Interview with Alex Fedosseev, CEO and Founder of 1World Online
What is your startup
1World Online (or just 1World for short) is an Internet-based company launched in 2011, with the mission of finding out what people really think.
What does it do?
1World Online, Inc. is in the business of enabling web publishers—whether it be print publishers online, brands acting as publishers, or bloggers—to increase customer engagement and learn more about their audience. 1World is able to accomplish this by deployment and SaaS subscriptions of its multi-faceted consumer intelligence platform, which gets to the answers of what people really think via opinion gathering online applications such as the 1World Poller, Debate Forum, and 1World Quizzes.
These applications in turn enable smart content-generation such as our featured “news about the news,” infographics, public opinion snapshots, and targeted articles.
We are also providing demographics and psychographic analytics based on learnings about the audience, which helps publisher to serve better content and advertisement.
What has been your greatest achievement so far?
We landed one of the world’s largest news organizations as a paying customer, a multi-year relationship encompassing several languages and continents.
How have you kept your business relevant and engaged with your audience over the last three years?
We’ve been working on new features, as well as testing / validating our idea and assumptions non-stop over the two years that we have been in operation, making quite a few significant adjustments to our model. In particular, we put more emphasis on making seamless modules (widgets) to integrate into partner sites.
How long has your startup been in the making, and who is the team behind the business?
I ran a cultural magazine for years and starting thinking about how to replicate it in an online world. The team I gathered together were people I worked with in the past, proven players in their areas. Indeed, the co-founders are working on our third platform company together here at 1World.
What has been your biggest challenge so far as a startup owner?
Some of the early employees, people, that I really counted on, and who received significant equity in the company, turned to be not exactly suited for a challenging environment and didn’t produce the value expected. This resulted in less stock available for new team members, many of which did surprise me in a great way, becoming true stars. Another was the 16-18 hour a day work weeks for many months in the row, without weekends and vacations..
In the coming year, what would you like to achieve with your business?
In the next year we will complete the core features and applications we set out to build. We also will expand internationally, which will be one of our key differentiators. We will be rolling out the ultimate features of our analytics, becoming what we call “the social research engine.”
What has been your most valuable lesson so far since starting your business?
The main lesson was that, if you believe in the concept, sooner or later, you will find the way to package your product the right way and make it attractive for clients. Constantly looking for feedback, building ecosystem of supporters / believers / people aware of your solution and non-stop improvements and experiments – these are the tools to “getting it right”.
Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about starting a business, what would it be?
If you’re thinking about starting your company and you do have an idea that makes your heart beat faster – absolutely do it, regardless of all kind of challenges that are coming with entrepreneurship. Do calculate when to start, with whom, how, and don’t be afraid to talk about your idea with as many people as you can. It’s critical to know the appeal and bounce ideas / expand your perspectives via feedback.