Pavel Zhuravlev is the CEO of Cinemood, a company with a valuation of over $30 million.
Cinemood produces family projectors with cartoons and American football inside. The company is growing twice every year and has attracted more than $15 million in investments.
Pavel lives and works in Australia and was born and studied in the Far East. In an interview with Sergey Zhuchkov, CEO and founder of ProgKids.com, he talked about how he got from a Far Eastern village to Vladivostok and went to university, how he retrained from a security guard to a network administrator, the importance of boredom for studying, and the influence of genes and chance on what happens in life.
We also talked about women.
SERGEY: So we met through a mutual acquaintance when I came to your eyes in Palo Alto in California, right?
PAVEL: Yes.
SERGEY: And it was a brain blast, because another guy from California from Silicon Valley had previously blown my mind out of me. He impressed me with his openness, and you just took openness to the next level. You didn't just tell me how it all works, you also gave me a lot of advice and each time you didn't just let me go, but asked: “How else can I help you?” I was in shock. I've never met anyone in my life with such an open approach. I can sing you praises a lot, but you'd better sing it by yourself. What do you do, what are your recent achievements?
PAVEL: At the moment, I'm the CEO of Cinemood, and we make portable home projectors like this (we call them portable cinemas ourselves).
We've been doing this for six years now. The company was founded back in 2014, but began to be actively engaged in 2015. And we're a classic startup. I explain to all the people I hire that we are the legendary startup out of any startup book. You open any book about a startup (I probably even have one on my desk) and it says: “The company failed in a crushing fiasco because they didn't predict something” — it's about us! Or, for example, it says: “The company suddenly became a dramatic success and surprised everyone around it” — and this is also about us. Or, for example, they say that people are the main problem: how to hire people, how to motivate them, how to assemble a team is also about us. Whatever the discussion about startups and their bright prospects or, conversely, horrifying realities, it's all about us. And I'm the CEO of such a company. And we're pretty successful already... we've been through this Startup Death Valley, where everyone dies because they're in the hands of the consumer. We have already found our customers, we have found our market, we have successfully completed all this and are on the verge of growing into a very large company. We believe in this very much; the whole team, who is very enthusiastic, is working for this. And so, in fact, we are trying to reach this goal. It's a little embarrassing that we've been doing this for six years now, but it always reassures me that the average age for success is eight: no one knows anything, so hopa! — the company went out somewhere. I hope it will be quicker than eight years, but we'll see. This is very interesting...
SERGEY: Before you become a very big company, tell us what kind of company you are now. You recently raised a million dollars, it seems like another million before that, and another million before that. How much did you lift and in how many times?
PAVEL: No, it was the last time we raised $5 million in the form of a line of credit. We need it for working capital; this is a feature of a hardware startup. When they say Hardware is hard (that's a cool phrase), few people understand why “hard”. So we know why. This is the last time we took $5 million. We probably raised the total amount to $16 million. And in terms of funding, our current estimate (depending on the method of evaluation) ranges from thirty million to forty-two. We certainly believe it's forty-two, but let's just say we accept arguments why some people don't count forty-two. We are striving towards an estimate of one hundred and twenty million; we want to reach it within the horizon of a year and a half. And then for a billion dollar valuation.
What is a “big company”
SERGEY: So a very large estimate is not a hundred million, it is a billion dollars?
PAVEL: Yes, it is very large — it is more than a billion dollars.
SERGEY: I actually really believe that it will work out because I've been hearing about your company for a very long time and you were generally a Skolkovo benchmark. Every time Skolkovo wanted to remember its success story, they immediately thought of Kubik. As soon as the company mentioned that the company knew the founders of Kubik, it would immediately end up with a bunch of goals: “Oh, do you know Kubik?”
PAVEL: Yes, it could be a portfolio mistake. It is not known whether we are so good or whether Skolkovo has this portfolio. There is such an organization, the Founder Institute. It is headed by Adeo Ressi. By the way, they are in Palo Alto; I studied there. And when Adeo explains why you should learn from him, he says, “You can be a company like Udemi. This is their biggest investment, they brought in the most money, it's a unicorn, etc. It's really true, it's the biggest investment. The only problem is that Udemi is the first company in the first set.
How not to invest in a growing company
SERGEY: Very similar symptoms, God bless everyone and let them develop more unicorns. Well, it hasn't been much time. You know, I listen to a lot of podcasts here, and one woman (Sarah Cone) said, “You know, the problem with venture capital is that feedback is very slow. You invest and wait ten years. And you don't know if you did the right thing you did two years ago, three years ago. It's not clear.” One of the most difficult ways to make money is to invest in venture capital. I know for myself. It's a pity I didn't invest in you when you offered it to me. Now... did you offer me an estimated $10 million?
PAVEL: Thirteen, if my memory serves me correctly.
SERGEY: Yes, yes, I missed the opportunity to grow fourfold. Well, god bless him. You see, I'm going to reject your offer many more times in the next five years...
How Paul came to Australia
Okay, how did you come to this? Are you in Australia right now?
PAVEL: Yes, I'm in Australia. Look, it's a chain of coincidences and unpredictable events that brought me to Australia. And how I came to what I do is a kind of “controlled accident”, I would say. I'm probably inclined to think that there's a place for chance in life, but every occasion... your success depends on whether you're ready for the occasion or not. And then it depends on how well you use the opportunities that fate gives you. It is also important to understand what criteria are good (it is different for everyone), but since I am happy with my fate, I think that I use the opportunities very well.
SERGEY: There is also a phrase on this topic like: “Good luck comes by chance to those who are prepared.” How were you prepared for this? What training did you have?
Where and what did I study
PAVEL: Yes, this is a good question. The thing is, I remember the very first accident. I know a moment in my life when I took advantage of an accident and that changed my whole life. It turned out so interesting there: I often think accidents go unnoticed. So you're living, some accidents happen, you took advantage of them and your life turned out like this, you're like this. Not only do I remember my first accident, which I used, but my subsequent accidents depend on my first one. I can rewind time to this point in time. How was I ready for this? Honestly, I wasn't particularly ready. I was just studying, I liked to study well, and I had my own motivation to study well. This is an important point — I studied well. I was in good standing.
SERGEY: Where did you study and what for?
PAVEL: I studied at the Physics Department of the Far Eastern State University (now called Far Eastern Federal University) at the Faculty of Information Technology. I loved working on computers, well, I loved playing them. And at my college, where I was studying, the physicist was a very smart person. Realizing that many people have a choice, he said: “You all love playing computers now and think you're all going to study math and become good programmers. Well, this is complete nonsense. Only a physicist can be a good programmer because physicists understand what they're doing. And mathematicians, and that's it, are out of this world.” All in all, it was quite funny and it hit my heart. I listened to the advice and entered the Faculty of Physics. That's the only reason I did it, and then I really thought I was really interested in it. Plus I'm actually...
SERGEY: Faculty of Physics?
PAVEL: Yes, Faculty of Physics.
SERGEY: And there was computer science inside.
PAVEL: Yes, yes. There was physics, computer science. They taught us how to write assembler, and by the way, I really liked it, to solder all these boards and processors. Physics is “from the plough”, I would say.
SERGEY: This is not physics, but more of a kind of “Computer science”. Was it some kind of elementary particle physics, Newtonian physics?
PAVEL: Physicists were dead dead — I don't know if you can say that on your podcasts. Two years were classical physics, and each semester had its own physics section. Mechanics, optics, electrodynamics... and fourth... something else happened, I've already forgotten. And then there were three years of theoretical physics.
SERGEY: Did you like everything? Or is it through force?
PAVEL: No, you know, I liked it. They even offered me to go into science, but it was, unfortunately, the 2000s, and science at that time... yes... Now, looking back, I think “well”, of course, but, in principle, I liked it. I would love to do this. I like to understand the essence of things, in. Well, yeah, I wasn't ready for this accident; I was just a good student and was probably open to some opportunities. I was constantly looking for a job, a part-time job, and I was motivated to make money.
Preparing for accidents
SERGEY: What was the first accident? You said you weren't ready for it. What was an accident?
PAVEL: Yes, I wasn't ready on purpose. I met a classmate on the road who was expelled from the university. I just went to work in the evening (I worked at the university dorm security service).
SERGEY: A dodgeball?
PAVEL: Yes, yes, we did not allow those who were not allowed to go there after 7 pm to enter the dormitory. So I met a classmate on the road who was expelled from the university. He was a lifelong student. He only studied with me for a year, maybe. I was already in my fourth or third year and he was expelled earlier. And he says, “Oh, you're all studying and learning, and I'm working.” I ask him where he works, and he says, “At such and such a company,” and then adds, “Do you want me to work for you?” He was the kind of person who liked to give the impression that he was so omnipotent (well, maybe not omnipotent, but something could). I say, “Come on.” So we went to his office and he said, “I found us a system administrator.” And they asked me: “Well, do you even know how to work as a system administrator?” So how do you have to be ready here? I was so ready to say, “Of course I can.”
SERGEY: Did you know how to do it?
PAVEL: No.
SERGEY: Well, you programmed, you still understood what a keyboard is, there...
PAVEL: I understood what a computer was, yeah. But this is the first time I've crimped Internet wires at this workplace. I came to work and was told to go put down the net. So I'm off. In my opinion, the same Anton who brought me there just showed me: “You should compress the wires like this, go do it.” In fact, he did a great job, he gave me this opportunity.
How to get a job (need to be noticed)
SERGEY: Look, in any case, the fact that such an accident happened to you is that people just knew something about you that you probably didn't even know about yourself. They probably knew: “Pavel will figure it out. Pavel is smart, he tried different things and he succeeded.” What were you like in fifth or seventh grade, for example? How did you deal with difficulties? I know how you're fighting them right now. You just sit down and get over them until they “get over”. Or not?
PAVEL: Well, yes, I would like to believe that this is true. In fact, I divide difficulties into important and unimportant ones. And I give up on the ones that are not important. If you looked at me from the perspective of unimportant difficulties, you'd think that I'm not a problem solver at all. I'm trying to identify what's important and I'm trying to do it. When I was in fifth or seventh grade... You know, I wasn't a problem solver.
The influence of genes, or how to get to Artek
The thing is, I may have been lucky with genetics and didn't have any problems, to be honest. I did very well at school and it didn't cost me anything at all, because my uncle was the only one who was taken from our village (we had an urban village near Vladivostok) to Artek in the Soviet Union. And this is such a legend! So it's like that people looked at him on the street and said, “He was the one who went to Artek.” You know, there's also a legend why he was taken to Artek. People came to them who selected these... Well, only talented children could get there, they were given some problems to solve, and then the classic physical task of flying a projectile from a cannon and where it would fall. And he solved it wrong, BUT (this is a legend, I don't know if it's right or wrong, unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to ask him personally. Or rather, but I didn't take advantage of this opportunity) they took him because he didn't solve it correctly. Because he took into account the curvature of the earth's surface when calculating the problem.
SERGEY: What grade was he in?
PAVEL: I don't know. Well at school. And I took him to Artek. But it was a legend. I think genes aren't that easy.
Why did Pavel study well and how to get children to learn
I went to the same school as him [an uncle who ended up in Artek], at the same school my dad went to, and it was very, very easy for me. Well, in fact, now I understand that there was simply a very low-level school (the village after all). I don't remember any particular difficulties. I remember reading the textbook two paragraphs ahead out of boredom.
SERGEY: Why did you do this? One question I would like to understand for myself is that our friends might be interested in. How do you get your child to read the textbook two paragraphs ahead?
PAVEL: Oh, I will now give you advice that everyone will not like very well. I read because I was bored. I mean, there was so much nothing to do that I would borrow a textbook out of boredom and say, “Well, I'll read what's to come.” This is a combination of everything — this is what we were discussing in class and what terms, so maybe I lacked complexity; my own curiosity; but I actually got so bored that I picked up the textbook and read it ahead. Plus, I enjoyed reading books, but books were hard to come by. I even remember getting a book about Alice in the library. The volume was so yellow because the kids salted it. And it was necessary to return to the library on time. I was bored and read because of that, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's like “if only”. Imagine if someone slipped me something interesting at that moment, something that would get me into, it wouldn't just be stupid to read a textbook one chapter ahead, come to school and enjoy what I know more than others. That would be something else. So this is just unknown matter, incomprehensible.
SERGEY: I have some thoughts on this topic. Dr. Kurpatov said that being bored is a very useful thing and develops the brain. You should be more often in a state where your brain processes everything it received hours, days earlier. Therefore, it is very natural that a person is bored and has had such an effect. I wonder why you thought of reading? Didn't you play sports, did you ignore it?
PAVEL: So there was no sport there. This is some kind of club, you still have to go there at some time, and it actually cost money. We didn't live very rich. It was the 90s, and the parents certainly had such a massive loss of consciousness.
SERGEY: Did your parents play a role in making you like this? Or was he like this? What did your parents do to you?
About the role of parents and the fear of the army
PAVEL: Yes, of course! My parents played a huge role, but not in such a way that they sat over me and said “you should study and be the best”. But then again, if they did, maybe I wouldn't be talking to you right now, but to the woman you were listening to the podcast you were listening to. My mother played such a traceable role, because my mother lived in Vladivostok and I lived in a village. And my mother, realizing that the village has very limited opportunities, simply said that I would study in Vladivostok in ninth or tenth grades and picked me up. This was due to the army. Most people who will watch are unaware, but parents in the 90s were very afraid that their boys would serve in the military. Well, in the 90s, there was a war and people actually went to war. Therefore, this factor was the driving force behind my mother.
In order not to serve in the military, you had to go to university. A strong school was needed to go to university, because the probability of going to university from a school in the village was extremely low. This was my motivation. But just to get away from the accident I told you about even earlier, it was, of course, my mother's decision to transfer me to Vladivostok to study and enroll there. And by the way, when I moved to Vladivostok, the level of school where I studied, where I was the best, was somewhere here (raised his right arm to chest level), and the school my mother assigned me to was incommensurably higher (raised his left hand to forehead level). I went to all five students here (or rather, I didn't study and had all A's), but here in the first quarter I had all triples and, in my opinion, had a couple of twos. And there was a very serious conversation with parents about “I do everything for you here, but this is how you behave, no festivities”.
About women
SERGEY: Did you catch up?
PAVEL: Yes, I caught up, but not because my mom said. I caught up because I met my future wife. She was an excellent student and I couldn't use that argument in our relationship.
SERGEY: So it didn't work out that way: “I'm in charge because I have only A's and you're a C student”, right?
PAVEL: Well, yeah, sort of.
SERGEY: Women are everything in our lives. I actually have the same story. It was my mom who catapulted me to where I am right now.
Okay, you said you were programming. When did you write the first line of code?
About programming
PAVEL: I probably wrote the first line of code in grade nine or ten. There were computers, there was a computer classroom. Well, maybe even earlier, there was even a computer class in our village. We went there to play mostly. But I think we had computer science, Basic, I don't remember anymore...
SERGEY: How cool! And after what time did you do anything meaningful? The schedule program is there, I don't know.
PAVEL: Well, then I got a computer, I think. My mom bought it at university. And it seems to me that I started doing something so meaningful already on the computer, because, again, out of boredom. There weren't always toys (or not all were interesting). I was poking around, the minesweeper went through, a kerchief. I poked around and found something, read something. But I probably wrote the most meaningful program when I was doing my diploma. When we were studying and needed to program, I did something. We did our term papers there, everything is clear. But they were more like this: they asked us and we did it. But my thesis was already interesting for me. By the way, I don't remember the moment when I went from “I have to do it” to “I'm interested in it”. I wrote my thesis “Database replication in a commercial enterprise” or something like that. I wrote scripts on Delphi that were collected from different branches of the database and replicated to a server in the central branch. And it was all through code. It was fun and it was the last program I wrote, because then I would write html little by little. But it was probably the first and last conscious program that I wrote back then.
Why is that? Because I've realized that I'm interested in coming up with a concept. Was it interesting for me to sit down and understand that in order for replication to take place, I must do it in this database? This is where you do something, backup copies, this is how they are collected, such a protocol, sent there and there, here they are received and unpacked, in such a repository, then the program can address them, and this is the result. I'm interested in drawing, imagining and drawing this. But this “copy paste” theme inside is unrealistically boring. Because when you've already drawn everything, then it's such a boring process (for me) when you sit and just write this array and then catch errors in it. Well, because you “copy-paste” fast, your syntax went somewhere, something else, and I really don't really like this thing. And I'm probably going to keep for the rest of my life that I like to come up with and I like to make them happen... So I like the beginning and the end of the journey when I see the result. That thing in the middle makes me a little confused.
SERGEY: After all, your life turned out the way it turned out, because you were a programmer and you were recognized as someone who knew computers and could figure out how things work. Is that right to say?
PAVEL: No.
SERGEY: Well, is that the first accident?
PAVEL: Yes, the first accident is about this, and subsequent accidents are related to it. You can rewind it.
SERGEY: It would have been called differently if the first accident hadn't happened. But it happened because you were involved in computing and programming.
PAVEL: Yes. First, yes, that's what happened. But then life turned so much that I went on sale, and this has nothing to do with programming at all. I believe techies are good salespeople because we're always lazy salespeople. We are looking for the cheapest way to ensure results. He's not always a good approach, but no matter how many tech-savvy people I meet, a lot of people live like this. But I went on sale and it had nothing to do with this accident at all. She then shot again ten years later. But you're probably right. Part of the reason she shot was because they knew that I was the kind of person that I could figure it out. It is difficult to say here whether this is related to programming, but in general, fundamental education — the Faculty of Physics — is everything for us. Physicists and everything.
SERGEY: Physicists will kill lyricists, right?
PAVEL: Of course, there are all people, and then there are physicists. It's nice, yeah.
What it takes to be successful
SERGEY: This is an opportunity to figure it all out — does it work for you now or is your method: “Guys, work faster, why don't you work”? Such a carrot and stick. Or do you still know the question when you move the dice?
You have to sit down, turn on your head and be like, “Christmas trees, how can you do this?” , and you sit, you sit, you walk, and then “Oh, that's it, I came up with it!” Or do you delegate it - “Come up with it yourself, I'll have a top-level leader”?
PAVEL: This is a very good question. I don't know the exact answer to it. I hope this ability helps me. But at the same time, am I trying to rewind time and remember the last time I sat down and figured out something that worked really well? Well, there have probably been cases like this. But to be honest, when it comes to the company's management, sales functions... The thing is that it's so tempting to come up with some magic wand that you can wave and you've got everything. And in order to be successful, I believe in adhering to basic principles. You need to have a very high level of discipline. You should do what you have planned for yourself. In my picture of the world, 80% of success lies in doing things and 20% of success in coming up with a business. But maybe it's because I'm in a consumer business that... For example, we are not developing such deep artificial intelligence that requires deep engineering knowledge. Maybe if I were working at this, I would think differently. Overall, I hope this ability helps me, but I can't get any quick examples of how it helped me out of my mind.
On continuing education
SERGEY: Okay, please tell me: I constantly hear you say “we are constantly learning”. You go to accelerators and take some courses. What's the last thing you've learned for yourself? I don't mean you sent the company to study there. What did you learn on your own recently?
PAVEL: The last place I went to study (personally) was to become a CEO. I recently became the CEO of the company and this is a fairly natural and logical chain. A new range of responsibilities is emerging. You can run through all the rakes yourself, or you can listen to experienced people. Accordingly, I went and had two weeks of training to become a CEO. It's very helpful. I learned from it a few basic things that I still use today.
SERGEY: Where did you study?
PAVEL: By the way, this is a good question. I've been trying to remember where I went to school. The Independent Directors Association, here. Stanislav Biryulin's course. He studied “CEO 2.0” (or something called it, I don't remember exactly). A fairly good, high-quality course. It was good for me.
SERGEY: What do you do now when you're bored? Do you ever get bored?
PAVEL: Yes, sometimes I get bored and I read. I have a lot of books waiting for their turn.
SERGEY: What was the last thing you liked?
PAVEL: Well, by the way, the last one I'm reading right now is not that bad. Asya Kazantseva, she writes about the brain from an unexpected angle. I'm almost finished reading the book. You're talking about training and why you should study there, so Asya is a popularizer of neuroscience, and she says that the brain works like any muscle, and if you don't train it, it shrinks and shrinks in size, and if you train it, it grows (new neural connections). It is becoming denser and new neural connections are emerging, and Asya says that the learning function is related to age. It is easier to study at the age of twenty, because the brain is still plastic and neural connections have not yet trodden paths that are comfortable to walk on. It is easier to build new ones. It is harder to build them at forty, and even more difficult at the age of sixty. That's why you need to study early. This is an interesting conclusion that I recently emphasized.
SERGEY: That's cool.
What are you watching?
PAVEL: I rarely watch anything.
SERGEY: You said you watch flights. What did you see on your last flight?
PAVEL: Look, considering that the last flight was a year ago, I can't remember what I saw. Well, no, I'm watching Netflix right now, I started the NHL season today, and I watch sports with my son, mostly like that. I love anime, it's such an interesting thing. In any case, I didn't expect me to like it. I've watched some episodes from start to finish.
How a Russian startup in Australia is raising children
SERGEY: How do you train your son? Did you tell me you read Elon Musk's biography to him?
PAVEL: No, he asked him to read Musk himself. He asked me to read it and we bought him two books, one for adults and one for children. There's Musk's biography for kids, the same thing, only in big print and much less written. That's actually what he's reading. How do I train? You know, nothing special. I try to make choices as often as possible. I just said it and I'm thinking, isn't this a declaration? Because...
SERGEY: There's a thing about people saying what they should do, but not what they should actually do. I keep noticing myself.
PAVEL: Yes, I would like to give him a lot of choices. I try not to limit him in many things, and I hope that this gives him choices. But of course, there is no such thing as thinking separately about “he is in a situation where he can choose this or that”. But yes, I try to give as much as possible to try and as many choices as possible. And nothing more than that. We're looking for something he's interested in, but at least I'm trying my best to maintain that interest.
SERGEY: Do you teach your daughter this way? Or is it more for mom?
PAVEL: It has a slightly different function, yeah. After all, dad is for a daughter and a father is for a son, I think, a little different things. My daughter sees me as such an ultimate authority. You can always go put pressure on mom, but you'd better not ask dad, because if dad says no, it's definitely not. I don't know about you, but I don't remember parents separately as a function of me and parents. They were in my world, the world was mine. I look at my children and it seems to me like this: they have their own world and they achieve some of their things in it. This is their path.
SERGEY: Of course it is. I think this is the only right option, because otherwise some hyper-guardianship could play the other way around.
PAVEL: Of course, it is a great temptation. It is very tempting to leave your ego on children's shoulders. When kids succeed... well, you feel just as proud as if you were successful yourself, and you're very tempted.
SERGEY: So you're intentionally stopping yourself?
PAVEL: No, I'm enjoying it. Masha recently won her first trophy at a tennis camp, such an award. Daniel collects the fastest on a rubik's cube there. Of course, when they're successful, I'm very proud. Well, of course, I go down and say: “Come on, collect it even faster! We should go over there!” He collects in fifteen seconds and I say, “Come on, it takes twelve seconds because champions collect in less than ten seconds.” It's a very big temptation.
SERGEY: That's cool. Pavel, thank you so much for your time and your story. A big hello to my wife, kids, all over Australia, kangaroos. Say hi!
PAVEL: Certainly. Thank you so much, it was interesting to chat.
SERGEY: Farewell.
