Spare parts and pharmacies
Andrew and Alex were born in the city of Odintsovo, Moscow Region. Andrei completed three courses at IISS, served in the Navy, and after entering the service entered the technical school with a degree in photography.
“I left it, I didn’t like it, ” said Andrei. “He worked as a waiter, a bartender. In 1993, together with Alexey, they organized CJSC Tishinka and opened three stores in Moscow. Traded in products, auto parts, medicines. In 2000, the company was transformed into vPBUYUL: at that time, it began to open upBPOUL, it was more profitable than the CJSC. Alexei, a shoe maker by profession, got a shoe store, and I got auto parts. Until now, these stores exist and make a profit.
And so things went on slowly.
And in 2002, Alexei suggested that Andrei take up the production of car washes. The reason for this was life observation and a wounded sense of "beauty."
“We saw our motorists pour water from a bottle on cars.” It is primitive, ugly, uncomfortable. Owners of large cars have to pervert in order to somehow get to the roof and pour water on it. We decided to invent a device that could be screwed into a regular plastic bottle and the water would flow in a directed stream.
With the help of such a mini-sink, it would be possible to wash, for example, the windows of buses without climbing into special devices.
In the same 2002, Andrei and Aleksey created Avtoelektroplast LLC, which was called upon to “manufacture, introduce and distribute various automotive accessories on the market”.
The first invention was a mini-sink. Entrepreneurs turned to a familiar artist and asked her first to draw a mini-sink. The artist had never seen a car wash in her life, and indeed had nothing to do with cars. She painted a mini-sink, based solely on her creative imagination. As a result, the washing turned out to be very similar to a hairdryer. But Andrei and Alexei liked the sketch. Entrepreneurs gave the drawing to the draftsmen, then they made a wooden model according to the drawing.
“They began to look for who would make the mold for us, ” Andrei said. “They took the newspaper, found an advertisement:“ Making molds, ”they called. It turned out that this is a certain company at the Kurchatov Institute.
We came knim with their layout, they looked, they said: we’ll do it in six months. We called a sudden company - there the price was three times lower. Six Moscow firms traveled around Vitogue, and prices were different everywhere. Then the Chinese turned to us: they offered to make a mold for themselves in China. We thought, delivery from China is expensive, and it is not yet known what they will do to us there. In China, we would not have been able to control the process.
As a result, entrepreneurs stopped at the Ryazan factory engaged in the production of cash registers.
- They looked at the drawing and distorted: the thing is complicated, but you can do it.
Long story
The young engineer Andrei was entrusted with leading the production of the mold.
“We brought him our wooden mock-up just on the eve of the May holidays, ” Andrei recalls. “After the holidays, we arrive — there is no mock-up!” All employees rushed to look for him. As a result, it turned out that during the holidays someone fried barbecue on our model. I had to make a new one.
Once an implementer, entrepreneurs went to Ryazan to control the process.
“For the first time, we arrived — nothing was done, ” Alexei said. “We’ll come back in a week — again, nothing.” When we called them, they said that work was in full swing: come, see. And when we arrived, it turned out that things stood still: either the master became ill, then the parts were not delivered. For the eighth time, I already wanted to take someone to hit my head on the table. Often they called us from the factory asking: how to do this? How about that? And how do we know, we are not engineers! Most of the cost of the order, 70%, was paid to Andrey with Alexei immediately, so it was not surprising that the matter did not move. However, now, after several years, they remember the Ryazan plant with gratitude.
- In many ways, the plant was really not to blame - they have a lot of difficulties, they have to work on antediluvian equipment. Factory workers — like the Lefty who shoeed a flea. Often they manage to make amazing things — for example, a pusher brought from Europe costs as much as 30 euros; in an factory in Anyazan some 18-year-old boy can grind you for half an hour on a machine for half an hour. 30 pushers. The pusher is needed in order to push the finished product out of the mold.
So, after a year and a half, the mold was finally made. It turned out the size of a table and weighed 800 kg. However, the first attempts of entrepreneurs to make a mini-sink using this mold ended in failure.
“At the bottom of our mini-sink there is a cork, to which a bottle is attached with a vault, ” Andrei explained. “For the first time, the cork wobbled and the bottle fell off. I had to redo the mold. So two times. Then we remembered China and were glad that we did not make the mold there. And suddenly, we would have to carry it many times from China and back.
First wash
The friends decided to make the body of the mini-wash themselves from Taiwanese material called ABS, which stands for "acrylonitrile-butadiene styrene."
“There were a lot of different materials at the Ryazan plant, ” Andrei recalls. “They showed them to us and offered to choose.” The plant itself is engaged in molding casings for cash registers, and I was recommended by ABS as it is very durable, does not break, does not crack.
Finally, the Ryazan plant manufactured a suitable mold and the first 500 mini-sinks.
- We received the first batch on December 29, 2004. A month and a half it took to obtain a certificate in a technical laboratory. Then we had the worst thing - to find out the reaction of the consumer. We did not know which side to approach. Before that, we had never encountered the introduction of a new product on the market. They began to offer our mini-sinks to stores selling spare parts. We considered that these stores in Moscow are 2 thousand. and if everyone sells at least one of our car washes a week, then this will already be a good result.
As a result, the stores took the car wash with great enthusiasm, but then it turned out: the buyer does not purchase them, since he does not understand what it is at all. Most buyers logically assumed that it was a hairdryer. The rest considered the sink a drill.
If the auto parts department was in a large store, then the car wash for some reason was immediately taken to the vacuum cleaner department, having found some vague similarities between the washing and the vacuum cleaner. In his own auto parts store, Andrei tried to influence the buyer through a poster advertising a mini-car wash and its dignity. However, the poster did not help either — there was no time for buyers to get to know useful information.
Then Andrey and Alexei came up with the idea of putting a special person on the market who would not just be standing, watering everything around from a car wash directly at the place of sale, demonstrating its working properties.
They supplied the seller with a battery and three dozen boxes of mini-washers. The experience was a success: in one day, the seller sold all the mini-washers. For the first month, Vitoge managed to sell only 100 mini-car washes, for the second - 150. Then things went better.
- We began to advertise in newspapers, handing out leaflets to motorists. The reaction was good, for every 20 leaflets there was one purchase. Immediately showered offers from buyers. Most often, we were advised to make sure that the water did not pour in a trickle, but was sprayed from a spray bottle. But the relevance of the invention would have disappeared from this: after all, our idea is that a person can wash the entire machine with one and a half liter bottle.
If there is no water in the machine, you can go to any store and buy a bottle of water. If water will pour more than one trickle, as it is now, sprayed, then you will need more than one, several bottles. And who would like to bring ten bottles with you? However, in the future, friends are going to still modernize their invention. For example, make a mini-wash with a battery.
“It just seems that it’s easy, ” Andrei explains. “Actually, doing a mini-wash with a battery is almost going all the way again.” We must again make molds, look for the battery. All this is quite a long time and expensive.
But in the near future Avtoelektroplast diversifies the assortment with a variety of colors. To date, mini-sinks are made in just two color options: completely black and black red. According to Andrey, the black color is most practical, because the sink is lying in the trunk of the car and quickly gets dirty. But sometimes customers want a fun color.
Mini production
In 2005, friends rented a room in Odintsovo for the Isklad workshop, and bought equipment. Almost all parts for washing are purchased at domestic enterprises. For example, a suitable electric pump was found in Kaluga, where such pumps are made for washing windows.
- We were looking for a pump that fits this form. After all, initially we had a form, with an apote we picked up a pump, engine and other details for it. Almost all components were found in their patronymic.
Perhaps they break somewhat more often than imported ones. In such cases, we change a broken sink to a new one — it's cheaper than fixing it. Nobody has asked to return the money yet. If the buyer does not live in Moscow, then we pay the shipment at our own expense.
Entrepreneurs placed a mold for the manufacture of a mini-washing case at one of Moscow's plants. According to Andrey, this turned out to be more profitable than making buildings in Ryazan.
- It’s far to carry from Ryazan, besides, raw materials in Moscow are cheaper, because here is the whole market of materials.
The assembly in Odintsovo employs eight fairly young people (average age 30 years). The main personnel problem of Andrei and Alexei is the general drunkenness of employees.
- It’s not difficult to become a collector - in a week the employee stuffs his hand. After a month, having received a salary, he quits: unfortunately, many workers can only work until the first salary. It’s good that in our country there are still many female soldering iron. Women solder better than men, and drink less.
Popularity is coming
Every month, the company collects 4 thousand car washes according to the plan, and therefore carries out individual orders. Many orders come before the holidays — it turns out that even before the New Year there are many who want to buy a car wash as a present. As for February 23, there is simply no end to those who wish. The car wash in summer is very popular - at this time they are especially loved by children.
“My children sutra pester me with a question, can they wash the car, ” Andrei shares. “I tell them: why wash it?” She is clean. And they still ask: dad, well, please. In the end, I allow them. The stoich itself, since it began to make car washes, the car is no longer mine.
The implementation of mini-sinks now also does not cause problems.
“Now we are no longer engaged in retail sales, and we don’t work with individual stores, ” said Andrei. “We sell our mini-sinks only in bulk. Most of the orders come from the regions, because it’s easier to advertise there: it’s difficult to sell a mini-car wash through advertising in a newspaper, but television advertising gives very good results. In the regions, advertising on local television is cheap, so our mini-car washes are sold through television stores. Act-on mail directories. There are some customers who do not understand why mini-washers are taken: for example, a bran-producing factory buys mini-washes in large quantities. We ourselves are now giving no advertising anywhere — we just don’t have time for it, all the mini-washes are bought up “off the wheels”. The only remaining advertisement is on our website on the Internet.
Future regional dealers find Autoelectroplast on this advertisement. For example, recently an unknown person called Alexei who volunteered to sell mini-washers in Yekaterinburg. Asked to show him a sample.
“I gave him one car wash, and then gave him a lift in the car, ” Alexey said. “I had another car wash lying on the seat there. Then he went out, I look — there is no second mini-wash either. We didn’t see him again: I didn’t take the sinks for sale, and I stole my mini-sink.
Mini-sinks are well sold out not only in Russia, but in neighboring countries — in Ukraine, Moldova, Transnistria. Even in Sweden and Canada, car washes are distributed by mail catalog among the Russian-speaking population.
“Nowhere in the world is there anything similar, ” explains Andrey. “We surfed the Internet, dug up all the archives. And for his invention, two patents were issued - for an invention and for a utility model. Compared to Western mini-sinks, we have nine officially registered differences: our sink is in the form of a gun, a bottle is screwed onto it, it works from the cigarette lighter, it weighs only 650 g, while the imported one is at least 2 kg, etc.
When Andrei and Alexei just started producing mini-washes, a well-known Western company spoke out about their water products from domestic magazines.
- They were surprised: why does a Russian buyer need such a small mini-sink, when you can buy a large one of their production? It was pleasant for us to read: such a huge company pays attention to us dwarfs.
Posted by: Adelaide SIGIDA
Source: BUSINESS newspaper
08/18/2019