Jobs: "Business is always greater than the work" - an interview with the entrepreneur Marina Voronkova

Marina, where your business career started?

If I went back to a time when I did not have a team, office, shop, and know in advance, via which to go, I'd hardly stepped into all of this.

Business - is always more than a job.

Not even time management, contacts and expertise. This is passion. I it was. I was inspired by the emotions of children who enthusiastically engaged with our alphabet, and thanks to social networks from their parents.

You come up with the magnetic alphabet. And what a start immediately flew?

Of course not. Our growth consisted of a failure, in part epic when it was a shame to wake up in the morning.

I will never forget the night when I got a call from the shop and was told that due to an error in the printed layouts prepaid game alphabets that customers have been waiting for a month, with the contour of the letters. Designers then were in jobs involving all hands and the law of Murphy sent wrong.

I arrived at night in the shop with her daughter in her arms (her husband was on a business trip, we do not have assistants). Pleaded technologist razrulit party marriage, but inwardly already I knew it was the bottom. I'm in debt, salary pay nothing, undermined the reputation of the brand.

But from the bottom, you can push?

This is what happened.

The night before dawn, we cut out each letter of the contour. Correcting your mistake is, we have come up with a new production technology, which later became our competitive advantage.

In the morning we publicly admitted that they screwed up. And customer response showed how great to be honest.

As now seems your workplace?

Tables in our office invented, designed and made in our workshop. I have a table in the shape of the wing: for me it is a symbol of the internal energy and the source of great deeds.

On the table - a large monitor that connects to the favorite Lenovo Yoga Pro. I can not work without the touchscreen, and worthy counterparts in the two years none of the manufacturers are not released.

Also connected to the computer graphics tablet Wacom, Bluetooth-speaker JBL and Bluetooth-mouse as a sports car.

Feng Shui separate reigns in charging devices: two wireless dock built into the "lawn", and convenient magnetic holder wires.

As you know, I very much love all magnetic. :) At home, even all cosmetics are stored vertically on a magnetic board. Very convenient: space-saving and complete the order!

What about mobile gadgets?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. Bribes curved screen and camera quality.

I love to take pictures. Therefore, in my bag always live lens FishEye, selfie-stick-microscopic the Bluetooth remote shutter release for the camera, flexible tripod. There is also a Bluetooth-headset for sports and a couple of other-charged external battery.

What do you prefer of the programs and services?

I always open «Google Calendar" and Trello. This is my main helper in planning. Teamwork, we have about ten boards in Trello, and around 25 workers in the WhatsApp chats for different projects.

I love the convenience and reliability of the synchronization of Google. When multiple terabytes of captured images in the phone's memory is stored on the strength of 30 shots: everything immediately flies to "Google Photos». Everything related to work, too, falls into the general command of the library. This is a true work of Feng Shui: the content manager may at any time to find pictures of tags and put it in the tape of our Instagram.

I've tested all kinds of applications for photo and video editing and has stopped on PicsArt and KineMaster. To create a stop-motion-animation using the application "stop motion".

You started talking about planning. Do you have some strict daily routine?

No strict regulations I have not. For me to wake up - a feat. :) In the morning out of bed I can lure only the husband, daughter Mira, and the smell of coffee.

I start the day by checking the team chat. Even before breakfast jogging. So better accelerates metabolism and athletic performance achieved. Then I throw in a container bag of food: try to eat right and maintain a food diary, controlling the balance of fats and carbohydrates.

The office is located within walking distance from the house. But not too close, to abandon the car and fulfill the quota of 12 thousand steps in the application Samsung Health and cycling.

Well, after the day was okay.

One gets the impression that as a leader you are very soft. This is true?

In our office reigns liberalism and creativity.

Rule one: do what you do best, and responsible for the consequences.

Working with a team - the hardest part of the business for me. Especially when you have someone to leave. There is a good life hacking: imagine that you do not lay off employees, and he leaves, as found more lucrative post. Relieved at the thought? So lay off shamelessly.

How do you feel about the delegation of authority?

I am a one-man band: manager, designer, marketer and developer of games rolled into one. At first, it's great: everything you can, in all himself delve. But over time, we need a strategic development plan, a strong IT-infrastructure, export strategy, accounting and management accounting, logistics, equipment loading calculations and the best technology. And here without the delegation can not do.

I was able to assemble a team and give the diamond in the capable hands workshop, marketing, legal issues, and a huge part of the operational management.

At the same time I'm a perfectionist: I have a lot of regulations, card ideas, Structures of internal processes.

You strict mother?

Before motherhood I read all the top books about parenting, but everything went very differently. So now any of parenthood allowances make me sarcasm. Exception - Lyudmila Petranovskaya and her books on how to hear themselves and the child.

In the education of the Worlds I stick to roughly the same principles as in the work with the team. I give her the freedom and opportunity to assess the impact of what she was doing.

A business literature that you read before opening the startup has been helpful?

I am convinced that the value of the theory is exaggerated. Its consumption creates a dangerous illusion of action.

Often I remember saying Oskar Hartmann, founder KupiVIP and hundreds more companies, "Just do it." Knowledge unfortunately often result in an opposite direction from doing.

That is, readers Layfhakera you any books not advise?

Well, why not? I can safely recommend to read:

• «Be the best version of yourself. How ordinary people become extraordinary"Dan Waldschmidt;
• «purpose"Eliyahu Goldratt;
• «Antihrupkost. How to benefit from the chaos"And"Black Swan. Under the sign of unpredictability"Nassim Taleb.

But as soon as the will read, just go for it! :) Drop fears, do not look at the opinions of others and enjoy the process.

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Photographer - Anna Karaulova.