How to Build a Multi-Million Dollar Business from Scratch Without Investing in Marketing

In 2008, IT developer Anton Tkachev began developing his pet project in his spare time. The network of anonymizers became popular in his country, and the development helped him bring a new product to the global market.

More than 10 million people use the Browsec VPN service, and the company's gross income exceeds $3 million. Anton told how he managed to create a service that has become in demand in almost all countries.

Q: Tell us how you came to create your own company.

While studying at the university, I gained experience in the commercial development of software products. After receiving my diploma, I worked in various roles at two IT companies. I started out as a middle developer.

Then, I switched to project management as I was interested in this direction because it develops both technical and organizational skills. Later, I got a job at another company where my duties included product and project management.

Through these experiences, I gained a lot of experience solving organizational, technical, and financial issues.

After some time, I decided to create something of my own and began searching for ideas. I eventually developed a network of anonymizers, which I worked on during my spare time, often in the evenings and on weekends.

Despite the limited time I devoted to it, the service became popular in my country and gained a large audience in neighboring countries. Within a few years of its launch, the service had 1.6 million monthly users.

This success led me to create a company, which is still in operation, to develop a follow-up product called Browsec VPN.

Q: When looking for investors, there was no doubt that the product would be in demand?

There were doubts. At the time, VPN solutions were quite heavyweight. I had to download and install programs on my computer. This did not always work correctly and could break all network settings.

I wanted to make a product that offered all the features of classic VPN services but with a much lower entry threshold and was easier for the user.

Thus, the idea was born to create a VPN extension for the browser that could be installed with just one click and did not have a complicated configuration process. During that period, there were no such services on the market.

I understood that I could create the first version of the service without investment, as I had experience in development. I asked a few people to test a prototype service, and they were satisfied with the experience.

A year after I started developing Browsec, ZenMate, a company from Germany, came to the market with a similar idea. They attracted venture capital investment, so they quickly developed the product's first version and attracted the first million users. For comparison, my resources were limited at this time, and only 3,000 people used Browsec.

The appearance of a major direct competitor had a sobering effect on me. On the one hand, this posed a serious challenge.

On the other hand, it showed that my idea was viable. I realized that I needed to act faster. I attracted three co-founders to the project and received angel investment from friends. After that, I assembled a team, and we took up the project with renewed vigor.

Q: At what point did you decide to enter the international market?

Our initial goal was to create a global product. We focused all of our resources on this goal and did not stray from it, even when we had opportunities to generate more revenue in the local market.

Now we have over 10 million active users worldwide. We are focused on the consumer market. We have a small number of corporate clients. Typically, companies come to us with a volume license request if they notice that a significant number of their employees are already using Browsec.

Q: How did you manage to increase the number of users from 3 thousand to 10 million?

We achieved these numbers entirely through organic growth. Due to limited resources, we spent almost no money on marketing and promotion. We put all our resources into our product, and satisfied users have recommended our product to their friends.

But we made several improvements to the product, which helped to quickly grow its audience. First of all, mandatory registration was abolished. Previously, only those who created an account could use the service, and this was a serious barrier.

We conducted a product experiment and removed the registration process completely. After that, we saw a consistent twofold increase in organic user growth month over month for an extended period.

In addition, we decided to adopt a freemium business model to drive sustainable growth through organic means. At the time, it was a relatively new solution in the VPN market.

We were among the first to offer customers a completely free version of our product with unlimited usage time and traffic. This has contributed to our growth. In addition, we also offer a paid version with advanced features to our users.

Q: How do you plan to develop your company and VPN service further?

The application that our customers use is just a small part of what we offer. The application is powered by thousands of servers around the world and sophisticated systems to manage the entire service.

We are constantly optimizing internal products and platforms to provide a better service to our users.

Currently, we have a team of 11 people, which is sufficient to serve 10 million users. However, for the company's growth and development, we need to expand our staff. We are therefore looking for new specialists.

In addition, we plan to promote the product through content marketing and targeted advertising, which we see as opportunities for growth.

Now is a good time to continue developing and improving our product. If we can maintain our current growth rate, I expect that we will see significant growth over the next five years, with an estimated four-fold increase in both the number of users and revenue.

Q: Why is the demand for VPN services growing in recent years?

First, many people are concerned about their online privacy and do not want their internet service provider (ISP) to track their web browsing activity.

Another reason has to do with the globalization of the labor market. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the remote work trend was amplified. Corporate workers began to leave their countries more often and work where they were more comfortable.

At the same time, they could only access certain resources and portals if they connected from their home countries. Therefore, people's awareness and demand for VPN services began to grow.

Generally, during our company's existence, the market has changed a lot. Even 10 years ago, VPN services were niche solutions that were known by a few people.

Now the number of users has increased significantly. This is a market that is actively growing and developing, where new services and companies almost appear on the market every day.

Q: Share the secret of how to withstand such fierce competition?

You just need to make a good product.