Vadim Mashurov
Biography
Vadim Mashurov, the founder of the Instime company, the guru of the Ukrainian IT business, told his followers about his life path, the Instime project and his relationship with finances.
Success, as a rule, lies many factors - talent, diligence, luck. A talented IT specialist, businessman, one of the youngest and most successful entrepreneurs in Ukraine, Vadim Mashurov, demonstrated this by his own example.
Travel, expensive and exclusive cars, top gadgets - to achieve this, you need to have not only outstanding abilities, but also consciously give up momentary pleasures, work even when everyone is resting. This is the main secret of a young entrepreneur.
Carier start
Vadim Mashurov does not belong to the so-called "golden youth". He did not have wealthy parents who would buy him a company. Everything that he has today, he achieved himself, with his own efforts.
As a child, he became interested in computers. At first, like many boys, it was a passion for games. Then it grew into the first attempts at programming. Taking books on this topic from the library, the future entrepreneur began to write the simplest games.
Already in adolescence, Vadim began to think about his own earnings. This desire became the main motivation for action and overcoming difficulties. Then still a young guy, Mashurov found three monitors and began to study possible questions at potential interviews in serious companies.
The first serious job was a position in the American company YoV Games. Back then, it was a budding game development startup. Mashurov easily passed the theoretical part of the interview, but in practice there was still not enough experience. However, the 14-year-old guy was smart and turned to a friend for help. This little trick opened the doors to the IT world for Mashurov. While Vadim was getting his first experience, he was earning $15 an hour. The guy was able to buy the first car at the age of 18.
IT business
Early success could turn anyone's head. It's easy to relax, stop developing, and float by inertia for some more time. Mashurov was lucky that the process itself gave him as much pleasure as earnings. He always strived to learn something new, to improve his skills. This was the reason for leaving the first job.
After a while, it became obvious that the company would not release the new GTA Sun Andrea. The chance to become a successful specialist was melting before our eyes. As Mashurov said in one interview:
“I wanted to constantly strive for those people who already buy not a Mitsubishi Outlander, but, for example, a Maserati or a Ferrari, can buy a helicopter, or allow themselves to travel a lot.”
Already at the age of 17, he decides to go into free swimming. Initially, the young man planned to open his own business, but the family did not support his idea. Therefore, Mashurov decides first to gain experience not only as a developer, but also to understand all the processes from the position of a manager.
He managed to find a small web studio that was interested in his skills. When Vadim was hired, the young man actually began to serve as a technical director, but for a much more modest salary. After several months of painstaking work, Mashurov becomes one of the equal partners of the company. The young man was fully responsible for the technical part of the project. And since all the responsibility was on him, often Vadim had to stay up until late at night, redoing the work of the “juniors”.
Mashurov, in addition to fulfilling his duties, was engaged in the search and hiring of new employees, and over time, the dismissal of incompetent workers. Vadim could hardly be called sociable, but the tasks he faced forced him to change and improve in various areas.
It's been about three years. And again, the desire to conquer new heights did not let him rest easy on the laurels of success. Different goals, worldview and vision of the future of business prompted Mashurov to leave and launch his own project.
Project Instime
Today, Instime, an Instagram promotion service, operates in 110 countries and reaches more than 120,000 users. The idea of creating appeared in 2018, and in six months the first tangible successes appeared. Partly due to the demand for the product itself.
Instagram is one of the most popular social networks today, many people and companies need to promote their profiles. This is how Instime appeared - a service that helps promotion through mutual revenue: one user likes another, etc.
At first, the service gave users only live traffic in the form of likes, comments, saves, views. This helps people increase the rating of their publication, get into the tops and recommendations. Later, the possibility of training was added - the user can get a choice of one of the eight professions in demand on the Internet.
The success of the young service was noticed by many. Thus, the leader of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, noted the potential of Instime and the talent of the creators of the project, because in just six months they managed to create an IT project that brings $3 million in profit per month.
Consulting Google Ukraine
Making money is not the only thing a young entrepreneur does. Technology remains his main passion. As soon as cryptocurrencies appeared, Mashurov immediately began to study all the available information, trying to figure out the blockchain. Vadim completely immersed himself in the study, and in a short time he managed to understand the topic quite well.
Since the IT-sphere (like any other) is, first of all, people, a certain “party”, after some time an acquaintance who at that time worked at Google Ukraine turned to Mashurov with a request to hold a meeting for him and his colleagues special course.
In these lessons, Mashurov talked about what blockchain is, what protocols are used, what consensuses are and what they are, what part of cryptography is, how it actually works, and so on.
Finances, plans and dreams
The ability to manage money did not appear immediately. As Mashurov himself admits, relations with money did not always go so smoothly and it took time to learn how to manage them wisely.
The entrepreneur advises not just to save money, but to invest it. Invest in projects, in development, in yourself.
The constant striving for development, scaling up business projects, high demands on oneself - all this could not but affect the dreams of a Ukrainian IT entrepreneur. The global dream of Vadim Mashurov is to change the world. Change people's thinking for the better, make society more conscious.
ORIGINAL POST 1
Vadim Mashurov: The world will not soon move into the metaverse
IT entrepreneur Vadim Mashurov (photo: instagram.com/vadimmashurov)Business angel and IT entrepreneur Vadim Mashurov spoke in an interview with RBC-Ukraine about the "war " with Instagram, the prospects for the metaverse and the cryptocurrency market, as well as how to invest and manage money correctly.
How did you get started in the IT world?
– Acquaintance with IT began in childhood. I was born in Brovary and among my environment there were many children who were interested in computers. But this hobby was not limited to computer games alone. Since childhood, I considered myself a researcher and wanted to understand everything, right down to the engineering part.
But my real path in IT began after all when my family and I moved out of town. It was a place where there were almost no children, even people. And so most of the time I devoted to the study of computers. It was boring to play the same game, and it was not possible to buy new ones. I ended up trying to make games myself.
Already at an early age, at 11-12 years old, I began to try to understand "coding". There are many programming languages of varying complexity. I started with Delfy, then there was C++ and so on.
- What was your first job?
- At some point, I realized that in this life you can achieve success only on your own and no one will do anything for you. Therefore, I began to be interested in various earning opportunities. By that time, the Internet had already appeared, though there were no job search sites yet. We searched for it on forums and various freelance sites. On one of these sites, I found guys who were willing to pay money for what I was basically doing then - creating games.
It was quite a global project. It was well funded and the team was mostly Russian speaking. I worked there for about three years and earning $15 an hour and then $25 was fine with me.
But over time, I realized that I'm far from being the coolest developer. I always wanted to be in the area where I could realize myself 100%. So that I could use my strength to the fullest, fight for leading positions, compete with someone ... so I smoothly moved into management.
- What are you doing now?
- I haven't picked up a keyboard to write code for a long time. Now I am more engaged in management, strategy, development and implementation of ideas. During this time, I had to work with a large number of people who were experts in the world of finance, design, law, accounting and various services.
I have accumulated a huge amount of knowledge on how to run various businesses. Therefore, I am interested in working with diverse teams, helping them develop from scratch or scale.
I am integrated to date in a large number of projects. I work with teams and help them create international business. You can call me a business angel.
– One of your biggest projects is Instime. Tell us what it is and what did you achieve with it?
– Instime is a service for monetization and promotion on Instagram. The opening of Instime was a kind of transition for me from a teller to a serial entrepreneur. From an outsourcing company to a grocery store. I dealt with branding, scaling and distribution. I also had the legal part - patents, finances and so on.
This product ended up being quite successful. Even more successful than we expected. He gained worldwide popularity. But it wasn't without problems.
At a certain point, we became so prominent that the Instagram developers turned their attention to us. They even sent forces to fight us. The thing is that the promotion tool that we made based on their system turned out to be more effective and cheaper than they offered. As a result, a large number of Instagram clients came to us and the company decided to deal with this by declaring a kind of "war" on us.
Previously, Instagram improved its API every six months and announced upcoming changes in advance. Then with the growing popularity of our service, they began to change the API more often and turn off from time to time. They fought us technically and they succeeded. As a result, this confrontation spoiled the reputation of our brand. At least there were no lawsuits from Instagram against us.
The most popular app in the world today is TikTok. Do you have any ideas for this social network?
– As soon as TikTok appeared, my partners and I immediately realized that we could use it effectively and earn even more than on Instagram. For this, we had everything technically ready, and we could make the same platform as for Instagram. But we did not believe in this project and eventually decided to go into the market of finance, stocks, investments and speculation - where money is spinning.
When I got into the social media market, I didn't feel very comfortable there. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to return to the financial market, I took advantage of this opportunity, since the financial world is closer to me.
If I knew what TikTok would become in the future, then I would definitely make a product for this network. But then we did not have enough foresight to assess the potential of the project.
– In recent years, there has been a regular hype around cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the world. How do you feel about this industry?
– We were among the first to start working with the blockchain, I provide my services on outsourcing. A large number of large companies approached us because we were enthusiasts. When I hired people, it was important for me that a person devote 8 hours a day to work and 8 hours to his training. I needed machines that had to learn and work constantly with me. And clients appreciate it.
As a result, we occupied the niche of cryptography and decentralized technologies. We began to develop rapidly in this direction and create a quality product.
The only thing is that I did not pay attention to the investment attractiveness of cryptocurrencies and did not invest a large amount in bitcoin at one time. I understood that the technology is very cool and has a future. But I paid much less attention to assets in the form of cryptocurrencies.
To date, I'm pretty familiar with this market. I am interested in all the innovations from the metaverse to NFTs, various blockchains and Launchpad platforms.
What exactly are you doing in this area right now?
- Now we are preparing to launch the bank. For this, we already have our own cryptocurrency wallet and an Estonian license. We are also preparing to launch Launchpad, a startup accelerator.
But we will have a slightly non-standard model. Not the one where the investor came, gave money and left. In our case, a startup will receive a large number of people, and from each of them some insignificant amount of funds. That is, they become its investors. As a result, the project receives both an audience and finances. We have many other interesting solutions in this direction - a whole ecosystem associated with cryptocurrencies is being created.
Among other things, we want to reach the audience from an early age. For example, from the age of 7 we want to issue bank cards with parental control to children. Children will have the opportunity to choose a niche for investment, where the token of our ecosystem will be the internal coin.
You mentioned the metaverse earlier. How promising is this?
- Let's remember futuristic films where people in the future come home, go to the computer and live other lives. I think this option is possible.
But this industry has a million questions that it is not clear how they will be resolved. At the same time, it is clear that major players are serious about this niche. What is the renaming of Facebook to Meta.
But even if we talk about the fact that the whole world will collectively move into the metaverse, I don’t think that this will happen quickly.
– In general, what areas in the crypto industry do you consider promising?
– I think the market is still quite fresh and here you can make money on everything: from the creation of blockchains to some new financial instruments. There are just a lot of opportunities for creating and developing something in the crypto world.
But how do you make the right choice?
- A person must determine for himself his strengths and, based on this, choose a niche. Relatively speaking, it would be wrong to say to everyone that you should start investing and make money on it. Because the investor is a difficult profession that requires training and a team. You can't just pick a coin and invest in it. To begin with, it must be studied in detail. Not just the team and technology behind the token, but how it connects with the rest of the world. And having already globally examined the coin to understand how much it has the right to life.
- How to properly manage money so that they multiply? What is the best investment?
– When we talk about $1,000 investment, we must understand what it will give us. $1,000 is far from a lot of money, especially in the investment world.
As many people think, if a person has $1,000, then he immediately wants to earn $20,000. But you need to understand that investments are a long-term process. Accordingly, if people want some large amount of money, then their investments turn into a casino. They begin to look for risky directions. But where there's a big risk, there's always a big chance it won't work.
Suppose a person has become an investor and he has a certain portfolio. Since he diversified his investments, his overall return is 20-30%. Let's say you have $10,000. And you get $2000-3000 a year from them. And what is this amount? In fact, it's $200-300 per month. It is quite hard to live on this money without working in parallel and without other sources of income.
That's why I've always recommended that people start by investing as much as they can in themselves. For example, in education. That is, you need to break out of the rat race and get to the point where you can save more money.
You need to "swing" yourself and only after that choose the direction that is closest to you. An area where you can be an expert. Ideally, you should always invest in your business. And only when you have free money - think about investments.