From the mid-2000s, Yuri Bitno (39) led the ADSL.BY project, and later moved to one of the largest providers in Belarus as a CEO. Today, Yuri is a co-owner of the BelPrime IT company and co-founder (with Matvey Olevinsky) of the EdTech platform for the development of logic in children named Logiclike, which works online and offline in the EU, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In the interview for The Heroes, Yuri shares his experience in creating an MVP that makes money and talks about the emotional difference between being a payroll employee and an entrepreneur who works for himself.

— I want to ask you as a person who has worked as a payroll employee for a long time — what motivated you to move into your own business?

— I didn’t come to this company from scratch. The BelPrime company was founded by two cool guys — Victor Khamenok and Oleg Borisevich. It seemed cool to me. It seemed to me that it could give more prospects for growth. In my experience as a payroll employee, there were no bad situations or negative experiences that I would like to run away from. I worked in the providing sector for 7-8 years — we built the infrastructure, but in such work, you have hardware and software combined — billing and all other services are, so to say, virtual.

— Did your expectations come true after leaving the payroll job?

— It was a very difficult period in my life. Before I left, I was a CEO, only the owner of the company was above me. And when you work with a good company founder, or with a good boss, there are two positive things.

First of all, he gives you an additional external motivation — you wake up every day, and there is an additional person to whom you can come and say that you did something and achieved something. From the moment you start working for yourself — there is no one but you. You get up in the morning, and only you decide to do something or do nothing.

Secondly, when you work as a payroll employee, there is a person who can cover for you, give you an additional opinion, compensate for money issues. It’s different when you work for yourself — if you haven’t earned money, where should you go next? Either you go to the bank, or to your friends for a loan.

I don’t work for a company, I work with people

— So many years have passed. Would you go for a payroll job again?

— Depends on the company. In fact, I would work in some companies for the sake of experience that I couldn’t get in any other circumstances. I won’t name the companies, because I would go to work with specific people. I will not point the finger, but there are people with whom I would like to work. Even if we talk about the place where I work now — I don’t work for a company, I work with people. There are people who have the expertise, and by its external features, I would really like to work with these people.

— Do you mean Belarussians?

— The ones I know, yes, Belarusians. There are no such foreign colleagues.

— Despite the fact that you’ve been running your own business for so many years, do you still have the feeling that you need to learn?

— Yes and no. I just got this feeling. I don’t believe in «learning» as «learning, ” I believe that you learn when you do practical cases.

— How did the company change after you joined the HTP?

— By the way, I joined the HTP twice, by two companies. The HTP now is slightly different from the HTP in 2015-16. First of all, it means a long-term commitment not only to myself and the staff but also to the business plan that I defended entering the HTP.

— Your second company that joined the HTP is Logiclike?

— Yes.

— How did you come up with this idea?

— It didn’t appear out of the blue. My parents have long been engaged in the early development of children of preschool age. At some point, I was doing an IT project in medicine, it didn’t work out and I was left with an IT team. We were choosing what to do next and we decided to try starting to sell Logiclike before we had the product. And I think that it was the best thing that we have done with this project at the initial stage.

We went to the people and asked them if they really needed the development of logic in their children. And the people said yes. I personally held meetings with potential users — the number of those who signed up in each audience was 50-60%. From my point of view, it was a signal from the market that this was a cool idea.

The second factor is that I have three children. When I think what to teach them, the answer to the question «what will be useful tomorrow» is as close as possible to what we are trying to teach with Logiclike. Everything coincided — the parents of other children said yes, my parents shared their methodologies, best practices and tasks, which we laid in the basis of the courses. Then, we made the first version of the product in 3 months.

MVP should be exactly what you are able to make in 3 months

— In an interview, you said that you completely revised your approach to MVP after failing with the project in the field of medicine. What did you do?

— There were a lot of global hypotheses in medicine. We were making the product and only then we went to potential customers saying, «Look at this cool product, do you need it?». Then the customer replied, «Listen, if only there was this or that function…». So, we went back to work to make this or that function that the potential customer wanted. After that, we came back and they told us that they would like another function. And so on and on. With Logiclike, we did a different thing. We came and asked, «There’s a hypothesis, will you buy it?» And we show him a blank sheet — we have nothing! He says: «Yes, I’m buying.» After that, we started making it. The time interval between the moment you asked what the user wants and the moment you bring the finished product should be minimal. Children grow up — and if you’re making a project for children, after a year it has a completely different relevance. Therefore, MVP should be exactly what you are able to make in 3 months.

— How much money did you lose on the first project?

— Let’s say, I went into negative. In personal money, I was in debt. Not global debt, but I was in the negative.

— Are we talking about a five-digit number in dollars?

— Yes.

— OK. What did it feel like?

— As I told you when you asked me what it feels like to do your own business, all these attempts are very hard. It was the hardest period of time when I came home, I had nothing to do, and I go for a run. After five kilometres, it felt a bit better. When you try doing things and nothing works out, it’s a nightmare that I would never wish for anyone. Maybe someone was fine, maybe it happens differently in life, I don’t know. I had it like this.

— Many people say that, first of all, business is persistence. Can you agree with this?

— Yes, how crazy you are to keep moving forward despite the fact that everything says the opposite. I cannot say that Logiclike is an example of global success, but if someone had told me 4 years ago that we would grow to this scale, I wouldn’t have believed it. Everyone I told about the project answered that it was a cool and socially significant project, but could it earn any money? Most of them twisted at the temple when they heard that we’re doing a project in the field of education in the CIS segment. That’s weird!

We had the idea of ​​scaling, but in the matter of choosing the market, we rather focused on the mentality and competitive environment — we were trying to understand whether there was any demand for such a service. For example, Russian mathematics is popular in the USA. There are comrades who have taken Russian textbooks of mathematics for elementary school and began to teach Americans by those textbooks. That worked out for them. I really hope that our project will also work out, but according to other criteria — through Russian approaches to learning. Mathematics is well-established in Russian textbooks? Let's take them and teach Americans the same way.

— Would you invest in someone else's young project?

— As an investor? Depends on the topic. If I’m competent in it, then maybe I would. If there are people and a team there, maybe-maybe. If they already have something to touch — even more likely.

— The government has been trying to develop the spirit of entrepreneurship in Belarus for many years. Do you think creating your own business in Belarus is popular today?

— You’re asking a very difficult question. A lot of factors greatly simplifies life. Not to mention the notorious decree on the HTP 2.0 — this is great, this is a very serious signal for the market. It took away a lot of pain in the ass from any company trying to do product development from here. This brings us much closer to foreign companies — because they live like this. My entrepreneurial spirit wakes up at the moment when I communicate with foreign partners, colleagues, even competitors. You understand that their way of thinking is very different from ours. And, of course, we are still very far from such a way of thinking.

They think about possibilities, we think about limitations

— How is it shown?

— The first thought that comes to your mind, if you are considering the possibility of doing business in Belarus is whether it’s prohibited by law or not. It seems to me that the first thought that occurs to any American is how to squeeze money out of it? One thinks about possibilities, the other one thinks about limitations. This is a huge difference.

— How can we change the way of thinking that has taken shape in Belarus?

— It's like in doing business — keep digging. A huge number of procedures are simplified, registration and so on. Not everyone is happy with it, there are a lot of pitfalls. But in general, the number of papers that you need to collect has decreased. To us, people who live here and now within 10-20 years of history, this seems to be bad, but if we consider a longer time horizon, sooner or later, the current way of thinking will change by itself.

— Do you feel that the interest in Belarus from Western companies and investors has increased after the appearance of «visa-free» and the HTP 2.0 law?

— My contact profile isn’t big enough to judge. The answer is yes. But recently our colleagues visited us, and one of them was not allowed to enter the country. To enter Belarus from Russia, he needed to have two visas — Russian and Belarusian. So, it’s a great move but…

— But there are some issues…

— Decree number 8 greatly simplified life, simplified a lot of issues. Even though, American venture capital funds didn’t start calling me all of the sudden with propositions. But when I negotiate, I can say that within the framework of the law, some issues can be resolved, and nothing prevents this.

— How important is the international image of Belarus for a foreign investor or for a person who comes from abroad to register a company here? Does the image earned by the country in the 1990s and 2000s somehow influence the decisions of businessmen?

— I guess most of them don’t think about it. I don’t know how old businessmen relate to this. I think they are more interested in the image that they read in the news. What is Belarus for them? It’s what you told them verbally and what they read or heard somewhere from their colleagues, and everything else is given to lawyers and consultants. The big question is what exactly they read and what exactly their colleagues tell them.

It’s possible to find support abroad. But if you’re looking for employees — it costs stratospheric money, a lot more money than if you hire employees here. But at the same time, people from there are able to do what you are unable to do from Belarus. At the first stage, you cannot hire these people — because you need, for example, more money. In this case, the choice is obvious if a person comes to you here who knows nothing, or if you receive 10 million dollars with a person who is in the target market and at the same time has a vision that he already put this amount in your pocket and knows who to sell your product to afterword.

What I can do here and now is the most important question

— What did your personal experience teach you? Of course, this is a question from the category «how do you see yourself in five years?», but still…

— Excellent question about how I see myself in five years, but I don’t look so far. How I see myself in a year is much more important. What I can do here and now is the most important question. The answer is very simple. If I start thinking about how I see myself in 10 years from now, this thought goes into the category of a dream. You can dream, but in the morning, you have to get up and do what you can do in one step. If you haven’t done what you can do in one step, having your dream in your head — forget about it. I believe more in people who can take one step.

All my life I’ve been engaged in process optimization. There are universal things and unique things. All my life I’ve been thinking about things that are universal. What can I do in business so that it fits not only the case and the problem that I’m solving right now, but also in any other situation — so that I have an algorithm for solving the problem. It’s also written in textbooks on management and statistics, there are two types of events — those that are classifiable, and those that are not classifiable. The biggest manager mistake you can make is to apply the rules for unique events for mass events, and vice versa. This is what we chronically observe around us.

— Is it ethical for Belarusian businesses to copy other people's ideas and implement them here?

— I support the idea to obey the law. By definition. If you legally make a project that could be interesting to Uber and sell it to them — great. But it’s weird to be engaged in piracy and try to make money on it.

— How to learn to think differently than a person who just wants to go to work to pick up his paycheck at the end of the month?

— From my point of view, it’s like in a joke about hares who came to the owl for recommendations on self-defence and received the answer «become hedgehogs». Not everyone has to become a hedgehog! God forbid everyone to become super-creative people! I appreciate comrades from other regions for whom it’s harder to achieve success. They are valuable because they are more efficient, more purposeful. That’s what they should bet on. I met different people and different projects. Projects from the regions may have worse communication skills, but they have such penetrating ability that they will finish the job and nothing will stop them! Use what you have. Why would you need something that you don’t have?

2% of creativity is enough to implement a project. If you don’t have even that — hire someone who is creative, and you will compensate for it. Do you think everyone on my team is the same? No, they’re not. I don’t consider myself a super-creative person, but my partner in Logiclike has a head that works completely differently. But I compensate for this and do other things. I think that now it is becoming more and more difficult to enter IT. Because your costs are growing all the time, there are very few qualified personnel, and this forces you to have more and more money for each stage. But, on the other hand, if you are a programmer, you bootstrap something — and there, you have a ready product!