Why Have Your Own Business And How To Stop Having Doubts
In my opinion, it’s more far-reaching to do your own thing. There are more opportunities and there are no boundaries, no ceiling that you will ever reach and get stuck right under, ultimately being unable to progress.
In general, I like organizing people into structures that will make money and create new designs. Rationally speaking, I see a larger potential in this rather than in working for some corporation.
My name is Stanislav Ashmanov, and I would like to tell you my story. I will share with you how I started my own business, how I am reaching success and I will even let you in on my plans to compete with Amazon.
“Doing My Own Thing”
I started my first own business in partnership with a friend, classmate and currently our technical director. It was just the two of us at the beginning of the company named Ashmanov Neural Network. We didn’t even have an office and at first, we worked remotely.
First, we worked on mobile apps; we created apps for iPhone and Android. Later on, we started looking for clients in the area of neural networks and machine learning because we saw a promising field, in which we had good knowledge.
Our first big deal happened in 2016. It was for a big mobile app for the two main operating systems and we only had one month to make it. We made big money off of this deal, which allowed us to hire more people. In 2015, it was only the two of us. By 2016 there were four of us. By 2017, we were the team of eight people. And now, there are sixteen. Every year we grew twice in size, and so far our revenues had also followed along that same path.
My Second Job
This year I was appointed the director of the company “Nanosemantics Lab” engaged in the development of interactive interfaces and chatbots for business. The previous director got tired and said that they didn’t know how to move forward, they didn’t know how to grow a business so that there would be more orders, and so that revenues would increase. This is when I stepped up and became the General Director: the experience that I had from “Ashmanov Neural Networks” empowered me to do so. Now both companies work in one office and are actively interacting. This kind of synergy comes from the fact that we have two teams working really close to each other.
Has something changed? It certainly did. It’s hard to estimate the financial results yet since the deal cycle is about 6–8 months, but the vibe of the company has completely changed. The company has gotten some new energy just as I came in. It took a fresh eye to assess what was already there: I changed some things and started some new processes.
The company had very weak PR, attended very few conferences, and didn’t write any articles for specialized outlets. Thus I launched the PR and marketing process. I started the account manager training so that they could deal with additional sales for their clients. In addition, I decided to raise bonuses to the commercial department ensuring they are more interested.
Basically, the team was revived. New projects are happening now, new products are being made, and everything has started to move faster. We are now looking for new markets, watching the direction of the United Arab Emirates as well as of China. Previously, “Nanosemantics” only worked in the Russian Commonwealth. But this technology is actually multilingual, meaning we can create chatbots for any country.
Getting Close with Amazon
My father, Igor Ashmanov, has been involved in artificial intelligence development for many years. Once he had an idea: what about making a conversational AI not only in text form (like he did with chatbots), but in voice? Essentially, he started this project in 2010. At that time, Amazon still hadn’t even started planning their virtual assistant. At least, even if they did, they kept it a secret.
I wasn’t a part of the project then, I was just watching from the sidelines. My father found talented people who created the first virtual assistant prototype — the so-called smart speaker. However, in 2013 there was an argument between the team and my father, and the team left, taking the technology, the people, and the project itself with them.
By that moment I had already developed a huge interest in the area. This is why I found my own team for this project and decided that it was time to join the team myself. Now only was I interested in acquiring some managerial experience, but I was also craving to get some experience in software development.
We came up with the project name “Lexy”, deriving from the word “lexicon” because it was a project dealing with linguistics and communication in a natural language. For the project, I programmed, taught “Lexy” new functions, and actively participated in all processes because we were a small startup.
Lexy is a small-size device equipped with a camera, motion-detecting sensors and various other sensors all the way around its perimeter. The device looks like a soccer ball and it charges from regular electrical outlets. Lexy can recite poems, tell jokes, and read the current news. It can search for any information on the internet and read the search results out loud; it can track the news in all source aggregators and read them aloud as well. What’s more, Lexy knows how to play chess, ‘word snake’ game, and battleship; it can hold conversations on virtually any topic. We even decided to endue Lexy with human emotions: it can feel anger, get offended, or feel happiness.
In spring 2016, we took part in the startup contest competing to win $70,000 grant from the Skolkovo innovation center foundation grant committee. Not only did we participate, but we also won! Our task was to train the robot to better understand human inquiries. This is why we decided to allow the money toward developing a solution for human speech recognition in noisy environments and at large distances. This is how we developed our own microphone array, which by far exceeds the currently existing market analogs.
Many local mass media sources talked about Lexy. We even made it on Russia Today, who ran a segment on us in their broadcast.
Technically, we brought Lexy to mass production: we created molds for households, motherboards, and microphone arrays. Back then so as now we execute large-scale production of dozens, hundreds, thousands of copies, and you need a large amount of money just to establish the proper sales channels. At the time, we didn’t have enough resources to promote the project worldwide.
Always Finish What You Have Started
Every time a new device comes out, it’s incredibly hard to convince people that it’s something they would need. You have to prove to people that they will get some kind of benefit from it. If the device really is useful, then it will stick around and this is what’s happening with smart assistants at the moment.
I am still fueled by this immense desire to implement this project. Actually, when I was put in charge of “Nanosemantics”, I realized that if I united “Neural Networks”, “Nanosemantics”, and “Lexy”, we could make so much more than just a “smart assistant”. This is how the SOVA project was born. Not only is it a smart virtual assistant in itself, but it is also an open platform for creating different voice assistants and intelligence modules.
Voice assistants are a pretty standard thing right now. Apple, Google, Amazon and other corporations all have their own. Each has their own different functions and accents as well. There’s a smart secretary function that can give recommendations and send you reminders or give you information on the exchange rates or the weather. Voice assistants now support work with bulbs, sockets, household appliances, and other electronics: all known as the IoT technology, and of course in a smart home.
I think now is the perfect time to enter the “smart” technology market. It is shaping up for the future, and this is the best possible entry point for any business or a startup. We didn’t quite get there with Lexy, but now we are a large and strong team of experts. We do not strive to replace Amazon or become the second Google. Competition is indeed a driving force. We know it will be tough to work alongside with such strong competition of giant corporations; it may even be terrifying at times, and we surely realize this. However, we also know that we have something we can offer the market. We stand by the idea that the consumer must always have a choice.
Imagine that your life is a car and your doubts are a brake pedal. This is what stops people from moving forward. Success stories prove that most of the well-known entrepreneurs had to overcome major reservations and comprehensions at the beginning of their journey. I am happy to share some of my own pearls of wisdom with you that will hopefully help you fight any doubts:
- Seek out the like-minded people. You are the product of your environment. Learn to navigate it. If someone is telling you that your idea is not worth it, you are on the right path.
- Explore the experience of your competitors. Don’t focus just of the success stories, scrutinize the stories about failure.
- Envision the failure of your idea. Imagine your absolute worst-case scenario: you are left with nothing. This daunting exercise will help you realize what is at stake and how important it is for you to succeed no matter what.
- Find what motivates you. For some, it is money, although I believe that money can hardly be the source of motivation. To me, money is just a way to measure success. Find motivation in some fundamental ideas: happiness and well-being of your loved ones, the possibility to travel around the world, a specific person in your life, you name it. Everything I do I do for my family.
Why are you passionate about what you do? I am always excited to hear from my readers. Let me know in the comments below: what is it that you do and where you find your motivation.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by + 377,008 people.
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