— It is important to note that the main thing is to set up a team. No man is an island, and I would never have gone that far if it was not for the team that able to translate the idea into the finished project. I have united people who are much better than me in this or that sphere, who have some missing me competencies and experience. It turned out some kind of synergy, which produced effective results.

Now, two of the students from Nazarbayev University Otanioz and Daniyar are coming with me to Hong Kong. The engineers were responsible for the hardware direction, the professor was in charge of integration issues, the students completed the processes of artificial intelligence, and I coordinated the work process, as well as filled the paperwork. My engineering education helped me a lot, because when you understand and know about working principle, you set goals and deadlines correctly.

There were also difficult stages associated with the team. Just two months ago, the situation was not the best. There were no enough funds, and I had to disband the team consisting of two electrical engineers, Former Chief Engineer of NURIS PI and Chief Engineer at ABC Fab Lab, Professor of the School of Engineering and three students.

— In the near future we plan to make a prototype and product. The next step is to receive the seed fund between $ 200 thousand and $ 500 thousand and expand the team by which we will be able to create a full-fledged product. In this way, we will enter a new round, and deliver products with mass production. And of course, the end point is the sale of our company to foreign herbicide sprayers manufacturers.

— Definitely, we do not plan to focus only on the Kazakhstan market, our goal is the world market, we want to start working with such countries as Russia and Ukraine. In addition, a favorable ecosystem to build a start-up business is now being developed in Kazakhstan, and I think it will be possible in the near future to actually implement our project on the territory of the country in specific regions. It is very important for me to support the Kazakhstan ecosystem, because it helped me and my team to implement our start-up.

— It always seemed to me that time was passing by, that I was missing the opportunity to do something very important. Later, I started to build a start-up in February in the last semester, I so engaged with my work that I didn't have enough time to study. As a result, my GPA had dropped from 3.4 to 2.5, roughly speaking I received grade 3. I practically stopped thinking about getting a master's degree, because at that time I thought it was impossible with my grades.

It was very difficult, because it seemed that you sacrifice everything, but you get nothing in return. At some point, when everything was overwhelmed concurrently, that time was the peak of workload: the exams began, which I hardly passed; I wanted to quit everything and go home to Aktobe just to sleep and rest. And when I came to Aktobe, opened my email and received the first mail from the Brinc Accelerator Hardware, saying that they invite me to Hong Kong, the second mail from the National Agency for Technological Development (NATD) stating that I won KZT 800,000 for the best student technical project, the next mail concluded that our project won the student competition at Nazarbayev University with the grand prize. The prize was a trip to the UAE in order to present a startup to foreign investors and venture funds. All the good news came at once, and it was very cool. And this is when a long period of time seems to you that nothing is working out, but you continue to try in spite of all difficulties, you look for it, you hit a wall, and then when you least expect a miracle happens.

— I cannot call our start-up successful, until we create a product to be proud of. The main thing is to be prepared for difficulties, because at first people will not believe in asking complex questions that are not always answered. It is still very difficult to find a balance between personal life, study and creating a startup. Personally, I could not immediately find this balance because of my bad time management. In the end, realizing my mistakes, I came to the conclusion not to be distracted by unnecessary things.

Regarding your question, would I change my views and decisions? Most likely not, I would not change anything in my experience, because thanks to my mistakes I understood how to organize my time wisely.

— Foreigners are very skeptical, and they are ready for the risk that 9 out of 10 start-ups will not get their successful access to international markets. Therefore, they are willing to share risks and responsibilities with a start-up and, to a greater extent, with its founders. It turns out that you are together in the same boat.

If we compare foreign with Kazakhstani investors, the difference will be very large, since our investors perceive poorly the possible failure of a startup. And in case of failure, the investor himself painfully suffers failure, including transferring his experiences to the founder. This may have a negative impact in psychological terms.