Enter Ideas: Planetariums of All Nations, Unite!

A historical note: IP piracy in the mobile planetarium segment very nearly caused the RUB 300-million market to collapse. This is what the situation used to be like private entrepreneurs would buy the hardware and start “canvassing” from school to school, screening films purchased from the copyright owners for a substantial amount for a small business (approximately RUB 150,000). Certainly, the entrepreneurs would pool resources to buy one screening license and use it for multiple “screens,” cheating the copyright holders of their lawful revenue. After evaluating the situation, producers of content for mobile planetariums decided to leave the Russian market, because the market was no longer attractive to them, and they could not see any ways to combat this kind of piracy.

Enter Enter Ideas to save the day. This is how the product works: an entrepreneur purchases a set of hardware: an iPad, a BenQ projector, and an inflatable come. The projector does not work without the tablet that comes with it, and has a module enabling it to play back videos only from this specific iPad tablet. The copyright holder has access to information on the number of screenings, and license payments are collected not for the entire one-year license, but rather for each screening. The arrangement implemented by Enter Ideas on the one hand guarantees full protection of the content copyright holder, and, on the other hand, helps the entrepreneur to achieve a significant cost reduction.

“Igor, how do you position your system on the market?”

“We work with a network of dealers for our system, with customers who are already using first-generation single-channel systems, and those who are just entering the business. We have an offer for each customer category. For the first and second categories, we supply only the projection system: a control module based on an iPad tablet and a projection module based on a BenQ projector which incorporates our solution. The set also includes a detailed user guide and a carrying case. We provide a turnkey solution for the third category: a complete business setup of our system, an audio system, and a dome which serves as a projection screen.”

“How did content producers respond to your solution?”

“Their reactions were different. Smaller companies were delighted to accept our offer because we were opening a new market previously unavailable to them: Russia and the Former Soviet Union. Larger companies were wary: some took a pause to take a good look at the product, for some, I personally brought the system for testing to the US. But on the whole, everything is developing well, and we are moving along according to our paln.”

“What do the project economics look like?”

“They are very appealing, and I take the entrepreneur data from content downloading statistics. We have our champions who do six screenings a day, and one screening is worth around RUB 3,000, so the math, as you can see, is very simple. Each “champion” works 22 days a month on average. Less the licensing costs, logistics, taxes and rent. Some of the guys are able to earn up to RUB 200,000 a month, which is not bad, you would agree, given that they work eight or nine months a year.

“As for the content authors, they receive a very good profit, which comes to them in small installments, but in a very reliable, steady pattern. You could say that instead of selling one annual license for US$ 5,000, they sell 30 licenses for US$ 500 each.

“We have built our system in such a way that any content provider could place their work in it, and price it as they see fit. This has enabled us to engage domestic content producers, who had stayed away previously.”

“How did your participation in the 2013 GenerationS contest impact your project?”

“My participation in the contest brought a lot of benefits to the company. We modified some of the solutions working online: I would be providing fresh feedback from Moscow, while our team would be making changes. For example, I was fortunate to talk to an excellent professional on the Mentors’ Day, and, based on that meeting, we completely overhauled our business model. 

“That was the point when it became perfectly clear that, if the system were to include a server, we would be unable to ensure the required protection level for content producers. This was why we decided to move to a wireless image transmission protocol. This meant that we had to start development of both the hardware and the software from scratch. The team, especially our engineers and software coders, were “weeping” at nights. At the time of the final project wrap, the guys from Spinverse Russia consumed tones of coffee and broke thousands of lances before we found the right solution.”

“Igor, what does one need to do to start one’s own business?”

“Don’t be afraid and never stop. I’ve had business projects in my experience that generated a decent revenue, some that were unsuccessful, which lost be a couple of million, but I knew I could not give up. I have never understood teams that were running around looking for an investor in their business. And, at the same time, they are afraid to take out a bank loan to finance their idea — is it because they don’t believe in it themselves? From my own experience, I can tell you that some ideas need to be buried in good time, or they might bury you. And then, everything will work out for you: you will build your own business, and you will get some very attractive professional offers.”