Alpina
4th
Magistralnaya 5, bld. 1
Offi ce 159–169
123007, Moscow, Russia
International@alpina.ru
Copyright © 2021 by Evgeny Shchepin
Managing Editor: Marina Krasavina
Project Editor: Natalia Pepelina
Translator: Andrew Freeburg
Copyeditor: Jennifer Eremeeva
Proofreaders: Beth Dymond, Anna Brown
Cover design: Yuri Buga
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage
and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Printed in Russian Federation
ISBN 978-5-9614-7188-5
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CONTENTS
Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................................................................7
Rule , or An Unusual Introduction ................................................................................................................................8
This book could have come out two years ago; or it could have
never come out at all. And this is VkusVill in a nutshell.
Rule 1....................................................................................................................................................................................................................12
Even amid the fi ercest battles for preeminence in the market, there are
always moments of peace. Learn this rule — it will come in handy!
Rule 2 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................18
Doing and analyzing is more important than
analyzing and not doing anything.
Rule 3 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................26
Hire people who you fi nd interesting and feel
comfortable with, especially at the beginning.
Rule 4 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................34
The earlier you have a conceptual crisis, the better. Izbyonka
went through it for a year and a half of its existence, and
this period changed the entire company for the better.
Rule 5 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................42
When a company is at the height of success, it is the best time
to think about its future — to ensure that there is one.
Rule 6 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................48
We have been called “the king of naming,” but we maintain
that the name of a company is not the most important thing.
Rule 7 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................54
Understanding how experienced you have become is simple: if
you analyze what you did a year ago and realize that now you
would do something a bit diff erently, it means you have grown.
Rule 8 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................62
An internal crisis taught us the invaluable lesson to base our
work on common sense and not numbers. For this reason, we
no longer use KPI or any other quantitative assessments to
measure our employees’ effi ciency. And we never will.
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Rule 9 .................................................................................................................................................................................................................68
A plan for saving the company should be everyone’s responsibility.
The same people who nearly destroyed VkusVill saved it from ruin.
Rule 10 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................80
Life never ceases to amaze us with the variety of situations it presents.
Do not try to anticipate these: just play the game and enjoy it.
Rule 11 ................................................................................................................................................................................................................84
Within VkusVill, we introduced a system of promises,
primarily to encourage communication between divisions. We
found this could resolve a considerable number of internal
diff erences by simply facilitating communication.
Rule 12 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................94
Many people think that nobody gets fi red at
VkusVill, but that is not true. It happens.
Rule 13 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................98
We rejected all the usual corporate conventions and have
never looked back. The interests of actual people are far
more important than any artifi cial offi ce standards.
Rule 14 ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 104
Our HR department has minimal infl uence on our company’s
development. Therefore, all employees at VkusVill have a say in
the hiring and onboarding of all new employees. It works.
Rule 15 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................110
In an environment of trust and understanding, people are
not afraid to make mistakes and show initiative. Everyone
slips up occasionally, and the most important thing is not to
punish them but to help them learn from these mistakes.
Rule 16 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................116
VkusVill has quite a simple offi ce. You might say that it is
symbolic of our relationship to everything material.
Rule 17 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................122
At some point, we stopped planning and started just living.
Rule 18 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................124
Read. Read as many good books as you can. That
will keep you on the straight and narrow.
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Rule 19 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................130
Sometimes, to solve a single problem for your customer,
you must get several divisions involved. We think this is
how a customer-oriented company should function.
Rule 20 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................136
The most important person in terms of quality and improvements is
undoubtedly the customer. No specialist can ever be as meticulous,
objective, and impartial about a product as a fi nal consumer.
Rule 21 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................144
It is unnecessary to regulate communication with customers,
but you must have a communication strategy.
Rule 22............................................................................................................................................................................................................154
The Customer Support Index is a tool that brings about small,
regular changes to make customers’ lives a little easier.
Rule 23 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 162
Any VkusVill product — even an almost-consumed one — can
be returned to the store without a receipt for a full refund.
Rule 24 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................168
Consumer terrorism is not humanity’s most terrifying
problem. But extortionists among the general
population can hold entrepreneurs at bay.
Rule 25 ............................................................................................................................................................................................................176
You will never get feedback from your customers if you
are not interested in their ideas and suggestions. Apathy
is hard to digitize, but is quite easy to feel.
Rule 26 .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 190
In new and successful projects, this principle comes in
handy: “fi re bullets, then cannonballs.” Perhaps it may
be the basis for successful project management.
Rule 27 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................200
The deeper the concept behind our work is ingrained in the
company’s DNA, the more straightforwardly the component
processes will be developed. Our ideology of natural and
honest products helps us to get rid of many excess goods.
Rule 28 .........................................................................................................................................................................................................208
Everyone should do what they do best — or why
VkusVill still does not have its own factory.
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Rule 29 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................212
Trust in people allows the company to save money.
Trust in people allows the company to save money.
Trust in people allows the company to save money.
(Read this a hundred times)
Rule 30 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 216
Duplication of people, providers, and services is a modern
entrepreneurial approach to doing business.
Rule 31 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................220
All confl icts occur in areas where responsibilities overlap. One day, we
re-examined our process of opening new stores and forged a lasting
peace between our development management and retail management.
Rule 32 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................226
The more conscious responsibility at ground level, the
easier life is for the entire company. Our dream is for
every store to become autonomous and self-directed.
Rule 33 ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................234
IT systems for businesses today are like smartphones for modern
people. You can live without them, but your quality of life will suff er.
Rule 34 .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 240
Automation should simplify life for both employees and customers.
If the opposite occurs, that is not automation — that’s nonsense.
Rule 35 .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 248
The triumph of artifi cial intelligence: how automated ordering and
distribution allowed us to halve the amount of product we wrote off .
Rule 36 .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 254
Apps, chat bots, and other contemporary innovations help
customers manage the company more than anything else — and
help the company to unobtrusively manage its customers.
Rule 37 ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................260
At some point, VkusVill will probably cease to exist. Once and for all.
100 Facts About VkusVill .......................................................................................................................................................267
Appendix ......................................................................................................................................................................................................275
Notes ................................................................................................................................................................................................................277
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