How a physicist from Rostov-on-Don produced an antiseptic with the smell of an "approved visa" and earns 1.5 million rubles a week on sanitizers
Explosions of liquid nitrogen at Philip Kirkorov's concerts, popcorn with absinthe at corporate parties, PutinCoin cryptocurrency and the basis for the hype antiseptic "Your visa is approved— - all these are the fruits of the creativity of physicist Nikolai Novoselov. Before the crisis, he developed a successful scientific show "ArtNauka", but with the arrival of the coronavirus in Russia, he was left with zero revenue and rent and salary obligations.
In parallel with the development of the main business, Novoselov was engaged in "conscious business experiments" and approached the pandemic prepared. He immediately began sorting through various business ideas - he wanted to sew masks, sold kits for their self-sewing and made antiseptic in the laboratory, which he used to prepare for the show. Only the last one fired: antiseptics were ordered by former clients of ArtNauki to put them in their cafes and hairdressers.
And then the company "Fragrance Library" came to Novoselov with the idea to make together a line of unusual sanitizers with the smells of "life lost due to coronavirus". Antiseptics began to invest in orders for Delivery Club customers — the line quickly became "viral" and conquered social networks.
The success pushed Novoselov to the idea of completely switching to the production of sanitizers, but not creative ones, but the most standard ones. The bet "on paranoids who process everything they see and want the antiseptic to just smell of alcohol, which means reliability" worked - sales at Wildberries, Beru and other marketplaces bring in 1.5 million rubles of revenue per week, and Nikolai himself seriously decided to become the "new [Andrey] Trubnikov" by launching the production of cosmetics.
Science to the masses
Theoretical physicist Nikolai Novoselov, a graduate of the physics department of the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, did not work out. While still a student, he got a job at the advertising agency Pi Five, where he rose to executive director in three years. In parallel, he worked as a marketer.
Among the agency's clients was the Rostov Audi representative office. In 2011, Nikolai was preparing a new car model for the presentation. In order to entertain the audience with children, he invited physicists and chemists he knew, who arranged popular science shows: they cooked molecular ice cream, simulated burning palms and experimented with liquid nitrogen.
"A samurai has no goal, only a path. I have a testing path"
At one of the events, Novoselov saw how "solid forty-year-old men in expensive suits" were keenly interested in what was happening. He decided that it needed to be monetized, and began to hold shows for adults 3-4 times a week - at presentations of new products of major brands and corporate events. This is how the ArtNauka company appeared.
Two years later, the entrepreneur quit the agency and went to Moscow with his own project. There things went uphill: online marketing led to the New Settlement of large customers - Faberlic, Beeline, MegaFon. One performance cost an average of 139,000 rubles and brought in 34,000 rubles in revenue.
Gradually Novoselov acquired the status of a media person: he and his team began to be invited as a hero to the TV channels "Moscow 24", "Russia 1", "Channel One", "Friday", "Science 2.0". Thanks to word of mouth, the project went abroad: in 2014-2015, "ArtNauka" performed at scientific festivals in Poland, the UAE, Germany. In 2015, revenue amounted to 16 million rubles.
The entrepreneur launched a franchise, developed programs for weddings and children's parties. He directed a scientific play for children "Doctor Factum", which toured 14 cities of Russia. He began collaborating with musical performers — Novoselov's employees installed barrels of liquid nitrogen at the performances of Philip Kirkorov, the groups "Bread", "Hands up" and "Disco Accident".
In 2018-2019, ArtNauka reached the Chinese market and continued to focus on performances abroad. Each such order brought up to half a million rubles in revenue. Despite this, the company quickly hit the revenue ceiling. In 2016, Novoselov reached 20 million in revenue per year, since then financial indicators have grown slightly.
The next experiment was a loyalty system for a cafe - a service based on the same WhiteWallet, in which it was possible to receive points for payment. He worked in the WhatsApp messenger. The matter did not go beyond the pilot version — the restaurants were not ready to pay for the connection. But Novoselov was not upset by this: "I am a supporter of the fact that the number of experiments has a positive effect on the result. And this, of course, is an experience."
Constant business searches helped not to get lost when the world began to sink into a state of quarantine. Nikolay, as a representative of the event market, was left without income by the pandemic back in mid-March, when Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin banned gatherings of more than 50 people.
A chain of contractors also fell down: the organizers did not transfer half of the fee for the February show in Jordan to Novoselov. There was no money even to rent a room of 30 sq. m. m in the east of Moscow, where the ArtNauki laboratory was located. The entrepreneur had to lay out all his savings and collect consumer loans for almost 3 million rubles to keep the team afloat.
"I am a supporter of the fact that the number of experiments has a positive effect on the result"
"The only way to make money in Russia is either to be an entrepreneur or to steal money. I don't like the second one, so it remains to be done," Novoselov says. He decided to save the company in a non-trivial way - he analyzed which niches are promising in the pandemic, and tried to produce medical masks that are made of spunbond and meltblown. He had stocks of spunbond thanks to scientific shows, and everything turned out to be difficult with meltblown — in Russia, Nikolai found only one plant producing this material, and that was already loaded with orders. Buying meltblown abroad was difficult and expensive, so the idea was abandoned.
Then Novoselov thought of buying and selling overseas tests to detect coronavirus - friends from China were ready to help with this. But the product had to be certified, which would take several months, besides, Russian laboratories preferred to use tests developed in Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk.
Then Novoselov returned to the idea of protective masks, this time non-medical. I considered that it would be difficult and expensive to organize production — the cost of one product was 15 rubles. And I decided to sell sets of materials so that people sew masks on their own. I put the product up for sale on Avito, but there was no demand. The solution for remote work did not take off either: representatives of corporations to whom Novoselov was going to sell a special program, it turned out to be uninteresting. He also sold ingredients from his stocks to create disinfectants and protective suits. It took about 10,000 rubles to research each niche, purchase materials and test the hypothesis. Nikolai earned about 600,000 rubles from experiments.
The smell of lost life
Even before the pandemic, Novoselov had stocks of isopropyl alcohol and proven suppliers from Krasnodar and Chelyabinsk - alcohol was used as a diluent in experiments and for the manufacture of perfumes during master classes. There was also a laboratory where they invented and practiced numbers for the show, as well as physicists and chemists on staff. All these are excellent starting conditions for the creation of antiseptics, Nikolai reasoned.
He sent out emails to partners and clients informing them that he could conduct a master class on the manufacture of antiseptics. The owners of cafes and restaurants were the first to respond, who, before the announcement of self-isolation, did everything to keep at least some of the customers. Antiseptics were in short supply, so the offer turned out to be very useful. But the clients did not want to learn how to make sanitizers themselves, but to receive them ready-made.
"Your visa is approved" with the smell of chassis and hot asphalt, "First date" with the smell of champagne, "Last row" with the smell of popcorn
The demand grew from day to day: first the antiseptic was ordered with cans, then with barrels, then with eurocubes (containers for 1000 liters). To cope with the volumes, Novoselov and the team rented production facilities with an area of 100 sq. m. m from colleagues from the cosmetic field (the entrepreneur does not name the brand). Wholesale of antiseptics brought 3-4 million rubles in revenue.
Among the corporate customers of the sanitizer was the perfume company "Fragrance Library", for which ArtNauka used to conduct master classes for the presentation of fragrances. The company is famous for developing perfumes with unusual scents: for example, the smells of a funeral home or baby powder.
The Fragrance Library came to Nikolai with a long—standing idea to launch antiseptics with unusual flavors of "lost life": "The meeting room is free" — with the smell of coffee, "Your visa is approved" — with the smell of chassis and hot asphalt, "100 meters to the sea" — with a fruity smell, "First date" — with the smell of champagne, "Culture and Recreation Park" — with a floral smell, "Stable ruble" — with the smell of sandalwood, "I just need to trim the tips" — with a powdery aroma, "The last row" - with the smell of popcorn.
Novoselov was required to produce the solution itself quickly and in sufficient volume and add perfumes to it. "Nikolai knew how antiseptics work, and meticulously controlled the composition of the antiseptic product," says Ilya Volkov, co-owner of the Fragrance Library.
They wanted to distribute antiseptics through food delivery services. "When people receive food through delivery, first of all it is necessary to treat their hands. Part of the delivery service's audience is young Moscow office employees. Therefore, names like "The meeting is free" or "Your visa is approved" strongly resonated in their hearts," explains Volkov.
"We wanted to give users the opportunity to touch what they lacked so much during the period of self-isolation"
Cooperation was offered to several delivery services, the first idea was supported by Delivery Club. "We wanted to give users the opportunity to be in the comfort zone again: to touch what they lacked so much during the period of self-isolation. For someone it's a trip to a beauty salon, someone needs to communicate with colleagues and trips to the office. Many people lack the atmosphere of a cozy cafe, cinema or exciting airport," explains the representative of the aggregator.
Novoselov had to change the formula of the standard antiseptic so that the flavors "took root there" — it took about two weeks. The project was conceived as a marketing campaign, so the partners released a limited collection of 1000 bottles, which they invested free of charge in ordering products from 1000 rubles in the Scooter service in the Delivery Club application (both services belong to the Sberbank joint venture and Mail.ru Group).
The party ended in half a day, the news about the "anti-kid" line spread through the media and social networks. Despite the hype, the collection of antiseptics did not go on sale. "We had no plans to put sanitizers on sale, the partners did not contact us with an offer to sell them on their platform," says a representative of the Delivery Club. "We wanted to raise the mood of the audience, distract from the news and increase brand awareness. According to reviews in social networks, we realized that we had achieved our goal," Volkov notes. Novoselov earned "several hundred thousand rubles" on the project.
The economy of HYPE
Corporate orders for sanitizers continued to bring Nikolai a stable income, but it was impossible to predict demand and calculate the production load. "People come to you, they say: we are behind a half ton of antiseptics, we need it tomorrow morning. You're like, f***, and how are we going to get this overnight?" the entrepreneur recalls. In addition, when restaurants and shops closed in early April, demand for the product dropped sharply.
On the advice of his wife, Novoselov decided to enter the mass market under his own brand "Pure Protection". He developed a corporate identity, bought labels and packaging — according to the entrepreneur, it had to be redone six times so that the liquid would not spill during courier delivery.
"They come and say: we are behind a half ton of antiseptics. You're like, f***, how are we going to get this overnight?"
By mid-May, everything was ready, and Nikolai went to the Wildberries, KupiVIP, Beru marketplaces (the experience of his wife, who had already sold holiday decoration kits in this way, helped), where antiseptics from other manufacturers were already flying like hot cakes. "In March, sales of skin antiseptics showed an increase of almost seven times in pieces compared to February. In April, they increased by more than 24.5 times compared to March, which was the peak value of the growth of this group of goods for the entire time of sales this year. The range has expanded 42.5 times," says a representative of Wildberries.
Novoselov began to supply retailers with small "pocket" bottles at first, but then realized that they were ordering more containers of 1 liter. Now the average check of "Pure Protection" is 700-900 rubles, the profit from one liter capacity is 100-300 rubles. By the end of May, alcohol prices went down, so the profitability of the business tends to 50%, says Nikolai. The secret of success, according to him, is that he sells large volumes of standard antiseptics "with the smell of alcohol." "The pandemic created a market for those who wanted the antiseptic to really smell like alcohol. This smell creates a sense of reliability—" he argues. - We can say that "Pure Protection" is designed for paranoids who process all products, all elevator buttons and all kinds of handles. They need really a lot and really powerful."
The sale of antiseptics began to bring him 1.5 million in revenue and about 750,000 rubles in profit per week. During the pandemic, the entrepreneur earned 10 million rubles, most of the revenue came from trading on Wildberries. So far, all profits are spent on paying off debts and expanding production.
Become a Trubnikov
Revenue from the sale of antiseptics exceeded the indicators of ArtNauki "in the best months". According to Nikolay Ganailyuk, the creator of the scientific show for children "Professor Nicolas Show", the market of entertainment and educational events in March "got up tight" and has just begun to recover. "There was a revival in May, in June we plan to receive 30-40% of the standard revenue," the entrepreneur shares. According to him, many players will never return to work: "I fully admit that those entertainment companies that had fixed costs in the form of staff, office rent, but at the same time had no other sources of income, could well find themselves in a difficult situation and stop their activities without waiting for a way out of the crisis."
Novoselov has no plans to dissolve the staff of ArtNauki, but he has already decided that the show will be held only for large customers or friends.
Nikolai wants to focus on the production of cosmetics. He dreams of becoming "like [Andrey] Trubnikov (founder of Natura Siberica, Organic Kitchen and other cosmetic brands. - approx. Forbes)». What exactly to produce, the entrepreneur has not yet decided - while testing the demand. He plans to start with contract production: to produce products for a third-party brand, but does not exclude the development of his own brand, which he wants to sell in China.
"A samurai has no goal, only a path. I have a testing path. We realized that we could produce cosmetics, realized that we could get into the marketplace. Okay, let's drive on," concludes Novoselov.
