The Bell

2023: Roskomnadzor limited access to the publication's website in Russia

In February 2023, Roskomnadzor restricted access to the website of the online publication The Bell in the Russian Federation.

2019: Funding from Mikhail Prokhorov

In February 2019, the Nezygar telegram channel reported that Mikhail Prokhorov was financing The Bell.

2017: Conflict Osetinskaya with one of the co-founders

In July 2018, the former manager of The Bell, Pavel Miledin, spoke on his page Yandex.Zene about starting work at the company and about the conflict with the founder of the publication over his Elizabeth Osetinskaya share in the project.

"For me, changing the original agreement against the background of everything that is happening served as the basis for leaving The Bell," Miledin writes.

Osetinskaya reacted to the post of the ex-employee of the publication on Facebook. According to her, "this is an attempt to harm the reputation of the project - all obligations to Pavel were fulfilled."

Below are excerpts from Miledin's^[1] it]:

{{quote 'There was no money for all our ideas for spring 2017. And it was unclear if there was a product in it or not. Sometime in the spring, Osetinskaya proposed, within the framework of experiments characteristic of all startups, to try to run it in the form of a mailing list. So came The Bell mailing list - supposedly a student experiment that dragged on for more than a year. We launched the newsletter in early May 2017.

In the spring, even before the launch of the mailing list, we began to talk about who would become the project's cofounder. We all (without Osetinskaya) met at the Vienna Coffee Shop at the Tretyakov Gallery to answer for ourselves the question: "whether you are a cofounder or not." Three agreed to jump without a parachute in this story, one promised to think, three refused. So it turned out that only four people became co-founders of the project:

• Elizabeth Osetinskaya,
• Ira Malkova,
• Petya Mironenko and
• I (Pavel Miledin).

In the ensuing negotiations, the remaining members of the concession, Elizabeth proposed to divide the shares in the project for four. So that we have the motivation to develop it further. I remember saying something like, Lisa you made it all up, you can take 100% of it for yourself. What was the answer: No, that's how you're not going to be motivated enough.

Sometime in April or May, we agreed that Osetinskaya would have 50%, and me, Ira and Petit - each had 15% shares in the project. The remaining 5% was offered to the team member who promised to think. But in the end, he also refused, and these 5% by default remained to hang around as a reserve.

As a result, they agreed on shareholder shares as follows:

1) Osetinskaya - 50%, Malkova - 15%, Mironenko - 15%, I -15%, reserve - 5%

2) Vesting for 4 years (step-by-step scheme). This means that every year the cofunner is recorded ¼ the package assigned to him.

3) Cliff for 1 year. We agreed that whoever leaves the project within the first year does not receive anything.

By July 2017, the situation was developing in such a way that it was no longer possible to delay entering our project - and we came out.

And yes! We made this classic mistake. We did not sign the agreement on paper before entering the draft. It was all lip service. This critically influenced further events.

Previously important remark: on August 1, 2017, I signed an employment agreement with the company of our publication, according to which I can not disclose any details of its activities, business indicators, names of partners, etc. But, this agreement applies to my status as an employee. It does not concern the status of a cofinder and joint-stock agreements. Moreover, these agreements were reached even before the creation of the company itself. Therefore, I will allow myself to tell in general terms what happened next.

At the start, we, as co-owners of the enterprise, distributed the roles as follows:

• Osetinskaya as CEO is engaged in raising funding, strategy and global promotion,
• Ira - editor-in-chief, investigations,
• Petya is a deputy, newsletter and social networks.
• I am a product that also combines the CTO function (we did not have development then).

Almost immediately after entering the project, Osetinskaya made the first attempt to change the distribution of shares. In particular, it was about the fact that (purely theoretically) we can attract a strong publisher to the project, and then it would be nice to offer him a share. And we should single it out from our own.

Closer to autumn, we did not know the details that are usually available to co-owners - financing, business planning, the state of funds in accounts, were not aware of the details of parallel video projects, etc. It became obvious to me that this story is not about partnership, but about something else.

Conversations about a shareholder agreement have arisen several times since the summer, but in fact, Elizabeth did not take any steps towards signing it. The story dragged on. As a result, the team (Ira, Petya and I) in December 2017 invited her to start formalizing our agreements on shares on paper.

In response, we actually received feedback from these promises. We were told that Osetinskaya estimates her contribution to The Bell at 75% -80% and would like this exact number of shares. We have not received a clear answer to the question of what this desire is connected with. According to Elizabeth, there was no new investor, a new member of the team, or anything significant involving a change in the basic agreement. The answer sounded like "I want it and that's it." Despite this, we proposed options that would take into account her interests, but allowed the distribution to be maintained as 50/ 15/15/15. Unfortunately, they did not suit her.

Important details: none of the shareholders invested their money in the project. And yes, we were getting paid as cofounders. This, in general, is considered normal.

For me, changing the original agreement against the background of everything that is happening served as the basis for leaving The Bell. Ira Malkova and Petya Mironenko took a less tough stance and, as a result, remained. Simply put, Ira and Petya accepted the new offer and began to work with Osetinskaya based on the new reality, but I did not.

How the shares were distributed after that, I do not know, but I assume that my exit allowed Ira and Peta to maintain their status - 15% each. Osetinskaya share, as it were, increased to 70%. Due to the rights to my 15% and due to those 5% who dangled in reserve. But since we did not sign any papers, from a legal point of view, none of this was in principle. At least this is what Osetinskaya now claims. I don't know if Petya and Ira ended up signing a share agreement.

After my departure from The Bell, I suggested Osetinskaya allocate me a share of about 5% based on the fact that all previous agreements (distribution of shares, vesting and cliff) are not valid, and I participated in the project in one form or another since October 2016. Well, or compensate me for my share with money. This position did not find understanding. Six-month attempts at negotiations were unsuccessful. But The Bell hired a lawyer who calls me periodically and talks about the risks of disclosing information. Now, perhaps, he will have more work.

I believe that we in business media have always fought for fair and clean business. The Bell and the Russian Norms project were built on this. It turned out that not quite "norms," more precisely, not even "norms" at all. In my opinion, this is an ordinary "kidalovo." If journalists who promote certain values ​ ​ themselves are not able to conduct business in accordance with the stated principles, readers and partners of the publication should know this.}}

2016: Osetinskaya and immigrants from RBC come up with a model of the publication

From the memories of Pavel Miledin, one of the developers of The Bell at the time of launch^[1]:

{{quote 'I would like to tell you a useful, instructive and slightly sad story about The Bell, business, team work and people's relationships. So get comfortable, stock up on popcorn and listen.

We began to develop the idea of ​ ​ The Bell in October 2016 with the filing of Elizabeth Osetinskaya, who was then studying at Stanford. A group of immigrants from RBC gathered - Osetinskaya and seven other people whom she invited to participate in the project. It included the chief editor of Republic Ira Malkova, her deputy Petya Mironenko and I, who then worked at RBC.

At the initiative of Osetinskaya, we used the "design of thinking" method to create a new media. These are, if quite simply, in-depth interviews in order to understand what the audience needs and formulate the product.

We conducted about 20 interviews with potential readers and came up with the main idea of ​ ​ a new business media: "Bridge between Russia and the West." On this occasion, they even thought to jokingly call it "Media Bridge." A little later, four main topics appeared, developing this idea into a practical plane:

• News,
• Investigations,
• Inspiring (inspirational texts about entrepreneurs) and
• Knowledge (knowledge of how to do business in Russia and abroad).

We thought about the name for a long time. What ideas there were not here. From Bridge to Iskra. The Bell was proposed by Osetinskaya. I remember it seemed very strong to us. Petya went to read the reprint of the old "Bell," and I played the song "Time of Bells" performed by "Kalinov Bridge" (Bashlachev is difficult to listen to a lot). In general, in the end they decided so - The Bell.

Talk of making The Bell, January 2017

In February 2017, we already drew the first sketches of the design and prototype with the name in Russian: "Bell." Then they decided to abandon Russian transcription so as not to cause too direct associations, and the colors were changed.}}