During a recent sit-down with BTW Media at Apricot 2024 in Bangkok, Vladimir Kangin, the brain behind IPTP Networks, shared his fascinating journey from humble beginnings in the USSR to establishing a web of companies in Cyprus. What sets him apart is his savvy business skills combined with a deep-rooted commitment to community values. He’s all about putting people first, creating a warm and tight-knit vibe within his organisation.
Vladimir isn’t just about profits; he’s on a mission to build a family-like culture within his company. His expertise in navigating global internet rules and dedication to sustainability are the secret sauce behind IPTP Networks’ triumph. With a keen eye on tech reliability, following regulations, and gearing up for AI’s future, Vladimir’s leadership is paving the way for a sustainable industry standard.
IPTP Networks isn’t just another company; it’s a shining example of ethical business practices that strike the perfect balance between operational efficiency and environmental consciousness.
My name is Vladimir Kangin I’m born in USSR so it’s a kind of change in this country not exist anymore so it used to be one of the largest countries but fell apart in 1991 but I studied as well in USSR but old style of education and old style of education system
Gives quite a lot of advantages to build something great in my life now I moved to Cyprus in 1996 and then I get naturalized so I’m Cypriot I’m a Cyprus citizen the company has been established in Cyprus in 1996 and since then it’s become a bigger holding group
So we now have about 13 companies uh with directly involved in the business and a few affiliated companies which is not partially owned and all of this is operated under the name of IPTP Networks so it’s our trading name and IPTP Networks is not one company
And it’s not one holding is a group of companies some of the companies are working based on commercial ties between the companies and some of the companies are part of the holding and operating let’s say as a one single business group entity you can say
We can see it’s really well developed group in this industry and you have many branches and so why do you choose Cyprus as your starting point wow so interesting question and I know it’s great for investment I have a long story and short story so what you will choose the interesting one
The interesting one okay the interesting one it would be really really funny so first time I visit United Kingdom on the program of Sister City in the 1990 or 1991 I don’t remember exactly the time and I was with my girlfriend to pick up in the south coast of UK
And we went by taxi not by taxi by the host who accommodate us to Tavistock city so and on the way the car had a problem and the tyre broke so when I talked to the owner of the car I was he said that he don’t know how to change tyre
Which was shocking me because I thought that every driver know how to change the tyre but he said no I don’t know how to change it and I said okay let me help you to do that he said I cannot let you do it because you may
Have some injury or something and then in the matter of three or five minutes the police comes on the bikes because it was a strong rain they knocked the window and say why you stand here on the highway he said because of the tyre broke he said oh okay
Do you know how to change he said no we don’t know how to change so do you have a book how to change it so oh yeah I have a book and they start looking for the book how to change tyre which is for me is what’s shocking and
Let’s say with the USSR let’s say um experience you cannot imagine that the police is asking something just to help is usually police when it’s getting involved you get in trouble so this is not normal it’s not normal when the police helping basically and this police was
Started reading the book but because it’s rainy I was shocked that he doesn’t want to make a book wet he takes his hat out and he covered the book so he put his head under the rain he gets all wet and he reading the book as something goes wrong
I really think like it’s not the say real pictures like some movie story right they read the book they give the book back and they said okay we understood where is your spare tyre don’t sit in the car we’ll do everything by ourselves and when they in the yellow forms
Just jump on the road when this old wet dirty asphalt on the road and they start changing the tyre so this is definitely something wrong because two policemen changing the tyre we sitting in the car we don’t even know how to change the car tyre and so on
I thought that it must be it would be a very big penalty for all of this service etc and then they finished tyre up of the car the tyre put the other tyre back then we start moving and I still was like lost why is that uh happened all over like this
Why is the police have to change your tyre for you and so this must be something wrong and I feel like not completed and they stopped the car in like two minutes later and they say like oh sorry we want to check that we tied up your back tyre well
So can you stop for a second then they again jump on the road again start tying up this oh my god this is this is out of completely my understanding and from that point of time I literally I fall in love with let’s say UK police style because you cannot take it differently
Because it’s touching it’s touching so for me yes for me from that point of time UK become kind of like a country to stay to be because you feel the police really take care of the life and there is a joke on this subject as well after that trip I got kind of
Addicted or always was thinking how can I do business with UK how to be close to that community etc but I’m from south of Russia I’m not let’s say tend to be in the fog and the mist city environment because I cannot enjoy no sun sunlights etc and that make me kind of
A few sad that this country living in the not that good weather and 1996 when it’s it was an opportunity to start moving to Cyprus first time when I land to Cyprus I saw English style of living with a bright sky and when I live that is
Like 360 days a year is a sunny holiday yes it’s a holiday the police like in UK so the sun and the sea liking my home city in what I seek in Russia so I said like this is a paradise this is a paradise so and
I can tell you that the Cyprus was interesting experience because the first time I come I feel much connected to the island to the people and the second time when I arrived to Cyprus I feel like I went to the home so because it’s like
You really feel that you belong to that place and that’s why the Cyprus so it’s a long story but this is true yeah it’s really touching this is true yeah you can really get satisfied and happy in a place where you can get your business started with
And a happy or you know comfortable life yeah of course yes so the comfortable life is one of the major factors because money cannot compensate it so you have to look from the perspective of your life first and then over it okay yeah and you can balance your work and life very well
Every day it’s a holiday and go back to work and finish your work yes absolutely yeah what are the key factors that have contributed to your company because it’s quite successful and growing very fast in the past nearly you know 30 years look it’s no magic
I would say this is a pretty straightforward however even it’s a classic I want to make sure that majority of the companies they’re not satisfied from the business prospective to follow our style our style was pretty simple our target to help customers to solve their challenges to assist them
To serve them to keep them happy despite the fact whether it’s very profitable or not profitable or even just the favor we’re doing it always was more human faced business so we we never focus on money so and money comes after we get to people satisfied and they bring another people we have
Grow natively over those years and even we do quite aggressive marketing even we do digital marketing or even our corporate magazine etc the number of the leads which we received through market activity is very marginal in compare with the number of the leads we which will receive through the customer recommendation
So the most of the our growth is coming from the our customers who bring their friends their partners and so on and so that’s how it’s growing this way why is not easy to adopt by other companies because it’s not focused on money so we never was focused to grow to get more
Business and set we always was focused to enjoy the work so enjoying the work it’s not a business it’s more like a lifestyle so that’s why the company and if you want to say success which is also adaptable because Google was established about the same time but as a multibillion company
Rather than IPTP yes which is a multimillion only so we are thousand times smaller than other big IT companies although with the same approximately age but we do not regret that because let’s say one type of business and the doing the business for your own fun is a is a completely different
Experience and I have interesting comment which probably answer to your questions three some team members who left IPTP in the past moved to another company and they talked to me after like 5 years or 10 years and they said I never had in my life ever experience
When you can do the business in the company tell to the companies to the partners to the customers truth enjoy what you are doing and being appreciated by other people and this is quite unique quite unique because in a most of the businesses
I’m sorry to say you have to lie you have to let’s say cheat or you have to let’s say focus on the money but it’s no joy I would not be able to sleep so I’d rather choose to sleep well sleep than make too much money yes so you prioritize your
Customers and really care about them it seems like you form a kind of community where everyone has cared about each other to be honest is just a perfect comment perfect comment because whenever we talk with someone either from investors or from new large partners agreements etc we always say to them that
We are not a typical company because we are community we are community we live in the community style and you know that in Israel there is kind of kibbutz where the people come together and they do farming together in Soviet Union it was uh kolkhoz, so kolkhoz is like common
Property managed by the community of the farmers to make a bigger business but because one farmer cannot do much so they team up together and just helping each other and it’s grow so it is hundred percent community style yes and this is I would say one of our
Let’s say main secret of let’s say success the way how we see success of course somebody say they not make a Google revenue so we’re not successful yet but we’re not targeted this we target to keep our team members happy keep their families happy keep the kids growing
Some kids working in our team my kids working in the company you can say more like a family business but because it’s quite big it’s not family business anymore it’s a community business and I think that community style of business we start let’s say openly present
From 2004 so basically 20 years ago 20 years ago we already recognize that we are not a standard company because it’s a we always say whenever somebody wants to come he said I want to come and I have to work I want to work we say okay but no salary
No salary because we have we have community we’re not the we’re not the company which is making the salary the people who focus on the money they very upset and they leave and they let’s say if you feel insulted with this type of offers but there is a few guys who
Let’s say back to 25 years ago who agree to do that and they say like I want to join your uh community because I’m a good guy and I’m sure that I will be able to contribute and it’s a surprise that this type of the people are still in our community
Over 25 years and now one of the richest probably successful people in the team they already become investors into the back to the community to the company and that is how it works and thank you so much for the question because not many people understand this that says a community style business so
They look to us like oh it’s another telecom or another ISP or it’s another data center but we are not yeah it’s really good suggestion for other companies you know if they want to improve their you know caring and love about their staff members and I can tell you that is a
Very good point that is very good point and I want to you probably will have some more questions about this area but little bit I heard of your questions and answered to something which you may interested there is no way to transform company into the company of IPTP style because
Let’s make just comparison right so if you make the marry between the two people because of money they will never love each other so they will be always focused on the money and whenever some conflict they just break because money doesn’t hold enough because it’s only for money
If you want to do something a long term money should not be involved and the love is in place so if the people let’s say in a good understanding in the good common mind etc they don’t care of money they are taking care of each other
They help each other in a difficult situation they let’s say have fun together the good time and they are tied together very strong to transform any company from let’s say classical business approach into the community approach is impossible is like try to transform family which marry for the money try to transform them
Into the family to the loving one is impossible you can make transformation backwards from the love into the money but we’re trying to resist anyone who are trying to compromise team inside who tries to corrupt anything internally externally right we had those challenges in the past we had companies
Tries to corrupt our employees who tries to destroy IPTP from inside etc I don’t want to talk about those stories but please understand it this is uniqueness can be only from the birth so when you make the company from the first person from the first members it has to be structured that way
And there is no way to have a shortcut you can’t develop it fast because it should go this machine should grow natively grow that’s the only way as a Tier-1 single-homed network what distinguishes IPTP networks from other ISPs in terms of service offerings and network infrastructure apart from the you know
Community style we just talked about you can offer us some other like your advantages and also you can tell us some of your competitors and why do you perform better than them so the most important one is your community method to run yeah community method is actually affect
This for part of the activities because normal business will be focused on the profitability our business is focused on quality and let’s say responsibility for what we are doing and customer satisfaction so with all let’s say respect there is not much competition on the market because of structure of those companies
Different from us and because the structure is different they can compete with us as ISP they can compete with us as data centers they can compete with us as a telecorm they can compete with us with the whole other way but they cannot compete with us as a community because they are not
So we basically have our strong uniqueness and this strong uniqueness have a very strong impact to the portfolio what we are doing so if you talk about competition I need to say that probably the many companies which is competing with us they are basically
Inspired by seeing our business already how we do it so they’re trying to make a copy paste of what we are doing and from that perspective we can say that we born our own competitors we even give them some let’s say ideas concepts etc and
In fact we do not regret much because sooner or later it will happen anyway right if you are selling bananas let’s say $1 per banana another one will be standing next to you will sell it for 50 cents because you are more desperate to do it so you cannot avoid competition
So that is absolutely normal and if somebody direct compete with us on certain products on certain markets we do not see it as an enemy so if they see us as an enemy it’s funny because we probably are bigger from the global scale we are stronger structured internally they cannot destroy us from
Inside even they try many times and so on and so on so that is a very important competitiveness advantage and you said by the way very accurate and I very much appreciate that you bring it in the community level no with it appropriate technically word you said like tier-1 single-homed
And it doesn’t mean exactly that we are tier 1 we actually we say tier-1 single home because we are behind over IS number 3356 is a IS number which belongs to level 3 level 3 was acquired by company Century Link Century Link then renamed to Lumen
So this IS number is belongs to Lumen but this is the largest ISP in the world so our concept was always I’m sorry it’s called a KISS principle keep it simple stupid oh yeah so with simple stupid principle we took the No. 1 is in the world we make contract with them
And we don’t work with anyone else everyone only can buy from us right in this situation we are sure the quality we are sure let’s say customer satisfaction and negative aspects that we would be never good in the cost because our cost always would be higher with the competition
And I don’t want to name many competitors because they think that they are competitors we don’t see them competitors yeah so we see them like another company which has its own space for living et cetera so I can name some of them you may interested to see that let’s say
Chinese company Zen Layer for instance you know them yeah I heard about them yeah so they kind of successful company I very much respect that that’s what they are doing and in 2013 when I talk with Zen Layer founder Joe Zhu he actually wasn’t founder that time
He was saying why IPTP so successful why IPTP is doing great around the world and what is your magic behind the world I said it’s very simple because you always have one company another company this company wants to talk this language this company wants to talk another language
Who’s in the middle no one in the middle so we are very special layer which is fill up the gap between the let’s say customers vendors providers we’re like a bridge but I said the word specifically layer next month’s company Zen Layer we registered so that’s he have to let’s say
To send for me for the name of the company at least so I gave him an idea and as a company in South Africa also had the communication approximately the same time and they also questioning how will you manage how will you may do this I said because we are
Supplying the missing pieces between one company and another company and they call company missing pieces so it’s basically we even give the names to our competitors we assist them to work but I would say from the business operation perspective is a completely different scale and completely different approach for instance if we
See from the financial results or market positions companies only are probably $100 million investment we have a $2 million in this so we supposed to be a 50 times smaller but we are not 50 times smaller we we probably half of them from the in terms of turnover and team and etc so
But our let’s say cost our operation benefits of the way how we do is much more sound than many of the competitors who try to bring it on the market who try to achieve certain market standard and it’s not only let’s say China is also we have a competitors origins from Russia
From Europe from Africa from Latin America they all try to copy paste what we’re doing but they all missing one thing community is the first yeah so you need to be a community so you never find any company like you I would love to see this company
Because if we have any company which is capable to do the same business we would probably merge together because it’s very easy to do if it’s the same mental environment because that’s very important however is challenge so unfortunately money driven companies they most have greedy
Managers on the top or greedy investors on the top and that’s why we are structured to be a public company we have a our holding company is a public registered company but we don’t go to IPO we don’t want to go to the let’s say big money area because we will be pushed
By investors to make money make money make money but we want to enjoy what we’re doing we don’t want to make money with money yes not money only okay the geopolitical landscape nowadays is changing very fast and how does your company mitigate the risks and ensure the business continuity especially in regions that
Might have some political instability or you know regulatory uncertainty it’s a subject is very let’s say sensitive I would say from this perspective and also is not something which is I would be speaking first time in my life if you search LinkedIn articles I’ve been doing about 10 years ago
Approximately 10 years ago probably 2016 I was doing the article about segmentation and fragmentation internet globally because we see the affects on the internet segmentation and fragmentation for quite a long period of time it comes from the different perspectives it’s regulatory in the many countries because we have
Licensed in many countries and we know those specifics I can tell that much more countries implement regulation of internet in their countries then what we know publicly much more and for instance just name one Korean everybody says South Korea is so freedom country yes but the internet was regulated from the day one
Enough to now and it’s fully under government control you can’t even use Google normally in the Korea not by accident is intentionally made I don’t want to touch countries like China Russia Iran and North Korea because they definitely implemented their protection is not out of the subject is everybody talking about them
But actually they are not the first one who start doing it they are following the other smart countries like Korea like Saudi Arabia like Arab Emirates like Israel which is so much democratic and free speech but is always with very deep control of the content over there so and
When you go deep into the internet industry you can understand how seriously is regulated and under control so for us of course is challenge and cost unfortunately because for regulatory purpose when you depend on the country you need to have let’s say legal interceptor systems some kind of
Scanners triggers and so on and so on and our challenge is complied with all of that because operating in multiple countries in some countries we had to register companies which is not let’s say on my name or even our holding name just because we need to comply with the regulation
Because it’s supposed to be established by the local people and we have done it and we also interested to do a similar thing in China but we still have no partner who will be willing to go with all these challenges especially China a big country and lots of things difficult to
Sort out so that’s why we are still operating in Hong Kong and we’re still not in China mainland with a network and with with the license and so on but who knows if we will get the right partners yes we will be able to do it in China mainland too
But we have a large number of the countries where we obtain telecom license so we comply with all the regulation with all authorities of course there is a challenge especially when one authority wants to take some information over another territory and we say like sorry this is a different entities
Even we have the same name we share the business everything is let’s say common but it’s a different company different regulation and we cannot assist you if you want to get information go legally through the court through the Interpol well whatever because we had number of the cases when some legal activities
Been in our company and we had to cooperate and with FBI, the Interpol and other regional police in the whole countries including Hong Kong police including Vietnam police and so on so it’s a normal but cost wise yes it’s correct because it’s require for our community to be first of all
Protective so we have to maintain legal team we have to maintain the team who coordinate with regulators all of this stuff so it’s increase our cost but at the same time it’s a reality over today and how does your company ensure the reliability and security of its network infrastructure
Especially considering the diverse geographical locations in operating like United States China Brazil and Vietnam look it’s connected to the previous question because the equation is different for the different areas so to provide certain level of reliability and security reliability it would be directly connected with compliance so if we compliant and if we
If local regulators are happy with us what we are doing would be let’s say from regulation standing point reliable of course technical reliability is a matter of redundancy multiple links multiple point of presence or connection Technical staff who can control it and to provide from technical prospective reliability we have
Large NOG operation so the total number of engineers is about 100 engineers in our team and we have let’s say SR SR level I say SR SR because somebody say SR oh okay two years I had experience I’m SR no we have a yeah we have a guys who are
Top of the top of the top and they are leading and they making kind of education inside the team to youngers to grow faster up to the higher level and then we have a senior level we have like a master level we have a juniors so when all of them are working under
Our own managed software we was started doing our own management software for all our systems for all our network 20 years ago now is a huge product which is about 1 million Java code line so it’s huge and it’s act as a real cluster spread all over the world
If I am not mistaken it is on 7 servers now so because we have different data sets and different countries so any entity any customers who are working with our platform they have a relatively fair experience over response time doesn’t matter where they are if they in Australia they work with
Servers in Australia if they in a let’s say in Thailand they would be working with a probably server in Singapore and so on so it’s like now if everything is spread around the world interconnected and over our backbone all the data replicated in the real time to provide the smooth operation
And our teams like network operation network monitoring security operations customer support they are all within our system have a 24 7 follow the sun scheduling so it’s one person is goes home another person is goes to office and they continue the job they have shifts and they change
They pass they work from one shift to another shift and this is another competitive advantage which we didn’t mention was a competition because none of them have the system like us because we have internal control and within number of our employees to control 250 data centers around the world where we are connected
Is sounds like nearly impossible because the companies which are doing let’s say similar size of business they usually already have a thousands of in place so we have a very small number of in place and we managing such a bigger resource because of efficiency of all electronic systems scheduling analytics HR modules
We have a internal information like employee cart and employee profile we know his psychological status we know his soft skills we know his hard skills and when we do certain job we can precisely pick up the person from our team who fit very well to to
To make this job not to just give to anyone and say go and do it but he goes and he don’t know what to do and how to do it and then losing the time and losing the face of the company so we have yes so we have it’s always space for improvements
So we’ll keep working on it and we have a global HR team which is optimizing they do incidents study in every single incident it’s improve our system and it’s like keep rolling like that yeah it’s really much for you know platform where everything goes quite smooth
So when the artificial intelligence is the next one we will add over there so to make it even more sophisticated than just a human being yeah working with AI is how the future looks like yeah okay and how does your company approach sustainability and cooperate social responsibility in its operations across different regions
Wow so it’s a green subject you would say look first of all because we are not doing anything just for money right so it’s never been a problem for us so we always prefer to go greener we always prefer to be less harmful for environment for for everything and of course
Will not on when you focus on money you may want to focus on some short advantages we’ll never focus on the short term advantages we always look on long terms so if you focus on long terms the sustainability would be quite a good level
Yeah can you give us some specific ways to achieve your like green goals we have in 2013 we launch okay so I should go back to the previous properties in 2009 we consider to make the project in Amsterdam Science park and build in Netherlands our own data center
Because at that time we had the small data center which we bought from another company and we already operate but we consider in 2009 to build a new one so it was quite a lot of work to get permissions to get all up necessary arrangements with the companies
And 2013 we put it in operation but at the planning stage we were targeting to pump the heat from the data centers to Amsterdam University so because we have an excessive heat in the data center but Amsterdam University need to have warming up the classes and so on so in all provision
Everything is already in place then we have the exit pipes which is supposed to go to it all comes from the design stage and etc however many data centers around the globe we not own we just lease the space power and other services from the data centers like Global Switch like let’s say
Digital Realty and its many companies which is globally well known Mega let’s say it’s a high advantage group from Hong Kong and and so on so I accelerate in Moscow and we of course have to rely on what they are doing because we not operate in the data centers but our business model
Being always let’s say best of the best not necessarily in the price but the most important from the quality perspective presence perspective of course the selection comes to the leaders and the leaders also follow the subject of sustainability so that’s like relying on the sustainable partners to achieve our own sustainability
You have really started this sustainable goal quite early now we have finished all the questions and I think you have provided a lot of suggestions for the whole world like your community running you know method and also your respect for all the people in your company and your customers and
You know you’re really following the regulations and rules in different regions and so another you know your green operation method you started your sustainability goal quite early in 2009 so do you have any other things to say I think that we recently update our website because we start more using artificial intelligence to
Assist to improve the system so our previous website version was still okay but I think that the new one is getting much better so that’s would be a suggestion for those who do not know about company much to take a look our website to take a look our products which is
Beyond our website because we have a product let’s say like Lagblaster which is help to optimize internet performance or even let’s say capabilities of internet in the specific country specific place and I’m using this in my travel buddy device everywhere with me I just connected and get my perfect environment instantly so
And many other things and of course we have a chat on our website if anyone have questions they can through this chat instantly get connected with our customer support not a chatbot we’re working on chatbot too it would be backed up with a chatbot but we are afraid that the chatbot
Will not be as accurate as a human to provide response and until we have a too many requests we still have a few people team who is following up over our chat on the website and we provide the human response to to all kinds of questions etc so they can get straight answer
In the very friendly manner all right away yeah it’s really like a more efficient way to take care of your customer’s needs yeah yes that’s what AI cannot do that’s really lovely okay thank you for your time thank you thank you so much