The global banking system is experiencing a profound transformation. Traditional banking infrastructure is rapidly losing ground to the ubiquity of mobile phones and the rise of agent-based and telco-led financial services. The numbers reveal a structural shift that is bypassing banks—especially in rural and low-income markets—at an unprecedented scale.

ATMs vs. Mobile Phones: The Scale of Displacement

There are just 2.95 million ATMs worldwide, compared to 8.3 billion active mobile phones (BankMyCell, 2025). This means that for every ATM, there are about 2,820 cellphones. In rural areas, which account for 43% of the world’s population (World Bank, SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS), the ATM is increasingly irrelevant. The future of financial transactions is mobile, and the numbers confirm it.

Deposit Outflows and Digital Growth

In 2024, U.S. banks recorded their first deposit decline since 1995—a 4.8% drop (FinTech Weekly). Meanwhile, digital-first banks such as N26 reported revenue growth of 40% in the same period. Over 55% of U.S. customers now primarily manage their finances through mobile apps, and the global digital banking market is projected to reach $22.3 trillion by 2026 (EMB Global). Challenger banks and fintechs are not merely supplementing the market—they are capturing its core.

Shrinking Physical Presence

Major banks are closing branches at an unprecedented rate. NatWest closed 53 branches in 2025 alone, while HSBC’s digital transition has been described as “sluggish” (Finextra). The contraction of physical banking infrastructure is a global phenomenon.

Fintechs and Challenger Banks: Rapid Customer Acquisition

Trust Bank in Singapore became the country’s fourth-largest retail bank in just over a year, surpassing one million customers (The Straits Times). JPMorgan Chase’s UK digital platform reached 1.6 million customers in 2023 (Reuters). The revenue gap is widening: while legacy banks struggle for marginal deposit growth, digital-first banks are expanding at rates of 40% or more.

Micro-Transactions: The Global Bypass

The migration of micro-transactions away from traditional banks is most visible in rural and low-income markets, where agent networks and mobile money services—often run by telcos—have become the default. The Dominican Republic provides a concrete example of the scale of this bypass, even in the absence of a local fintech ecosystem.

• Population (mid-2024 est.): 11.5 million
• Rural share (official data): ≈ 85%
• Rural population using only feature phones (field surveys): ≈ 70%
• Active mobile phones (all types, global): 8.3 billion (BankMyCell, 2025)
• Feature (“button”) phones still in use (global): ≈ 1.1 billion (13%)
• Average fee for a sub-US $5 bank transfer in LICs: US $0.50–0.90 (10–18%) (MoneyTransfers)

Assuming each rural adult in the Dominican Republic makes one US $5 peer-to-peer transfer per day using a mobile wallet or agent network (with no bank involvement), and that a traditional domestic bank transfer of the same size would cost approximately US $0.60 in fees (mid-point of the 50 DOP Caribe-Express tariff):

• Rural users: 11.5 million × 85% ≈ 9.8 million
• Annual transfer flow: 9.8 million × $5 × 365 ≈ US $17.8 billion
• Forgone fee income: 9.8 million × $0.60 × 365 ≈ US $2.1 billion per year

Result: In this scenario, banks in the Dominican Republic forfeit approximately US $2 billion in fee revenue annually on micro-payments alone, while US $17–18 billion in transaction volume bypasses the formal banking rails. The same pattern is observable in many other countries with high rural populations and widespread mobile phone use.

Global Perspective: The Scale of Bypassed Banking

Extrapolating this model globally:

• Global rural population: ≈ 3.4 billion (World Bank)
• Assume 30% of those adults (≈ 1.0 billion) have access to a feature phone and mobile wallet/agent.
• Each makes one US $5 transfer per day.
• Average legacy-bank fee if using the formal system: 10% (US $0.50).
• Daily volume bypassing banks: 1.02 billion × $5 ≈ US $5.1 billion
• Annual volume bypassing banks: US $1.86 trillion
• Annual fee revenue forfeited: 10% × 1.86 trillion ≈ US $186 billion

Even if only one in four rural residents transacts daily and the average fee is halved, the annual loss remains between US $40–90 billion.

Structural Barriers to Reversal

• Physical reach: ATMs number just 2.95 million worldwide—a 2,800:1 ratio versus mobile phones. Branch networks are shrinking by 3–7% annually in most low-income countries.
• Cost structure: An on-us rural ATM transaction costs a bank approximately US $0.25–0.35 to service. Agent/mobile-money networks operate at less than US $0.08 per transaction, often subsidized by telcos.
• Device reality: Over a billion users have no smartphone; USSD/SMS wallets are their only digital finance channel. Banks rarely support USSD directly, while agent networks and telcos do.
• Behavioural lock-in: Once users trust a mobile wallet or agent for daily micro-transactions, larger remittances and savings migrate there as well, accelerating deposit leakage (already −4.8% in the U.S. legacy sector in 2024).

Lessons from M-Pesa: Missed Opportunities and Global Impact

A similar model has already demonstrated its transformative power elsewhere. In Kenya, M-Pesa—a mobile money service launched by Safaricom and Vodafone—now processes over $300 billion in transactions annually, with 51 million users and 59% of Kenya’s GDP flowing through its rails (Forbes, 2024). M-Pesa’s success was not the result of a bank-led initiative, but of a telco’s willingness to serve the unbanked and underbanked with simple, accessible technology.

Notably, Visa did not acquire M-Pesa. Instead, in 2022, M-Pesa and Visa partnered to launch the M-Pesa GlobalPay virtual Visa card, enabling M-Pesa users to make international online payments (Safaricom). The ownership of M-Pesa remains with Safaricom and Vodacom, who acquired the brand from Vodafone in 2020.

In 2013, a project with similar ambitions was proposed to banks in the Dominican Republic, aiming to bring agent-based, mobile-enabled financial services to rural populations. The proposal was dismissed as “excess service.” In contrast, M-Pesa’s model has since generated billions in revenue and transformed financial inclusion in multiple countries.

Conclusion: A Structural Shift, Not a Passing Trend

In countries with high rural populations and limited banking infrastructure, billions in annual fee income are bypassed on micro-transactions, with trillions in transaction volume moving outside the formal banking system. Globally, over $186 billion in micro-transaction revenue is now captured by telco-led or agent-based rails—roughly double the combined 2024 profits of the five largest U.S. banks.

The data is unambiguous: the migration of micro-transactions to mobile and agent networks is not a marginal trend, but a fundamental reordering of the financial landscape. The infrastructure and business models of traditional banks are being outpaced by the scale, efficiency, and reach of mobile-first and agent-based solutions—especially in rural and low-income markets.

Sources:

• BankMyCell: How Many Phones Are in the World? (2025)
• World Bank Rural Population Data (SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS)
• FinTech Weekly
• EMB Global: Digital Banking Market Size
• MoneyTransfers: Caribe Express Fees
• The Straits Times: Trust Bank Hits 1 Million Customers
• Reuters: JPMorgan Chase UK Digital Bank
• Finextra: HSBC Branch Closures
• Forbes: M-Pesa’s Global Impact
• Safaricom: M-Pesa GlobalPay Virtual Visa Card

For further context on the 2013 project offered to Dominican banks, see:

• Project details in Spanish
• Project details in Russian

The numbers, trends, and structural realities point to a new era in financial services—one where mobile and agent-based platforms are not just competing with, but overtaking, traditional banking infrastructure, especially in rural and low-income markets.

Cedula: The Dominican Republic is transitioning from a simple plastic card with a photo to a full-fledged electronic document with an embedded chip. A lot of Dominicans and expats have expired cedulas on hands. Each visit to JSE and request to update ends in nothing.

The President has issued a decree that expired cedulas are valid. However, employees of international embassies and airports are not aware of the Dominican decrees.

By Yenifer Fernandez (yenifer.fernandez@lagente.do)

Periodista de LaGente.do

My ID expired in February 2024, and as a law-abiding citizen, I went to the civil registry office to renew it.

“Come in October,” the civil registry clerk replied. “Your ID is valid until the end of October 2024.” “It’s a pity that nobody knows about it except the civil registry staff,” I thought.

In the past, in 2023, I returned to the Dominican Republic from Istanbul with Lufthansa. The entry stamp to Turkey was in my Russian passport, so I bought the Lufthansa ticket with my Russian Federation passport.

After the events in February 2022, holders of Russian passports worldwide faced unprecedented difficulties in travel. Lufthansa staff at Istanbul International Airport began to refuse me boarding, even though everything was correctly arranged.

Only my ID with my permanent address in the Dominican Republic, along with my Dominican driver’s license, saved me. These two documents convinced Lufthansa staff that I was flying home. After 30 minutes of coordination with management, they let me board. Other Russian passport holders were less fortunate. As you understand, if at least one of the documents I presented had an expired date, I would still be at Istanbul Airport.

Now, with an expired ID until the end of October 2024, My tourism should be limited to within the Dominican Republic. Because only the civil registry staff knew that the ID was valid. Because when I go to the embassies for a visa, they look at the expiration date of my expired ID. And not at the government decree.

I think many expatriates living in the Dominican Republic who turned to the civil registry for renewal of their Dominican ID faced a similar problem.

Let’s see what the official website of the JCE (https://jce.gob.do/), the authority responsible for the Dominican ID renovation, says:

…

As we can see, searching for information about the delay in exchanging identification documents on the official JCE website yielded no results.

Let’s stick to tradition and Google it:

…

Google provides only one link to information on the official website (as we saw, the site’s own search function doesn’t work). Following the link to the only document available from the search, dated June 2022, we learn that the process of updating identification documents will begin in August 2024. Which, to put it mildly, is not true.

The communication department of the civil registry, to put it mildly, misinformed the public about the start date of the document renewal process.

The only material with a future date available at the time of writing this article is found in a Google search from the newspaper “Diario Libre”:

…

From this material, we learn that it will only be possible to renew expired identification documents in October 2024. And that the new ID card will have a new design and an embedded electronic chip.

Since this is the only available information at the moment about the renewal of expired identification documents in the Dominican Republic, we are publishing the full material from “Diario Libre”. The link to the original is here.

Cedula: changes that the new identification document will undergo:

Despite the fact that the current identification document expires this year in 2024, the Central Electoral Board (JCE) has established that it will remain valid for citizens to exercise their right to vote in both municipal and congressional as well as presidential elections.

Author: Stephanie Hilario Soto

January 4, 2024

…

…

The process of updating the identification and electoral cards will begin on October 26 of the current year, 2024, with the issuance of a new document equipped with a microchip and other security measures aimed at addressing the deficiencies of the current document.

In advance, the Central Electoral Board (JCE) provided political parties with a report on the characteristics and the project itself for updating the identification (ID) and electoral cards. This report was submitted on December 21 with a deadline of 10 working days for providing feedback.

The current ID, which will be replaced after the elections, is made of plastic and can “delaminate,” meaning its elements can be separated. It does not have a microchip and is not electronic.

…

The new identification card is expected to be equipped with a microchip and other security measures aimed at addressing the deficiencies of the current document. (EXTERNAL SOURCE)

…

The material chosen for the new identification card is polycarbonate, which is used in most countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Finland, Mexico, Ecuador, and Uruguay. It facilitates the integration of security features that hinder their reproduction on other materials, such as windows with engraved and embossed effects.

Polycarbonate does not delaminate like the current ID material, and attempting to alter the data on it will result in destruction. It has a long service life and durability.

The photograph on the current ID has a dark background and does not comply with the specifications of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and it will be produced in shades of high-quality gray, “sufficient to identify the bearer,” as specified in a document accessed by Diario Libre. All data will be stored in color and printed on robotic devices at the only center operating in the country.

It is proposed that the citizen’s photograph will appear three times on the identification card, i.e., on the front side. The map of the Dominican Republic, currently located in the bottom left corner, will be placed above the photograph in the bottom left corner.

The integrated circuit or microchip embedded in the card will allow identity verification in offline mode. It will contain an electronic signature, be embossed with names, and allow biometric comparison of a fingerprint recorded on the chip with a live one captured within a few seconds.

The current identification cards and electoral cards expire this year in 2024, but according to the decision of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), they will remain valid for citizens to exercise their right to vote in both municipal elections in February and congressional and presidential elections in May.

Author: Stephanie Hilario Soto
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephaniesotord?s=21
A journalist from the Dominican Republic, a graduate of the University of Santo Domingo (UCSD). She also works as a broadcaster, emcee, model, as well as host and producer of her own digital project “Acceso VIP.”

At the moment, this is the only information available on the timing of exchanging Dominican identification cards found through Google search.

We hope that this material has been helpful to expatriates and citizens of the Dominican Republic who have expired identification cards.

If this material receives enough likes or comments, we will reach out to the civil registry office and the manufacturer of the new identification card for further details.

By Yenifer Fernandez (yenifer.fernandez@lagente.do)

Periodista de LaGente.do

By Slava Riumin. Business blogs can be found at https://neploho.agency. I also run the blog “Fell, Got Up” at https://t.me/ruminblog.
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original text is here.

I burned out as a programmer and turned my hobby into a business. Now I make 37 million a year selling on marketplaces.

I’m 42 years old, and like many IT professionals, I completely burned out by the age of 35. In gardening groups, I became friends with a chemist, and in December 2021, we decided to start producing fertilizers and soil for houseplants.

I didn’t start the trend of selling “crap” on marketplaces, but as an experienced gardener, I decided to take it literally and produce fertilisers instead of manure.

Although sometimes after marketplace tariff updates, there's a temptation to literally deliver manure to the pickup points.

I’ll tell you how to obtain the product using a concrete mixer, a drill, and Uralhim, why Ozon steals measuring spoons, what unpleasant condition Leroy Merlin imposes on manufacturers, why the Chinese don’t want to deal with powders, and how much my production earns and spends.

Usually, home gardening is perceived as a “hobby for old-timers,” with simple cacti or violets.

…

Everyone remembers the semi-alive greens in schools on shelves and windowsills.

In reality, the indoor plant market is worth billions. The cost of rare or trendy varieties of philodendrons, monsteras, alocasias can range from 20,000 to 50,000 rubles. And this is a common occurrence.

Professional fertilizers and soil are required for their cultivation. It’s another gigantic market where billions of rubles are involved. Today, let’s talk about it.

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In the photo, a variegated Melanochrisum is growing.

If you know the difference between a Monstera and a fern, give a like, and share in the comments which plants accompany you!

DISCLAIMER: The article was written by the author of the blog “Fell, Got Up” based on an interview with the founder of a fertilizer production company, who chose to remain anonymous to preserve relationships with technology giants and retail chains.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   .
2. Business in Fertilizers from Scratch, Without Loans, Credits, or Government Support
   .
3. Revenue of Fertilizer and Soil Production
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4. Expenses of Fertilizer and Soil Production
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5. Profit Potential in Soil and Fertilizer Production

Business in Fertilisers from Scratch, Without Loans, Credits, or Government Support

For the initial purchase of ingredients, my partner and I each contributed 5,000 ₽, and we sold that batch through a VK group of fellow gardeners. Gradually, sales grew, and we first moved into a basement, then eventually to a full production facility.

The process of making our fertilizers looks like this:

1. Develop the formula – we reverse-engineer it using the Chinese method

We take an Indonesian or well-known American fertilizer and perform reverse engineering using the Chinese method.

That means we examine the ingredients listed on the label and ask the seller about the proportions from the perspective of experienced gardeners. Next, we study scientific patents to adjust the proportions. These patents describe the effects of various concentrations of essential ingredients on plants and are, by the way, freely accessible.

This way, we create our own product copy at 30% less cost than the original.

…

The Chinese approach involves taking a well-known product, reproducing it exactly, and then adding your own innovations.

2. Mix the necessary components

In the basement, we mixed the components using a concrete mixer and a drill with attachments.

At the production facility, we use powder mixers instead of concrete mixers, specifically “drunken barrel” mixers (2 units at 84.5 gallons each).

It turns out the classics were wrong when they said a concrete mixer only mixes concrete. It does an excellent job mixing soil and fertilisers too.

3. Package the fertilizers into bags and jars

In the basement, we used a chair, a scoop, and a bucket for this.

At the production facility: you load the mixture into an automatic packer, the machine fills it into jars and seals them. Labels are applied using a third machine.

Automatic packer - 700,000 ₽

Packaging machine - 350,000 ₽

We manually add measured scoops and pack them into sturdy bags with marketplace labeling (if required).

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1. Primary raw materials: agricultural and fine chemicals.
   .
2. Grind the components into a powdered form.
   .
3. Mix the components according to the recipes into homogeneous blends.
   
   In the photo – the process of fertilizer production. Our fertilizer is half mineral (agrochemicals) and half organic: vitamins, amino acids, phytohormones (fine chemicals).

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1. We package the fertiliser into PET jars of various sizes.
   .
2. We pack them into crates, palletize, and send them to warehouses or wholesale.

In the photo, packaging of fertilisers.

Similarly with soils: you load the mixture into the packaging line, the machine fills it into bags and seals them. Then you manually apply the label and pack them into boxes.

Packaging line - 950,000 ₽

We manually apply the labels and pack them into boxes.

According to wholesalers’ standards, we have a small volume. Printing houses reluctantly produce 5,000 labels, and if they do, it’s at 10 ₽ per label. But if you order a million labels, they come out to 1 ruble each. Therefore, we print the labels both in the basement and now on a printer, laminate them, cut them with a cutter, and stick them on self-adhesive paper.

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1. We mix according to recipes. We add anti-fungal additives.
   .
2. Primary raw materials, divided into fractions: zeolites, bark, lava, and others.
   .
3. We pack them into bags, apply labels.
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4. We pack them into crates, palletize, and send them to warehouses or wholesale.

The process of soil production

4. We test the resulting mixture.

When introducing a new formula, we first test it on our own plants, then we pass it to a focus group – several familiar gardeners with a variety of plants and families (25 people). We give a trial jar to the laboratory. Then friendly nurseries test it on a mass scale of plants. If everything is fine, the product is launched into production (+ certification).

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Some succulents have bloomed, while others have acquired beautiful colors, which means we can launch the fertiliser for sale.

At the start of our developments, there are often blatant failures. Complaints about hygroscopicity, clumping, powder hardening, burst packaging, and so on. Fortunately, customers provide feedback and advice – ultimately, we address the shortcomings and move forward.

In total, the estimates for the launch looked like this:

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1. Concrete mixer
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2. Drill with attachments
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3. Buckets
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4. Shovels
   .
   Total: 200,000 rubles

Basement

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Production estimate:

Soils:

1. 82.5 gallons mixer. Externally similar to a concrete mixer, but more powerful. 80,000 rubles.
   .
2. Automatic packer for packaging and sealing the mixture in bags. 950,000 rubles.
   .
3. Stone crusher for grinding components to the required fraction. 70,000 rubles.

Fertilisers:

1. Powder mixer similar to a “drunken barrel” (2 units). 640,000 rubles
   .
2. Dosing-packaging machine for packaging powder into PET jars. 700,000 rubles
   .
3. Capper for lids, also a dater, also a labeler. 350,000 rubles
   .
4. Mills for fine grinding of components (2 units). 60,000 rubles

Total equipment cost: 2,850,000 rubles

Production

The main problem in the production of fertilizers and soils is dust and dirt. It’s not like laboratory coats and clean offices. When mixing powders, dust rises, some of it is captured by the exhaust system, and some settles on all surfaces.

…

The same problem exists with soils: peat, stones, zeolites – almost every component generates dust.

Therefore, throughout the entire cycle, workers wear masks and special clothing. Afterwards, thorough cleaning and washing of all surfaces and equipment are mandatory.

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Visually, it looks like this.

Revenue from the production of fertilisers and soils

As you can imagine, December 2022 was the perfect time to start replacing Western products with domestic alternatives. Some competitors disappeared. Due to sanctions and disrupted supply chains, Western original competitors became more expensive, while our product became 2-2.5 times cheaper, leading to significant growth.

Soils and mineral-organic fertilizers are purchased by everyone who imports, collects, propagates, grows, or resells houseplants, including expensive exotics and super-expensive new varieties.

The monthly revenue by channel is averaged over the last three months.

Marketplaces (WB and Ozon) – 1,410,000 ₽

Problems with marketplaces – items are thrown around, and components are stolen.

As a result, a customer might receive just a bag instead of a bag with fertiliser, or only a jar instead of a jar with a measuring spoon. However, in defence of marketplaces, it should be noted that sometimes buyers steal the measuring spoons and then refuse the purchase.

Warehouses have sealing machines that help reseal the product when the spoon has already been stolen. I don't know why this happens; maybe they use them for their meals.

…

User chose to hide their details: “This is the second product I’ve purchased, but there’s no measuring spoon again.”

Stolen again.

Retail – 190,000 ₽

We sell through a VK group to small towns where there are no Ozon or WB points. In Moscow, customers either pick up their orders or have them delivered by a courier. One person processes orders, and when they’re unavailable due to personal matters, we handle inquiries ourselves.

…

When the gardeners are satisfied, they send their horticultural successes.

Wholesale sales – 600,000 ₽

Nurseries buy wholesale. They nurture imported plants, acquire microclones from Taiwan, and sell them at x10 prices in Russia. To ensure good plant survival, they purchase specific soils and fertilisers.

Group orders – 850,000 ₽

In the most remote regions (Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Transbaikal, etc.), it’s cheaper for gardeners to pool their resources and order a large batch. The organizer of such a purchase receives a 30% discount on the entire batch (this is their earnings), and in exchange, they advertise for us.

Leroy Merlin and chains – 0 ₽

To enter Leroy Merlin, an unpleasant condition must be met. The price at Leroy Merlin must be lower than the market price. For example, if fertilizer costs 1,000 ₽ in a VK group, 1,200 ₽ on a marketplace, it should be priced at 900 ₽ in Leroy Merlin. At this selling price, they want to buy fertilizers for 450 ₽ because the French markup is 100% of the purchase price. This is 250 ₽ cheaper than our usual wholesale price (our wholesale price is 700 ₽).

So instead of earning 700 ₽, I’ll only get 450 ₽, and this price doesn’t guarantee sales volume, especially since you’re competing with well-known brands on the shelves. Big players like PhosAgro or Uralchem are pushing through huge batches via chains.

In other words, to sell at Leroy Merlin, you yourself must promote the brand through advertising, just like with brands like Head & Shoulders, which were recognized on the shelf thanks to advertising. Otherwise, it’s just like on marketplaces, but with less favorable conditions for me.

Therefore, it's currently more profitable to collaborate with Ozon and WB than with Leroy Merlin.

Resellers – 0 ₽

Periodically, there are those willing to become dealers, and twice we even agreed.

For a reseller to make a profit, they sold at double the purchase price, meaning they bought for 700 ₽ and sold for 1,400 ₽. With such a price, they couldn’t compete with us (we sell for 1,200 on marketplaces). Selling wholesale for less is not interesting for us. And if we start raising retail prices, we reduce demand. It’s beneficial for us to keep prices below the market; then people come to us rather than to the Dutch.

Distributors were relevant before the era of marketplaces: you produce in Moscow, and customers are in Kamchatka. Postage is expensive, and then you need a dealer. They will bring in a wholesale load and resell it at retail there.

But now, with marketplaces everywhere, anyone in the countryside can order directly, and dealer intermediaries are no longer needed. And if we sell to resellers to trade on marketplaces, we have to give them a price of 250-300 ₽ because on marketplaces, the price from the purchase must be increased by three times for the math to work out. And for us, as manufacturers, it’s absolutely unprofitable to sell at such a price, let alone breed competitors.

…

Leroy Merlin and resellers – zero.

Ozon – 580,000.00 rubles

Wildberries – 830,000.00 rubles

Retail – 190,000.00 rubles

Wholesale – 600,000.00 rubles

Collective orders – 850,000.00 rubles

Total: 3,050,000.00 rubles

Production expenses for fertilizers and soils

Expenses calculated based on a turnover of 3,050,000 ₽.

Suppliers (ingredients and packaging) – 610,000 ₽

In nature, organic substances are generated by mold, bacteria—everything that exists in the soil. That’s why it’s not necessary to heavily fertilize plants in the field; minerals suffice—nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium—and the rest will come from nature. However, for potted indoor plants, nothing naturally comes to the pot, so besides mineral fertilizers, organic additives (fine chemistry) are included—vitamins, amino acids, phytohormones, sugars, and so on.

We source mineral fertilizers in Russia. We traditionally have many fields, so mineral fertilizers are abundant here. Russia also accounts for 16% of global exports in this sector. Previously, we bought from resellers, which was twice as expensive, but with a small volume, we couldn’t deal with major suppliers like PhosAgro and Uralchem, as they only deal with orders of at least 1 ton.

As for fine chemistry—vitamins, phytohormones, amino acids—we get them from China; they simply aren’t produced here. The Chinese trick is to dilute everything with maltodextrin, a derivative of white starch. As a result, you get a vitamin where half of the bag is maltodextrin. However, maltodextrin isn’t a problem in our business; in such cases, we can just use double the diluted component.

To avoid being deceived in China, you can find a buyer. These are specially trained individuals who speak both Russian and Chinese.

…

Through the website 1688, buyers purchase what you need, verify it, and send it to Russia.

An isolated issue in our niche is that no one wants to deal with powders. Customs scrutinise powders carefully.

…

You never know what you’ve mixed in there.

Your shipment from China can either be transported by auto as a consolidated cargo or in a maritime container, and you pay $1.5-2 per kilogram. That’s why we’re trying to transition to working with Russian wholesalers. They buy in bulk from China and distribute in Russia. It’s cheaper for them because large wholesalers fill a whole container with their goods, and the delivery cost per kilogram is only a few cents.

But we’ve had problems with other countries as well. For example, last year we ordered 20 tons of volcanic lava from Armenia for our soil. We expected stones sized 3-5 mm, but we received a truckload of lava sized 4-8 cm. We had to buy a crusher.

The 610,000 for suppliers is the total amount of purchases for the year divided by 12. We don’t calculate the cost for each item like large factories do because inflation has hit, and everything has gone up in price. The dollar has increased, Chinese components have become more expensive, etc. We just use a simple Excel sheet. I think 90% of accounting is the ability to input data, you can even do it in a very convenient accounting service, you just need to be diligent and enter the numbers. For now, it’s enough for us.

…

Self-employed – 342,000 ₽

We are located in an industrial zone (food industry, metal rolling), and nearby there is a workers’ settlement where many are interested in part-time work. We have a WhatsApp group with 8 people who work for us regularly. We set a project, for example, on Fri, Sat, Sun, the task is to produce, package, and pack 4,000 units of product. And whoever is available comes – usually 3-4 people.

Currently, we pay 1,000 ₽ per hour, and from this amount, the person pays taxes themselves. When we paid 500 ₽/hour, there was a high turnover, people could earn more easily as couriers.

If there are any issues, for example, if we prepared components for 4,000 jars, but we are told that only 3,500 jars were produced, we start checking the surveillance camera recordings.

Once we found out that a bag containing one of the components had been spilled, swept up, and simply thrown away.

People tend to stick to this job because they like the pay rate, so there are few problems.

…

We don’t prohibit the guys from taking fertilizers for their own flowers; they take one jar once every six months, which doesn’t make us poorer. Besides, fertilizers are not stolen willingly in general.

The main value of our company is the formulation, the secrets that cannot be shared with anyone. Therefore, when we invite employees, we prepare the components in such a way that they do not understand the composition; otherwise, this formulation will quickly leak from us. Our task is to prepare the bags, mix the fine chemicals into the primary mixtures. And we show the employees which bags to use to get the final product. These bags are already not labeled with what is what, and visually, you cannot guess.

Marketplaces – 496,800 rubles

At a turnover of 580,000 rubles, Ozon consumes 214,600 rubles (37%).

At a turnover of 830,000 rubles, Wildberries consumes 282,200 rubles (34%).

Tariffs are constantly changing, but for now, the margin allows it. We don’t buy premium, we don’t promote, we don’t monitor competitors, we don’t participate in promotions, and we don’t create colorful cards. Traffic on marketplaces is purely organic, through word of mouth – people search either by brand, product name, or through direct links.

…

To find us, you either need to know the exact name or click on the “Next” button. Currently, we are at the 250th position.

I think if we start advertising, we’ll end up giving away the remaining profits to the marketplaces. Additionally, we’ll have to produce more, deal with a lot of disloyal customers, and face many complaints. In essence, we’ll be producing more, earning less, and essentially working for the marketplaces.

…

Review: “Maxim: Pros – happy plants. Cons – none.”

Certification (spread over the year + government registration) – 100,000 ₽

In Russia, certification for fertilizers and pesticides is complicated, and everything remains from Soviet times, tailored to large enterprises. The agro-industry is state-owned, and it is not profitable for it to allow small companies into this sector, so they do not change the requirements, and they are very stringent.

To register mineral fertilisers, you need to pay 3 million for one position.

Exactly, for our 17 positions, we would have to pay 50 million. We wouldn't make that much income in 10 years.

Got it, since our fertilizers are not purely mineral but organic-mineral, with half minerals and half organic components, we don’t need to go through the Ministry of Agriculture and register with Rosreestr. Instead, we just need to obtain a declaration of conformity to GOST standards. This is a simpler process, and the certification for each product costs around 100,000 ₽ including testing. We have 17 products, and we periodically certify new ones, so I’ve budgeted 100,000 ₽ per month for certification expenses.

Advertising – 0 ₽

Group on VK, a few giveaways – and that’s it. We don’t run contextual ads, don’t attend exhibitions, and don’t engage in barter in exchange for praises about our products. We haven’t been working on the design of the group and cards for a long time – “it’s good enough as it is”.

Everything that promotes us at the moment is free word-of-mouth. There are plenty of groups and chats among plant enthusiasts – that’s where all this magic happens every day without breaks on weekends.

…

Review: “Pros: I love this stimulator. Plants grow roots superbly, quickly, and adapt painlessly.”

I believe that the best advertisement is recommendations from those who use the product, are satisfied with it, and share their emotions and impressions with others. And the overall estimate looks like this:

…

1. Taxes (7% of revenue) 213,500.00 rubles
2. Cost of goods (materials plus packaging) 610,000.00 rubles
3. Rent (plus utilities plus cleaning) 100,000.00 rubles
4. Equipment and depreciation 150,000.00 rubles
5. Certification (spread over the year plus government registration) 100,000.00 rubles
6. Payroll for order processing and assembly (3 employees) 150,000.00 rubles
7. Ozon commissions (37%) 282,200.00 rubles
8. Logistics (pallets and boxes, stretch wrap, and delivery to the marketplace) 50,000.00 rubles
9. Unforeseen expenses 40,000.00 rubles
10. Accumulated balance (reserve fund, 5%) 152,500.00 rubles
    

Total: 2,304,800.00 rubles

The total expenditure on turnover of 3,050,000 ₽ amounted to 2,304,800 ₽.

How much can you earn from the production of soils and fertilisers?

In the basement, the variable expenses included rent – 15,000 ₽, ingredient purchase for 700,000 ₽ revenue – about 100,000 ₽. We mixed, packaged, and sold everything with my partner. Since the process was not well-organized, we had about 5-7% returns. But still, out of 700k revenue, we managed to make about 300k profit.

If we look at the average over the last three months, the monthly calculation is as follows:

…

• Revenue: 3,050,000.00 RUB
• Expenses: 2,304,800.00 RUB

Total (for two): 745,200.00 RUB

For 745,200 RUB between the two of us, we each spend about 60 hours per month. I handle the formulations and production, while my partner takes care of finances, procurement, managing non-production staff, and order issues.

Currently, the quarterly growth is around 18-25%, and last year it reached up to 40%. There is virtually no seasonality (unlike the agrochemical market for summer cottages and gardens). The biggest contributors to growth are marketplaces and bulk orders.

In conclusion, I believe it is more sensible to invest in the product rather than advertising. A good product naturally encourages people to advertise for you.

…

Reviews: “Hello everyone! I read a post here that after using Micro Plus, orchids started to bloom. I decided to try it too. And indeed, after just one application, some of my orchids started to bloom (they rarely bloom for me). I recommend it.”

And there’s no better advertisement than that.
Thank you for reading, and please water your plants, not me, in the comments.

Credits

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by the author of the blog “Fell, Got Up” based on an interview with the founder of a fertilizer production company, who chose to remain anonymous to maintain good relationships with technological giants and retail chains.

I run the blog “Fell, Got Up,” featuring stories about real businesses, not just “success stories.”

You’ll read about: how I opened and failed a chain of nightclubs, how to properly glue cardboard to sell it on marketplaces for 50 million rubles a year, how a farmer spent 250 million in a village, why dumpling production is dying in the provinces, why a taxi fleet with 300 drivers and 40 cars is no longer a business, how a techie restored a Soviet camp but fell into a 60 million ruble cash flow gap, and other stories.

I write these articles for my blog, and my team and I also create commercial blogs, such as the blog for MoySklad. If you need content marketing, for example, on Habr or vc.ru, contact Ryumin.

By Slava Riumin. Business blogs can be found at https://neploho.agency. I also run the blog “Fell, Got Up” at https://t.me/ruminblog.
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original text is here.

How one person’s ideas can destroy an entire city and strangle the auto industry throughout the country

…

Hey, it’s KOMREDA: Stories. We’re actually a content marketing agency, but we tell stories just for fun.

In 2013, Detroit was declared bankrupt with debts of $18.5 billion. It’s the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy.

Today in this article, we’ll tell you:

• how Henry Ford sent the wrong person to the USSR and thereby killed the entire automobile industry in the USA;
  .
• why all the problems stem from childhood;
  .
• why using sledgehammers and stickers against competitors is necessary.
  
  It’ll be packed, we promise.

The main culprit.

Meet Walter Reuther — the highest-paid mechanic at the Ford plant.

…

In the 1930s, Walter organized the UAW (The United Auto Workers) — a union for automobile industry workers, which ultimately contributed to Detroit’s downfall.

Why did Walter decide to help the workers?

From a young age, Walter and his brothers were instilled with ideas of equality, brotherhood, and a world of broad opportunities for everyone. Every Sunday, their father organized debates for his sons to reflect on social issues: yellow journalism, child labor, civil rights, and the rights of women and black people. Quote:

On my father's knees, we studied the philosophy of the labor movement. We are confronted every day with the struggles, hopes, and aspirations of the working class.

At the age of 19, Walter got a job at the Ford plant and quickly rose in his career and salary. When he was 21, Ford offered him and his brother Victor to go to the USSR for 3 years and teach Russians how to work. Ford had sold its automobile assembly line technology to the Soviet Union, and someone had to show them how to use it.

…

In the USSR, Walter was shocked. People worked in half-destroyed factories, lived in unheated barracks, ate poorly, while the management lived in luxury and didn’t care about any improvements in the factories. Walter even wrote letters to various committees and to the Moscow Daily News, an English-language socio-political newspaper, criticizing how the communists managed the factories.

Walter lasted in Russia for almost two years and snapped. He took his brother Victor, bicycles, and went on a tour. On bicycles. From Nizhny Novgorod to Japan. On bicycles! He said he wanted to see how people worked in other countries. The irresponsible Soviet people really got to him. By the way, before arriving in Nizhny Novgorod, the brothers also cycled all over Europe.

Later, Walter said that the trip taught him a lot. He said:

All people on earth crave simple things: jobs with certain guarantees, vast opportunities for their children, and, of course, freedom. We feel that we can contribute to the common cause and help American workers build strong and democratic unions. That's why we joined the labor movement.

Walter’s three-point plan to help American workers:

After returning from his journey to Detroit, Walter decided that if he wanted to help workers in the automobile industry, he needed to go after the top three fattest producers: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler.

He couldn’t do it alone, so he turned to his brother Roy.

…

Roy also felt deeply for American workers. By the time Walter approached him, Roy was already involved with unions himself, seeking to improve conditions in factories and bring back workers laid off during the Great Depression.

The brothers decided to form a workers’ union. That’s how UAW came into being, with nothing but good intentions. Later, however, all those intentions seemed to vanish somewhere, but more on that later.

Walter’s first strike

So, the target was the top. And Walter decided to start with “Ford”. But simply walking in and causing a stir wouldn’t cut it. So Walter decided to approach from the side — through the “Kelsey-Hayes” plant, which supplied “Ford” with brakes and wheels.

…

Walter learned that “Kelsey-Hayes” wanted to speed up production. And at this plant, workers already occasionally lost fingers, limbs, and sometimes even their lives. They complained that it was difficult to keep up with the constantly increasing production speed. That was the reason for the strike.

Walter sat the workers down. Literally. The workers refused to get up and leave until management spoke with Walter, their representative. Management attempted to enter the plant and remove equipment, but thousands of sympathizers blocked the passage from the outside of the plant.

A strike is the conveyor’s worst nightmare. Everything that goes down the line is products from other productions, where similar conveyors work. And if assembly stops, for example, wheels, then the entire production stops: cars will only be assembled up to the “inserting wheels” stage. And then nothing. There will be no cars, sales will collapse, dealers won’t get goods, managers won’t earn from sales, customers will turn to competitors, and the brand’s reputation will plummet.

…

A halt in the conveyor, even in one spot, immediately disrupts the entire production system. Restoring the operation of all companies requires a lot of time and money.

Let’s remind ourselves that “Kelsey-Hayes” supplied brakes and wheels to “Ford” — a major client that they didn’t want to lose. Therefore, the strike only lasted for 10 days. “Kelsey-Hayes” agreed to slow down production and provide equal pay for women. Additionally, UAW prohibited the company from firing workers who join the union.

Even if these workers were slacking off, drinking, and not showing up to the plant — to fire them, permission from UAW was required.

So now only Walter could decide who to fire and who not to.

After this event, everyone learned about UAW. 200 union members turned into several thousand. And Walter went to other plants to organize even more strikes.

Strike in Flint

When Roy and Victor learned about the victory, they immediately drove to Flint, a suburb of Detroit. And exactly one week after the end of the strike at “Kelsey-Hayes”, they sat down the workers of “General Motors”. It was December 31st.

The workers declared that they would celebrate the New Year at the plant and would sit for as long as necessary until the management made concessions and joined UAW, which had previously saved the workers of “Kelsey-Hayes”.

…

At that time, “General Motors” was the largest automotive corporation in the world, so they could withstand the strike. The management waved off the workers and cut off electricity and heating at the plant. They said, “If you’re going to act up, then so will we.” The workers were freezing, but they didn’t leave the plant.

A few days later, the whole country decided to support the guys from Flint, and sit-down strikes spread across the states.

The police came to the plant in Flint, trying to negotiate. Negotiations were conducted with tear gas and bullets. Meanwhile, Victor drove around in a car, shouting through a megaphone, urging the workers to resist. The workers sprayed the police with water from fire hoses. The temperature outside was -8°C.

The state governor sent 2,000 people from the National Guard. He didn't want to remove the workers from the plant, but to ensure safety.

…

General Motors owned the only plant in the country that produced engines for Chevrolet — their biggest client, from which the main income came. And when this plant also sat down, General Motors surrendered and signed a contract with UAW. The strike in Flint ended 44 days after it began.

Quote from Brother Walter about the Flint strike:

When the guys walked out of the plant, I had never seen such a night, and I probably never will. It was as if the whole country had gained independence, families were reunited for the first time since the start of the strike, children ran into their fathers' arms with tears in their eyes. It was a sea of humanity, where workers no longer felt fear.

A month later, 60,000 Chrysler employees were sitting on the floor. The strike lasted for four weeks. And they too signed a contract with UAW. Two out of three were wearing hats.

The ‘genius’ plan for Uncle Ford

The only one who understood what was going on was Henry Ford. He was against unions. To prevent workers from joining them, he empowered his security guards to roam the factories and ‘physically punish’ anyone who mentioned their rights or joining the UAW. This happened rarely because Ford’s workers labored at the most comfortable plant in Detroit and earned three to five times more than others. Therefore, they valued their jobs and understood that if they acted up, they would be fired. And somewhere else would be much worse, and even the UAW wouldn’t help.

Walter understood that everything was very well organized at Ford’s factories. And there was also a mini-army of three thousand security guards. It wouldn’t be possible to just storm the factory and cause a commotion. A plan was needed.

Two months after the strike at Chrysler, Walter invited friends and journalists to the Ford factory. There he simply handed out leaflets and called on them to join the happy 300,000 workers from other plants.

…

Ford’s security guards didn’t bother Walter and his company. So what if they were handing out leaflets? Nothing else happened—workers just took the papers and went back to work.

Movement was needed—Walter took two more UAW leaders and tried to force their way through the gate to get onto the factory grounds. But this couldn’t be done. Handing out leaflets was questionable, but okay. But no one invited him onto the actual premises.

For attempting to enter without an invitation, Ford’s security guards roughed up Walter and his friend, leaving them with bloody faces.

…

Walter Reuther (left) and Richard Frankensteen (right, also from the top of UAW). As you can see, Richard got much worse, but the press only wrote about Walter.

In essence, Walter just got his nose broken a bit, but the press really tried hard and solidified Walter’s title as the man who fights for workers’ rights to the last drop of blood.

The press started going all out against Henry Ford. Earlier, in 1932, there was the Hunger March—a procession of 5,000 people, which the headlines dubbed as the “Ford Massacre.” The press wrote then that the Hunger March started peacefully, but when the procession approached the Ford plant, they were met with clubs and bullets. Five workers died. Henry Ford took a beating from the press back then.

…

Walter got it from the security guards in 1938. Only six years had passed—the hunger march was still fresh in memory, and Ford was attacking people again. It didn’t matter that UAW provoked it themselves. So Walter’s broken nose was carried like a red flag. They wrote something like, “Workers of all countries, unite, or Ford will do the same to you.”

Ford tried to defend himself however he could. Four years after the provocation, he also accepted UAW’s conditions.

First closed plant in Detroit

UAW brought down the biggest manufacturers and gradually began to control smaller factories.

While the big three could withstand strikes because they could compete and make money selling cars, Packard couldn’t. First, UAW shut down several factories supplying parts to Packard, and then the Packard workers themselves went on strike. As a result, the factory closed in 1958, leaving 40 thousand workers jobless.

…

The factory still looks like this to this day. It’s gradually being demolished, but not very actively.

The building in the city center has turned into a huge abandoned area, attracting all the “undesirable” population of the city.

It can be said that the closure of "Packard" became a symbol of the impending collapse.

After the factory closure, those left without jobs began to leave the city abruptly. Only those who were extremely impoverished remained—mostly African Americans. With no work available, the situation worsened with the presence of white-hooded figures exacerbating tensions. Street protests, riots, police sirens, and increased military presence became more frequent for safety measures.

…

The final nails in Detroit’s coffin came from the Germans, the Japanese, and the UAW

Factories were slowing down, workers were being laid off, but some still remained. They had to work, they had to earn money. But in the 1950s, car sales suddenly plummeted, not because people lacked money, but because foreign cars appeared in the States, and manufacturers faced competition from other countries for the first time.

The first foreign car for Americans was the Volkswagen Beetle. It was several times cheaper and consumed less fuel. Americans saw the tremendous demand for the Beetle and tried to compete somehow. But the workers, who couldn’t be fired, didn’t care about the quality of their work, and unreliable and crooked cars often came out from under their hands. The cost of maintaining an American car skyrocketed—cars cost tens of thousands of dollars, consumed 6 gallons per hundred miles, often broke down, and parts were also expensive, not to mention that fuel prices went up.

…

People wanted cheap ordinary cars. The American automotive industry understood that it needed to change. But UAW hung over them and prohibited doing anything that could negatively affect the workers’ comfort, even if it meant preserving the industry.

And they couldn't care less that without the industry, there would be no workers, no Detroit, and no UAW itself.

Manufacturers tried to beg UAW for permission to restructure the assembly lines, production, and come up with new cars. But UAW refused and decided to be cunning. They engaged in propaganda to turn the population against foreign competitors. For instance, they bought Japanese cars, displayed them in public squares, and handed out sledgehammers to passersby. Yes, you read that right. To smash the cars.

…

People fell for the propaganda. And smashing cars didn’t just happen in public squares. It became normal to wake up in the morning and find out that your Japanese car had been stolen, vandalized, or set on fire. Not because you were a bad person, but because you bought the wrong car.

Laid-off factory workers were told that it was all the fault of the Japanese. They came and disrupted the American economy, rather than acknowledging that there were no jobs because UAW prohibited anything that could compete in the market, like reconfiguring assembly lines.

UAW members were even given bumper stickers reminding them of Pearl Harbour…

…

“Those same people who brought you Pearl Harbor brought you this. Be an American — buy American.”

And here it is, a little more minimalist:

…

Germans and Japanese were capturing the market so quickly that at some point even the American government stepped in. They issued a decree that reduced the volume of imported foreign cars. Upon seeing this, Honda and Toyota… built their own factory near Detroit. And UAW couldn’t infiltrate there because the factory operated under Japanese conditions, and union rules didn’t apply to them.

Manufacturers couldn't do anything against their competitors. They missed the market, and UAW didn't give them the opportunity to recover.

Workers didn’t want to work, UAW prevented restructuring of production and reallocating resources, car sales were weak, and automakers were running out of money. Factories were closing, jobs were being cut.

The city saw more and more abandoned buildings and closed businesses (not just automotive ones). The number of unemployed people was also increasing, and criminal gangs and drug trafficking were on the rise. Those who couldn’t leave had to find a way to live and make money.

…

Mostly marginalised and predominantly African American population remained in the city, organizing gangs. In the 70s, they almost entirely controlled local drug trafficking, which was growing due to heroin and cocaine epidemics. The city was then dubbed the murder and violence capital. This destroyed urban tourism, and other countries even issued warnings about Detroit for travelers. There could be no talk of reviving the status of the automotive industry king.

Frequent strikes shook protest sentiments among people. They were used to achieving their goals through undemocratic methods. Perhaps if it weren’t for this, Detroit would be different now.

And now Detroit is like this: life exists only in the downtown area. Buildings are being rebuilt there, cultural people are being attracted to turn the city into an art capital, and many sports competitions are being held, attended by tens of thousands of people. But the population talks about Detroit as if all the rebuilt and entertaining aspects are just facades for the sake of facades, and in essence, the government is not doing much to bring the city into order.

…

Beyond downtown, almost no one lives there; everything is destroyed, abandoned, and looks grim. There are areas where even the police don’t go. Ordinary people carry weapons in their pockets because they fear for their lives.

In the 1950s, the best time for Detroit, almost 2 million people lived in the city. After the Packard plant closed, people started leaving, and the population was decreasing every year. Now only 630,000 people remain in Detroit.

Bottom line

The main reason for the decline of Detroit is usually attributed to the UAW and Walter Reuther. If we judge Walter based on what we’ve written above, then his activities raise questions in some places. But what doesn’t raise questions?

• He devised a plan for Roosevelt to produce 500 aircraft per day through automobile factories, thus aiding in World War II.

• He persuaded Kennedy to create an organization that would later become the Peace Corps.

• He assisted Martin Luther King Jr. in marches against racism and spoke alongside him at the same microphone.

• He discussed civil rights legislation with Kennedy.

• He donated $50,000 from the UAW to striking sanitation workers, which was the largest financial contribution from any external source.

• He established the Department of Conservation and promoted environmental ideas, urging the purification of water, air, landfills, and slums, and advocated for creating “a common habitat worthy of free people.”

• He funded the first Earth Day, printed and distributed all necessary materials, and mobilized UAW members to participate in public demonstrations across the country.

…

And here’s another ambiguous fact: Walter, while advocating for workers’ rights, doesn’t seem to have been a communist because he fought against communist views within the UAW and expelled openly communist members from there. He even met with Khrushchev to discuss the fight against communism.

But! Despite this, Walter was constantly accused of being a communist, and there is evidence of his close friendly and financial ties with the Communist Party USA, which supported all of his activities and openly declared it. Walter vehemently denied his connections, but he began to deny them only when communists in the United States became sharply disliked.

That’s Walter Reuther for you. But you can draw your own conclusions

If you liked the text, you can order one for your company.

At KOMREDA Agency, we create blogs, media content, special projects, social media content, and much more. And in our Telegram channel, we share tips on building profitable content marketing strategies.

By COMREDA: Explore business, marketing, scandals, intrigues, and investigations through the lens of the content marketing agency project KOMREDA: https://komreda.ru/
The text is published with the permission of COMREDA.
The original text is here.

By Yaroslav Radinsky
CEO at RASA.pro tg – @radinskiy
The text is published with the permission of the author.
Link to original text is here.

I’ll tell you why we hired such an employee and what came out of it. About the battle with headhunters, resourceful pimps, and unconventional team-building.

..

In the photo: Kristina Kukhtina. Photographer – Evgeny Pyankov.

My name is Yaroslav, and I am the CEO of the digital agency RASA based in Khabarovsk/Russia. We specialize in creating websites, applications, configuring CRM, and advertising promotion in the Russian Far East.

How we looked for a Go-go dancer or stunt marketing in IT industry

Recently, on a hiring platform, we posted a job opening for a GO-GO dancer for our agency.

The idea behind hiring an employee for this position was to bring fresh perspectives and approaches to our work, regularly boosting the team’s motivation. The concept is undoubtedly innovative, but we are also a company with a young and dynamic team.

…

Everyone would have benefited from this idea:

For our designers and UX researchers, it would be an unconventional source of inspiration for new solutions. For developers, a wonderful assistant in tackling complex code and a means of relaxation after a challenging workday. One of the requirements for the job was an understanding of code terminology and the ability to visually interpret it.

And for the team as a whole, this person would be a friendly partner, the office mascot, and someone who makes you want to stay at your workplace longer and even invite friends to work – a dream scenario from any manager’s perspective. Moreover, the art of dance itself is an underestimated tool for work, especially in the form of contemporary dance.

…

“I imagined working in IT differently.”

One of the main values of our team is caring for each other. Both programmers and all employees, in general, can get tired or even experience burnout, which inevitably affects work processes and potentially the team spirit. Therefore, relaxation and recreation are no less of a priority for us than the work itself.

Previously, RASA had unconventional specialists visit the office, such as a breathing techniques coach. As a team, we gathered in our relaxation room in the morning, turned off the lights, and practiced proper breathing in complete darkness to set the soul and body for a productive and energetic day, charged with positive energy. We also had a yoga instructor come to help unlock the team’s full potential through practices and, quite simply, strengthen team building.

…

From time to time, as a team, we play poker, board games, and have a regular tradition of movie nights (usually on Friday evenings, but sometimes on Thursday or Wednesday). The team even votes on the movie they’ll watch. We have a ping pong table in the office where you can hit some balls during lunch, although this is hardly surprising to anyone. Also, every Friday at 5:30 PM, we have a meetup where the team shares experiences on productivity, work, and ways to improve their lives inside and outside the office.

In our understanding, it is crucial to see employees not just as workers but as a real team, where human needs are valued alongside their experience and skills. This requires time, organization, and money, but it makes us who we are.

And in our view, having a resident GO-GO dancer is one way to support the established corporate culture. At the beginning of the year, I provided details about what our team does outside of work and why the agency means much more to the team than just a workplace.

…

What keeps young talents in the Far East?
The edge of the world, low salaries, and what is there to find at all—this is roughly what people from the central part of Russia think when it comes to us. Using the example of employees in a digital agency, let’s explore why skilled professionals choose to stay here and not move to larger cities.

But let’s get back to the job opening: after its publication, some time passed, and for some reason, local media and public groups started writing about it. Then, my colleagues and acquaintances noticed it. I received messages in private and via email with content along the following lines.

This is genius!

Is everything okay there?

Should I break into IT?

To be honest, I was a bit surprised by such a resonance: a regular job opening meant to address production tasks suddenly became news and quickly left Khabarovsk, making its way into larger media outlets.

Publications in local media and not only about our vacancy.

I was even invited to the radio, and Moscow-based news portals reached out for interviews to have me share more details. Well, it’s time to share them with you too.

PR campaign

Or, damn it, fake news.
I suppose you’ve already grasped that our job opening is an atypical PR campaign, which, to my delight, worked out as planned.

The idea struck me on December 14th. It didn’t happen spontaneously; I was exploring ways to advertise our agency. It’s always a significant budget and a major hassle for companies like ours. After all, we operate in the performance marketing sphere, where everything is measured in quantitative terms: we attracted so many leads, brought in so many clients, reduced the number of abandoned carts, sold 250 million worth in a month, and so on. And all agencies say the same thing: that they deliver many results for little money.

…

At this point, a thought occurred to me: advertising is like buying love. Today you pay, and everyone wants you, but tomorrow the budget is gone, and you find yourself somewhere behind the scenes.

Then I remembered that besides advertising, there’s PR.
But I’m not familiar with it, and it’s not my strong suit. I’ve never been a journalist, a professional creator, or someone who knows how to create news hooks (or maybe I’m too self-critical). I always thought that the ideas that came to me were too straightforward, not very useful, and not worth trying to unfold. But that evening, I wanted to test a hypothesis that seemed quite unconventional.

News also appeared in Telegram groups.

Of course, I’m talking about the vacancy with the dancer.
I was dealing with the routine: browsing through job listings on HeadHunter and working on recruitment – currently, we’re in search of an HR manager, so I’m handling personnel matters for now. While reviewing profiles of analysts, programmers, and HR professionals, I suddenly felt the urge to see someone extraordinary, a specialist that no other company has.

And why not a dancer?

I immediately envisioned the reaction of those around to such a prank. Here’s an IT company, and they’re looking for a GO-GO specialist, and it’s definitely not about the Go programming language. Any regional media outlet would pay attention to this – and where there’s resonance in regional media, the news quickly spreads further, across the entire internet.

Many might believe that IT professionals have become so spoiled that they don’t know how to indulge themselves anymore (which, in reality, doesn’t resemble the truth anymore, but who needs this dull reality?). Plus, when there’s a component of sex and cheekiness in PR, it only amplifies its effect. The idea seemed good to me, with a budget of only 1400 rubles (the cost of posting the vacancy), and I decided to take the risk.

…

But first, I sought advice from someone who deals with similar creative things – it was interesting to hear an opinion from an outsider’s perspective.

Testing is necessary. But, unfortunately, I didn’t come up with this.

On the other end of the line.

I took a deep breath, posted the job opening, and then sent it to a couple of acquaintances for them to check it out.

A few hours later, I saw a post about the vacancy in a regional community on social media. After that, information started coming in that the link to it was circulating in chats among employees of IT companies, various banks, 2GIS offices, and so on. My inbox quickly filled with messages from many of my colleagues and acquaintances.

…

Some expressed respect for excellent PR, while others didn't quite catch on and wrote that it was a very bold job opening.

In connection with this, quite a few people wanted to join the commission for selecting the new employee.

Responses to the vacancy on HeadHunter spiked sharply. However, 80% were, of course, programmers who wrote that our company is solid, and they wished to join us in the office. Yet, among the responses, there were also very relevant ones, especially from the local community: one girl prepared a resume very well, and it was evident that it was crafted directly in line with the job requirements.

…

From the resume for the position of Go-Go dancer in the IT team: “I inspire people, charge them with joy, I play the crocodile well.”

Moreover, an enterprising individual named Artem (originally from Komsomolsk-on-Amur) contacted me, proposing to regularly supply girls for a percentage. He even sent their profiles with photos and videos – the guy was geared towards establishing serious business relations. I assume he still hasn’t quite grasped the essence of our initiative.

…

Of course, very few channels and media outlets explicitly mentioned the name of our agency. However, the address (Dzerzhinskogo 52) was visible in the vacancy screenshots, and the city was always specified, which contributed to the success of our PR campaign. The screenshots spread across a vast number of chats, channels, and communities, and people started googling to find out more about this company.

Without exaggeration, our website traffic increased approximately 50 times. We started receiving kind and warm letters of respect from literally everywhere, even from CIS countries. Some simply wrote “you guys are awesome,” while others said that we created the perfect festive atmosphere.

Cover letter: “I don’t know what your plan is, but you definitely created a festive atmosphere in the office.”

Cover letter: “Brilliant! We need to put this idea into circulation!”

Cover letter: “With dancing code and fun!”

It wasn’t without its challenges, either.

And problems did arise with the HeadHunter website – our vacancy started getting blocked. When a significant traffic influx hit the job opening (this happened on the 19th, a Tuesday), HH algorithms likely perceived it as a DDoS attack or some bot influx, so they took the vacancy down from publication. No money was deducted in the process.

The problem was not too complicated to solve – I simply clicked the “repost” button, and the vacancy returned to its place. However, on Thursday, the vacancy was blocked again, and the HH support team contacted me – they demanded the complete removal of the job opening from the site, referring to clauses in the agreement stating the inadmissibility of content that could harm the site’s reputation.

…

In other words, you can search for real striptease dancers from strip clubs on HH, but not for an IT company.

I disagreed with HH’s position: we didn’t violate any platform rules, and such a vacancy only benefited everyone in terms of traffic. So, I suggested having a call to settle this misunderstanding. Within half an hour, I received a call from technical support. Not from the PR department, not from the marketing department, but specifically from technical support, where people work strictly according to scripts. I’m not here to speak negatively about the support service, but our dialogue kept hitting the same script: they claimed that the publication could harm the project’s reputation, and I asked to connect me with the PR or marketing departments for further discussion.

When the conversation reached a complete deadlock, they told me that two complaints had been filed against our job opening.

I asked for clarification: two hundred or two thousand?
They replied: just two.

…

So, at that moment, out of approximately 50,000 people who viewed the job opening, two individuals clicked the “report” button, which became one of the main reasons for the blockage. We tried to resolve this issue, but in the pre-New Year rush, with a million other things to handle, it was too cumbersome.

However, in all other aspects, our prank was a success.
The team in the office received a boost of positivity right up to the holidays, and we gained a better understanding of the power of PR.

In the end

We spent 1400 rubles for the publication on HeadHunter, and that was the entire budget.

About 20 million users saw the news about the vacancy (based on rough and superficial calculations of public reach. Unfortunately, we couldn’t count the statistics for corporate chats).

Responses to our other vacancies significantly increased – more than 200 came in. After the New Year, some of these individuals will start working with us once we find an HR manager.

Khabarovsk is once again making waves in creativity and PR – and it’s delightful. Most importantly, many truly believed in the reality of what was happening: both IT professionals, the audience, and even journalists.

…

So, when people say that there is no life, creativity, or creative individuals on the Far East, it sounds at least strange to me. We saw, through a simple example, how interesting the PR tool can be, and I think we’ll implement something new in the near future (I’m not selling PR courses yet, but if anyone is interested, write to me on Telegram

P.S. While writing this article, my colleagues managed to convince me of something, and after the New Year, we will indeed invite a Go-Go dancer to the office. But I’ll write about that next year (and possibly even add a video).

Greetings from frosty Khabarovsk,
Yaroslav Radinskiy, RASA.

…

Happy New Year everyone!

By Yaroslav Radinsky
CEO at RASA.pro tg – @radinskiy
The text is published with the permission of the author.
Link to original text is here.

Finder.work has collected unusual solutions from around the world.

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Sima Land office space

The office of the Russian online store Sima-Land features golden plasterwork, large chandeliers, paintings in ornate frames, and intricately painted ceilings. What do you think?

…

Inventionland

A design studio from Pittsburgh is experimenting with its 6,500 square meter office space. The decor includes pirate ships, race tracks, artificial caves, castles, and much more. Instead of being ordinary employees, Inventionland staff refer to themselves as ‘creativists’ and wear lab coats.

…

Pons and Huot

The architectural firm Christian Pottgiesser has designed an office for two French companies, Pons and Huot. The space resembles a greenhouse and accommodates no more than 20 people. Each workstation is separated from its surroundings by its own transparent dome!

…

Selgas Cano

The Spanish firm Selgas Cano created its office with a simple desire to work close to nature. The space is located in a forest near Madrid. Ventilation is regulated using a pulley mechanism.

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Palotta Teamworks

The workspace, named ‘Apostrophe,’ is situated inside a large warehouse with containers.

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Pionen — White Mountain

The office of a Swedish internet provider is located in a Cold War-era bomb shelter. The space is situated 30 meters below the granite cliffs of Vita Berg Park in Stockholm.

…

Nykredit

The meeting rooms of a Danish bank are suspended above the atrium of a business center.

…

By Finder.work
https://finder.work – a service for finding vacancies and employees for remote work.
Our telegram channel https://t.me/theyseeku

Copywriting: We make cool projects, but the cases turn out dull. What is the problem? 

I'm telling you about 8 reasons why it's challenging to showcase how truly cool and professional you are in stories about work.

Hello! My name is Pasha Molyanov, and I lead the content agency “Sdelaem” (“Let’s Do It”)

If I had to choose just one format from all of content marketing, I would choose case studies. Because in them, you have everything: showcasing results, telling the story of the work process, demonstrating your expertise, and illustrating how a product can be based on the client’s task.

…

But I know that many struggle to streamline case study production because they turn out differently than expected. At first, it seems like each case will be a significant event and lead to a bunch of clients, but in reality, they end up as a small splash with zero comments.

Here are the most common problems with case studies that prevent them from succeeding ↓

Issue #1. Inflated Expectations from Case Studies

Perhaps, cases may only seem unsuccessful because too much is expected from them: likes, comments, tens of thousands of views, and a flow of service inquiries on top. While such cases do exist, they are genuine gems, like this case.

Most cases, however, are workhorses that don’t break the internet. For instance, with “Bathyscaphe,” we wrote a case about tax optimisation. The article got 3200 views, which isn’t a lot. Yet, it brought in four clients.

Another essential function of cases is to be in the right place at the right time:

• A client chooses between two companies and prefers the one that published a case on dealing with their specific task and industry.
  .
• During negotiations, a client doubts whether their task can be solved, and the seller immediately shows them a relevant case.
  .
• A client visits the website, sees 150 successful cases, and the mere presence and quantity add a plus to the trust in the company.

In these cases, it’s not even about popularity at the level of 3200 views, but cases fulfil their purpose.

…

All else being equal, cases always lose in popularity to guides, explanations, analytics, reviews, sketches, and storytelling. If one case out of ten takes off, that's already impressive. The purpose of cases is different: to demonstrate how you work with a specific user scenario.

Issue #2. Lack of Interesting Texture

A qualitatively executed project can be downright uninteresting. For example, our agency writes articles for clients on VC. The vast majority of such projects follow the same script: the editor communicates with the client, selects a few topics for articles, chooses one with the client, conducts an interview based on it, writes and approves the text, and then publishes it: done.

Often, advice on writing cases includes suggestions like: “Tell about unexpected situations! How you dealt with things not going as planned! How you made mistakes! How you made a difficult choice!”

I completely agree with this, but what if there isn’t any of that? Make things up? We approached the client call with trepidation: we had to choose three out of five approaches for the article. Those very three approaches that would determine the fate of the entire advertising campaign in PromoPages!

The copywriter is giving birth to an intriguing and epic approach to one more copy about setting up advertising in Telegram Advertising.

…

Even for “ordinary” projects, cases are necessary. I am generally an advocate of having a case for every project. However, they can be released in a light version: simply showcasing the results of the work.

“An article in the media about how to save money on preparing advertising content.”

And we don’t have to struggle, and the client will see: here’s the article, it’s interesting to read, the views are good. So, these guys are great, we can turn to them.

Issue #3. Project authors don’t want to deal with case studies.

In publishing cases, two people are most interested: the owner who needs cases to attract clients and the copywriter who is paid for their production.

For everyone else, it’s task number 100500.

The problem is that neither the owner nor even the copywriter can write the case on their own. It’s crucial to have the person (or persons, compounding the problem) who worked on the project.

This person is usually busy working on another project. To write a case, they need to recall the course of the previous project, gather materials, give an interview to the copywriter, and approve the text before publication. It’s a big task, and that’s why cases get stuck. The copywriter hangs around, is treated to breakfasts, and when those stop, they get a “quick” interview.

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Employee to copywriter: “Let’s write a case.”

I haven’t come up with an elegant way to solve this problem yet. There’s only one that works with a script, but at least it works.

To address this issue:

1. Incorporate case creation into the employee job responsibilities. Make it so that saying “It’s not my job” is not an option.
   .
2. Devise clear motivation for the team. In our “Let’s Do It” agency, editors receive a fee for cases. “Non-Boring Finances” shared that producing a certain number of cases is a condition for moving to the next grade.
   .
3. Assign someone responsible for cases. Have a person who will push everyone. It’s crucial that this person can’t be told, “Let’s do it sometime later,” “I don’t want my case published,” “I’ll send the screenshots in 4 weeks,” or just be ignored. In our case, it’s the marketing director handling this. Hopefully, he can delegate it =)

Issue #4. The copywriter is not familiar with the subject matter.

When the project is excellent, the expert has provided interesting insights, and the case should turn out fantastic—yet the outcome is something crumpled and amateurish, with oversights and even factual errors—it’s often because the copywriter is not familiar with the subject.

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This can happen when a copywriter is just starting to work with a new topic they are not acquainted with. The key is not to write off the copywriter as soon as you get the first “amateurish” case. Accept that the first five to ten cases may need extra effort: finding articulate experts, attending meetings with the copywriter, editing the cases several times, and providing materials for learning.

In the early stages, evaluate purely copywriting skills: structure, logic, formulations, visualization skills, and the ability to conduct interviews. Expertise will come later for such a copywriter if you help them immerse themselves in the subject, as it’s entirely new to them.

If you’re not ready for this, seek out copywriters with experience in your field. It’s challenging, but then the cases will be excellent right away.

Issue #5. Not a story but a collection of facts.

Even the most interesting project can turn into a dull, unreadable case if you simply bombard the reader with facts: conducted an audit, implemented one thing, fixed another thing, conducted a plan-fact analysis after a month, here are the results, thank you and goodbye.

In such cases, what’s lacking are the connections that bind the facts into a coherent story:

We began our work with diagnostics and noticed that one of the salespeople was experiencing a drop in conversion → Our task was to increase the conversion rate, but the company lacked detailed analytics. Without it, it was unclear what exactly to focus on. So, we started with diagnostics: for two weeks, we measured the results of the sales department as they were, without any changes. When we tallied the results, we saw that one of the salespeople was experiencing a drop in conversion.

…

To boost conversion, we developed an individual training program for the salesperson → Usually, conversion drops when the salesperson lacks knowledge about the product or doesn’t follow the sales process. To check this, we listened to dozens of calls by Ilya – but there was nothing significant there. However, we noticed his speaking style: calm, quiet, sometimes even monotonous.

To the project author, all these connections might seem obvious because they’re accustomed to making such decisions. However, for an outsider, these connections help in better understanding the situation, making it more enjoyable to read.

Moreover, notice how many interesting details have been added: you can see how the specialist reasons, relies on their experience, and finds solutions based on the situations. This is where expertise lies.

Issue #6. Lack of visualisation.

The text effectively conveys facts but struggles to create a mental image for the reader. As a result, cases with weak visuals become overly abstract.

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Header: “How did “PlanFact” solve the problem.”

Pointers: “How it looks in the service?”, “You can also show it.”, “How is this displayed?”

Did you set up an advertising campaign? Show the advertising creatives and placements where they were used.

…

Did you implement financial accounting? Take screenshots of the reports and show what familiar metrics look like in them.

…

Have you completed a long-term project and gradually achieved the desired results? Create a chart so that the dynamics can be seen at a glance.

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Have you built friendly relations with the client, surrounded them with love and care? Instead of directly talking about it, it’s better to insert screenshots of conversations into the narrative.

…

Issue #7. The case is about everything and nothing.

This happens when a comprehensive project is completed for a client or when there’s an extensive and long-lasting collaboration resulting in a multitude of accomplishments. It might seem logical to cover all these aspects in one case, but it often leads to a case that is either too lengthy or overly superficial.

It’s better to release multiple cases for one client: one focusing on cost optimization, another on the employee motivation system, and yet another on the financial planning system.

If it’s crucial to showcase the complexity of the services, these cases can be assembled into a mega-case. This is what we do with our most significant and prolonged projects: compile cases on one page and showcase them to potential clients when necessary.

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Issue #8. Cases are just sitting on the website.

If a company has many cases on its website, that’s already great. They will fulfill their basic purpose: a potential client visits the site and sees that the team is experienced and has already solved tasks similar to theirs. However, more can be done:

Announce the cases on your social media. Let the audience see that the company is not just talking about smart theories but is engaged in real and rigorous practice.

…

Create resized versions for social media. A detailed, lengthy case can be simplified to a 30-second read, increasing the likelihood of wider reach.

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Include cases in your warm-up email sequences. After all, what better way to warm up than with cases? Nothing beats it.

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Use cases everywhere in content marketing. Writing a helpful article? Support your points with practical stories. Need to provide an example in a webinar? Refer to one of your cases. Creating a collection of articles on a topic? Include cases in it as well.

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Integrate cases into the sales department. Encourage sales representatives to incorporate cases into their presentations, choose relevant cases before calling clients, refer to cases when making arguments, study user scenarios and the company’s methodology through cases. It’s frustrating when cases are produced, but the sales department isn’t actively leveraging them.

…

Several slides from our agency’s presentation.

I hope this article helps someone write cases more frequently and effectively. There’s also my personal interest in this because I always enjoy seeing a cool case somewhere on the internet =)

If you’re interested in the topic of content marketing, subscribe to my blog on Telegram → @molyanov

Every day, I share my experience in attracting clients through blogs, social media, and the press. I also talk about how I’m developing the “Sdelaem” (“Let’s Do It”) agency.

BY PAVEL MOLYANOV
I blog about content and marketing. 
I run a content marketing agency.

My eye twitched when I tried to find an apartment for my parents. No longer:
I have launched the HomeBro website, which searches for apartments on all the top real estate listing sites. All property offers on one map, plus notifications sent to Telegram.

Hi! My name is Lev. Four years ago, I created the HomeBro bot that searches for housing for free and sends you options directly to Telegram. I’ve rented an apartment in Moscow many times, and I desperately wanted to simplify this process. As a result, half a million people have already used the bot.

…

This time, I was helping my parents buy an apartment. And here I felt firsthand how our bot is not sufficient for the process of buying a property.

It was both amusing and bitter that as the founder of a housing search service, with access to a database of all property listings, I couldn’t conveniently explore it myself.

I wanted something simple. To not only receive new options in the bot but also to open a map and see everything available on the market. In the end, once again, like four years ago, I find myself opening websites one after another. I see the same thing 10 times in an attempt to find something new. In short, it’s a mess.

• I looked at 17 advertisements about this apartment.
  
  
• Did you find it without commission?

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HomeBro: And then, with the team, we created a real estate classifieds aggregator website.

Welcome to the HomeBro portal! Here, you’ll find all the latest listings from Cian, Domclick, Yandex.Real Estate, M2, Avito, and Samolet.Plus. And the list will continue to grow.

Currently, the site has over 1 million active listings, with 50 thousand new ones appearing every day.

You can already visit and search for housing for rent or purchase in 18 cities. It covers all Russian million-plus cities, including Sochi and Arkhangelsk – where one of our developers lives =)

And all this without duplicates. Well, almost =D Each housing option is shown only once.

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It’s interesting, will they provide a preferential IT mortgage for rental properties?

Also, our trained neural network (I wrote about it here) helps find an apartment without grandma’s renovation, closer to the park, or farther from the roads. Well, or you can deliberately look for a fixer-upper to buy cheaper and renovate.

Setting up notifications for all new listings can be done in two clicks (literally) by transitioning from the website to our bot.

Yes, did you make something really cool?

Hey, folks, the thing is working, but this is the very first version, commonly known as MVP.

We, with a very small team, have been building the portal since the beginning of the year; there are still some glitches. But there’s no point in hiding from people a service that, even in its current form, can bring real benefits.

…

A big thank you to everyone supporting us in our crowdfunding campaign; every ruble of yours is important to us. By the way, we almost didn’t promote it—mentioned it only in one article and did a one-time mailing in the bot. It triggered me when someone said, “You’re begging for money on VC.” As a result, we stopped writing about it. But I was wrong; haters gonna hate.

Welcome to all the found bugs. Visit the HomeBro website and don’t hesitate to say what you felt was lacking. I’ll be incredibly grateful for your comments.

By Lev Klebanov
I am developing a housing search service https://homebro.ru

The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original text is here.

Welcome to the heart of the Dominican Republic, where history and culture come alive through the vibrant celebration of the annual carnival on February 27th. As you embark on this journey, you’ll uncover the rich tapestry of Dominican history and traditions woven into this captivating event. Let’s delve into the intricacies of the Dominican carnival, providing you with the essential details to make your visit a seamless and unforgettable experience.

by the editor

1. Historical Roots of the Dominican Carnival

Origins: The roots of the Dominican carnival trace back to the 16th century when Spanish colonists, including Diego Columbus and his wife Maria de Toledo, introduced their Carnival traditions to the island. Over time, these festivities melded with African and indigenous Taino influences, giving rise to the unique Dominican carnival we see today.

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Significance: February 27th is a pivotal date in Dominican history, commemorating the nation’s declaration of independence from Haiti in 1844. Juan Pablo Duarte, a prominent figure in the Dominican independence movement, played a central role in proclaiming this independence. This declaration marked a defining moment in Dominican history, leading to the selection of the carnival as a commemorative event that symbolizes Dominican identity, unity, and resilience.

2. Preparation for the Carnival

Registration: To participate in the carnival, visit the local municipality offices or designated registration centers in the respective cities. In addition to Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, and La Vega, several other cities across the Dominican Republic host their own February 27th carnivals. For instance, in Santiago, registration takes place at the Santiago Municipal Hall (Ayuntamiento de Santiago) on Calle del Sol, while in Punta Cana, head to the Punta Cana Community Center (Centro Comunitario de Punta Cana) for registration.

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Accommodations: For the best experience, consider staying at accommodations strategically located for the carnival. In Puerto Plata, the Puerto Plata Beach Resort & Spa offers a beachfront setting at Playa Dorada. Santo Domingo boasts the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel & Casino in the city center, while La Vega offers the Gran Jimenoa Hotel in close proximity to the carnival festivities. Reservations should be made well in advance due to the event’s popularity.

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Local Organizers: Each location has its organizers who can provide you with precise information about schedules, parade routes, and additional details you may need during your visit:

• Puerto Plata: The Carnival Committee (Comité de Carnaval) in Puerto Plata is responsible for logistics and can assist with inquiries. You can contact the committee’s representative, Ms. Maria Rodriguez, the Media Relations Coordinator, at maria.rodriguez@carnavalpuertoplata.com. For more details, visit their official website.
  
• Santo Domingo: The Santo Domingo City Hall (Ayuntamiento del Distrito Nacional) plays a key role in coordinating the event in the capital city. Mr. Alejandro Gomez, the Media Liaison Officer, can assist with permits and media coordination. Reach out to him at alejandro.gomez@adn.gov.do. For additional information, visit their official website.
  
• La Vega: The Municipal Mayor’s Office (Alcaldía Municipal) is the central authority overseeing the carnival in La Vega. Ms. Laura Fernandez, the Public Relations Manager, manages media permits and logistics. You can contact her at laura.fernandez@alcaldialavega.com. Explore their official website for further details.
  
• Santiago: In Santiago, the carnival is organized by the Santiago Municipal Hall (Ayuntamiento de Santiago). For inquiries and assistance, you can contact the representative, Mr. Carlos Ramirez, the Event Coordinator, at carlos.ramirez@santiago.gov.do. Visit their official website for more information.
  
• Punta Cana: The Punta Cana Community Center (Centro Comunitario de Punta Cana) oversees the carnival in Punta Cana. For details and assistance, reach out to Mr. Rafael Martinez, the Carnival Coordinator, at rafael.martinez@puntacana.com. Explore their official website for additional information.

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3. The Spectacular Costumes and Characters

As you wander through the carnival, your senses will be captivated by a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, and characters:

Characters: The Diablos Cojuelos, Lechones, Roba la Gallina, Califé, and Guloyas are among the captivating characters you’ll encounter.

• Diablos Cojuelos: These characters, inspired by Spanish conquistadors, wear colorful masks and costumes, often with exaggerated features. They move in a limping, comical manner, portraying the conquistadors’ arrogance. Learn more about them here.
  
• Lechones: Lechones, or Piggy Men, are known for their masks resembling pigs and their mischievous behavior. They symbolize the blending of African and Taino cultures with Spanish influences. Discover their significance here.
  
• Roba la Gallina: Roba la Gallina, meaning “steal the chicken,” are known for their playful antics and elaborate disguises. They represent the idea of thievery and mischief. Explore their role here.
  
• Califé: Califé is a character adorned in vibrant attire, symbolizing the blending of African and Spanish influences. They move gracefully and are associated with elegance and sophistication. Learn more about Califé here.
  
• Guloyas: Guloyas are characterized by their colorful attire and energetic dancing. They represent the joy and vitality of Dominican culture. Discover the Guloyas’ significance here.

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4. The Unique Dominican Carnival

The Dominican carnival stands apart from its global counterparts due to its fusion of Spanish, African, and Taino influences:

Cultural Fusion: It signifies not just a day of festivity but a profound statement of Dominican heritage. The decision to celebrate in this manner underscores the nation’s pride in its diverse cultural tapestry and its commitment to preserving historical significance.

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5. The February 27th Festivities

On the grand day itself, the Dominican carnival bursts into a jubilant display of national identity and unity:

Parades and Celebrations: Morning parades set the stage with pulsating music, dazzling costumes, rhythmic dances, and culminate in an evening of fireworks. This collective celebration is an embodiment of national identity and unity, rooted in historical significance.

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6. Duration and Locations

The Dominican carnival is not confined to one locale. Celebrations span the nation, from the bustling capital of Santo Domingo to the picturesque coastal town of La Vega:

• Santo Domingo: The carnival kicks off on February 20th and continues through February 27th.
  
• La Vega: The La Vega carnival commences on February 18th and concludes on February 27th.
  
• Santiago: Santiago’s celebration begins on February 20th and ends on February 27th.
  
• Punta Cana: The Punta Cana carnival starts on February 23rd and wraps up on February 27th.

Diverse Celebrations: Each region offers its interpretation of the carnival, rooted in its unique history and cultural influences.

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7. Differences in Carnival Celebrations

As you explore various cities’ carnival celebrations, you’ll notice distinct differences that stem from the diversity of nationalities and cultural influences:

• Santo Domingo: The capital city’s carnival features grandiose parades with a strong Spanish influence, emphasizing elaborate costumes and choreography. It’s a lively and spirited celebration of Dominican heritage.
  
• La Vega: La Vega’s carnival incorporates a significant African influence, with the Diablos Cojuelos taking center stage. These characters, with their vibrant and intricate masks, pay homage to the African roots of Dominican culture.
  
• Santiago: Santiago’s carnival reflects the region’s diverse population. You’ll experience a fusion of Spanish, African, and Taino traditions, creating a unique and harmonious blend of cultural elements.
  
• Punta Cana: In Punta Cana, the carnival showcases a more international flair, catering to the diverse mix of tourists who visit the region. You’ll find a fusion of Dominican and international influences, making it a truly cosmopolitan celebration.

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These differences are a testament to the richness of Dominican culture and the diverse backgrounds of its people, highlighting the country’s vibrant history.

8. Ideal Days for Tourists

For those contemplating a visit, consider arriving in the days leading up to February 27th:

Prime Timing: This timing allows you to immerse yourself in the anticipation and culminate your experience with the grand celebration of independence. Witnessing the Dominican carnival on this historic date adds a layer of historical depth to your journey.

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9. Accessing the Carnivals

Accessing the Dominican carnivals is made convenient by well-connected transportation options. Here’s how to reach the carnival cities from the main airports of the Dominican Republic:

Santo Domingo (Las Américas International Airport – SDQ): The capital city of Santo Domingo hosts one of the most prominent carnivals. From Las Américas International Airport, you can take a taxi or use ride-sharing services like Uber to reach the city center. Alternatively, Caribe Tours and Expresso Bavaro offer reliable bus services connecting the airport to the city. It’s advisable to book your transportation in advance, and you can check their timetables on their respective websites.

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Puerto Plata (Gregorio Luperón International Airport – POP): If you plan to attend the carnival in Puerto Plata, taxis, Uber, and shuttle services are available at Gregorio Luperón International Airport. Caribe Tours also offers bus services connecting the airport to Puerto Plata. For flexibility, consider renting a car, but make sure to book it ahead of time, especially during the carnival season.

Punta Cana (Punta Cana International Airport – PUJ): Punta Cana hosts its carnival with a cosmopolitan flair. Upon arrival at Punta Cana International Airport, taxis, Uber, and shuttle services can take you to the carnival location. Caribe Tours operates intercity buses, providing a convenient option for travelers. Renting a car is another choice, but be sure to secure your booking in advance.

Santiago (Cibao International Airport – STI): Santiago’s carnival offers a unique blend of traditions. From Cibao International Airport, you can hire a taxi or use Uber to reach the city center. Caribe Tours provides bus services connecting the airport to Santiago. For added comfort, consider booking a shuttle service. Renting a car is an option, and it’s advisable to do so well before the carnival events.

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Booking Flights: To secure the best airfare, it’s recommended to book your flights several months in advance, ideally 2-3 months before the carnival events. This ensures availability and better pricing for your travel dates.

As you plan your visit, remember to check the timetables of transportation services, especially bus companies like Caribe Tours and Expresso Bavaro, to align your travel with the carnival schedule. With these transportation options and timely flight bookings, you can navigate your way to the Dominican carnivals with ease and enjoy the festivities to the fullest.

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10. Media’s Gaze on the Carnival

For those interested in documenting the carnival:

Media Coverage Process: To ensure a smooth and legitimate documentation process, you will need to obtain the necessary permits from the Dominican organizers. The key contact person for media inquiries and permits in Puerto Plata is Ms. Maria Rodriguez, the Media Relations Coordinator of the Puerto Plata Carnival Committee. You can reach her at maria.rodriguez@carnavalpuertoplata.com. Visit the official website for additional information.

In Santo Domingo, Mr. Alejandro Gomez, the Media Liaison Officer at the Santo Domingo City Hall, is the go-to person for permits and media coordination. You can contact him at alejandro.gomez@adn.gov.do. Explore their official website for more details.

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For La Vega, Ms. Laura Fernandez, the Public Relations Manager at the Municipal Mayor’s Office, oversees media permits and logistics. She can be reached at laura.fernandez@alcaldialavega.com. Discover further information on their official website.

Permit Application Process: The process involves submitting a formal request for media permits, specifying the date and location of your coverage. You will also need to provide credentials and details about your media organization.

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Permit Issuance: Once your request is processed and approved, you will receive an official permit from the respective authorities. It’s crucial to carry this permit with you during your coverage as it grants you access to restricted areas and ensures a smooth experience.

Accessing the Carnival: With your permit in hand, you can access designated media areas and capture the essence of this spectacular event, capturing the soul of the Dominican Republic.

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Conclusion

This journey through the heart of the Dominican Republic’s culture and history has unveiled the captivating tapestry of the annual February 27th carnival. From its historical roots to its unique blend of influences, every aspect of this celebration reflects the nation’s identity and unity.

As you plan your visit, consider arriving in the days leading up to February 27th to immerse yourself in the anticipation and culminate your experience with the grand celebration of independence. Our guide has provided you with essential information to access the carnivals seamlessly.

…

For those interested in documenting this vibrant spectacle, we’ve outlined the media coverage process, ensuring an authentic and respectful portrayal of the carnival, preserving its cultural and historical significance for generations to come.

By Rostislav Dugin
TG: @rostislav_dugin
https://click-chat.ru/
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original is here.

The article about how I almost missed the “boom” of ChatGPT but gained access to it and made money (and continue to earn). The project itself is currently declining, but I’ll discuss that at the end.

…

Table of Contents:
– Who am I
– How the idea came about
– How the project was made from the technical side
– How I attracted my first clients
– Insight: cheating behavioral factors
– How the project grew
– Insight about subscriptions
– What were the problems?
– How Yandex killed SEO
– What are your plans next?
– Conclusions

Who am I

My name is Rostislav, and I am a Full-Stack developer. For those reading my content for the first time, here are links to other articles:

1. “5 Tips for Developers Before Starting Their Startup. Experience After 750,000 Rubles”
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2. “Solo Startup. Part 5. How Much Does the Project Bring in Now?”
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3. “Solo Startup. Part 3: Simplifying the Product”

Now my main project is a Telegram chat for the site (which additionally shows what city the user is writing from and when he is online).

If it is relevant to you or you want to connect to the affiliate program: ClickChat.

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How did the idea come about?

At the end of 2022, ChatGPT gained popularity. Everyone was talking, writing, sharing stories, and creating memes about it. I successfully ignored this moment, letting it pass me by.

In February, I stumbled upon a free ChatGPT bot on Telegram. I sent it a few messages, played around with it, and then forgot about it. Some time later, I realized that it could have been an excellent time to launch a project with ChatGPT.

Closer to mid-March, it struck me: ChatGPT has an API! Consequently, an idea emerged: what if I localize the API and resell it to legal entities? They would pay me in rubles, and I would purchase from OpenAI in dollars, pocketing the difference.

A couple of days later, I simplified the concept. Selling to B2B is complicated. There’s an easier way! I’ll sell directly to end-users. I just need to create a website, set up advertising, boost SEO, and the SaaS is ready. Subscriptions can be sold. I’ll focus mainly on SEO (spoiler: it worked).

And so, ChatGPT Me website was born. I deliberately chose a domain with “ChatGPT” to enhance SEO visibility for that search term.

…

How the project was made from the technical side

From a technical perspective, everything is relatively straightforward: when a user makes a request in the chat, I forward the request to the OpenAI ChatGPT API and display the response to the user.

For subscription payments, users are allocated tokens that ChatGPT consumes. I use a tokenizer to analyze token consumption.

Revenue is derived from two components:

1. Unused tokens at the end of the month.
2. My percentage on top of the tokens I provide to the user.

The server-side is developed in NodeJS + NestJS. The main part of the website is built with NextJS, and the landing page is created using Svelte (I experimented to achieve maximum Google Page Speed). The PostgreSQL database is used, and Redis serves for caching and as a message broker. Nginx acts as the HTTP proxy server.

I developed the first version in about a month, albeit at a relatively slow pace due to limited time.

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How did I attract my first clients?

I initiated the promotion with the following actions:

1. Purchased links through SeoWizard and posted in various software catalogs.
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2. Launched advertising on Yandex.Direct (what surprised me was that at that time, few were advertising under the ChatGPT query).
   .
3. Wrote several articles on vc.ru, pikabu, and Habr. However, most of them were either deleted or downvoted almost immediately (fairly, but traffic is traffic).

I had notifications set up on Telegram for every new registration. I wasn’t particularly expecting a sudden success and didn’t realize at the time that this might not be the best solution. Overnight, the chat with notifications was flooded with messages, and the next day, my phone was buzzing every 20-30 minutes.

It looked like this:

Messages about registrations

Many people were registering, but the payments were minimal. I had to disable registration notifications and keep only payment notifications:

Very pleasant notification sound

Overall, the launch turned out to be quite successful. In the first month of the project’s existence, I invested around 30,000 rubles and earned roughly the same amount. Breaking even is already a success!

For a moment, I even felt like a successful entrepreneur.

Insight: behavioural factors

From the very beginning, I understood the importance of allowing users to try the product. That’s why 10 free messages were available in the chat.

At some point, I analyzed and realized that students were registering massively just for the sake of 10 free messages. Here’s an example from this month; take a look at the emails (I don’t verify them through link confirmation):

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Sign-ups for free messages

And these sign-ups… darn well boost behavioral factors for search engines! I gave a little freebie to the students, and in return, they gave me positions in SEO. It turns out to be a win-win situation.

How the project grew

After a few weeks, the site shot up in the SEO rankings for the query “ChatGPT,” and I decided to stop advertising. I only invested in purchasing links and gradually improved the chat.

Here’s the registration graph for all months from April:

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May shows a sharp increase in sign-ups due to SEO

All this time I treated the project as a “temporary topic”, so I did not expect to earn millions. I just rejoiced at every peak and waited for all this happiness to end.

In early May and mid-July, the project was pushed to the top positions. These days, the number of subscriptions has been growing in some abnormal amounts. The notification had been on silent for a long time, and the chat looked like this:

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Messages for July

On good days, the chat brought in 5,000 to 7,500 rubles. About 70% of the revenue was clear profit! I was really hoping that this would last forever (spoiler: it didn’t).

Insight about subscriptions

At some point, I noticed that registrations and subscriptions were increasing, but my payment to OpenAI remained consistently around 10,000 rubles. So, I decided to analyze how many people were actually using their tokens, even if only halfway.

It turned out that only 2.5% of users had ever spent 50% of their available monthly token limit. Despite peak subscriptions exceeding 90,000 rubles per month.

So, roughly 90% of people were essentially giving me money without fully utilizing what they had purchased. This was an incredible insight for me, and it dawned on me the entire benefit of SaaS services.

Now, imagine how much gyms make with monthly memberships or services like Yandex.Plus (although I do use Yandex.Plus).

Moral of the story: making money from subscriptions is the easiest. Subscribing to a small amount is psychologically easy, but over 5-10 months, it accumulates into a substantial sum almost unnoticed.

…

What were the problems?

And now a bit about the challenges. In my opinion, this project brought in easy money, but it’s important to mention the moments where I messed up.

1. Dropped the User Database (epic fail!):
   .
   Registration through the website is done via email. In the beginning, I didn’t validate fields much, and it was possible to enter two identical emails with different capitalisation.
   .
   For example, two different emails for the system: “rostislav@mail.ru” and “Rostislav@mail.ru”.
   .
   At some point, a user couldn’t log into the right account because she used a capital letter in the email. I decided to fix the email registration case by converting everything to lowercase. However, this user specifically asked me to manually change her email. So, I went into the database to update the email manually using an SQL script. I first wrote a WHERE script to check for only one email. Then, for the same WHERE, I wrote the UPDATE script.
   .
   Apparently, I forgot to close a bracket somewhere. I ran it. Within a second, all ~25,000 emails became NULL. At that moment, I felt a cold sweat, and I froze for two minutes. But the backups were in place, and I recovered. I went to change into a dry T-shirt.
   
   – Lesson 1: Even experience and precautions don’t always save you from childish mistakes.
   .
   – Lesson 2: Make backups.
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2. Publication on RuStore:
   .
   At some point, I decided to create a mobile application to appear in RuStore under the “ChatGPT” query. Since there were no such applications, the idea had a chance of success and could provide an additional source of traffic. I quickly learned React Native, hastily made the application, went to publish it, and… RuStore didn’t allow the use of the name ChatGPT.
   .
   Fair, but sad. I published it under a different name. After a week, I deleted the application because there were very few registrations, and the application was an eyesore.
   .
3. Servers in Moscow:
   .
   Initially, the API worked fine for all regions. At some point, OpenAI decided to block access from Russia, including for the API. I had to urgently move to the Netherlands (on new servers, I mean). Due to the domain redirection, there was a day of downtime. This situation should have been anticipated in advance.

How Yandex killed SEO

In September, I expected a rapid project growth because schools and universities were reopening. My target audience once again needed access to boundless information! “I’ll buy myself a car with this money!” — I thought at some point. But on August 30th, I received this notification in Yandex Webmaster:

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You are “mimicking”.
“Violations and security threats on the website http://chatgpt-me.ru, its individual sections or pages.”…

At first, I didn’t understand what it was. Then, I Googled it and found out that “mimicry” is when a website tries to impersonate another popular site.

I’m not pretending to be ChatGPT (nor do I look like it), I’m just using their name almost honestly for SEO promotion. Odd…

I contacted Yandex support to figure out what was wrong. However, their support didn’t provide much help. They simply said it’s all search algorithms, and I should figure it out myself. “If you fix everything, your site will return to search results in 30 days.”

Thirty days without appearing in search results is almost a death sentence for the project, leading to a shift of all positions to competitors (and by September, there were already plenty of such chat projects). In general, the situation emerged where the site was knocked out of the search results, and no one could clearly say what needed fixing.

I tried various methods, like rewriting the text, removing the word “ChatGPT” from the title, and so on. In the end, nothing helped.

From this moment, the project’s gradual decline began.

Since I treated the project as a “temporary thing” and expected something like this, I was a bit sad for a couple of days and then calmed down. Perhaps Yandex did the right thing (after all, such algorithms are not invented for nothing). Moreover, Yandex sometimes acts faster than Google, and all its services (almost) are pretty cool.

The only thing I would have liked in this situation is a clear explanation of what exactly was wrong and assistance in fixing the site, not “wait 30 days and figure it out yourself through trial and error.”

After all, if a genuinely serious site ends up mistakenly blocked in this way, it will cause a lot of problems for the owner with no way to seek help.

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What are my plans next?

The site has occasional registrations, and there are around 60,000 rubles in subscriptions per month. That’s why I’m maintaining the project, not actively developing new features. When subscriptions completely dwindle, and servers become more expensive, I’ll close it. But I feel that this will be a year or more from now, if not later.

Conclusions

Over the past six months, I launched a project and managed to earn from it. This time, my experience helped me make the project profitable almost from the start. I gained valuable insights, encountered new challenges, and solidified my understanding that opportunities are everywhere (even though some said, “Why create a site with ChatGPT? There are already plenty of bots, and you can just use a VPN”).

Currently, my main project is a Telegram chat for the website. It’s more reliable and interesting, and there’s profit as well. So, I continue to invest all my available efforts into its development. I’ll share more about how I’m expanding ClickChat in the upcoming articles.

I hope my experience inspires you to start (or continue) something of your own.

And give it a like. You know, like a brother.

By Rostislav Dugin
TG: @rostislav_dugin
https://click-chat.ru/
The text is published with the permission of the author.
The original is here.