On November 22, the pre-acceleration program of the Digital Breakthrough competition ended, in which 53 best finalist teams took part. In today's post, we will talk about a team that will save us from the senseless and merciless process of collecting meter readings in the near future. The guys from the Genesis team went from idea to prototype in two months, and in this post we will tell you how they did it. Team captain Roman Gribkov told us about this.
1. Tell us about your team. What are the roles in it, has its composition changed after the final?
We entered the competition as an already established team. We have been working together for more than 5 years in custom development - we make various analytical systems for state authorities at the regional and federal levels. I am the team leader, responsible for analytics, finance, product strategy and presentation of results, that is, I control the entire organizational part.
My colleague Dima Kopytov is a technical lead (his account on HabrΓ© ). He is responsible for the architecture of the created solution and closes most of the tasks. Dima has been programming since the age of 7!
Zhenya Mokrushin and Dima Koshelev close the front and back part of our projects. Plus now they are actively engaged in mobile development.
In general, before participating in the "Digital Breakthrough", we wanted to make a combat robot that shoots fire π Purely for fun. But then we went to the hackathon and everything started spinning. But we will do the robot anyway. A little bit later.
2. We know that during the pre-acceleration program you decided to change the project? What factors influenced this?
Initially, we entered the pre-accelerator with a project with the concept of βUber in the housing and communal services sectorβ. We started making it at the semi-finals of the competition and continued to develop it after, for example, we presented it to the Governor of the Perm Territory M.G. Reshetnikov and received positive feedback.
But in the 2 weeks of the pre-accelerator, we realized that it is better to do a project that is more aimed at ordinary consumers and less tied to the state, since the state is afraid to take projects in the PPP format in terms of IT (there are only a few of them implemented in Russia), and go with zero in custom development for the public sector team is simply unrealistic.
Therefore, we decided to pivot and go to the consumer market.
It seemed interesting to us to make not just a software project, but also add a hardware part to it. And so, once again examining my counters between the pipes in the bathroom with a flashlight, I realized that it was enough to endure this. And we came up with Gemeter - a hardware and software platform that will transmit meter readings to the management company instead of me.
By the way, here is what the prototype of our device looks like
But the project that we started to do initially, we have not abandoned. Now we are actively negotiating with the Government of the Perm Territory so that it still exists. We are looking for cooperation options. It will probably be just a commercial development in which the government will act as a data provider and provide tools for integrating with edge systems. Now the concept of GaaS (government as a service) is actively developing.
This is how our system works
Briefly about the projectA system for transmitting meter readings from residents to resource-supplying organizations (a device that is attached to meters and a subscription to a data transfer service). Using the system, you can achieve significant savings on housing and communal services by transmitting up-to-date data on the consumption of electricity, hot and cold water.
The system works as follows: a device is attached to the consumer's counter, which is then connected to the home WiFi network through the application. Further, the data is collected, processed and transmitted to the resource supplying organization either through billing centers or GIS housing and communal services.
3. What goals did you set for yourself at the pre-accelerator? Has everything been achieved?
From the funny - we went to the pre-accelerator with a question - why is he a PRE-accelerator? We got the answer to the question π
But in general, we wanted to try our hand at product development. Custom development is great, but it does not give maneuvers beyond what is written in the TOR. But not always at the stage of drawing up the TOR, the customer can draw up a complete picture of how everything should be. And in order to make any changes to the functionality, it is necessary to purchase according to 44-FZ, and this is a very long story.
Product development allows you to respond much faster to customer requests.
Our main success is a really working and selling product. I believe that we not only achieved everything we wanted, but got much more than we expected.
4. Did your mood change during the program? Were there periods of uplift or burnout?
The main difficulty is to combine work on the project with the main place of work. For the duration of the pre-accelerator, we have not abandoned previous agreements and obligations. We do not allow failure to meet deadlines for delivering results to the customer, and we do everything only in our free time from our main work. And taking into account the fact that the end of the year is the hottest time, there was very little time left. Because of this, even we could not come to Senezh with the whole team.
In general, throughout the program we had a very fighting spirit. We clearly understood why we were doing all this and therefore we only went forward. Training in the pre-accelerator was extremely intense, the trackers did not let us relax. Therefore, no one had time to burn out. I hope that this will not happen until the launch of our product on the market. And there and other projects will arrive in time.
5. How did you prepare for the defense? How did you prepare to win?
In the best traditions, we finalized our project right up to the protection itself. They brought soldering irons, sandpaper, a glue gun with them and calibrated the device on the spot, in Senezh. As for the pitch, thanks to the weekly tracking sessions, it was perfected to the maximum by the time of the defense.
6. Tell us about working with mentors in the pre-accelerator. How was remote work organized? What are your impressions of the full-time stage of the pre-accelerator in Senezh?
In principle, for us, remote work is a completely familiar way of working, many of our employees work remotely in other cities. And this has its advantages - a person has the opportunity to dive deeper into his thoughts and, as a result, give a better result.
The mentors were very cool. Due to circumstances, we managed to work quite closely with 4 trackers. First, Anna Kachurets worked with us, then Oksana Pogodaeva joined in, and in Senezh itself - Nikolai Surovikin and Denis Zorkin. Thus, we received very useful feedback from each tracker, which helped us work out both the financial model in more depth and create the most accurate portrait of our consumer.
Plus, a very cool thing is active networking. During one of the lunches, we gathered at a table with investors, trackers, where we arranged a real crash test of our project. We were torn apart as soon as possible π But as a result, we were able to diversify the value proposition by region. And to understand more clearly what Moscow needs and what the regions need. There is indeed a very big difference in the minds of consumers.
As a result, during the full-time pre-acceleration, we made the first sales of our device. We received pre-orders for 15 Gemeter devices. This suggests that we really do everything for good reason. We were able to find the pain of the consumer and convey to him the value of the product we are developing.
7. How did the defense go as a result? Were you satisfied with the results?
In my opinion, the defense went brilliantly. Speaking in front of a critical audience, smiles and thumbs up say that our project has come. A separate balm for the soul is when you see that people read the QR code published on your slide and want to know more detailed information about the project.
It is too early to talk about any specific tangible results of preacceleration. Yes, investors did not come to us with a suitcase of money, we did not hear the phrase βShut up and take my money!β. But that shouldn't be the case when your project is at the concept stage.
The main thing that we took away from the pre-accelerator is that you canβt get hung up on the idea in your head. There is an idea - you need to test it on your potential consumers. If you don't get it, you need to change it and move on. Making a mistake is not a big deal. It's scary to go in the wrong direction and not turn around in time. Do what no one but you needs.
In general, I believe that only after passing the pre-accelerator, you can start making a startup.
8. What are the plans for the development of the project after the pre-accelerator?
Since we have the first sales, we have nowhere to retreat. We will actively work on this project. Follow our progress on the site;)
Now our first priority is to make an industrial solution out of the device concept. Reduce its size to the maximum, prepare the printed circuit board and optimize the component base, launch robotic soldering.
The second task is to integrate the software part of the platform with regional billing systems so that data from Gemeter goes directly to resource supplying organizations.
Well, the third in order, but not least important step is the launch of sales.
In general, we are very charged to continue the work and want to bring this project to the market. Moreover, we now have a full set of skills, it remains to test them in practice
Source: habr.com