Bootstrapped to $3 Million a Month

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Prequel Co-founder CEO Timur Khabirov has bootstrapped a digital app to $3M a month. Read on to learn how.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Timur Khabirov: I was born in Uzbekistan during the Soviet Union era. When I was 15, me, my mom, and my father-in-law moved to Russia. I lived there for 10 years. I started as an entrepreneur there but not in IT. I got my education there. Then I moved to the United States in California. When the financial crisis started, I moved to New York. Now I’m in New York.

Sramana Mitra: Before Prequel, what has been your professional career?

Timur Khabirov: I never worked for salary. The 90’s was a hard time in the Soviet area. I started to sell small stuff like cosmetics. Then I opened my business for logistics. I did trucking. It was a very good experience.

Sramana Mitra: What is the genesis of Prequel?

Timur Khabirov: It was a hobby for me to learn IT. I liked design all my life. I started IT not from design. At that time in Russia, it was impossible to come up with IT products. The market wasn’t ready and there weren’t too many opportunities. I studied computer science and design every evening.

When I was 12 years old, I used to be a graphic designer. It was a good base for me. After that, I learned how it worked digitally. I studied everything – WebGL, OpenGL, professional editors. Six years ago, I thought that it was a good idea to combine my experiences into one product. I know IT and design.

Sramana Mitra: What was the product?

Timur Khabirov: Me and my co-founder decided to work together. We started in R&D. It was important to look for the important technologies for this market segment. We worked on augmented reality with algorithms for face and object recognition.

Sramana Mitra: What was the concept of Prequel?

Timur Khabirov: Augmentation, not 3D only. The sound for the video content is augmentation as well. The visual effects is augmentation as well. We have amazing cameras now in all smartphones. It had to be color effects. Before us, Adobe provided some services, but you needed Lightroom. We came up with this simple idea. You can use the same technology but from your cellphone.

Sramana Mitra: So Prequel is an app for augmentation of video content?

Timur Khabirov: Artistic and aesthetic augmentation.

Sramana Mitra: For video content?

Timur Khabirov: Photo and video.

Sramana Mitra: Who built the product? Are you capable of building the product yourself?

Timur Khabirov: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: Then you put it on the iTunes store and that’s how you went to market?

Timur Khabirov: No, it’s not that easy. You need to understand everything – the whole nine yards. It’s a tools production company. You need to understand marketing. You need to understand how to use analytics and how to test prices. You need the knowledge on how to do this. That’s why Serge and I combined our experiences. You need to understand the whole chain from A to Z.

Our conversation continues here.

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