Ablai Yusupov, founder of Upgrade School: "We give our graduates particular tools"

There are plenty of universities and specialties in Kazakhstan today. 26 Business schools offer MBA in our country. However, the market for economic and business education is difficult to call competitive. This is evidenced by criticism of a product quality (in this case - education level of graduates) on the part of employers. At the same time, new young players appear on the market. One of them is Upgrade School, which, according to its founders, offers a completely new format for entrepreneurship, skills and marketing.

The main thing is to create an atmosphere!

Ablai Yusupov is 24 years old now, and some of his students are older than him. Ablai is the General director of “Upgrade Group” LLP, head of “Upgrade School”, a school of entrepreneurship, skills and marketing, president of Alumni Association of Almaty Management University.

There are plenty of universities and specialties in Kazakhstan today. 26 Business schools offer MBA in our country. However, the market for economic and business education is difficult to call competitive. This is evidenced by criticism of a product quality (in this case - education level of graduates) on the part of employers. At the same time, new young players appear on the market. One of them is Upgrade School, which, according to its founders, offers a completely new format for entrepreneurship, skills and marketing.

The main thing is to create an atmosphere!

Ablai Yusupov is 24 years old now, and some of his students are older than him. Ablai is the General director of “Upgrade Group” LLP, head of “Upgrade School”, a school of entrepreneurship, skills and marketing, president of Alumni Association of Almaty Management University.

The idea of ​​the school was simple: to give students, aged 18 to 22, opportunity to obtain skills that remain inaccessible to them in the process of studying at a university. But the project turned out to be so successful that for the year of the school's functioning six streams were taught, students and young people up to 27 years old come to school.Two years ago, Ablai, together with his friends, Magzhan Tleukhanov and Birzhan Ashim, opened “Upgrade School”, a school of entrepreneurship, at Almaty Management University, which they graduated.

Currently, in Astana US held the first stream and is admitting the second one, in Almaty the seventh stream of students will soon start (the training lasts 2.5 months). In fact, the course is completed by approximately half of trainees - tasks and the format of training presupposes active involvement of trainees, and as Ablai notes, not all the guys are ready to work hard:  

"How does it usually happen? A person comes and he has to do homework with us. On Communications subject, he muct get acquainted with 5 new people for 3 days. Another rather difficult task for our trainees is to write an essay on Harvard pattern. What's the point? We took Harvard themes, let's say, to remember a difficult situation of life, and tell how you solved it. We take such topics not by chance. After all, our trainees are very young people, who first need to understand what skills they want to develop and why. Their goal is to choose a niche, a field of activity that they like. And for this you must ‘dig’ into yourself. Understand what you like, what you know, see your strengths and weaknesses. And in the process of writing an essay, it happens".

Great drop-out is also explained by the peculiarities of upbringing: "Someone is used to the fact that parents solve everything for him, someone drops their hands after the first setbacks, perhaps it is the costs of our education, which is aimed at preparing" excellent students ". We are accustoming the guys to the fact that the future successful specialist should leave the comfort zone and make mistakes. Without them, qualitative growth is impossible, "Ablai is sure.

The aim of the school is that every young person enrolled in the course develops necessary skills, gets the work of his dreams, and even opens his own business in process of training.

"Today there is a huge amount of literature on this topic, there are business trainings and similar things, but this is not the most important thing. The main thing - I believe, to create a special atmosphere when you simply cannot not try yourself in practice - SMM, marketing, business. In our school, guys get acquainted, learn what their peers are doing, communicate with successful entrepreneurs. And, as it is known, a person is largely made by the environment, surroundings, "Ablai said.

At the same time, the main method of teaching at school is based on HOW they teach, not WHAT or WHO. "What we give to trainees is 60% of our experience, 30%  of our mentors’ and advisors’ experience  and about 10% we take from the global experience - cases, books, presentations, etc. - Ablai shares. - Among the skills we teach are leadership, personal growth trainings, goal-setting, marketing, traffic (a marketing tool that helps to identify channels of communication and attract the audience), and others.

As for graduates of schools and colleges, as well as first year students of universities - for them at Upgrade School, in addition to professional development, the emphasis is also on pumping of so-called. "Soft skills". "This is not directly related to business, more to the human factor. We develop ability to take the initiative, delegate authority, ability to speak, to build right communications - this, by the way, is a big problem among students, everyone is embarrassed to get acquainted, speak to the audience, everyone has some complexes, fear of making mistakes, etc. "Among the products of Upgrade School, a program for business owners stands apart. "This program is usually for people aged 23 - 35, mostly self-taught, who decided to systematize their knowledge. MBA for them is expensive and long. But they need here and now. In this case, a short-term program is a good solution, which is a fusion of theory and practice”, Ablai said.

The school teachers are both eminent entrepreneurs and students - Ablai Yusupov and his friends, all of them, mostly young people. "We do not consciously engage older professionals. We thought about it, even tried it, but what a problem arises: they, of course, have more professionalism, but there is no such contact with students as we have. An "adult" coach keeps the distance, and even if a student does not fully understand something, he is too shy to ask again”, the founder of Upgrade School thinks.

During the course, Ablai and his friends Birzhan and Magzhan talk about the techniques, while paying considerable attention to personal consultations and motivation of young people.

Among the invited speakers, which give students a great motivation - such stars of journalism, SMM, PR and business as Birzhan Ashim, Alisher Elikbaev, Nurlan Baidilda, Arman Suleimenov, Zaure Roszat, Daria Bublik, Rasul Abdullaev, Nurken Rzaliyev, Kuanysh Shonbai , Magzhan Tleukhanov, Ramil Mukhorjapov and many others.

The idea to open an own school of entrepreneurship, according to Ablai, was originated in 2011, when he was in the 1 year at AlmaU: "That time I enrolled in one of the business schools and studied there for 3 months. As a result, I got skills in leadership, oratory, management, etc. It is interesting that exactly these skills, obtained on short-term trainings, helped me in further development as an entrepreneur. And then I was already thinking about starting my own course on entrepreneurship: I noticed for myself some shortcomings in teaching, I thought what I would have done differently. "

How it all began…

Then there was the experience of working in ENACTUS (Ablai even became the captain of ENACTUS university team), practice in the marketing department of the university (from the 1st year), work in the student council (in the 2nd year), and (where marketing skills start) student agitation brigade (3 -4 years).

Being in the 2nd semester, Ablai opened “Gold Rush” student business club, where they invited practitioners - marketers and entrepreneurs - to share their experience in business with students. Another similar platform, initiated by Ablai, was called AlmaU Family: "Through practice, opening clubs, I learned to take some action. At the second, third and fourth years he was actively engaged in student life, he worked in the marketing department and, thanks to the fundamentals, which he received in the 1 cyear, started to engage in business at the same time. By the 4th year I already had the first successful business project Qweex - it's wines, small videos taken by students for students. Now we have 600,000 subscribers in Instagram, but I left the project in November last year. Making Queex, I realized that I can go to the city level, "Ablai said.

Later, the student joined the project of TG Group / BEST language center, which was also quite successful. However, in September last year, the young businessman had to withdraw from this project in order to proceed with realization of the idea that he had been bred for so long. In his native university he was met: provided the audience for a business school - and just over a year ago, three  friends, having left all projects, decided to start a joint business.

Success of Upgrade School is explained by the fact that young people today need more skills than information. "When a person graduates from a university, he comes out with knowledge, but without the skills. And while he acquires these skills, it will take 1-2 years, and companies do not want to spend money, time or energy on this. As a result, students get a double stress, because today they are often ambitious, but do not know how. Having high expectations, they are waiting for "the work of their dreams," they stay at home for months and only then, losing some of their qualifications, are arranged where they will. We realized that there is such a "pain", a problem in society, and wanted to help in solving it, "says the creator of Upgrade School.

Another problem is that companies often need single skilled specialists that are not enough in the  market: "For example, now business has a request: they need SMM specialists. And we react - we open our own SMM school in short time. Our speakers are director of Agarty advertising agency Vladimir Jabarov, representatives of “RED Agency” digital agency, "Let's Go" portal, targetologist Nurlana Baidilda, The Steppe copywriter, etc. "

Upgrade School students practice marketing, get entrepreneurial skills, and often work for free. Ablay emphasizes that the school does not give ready-made recipes or advice, which business should be opened or how to develop in the chosen sphere: "Beautiful books, especially from the west,  do not suit us, we cannot use them here. For example, we have such a block - a niche choice. We advise: first, explore what you like, where you have experience, what your parents, friends, etc. do. The usual situation when a person is studying for a doctor, his parents are lawyers, and he likes programming. And here it is very difficult to make a choice, because the student hears at home one information, at university - another, and the third one needs more time. And we say that we need to focus on 1-3 areas, which are related to each other. And it's important to understand as soon as possible whether it's yours or not, "Ablai says.

Fruits and Plans

Today among the graduates of Upgrade School there are already young people with successful business projects. A graduate of the 2nd stream, Amanzhol Smagulov, organized highly demanded online English courses. "I myself learn English with him, through Skype," Ablai says, "what is good in his business?" He has no expenses, he sits at home and earns approximately 500-600 thousand tenge per month. The only thing is that such a business model is bad if he gets sick, he cannot earn money. "

Stas, 24, is engaged in aerial photography using a flying dron (quadrocopter). Adil, 23, has launched a mobile application for motorists to search for spare parts. Daniyar, 20, a third-year student of KazNU, opened  Candybox.kz store and successfully sells sweets from all over the world, he realized the idea, having thought over the logistics, now his revenue is 1200000 tenge per month.

Another student, Alisher, has a monthly income of KZT 600,000: he makes personal sweatshots, promoted by quality materials and excellent tailoring, as well as a good attitude towards clients.

Graduate of AlmaU Darkhan Kuralas, who also graduated from US course, now is engaged in the manufacture of wooden notebooks, covers and other products.

Another student of the school is Tair Kudreev, now he is promoting two publics: kudaalmaty, kudaastana, like "Let's go", and earns well.

An unusual business idea was realized by Amanzhol, he opened a bookstore "451", in the format of a literary cafe, there you can buy comics, books and table games, always on sale - the latest bestsellers of Dan Brown.

"There are many examples of successful graduates. Aslan conducts football training for children in his own futsal, and he also opened a sneaker store. Beibarys, a doctor by training, is successfully engaged in photography. Victoria from AlmaU sells karaoke microphones to 3 cities of the republic, "Ablai said.

Today, training in US is available both in offline and in online format, some students  are our compatriots from China, Europe, Canada are already studying.

Ablai does not hide: he has great plans for developing his project. "We want to take all the best, innovative from the market, study the needs of entrepreneurs, and make a program built on the basis of specific tools. We will focus on developing key skills. And it can be done quickly. After all, now it is not necessary to be a cool copywriter or a designer, a video maker to present SMM. A design school that we plan to launch, contains 12 classes, and during this time trainees will learn on their own to design a logo, a banner, and any other promotional products. "

In total, Upgrade School has invested about 2 million tenge in its graduates' projects since the beginning of its work. The founders of Upgrade School hope that in the near future the school will have a fund, the money from which will be invested in a joint (with students) business.