Natalia Kaspersky, his former wife and the Director General of the Laboratory says the following: “Eugene is a workaholic. He can’t stop working. His is a maximalist in all respects. Not so long ago we spent a holiday together in Austria, went mountain skiing. He woke up at nine in the morning and then he spent all the day at the slopes, until the ropeways were closed. At night we went to restaurants where he drank quite a lot of beer. I think that in the morning he should not have been able to stand, not to mention the skis… But, nevertheless, each morning he woke up at nine and skied until late in the evening. As for me, three days of this stress was enough. After that I could not wake up until noon. But Eugene is different… And in all other respects he is the same.

Let’s try to understand how Kaspersky Lab became a part of life for Eugene Kaspersky, and how he became the life and soul of the company.

Military service – pre-antivirus epoch

The story of Eugene Kaspersky is very much like the stories of other talented and energetic people who started their carrier in the 1980-s. At that time Eugene, having graduated from the Cryptography Institute, served as a senior lieutenant in one of the classified organizations of the USSR General Staff. Kaspersky says that his choice of profession was influenced by two main factors: he wanted to develop self discipline, and the teachers from the institute made a very good impression on him: they were intelligent, cultured people who came to mathematical schools to invite the students to their institution.

The officer’s wage was enough to provide a family with two children, but the Kasperskies couldn’t afford any “frills”. The emerging co-operative societies offered new opportunities for improving the financial position, and the deficit induced to be active. The goods, the assortment of which in the time of socialism was, to put it mildly, scanty, disappeared from the stalls in the twinkling of an eye. Such goods as sugar, cigarettes and vodka became scarce, and you needed food stamps to get them.

That’s no surprise that Eugene tried to find some additional source of income. But all his attempts to earn money working in a co-operative were in vain. “I soon recognized that I was not born to be a businessman, I’m a poor salesman, - tells Kaspersky, - I had a chance to earn some money in a cooperative trading in computers, but I didn’t manage to sell a single PC”.

The first virus. Hobby or vocation

Meanwhile Kaspersky’s service brought a modest but regular income. Once in 1989 his computer “caught” a virus. Eugene analysed the code of this program and easily understood how it works. Soon he wrote another program which restored the functions of his computer. “At that time I couldn’t  even suppose that antivirus software creation is my vocation, - tells Eugene, - I was not going to be engaged in that, and I didn’t want to organize a company – neither a big one, nor a small. I just wanted to use my knowledge, skills and energy”.   
But after that first virus came the second, than the third, the fourth etc… The computers needed to be “treated”. With time collecting viruses and creating antivirus programs became a hobby.

But, despite the results achieved in this sphere, Eugene didn’t think that his interest in harmful programs can bring money or even become a serious business. By that time people were already asking him for help. And one of Kaspersky’s first clients was the cooperative for which he didn’t manage to sell a single computer. “The orders were scarce, they didn’t bring much money, but still it helped to make both ends meet”, - says Kaspersky. A couple of small contracts also didn’t change the situation, but then the first important client appeared. One company decided to develop a huge for those days, full-service office system – something like Microsoft Office. The package included a number of modules, including an information security system, encryption software and an antivirus program. 

The idea was interesting, but technically it was too complicated. At that time, considering the state of techniques, it was to realize this project. Besides, the project leaders had no experience in management of large projects and programmers’ teams. Eugene realised that the project was almost certainly doomed, but he decided to take part in it for it gave him an opportunity to gain experience and earn some money. His expectations proved to be correct in all respects, including his hope for money and experience. For the first time in his life antivirus program development became a sufficient source of income. “I earned enough money to buy a car or a video recorder, - tells Eugene, - At that time they cost almost the same. I was hard for me to decide, but finally I chose a tape recorder, I no longer remember why”.

In a while Kaspersky, as he says, by pure chance, concluded another remunerative contract. Some company delivered a PC lot to the country, and each computer needed to be provided with antivirus software. “I can’t say if my program was attractive for the customers, but the computers were selling well, and my gains were considerable, - says Kaspersky, - With that money I could publish my first book. It appeared in 1990 and was called “MS-DOS computer viruses””. Eugene still thinks that this book was his most successful investment.
In 1990, even before the two mentioned contracts were concluded, Kaspersky antivirus program was already a finished product. Eugene developed a simple and user-friendly interface. You could manage the program using a mouse. It’s worth mentioning that at that time you started other well-known programs using the command line, so the interface offered by Kaspersky, although it worked in alphanumeric mode, was a step forward. Windows operating system had just appeared, and most computers were provided with MS-DOS. It might have been the interface that made an impression on the customers.
Recognition. Farwell to arms.

Antivirus activities occupied more and more time of Eugene Kaspersky. In the same 1990 he started to take part in programmers’ conferences and publish his articles in “Intercomputer” magazine. “I was becoming a public person, - tells Eugene, - and that fact was in conflict with my military service. I needed to get my command’s permission for each speech, for each publication”. The senior officers were indulgent towards the lieutenant, they approved of his interest and supported him. But even in such favourable circumstances Eugene had very little time for fighting viruses. Nobody dispensed Kaspersky from his duties, so he had only nights and days off for his “hobby”. The situation needed to be changed. He had to chose between the army and his favourite work. By that time Eugene already realized that antivirus programs development is his vocation. So he took a decision to leave the army.

It was the time of distemper, nobody knew what is going to happen with the country in a year, and the army could give some kind of social stability. “Everybody, except Natalia, discouraged me, - says Kaspersky, - but I was determined to leave”.  By the way, Kaspersky’s lieutenant’s tunic still hangs in the company’s office. It was not easy for the young lieutenant to leave the army. The whole procedure took him about a year. He did all his best to avoid any conflicts. As it was written in his order of dismissal, Kaspersky left because of inaptitude. Other officers laughed and asked, whose inaptitude was that. At the time of his dismissal, in the spring of 1991, Eugene was considered to be the best specialist in computers, who solved all the problems with software. After discharge Kaspersky decided to have a rest, but he managed to stay at home for only two weeks. Finding a new job was not a problem, there were a few opportunities. Eugene made a kind of “tender” for three computer firms, and on May, 19, 1991 he turned up to work in “Kami”. Before that the company was not concerned with development or marketing of antivirus products, there was not even a corresponding department. But for Kaspersky, who already had a name and reputation in computer world, an antivirus department was established. At first he was the only person working there.

Work with “Kami”

According to Eugene, it was not hard to find a common language with “Kami” management. The company was only starting to win the market. There were only about a dozen employees. The have chosen IT business as their field of activity. Later the choice proved to be right. Kaspersky himself had everything he needed at that time – a computer and a free hand. The most important factor was that “Kami” president, Alexey Remizov, knew Kaspersky well. Remizov was a teacher in the Higher School of KGB and taught a course to Eugene. He remembered the bright student and was sure that he would cope with the job.

The work with “Kami” was a new and a very important period of Kaspersky’s life which had a huge impact on the future of his own company. In the antivirus department he, at last, could realize his potential. His hobby turned into his job, and Eugene spent almost all his time on it. “That period was hard for me, - says Kaspersky, - It was hard physically. As I had, at last, an opportunity to meet other specialists, I obtained access to different computer viruses. I had to work 12 hours a day”. He was working like that for a few years, from 1991 till 1995. Eugene had no vacations and very few days off – no more than two in a month. The only opportunity for a change were the September programmers’ conferences at Abrau Durso.

Little by little the team was forming. In 1992 there were already three employees working in the antivirus department, including Kaspersky himself. Eugene could concentrate on the study of new viruses and on finding methods of restoring programs. His colleagues were occupied with creation of a new antivirus product and several utilities. “Kami” financed the antivirus research work when there was an opportunity, but the management didn’t expect to get profits in the near future. Still they got some dividends. The antivirus department made a pleasing contrast to other units. First of all, Eugene Kaspersky, the head of it, even then, in the early 1990-s, was a well-known person. Secondly, software development, and especially development of antivirus packages was considered to be a job for top-level professionals only, and it made “Kami” company more respectable. Thirdly, the products provided by the antivirus department, could be used for realisation of other “Kami” projects. And, finally, “Kami” management had a chance to tell the guests and clients about this department with pride.

Kaspersky recollects the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties as the time of fighting for a place under the Sun. It was not so easy. In the beginning of 1990-s the market of antivirus systems seemed to have been shared already. Kaspersky’s program was not the first one and not very well known. Foreign products like McAfee and Doctor Solomon were most popular at that time. A bit later, in 1992, Norton Antivirus was released. Besides, Russian competitors were also very active – there were about a dozen domestic programs in the market. The best known and the most popular was Aidstest by Dmitry Lozinsky, its market share was more than 90%. Eugene and his antivirus were among outsiders. But he knew well the reason for his misfortune: his competitors were working for open research institutes where viruses got much earlier than to his inbox. Besides, he started working as a full-time programmer only in 1991, when he took up his job in “Kami”.

But Kaspersky was not afraid of difficulties. He was working hard to achieve his aim. He had a great ambition. Eugene recollects how once in February of the year 1992 he met a colleague who asked him: “Why are you doing all that? I mean work so much? What for?” Kaspersky said that he wanted to create the best antivirus program in the world.

Not so long after that talk Kaspersky’s dream started to take shape. For the first time his program was internationally recognized in 1994. According to the test carried out by Hamburg University, Kaspersky’s product won the first place having recognized most viruses from the university collection. But how did they know in Hamburg that Kaspersky develops antivirus software? The fact is that Vesely Bonchev, a Bulgarian working in Hamburg University, remembered the talented programmer from Russia. He met Kaspersky in 1990, in Kiev, at a seminar on system programming, in which antivirus developers took part.

Having received the invitation from the University, Kaspersky gladly accepted it. And then a funny thing happened. “We have just released a new version of the program called AntiViral Toolkit Pro by Eugene Kaspersky, - tells Kaspersky, - and we decided to call it ATP shortly. But we used this abbreviation neither in the documents, nor in the program itself. And when I was archiving files for sending them to Hamburg, I made a misprint – instead of ATP I called the file AVP.zip. This program was sent to Hamburg”. In a while I started receiving comments from the users. Some of them said that AVP program was very good, others noted some drawbacks and offered to eliminate them. At first Kaspersky didn’t understand what program they were speaking about, for his product was called ATP. When he realised the mistake, he sent a letter to Hamburg asking to rename the program, but he got a reply that it was too late, for the program was already registered in all the documents and at all the websites under the name AVP. Thus, the popular trade name appeared as a result of a mistake.

So, the first aim was achieved: the best antivirus core was created. Before the year 1994 the position of “Kami” antivirus department was difficult. The antivirus products sold badly for most AVP users were not registered. “We needed to find additional sources of income, - says Eugene, - and that made me moonlight for another antivirus company. We were preparing a virus database for it”. “Kami” also helped to exist. “At that time our department was not yet self-repaying, - explains Kaspersky, - some money we earned, and “Kami” added the rest”. 

After winning the contest the situation changed: the first distributors appeared. What’s more, they came from abroad – from Italy and Switzerland. In the summer of 1994 they found Kaspersky and offered to conclude contracts. “Today these contracts seem funny, - smiles Eugene, - they were composed in a very peculiar way. We didn't earn much money, but we entered the international market, and it was the beginning of our development as an international company”. We should say that even before that there was a market for Kaspersky antivirus: “Kami” partners were selling it among other products, but the amount of sales was insignificant.

In September of 1994 Natalia Kaspersky joined the antivirus project. Before that nobody paid special attention to software marketing. Natalia already had some commercial experience– she had been working in a “Kami” shop for a few months. There she started selling packages with AntiViral Toolkit Pro by Eugene Kaspersky. Usually she managed to sell three to five packages, and sometimes – even ten. The product cost 55 dollars, which was quite an amount at that time. But the monthly turnover for the program AntiViral Toolkit Pro was no more than 500 dollars.

Natalia didn’t like her work in the shop much, and she accepted Remizov’s offer to become the manager of the antivirus department. Her task was to organize products distribution. “At first I didn’t understand how it should be done, almost everything I did was wrong, - tells Natalia, - I paid too much attention to the details instead of concentrating on the most important task – organization of a partners’ net. We knew nothing about marketing, we didn’t know how to organize advertising campaigns. We tried to do something, but, as I see it now, it was not efficient enough”. 

In spite of the problems, the business was going better: the products were improving, new partners were found, experience was gained and new employees came. Still, before 1996 the department hardly managed to scrape along. Eugene and Natalia say that it was the time of failures, and they made a lot of mistakes. “Our problem was that we were the first generation of Russian IT-companies management, - says Eugene, - there was nobody to teach us. In the Western world there existed a tradition of business management, and the kings and captains of IT industry had their preceptors. And we had to learn by our own mistakes. What we have today is the result of our hard work, of our disputes and quarrels. It was like finding our way in thick fog”.

But the persistence and determination of the Kaspersky team was soon rewarded. In the middle of 1990-s they signed contracts with such companies as F-Secure (Finland), G-Data (Germany) è Vintage Solutions (Japan) for use of Kaspersky antivirus core in their antivirus products. According to Eugene, it was a good source of funding the further development. For progress you need money and new ideas. Kaspersky has plenty of ideas, but money was a problem. But finally money was found. Natalia and Eugene note that the contract with F-Secure was of great importance for future development. F-Secure is a big antivirus vending company, from which you can learn a lot. “We visited a partners’ conference organized by them, and there we learned how to establish relations with partners and how to conduct business, - tells Natalia, - we saw them testing products, saw how they organize sales and research work, and used their experience”.

Russian companies also did not stay aloof. In 1996 a contract was signed with "1S" company. “For us it was a breakthrough, - tells Natalia, - for a long time Boris Nuraliyev doubted if our partnership had any prospects, the negotiations lasted for almost half a year. At last we persuaded him, and now our programs are among the top three best selling products, along with Microsoft software and the production of "1S" itself”. The second turning point was signing a distribution agreement with a Petersburg company called “Policom Pro”. It was not easy to do in 1996. Even Then “Policom Pro” was already considered to be a big firm, and it took Natalia a lot of effort to make this partner interested in Kaspersky antivirus software. But finally the distribution agreement was signed and it helped to work up the market of the North-West region.

But, unfortunately, there were some problems too. The fist big mistake was concerned with trademark registration. AVP trademark was registered only in Russia, and, as a result, there appeared AVP-Austria, AVP-Brazil, AVP-Malaysia etc. But the most discouraging incident happened in the USA. A US partner created a website at www.avp.com, where he represented himself as a vendor. There was no way of making a claim for he wrote, on the last page and in small print, that all rights were reserved by Kaspersky, and he didn’t break any terms of the contract.   To terminate the contract Kaspersky had to retain American lawyers, and that cost a lot.

Own business: Kaspersky Lab

In 1996 it became clear that “Kami” was in a serious crisis. It inspired Natalia Kaspersky for action. “I offered to start an own business for several times, but Eugene didn’t support me,” – she tells. But finally she had her way. “In th spring of 1997”Kaspersky Lab” became a separate legal entity, - says Eugene, - Although I faintly tried to object “. Natalia Kaspersky became the Director General, and Eugene concentrated on product development.

The “divorce” with “Kami” was peaceful. Then there were debates about the name of the new company. “I understood that the brand is very important, and I wanted the word “Kaspersky” to be introduced in the name of the company, tells Natalia, - we changed the name for several times”. At last the Russian vendor was called “Kaspersky Lab”. Natalia thinks that was the right choice, for the name of Kaspersky was well known in the market. In a while, at a Softool show, this decision proved to be right. Almost all the visitors coming up to the company’s booth, said: “Yes, we know, it’s an antivirus”.

Kaspersky didn’t want to give his name to the company. That’s what he says about it:
- When in 1997 we decided with Natalia and a few colleagues to establish a company, we had neither money nor a good strategy. The only thing we had was an ambition to make a business. As it is known, the name is very important for a company. Natalia offered the “Kaspersky Lab” variant, she wanted the name to become a brand like Ford or Zinger. Our partners supported the idea. I was against, but couldn't offer anything better, so we registered the company as “Kaspersky Lab”.

Becoming a brand

To make a brand it’s not enough to call a company with your name. “Kaspersky Lab” was at the beginning of a long and difficult way.

But how did the name of Kaspersky become a brand? That’s what Eugene Kaspersky says himself:
“It was a long process. It took us years to make a good reputation first in the Russian and then – in the international market. We just tried to make our products much better than the products of our competitors. Sometimes we managed to do that, although not so often. And as time passed, we succeeded more and more often. When we started our business, our market share was only 5-10% of the Russian market. We were known only by specialists and experts. Year by year our products and services were winning popularity, and in each country the situation was different. In Russia we were better known, and the neighbouring countries like the Baltic states, Ukraine and Israel, where 1/6 of the population are Russian emigrants, accepted our products easily. It was hard to make way in the British market, because of the traditional conservatism and distrust in new products. It took us almost five years of painstaking work to make the “Kaspersky” brand recognized in the British market. In France and Germany the situation was a bit easier, the people there are more responsive to new technologies and they value quality most of all. In Japan and the USA we are still not known as a company producing end products, although “Kaspersky Lab” has long been selling here its technologies, which are employed by local companies.

At first we had no particular strategy; we were just fighting for survival and were searching for the opportunities to enter new markets. A standard strategy employed by a number of our competitors is as follows: a company office is opened in a new country; $1 million is spent on advertising, and advertisements are published on the pages of all the computer magazines. But very often this strategy doesn’t work: in a year the budget is over, the advertisements disappear, and nobody remembers the product any longer.
“Kaspersky Lab” chose another way. At first we won the hearts of experts, and then turned to common users. We first prove the superiority of our technologies to the people who know the subject – to our partners using our modules in their products. After that we offer finished products to other users, start working with internet providers. Providers help us to establish links with small-scale business and large corporations. In a while personal users also turn to us.

We use standard advertising methods: we organize press-conferences, PR tours, campaigns, shows etc. Sometimes we entered a market with a finished product, but it proved to be more difficult than starting with registration of technologies. We were not so much short of money as short of people. To win the world you need a lot of good people. By now we have penetrated almost all the markets we are interested in, so there is no need to invent new strategies”.

“Kaspersky” is, first of all, a top-class antivirus defence known by millions of users round the world. And these properties belong not only to the finished products issued by our company, but also to the technologies licensed by us. “Kaspersky lab” is an example of a Russian company which started from nothing, but achieved success not only in Russia, but also abroad. Our success is based, first of all, on my ability to foresee the future tendencies in the virus world, and we manage to react in time, before our competitors do. The second important factor is the ability to create new technologies which help us to recognize viruses easier and faster. The third is the ability to make a team. And, the last but not the least, is pure luck”.

Feeling a brand

What does a person whose name has become a brand feel? That’s what Eugene Kaspersky says:
“I must say from the very beginning that there wasn’t a day when I woke up a celebrity. Our products were winning the market little by little, and little by little was my popularity growing. I don’t like it when people in the streets recognize me. I don’t like publicity and want to keep a kind of privacy. That’s why when they ask me “Aren’t you the Kaspersky?”, I say: “Which Kaspersky?” But I liked it when I was going to Serbia and the officer checking my passport asked: “Kaspersky – antivirus?”

We even made up an official version about how the “Kaspersky” brand appeared: in fact, there was no Kaspersky at all. The founders of the company just invented a name that sounded good, and nobody remembers where it was taken from. And then, when the company suddenly became popular, journalists started asking: but who is that person? Show us the Kaspersky! And we had to employ an actor to play the Kaspersky part, and in a while, as the business developed, we hired another three. They were taking turns: one was giving interviews, another was on vacation, the third was flying somewhere, and the fourth – arriving to somewhere else.

But, seriously speaking, to represent a brand is not only uncomfortable, but also hard. The more popular you are, the more demanding it becomes: you have to work more and to travel more, and that is tiresome. In the past three months I have visited ten countries. Sometimes I wake up in the morning after such a trip and say: today I won’t go to work, or else I’ll go mad. I have days of  about twice a month, but twice a year I go on holidays: in winter I ski somewhere in Europe, and in summer I have a drive round some island in the Mediterranean or just lie on a beach.   I have been developing my habits for years. In my private life I am pretty modest, but I like everything to be clean and tidy. It doesn’t matter much for me what I wear and what car I drive: my car is VAZ-99, I don’t wear suits, my bobile phone is pretty old. I fly business class only if the flight takes more than five hours, in all the other cases I prefer economy class. That’s not my image – that’s my character. People need expensive accessories for self respect, and this problem never worried me much.

The greatest danger for a person is megalomania, overestimation of his own potential. It can be cured only at early stages, and if this illness progresses, it becomes dangerous for both, the person and the company. A good friend of mine noticed this problem with me and helped me to get over it. Now I have immunity. The greatest danger for a company depending on the person who has become a brand is to lose that person. But if the business is organised in a proper way, the company does not depend totally on one person, so the risks are not so significant. I think that if for some reason I leave “Kaspersky Lab”, it will be a hard blow for the company, but it will survive, and in a while the wound will close. But I’m not planning to live so far, so no problems are expected in the nearest future”.

That’s the end of the story about the two Kasperskies – Eugene and his Laboratory. But the story told here is not the whole story, and I hope that it will go on and on.