Starting an innovative business will take creativity and a lively mind. We prove it with the example of these five women.
Katerina Kopytina, creator of the Light Bean lamp
Moscow-based designer Katerina Kopytina is the author of many home accessories, but the most famous is the "bob lamp" Light Bean. Light Bean's success has led to the creation of the entire GLYPH brand. In the meantime, there is no need to worry about it.”
Initially, the designer conceived the lamp for herself and planned to make it metallic. Nevertheless, Kopytina created the first sample from wood and suddenly realized that this was exactly what the market needed. The secret of its popularity lies in its simplicity and versatility. Light Bean is a wooden shade with integrated ventilation system invisible to the eye and a large lamp.
It took Kopytina a whole year to set up production in Russia. Over time, the lamp began to be produced in different shades, the range of wire colors has expanded - now there are 12 of them. Under the GLYPH brand, not only "bob" (as the word "bean" is translated from English) is produced today, but also other interior items, for example, the Kuiper hanging planter Belt.
Facts:
Business start year: 2012.
Number of employees: 4.
Light Bean lamp price: 11,500 rubles.
Achievements:
Light Bean lamps are sold not only in Russia, but also in European countries. It is planned to enter the American market in 2018.
Kamila Biryukova, Founder of the Circos social trading network
Kamila Biryukova, a former editor of a glossy magazine, found an idea for a business, communicating with her friends, mothers of young children. With them, she often discussed brands of children's clothing, the convenience of strollers and other specialized topics. Then Biryukova had the idea to create a website where one could shop and at the same time discuss goods with other users.
This is how the Circos service was born - it is a cross between a social network and a virtual shopping center. Users can not only share reviews about purchases and show each other the purchased goods "live", but also, for example, arrange a survey: "Car seat of firm A versus car seat of firm B, what to take?" Comments from other buyers help ease the pangs of choice.
Circos monetization model - the commission that stores must pay for placing on the site (while the business model is being tested). For stores, such a partnership is a way to save money on advertising, especially for new companies that do not have wide opportunities for promotion.
Facts:
Business start-up year: 2016.
Number of employees: 11.
Placement price for shops: 2000–3000 rubles per month.
Achievements:
The site has already collected more than 100 stores with which partnership agreements have been reached. Their number continues to grow.
Gulnaz Khusainova, creator of the EasySize service
Gulnaz Khusainova, at the age of 19, founded her first startup - a system for optimizing the reservation of places for restaurants. Then she opened an online store, but was included in the list of the best female startups in the country (according to the Russian Forbes) thanks to the development of EasySize technology.
The idea for the project came about when a girl was observing the behavior of men in the lingerie department. Few of them can boast of knowing the size of their beloved. And the girls themselves are not always well-versed in the dimensional grid. Khusainova's idea was to give users the ability to find out the size of clothes from a photo. However, this idea was quickly abandoned, deciding to develop a technology specifically for online stores.
The project got into the European accelerator Startupbootcamp and received funding in the amount of 15 thousand euros. The development team has moved to Denmark.
Now EasySize is a program that helps buyers of online stores not to be mistaken with the size, and retailers - to reduce the percentage of returns. The company claims that without its product, online stores would lose up to 20 percent of revenue (a considerable part of all purchases are returned precisely because of the inappropriate size). Large stores in Europe and Asia cooperate with EasySize, including such a serious market player as the French Vente-Privee.com.
Facts:
Business start-up year: 2013.
Number of employees: 9.
EasySize software pricing starts at $ 999 per month.
Achievements:
EasySize was named one of the best startups in Denmark, and Guzel Khusainova was included in the Scandinavian list of the most successful women entrepreneurs. Her company opened an office in Paris this summer.
Anastasia Andrizhinevskaya, founder of the online platform Ave Eva
Anastasia Andrizhinevskaya has been in business since she was 19, Ave Eva is her fourth project. She presented the idea of an online service at a startup marathon in Yaroslavl in 2016. The site is a virtual atelier or clothing designer: the user creates a thing to his liking. You can choose a silhouette, color, type of fabric, and as a result, a dress, skirt or top is made specifically for the client according to his measurements. All this for the price of clothing from the mass market.
At the Yaroslavl startup marathon, a private investor believed in the prospects of the project, who invested 500 thousand rubles in it. Later, the startup managed to get into the full-time accelerator of the IIDF (Internet Initiatives Development Fund) and receive an investment of 2.1 million rubles from the fund.
The other day Ave Eva was presented in Skolkovo on the first day of the Open Innovations Forum. The service was demonstrated as part of the Dream App reality show supporting startups - this project was launched by director Timur Bekmambetov.
Facts:
Business start-up year: 2016.
Number of employees: 3 (as well as outsourced employees).
Prices for products: dress - from 4000 to 9000 rubles, skirt - from 3500 to 7000 rubles, top - from 2300 to 5500 rubles.
Achievements:
During the acceleration period, from May to August, the company showed a fivefold increase in profits.
Guzel Sanzhapova, founder of the Cocco bello factory
Guzel Sanzhapova is another participant in the already mentioned project of Bekmambetov Dream App. Together with her friend, she began her entrepreneurial path by sewing bow ties (which were sold in the Moscow department store Tsvetnoy and other large stores). However, she decided to try herself in another business.
Sanzhapova's father inherited an apiary in a village located 200 kilometers from Yekaterinburg. According to Guzel herself, she does not like honey - that is why she had the idea to turn it into a cream using a special whipping technology. And add fillers to the resulting product - berries that are collected by local residents.
The facility was equipped with money from the Boomstarter campaign. Sanzhapova and her father invited users to support local residents: the apiary became the only enterprise in the village capable of employing the local elderly population.
Instead of the planned 150,000 rubles, the campaign raised half a million. A year after the launch, the products of the factory could be tried in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, and the turnover amounted to almost a million rubles.
Now the plans are to create a beekeeping cooperative. “This way we can guarantee the quality of honey and help the development of beekeeping in the area,” the business owners explain. With the help of their business, they also try to create comfortable conditions for local residents: in the territory of the village they have already equipped a playground, a gazebo, and a well with drinking water.
The brand's products are now sold in large chain stores, delivery is carried out throughout the country. Guzel Sanzhapova plans to rebuild the 100-square-meter workshop into a full-fledged factory over time.
Facts:
Business start year: 2012.
Number of employees: 13.
The price of one can of the product on the manufacturer's website is 280–320 rubles.
Achievements: Last year the company's turnover amounted to 12.5 million rubles.