14. Antiproblems - history
Oleg Kheilik - the technical side
Oleg Kheilik , born in 1982, got his first own personal computer (Brand: digital ) in 1993. He was allowed to disassemble and assemble his PC as well as to uninstall and install different software and the operating system (MS DOS for that moment, later Windows 3.1, Windows 95, 98 … and so on). As a result, Oleg got to know all ins and outs of all Microsoft operating systems.
In 1999, Oleg Kheilik created a free web hosting.
This time, he applied a UNIX-like operating system – FreeBSD.
In February 1999, the hosting server was located in Philadelphia (USA).
Thanks to some technical and marketing tricks implemented by Oleg, his hosting service achieved great success. In a year, the hosting was already located on a 10-server cluster. In July 2000, the cluster consisted of 40 servers. At that time, the hosting had already moved to Fremont (California, USA).
The hosting was serving about 30 thousand clients (web-masters) who placed almost 100 thousand websites there. In 2000, Oleg’s hosting (hosting websites) entered the TOP 25 of the world’s internet traffic. It was when Oleg (after thorough exploration of FreeBSD) decided to create a new operating system based on FreeBSD and his own GUI shell.
Oleg was very upset to learn that Steve Jobs had already materialized his concept. However, Oleg did not give up the idea to create his own operating system.
He has actually implemented it in Antiproblems system. The system is based on a Microsoft OS, but Oleg has introduced a lot of changes and upgraded in an attempt to improve the Microsoft operating system.
Moreover, Oleg created an automated installation system of Microsoft OS. He supplemented it with installation of MS Office and about 20 freeware applications by other manufacturers. Much attention was paid to optimization of Windows OS – perfectionism (over 1,200 operations!).
It is noteworthy that Oleg is a “natural born perfectionist”. He can go on improving a product he has created constantly and forever. Sometimes it can be a weak point, however, experience proves that Oleg’s perfectionism has resulted in a higher level of customer satisfaction with Antiproblems products.
It’s hard to tell for sure when Oleg started developing his Computer Rebirth Technology – Antiproblems. I can say it was early 1990s.
Since 2005, Oleg was getting more and more focused on the project. In 2010, the first version of the product was released. Since 2012, he’s been devoting 100% of his time to Antiproblems.
Alexander Kheylik - the entrepreneurial side
Ing. Alexander Kheylik, born in 1959, has been creating startups since 1988.
Alexander considers a good team one of the key requirements for a successful startup: it must be a team of creative (definitely, creative) people who can learn new technologies really fast, who can perform a few different tasks at a time (and loves to), and who are ready to take responsibilities for decisions. These are the very people you can rely on and delegate decision-making powers.
Alexander has experienced a number of failures as well, and has concluded that developing a startup and running a grown-up business are two quite different, "perpendicular" tasks. What is good for a startup does not fit an established company, and vice versa.
According to Alexander, first of all, you have to find a balance between chaos and order. If any of the two prevails, it can be fatal for a developing company.
Alexander believes that one of his weakest point is devoting most of his effort to WHAT, while underrating the importance of HOW. Alexander is mostly focused on succeeding whatever it takes but can be rather careless in choosing a means of achieving the goal. It can be either weakness or advantage, depending on the situation. Rushing toward the goal is much more important in startups than anywhere (for example, in stable grownup companies). That is why from time to time one has to forget diplomacy and make a tough decision. On the other hand, if you neglect diplomacy you can hurt someone. In their turn, those you have hurt can do much harm and / or distract significant resources to problems they have caused.
Alexander holds a degree in mathematics. He got interested in informatics in the second half of 1980s. Once he was very passionate about these subjects and was going to devote his life to sciences. But the circumstances led him to becoming an entrepreneur in 1988 and he gave up his dream. Anyway, his future career was somehow connected with computer science.
Alexander joined Antiproblems in summer 2014. Moreover, he involved Tetyana Sorochinskaya, Alessandra Altarui, Demian Rihs, Alberto Gandolfi, Christian Staub, Matteo Hoderas, Alexander Stefanovich, Sergii Fedianin and many others. Today all of them are fond of the project.
For more information on Alexander and his work, visit his website kheylik.com.
Christian Staub - the accountant side
Christian Staub, born in 1976. Christian Staub has been running fiduciary company Coge-Fidam SA (bookkeeping, audits and accounting expertise, tax and financial consulting, the espletazione of each type of fiduciary mandate).
Christian Staub is experienced in administrative and financial company management. Christian Staub’s key characteristics are as follows: rationality, striving to minimize risks, scrupulousness, accuracy, and responsibility. At the same time, Christian Staub is a creative person, good at outside-the-box solutions. Christian Staub joined the project in early 2015.
Matteo Hoderas - the financial side
Matteo Hoderas, born in 1964, has been running Aperta Fiduciaria SA since 2005. Matteo Hoderas is a financial expert experienced in finance and investment management of startup companies. Matteo Hoderas joined Antiproblems in the second half of 2015. He provided the “oxygen” required for the company development.
Antiproblems project is implemented by AP Swiss SA (Lugano, Switzerland). The company was registered in October 2014. The company foundation risks were taken by:
The above five persons (Oleg Kheilik, Matteo Hoderas, Christian Staub and Alexander Kheylik) are currently in the Board of Directors of AP Swiss SA, each responsible for their own range of issues.
The product - AP Installer
The core of the project is AP Installer – an automated man-machine computer rebirth system. AP Installer provides installation of Microsoft Windows OS and a set of software including MS Office, Antivirus, Java, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, and many others (about 20 programs in total) from scratch (on a formatted drive). Moreover, it guarantees full data and configuration restoration (email, browser, chat, etc.) to the upgraded computer. The process is over 90% (about 95%) automated. The upgrade program has been rewritten many times and verified carefully, so it guarantees high quality of the product.
Automation of computer upgrade allows using such concepts as "fixed price" (regardless of a computer specs, age, data volume, etc.) and "money back guarantee".
Thanks to all the above facts, high level of customer satisfaction has been achieved (today it exceeds 90%).
Most computer service companies apply the concept of "selling projects", which means that every computer is an individual project with an unknown outcome and cost.
Antiproblems uses the concept of “selling the product”. AP Full Service as well as its derivatives AP Activation Service and AP mini Service are products with fixed prices and characteristics independent of a computer brand, age, specs, data volume, and state.
The Swiss market
In Switzerland, 20 percent of computer users work with Mac (OS X). It is the highest rate in the world. 80 percent are using Windows.
Experts state that about 60 percent of Windows computers are infected. These are a prospective market for Antiproblems products.
Neither the existing antivirus software and nor IT experts can guarantee 100% malware removal from your computer in a traditional way.
The only way to achieve 100% result is complete OS and software reinstallation with all that it implies – huge labor and time costs, risk of losing data and configuration. Hundreds, thousands of operations are required. In this case, manual process cannot guarantee quality of result.
Antiproblems automatic reinstallation software guarantees high quality, which is proven by the high level of customer satisfaction (over 90%). The weak point of the project is innovativeness of Antiproblems products unheard of in the market. According to marketing experts, only 10 percent of people are ready to take a risk of spending their money on innovative products. The rest 90 percent will only buy the product after “someone else” (someone they know) has already tried it. Antiproblems products are unique. We haven’t found anyone in the market who would offer something similar.
On the other hand, we’ve discovered some fascinating facts:
The conclusion is very simple: our key task is to inform people of our existence, to provide the required explanation, and to tell them about our products.
The people and the organization
Currently, five people are involved in the company business operations:
Coge-Fidam SA (managed by Dott. Christian Staub) is responsible for administration and accounting.
Call center & assistances (customer service, technical support, human resources and AP Angels management) of the company are located in Ukraine and currently consist of three people:
Tetyana Sorochinskaya and Antonina Dupak are located in Ukraine, in different cities. They work from home.
"Computer rebirth" production is performed by engineers located in Ukraine as well. They work remotely.
Web application development and support, IT administration, digital marketing, VoIP, and site development are performed by the following specialists:
The main communication channel between the company specialists is VoIP (SIP). It is based on Asterisk server and FreePBX web interface. All of our operators in Ukraine have Swiss landline numbers. All our sales representatives are provided with individual landline numbers that redirect the incoming calls to their cell phones.
The primary channel of communication with prospective sales representatives is a webinar. For holding webinars, we use Freeconferencecall.com service. We also use this channel to introduce our new products to our "old" customers.
As an order management system, we are currently using Redmine task manager. However, we are about to start applying Camunda business process management system as soon as possible.
Our main channels of interaction with prospective customers (our sales channels) are:
- Service Centers and Service Points (display windows, shop boards, laboratories)
- Home Service (computer maintenance at home)
- Post Service (getting "infected" computers from customers and shipping "recovered" computers back to customers by courier service)
Service Centers have shown top results. As mentioned above, 99.6% is customer satisfaction rating, and 90% is conversion rating of those "just curious" into customers.
Home Service was launched for testing in November 2015. Recruitment of new freelance employees (AP Angels) started in February – March 2016. The estimated freelancer network will be based on the following calculations: 1 freelancer for 10-20 thousand people. Therefore, network of about 500 freelancers is planned for development.
AP Angels cooperate with the company based on the following ratio: 40% (AP Angels) / 60% (the company).
Post Service is still in the testing phase. It’s early days to talk about this service outcome so far.
In June 2016, the new model is launching – search for partners. The project is looking for stores that would let a part of their display window and retail space for Antiproblems products. Those interested will be provided with the technology (servers and software), marketing tools and training for FREE.
Cooperation with partners is supposed to be based on the following ratio: 40% (partners) / 10% (supervisor of partners) / 50% (the company).