Marina mogilko reviews of the consultation. How much does Marina Mogilko earn?

Blogger and business woman Marina Mogilko told us about her recent travels and favorite cosmetics, and also revealed the secret of a successful business.

Marina, tell us a little about yourself and your business.
I am an entrepreneur and blogger, I was born in St. Petersburg, and now I live in San Francisco. Together with the team, we came up with two cool projects - an online platform for booking language courses abroad LinguaTrip.com and a service for correcting English text by native speakers fluent.express. I have three channels on YouTube - Marina Mogilko, LinguaMarina and Silicon Valley Girl.

What did you dream of becoming as a child?
I imagined myself as a singer performing a duet with Valery Meladze, or an entrepreneur who works in a skyscraper.

You recently hosted a big event - LinguaFest in Moscow. How did you choose what to wear?
I was lucky because a good friend of mine, designer Maya Zaboshta, worked on the outfit. She lives and works in St. Petersburg. I just asked her to come up with a dress for the festival, and she agreed.

Tell us about the festival. How did everything go?
The event turned out to be fiery! I was delighted to meet with subscribers, blogger speakers and the LinguaTrip team. We have gathered in one place people from different spheres who are interested in traveling, learning languages and just constantly developing. This is inspiring. We will definitely organize LinguaFest in other cities and countries.

You often attend business meetings. What kind of makeup do you do for such events?
At meetings, I make a minimal make-up - in America it is not customary to paint brightly. Typically this is Clé de Peau Beauté concealer, Trish McEvoy mascara, Benefit eyebrow shade, and some blush.

You moved to Silicon Valley, and it seems like everything is there. Maybe there are things or people that you miss?
Of course! I really miss my parents who live in St. Petersburg. And the food does not have enough country cottage cheese, cream and sour cream. When I get home, I definitely go to the market.

As far as I know, you sing and do ballet. Recently she even sang a duet with Valery Meladze. It turns out to combine business and hobby?
Not very successful. It's good if I go to fitness a couple of times a week. I have many flights for work, so I want to devote all my free time to sleep and personal projects. In winter I will return to sports and singing.

Share your coolest travel experiences?
Any number of the Four Seasons is a delight, and the most enjoyable flight I had to Harvard was business class. We were given a tour of the plane, handed a travel kit and delicious food. Internet on board was faster than at home. I record many moments from my life on video for a blog, I also recorded that flight, see on link.

What do you take on board with you?
Moisturizing face mask, toothbrush, paste, lip balm and hand cream, laptop and portable phone charger.

What express tools help you to recover after the flight?
Hypnotic. You sleep and come to your senses. What you need after the flight! A good substitute for sleeping pills is magnesium.

Let's go back to your last trip to South Korea. Have you bought any cosmetics?
Locals secretly told me that Korean luxury brands are not much different from budget brands. I bought AHC and AmorePacific. The Chinese export millions of dollars worth of this cosmetics from Korea every year because they really like it. Soon I will try too.

What struck the most in Korea?
I fell in love with this country. Very kind people, literally everyone helped us, they tried to explain the way in English. I liked the food, it's a little bit spicy, but I love that. Everything is clean, technologically advanced. Korea turned out to be "my" country.

You live in San Francisco. Tell me where are the best views?
Be sure to climb the Coit Tower - a tower from which a very beautiful view of the entire city and the ocean, stroll along the Embarcadero embankment, eat my favorite oysters from Washington state and clam chowder, crab and scallop soup. You can also walk along Russian Hill (where you get the best photos), take a coltrane (local train), and get to Stanford in 40 minutes. Walk around Palo Alto, drive to Mountain View, grab a free bike, and ride around the Google office.

What advice would you give to girls who dream of their own business?
I always say that if you want to start your own business, you must be ready to work for free for two years. If not, then it’s not yours. When you go about your business, people and opportunities always come, because you have the strength to carry on no matter what. I think this will be my advice - to open a business not for the sake of business, but for the sake of immersion in what you love.

At the age of 29, Marina Mogilko is the co-founder and head of the popular portal LinguaTrip, which allows everyone to learn foreign languages of interest abroad. The girl works and lives in Silicon Valley, which is located in the United States. In an interview, Marina spoke in detail about how she was able to create her first project and got into one of the largest business incubators.

Education and the path to success

The published biography and personal life of Marina Mogilko contains many interesting facts that are worthy of attention. The girl was born on March 13, 1990 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Since childhood, Marina dreamed that in the future she would work abroad.

The girl studied well in order to be able to acquire the profession of a translator in the future. But at one time, her parents insisted that Marina learn to be an economist-mathematician. In parallel, the girl studied English in order to expand her opportunities in the future. All her endeavors were supported and funded by a loving father, since he believed that his daughter would become a real star in any business. And if you do not know English and you need an urgent translation of an important document, then we advise you to contact The Words translation bureau for a notarized translation of documents.

In 2011, Marina graduated from St. Petersburg State University with a degree in economics and mathematics. For more than six months she studied at the Faculty of Mathematics, and also participated in student exchange at the Technical University of Dresden.

While studying in Russia, at the beginning of May 2011, Marina's classmate Dmitry Pistolyako suggested that the motivated girl jointly establish an agency for the selection of educational courses outside her native country. The new project was named "MP Education". After 3 years, Igor and Marina were able to get into the SumlT startup school, which was created on the basis of ITMO.

At the end of the educational process, talented and enterprising students were invited to an important start-up meeting with John Remay. After this event, John told his business colleagues in detail about the privileges of the new company, after which he connected Marina with the mentor of the 500 Startups startup accelerator so that they could eventually get into their accelerator. Despite the fact that the recruitment was already closed at that time, the management agreed to watch the presentation of their company.

The very next day Dmitry and Marina received an official invitation to 500 Startups. Thanks to this, new opportunities opened up for successful young people, and they moved to Silicon Valley, where they began to develop their business more intensively. Seeing a huge prospect of making good profits, the accelerator invested $ 100,000 in the company in exchange for its shares. The rapid growth of the business made it possible to officially register the LinguaTrip Inc corporation in 2015. The headquarters is located in Mountain View.

Personal achievements

Among all the honorary titles of Marina Dmitrievna Mogilko, at least 3 interesting and rather profitable professions can be distinguished: entrepreneur, founder and commercial director of a large-scale platform called Lingua Trip. Today, the girl owns three personal channels that are closely related to the specifics of her work. On YouTube, you can find many interesting videos on completely different topics. According to Forbes, the girl was among the sixteen most famous business women and innovators in the field of high innovative technologies.

Fans will be interested to know the following facts from Marina's biography:

At the moment, the girl lives in San Francisco.
Marina started working actively on YouTube video hosting in 2014.
The address of the personal website is linguatrip.com.
On the main channel, the number of subscribers reached 898,000 people.
The specificity of professional activity is a blogger.

Marina has several aliases, but most often she uses her real name. The girl leads a rich and active life, which is associated with professional activities in the educational industry. Caring parents of Marina Mogilko always support their daughter, as they believe in her success.

YouTube channel

Blogging is not Marina's only hobby. In an interview, the girl repeatedly admitted to reporters that before she could not even think that she could achieve colossal success in this industry. When Marina created her first video, which was dedicated to the benefits of foreign languages, she did not even imagine that her work would gain a million views and many likes. Marina prefers to write tips for novice startups on Instagram and VKontakte. Every day, dozens of people interested in her work subscribe to this girl's social networks.

Recently, the girl began to work more actively in the field of blogging:

How the British live. In the video, Marina tells in detail true life stories and conducts an overview of the average house.
American life. The principle of constructing a video is practically the same as in the first case.
Houses in the USA and Russia. In the video, Marina compares the types of housing in America and the largest country in the world. The blogger talks about all the advantages and disadvantages of living in both states.
Marina teaches how to speak English correctly to look like a native speaker.

Of course, the girl actively shoots not only educational and educational videos, but also captures various life hacks on the camera, and also gives recommendations. Marina's real inspiration is her numerous subscribers, who leave positive comments and likes under the video. Marina Mogilko and Dmitry Pistolyako recently got married, thanks to which they began to work together on their common project.

Today Marina Mogilko lives in Silicon Valley. The girl is proud of her education and the fact that she has many creative business ideas. In an interview, Marina told reporters that officially her position is called "commercial director". A team of talented professionals is developing a platform for finding education courses abroad.

The girl admitted that she had already forgotten about the last time she went on a good rest. Marina believes that the education received plays an important role in the formation of the personality, but in order to achieve the desired result, it is necessary to have a sense of purpose. The value lies not only in the knowledge gained, but also in the ability to think, to understand a particular topic. She believes that the secret of her success is that she is too passionate about her own business.

Purposeful Marina Mogilko and her husband devote a lot of time to their work. They are ready to work on their favorite project for more than 13 hours a day without feeling tired. That is why they place high demands on their colleagues. The essence of Marina's workflow is that she must timely contact her clients and partners by mail.

The girl conducts correspondence, advises people, and also gives detailed answers to their questions. Only properly worked out time management allows her to keep up with everything and feel confident in the future. The program Abby Lingvo (ABBYY Lingvo), which helps to translate and learn foreign languages, is in great demand today. A similar service is LinguaLeo (LinguaLeo).

Monthly income

All fans of Marina's work are interested in how much a talented blogger and self-confident business woman earns. The girl earns income not only through her YouTube channel. The main source of finance is own business... But the income from this type of activity is unknown to the press. As for the channel, we can conclude that Marina receives up to $ 1000 a month. But if we take into account the profitability and relevance of the topic of the video uploaded to YouTube, then we can assume that this amount will gradually increase.

Marina's webinars were included in the trend. This trend is directly related to the fact that in 2 weeks everyone can master all the necessary techniques and working tools to launch their YouTube channel. At her webinars, Marina regularly performs a kind of "exposure" of her success so that everyone can start their own business.

To achieve the desired result it is extremely important to find the right management... Marina says that their team threw a lot of interesting ideas halfway through, since they did not have the desired infrastructure, but they plan to return to them. If the established company is growing rapidly and its founders are unable to cope with reinvestment, then you shouldn't chase venture capital stories.

The thing is that this process takes a lot of money and time. You need to focus on promoting the company and building capital. You should go to accelerators only if there is a need to quickly promote your business, but there are not enough funds for this.

To achieve the desired results, Marina recommends studying a book by Tim Ferris called "The Four-Hour Work Week". On the territory of America, all businessmen are actively discussing this work of a famous author. The book consists of effective tips. For example, a person makes a lot of calls and meetings during the week.

In order to save time and achieve results, you need to move all important things so that they can be dealt with in two days, with breaks of 20 minutes. This time is quite enough to give the body a rest and avoid overlaps. The entire book contains a large number of useful tips that will multiply the efficiency of the work week.

Opening a professional office

At one time Marina, together with her classmate, opened a company for 16,000 rubles and shared her achievement with close friends and family. Their first client was a classmate who asked to arrange a trip for her abroad. The guys invested all their savings in their business. For 8 thousand they rented a table in a huge office in St. Petersburg's multi-storey building. This move was made on purpose so that clients perceive the picture presented in front of them as a single office.

Applications appeared immediately, as people sent their children to England for 100-200 thousand rubles. Money was always brought in in cash, which made everything look serious and professional. The website for the company was created by employees. They were looking for a professional developer for six months, but it was worth it.

The result of the effort

Dmitry Pistolyako and Marina Mogilko, graduates of the Faculty of Economics of St. Petersburg State University, managed to launch their first LinguaTrip service in 2015, and a year later their business turnover amounted to $ 5 million. At the heart of their business is finding suitable courses at international language schools. Clients can also book accommodation close to their place of study. Marina and Dmitry got into the focus of the American media, which write about talented young entrepreneurs. The rapid career takeoff of this business was preceded by years of offline work.

The 500 Startups Fund allocated 100 thousand dollars for the development of Marina and Dmitry's company, so they started scaling their business. Now their clients have access to teaching ten languages in 300 of the most popular schools in the world. The average amount for accommodation of one program participant is 1.5 thousand dollars. Entrepreneurs get acquainted with foreign language schools at thematic international exhibitions. LinguaTrip offices are located in two countries, where qualified managers are engaged in customer service:

Russia.

The project team includes four people: in addition to Marina and Dmitry, there is also Dmitry Kravchuk, as well as Daria Starikova. Now the talented girl is married, thanks to which she is engaged not only in her business, but also with her family. She plans to give birth to two children who will definitely inherit all the talents of their star parents.

Marina Mogilko

Entrepreneur, startup. Graduated from the Faculty of Economics, St. Petersburg State University. Passed TOEFL and GMAT, received a US government grant Opportunity Award. In 2015, together with her fellow student Dmitry Pistolyako, she launched the LinguaTrip service. The company got into the largest accelerator in Silicon Valley 500 Startups and received funding from American investors.

What do you do in your work?

My official title is LinguaTrip Sales Director. It is a platform for finding and booking educational courses abroad. But this is just a formality. My real work is determined by the fact that I am the co-founder of LinguaTrip and have long forgotten when I work and when I rest. I don't even know when was the last time I had a vacation. All trips are somehow connected with business.

Recently, they began to call me a blogger. It's still strange for me, but it's nice to realize it. After all, when I shot my first video on Youtube about how the TOEFL passed (exam on knowledge of English for admission to foreign universities), I could not even think that I would get a million views.

What is your profession?

I studied economics and mathematics and I am very grateful to my parents for making a choice for me. All my life I dreamed of working abroad and thought that the surest way to do this was to get an education as a translator. It was only later that it dawned on me that language is not an advantage, but a necessity for survival. As a result, I learned the language in parallel with mathematics and economics.

In the 11th grade, for some reason I decided that I wanted to study at the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of St. Petersburg State University, but my parents intervened in time. As a result, I ended up at the Faculty of Mathematics for only six months, when I went on an exchange to study at the Technical University of Dresden. And once again I was glad that my parents made a choice for me in favor of the economy. Pure mathematics in German also didn't really inspire me.

The main value of education for me is not knowledge, but communication and the ability to understand something new. Therefore, the main thing that my education gave me was a meeting with the co-founder of LinguaTrip Dmitry Pistolyako. It was this person who registered our first company and said that I do not need to look for a job, we will work for ourselves. He is the one who makes clear plans for several years ahead and inspires the whole team to believe that the impossible is possible.

I dream that I will never have to work for anyone but myself, and about a house on the ocean in California.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

One of the strengths: I am very passionate about my work. On what inspires me, I can work 12 hours a day. Because of this, she is demanding of her employees.

Over the past two years, I learned to value time, stopped wasting it. Less trying to explain to people that they are wrong. This was partly taught to me by my channel. There is a hater sitting there, writing a malicious comment that everything I have is "through pull", I myself have not achieved anything, and everything that I do is of no use to anyone. Well, let him think so. Instead of proving something to someone, I'd rather do something interesting and achieve new successes.

Since January, she has excluded all types of alcohol from her diet. This is the influence of California, where everyone is on a heightened health-care regimen.

My weak point: I don't always believe in myself. For example, when I entered US universities, I deliberately did not apply to Stanford and Harvard. I thought they were for Americans who are much more successful than me. Why do they need a girl from Russia with their little company? (There was no LinguaTrip then.)

Only then I realized that my case as an applicant was very strong and there was a chance to enter top universities. Now I tell this story to my students and ask you to learn from my mistakes, believe in yourself and aim higher.

What does your workplace look like?

Like that.

I love my thin Samsung laptop. I think I'm the last person in Silicon Valley who still runs Windows. For me, the weight of the device and the size of the screen are of fundamental importance, since I always carry a laptop with me and try to protect my eyes (12 hours behind a large monitor is better than a small one).

The phone is always with me too. I currently have an iPhone 6S Plus. His huge screen pleases him, although at first I thought it would be inconvenient.

And the third gadget, which is also in most cases with me, is the Canon G7X camera. It has a light-sensitive lens, due to which the background is beautifully blurred.

All my work is mainly in mail: correspondence with clients, partners, investors, letters of thanks from subscribers have also appeared recently (my favorite part).

What is your daily routine?

Now I am one hundred percent owl. I get up at 9-10 am, go to bed at 1 am, because during the day I work with Russia and Europe, and in the evenings my colleagues and partners from the United States wake up. You need to manage to be in two time zones.

In the USA, on the contrary, I will be reorganizing to the lark regime. The Western world is tailored for those who get up early. It's okay if you have an appointment at eight in the morning and the night party ends at midnight.

I try to separate actions by time of day. In the morning I check the news and mail (but I don't answer anyone, because I do it in bed from my phone). Then I go to the office and there I already answer letters, call up with clients.

I usually go to lunch with Dmitry Pistolyako, and if I dine alone, I correspond with employees from other cities.

I set aside two hours a day for blogging: I shoot videos, respond to comments, communicate with subscribers.

In the evening - a ballet or a walk, cooking dinner, watching a TV series and calling the United States.

How do you while away the time in traffic jams?

My office is about 15 minutes walk from my house. I try to plan all meetings within the "office - home" radius so as not to waste time and nerves on traffic jams. I drive quite carefully, and the reckless drivers are very unhappy when I drive 60 km / h, not 90. Therefore, I try to avoid meeting them once again.

If you still have to wait for something or someone, then I read books. For the last three years, I have read almost nothing, as I was immersed in business. But after I met Anton Gladkov (ex-business developer of Aviasales), I was inspired by how books influenced his life and began to read more.

What's your hobby?

My main hobby is my job and my video blog. I have two YouTube channels: one in Russian (35,000 subscribers), another in English. I started to keep it quite recently, but it is growing faster than the Russian one.

There are many bonuses from channel management. First, it is interaction with the target audience of LinguaTrip. Subscribers often write in comments and private messages about how to improve the service, find bugs, and share their impressions of working with us. Secondly, I have a very smart audience, the guys constantly receive grants to study abroad, open their own businesses and win various competitions. It's nice to feel like a small part of big successes. Thirdly, channel management gives new acquaintances. I talk to many bloggers who shoot videos on similar topics. Sometimes we "partner" with great companies because my subscribers work there.

I am happy when I see the results of my labors.

What place does sport take in your life?

I do classical ballet, this is my second hobby and my favorite sport. When I was eight years old, my parents sent me to dance at the Music Hall Theater in St. Petersburg. We had a lot of activities there: acrobatics, character dance, acting, but the classics always inspired me.

At the age of 12, a teacher from the Vaganovo school approached me and offered to continue my studies there. But I decided that after school I want to go to university, so I continued to practice ballet as an amateur.

I try to attend classes at least once a week. Ballet helps to disconnect from problems and affairs.

Life hacking from Marina Mogilko

Books

I recently read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I highly recommend it to absolutely everyone (as far as I know, it has already been published in Russian - "The magic of cleaning that changes life: the Japanese art of getting rid of unnecessary things and organizing space").

This book tells about how to get rid of unnecessary things and how life changes from it. Within a week after reading, I threw away six huge bags of old brochures, magazines, wires from some unknown source, old clothes, non-working equipment, receipts, dusty souvenirs and figurines. I also distributed some of the things to friends, some sold.

For those who are interested in the life of startups in Silicon Valley, I recommend Silicon Valley. Everything is one to one: competitors constantly trying to copy your chips, constant consultations with lawyers so as not to miss any detail in the documents, constant work and quick key decisions.

I look at everything in the original. This is the best way to learn new words, listen to correct speech and memorize especially cool phrases in English.

What is your life credo?

It is expressed in three components:

Constantly work and develop.
Constantly communicate with people who have achieved more than you.
Don't waste time with people without a purpose in life.

Marina Mogilko

What do you do in your work?

What is your profession?

I dream that I will never have to work for anyone but myself, and about a house on the ocean in California.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

One of the strengths: I am very passionate about my work. On what inspires me, I can work 12 hours a day. Because of this, she is demanding of her employees.

Since January, she has excluded all types of alcohol from her diet. This is the influence of California, where everyone is on a heightened health-care regimen.

What does your workplace look like?

Like that.

The phone is always with me too. I currently have an iPhone 6S Plus. His huge screen pleases him, although at first I thought it would be inconvenient.

And the third gadget, which is also in most cases with me, is the Canon G7X camera. It has a light-sensitive lens, due to which the background is beautifully blurred.

All my work is mainly in mail: correspondence with clients, partners, investors, letters of thanks from subscribers have also appeared recently (my favorite part).

What is your daily routine?

I usually go to lunch with Dmitry Pistolyako, and if I dine alone, I correspond with employees from other cities.

I set aside two hours a day for blogging: I shoot videos, respond to comments, communicate with subscribers.

In the evening - a ballet or a walk, cooking dinner, watching a TV series and calling the United States.

How do you while away the time in traffic jams?

What's your hobby?

I am happy when I see the results of my labors.

What place does sport take in your life?

I try to attend classes at least once a week. Ballet helps to disconnect from problems and affairs.

Life hacking from Marina Mogilko

Books

I look at everything in the original. This is the best way to learn new words, listen to correct speech and memorize especially cool phrases in English.

What is your life credo?

It is expressed in three components:

Constantly work and develop.
Constantly communicate with people who have achieved more than you.
Don't waste time with people without a purpose in life.

Today I will tell you about how to make millions of dollars, live in a beautiful house on the ocean and drive a good car. No SMS and no registration, no Herbalife! Many books have been written on this topic, but all this is complete nonsense, you can throw all these books in the trash. Only I know the real secret of success. It takes a lot of work to be successful. Everything is very simple!

We will conquer Silicon Valley today! This is the very place where literally! This is where programmers, entrepreneurs and geniuses from all over the world aspire! It is here that people receive millions for their projects, and then conquer the world. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Apple and other companies have started here in California. I talked to the guys who were able to get investments in Silicon Valley about how to succeed. Especially for those who intend to conquer San Francisco with their startup, I have compiled a few rules-tips.

Without a name, experience and recommendations, it is better not to go into Silicon Valley. Let's say you have an idea, perhaps even a brilliant one. You sell your mother's mink coat, a video double, get into debt, buy a ticket and fly to San Francisco. You are arriving. Get off the plane - that's all. Nobody knows you yet, you have no connections, recommendations and history. So you shouldn't count on big money right away.

The main thing is to launch the project. If you do not have the opportunity to save up money and dump your cool idea into Silicon Valley, launch the project at the local level, even if it is Tyumen or Kostroma. You create a business, you prove your worth. And already with this story you go to San Francisco. You tell the tough guys about how you organized a business in Russia yourself, you explain that you know how to make money and make a product. That is, you prove that you are worth something.

San Francisco is like Hollywood. Under the guise of helping the project, you can be thrown for your own money. You will be escorted to an event where a hundred investors have gathered. You only pay $ 40 per ticket. Then they tell you that your startup is in the top ten. But its presentation to potential investors costs $ 500. It consists in the fact that some strange people take your business cards. This is where it all ends. Naturally, no investors are going to invest in your project.

To successfully promote a startup, you need to find a sponsor. A successful founder can play his role. He, at least, can recommend a project to some company, and they will talk to you. Not the fact that they will give money. But thanks to this, useful connections can appear.

It is very important to find someone who believes in your idea. And remember: an investor in San Francisco wants to change the world. He is ready to allocate a lot of money just because he believed in the idea or in the one who brought the idea. Even if there are startups that are much cooler than yours, but you got to a person who is close to your idea, he will invest in it. He is not only interested, but also profitable to invest, because he will not have to pay tax on this money. For example, a Google employee with a salary of 500 thousand has the opportunity to either pay 30% of the tax on this amount, and then this money will go to the state, or invest it. The second option, perhaps, will seem more interesting to him: at least, under certain circumstances, he can increase his capital.

A startup loves luck. It would be nice to get to a person who really likes what you are talking about. Because if you tell some dude who has never played football in his life about a football service, that's one story. And if an investor is a football player in the past, he, naturally, will light up ... To get to such a right person, you need luck. But in order to make luck not accidental, you need to organize more and more new meetings and make many attempts.

Out of 1000 projects, only 5% receive initial money (from 10 to 150 thousand dollars)... And if you consider that 9 out of 10 also burn out, then it turns out that out of 1000 startups, only 5 achieve real success. A certain amount of investment also presupposes a certain assessment of the startup. For example, you received 150 thousand from an investor. This means that your project is estimated at a million. Further, the rates rise. The next investor is putting in a lot of money. And the company is no longer worth a million, but, let's say, five million.

The most important thing in a startup is good PR. If you know how to sell yourself, you can shovel money without bothering yourself with work. And if a popular investor, for example, Peter Thiel, the creator of PayPal, invests in your project, consider that all roads are open. And such an investor is also good PR.

Stanford matters. In the States, attention is paid to education. Not for a diploma, but for the very fact that you entered a prestigious university. Stanford is well rated, whether you graduate or not. Peter Thiel even gives 100 thousand to someone who leaves the university and does his own project.

An American investor does not give money to tourists. As soon as you come to the investor, they ask you: "What visa are you on here?" If on a tourist, then the money will not be seen. Nobody wants some guy to raise 3 million first and then take them away to some unknown place. Reputation is very important for people. And, as a rule, things like taking money and dumping it in Bali don't work here. Here, no one will ask for the money invested back. But at the same time, investors in San Francisco prefer to hedge. So that you, having received your initial millions, do not leave the country, the rights to the shares are transferred to you after two years.

The second thing that you are asked is: "Are there Russian state structures among the investors?" If there are any, then you will probably be sent to hell. Russian investors are not valued here, to put it mildly. And some investors may refuse just because you are from Russia. But this reason will not be named openly. In general, there are examples that it is dangerous to work with Russian investors. For example, a company offers you money, but pauses for several months and prohibits accepting offers from other investors. Some assessments are made, you refuse other investors, and this one, a Russian one, as a result says that he is not going to invest money in you. Therefore, the startups themselves also do not want to contact Russian investors.

It will take six months to hunt for the first investor and deal with him. You work, program at night, do marketing. You have in mind 200 investors, you need to contact each one, find an e-mail, write a personalized letter, and not some cold one, make an appointment, meet. They are paused for three months. Then they meet with you again, and you say how many users and money you will have in three months. This period passes, and the investor looks at whether you are fulfilling the plan or not, and what is the dynamics of product development. And, of course, then they make a decision: to give money or not. And it may well turn out that you will be wasting your time. And all this time you live at your own expense. So, conquering San Francisco, it is worth stocking up on a large "pillow".

Americans are afraid to get involved with Russian startups. There is a fairly large domestic market in Russia. But startups don't have the potential to go international. And the system of returning capital to investors is broken, so they are afraid to invest. There are a few companies in Russia that have gone public. But for an investor, this is a very important point. He has two options for how to initially make a profit: either he sells his share, or the campaign goes to the ipio, and his share becomes public. Accordingly, the shares are traded, someone buys them. This is how money is generated.

Brainstorming gives birth to ideas. Developers and engineers are invited to special forums such as "hackathons", they lock up for a day and try to give birth to an idea to create some kind of product. The audience is provided with all the benefits and joys: free food, comfortable pillows, gadgets. Everyone breaks down into teams and generates ideas. For a day or two days, some people create a ready-made prototype. Someone believes in him and invests money. This is how a startup appears.

Russians Dmitry Dumik, Dmitry Pistolyako, Marina Mogilko and Nikolai Oreshkin, who managed to interest investors in Silicon Valley, shared with me their recipes for success, which helped to compile this startup mini-guide.

Dmitry Dumik is known as the creator of the Penxy and Myata projects. The first was a presentation service and fell apart, but the Myata app for viewing interesting content on social networks instantly became popular.

“In the fall of 2013, without money and in our last breath, we began to make the Mint mobile application. After launching in the first week, we collected 120,000 installations and in a couple of months we began to earn money from advertising and feed ourselves. In August 2014, we were accepted into the“ 500 startups "(we were the first Russian team to be hired there), and we started making the concept of Mint for American social networks. In February of this year, we increased the Russian Mint to 1.5 million installations and sold it to a group of private investors in Russia. 100% focused on the States and now we are doing projects in the mobile area for this and other foreign markets, "says Dmitry.

Dmitry Pistolyako and Marina Mogilko created a startup LinguaTrip, an online service for booking language courses abroad. It allows you to book a foreign language course in the country where it is spoken. In the 4th year of the university, the guys opened an agency for education abroad, investing in it a start-up capital of $ 300. Now, 4 years later, one of the world's best accelerators, located in Silicon Valley, has invested in them, having chosen them from several thousand companies.

To help other startups build a successful company in the Valley, as well as learn English, Dmitry and Marina asked successful entrepreneurs, mentors and investors to let the founders of startups live in their homes, communicate with them in English about business every day and help build connections in the Valley.