Kirill Vasilyev (40) is the founder of Rewatt, the Belarusian manufacturer of charges for electric vehicles. Before moving to Belarus, for almost 8 years Kirill worked as the IT director of a major system integrator in Russia. In the interview for The Heroes, Kirill talks about the most difficult period in the life of his company and about perseverance and failure as key examinations for young businessmen.

The idea of ​​creating charges for electric vehicles in Belarus is not as crazy as it may seem. We initially worked in a company that was engaged in conventional gas stations. In the process of work, we stumbled upon Bloomberg’s or some other analytical agency’s report on the upcoming electromobile boom. If we look at the global automotive market, it’s actually managed by several major auto groups. In total, all these guys have made enormous investments over many decades that led to the development of a series of platforms of electric vehicles. So, based on this somewhat shaky and fluid statement, we decided to try to enter the market with our product. At first, we didn’t even think of making charges. Initially, we were thinking about a purely IT product, a pure software environment that would allow you to carry out the rating for electricity consumed when you charge your electric car. We took a risk and began to develop charging systems, where we automatically integrate our «smart» IT part, which allows you to carry out the rating, finding a charger, reserve and other beautiful and convenient tricks for further monetization.

If you’re not hard-nosed like a ram, you won’t go far away — you will definitely come across a ram that will simply wipe you off the road

It was my and Kirill’s idea, we staffed up the guys and led them along. At some point, there were almost ten people. But then, inevitably, we lost some of the team — some lost faith, some lost fire in their eyes. Yulia stayed, Kirill stayed… and I stayed, a Russian citizen who had worked for quite a long time in Moscow, but then the life story led to my falling in love. Being in love, I came here to my future wife. Now I already have a child here, I grew some roots into this soil, something holds me to this ground. Now I actually consider myself to be 66% Belarusian. Belarusian wife, Belarusian daughter, who am I, then? In general, we want to keep the whole operation centre here — from A to Z. First of all, it is profitable for us this way. Secondly, we live here, so this shortens the logistics chains. In Belarus, you can work openly and calmly — and you won’t have any strange hidden issues that you must inevitably somehow solve. Therefore, the Belarusian location is better than the Russian.

If you’re not hard-nosed like a ram, you won’t go far away — you will definitely come across a ram that will simply wipe you off the road. If you stand for a very long time thinking «no, guys, today I will think about it, and tomorrow we will do something…», you won’t go far away. There’s yesterday, and there’s today. Period. Tomorrow does not exist! At the level of strategic planning, yes, you can look at some intervals ahead. But if you have any deadline, it actually happened yesterday. This is the biggest problem. Either we are doing things today, running ahead of everyone, or we stay behind, copying other people's technologies — and then we will simply be squeezed aside.

The client must believe that a young team is able to cope — this is done only with perseverance

It is very difficult to go through any quest that should lead not only to faith in victory but also to faith in you as a service provider. Especially when you provide new services. Especially when you are a small company, compared with your client. Therefore, you have to be stubborn. You have to convince the client always, every day. The only thing for which you have to work at a certain stage in the formation of your company is that the client does not lose faith in you. There are many interesting tasks here — from business to technical ones. And I’m not sure, which of the tasks is more interesting. It’s hard for the client to trust you, harder than it is for you to trust yourself. The client must believe that a young team with no experience, no skills, no background is able to cope with this or that service — this is done only with perseverance.

I had to make wooden chairs with my own hands and sell them near the subway to be able to buy diapers for the baby.

You have a chance to leave a mark in a terrible thing called history. If you run for the money — you will inevitably lose. Running for the money is finite. OK, you will have money — that's all. Finita la comedia — you have no goal in life. At some points, it was very hard, not very good things were going on. When I had to make wooden chairs with my own hands and sell them near the subway to be able to buy a pack of diapers for the baby. The question of survival was literally acute. But we went through it and survived. There were new possibilities. Some find interesting niches in those possibilities. This is how we, in fact, got united here — me, Kirill, and Yulia. We found something interesting for ourselves, and that’s what we do.

The present-day 18-year-olds who grew up (most of them, I'm not talking about everyone), the absolute majority of them grew up in greenhouse conditions. In the mode, when they get out into the open world, they, for some reason, expect that someone will run around helping them. They are badly and deeply mistaken — no one will run around helping them, they will be eaten immediately. They need experience in payroll jobs, including after any training. First of all, in order to psychologically understand what «working» really means. We lost the engineering school a long time ago — in the form we used to understand it and, most importantly, in the form decision-makers used to understand it. It is no longer needed, it is uncompetitive. With all the desire, no matter how brilliant the people who sent the first man into space are, they are uncompetitive against the backdrop of the modern world. At the moment when you finish studying, your fundamental knowledge does not become obsolete, but any practical skills are simply irrelevant. The only way to develop is to self-study. The modern engineering school must have at its core a rigid motivator of self-study. Do what you must — and happen what may.