy worked: they were offered a discount from the price, the size of which is kept strictly confidential, thanks to which each dealer sells telephone systems to customers at his own price, not recommended by the manufacturer. “This approach makes dealers loyal, they are hooked on us even in the absence of a well-known brand, earning a decent margin.”

350 dealers play a key role in the business model. Zultys. They themselves are looking for customers, finding out the parameters of the telephone system they need (how many people work in the company, how many telephone numbers do they need, is there a need for call documentcenter, call recording, secretary, operator and other services), install the equipment and software. The cost of the telephone system in Zultys do not disclose, on average for the industry it is $ 30 000-40 000.

At the beginning of 2010, the market for telephone systems began to shrink - cloud technologies became popular. "It became clear that we also had to go to cloud: in order to maintain and continue to grow, we came out with a virtual, and then with a cloud offer, ”Movshovich says.

Among the largest customers - Bank of Yutah and First Bank of Texas, car dealers such as a large dealer Acura and Toyota, Ken Garff network with 3 employees (despite the fact that the average “size” of a client is 500 telephones), school associations - the so-called school district, by 5-15 schools. In the US, in each class there must be a telephone, from where the teacher can call the police, and the police must understand which class they are calling from. Summarizing 3000-4000 system licenses Zultys only sells for one school district. There are about 6000 customers in total, most of them in the USA and Canada, but there are customers in Australia and Southeast Asia.

Storage for business

Company: LoadDynamiX

Year established: 2008

Scope: server load testing

Founders: Leonid Scheiba (St. Petersburg), Alan Newman, Dick Bush

Revenue: about $ 10 million

The St. Petersburg-based citizen Leonid Scheiba arrived in California in 1989 year. A graduate of the Leningrad Electrotechnical University, a physicist by training, Scheib did not work a single day in his specialty, but “immediately took up computers.” In 2008, he headed an engineering consulting firm. 3Play. The idea of ​​creating a device tester for modeling server loads was born in the course of communication with one of the clients, Alan Newman. Tom needed to evaluate the efficiency and safety of storing information in the Data Processing Center (in case of problems, purchasing server capacity or increasing traffic), but there was no really efficient testing service on the market.

At the stage of creating a company, which was then called Swifttest, Dick Bush joined Scheibe and Newman (later both Americans left the project). The partners invested $ 200 000 in their own funds into the development, the same amount was given by the local business angel. With the conclusion LoadDynamiX another investor, Eric Benhamou, who invested about $ 6 million in the project, helped the market.

Who is the buyer? Server manufacturers and large IT companies using them. The very first client was an IT company. F5 Networksselling storage solutions, networks and applications. The company's tester, Terry Schwartz, attracted not only the ability to conduct complex tests, but also an intuitive interface.

After F5 Networks came the largest in the field of services for the storage and processing of information corporation EMC. “The first thing they said when they came was what you do here, we specialize in 10 years,” Scheiba recalls. How did a startup manage to catch such a big fish on the net? The corporation was attracted by the ability to find server problems in storing and processing information at the stage of preparing the final release, and not when clients who bought equipment come across them.

But most customers are still drawn when there are problems. Thus, at the beginning of 2013, the Presbyterian Hospital in New York, one of the largest medical centers in the country, struggled to cope with the intensive growth of data on its patients. The hospital received more than 2 million patients per year and coordinated the work of 20 000 staff, medical and insurance data of patients were stored on dozens of remote servers. Failures of IT-infrastructure led to delays in the search for information, which threatened fatal outcomes for patients. LoadDynamiX conducted a comparative test of server load limits, helped the client to choose the most efficient hardware configurations.

Product Value LoadDynamiX - from $ 50 000 (this amount includes only the minimum number of ports and basic protocols, the average order amount is 2 times higher). Customers are willing to pay.

Pupil Hoffman

Company: Talkatone

Year established: 2011

Founder: Danis Dayanov, Kazan

Scope: Internet telephony

Revenue: n / d

Engineer Danis Dayanov came to California in 2000 from his native Kazan, where he graduated from the Faculty of Applied Mathematics at the Aviation Institute. “Then the most interesting software projects in Russia were developing in the gas or oil industry, and I wanted to do a start-up in another field - this is the main thing that I lacked in Russia,” he explains the motivation.

After working for a short time in a consulting company, Dayanov got a job as an engineer in a new startup - LinkedInwhere he was delayed for five years. “It was a classic startup, a lot of risk, a lot of work, a cheerful team, mistakes and good luck. What we did was needed by users, and it pushed us forward. Among the founders, including Reed Hoffman, I learned how and what to do: LinkedIn - a phenomenally good school, most of those who passed it, will continue to do only start-ups. It captures. ”

He was no exception. Once at lunch with a friend, Dayan turned the phone in his hands, wondering how not to pay for smsand send messages using only the Internet on your iPhone. So the idea to create a program that is installed on the user's mobile phone, which is assigned its own phone number.

Developing a mobile application does not require large funds - no money is needed for writing code, only a computer and the Internet are required. In the fall of 2010, the first version of the application was released for iPhone, release posted on AppStore. “Two months after the release Talkatone had more xnumx xnumx installations. We knew that our application is needed by people, ”says Dayanov.

The result is impressive, but in fact, the growth dynamics of installations is only an indicator of development, not the success of a startup. If out of 100 installations there are only two real users, the efforts of the developers are wasted. “Therefore, we tried to quickly build a base of customers using the application on an ongoing basis.”

In 2011, along with two partners, Dayanov registered a company Talkatone and began to seek funding. “We were lucky to have a successful law firm Gunderson detmer Immediately began to help us. They took upon themselves all the work of preparing the necessary corporate documents, building a joint-stock structure, made us a classic Valley startup. And they did it according to a deferred payment scheme. We had to pay only in case of successful financing or sale, ”admits Dayanov. This is a common practice for Silicon Valley: namely, large law firms (lawyer) incorporated Apple, Cisco and Facebook.

The startup needed American phone numbers. The telephone bases in the States are owned by large companies, which resell them to providers of the next level, and even smaller ones, and you can buy numbers from them. “The task of implementing the numbers in our software turned out to be more difficult - forecasting, negotiations, contracts took almost a year, we managed to cope with the technological difficulties of integration for about half a year,” recalls Dayanov.

Startup quickly conquered the market: today Talkatone order 2 million regular users from different countries. In addition to the US and Canada, the main markets, applications are popular in South Korea, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia.

How does work Talkatone? The user receives an Internet phone number to his email address, confirms it and can make calls and send text messages to regular phone numbers using the mobile Internet. Earns Talkatone on a subscription - payments for phone numbers, international calls and additional minutes of conversation that are not included in the free plan. The main source of income is advertising. “In fact, we are profitable partners. With our number of users and the time they spend in Talkatone“We are able to guarantee important parameters for the advertiser, for example, the minimum required number of banners, the percentage of clicks, and the conversion of potential customers,” Dayanov explains. “The more banners that ad networks show on our site, the more money they pay us.”

In 2012 year Talkatone released applications for Android and iPadand two years later, startup Dayanova bought Ooma - Telecom company from Palo Alto. Dayanov did not disclose the details of the transaction, said that he had received an “excellent stock”. Talkatone joined the structure Oomawhile maintaining their own technical support and the right to make decisions. In this regard, Dayanov has no right to disclose the proceeds of his project.

“We guard the gates of hell”

Company: SATS

Year established: 1994

Founder: Alexander Nemirovsky, St. Petersburg

Scope: Database Analysis

Turnover: $ 3 million

At the end of 2012, Alexander Nemirovsky was woken by a phone call. Called from LiveTV - at their client, airline Virgin America, “Lay down” entertainment service, which is used in flight passengers (movies, music and other services). The problem happened at the weekend when full-time technical support was not working. “After a couple of hours, we“ raised ”the service and got a regular customer,” says Nemirovsky, the founder and owner of SATS (Support Administration Technology Services). Spontaneous circulation at the time of the problem is the standard way most companies come to SATS.

"Catch" any problems in the databases of customers at the time of their occurrence and prevent failures in the IT-systems - this SATS and earns money.

In 1996, Nemirovsky invented a technology for monitoring database performance. Cerberus®, a part of the technology was written by myself, team members helped with separate modules. “Cerberus” was the name of a dog who catches souls in hell, for our clients hell when the site is lying and the databases do not work, so we sort of protect the gates of hell, ”Nemirovsky jokes.

The development of technology, the purchase of "iron", the opening of the laboratory in San Mateo demanded from Nemirovsky several million dollars of personal investment. IT-consulting served as financial support (Nemirovsky advised, for example, LinkedInwhen he was just starting to work). The investment has long paid off.

How does all this work? An “agent” is placed on client computers - an engine that watches in real time all processes on the server. The “agent” studies how everything related to the processing and storage of information is arranged in this business, how many servers are used with which service parameters, and then reports it to Cerberus. The system statistically analyzes the information received for the current state and warns of failures before they become problems. The technology developed by Nemirovsky allows you to compare the matrix sent (this is the name of the set of parameters that monitor the current state of database characteristics) with that transferred by the “agent” 5 minutes or half hour, day or 5 days ago. “In this way, we can see which parameters are beginning to“ float ”still within the limits of what is permitted and where immediate problems are possible,” he explains. Sometimes they report this to the client, but they usually “clear out” all the vulnerabilities at once, and the client doesn’t even know about the threat.

Technical support for large companies' databases is usually provided by a special department with an average number of employees per 10-20 people, with a total salary of $ 2-10 million per year. SATS services cost a client $ 100 000-200 000 per year.

A couple of times he had to practically live in the offices of clients, just to not miss them. So, a few years ago, a high-speed railway company North-East SpeedRailthat connects Boston, New York, Washington and Philadelphia, did not cope with the analysis of its own traffic: when trying to count who was sold and how many tickets were sold, the system “went to bed”. "I spent three weeks in Washington until everything was fine, after which the company signed up for our services for many years to come," recalls Nemirovsky.

He lives with his wife and three children in the prestigious Silicon Valley region. The house stands on the hills, if you move a little away from it, a fantastic view opens up on Stanford lying below. Nemirovsky reacts sharply negatively to proposals for the possible sale of a business: “I don’t want to start anew or work for someone — I’m not ready to lose my freedom.”

Technology skyscraper

Company: Mirantis

Year established: 2000

Founder: Alexander Friedland, Moscow

Scope: open source software

Revenue: up to $ 100 million

19-year-old Alexander Friedland came to California with his parents, graduated from the University of California Santa Clara, where he received a degree in computer engineering. “When you find yourself in the Valley, it’s hard to do something other than IT,” smiles Friedland.

In 1998, he and his partners created a small software company RSI Group, part of the solutions for which was developed in Moscow. A few years later, the company was sold to an English company. London Bridge Software (now part of the FICO group), leaving the Moscow development center with its 20-30 engineers. At its base in 2000, and grew Mirantis.

At first, the company earned on outsourcing: helping customers from the Valley to create dedicated service centers and technologically complex products. After the 2008 crisis of the year, it became clear that the outsourcing business had exhausted itself.

“We looked towards cloud computing — everyone knew very little about them then,” says Friedland. —In parallel, we learned about an open source software development platform. OpenStack. Since the code is written by a community of engineers from different countries, there are quite a few errors in the software. We decided to make money on the imperfection of technology - we focused on finishing and subsequent promotion of products. ”

In those years, the IT industry was in dire need of building infrastructure based on solutions that were not dependent on commercial vendors, but towards open-source watched with caution - lack of knowledge affected. It was then rescued Mirantis: his engineers thoroughly understood the platform OpenStack and in products based on it.

So, the first client was an American company. Internapwhose owners moved their public cloud to the platform OpenStack. Famous clients include electronic payment system. PayРal, for which Mirantis fully built private cloud. Everything would be fine, but there was not enough funds for development, they began to look for external financing. “The problem was that investors almost didn’t imagine what open source software is, so when we asked for money for OpenStack, they said to us: “What is it?” And then they refused ”.

In 2012, investors were still able to find: $ 20 million in Mirantis invested a group of investors whose leader was Intel Capital. The funds received Friedland invested in the development of its own technology based on the platform OpenStack - an open operating system for managing cloud infrastructure.

The bottom line is more than 130 customers per year. For АТ & Т, Ericsson, Symantec, Orange, Telstra, Tata Communications Friedland Company is a strategic supplier of products and services based on OpenStack.

How does all this work? Clients download and install a platform, use their equipment or the Mirantis equipment, which is located in its data-center. Then they use technological solutions made by engineers. Mirantis platform based OpenStack, representing something like a giant nucleus around which the technology “turns”. "In essence, this is a technology skyscraper, where OpenStack serves as a foundation - but they do not save on the foundation. ”

Services Mirantis cost from tens of thousands of dollars a year to several million. The company earns most of the money through a subscription, the amount of which is made up of a one-time payment per year - by the number of nodes (that is, physical computers) on which the application from Mirantis, and from the cost of services to which customers subscribe.

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