Yaroslav will help develop the product and expand the business into western markets. However, Petcube remains Aznyuk’s primary responsibility. His role at Fuel is strategical participation and decision-making. Yaroslav is also present in a similar format at the O0design studio as a co-founder.

An editor of AIN.UA talked with partners about what led to such a decision.

The story begins in 2020 when Petcube has become one of Fuel Finance’s clients. Those days, the Fuel team worked directly with Azhnyuk to integrate a system into the client business. That’s how the future partnership began. “The things Fuel did one and half years ago, when we started to cooperate, was something I dreamed of integrating within Petcube. But I never had neither focus on it nor right people. Financial data in a cloud, spreadsheets, and dashboards organically complementing the business are things from the Bill Gates’ Business @ the Speed of Thought book — and you must not spend months and tens of thousands of dollars to implement ERP systems,” Azniuk told AIN.UA. Successful cooperation and a shared business vision formed a ground for future partnership.

According to Mysko, first, she asked Yaroslav to become a consultant for Fuel Finance. “We measured financial and other indicators before we started to collaborate and then measured them after a year. As a result, the business grew three times in terms of income, and now American and European clients generate more than 40% of our revenue. We get a lot of analytical data about our activities, so it was not hard to measure the efficiency of our cooperation with Yaroslav and his impact on the business growth,” explained Mysko.

I like to do operational activities because I can create the highest value here. Starting with general management experience, product management, and engineer team setup and ending with sales in the American market and fundraising.

Yaroslav Azhnyuk

During a year, the Fuel Finance team implemented several product solutions from Azhnyuk. He also brought many customers helping to increase its income. After such results, they asked Azhnyuk to become a partner and co-founder. Then parties have agreed.

However, the financial part of this deal remains unrevealed.

Why is it interesting? First, the example of Fuel Finance and Yaroslav Azhnyuk shows how a high-quality partnership should be: shared values, similar business vision, and benefits in the form of measurable results. Second, there are not so many success stories in Ukraine when a company already successful and growing invited a new partner and made him a co-founder.

Fuel Finance develops software and provides financial management services for small and medium-sized businesses. The company was founded in 2019; now, it helps manage companies’ budgets with $250 mln of P&L in total. Fuel Finance is active in Ukraine and the United States; its clients are Saga Development, Petcube, Awesomic, Delfast, Ksenia Schnaider, and others.

Petcube Bites 2 Lite has a built-in treat dispenser that can be controlled via an app. The camera is already available for $124.99 on US Amazon.

Petcube has also kicked off on Product Hunt. You can support the product by clicking here.

Petcube Bites 2 Lite features

The Bites 2 Lite transmits clear 1080p HD video through a 160° wide-angle lens, has 8x digital zoom, and night vision up to 9 meters in the dark.

Also, the camera provides two-way audio communication, allowing you to hear what’s going on in the room and talk to your pet.

“A whole generation of pets grew up during the pandemic. Many people’s pets helped them go through this difficult time. Now we’re going back to the offices, leaving friends at home, and there’s anxiety on both sides. We want to make this transition less painful. Petcube Bites 2 Lite is an affordable quality camera that will help families worry less and take better care of their four-legged friends,” says Yaroslav Azhnyuk, CEO and co-founder of Petcube.

The camera has a minimalist design that complements any interior well. Pecube will also release colored treat dispensers this fall. As an accessory, you will be able to buy a pink, blue, or orange hopper made of high-quality hard plastic, which makes them safe even for large dogs.

Petcube Bites 2 Lite can be controlled through the same app as the company’s other products – Petcube Bites 2, Petcube Play 2, and Petcube Cam. Users can easily switch between different devices and share access to the camera with family and friends.

Like the company’s other cameras, Bites 2 Lite is complemented by Petcube Care, an optional subscription service that saves short videos with the history of events captured on the camera. Using computer vision, Petcube Care records animal and human movements, as well as barks and meows. The optimal Petcube Care subscription costs $3.99 per month.

The company has not yet announced when and where Petcube Cam will be available in Ukraine. Pre-ordering applications for Ukraine can be made here.

About the product

The new device allows pet owners to watch their animal companions remotely, through a smartphone, even at night with the help of the night vision system, as well as hear them and talk to them.

Petcube Cam also features a built-in system for remote consultations with veterinarians.

“70% of pet problems can be solved without visiting a vet. When you check the camera records and notice something suspicious, you can consult a professional right away, online. This will save you time and money on visiting the vet clinic and reduce the quarantine risks,” says Yaroslav Azhniuk, Petcube’s CEO and co-founder.

The online chat system for communicating with veterinarians has been developed in partnership with the California-based company Fuzzy Pet Health. All users of the product will receive their first consultation for free via a mobile app. Further consultations will cost $4.99 a month.

Features

Petcube Cam is a 5-cm hard plastic cube on a flexible stand that can be adjusted to get a needed viewing angle.

It is the third (and most compact) product in the Petcube range after a laser toy camera, Petcube Play 2, and a smart pet camera with a treat dispenser, Petcube Bites 2.

Petcube Cam transmits a 1080p HD video via a 110° wide-angle lens. It has an 8x digital zoom and night vision – the camera can see at a distance of up to 9 meters in the dark. Petcube Cam provides a two-way audio communication: you can hear what is happening in the room and talk to your pet.

Petcube Cam uses the same mobile application as other company’s products: Petcube Bites 2 and Petcube Play 2. The users can easily switch between different devices in the application, as well as share access to the camera with family, friends, and anyone who installs the Petcube app on their smartphone.

Cam is also complemented by the Petcube Care service, which stores short videos with the history of events recorded on the camera. Using computer vision, Petcube Care records animal and human movements, as well as barking and meowing. Petcube Care subscription price starts from $3.99 per month.

Petcube

The awards were given for two models of pet cameras: Petcube Bites 2 and Play 2, released in 2019. The innovative design was created by Ozero studio, which separated from Petcube but is engaged in the design of the company’s products.

Petcube Bites 2 can record Full-HD videos, has a 160° wide-angle view, and treat dispenser, which “throws” pieces of dry food at different distances. Amazon Alexa’s voice assistant is also built into the camera. In Petcube Play 2, the company changed the mechanical platform and made laser movements smoother.

In 2018, Petcube Bites of the first generation were already awarded the Red Dot Award for the best product design.

Jammy

Jammy is a portable digital MIDI guitar that fits in your backpack. When connected to a DAW (digital audio workstation) on your computer or smartphone, it can sound like any instrument. The guitar can be directly connected to headphones or a guitar amplifier.

Jammy received the Red Dot Award for its futurism and references to guitar classics in design, as well as its modular design.

How quarantine and coronacrisis affected your business?

We have been impacted since the beginning of February. Production in China and production delays were 6-7 weeks. Last week, things have more or less returned to normal at the main factory in Shenzhen, but now the production has been halted in Malaysia.

We knew it would be in the United States and in Ukraine, so we prepared a little in advance. The first cost-cutting measures were taken in late February, realizing that in addition to supply difficulties, there would also be a decrease in demand in the United States.

Are you already experiencing a slump in demand, or are you projecting difficulties with your investment?

There is definitely a decrease in demand, as expected. We expect it to get worse before it gets better. Investments are now all at pause until the world and investors understand how the situation will unfold globally.

The investors’ sentiment is worse than in the 2008 crisis.

What measures do you take in your team (switching to remote work, cutting salaries, and costs in general)?

We switched to remote work two weeks ago. I wrote earlier about salaries: despite a significant decrease in income, we are not terminating anyone’s employment.

Starting in April, all Petcube employees, including management, will receive the same salary, a “minimum basic income,” until it becomes clear how the crisis will unfold, how big of a blow will be dealt to supply, consumption, and lending.

Our forecast is based on the assumption that the impact of the crisis on demand will remain until July-August, we looked at how much we can allocate to the payroll and divided it by the number of employees.

This strategy is relevant for companies that, like us, believe that in 2-4 months, things will start to improve, demand will grow and their business, in general, will not lose relevance. This is an approach from the standpoint of humaneness and collective security, while radical capitalists should make radical cuts.

Are there any difficulties with paying office space rent?

We can already see that rental prices are decreasing. Residential spaces have become cheaper by a third in the past week, with commercial real estate likely to drop even more.

How much longer can you survive the current situation, given that quarantine has been extended in Ukraine?

The thing that helps us is business diversification, apart from the sale of devices that everyone knows about, a significant portion of the company’s revenue is from sales of Petcube Care. In addition, there is a subsidiary company Ozero Design, a design production studio with clients from all over the globe.

We will stick it out. The only question is in what form and to what world we will return when it blows over.

The rating takes into account not the capitalization of the company, but the value of the brand. It is estimated based on the financial results of brand owners, as well as other factors: geography, technological component, investment attractiveness of the industry, and so on.

Over the past year, the first hundred Ukrainian brands added 4.7% of the price, now it is estimated at $6.2 billion. The top three have not changed: Morshynska ($550 million), Nova Poshta ($310 million), and Rozetka ($302 million). Below is the top ten of the rating, the full list is available here.

This year, Grammarly and Petcube technology companies were included in this year’s ranking for the first time. The brand of the software developer for proofreading English was estimated at $150 million (12th), and the manufacturer of devices for pets was estimated at $25 million (52nd).

The list also includes telecom operators Kyivstar ( $141 million, 13th) and lifecell ( $100 million, 19th), but Volia dropped out. In addition, there are brands from the e-commerce industry: Citrus ( $65 million, 29th), Foxtrot ( $48 million, 36th), Allo ( $41 million, 38th), Comfy ( $22 million, 55th), and Prom.ua ( $14 million, 69th).

Currently, the ICU portfolio includes seven companies, investments of each ranged from $200,000 to $1 million.

Among these companies are:

• Petcube, a Ukrainian company that designs and develops gadgets for pets.
• Hideez, a Ukrainian high-tech startup in cybersecurity.
• Xelba, a company that delivers hardware and software tools for IoT.
• Smart Commerce, a b2b service for instantaneous data collection about products.
• Good Money, social-oriented online banking.
• 3DLOOK, a Ukrainian startup which works on the 3D matching technology to measure human body with photos.
• Apostera, a company offering the development of remote automated technologies for the automobile industry.

ICU announced that the company is planning to make 3-5 more investments until the end of 2019.

• product design;
• branding and visual communications;
• marketing companies;
• mobile and web applications;
• video production.

According to the co-founder and CMO Petcube Andriy Klen, the opening of the studio was a natural continuation of the pilot joint projects:

“For the past six months we have been helping friends with small product and creative tasks. A couple of colleagues on the HAX-accelerator were more fortunate: for Petronics, we collected full-fledged marketing campaigns, produced content, and completed the site design. For Robo, Wunderkind has recently presented a product video. Test collaborations are excellent, so we decided to bring cooperation to a new level.”

The Petcube Design Studio team has six employees: two product designers, two brand designers, a videographer, and a design director. However, the resources are not limited to this:

“As a bonus, we have a heavy-duty network of the best professionals in the environment who willingly help us with projects. For example, we can put together a team of more than 30 people to shoot a video in two weeks, just by making a few calls.”

At the same time, Petcube Design Studio intends to conduct no more than two or three projects. Prices for studio services are variable:

“It is very dependent on the tasks of the partners. We pitch the model as an opportunity to get a co-founder designer and a team for a very market retailer. Thus, startups without sufficient design / marketing expertise will be able to close a gap in the business and grow faster.”

According to Andriy Klen, Petcube remains the main business:

“Over 5 years we have managed to build the work of the design department so effectively that everything has time and a little more remains. It is interesting for us to go out of our fluffy four-paw comfort zone, repetitive tasks and look at other product verticals. There are new knowledge, experience, goals.”

Petcube devices: Bites 2 and Petcube Play 2

The main task of the studio is to work for the result, that is, to create brands that are successful in foreign markets:

“Not least thanks to the design, we managed to build a leading American brand. We will be sincerely happy if we can do this a few more times, learning new tricks along the way. In addition, we help our company with the self-repayment of the design department, which actually determines the success of the company right from the very beginning.”

Let us remind that we had published the interview with the co-founder of Petcube Yaroslav Azhnyuk earlier on AIN.UA.

“Everyone came with functioning prototypes or pre-production samples of their products. The goals of all participants are similar: to accelerate business development. This includes finding new partners, retailers and investors, as well as a product demonstration for the media. After the first day of the show, each company has already achieved the first results. We are very pleased with the beginning,” notes Tislenko.

The representatives of the Ukrainian pavilion are the following starups:

FunLight

FunLight is a startup that works on creating amusement rides in shopping centers and theme parks. “We use powerful projectors and motion tracking sensors to turn walls and floors into an interactive surface,” the team describes its product.

FunLight opened a pilot attraction at the Lavina Mall in Kyiv in October 2018. It was named the “Citadel of Music,” where visitors enter a separate room, where “all sounds of the Universe are collected.” Interacting with surfaces, they can create their own tunes and songs.

Flasty

The Flasty team produces 3D printers. The company’s lineup includes a professional Flasty GT large-size printer, a device Flasty SM for printing smaller products, and Flasty Jade, a remote 3D printing service.

In addition, the team produces food 3D-printer CHOCOLA3D. The representatives of the project say that this is the first such device in the world. CHOCOLA3D can print chocolate, fruit, meat, cheese products on various food surfaces: bread, cookies, waffles, and so on.

Jollylook

Jollylook is a project that is working on an analog vintage camera. Jollylook has a special appearance, as well as the ability to instantly develop photos. In 2017, the project raised more than $375,000, although it has not yet delivered the product to the backers.

Nuka

Startup Nuka produces an “eternal” notebook and pencil. The owners of this office can take notes in a notebook, and then erase them and write again; the pencil does not need to be regularly sharpened or filled with ink. In addition, the owners of Nuka can save entries in the “numeric” using a special application for the smartphone.

RAWR

RAWR is a “smart” dog collar. It tracks a number of indicators of a pet: its geolocation, history of movements, physical activity, number of calories consumed, pulse, and so on. In addition, the device is equipped with LEDs which allows not to lose the dog in the dark.

Photon_LMS

Photon_LMS is a portable photo studio for subject photography. Among its features the creators note the ease of installation, control of the light, as well as the low cost of the product compared with similar solutions. Photon_LMS is designed for professional photographers, as well as ecommerce business.

Whooshi

The project team is working on a device for listening to music. Whooshi has two main functions: it improves the sound quality and makes the owner’s wired headphones wireless. Among other features there are its own application, which adjusts the sound to the user’s preference, as well as the built-in equalizer.

iGlam

iGlam is jewelry, which color can be changed for any outfit using a special application. The device holds a charge for five hours, it can also be recharged in a case. iGlam is a set of earrings, rings and pendants that change colors.

A number of Ukrainian companies and startups went to CES separately. Among them there are:

Petcube

This year, Ukrainian startup Petcube presented two new devices at the CES exhibition: Bites 2 and Play 2. Both cameras were presented in a new design, with improved sound, a 180-degree viewing angle, and support from Alexa assistant. Thanks to Amazon’s voice assistant, new items can play music, news, control other smart home devices, set alarms and more.

Pix

This time, a Ukrainian startup Pix went to Las Vegas together with the IoT Hub accelerator team. In 2018, the team raised $150,000 for the production of the eponymous backpack. Its main feature is the back surface, on which images and animations can be displayed.

Kwambio

The Ukrainian manufacturer of 3D printers for ceramic products, Kwambio, presented its new product, Ceramo Zero Max at CES. This is a desktop version of the model Ceramo One, which is suitable for use at home or in the office. It costs $5,000, which is twice less than the first model, and will suit, in particular, independent designers.

Emotion Labs

Ukrainian startup Emotion Labs went to CES with its EMWatch smart watch. They are designed to reduce the level of stress of the owner: the device measures pressure, pulse, monitors sleep, and in a special application provides recommendations for improving well-being.

LaMetric

Ukrainian startup LaMetric arrived this year at CES with a new product, Sky LED panels which can be hang on the wall and perform two functions: display the necessary information and decorate the interior. Sky can show the weather forecast in real time, the number of new messages in the mail, followers to Instagram and much more – you can choose the data sources yourself.

DTEK and Sensorama

At this year’s exhibition, Ukrainian companies DTEK and Sensorama, together with the Belarusian startup Teslasuit, present a simulator of TPPs in virtual reality. It allows you to accelerate the training program for employees of power plants in a safer environment, the company noted.

If your startup/company also went to represent your product at CES`19, email us at news@ain.ua, the editors will add information.

Our previous conversation took place in the office near the Shevchenko Park, there were dozens of tables out there and very few people. Now the location has changed, the office is huge, the tables have become much larger. I suggest starting with a simple: what is Petcube now?

Same as before, our mission is to connect animals to the internet and give them a voice. But a Ukrainian who previously read about PetCube at AIN.UA knows us as a company that made a camera with a laser pointer to play with cats and dogs. Then we made another iteration – Petcube Play. The new version has better quality of video, sound, laser, and so on. A year ago, the Petcube Bites device came out: a camera that lets you throw food for animals. We are a company that not only makes cameras for pets and creates software that connects them to the internet, we actually come up with this category, and we are a global leader in it.

Last year we also launched Petcube Care. At first it was a service to save video in the cloud. For $5, $10, or $25 you can save your video for the last 3, 10, or 30 days in our cloud. And in the spring of this year, the possibilities of Care have greatly expanded, and now we give discounts or bonuses from our partners to all who make a subscription. For example, to buy food, dog walking or pet insurance. There are a lot of such partners, these are huge players of the world market. And now they are our partners who provide exclusive discounts to Petcube Care customers.

Do I get it right that you receive a commission from this?

So, we get a small commission. In fact, we create the analogue of Amazon Prime, but for animal owners. You get saved videos and you can watch how the animal behaved, while you were not at home. Additionally, you get a number of bonuses, such as discounts from world companies and services. You do not want to unsubscribe from this because it saves you hundreds of dollars a year. Just like on the Amazon Prime, where you get access to videos, music, and so on.

Petcube Care is bought by the owners of Petcube devices. Actually, how many Petcube devices have you sold? The last public figure I’ve seen was over 100,000.

We do not disclose exact figures, this is confidential information. I can only say that really, it is more than 100 000, we have passed this stage a long time ago. Hundreds of thousands – the only thing I can voice now.

How many subscriptions do you have on Care now?

This figure is also non-public, but there are plenty of subscribers, their number is growing actively.

Does the main income now come from the Petcube devices or Care with a monthly subscription?

Today, we make the most of the money on the product, Care is still running behind.

There is a thought that the product itself, in your case it’s Petcube, needs to be sold cheaply, and the main income should be made on the subscription model. How do you feel about this idea and do you plan to set cheaper prices for your devices in the future?

Perhaps this type of monetization has the right to exist. I believe that it is wrong to give out some valuable thing for free. In this case, the consumer becomes the goods, his/her information is being sold. For us, the issue of privacy is very important because we have a camera that is placed at peoples’ houses. It is a huge responsibility to protect this camera. We carefully encrypt the traffic, we spend a lot of time trying to protect the device itself and traffic that goes, servers, the application, etc. We specifically hire people, Ukrainian hacking teams, to do what is called penetration testing, and they tried to hack us. Considering all of it, we are not ready to distribute our cameras free of charge for earning a percentage through Care.

As far as I understand, you do not disclose the financial performance?

As a private company, we do not disclose.

In one of the recent interviews, you said that you might have another round of investment. Its size may be $20 million, is it true?

We are constantly talking with investors, we keep in touch, and the figure of $20 million was being discussed as well. We have something to invest in – development, software, marketing. But for now, we do not have news about investments, so there is nothing to talk about.

How many people are there today in the company? In which countries do they work?

There are about 70 people now. The largest office is in Kyiv, there are 50 people. They are engaged in development, marketing, support, finance, logistics, design, etc. Another 12 people are located in San Francisco, they handle sales, marketing, finance, executive function. And in China (Shenzhen), we have four people responsible for production.

Are you actively growing?

Last year we almost did not grow. In fact, they was so optimizing going on like changing people, rebuilding processes in the company.

What was a reason for this?

Each company has several stages when it is changing. First there is a group of founders, then the first employees appear, then there are no longer 10, but 30 employees. And later there are 50 people. Managers constantly appear, since the founder or even a group of founders cannot keep everything in the head. Today there are 70 of us, there are several levels of managers. To make everything qualitatively, you need to rebuild the processes sometimes, to keep everything running.

Moreover, earlier I thought that the number of employees is an important indicator, but now I think differently: the most important is the company’s revenue, as well as the company’s revenue per employee. At WhatsApp, there were slightly fewer than 60 people when they were bought for $19 billion. This was the most profitable sale of a company with this amount of people. Therefore, I do not want a quick increase and we have no intention to hire non-stop.

You already have 70 people, several products, there is an understanding of where and how to grow. Personally, you, considering this, still perceive Petcube as a startup, or is it a formed business, a company?

Of course, Petcube is a startup. It must be understood that the concept of “startup” is not just a small business where several people work. In fact, the definition of a startup, as a rule, is a technology company that creates some kind of innovation and therefore has the potential for super-fast growth. Startup is necessarily about the potential of super-fast growth. Therefore, the digital marketing agency or a doner kebab kiosks cannot be startups for common definitions. Unless they make doner kebab, which is synthesized with molecular exhaust generators, and supply robots around the world with it, not people. And this doner place will become a billion-dollar company in three years – only then it will be a technological startup.

Petcube is still a startup, because we continue to grow fast, and we have a clear plan how to grow much further. Our goal is to connect all animals to the Internet. Only in America there are is more than 80 million pets. That is, we still have to sell a lot.

Do Chinese people copy you? Is there a problem with the release of cheaper replica? At one time Vlad Tislenko told that iBlazr had a problem with this.

I have not seen direct copies, but there are conceptual copies. Someone has copied our site for his conceptual copy, we can see copy past can in HTML and so on. However, they do not have much success.

As for iBlazr, it was a flash, it was easier to repeat it, having just iron. Our product does not work if you do not have software for it. For example, we ourselves wrote our system of video streaming, it is essentially an analog to Skype. It connects peer-to-peer your phone to the Petcube device so that traffic is not passed through the server, it provides real-time communication without delay, laser control, and so on. If you can copy a smartphone and stick it to Android, which is an open source, then this will not work.

To copy Petcube, you need to be insistent and very patient to split it, copy hard, write software: you cannot put ready Android on it, you have to write this software for Linux, etc.

By the way, this is one of the smart questions asked by any investor: “What is your protection?”, “Why isn’t it easy to copy you?” It does not matter whether it happens in China, or not in China. It is important for them to know whether our product really has added value and what do we do business with. In our case, it is not only iron, but also software.

But honestly, and you can repeat it as well. If three boys from Kyiv succeeded in doing this, others may also do it. To be honest, today we already have not only a product and software, but also a strong brand name, a team, as well as a network of partnerships with global companies at Petcube Care. This is accompanied by an incredible amount of data that we can and will use in the future.

What is this data and how do you use it? I understand that this is the next stage in the development of Petcube?

Our cameras record the movements of pets. There are hundreds of thousands of devices that keep track of animals every day. We understand that we can use this information to better understand the animals.

In Ukrainian it can be called “behavioral diagnostics”. This is recognition of movements and patterns of animal behavior. Based on data available for us, we can understand, for example, whether the animal is ill, why it behaves in a specific way, whether it is aggressive or worried. For this, we use artificial intelligence, and a large array of data gives us the opportunity to train it, thanks to the cameras, we have this massive information. Returning to the clones, I can say that they do not have it, and therefore cannot create similar functionality.

The long-term ambition of the company is to contribute to the understanding of humankind by domestic animals. See how much Google or Facebook learned about sociology, what contribution Apple made to technology, how much SpaceX contributed to the space industry. It cannot be done at public expense. We have our own ambition and we are trying to bring people together to bring the ideas of the company together.

What is your main market today?

Yes, the largest market is the United States. In general, we officially sell our product in 18 countries around the world: besides States, we have strong sales in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, Germany, Singapore, France, and Hong Kong.

Is there China in your plans?

So far, we are not planning on it, but in general logic is usual here: you find strong local partners, adjust logistics, marketing and go to an interesting market. Therefore, now it’s more of a question of how much the company is willing to invest in, the issue of priorities. At the moment, we have other priorities. Of course, China has its own difficulties, but at the same time it is a huge market. For example, three years ago, the pets market was $15 billion, today it’s already $30 billion. In several years from now it will overtake States in which the pet market exceeds $70 billion.

You mentioned the distribution. If I am a young project and I want to start selling my product, who is the best to go to?

It’s simple – Amazon.

It is an unreal giant, which systematically and dynamically fits all of the retail in the United States. It is convenient for people to order goods while sitting at home or at work. And within some time, it will come to any specified place. The platform is easy to operate, it offers many opportunities.

Amazon bought the Ring not that long ago, it actively develops its own devices, quite successfully. Have you ever thought that they could buy you?

I think that Amazon may want to buy us. We make products that may be of interest to them.

Is there a question of selling a company?

As a company manager, I have a duty to all shareholders to consider any offer to sell the company. This is one of my corporate functions. If someone comes and offers some kind of big sum, then we will meet with the board of directors, advise and make some decisions. Of course, for any company there is an amount for which it is expedient to sell it at the moment because there is a development plan, there is an understanding of the value of the company. And selling a business does not mean “#treason.”
Selling a company is to give liquidity to the company’s investors and employees of the company. After all, employees of the company have options. And the company itself does not disappear after the sale. When a strong partner buys a company, it only begins to accelerate as a result of this. Therefore, with the right partner, the right price, selling a business can be the right decision.

Do you have strong competitors at all?

You know, I’m really surprised that no company is trying to make such a platform for pets, connect animals to the internet, have all the animal data, build a platform for other companies that need this data. We have rivals on the product level – these are home surveillance cameras: Nest by Google, Arlo, Ring, which now are owned by the same Amazon.

But they do not quite compete with us. Their products cost about the same amount as ours. The quality of the picture is approximately the same as ours. However, we still have a laser and animal feeder. And also, we have software that is “concentrated” on animals, while their product is made to protect the house. If you are an animal owner and you know about us, then you definitely will buy Petcube, but we are not as popular as they are at the moment. Therefore, one of the things we have to do is invest more in marketing and user education.

Why didn’t you invest in marketing before?

We did. However, it was rather at the level of hypotheses that need to be checked. After all, you want to invest in marketing channels that work effectively rather than simply throwing away money. You also need to consider the product: invest in a product when the product is ready for the mass market. This is such an iterative process, which runs parallel in two, or even in three worlds. This is a type of hardware company, it is the world of product and engineering, it is the world of marketing and it is the world of distribution of sales. It makes no sense to invest in marketing until you are in the store, on the showcases of key stores. Here we are somewhere in this iterative process.

Let’s imagine that I am a young startup man and I want to make my “iron” product. What are the numbers?

Let’s not discuss it, then there will be more people who will start developing [Laughs].

I think we spent about $300,000 on the release of the first Petcube. Thanks to the powerful promo, we managed to raise $250,000 on Kickstarter, the money went into development and production. The first Petcube turned out to be imperfect, but it was a quality product, and we sold somewhere up to 50,000 copies.

But this is not what’s important. The most important features of an entrepreneur are curiosity and perseverance. You will get your knowledge on the go. We were simple Kyiv guys, we were 23 years old. We have never had to deal with iron, never set up production, we had never started sales in the US before. I do not even want to talk about all the horrors that we have seen on the way. But we succeeded, because we worked hard.

It is also important to understand that you are creating a product. When Alexander Neskin started researching what dog products exist out there, before the creation of Petcube, he saw products that looked like they were created in the 70’s or 90’s: both in design and in a set of functions. And at that time, we already had an iPhone, a MacBook and other gadgets with incredible design. And then we realized that we were able to create a gadget that would meet the needs of the present, including in terms of design. The market was $70 billion in the US and $160 billion globally. Today, the average Petcube user spends 50 minutes a week watching his/her pet, which is more than people spend talking to their parents.

In Ukraine, is there a pet market in general?

So, in Ukraine there is a relatively large market, there are companies that create food for animals. We do not have exact figures, but there are quite a lot of animals owned by people, and therefore there are those who earn money on it.

Do you sell Petcube here officially?

We are not selling it now. It was a long time ago, but now the easiest way to buy Petcube is to order it on the European Amazon. From the point of view of business, this is not a priority for us now, although we, of course, want Petcube to be officially marketed here. I think we would have had some success, but this requires a number of factors: first, to have some retailers interested in it. Secondly, they must have to take at least some of their promotions. As for Petcube in Ukraine, it is more known among the geeks, it is not a popular brand of smartphones. Simply putting the goods on the showcase is not enough, you need to work on it.

How do you assess the potential of Petcube on the local market?

Considering that it is not cheap and will only be useful for those who have pets and who are interested in the technology, then, for instance, all the owners of the latest versions of the iPhone, who also bought Apple Watch are, most likely, our customers (laughing).

The last question is: what do you recommend to read, to listen to?

An interesting podcast is 996, it’s in English. It helps to understand what’s happening in the Chinese market. Next is the Master of Scale, a podcast from the founder of LinkedIn, Reed Hoffman.

I also read the newsletter of Benedict Evans, lead analyst Andreessen Horowitz, use the Sip News app – the ones where the news feed is very brief.

If we talk about books, everything is easy here: reading books is very useful, because it is a work on which a person worked a lot. So, when I need to understand something in a good way, I take some good books and study the material. If you need marketing materials, read Philip Kotler, if you need to understand the Internet better, read Clay Shirky, and Adam Smith is good for economics.