I remembered my school physics and now I sell hot air on Avito for 12 million a year

DISCLAIMER: The article was written by the author of the blog based on an interview with the founder of the tent production A. Klimovich.

Do you know why a hot air balloon flies?

Inside the balloon there is air, which is heated by a burner. Hence, the air temperature in the balloon's dome is higher than the air temperature around it. Since the density of warm air is lower, the Archimedes force begins to act on the balloon, pushing it upward until it is equalized by gravity.

Today, it is common to make money on high technologies, for example, on artificial intelligence. But in order to sell for 24 million a year, I needed a law of physics from the 3rd century BC. In this article, I will tell you how and how much you can earn if you slip a gas cannon under a tarpaulin.

Business on Archimedes' law from scratch

I am a mechanical engineer, and in 2021, my team and I repaired special equipment on the Baikal-Amur Mainline. At that time, Kamaz was looking for mechanics, but no one wanted to go to an open field to repair equipment.

Winter came, and it became uncomfortable to repair equipment in the cold, so we started racking our brains about what to do.

I remembered how in the army I used Archimedes' law to repair a bulldozer in the forest. I covered the equipment with a thick cloth and put a gas gun under it. The cloth inflated a little like a balloon and the repair at -40 was more or less comfortable.

I got hooked on this idea and started thinking about how to do the same thing, but more rationally.

I looked at the materials and found Oxford fabric, which is used to make tents and backpacks. The material is impregnated with polyurethane and is lightweight. We tried to sew a cube out of it and installed a cannon.

Our mechanics found it convenient, and a year later I decided to try selling frameless tents. As it turned out, many people face the same problems.

When a tracked vehicle breaks down, you need a crane to load it and take it to a warm place where you can do repairs. And that's expensive. When you take a frameless tent, two people come in a pickup, press the tent to the ground with pegs, set up a cannon, and you don't need a lowboy or a crane.

So, Archimedes' law helped me build a tent production, which last year brought in about 10 million net per year.

FA=ρgV

Formula for success.

In my case, the density of the air is cold, and the volume is the tent.

Investments in the production of frameless tents

To start producing such tents for sale, I needed about 65,000 ₽ for materials and work, and another 80,000 ₽ for a gas cannon.

When the first tent was ready, I took a photo of it and put it up on Avito. All subsequent orders were prepaid, and no more money was required from outside. Later, I patented this technology.

Cost price of a frameless tent

I made an agreement with the prison to sew the first tents. Any entrepreneur can do this. The zones themselves look for those who will place production there, and participate in exhibitions for this purpose.

Now it is so developed that colonies and prisoners already have specializations. Some work with wood, some with metal, some sew.

We pay by bank transfer, and to sew 1 frameless tent, you need to pay 21,948 ₽ for the work.

But then I realized that the prisoners get only pennies from this amount, and in order to motivate the immediate perpetrators, we bring cigarettes and tea to the colony.

This is another +3,000 ₽ to the price of work per piece. Total for sewing one tent – 24,948 ₽.

Materials for a 12x6x5 tent cost 40,458 ₽.

That is, 1 frameless tent costs 65,406 ₽ in cost price. We sell it at retail for 183,800 ₽.

Inflatable Tent Business from Scratch

Over time, we realized that customers wanted to repair several cars in one tent at once, one after another. This was inconvenient for us: when the tent opens, cold air comes inside, the air density equalizes, and the Archimedes force stops working, and, as a result, the tent goes down.

And if you repair equipment, it's convenient for you – drive the car in, drive it out, drive the next one in – and you don't need all these movements of disassembling/assembling the tent. I started thinking about how to make the tent quickly assemble, but at the same time stand while all the equipment is driven in one by one.

There were inflatable solutions, but they were either too heavy or too expensive.

As it turned out, the cross-section of the inflatable beams was too small. We had to take 30-diameter ones instead of 15-diameter ones.

Then we realized that we would have to make an inflatable cross-section.

The PVC frame was glued by a specialist who worked with trampolines, and when he finished, our tent behaved like a classic trampoline. To keep it from falling, it had to be constantly inflated, which is inconvenient in open field conditions.

I started thinking further and in search of a rigid but lightweight material for the cross-section, of course, I found aluminum.

Aluminum didn't work – while you were screwing everything together, your hands would freeze in the cold, and aluminum was expensive (100,000 ₽ for 1 tent). But the tent itself was functional. All that was left was to replace the aluminum. While searching for options, I found a fiberglass pipe. It is 10 times cheaper than aluminum and easier to assemble. Shovel handles are made from it.

In the end, the tent looked like this:

And the assembly problem was solved with fasteners. They solved it like in an umbrella: you straighten the frame, it comes out and is fixed, it turns out fast, and only 2 people can assemble it.

The pneumatic frame version weighed a ton and could be carried by 6 people in a folded state, using at least a Gazelle. And the fiberglass version fit into a station wagon.

Then we realized that we didn’t need a pump, and we could pump from the exhaust pipe, which pumped even better.

Investing in Inflatable Tents

I called the resulting design a fastbox. And I also received a patent (100,000 ₽).

The money for the equipment of the production was already coming from the proceeds from the sale of the first type of tents. I figured that with our own seamstresses we could do it cheaper than sewing in prisons, and I started to equip my production.

For the cutters I took a cutting machine (134,345 ₽)

And the total investment in its production amounted to 1,811,235 ₽

Cost price of an inflatable tent (fastbox)

The first client started to have some shortcomings, and we realized that the problem was in the dimensions. In order for the tent to stand well, the width cannot be more than 6 m, and the height more than 5 m. The length may vary, but the width and height cannot be touched under any circumstances. Otherwise, the pumps do not have enough power and problems with installation begin.

But with the first client, things were a bit of a flop, and in addition to the non-optimal height, we built them inflatable gates, and as a result, the tent was brought in for finishing touches a couple of times.

– Guys, the tent is standing poorly.

– Let's make it regular size and there won't be any problems.

– No

So we talked.

Of course, we fixed the old one, but, as they say, there was a bad taste in our mouths and theirs.

And the first time we miscalculated the price, and as a result, having sold the tent, we went into the minus twice, sold it for 350,000 ₽, and spent 700,000 ₽ on its production and improvements. Therefore, since then the fastbox began to cost 770,000 ₽.

In the zone, sewing was about 25% more expensive. The work of our own seamstresses came to 80,000 ₽ per tent. Materials cost 161,695 ₽.

In total, making an inflatable tent with fiberglass floors cost 241,695 ₽. We sell it at retail for 770,000 ₽.

Total from 451,000 ₽ markup from 1 tent.

Income from tent production

Tents are not only used for equipment repair, although this is the main reason for purchasing them. Some use them to dry grain, some to store boats, and some as a painting station.

Recently, X5 Group was bought as a parking lot for unmanned vehicles that work in food warehouses. Some guys even opened a car wash in such a tent.

At first, most sales were on Avito, then the website started catching up.

Now both sources bring in approximately equal amounts, and if you look at 2023, the average month looks like this:

I started selling frameless tents in 2022, and then sales amounted to 8.2 million rubles.

In 2023, 16.1 million rubles were made on frameless cars.

Then inflatable tents (fastboxes) appeared, and they were sold for 7.7 million ₽.

Now, by September 1, 2024, we have sold tents for 18 million, and the season itself is beginning.

I set a target of 50 million per year.

Cost of tent production

I calculate the expenses for an average month in which we sell tents worth 2 million ₽.

Rent – 125,000 ₽

Currently, our production is located at the Krasnoyarsk wagon repair plant.

The owner of the plant was in bankruptcy status, we gave him some of our employees' time, and in gratitude they offered inexpensive rent, about 300 rubles per square.

Materials – 500,000 ₽

There were no problems with materials, but every winter the 80-kilowatt gas guns ran out, and all suppliers were waiting for the arrival from China.

Only last year I found a supplier in St. Petersburg who has good prices and a large warehouse stock, and the price also includes delivery.

We put a 30% markup on the gun, which works out a little cheaper for the buyer than it costs in a hardware store.

Employees – 400,000 ₽

Previously, we sewed in the zone, now we have brought in our own seamstresses, but for now there aren’t enough hands, so we sew this way and that way.

With people it has become difficult. Salaries in the defense industry have increased several times. Previously, you could easily lure a specialist from a radio plant with a salary, but now they say:

I get 120,000 ₽ without doing almost anything.

Finding seamstresses specifically for tents is a separate quest. Usually everyone sews on Wildberries, but here are specific machines, they have to sew wide things 1.5 meters a roll and every 1.5 meters needs to be sewn, for this the machine must have a long sleeve.

Working with the zone is convenient because you don't have to pay when there is no work. You can't do that with seamstresses on staff, otherwise no one will want to work. Sometimes you can send people on vacation, but it doesn't always work out.

We have piecework wages everywhere. Everyone understands: the more the project develops, the more they get. The scheme looks like a pirate one, or, as is fashionable, a turquoise one.

We subtract the cost of materials, rent from the revenue, and 45% of the resulting amount goes to the people. The production manager gathers everyone and assigns a performance coefficient from the amount received. Salary is calculated depending on the contribution to the process.

Everyone knows the economics of production and profit. Under this scheme, employees receive higher than the market.

Advertising – 100,000 ₽

For us, it's mainly Avito. I hired an Avito specialist, he makes seasonal ads. In winter, we have about 2,000 ads for frameless tents alone and the same number for fastboxes.

In total, our production spends 1.24 million ₽ on average per month.

How much does tent production in Krasnoyarsk earn?

With a turnover of 2 million ₽, tent production brings in about 755,000 ₽ in profit.

Why don't we terrorize our competitors?

When the tents started selling actively, they, of course, were copied furiously. And some guys from Tyumen even filed a lawsuit against us, proving that we supposedly came up with the method of constructing a “gas cannon under a tarpaulin” later than they did.

First they filed a dispute with the patent office and tried to prove that our patent had been patented for a long time and had similarities with another patent. They were told that we were fine.

They filed a complaint with the antimonopoly service, but this time against the patent bureau, because they had incorrectly considered their situation. The FAS said:

Yes, everything is fine there!

And they came to negotiate with us.

– We have a patent, you have a patent, let’s create a monopoly on this market!

We say, make an offer, we have no idea how you want to see it, and what such a monopoly will give. They wanted to unite with us to terrorize other manufacturers.

We say:

If you want, give me a nightmare.

They asked to rewrite their patent to us, and they would have rewritten theirs. In general, they wanted something shady. This is their only business, and that is probably why they are so worried about it.

I made a patent for the trust of buyers. I understand that our tents are already sewn in many cities, but I just don’t see the point in wasting time and money on fighting copies. You first need to prove that they got money from your product, but they can always close the company and sell from another, and so slap dozens of companies.

We just talk to customers:

– They make the same ones there!

– They stole it from us.

And since many are for justice, they would rather buy from those who invented it than from those who copied it.

Conclusions

Today everyone is talking about sales. Buy in China cheaper, sell in Russia more expensive, go to marketplaces and fly to the Maldives.

But what really?

Marketplaces have become a very competitive topic, those who used to have 100% profit there, today work at zero, or are happy if they have 10%. Most of the entrepreneurs I know are trying to sell off the rest and leave. After all, when it doesn’t sell, marketplaces charge for storage. Those who bring from China start having problems with payments.

And in general, I came to the conclusion that buy-sell seems to be not a very honest business. You do not bring any particular benefit to anyone, except that you bring the goods a little closer to the client. And now marketplaces and chain stores do this, shopkeepers are no longer needed here.

And when you are a producer, you can say that your karma improves. You understand your value and feel more comfortable. You create jobs, produce a useful product and in return you receive added value higher than that of a buy-sell.

In the current reality, I think it is best to consider production. Therefore, the profit from the tents went to the development, and now to the production of their own snow and swamp-going amphibious vehicle.

DISCLAIMER: The article was written by the author of the blog “fell, rose”based on an interview with the founder of the tent production company AllianceService, Andrey Klimovich.

I am blogging “fell, rose” with stories about real business, not this successful success of yours. Every week – a new story based on an interview with an entrepreneur.

You will read: how I earned 13 million a year from passive income lovers, how I glued cardboard and sold it on marketplaces for 50 million a year, why my taxi fleet with 300 drivers and 40 cars is no longer a business, how I make and sell stones on marketplaces for 1.35 million a month, why the dumpling production in the provinces is dying, and how 1,000 workers work for me, although they think that they work for themselves And other stories.