How SENET has evolved from internet cafe software into a tool for the entire industry development: Interview with Volodymyr Onoprienko, Head of SENET Revenue at Enestech Software

In Ukraine, there is a company that has not only created a tool for administering gaming clubs - it is working to create industry standards for the whole world. For this purpose, the SENET ecosystem is used to help club owners and players. The former can switch on computers without leaving their seats, immediately update drivers on all PCs, and receive analytical data from their club. Meanwhile, players can order food, drinks, book a computer or console, accumulate points to get additional playing time, have their own rating and compete with other players without getting away from their computers. In general, they can spend time playing games in a comfortable environment and have fun. Volodymyr Onoprienko, Head of Revenue at Enestech Software (part of TECHIIA holding), who is responsible for sales and marketing of SENET, told gg about the structure of SENET, why it was decided to launch it in Vietnam, what new technologies are being introduced, and more.

gg: Can you explain what SENET is for those who are not in the know?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: SENET is a complex ecosystem. We enable clubs to organise and manage their gaming business. A gaming club is not just a network of computers connected to the Internet. It is an opportunity to provide players with good equipment and stable Internet access so that they can play new games and use various applications. In other words, a club in the classical sense is a place where interested people gather and play. SENET provides an opportunity to manage this business. On the one hand, club owners and administrators have the opportunity to manage the establishment conveniently for themselves. On the other hand, players get a comfortable environment where they can not only play but also access services related to their stay in the club. They can order tea, coffee, something to eat, book a computer and make a remote payment.

Some of the features available to players in clubs with the SENET ecosystem are: 1) Shop; 2) Reservations; 3) Loyalty programme (Illustrations: SENET)

gg: Why did you choose the name SENET?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: The name comes from an ancient Egyptian game that existed more than 2000 years ago. It was a board strategy game where you had to move pieces around the board. "SENET" is translated from the ancient Egyptian as "transition". The rules of the game have not been preserved, but it was something similar to chess. There is even some philosophy in this, as we are creating an industry because there are no rules yet. Thanks to the qualities of our product, we do not just meet the market demand, but deeply understand how the gaming industry is developing and what opportunities there are in it, setting up individual services.

gg: Speaking about the essence of the business, there is a so-called Copilot. Can you be called a Copilot for the business that manages clubs?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Yes, you can. We do not adapt to the business process of the club owner. Rather, we provide a tool to make this process flexible, meet the requirements and tactics of the club, and on the other hand, we provide more opportunities to increase the club's business.

That is, it is a synergy between the wishes of the players who visit the club, with their expectations for service and comfort, and the improvement of the business process of the club itself in terms of workload, resource use and marketing opportunities to promote the club's services.

So, using SENET, if you start from the top, the club owner has the opportunity to improve the business side of the club: make it more stable, more predictable, reduce risks and attract players to spend more time in the club using various tools, such as special offers or communication opportunities.

I can say that we are creating this industry for sure.

gg: In 2022, you exited the Russian and Belarusian markets, but stepped up your global expansion. According to the results of the year, did you manage to compensate for the loss of more than 1,300 customers from the invader country?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: The conscious step of ceasing operations in the countries involved in this war had a strong impact on our business development. Now I can say that we have restored the growth rates we had. The market in Russia was large, and first of all, we lost momentum in our development. But we managed to restore it thanks to our global development strategy in the international market and in the post-Soviet countries (excluding Russia and Belarus).

gg: How has the landscape of the Ukrainian market changed? Have you lost any clients or, on the contrary, have you attracted new ones? And what is the structure of clients in Ukraine by geography?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Business in Ukraine is going through a tough time due to the general mood and cost reallocation. People prefer spending on the army instead of entertainment, and gaming is entertainment. That is why we are seeing a decline in club activity, but we have not seen a sharp closure like during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are still negative consequences.

gg: What is the structure of clients in Ukraine by geography?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: The good thing for me is that internet cafes are popular not only in big cities of Ukraine. There are good gaming clubs with their own audience in small towns as well.

But the leaders are Odesa, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.

As for the tariff scale for Ukraine, we did not change it, we could not do otherwise.

gg: Speaking of prices. You have 3 tariff plans - what is the difference between them?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: SENET's business model is SaaS (software as a service). We sell subscriptions. We have 3 subscriptions: base, business, and premium. Of course, the latter gives the client the greatest benefit, and we always explain what exactly the client will get from the premium version. Speaking of the base subscription, it has limited functionality, so we try to convey to the client that business and premium are the most favourable tariffs. But we will keep the basic tariff in those countries that are less solvent.

gg: What are your plans for the global market in 2023?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: There are large and interesting markets in many countries, and we are building a strategy for each of them separately. In this context, the key markets for us are the strategic markets of North and South America, in particular Brazil, and we are currently developing a strategy for Europe. Another key market for us is Vietnam and Southeast Asia. For Vietnam, we have already developed a strategy, but for Malaysia and Indonesia, we are just starting to work on the tools to enter these markets.

gg: Why was Vietnam chosen?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: We have clear data on the size of the market and its development prospects for individual countries such as Vietnam, China and South Korea. These are markets with a high degree of business organisation and an extremely large number of registered gambling clubs, but the markets of South Korea and China are very closed, regulated and highly competitive, and mistakes are very expensive there. Nevertheless, we are preparing to enter these markets, but we decided to postpone the decision to take active steps. Therefore, all efforts have been focused on Vietnam, where we have more than 15,000 cubic metres and a fairly competitive environment. We feel that with the existing product-market fit (when a product or service fully meets the needs and requirements of the market in which it is located and generates sufficient demand and profit - editor's note), we can claim the position of a technology leader in this country.

We are still in the process of entering the market, but we have already signed a cooperation agreement with the largest franchise in Vietnam - more than 700 clubs - and we are gradually, step by step, transferring these clubs to SENET.

We also want our technical support staff to be present there. This is a key success factor for this market. We have technical specialists who can provide offline assistance to the club owner or administrator. In general, Vietnam is a testbed for us for innovations, where we can observe what kind of business development effect we can get.

gg: How do you make a decision to launch in a new region? What precedes it and what are the conditions for opening a representative office?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: The process and logic of making a decision to enter a particular market is as follows: first of all, we assess the market potential using information from all available sources. We estimate the number of clubs using open statistics and study the business economics of individual countries. The price for one hour of playing in a club in the US will be 9 times higher than in Vietnam.

With this in mind, we estimate the monetary potential of a particular market, take into account the number of clubs, the number of computers in these clubs, estimate the number of competitors, and analyse lead generation (search and attraction of potential customers - editor's note). After all of this, we analyse whether this market is worth focusing on.

About lead generation. One of the key factors in the market's prospects is the cost of lead generation. We understand that no matter how much we invest, no matter how active we are, certain limited markets, such as Uzbekistan or Armenia, will not give us the economic effect we can expect from Brazil or Vietnam.

The next step is to assess Product-market fit: how well the solutions and services we provide match the internal processes of our potential customers.

Finally, I would add that sometimes there are local competitors that we do not see at first glance, and we need to be prepared for this. But this applies to any business.

gg: I would also be interested to know what is the largest institution in terms of the number of PCs serviced by SENET, and in which country is it located?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Here we have to go back to Vietnam.

We all imagine that it is a jungle there, but even in the jungle, I always had 5G connection

Everything the Vietnamese do, they do well. And there is the largest club there, one of the franchises we signed an agreement with, with 250 computers. They are also planning to open an eSport arena with 400 PCs.

gg: What new projects have you implemented over the past year?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: We have implemented a programme to develop a diskless solution. There are two types of gaming club architecture: traditional, in which the club is a network of interconnected personal computers with a full configuration, and diskless, in which all data of individual computers is stored on the server, and a new player who sits down at the computer receives a disc image, and this data is closed after the session is over. As an example, I will give Kazakhstan: if we had introduced a diskless system there earlier, our position in this country would have been twice as strong.

And the diskless system is the next generation in the development of the gaming club architecture, which allows for very clear administration and eliminates the prospect of network settings being compromised or hacker attacks. In other words, this solution makes it possible to organise the process of work in large clubs with 20-30-50 or 100-200 computers.

There is a solution for this - SENET Boot. This is our diskless solution for customers, which is currently the leader among similar products in the markets of Kazakhstan and the United States.

gg: How long does it take to reboot?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: The session closes in a matter of seconds, SENET reboots the machine and pulls up a fresh image. And I want to clarify that this is not cloud gaming - this technology works on regular gaming PCs.

In general, we in the team are proud of this development. SENET Boot is not a simple module, we wrote it, developed it, and are now customising it. We are also implementing automatic updates when new drivers or something else becomes available, so the club administrator doesn't have to run around and install everything himself. All of this is being tested now, and at the same time, we have acquired certain attributes for high competition.

gg: Your website states that you can control consoles. But how does it work? You can't install third-party software there.

Volodymyr Onoprienko: There are two options: the first is traditional, when a special controller, developed by Enestech, is connected to the TV, which simply switches the TV on or off. This era is already over. And there is a new option - we have created a separate application for AndroidTV, Samsung, and are registering with LG. This will allow club owners to control TVs from the SENET administrative panels.

gg: So, you can't switch off a conditional PlayStation through the panel?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Unfortunately, we can't. The console is always on, and only its display (TV) is controlled.

gg: How else can SENET be used besides controlling PCs and TVs?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Some countries, for example, in Africa, say: "Give us the ability to just switch computers on and off". However, we want to build a comfortable environment for the player with SENET because we have modules that can be used to administer, order drinks, food, you can book a PC immediately, and in the future, we may sell mice and keyboards in this way.

We are currently testing the organisation of tournaments so that players can communicate with each other, compete, have their own rating, and receive bonuses.

gg: SENET automatically generates financial reports and collects analytics on visitor activity. How did you implement this?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: We have accumulated a fairly large knowledge base on how business processes should be built in a club: what monitoring control points and performance indicators should be the basis for making business decisions. This allows us to understand which trends are used on a daily or weekly basis. We offer this to the client as a separate service, and there was no AI involved. Our solution is built on an understanding of a properly organised process, control points, and indicators. It includes separate reports and economic charts of the club.

Some of the features available to club owners with the SENET ecosystem are: 1) Financial control; 2) Detailed statistics; 3) Access levels; 4) Cash register (Illustrations: SENET)

gg: Last year, the company opened two new areas - universities and airports. Do you see any prospects for creating similar locations in Ukraine? What do you need for this - sponsors or government assistance?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: Here you need to dive into this vertical market, because it is not just a typology of clients. Higher education institutions and educational institutions in general are a typical example of a vertical market in which a separately built business process may differ from the general practice. And we see quite a lot of potential in this, because, for example, there is a classical understanding of a library where you cannot talk, and there is an understanding of a modern library as a place of access to knowledge in all its forms. And given the global practice of organising the educational process and full digitalisation and the possibility of administering information as a resource through a PC, this is a fairly large and very attractive sector for us.

We are especially looking at esports. A lot of educational institutions in Europe, the US, and Canada are actively moving in this direction. Esports is even taught as a discipline.

And I see this as a great opportunity for development in Ukraine

We need to pay attention to this, and it should be a global government programme. And when we win the war against Russia, we will return to this issue. We have the resources and understanding of the industry, and we are ready to engage government agencies to improve this development. There are a lot of highly qualified enthusiasts with professional education in Ukraine who can drive all this, and we are ready to help.

gg: Your team prides itself on its customer focus, and last year you reviewed 765 customer proposals. What were these suggestions (what exactly did they concern) and which ones did you implement?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: One of the requests that we liked was the ability to accumulate bonus points that can be used to purchase game time. This is the case when the "I would like this" request adds a new product to the service that enhances its competitiveness. And the owner can attract more players to his club.

Demonstration of the SENET ecosystem capabilities

gg: And lastly, do you have any job vacancies now and what kind of specialists with what experience and skills are you looking for?

Volodymyr Onoprienko: We always have vacancies. (All job vacancies are available here.) We need sales specialists, especially international sales with knowledge of English. We also always need Python and back-end specialists.

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