2 Billion Under 20: two years later

Two years ago Jared and Stacey wrote a post in the Thiel Foundation Facebook Group describing their idea of creating a book about millennials breaking age barriers.

The book is now out and you can get it here. In my piece, I explain how I got started. However, I wanted to share what has happened in the two years Jared and Stacey have been working on the book.

A lot has changed and lessons learnt, enjoy!

1 Million Under 18

At the time Jared and Stacey interviewed me, the company we were working on was Hippflow — an investor relations platform which systematised startups’ updates into a monthly report for an investor. We were the first Russian team to create a Google Glass app and were trying to provide the best experience possible.

The problem with running a tech startup in Russia is that no one really knows what the f*ck you’re doing. People are mainly investing in “safe” buy/ sell businesses and you have to hustle 100x to get funded here. In spite of this, we managed to raise our first $100k, with a $1M valuation, by the time
I was 17.

Hippflow was the first time I got involved with wearables and they caught my attention straight away. Deep inside I knew that whatever ideas may come next, I wanted them to be connected to wearable tech.

At the time Hippflow was going great: users were happy and Google Analytics showing growth.

Unfortunately we had to face some “Russian realities” soon.

Hustle helped on the seed stage but the“A” round got a bit more complicated. It’s hard to raise “A” for a tech company when you are pitching “Goodfellas”.

Probably how “A” rounds happen in Russia

You know those movies where a guy is like “You’re everything for me..”. That was the feeling for me with Hippflow. The fact that the company was doomed after such a kickstart simply didn’t fit in my head.

At that time I had just started university and a single thought of me having to do the “normal” 9to5, suit and tie route of graduating and having to work for a boss caused a bad feeling in my stomach.

The new world

There was a day that changed everything. Todd Embley- my Canadian friend managing an accelerator in China, wrote a message inviting me to take a trip and serve as an EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) in Chinaccelerator.

“Yes, let’s do it!” I didn’t think much.

A few weeks later I was in China.
Back to life and full of enthusiasm.

China blew my mind!
In the mind of a person from the European part of the world Asia is not always a pleasant place to be. Ashamed to confess I had the same stereotype.
Guys, Asia is a #musthave experience.

China gave me a second wind. I felt newborn and inspired.
Continuing with research on wearables in my spare time I got an idea on what
my next step is: Chill.

Time to Chill

Time came to get back to Russia.

I considered getting back to university for some time to get surrounded by best talent and look for people who have the same passion for wearables I had.

This strategy worked perfectly. In the first month I met Greg (co- founder Chill) who was one of the guys managing a strong local iOS community and shared the passion for wearable devices.

Very soon we needed someone to manage the backend and Android parts. Greg’s friend from childhood, Ilya, was the guy.

The 9 month development marathon started.

A little insight to share is that designing a wearable experience is an absolutely different business compared to crafting Web or iOS apps.
We consider Chill a “Watch First” company so the first thing to do was create a design (visual and technical) for the wearable app that actually works and only then optimise it for iOS. Not the other way around!

Print this out and put on your wall if doing a wearable company!

As soon as you are done with this- go and make it happen.

Guess where you see “happy”. Yes, the guy on the right pic.
That is 9 months of hard work and finally the first beta release!

That’s how a startup founders’ happy looks like

On the first day of our beta launch, we were hunted and got to the main page of Product Hunt with our iOS and Watch apps. The amount and quality of the feedback was amazing!