Handshake
HeadHunter for students
No one would have noticed how investment funds invested $40 million in the recruiting startup Handshake last October if one of the investors had not turned out to be the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, created by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. The investment in Handshake, a startup that employs students, is the first business deal of the US-China alliance. This choice is not accidental. Mark and Priscilla invested in an analogue of HeadHunter, which connects universities and colleges whose graduates are looking for work - and companies that need new employees. For each employed applicant, Handshake receives money from a happy employer, and the university is awarded rating points that increase its status in the system. The project already involves 700 universities, 300 companies and 14 million graduates, and its cost is $275 million. Perhaps we are looking at a model that will soon be used by recruiting agencies all over the world.
Services, useful products and necessary information - a win-win option
1. Services. In the case when you know how to do something well or even better than others, you provide your services to the appropriate market and thereby earn your first money, and then expand your business by attracting new employees or start another one with the money you earn.
In almost 90% of cases, a business without investing money can be successfully started only using services! Everything here is quite logical and simple. You earn money using your knowledge and skills.
2. Sell goods, acting as an intermediary. You can choose this direction only if you really know how to sell well, if you know where to buy as cheaply as possible, and if you know how to find a client at a higher price. You keep the difference from the sale for yourself, and with this money earned in this way you can already afford, if necessary, to purchase goods and expand.
3. Information business. If you have useful and unique knowledge that can really be useful to many (an absolutely ideal option if you have already been approached for your knowledge and you are sure that it will be in demand). You need to actively claim your knowledge and sell it to others.
4. Become a partner with your employer. You have been working in the company for quite a long time, have proven yourself well and have knowledge or skills that can give this company significant growth and development, allow you to save on something, etc.
Zume Pizza
Express pizza
Business Insider predicted the collapse of pizza empires in August. According to statistics, more and more Americans are abandoning the services of Domino's and Pizza Hut in favor of eateries near their homes. This played into the hands of the startup Zume: in 2020, the company robotized the kitchen (to such an extent that a person was needed only to roll out the dough), and then developed fully automated bakery vans that prepare food on the go. The project received its first major investments in 2017 – $48 million; One of the investors then was the company of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mail.Ru Group, Dmitry Grishin, Grishin Robotics. And in November, Japanese SoftBank invested another $375 million in Zume. “Zume is building a hybrid of Uber and Starbucks,” explains Grishin. “You'll get fresh pizza delivered quickly, and it's healthier because there are no preservatives.” In the future, projects like Zume will be able to fight not only Papa John's, but also Colonel Sanders and other fast food pillars.
Oleg Kivokurtsev
Co-founder of Promobot
“Before, no one could achieve such a delivery speed, since by law in the United States you cannot ride in the back of a car. The startup Zume solved this problem with the help of robotics and is now valued at more than $2 billion.”
SenseTime
"Big Brother" system
In the spring of 2020, after dinner at Shokoladnitsa, Polina Anisimova, as expected, went to the restroom. She had no idea that hidden cameras were installed in the toilets and that this video would end up on a forum for perverts. But a couple of months later, a stranger wrote to her on Facebook and attached a screenshot of a girl sitting carefree in the closet. The FindFace facial recognition application, developed by the Moscow company NtechLab, helped find her online. In the future, this system could help the intelligence services find criminals, but in Russia it has become a tool of virtual bullying. A similar Chinese startup, SenseTime, went further and sold the technology to local smartphone manufacturers. Now people captured by their cameras are automatically included in a common database. Last year, the project raised $600 million, including from Alibaba. The money will be used to analyze the video stream coming from smartphones all over the Middle Kingdom. The founders promise: SenseTime will be able to identify every Chinese person at any cost.
Startups requiring talent and specific skills
- Breeding animals. The idea will require a small investment to purchase an animal. The best option for realizing the idea would be a purebred premium rabbit or quail. In the first case, the animal reproduces quickly and is unpretentious to the conditions of detention. Quail is easy to keep and is in great demand among summer residents and families with small children. To launch a startup, you will need to conduct a demand analysis and think through the process of caring for animals.
- Shoe repair, key making and other manual work. A large percentage of the population is experiencing financial difficulties and is trying to be more careful with their own belongings, preferring repairs to the purchase of new goods. This trend provides an excellent opportunity to start your own business related to the restoration of things. Launching such a project requires the availability of professional skills and basic equipment.
- Catering. Delicious food will always be popular. If you have a talent for cooking, you can safely think about delighting other people with your skills. A startup does not require investment. Every home kitchen has a set of necessary equipment and utensils for successful cooking. This will be enough to get started. To avoid expenses on renting premises, you can organize ordering of dishes and delivery via the Internet. Friends and acquaintances can become your first clients for creating a portfolio.
- Tutoring. Classes with students do not require any financial investment. The implementation of an idea requires a knowledge base on the subject and a convenient corner in the house. The main clients will be schoolchildren taking the Unified State Exam and entering universities. If the startup is successfully implemented, you can launch your own online school on the Internet for other tutors.
- Making crafts. A startup for creative individuals with golden hands. Creating layouts, sewing, wood carving, producing toys for children and other areas in which skills and talent are realized. To implement the idea you will not need any expenses, you just need to have the desire to do what you love.
- Homemade confectionery. A culinary workshop at home, like organizing catering, does not require financial investments. The availability of equipment, utensils and skills will be enough to implement a startup. The idea is viable due to the demand for unusual confectionery products made to order and the popularity of natural products among fans of healthy eating.
Momentus Space
Space DHL
Mikhail Kokorich could have become the Eastern European Elon Musk, but life in Russia made its own adjustments. First, his startup Dauria became the first private company to receive a license from Roscosmos to launch satellites. But in 2014, sanctions fell on the country, and Kokorich, having sold his stake in the business, left for the United States; It was then that the FSB opened a criminal case against his startup. Now the businessman lives in California and is engaged in a new project called Momentus - launching low-cost space rockets. His main know-how is a water-powered engine. “This is a small microwave oven the size of a coffee can,” explains the businessman. “In it, water vapor is heated to a temperature higher than on the surface of the Sun, and then the superheated gas is ejected from the nozzle and creates thrust.” In November, $8.3 million was invested in the project, but Kokorich did not disclose the exact cost of the business. While waiting for the world to become overrun with space tourists and asteroid mining companies, he is preparing the first launch of the Momentus rocket in early 2019.
UiPath
Robots are office invaders
If you think that Romania gave the world only gypsies and Count Dracula, you are mistaken. Already this year, Bucharest startup UiPath could become a goldmine for companies like British Petroleum or Apple and a bane for most of the employed world. Its main task is to automate routine office processes. Instead of a manager, the computer independently fills out forms for paying fees, and smart video surveillance systems nullify the work of professional security services. Over the past two years, the value of UiPath has increased almost 30 times - to $3 billion, and the ubiquitous Google, or more precisely, its subsidiary CapitalG, has invested in the project. The further development of artificial intelligence will make hordes of virtual workers even more advanced and more dangerous for each of those who have managed to acquire the habit of receiving a salary. Machines don't waste time eating lunch, sleeping, or watching porn in the office.
David Yan
Founder of ABBYY
“Today, almost a billion people in the world work in enterprises, and RPA (robotic process automation, “robotics of automatic processes.” - GQ note) will replace a significant part of the work of these employees with software robots.”
The goal is to do it efficiently and not like others
And you need to watch for discontent among the masses, for criticism of the goods and services offered, for people’s proposals and reasoning on the topic “If only I could...”. This is often the answer to the question of how to come up with an idea for a startup. It will be enough to do everything possible to satisfy the desires of the “critics”. Do it well, with high quality, so that people ask for help and happily pay for the services provided.
Jump Bikes
Bike sharing instead of car sharing
Electric bicycles are taking over the world. If we move on to the numbers, now the global market for so-called e-bikes is growing by about $1 billion a year and, according to the forecast of the consulting agency Navigant Research, will be valued at $24.4 billion by 2025. At the same time, new types of bike sharing are developing. Forget about stations with rental bicycles like those that have become a familiar part of summer Moscow - they are inconvenient because you need to go or drive somewhere special to start or end the rental. A real breakthrough is rental bicycles without stations, which are located on every corner. The boom of such bike sharing in less than a year has led to the fact that in Shanghai alone the number of rental bicycles has tripled and reached 1.5 million units. Chinese bike-sharing operator Ofo is already valued at more than $1 billion and even received a visit from Apple CEO Tim Cook. Jump Bikes is Uber's bet in this game. A startup providing electric bicycle rental services was purchased for $200 million. The company plans to allow combining different types of transport on the route: car, e-bike, boat, helicopter. Jump is currently being tested in San Francisco, the city where Uber itself once began.
Prize Candle
Prize Candle is a company that makes and sells eco-friendly soy wax candles, but with a twist.
Each candle contains a ring that the client can only access after burning the candle. The winning code is attached to the ring.
Each ring is guaranteed to be worth at least $25, but if a customer has a winning code, a ring worth $5,000 is guaranteed.
Since its inception, the product line has grown to include bath candles and triple crowns, which include three rings in each candle.
These candles have become incredibly popular as gifts and for personal purchases.
Hyperloop
Bullet trains
Oddly enough, the idea for Hyperloop came to Elon Musk long before he was first caught with weed. Supersonic trains concerned the founder of PayPal and Tesla in 2014. In his Twitter post, he explained how to build a vacuum train that would operate like a pneumatic mail and accelerate to 1,220 km/h. Musk noted that because of his work on SpaceX, he would not have time for the project, but a year later, when similar startups were launched by Europeans and Silicon Valley business angel Sherwin Pishevar, Musk nevertheless entered the fray. While his demo versions of trains accelerate to 386 km/h, and the launch of the first test site in the United States is delayed, the main competitor - Pishevar's Virgin Hyperloop One - lives on investments from the arrested Russian businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov and billionaire Richard Branson. By 2025, the first VHO route will be built between the Indian cities of Pune and Mumbai. Whether this will bring the Mask back to earth is anyone's guess.
Felix Spielman
CEO Ostrovok.ru
“There are great business opportunities in this project, but you need to be prepared for the fact that the economy is in for a serious shake-up: if you can make several long trips in one day, you won’t have to stay in a hotel, and changes are coming to the tourism industry.”
Innovative startups today. An example of an effective startup ecosystem.
The first startups appeared in the first half of the 20th century in Silicon Valley in California.
Silicon Valley still occupies a leading position in the world in creating and promoting successful startups. And there are many reasons for this. This is, first of all, the largest concentration of venture capital investments on the planet.
Silicon Valley is attractive due to its excellent climate, both natural and the climate of the business ecosystem. There is an atmosphere of openness, trust, honesty, highly intellectual achievements, and tolerance for failure. There is a concentration of investors, people with ideas and people with brains. This is where innovative startups are very popular and growing rapidly.
This is where startups were created and turned into giants. For example, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Apple, Facebook and many others.
Training centers located in Silicon Valley are very conducive to the promotion of startups. This is Stanford University - the cradle of many famous entrepreneurs and pioneers of scientific and technological progress. There are many other universities and technical colleges in the valley, which have set up many business incubators and workspaces where you can work on new ideas.
Silicon Valley constantly hosts many seminars and other events to exchange experiences and new ideas.
In the United States, it is not only in Silicon Valley that unique and developing business ecosystems have been created. Innovative startups received very favorable conditions in Boston, New York, Austin and other cities.
These cities have great startup ecosystems. These ecosystems are typically built around large universities and research laboratories. They are distinguished by the presence of venture capital and investors investing in startups. Startups have a variety of business incubators and work spaces, rooms for seminars and informal communication at their disposal.
European startups, unlike American ones, began to form around large technology companies. A large number of investors and the presence of large companies have contributed to London becoming a leader in European startups. Over time, startups have developed widely in Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Stockholm, etc.
Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul are leading the development of Asian startups. Investments in Asian startups have grown significantly and are growing. And in Asian countries, innovations come to market very quickly.
What3Words
The most convenient navigation
What3Words estimates that up to 75% of the world's population lives in houses without an address. The startup proposes to bring order to the planet and use a unified system for designating geographical points, which differs from existing GPS coordinates in that it does not contain a single number: this, according to the authors of the idea, makes it easier to remember. What3Words divided the Earth into 57 trillion 3 x 3 meter squares, giving each of them a three-word name (for this, 20,000 words were selected in the languages supported by the system). Thus, the GQ editorial office can be found on a map of Moscow by mysterious phrases: “always.weather.tights”, “bugs.tender.fresh” and even “externally.give birth.outside” (the abundance of options is explained by the fact that the magazine’s office occupies a little more than 9 m²). All this might seem like the ravings of a madman, but the startup has already raised $27 million from venture investors, and 10% of the company was bought by Daimler. By 2020, What3Words will work in the navigation systems of all Mercedes-Benz and Smart, so perhaps soon we will all be sending each other three funny words and stop getting lost in search of the right building, building or entrance.
Revolut
Free currency exchange
When sanctions began to arrive in Russia with the frequency of Boeings hitting the airfield, only a business kamikaze could take on the creation of an international company. Therefore, MIPT graduate Nikolai Storonsky and Deutsche Bank employee Vladislav Yatsenko moved to London in 2020 and there they launched the most high-profile banking startup of recent years - Revolut. Their know-how is an electronic card that can be used to pay in any country at the interbank rate. The card has foreign currency accounts attached (more than 150), so if you are, say, in Budapest, then pay for coffee in forints (the bank will not convert rubles and ask for money for it). By the end of 2020, Revolut planned to expand into our market, but in October its main competitor Tinkoff Bank introduced a similar service (albeit with 30 currencies). Revolut's plans for 2019 include Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the USA. Today the value of their company is more than $1.7 billion.
Daria Cherkudinova
Editor-in-Chief of The Secret of the Firm
“The fastest growing startup in the world in one of the most conservative sectors – banking. Free transfers to anywhere in the world, profitable and instant conversion – what more could a modern globalized person want?”
Mistakes of startups in Russia
Every novice businessman would like to know problem areas where it would be nice to “spread straws.” Here are 5 common mistakes in startup implementation that definitely shouldn’t be repeated.
- A minimum of research before the start of implementation. Previously, there was no marketing in Russia, and now in many projects this part of the research remains unattended. Already during operation, startups can change their form to suit the market, and this implies unnecessary expenses. It is recommended that, even before the start of the project, conduct thorough marketing research to determine whether the product meets customer requirements, whether there is a sufficient target audience, and whether the product is relevant in the long term.
- Narrow thinking in the development of specific areas of activity. Directing all resources to one area of the project, for example, its development, is fraught with failure. It is worth dividing your attention, not forgetting about the financial part of the startup, marketing research, as well as the development of the product itself.
- Lack of a systematic approach to planning. Every startup must have a plan and realistic goals; at the same time, the plan must actually be implemented. Without a plan, the company will not move in the right direction, and resources will be spent ineffectively. To make planning systematic, it is worth setting specific deadlines for implementing the plan, as well as appointing an employee who will monitor the development of this area.
- Incorrect assessment of finances, and, as a result, lack of money. This phenomenon is common when launching a startup in Russia. If there are errors in budget formation, force majeure may occur at any stage of the project development.
- Wrong marketing strategy. Often businessmen are faced with the problem of poor product promotion if they do it on their own, in the absence of a competent marketer in the organization. You can act in different ways: either keep in mind the experience of other Russian enterprises, similar startups, or engage in attracting third-party marketers from a similar field of activity. In the first case, you can save time, and in the second, you can also get accelerated product development.
PlayKey
Cloud computers
Following cloud data storage, which freed us from the need to buy servers and RAID arrays, the time has come to send processors and video cards to the clouds. Services like Playkey solve the problem of upgrading a home computer, which can no longer handle modern games with their ever-increasing hardware requirements, and also put an end to the pursuit of scarce video cards, the most powerful of which are constantly being snapped up by miners. To prevent the game from slowing down, you just need to connect to a service that will shoulder all the processing of game graphics on the shoulders of its supercomputers and assign your home PC the simple role of a repeater. All that is required from the player himself is to ensure a fast connection, which, given the upcoming transition to 5G, will not be difficult. By the way, there are already set-top boxes that work on the same principle, for example, the Shield TV media player is serviced by Nvidia supercomputers. Welcome to the world of the sharing economy, where you can use anything without owning anything.
Roman Kushnarev
Virtus.pro esports team player
“When I had a weak computer, I went to a computer club, but now I don’t have to go anywhere. This should increase the flow of people into our already fast-growing sport.”
ByteDance
New media
The Chinese market is ripe for fakes. Alibaba is a refined Amazon, Xiaomi is the local Apple, and Baidu is the Chinese equivalent of Google. But there is one exception to this rule - the startup ByteDance. Its founder is 33-year-old programmer Zhang Yiming, who once decided to quit Microsoft “out of boredom.” In 2012, he launched the Toutiao news aggregator in China (it works like Yandex.Zen): the application monitors which sites you view and where you spend the most time, and creates your ideal news feed. A year later, Yuri Milner, the right hand of Alisher Usmanov, invested in the project. This allowed Zhang Yiming to develop another application, the Instagram killer - TikTok, a service for funny music videos. By combining the projects into one holding company, ByteDance, Imin became the most valuable startup in the world ($75 billion), overtaking the global taxi driver Uber last October.
Consider differences in turnover
Before opening a business in a small town, you need to understand that due to the small number of clients, the payback period for your business may be much longer than in large cities, and the turnover will not be as large. But this is a chance not to work “for someone else”, but to earn money yourself and build your own life, while doing what you really like.
BingoBox
Robot shops
Stores without bored security guards and dissatisfied salespeople are already taking over China (the 2,000th BingoBox retail outlet will open in 2020) and are preparing for expansion in the rest of the world. It’s simple - at the entrance, the buyer is recognized by a facial identification system, and he himself must scan the QR code and link a credit card to the application. Then the doors open, and a person finds himself in the usual shopping area, where you can put anything you want into a bag, after scanning the barcodes. This scheme is also convenient because in the future, having studied the preferences of each regular customer, the robot store will be able to automatically collect a set of his favorite products, reducing the time required for routine shopping. Amazon, Alibaba and a number of other major players also have similar projects, who are confident that inhumane shopping is the future.
Petstory
Telemedicine for everyone (who has a tail)
Despite the fact that the law on telemedicine came into force in Russia on January 1, 2020, it is not yet possible to fully replace face-to-face treatment with an appointment with a specialist through an application, because pharmacies do not recognize electronic prescriptions, and not all medical institutions have common electronic medical records for patients . So, although remote consultations are already possible, a person cannot do without a personal meeting. With animals, the situation is simpler, and applications like Petstory – video appointments with veterinarians – allow you to experience all the advantages of tomorrow’s medicine using the example of dogs and cats today. The price of treatment is very humane - the first time a veterinarian appears on your screen it costs 99 rubles. However, if the doctor decides that he can’t cope with your Sharik without a face-to-face meeting, you won’t have to pay anything - you’ll simply be scheduled for a personal meeting.
Ideas that do not require deep professional skills
- Reselling items. To start a project, you need to decide on the type of product to be sold and how to purchase it. Next, you should create your own catalog and find out information about delivery (prices, methods, terms and other important nuances). Trading can be carried out completely without investment by creating a profile on social networks and placing orders with prepayment. Profit is calculated as the difference between the purchase price and the sales cost, taking into account the markup. The advantage of such earnings is the absence of your own costs for the purchase of goods, employees, rent of premises and equipment.
- Organization of holidays. There will always be weddings, birthdays, corporate parties, anniversaries and other celebrations. You can implement the idea of providing services for organizing holidays completely free of charge. The best advertising will be word of mouth after several successfully implemented events for friends and acquaintances. The advantages of the project, in addition to the lack of start-up capital, are the absence of the need for office space and hiring employees on a permanent basis.
- Advertising agency . The field of advertising services requires basic skills in working with graphics programs and possession of a minimum set of equipment (computer, scanner, printer). Most have it, so the cost of purchasing equipment can be eliminated. You can start a startup without leaving your home by searching for orders through social networks, advertisements and forums.
- "Husband for an hour". The idea involves men helping around the house in the form of repairs, plumbing work and other services that require special skills or physical strength. To implement such an idea, you will need to possess a minimum set of special tools (screwdrivers, hammer, adjustable wrenches and other devices). Those who have a “good husband” set at home will be able to avoid the cost of tools. Word of mouth, as in the case of holidays, will play an important role in finding new clients. The more advertising and positive reviews, the more popular yours will become. height=”440″[/img]
- Freight transportation. Cargo transportation will not require investment if the family has a car and the driver has a license of the required category. To successfully implement a startup, it will be enough to establish contacts with stores engaged in online trading and the sale of building materials. In addition to network orders, you can take on private transportation of large items.
Plink
Tinder for gamers
E-sports is no longer just a pastime that ruins your eyesight and nerves. At the end of 2020, the Olympic Committee will hold competitions in this discipline for the first time (at the Asian Games), and the fortune of the richest e-sportsman in the world, 25-year-old Kuro KuroKy Salehi Takhasomi, exceeds $3.4 million. It is not surprising that the 27-year-old businessman from the American Forbes Artem Goldman sold his main business - assistance in obtaining US work visas for immigrants - and switched to computer games. His project Plink (like the alert sound on a smartphone) is a Tinder for lonely and introverted gamers. The application collects game statistics (time spent in the game, number of kills, crystals, etc.) and allows you to find a partner of equal strength for your team. Pepsi is already collaborating with Plink: since 2020, the producer of sweet soda has been supporting Russian virtual athletes, who earned more than $37 million in 2020 alone.
Artem Goldman
Co-founder of Plink
“I think this year will be held under the banner of e-sports and gaming. What is the cost of investing $1 billion (Michael Jordan is one of the investors - GQ note) in Epic Games, the developer of the Fortnite game?
WayRay
Glass screens for every car
What unites Porsche, AFK Sistema, Hyundai Motor, Alibaba Group, as well as a consortium of sovereign investment funds from Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain? Answer: a Russian startup that creates windshields for cars that act as screens. A total of $80 million was invested in it. The idea of supplementing the real image of the street with virtual clues has existed for a long time, because it is much more clear to indicate the exit from the highway directly on the glass, rather than drawing a map with arrows somewhere on a separate screen. In the same way, you can quickly focus attention on a person running out onto the road or indicate in advance with an arrow the nearest free parking space. We have just described the whole essence of the WayRay project, which has already learned how to do all this and is about to help leading auto companies take another big step into the future.
Who really really needs it?
It is important to pay attention to the type of locality in which the new project will be implemented, especially if any ideas are borrowed from the experience of others.
It is clear that ideas for a startup in a small town may differ from those implemented in a metropolis. It is unlikely that in a town with a population of 30 thousand, the opening of a photo gallery or “Self-improvement school for those who are for...” will enjoy long-term popularity, since the rhythm of life and interests of people may differ somewhat from the views of residents, for example, of the capital. But there may be demand for the opening of some kind of “House of Amateur Art”, where people, in their free time from work or classes, would develop their creative abilities, which is often so lacking in small towns. Profit in this business can be received both from payment for classes conducted and from participation in various corporate events, concerts, and competitions.
To organize a successful business, the main thing is to choose the right ideas for a startup, taking into account the needs of the target audience and your capabilities.
United Healthcare
Benefits for healthy lifestyle
The development of gadgets makes it possible to offer people personalized insurance programs. Thus, the United HealthCare company uses data from Apple Watch for individual tariffs - people who lead a healthy lifestyle get insurance cheaper. Similar programs at the national level are already in place in Japan. “After World War II, the average life expectancy of the Japanese was 55 years, but we began to fight the leading causes of early death, and now we have 66 thousand people who are over a hundred years old,” says Hidetoshi Endo, director of the Center for Learning and Innovation at the National Center geriatrics and gerontology. “Even 30 years ago, Japan had a very high mortality rate from stroke, but by convincing the population to monitor their blood pressure and consume less salt, we solved this problem. There is a Japanese word “genke” - “live”. Our new goal is to extend not only life, but also the period when a person can be considered genke. To achieve this, we legally oblige large companies to take care of the health of their employees. Bosses, through apps, monitor the activity of their subordinates, which is recorded by smart watches, and if they do not exercise enough and are overweight, they are ordered to change their habits. “We will soon reconsider the concept of “older person” - today this is considered to be someone who is 65 years old, but this border is about to be moved to 75.”
Freedom for creativity!
Interesting ideas for a startup are a prerequisite for the implementation of the project. Offering the client a completely new product, service, or unusual solution to a problem - this is the essence of such an undertaking.
Creativity and innovation are the main differences between a startup and ordinary entrepreneurship. These can be already existing technologies that have proven themselves to be profitable in terms of making a profit, to which any fundamentally new approach has been applied. Opening an ordinary sewing studio, for example, may not attract much attention, but opening a clothing studio for pets, where you can get advice from an experienced designer, will certainly make people talk about you and attract visitors.
Verisium
Fashion blockchain
Verisium has the potential to have a major impact on the entire fashion market. At its core, it is a secure platform for verifying the authenticity of designer clothing using built-in NFC tags and applications for iOS and Android. The system is easy to use and can reliably determine whether the product you are looking at is genuine or fake. The principle of operation is this: an NFC/RFID chip is built into the product, and information about the goods is registered in the blockchain. The user can easily check an item using a smartphone, and brands, in turn, receive data about where and when their products were scanned.
Evgeniy Kaspersky
General Director of Kaspersky Lab
“It seems to me that the project has great potential: the market is flooded with all kinds of counterfeits, so improving the tools to combat counterfeiting is important for both manufacturers and buyers. At the company, we try to support promising and innovative ideas, the most breakthrough of which are developed in our corporate incubator. The Verisium project managed to make its first profit just seven months after its launch, which is quite fast by startup standards.”
20 successful Russian startups of 2020
As of 2020, 20 startups can be identified in Russia that became successful thanks to a correctly developed strategy and an original idea. Let's look at them.
AeroState
AeroState Map. The perfect program offers all users in the world to track the quality of the surrounding atmosphere in any region. The center of innovative development is the map of harmful emissions. Sources include transport and enterprises, as well as forests and fields that emit carbon dioxide at night.
The AeroState map enabled high-resolution air quality forecasts. The information is taken from the server - the program collects the results of the interaction of harmful substances and air.
Cardberry
This is the name of the application that combines all discount cards into one. This way people can save space in their wallet and their time. Developers from Russia managed to create a single map that synchronizes with the application via BlueTooth; the program is able to read data about any user’s discount card using a special reader.
To pay at the checkout, you need to select the required card in the application. The information will be synchronized with a single electronic card, then it can be used as a discount card. The startup has become very popular in Russia.
CardsMobile
CardsMobile is a contactless payment service that guarantees secure payments. Transactions can be carried out via smartphones using terminals with NFC technology. Works in Russia thanks to the Wallet application.
CreoPop
Siberian development of 3D pens of the same name. The pens use photopolymer ink that hardens in the air from ultraviolet light. In this case, the drawing turns into a real object.
FireChat
An easy-to-use messenger and social network in one package. Information is transmitted via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
At the same time, the messenger transmits information to devices connected using different technologies - if the first is connected simultaneously via BlueTooth and Wi-Fi, the second via BlueTooth and the third via Wi-Fi, then all three users can freely exchange information.
IBOX
The ibox program, which accepts cash and non-cash payments via a smartphone without using cash register equipment.
This technology is called “mobile acquiring”. Works using mPOS technology. Transactions are carried out through a special reader, to which the gadget is connected and the card is swiped.
Kribrum
Kribrum is a startup developing a tool for analyzing information in the media.
Here, the developers’ personal linguistic technologies are used, allowing them to take into account the minimal nuances of constructing phrases and determining the tone of their statement.
LinguaLeo
LinguaLeo is a service for learning languages online. Today it is used by about 15 million users from Brazil, Turkey and Russia. There are our own language learning programs, as well as a huge variety of materials for studying and preparing without access to the Internet.
MarketMixer
A startup for conducting trade from warehouses with individual processing of information.
Intended for online stores and trading platforms. Using the system, you can process price lists from suppliers, as well as create lists of goods for your own store.
Planner 5D
Planner 5D. Building designs are created in the application, and it is also possible to create an interior before construction starts. It features a convenient and simple service, similar to the world famous game Sims.
Prixel
With the help of the Prixel program designed by Russian scientists, you can assemble a collection of the most famous paintings for a person.
It uses 3D scanning technology, and the results of the work result in exact copies of works of art. Pictures are printed for different surfaces - on a refrigerator, magnet, wall, etc.
Promobot
The startup consists of creating a robot for selling goods at retail. The program recognizes human speech, as well as a person’s appearance. At the same time, the robot maintains a conversation and answers customer questions. Thus, the robot acts as a standard sales consultant.
Qlean
Qlean is the name of a Russian online service where you can order room cleaning. Currently, the company can serve about 500 clients per day. One of the most attractive features of the service is the presence of a personal account for the cleaner himself and a rating of cleaning specialists. Based on the service data, you can easily select an employee.
Samokat Sharing System
This is a Russian enterprise intended to provide the population with the rental of electronic and regular scooters. Currently, the company has its own rental stations in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Moscow.
All these stations are united into a single network based on a cloud platform. Each station has about 12 scooters, and it occupies no more than 3 m2 of space.
Spotty
A GPS tracker that can recognize the location of a pet and monitor its activity. It works simply - the gadget is attached to the collar and determines the location via GPS and a 3G modem. An accelerometer monitors the animal's physical activity. All information is sent to the owner’s smartphone in real time.
TestGen
TestGen is a medical development by scientists from Russia that determines the sex of the unborn child at the 10th week of pregnancy. The operation is performed only in the presence of maternal blood. Using the TestGen application, the child's Rh factor is also determined. When using TestGen, it is possible to prevent risks, for example, if there is incompatibility of the Rhesus of the child and the mother. However, previously such a phenomenon was monitored only at later stages.
FlashSafe
FlashSafe is the name of a device that allows you to store an infinite number of information files on a medium. The endless flash drive, as it is popularly called, works on an unusual principle - information received on the media is uploaded to the cloud on the Internet.
At the same time, anonymous use of flash safes is allowed. The drives are safe to operate and store information.
Multicube
This is a mini projector that allows you to view movies and photos on any surface. In fact, the Multicubic is an improved analogue of a tablet.
The picture, which is displayed on any surface, does not damage vision even after prolonged viewing, which means that such a device is much safer for a child than other gadgets.
Online fitting room 3D
An application created for trying on things that are put on display in an online store online. The principle is simple - the user uploads his image, and then overlays an image of an item from the store on it.
