Success Story of a Young Developer: By 20 He Was Married, Divorced, Jailed, and Owned 3 Companies

By age 20, he had been married, divorced, served time in prison, and owned three companies.

He decided to start his own business at 16. It was 1994, and I was in the business of "turnkey company registration." Back then, registering a company was complicated and time-consuming, so I came up with a trick: I would register a company in my own name first and then sell it. The client would get a company in one day. And I would get the money.

The young man convinced me to sell him a company at half price. How did he manage that?

Scam #1: Directory of Tver Banks

He walked into my office and said he was publishing a directory of banks in Tver, but he needed a company and only had enough money for half the price. He made me a super offer: free ad placement for me and one more ad slot I could sell and pocket the money. The price of each ad was quoted as the cost of a whole company, so the deal looked quite attractive. I agreed.

When we went to register the transfer of the company, he managed to sweet-talk the lawyer so thoroughly that the lawyer missed the fact that the young man was only 16 and had no legal right to own a company.

Then he took out a loan for a computer, an inkjet printer, and a scanner. Then he rented an office on credit. Then he printed 400 copies of the directory (instead of the promised 10,000). Nobody checked anything — he handed out a few copies to the advertisers, and they were satisfied.

I actually made money from this: I sold my two ad spots. Although, in essence, I became an accomplice to the scam — after all, the print run was fake.

Scam #2: Counterfeit Russian Lotto Tickets

After a while, a lottery ticket vendor approached the young man. He said tickets were selling like hotcakes and suggested printing counterfeit ones. The level of protection was indeed low. The tickets were printed and sold.

Usually, winning the lottery is hard, but here they got lucky: they printed winning tickets. The vendor was thrown into pretrial detention first, then our hero followed. He sat in jail for eight months and received a suspended sentence. He was held in a separate cell for economic crimes and made good connections there.

Scam #3: Rospoligrafservice

Having realized that many businesspeople are as trusting as children, he started relying on bluffing: he registered a company called "Rospoligrafservice." Humble like that. He began dressing expensively, bought a leather briefcase, and chose his words carefully. He chose his words so carefully that it was sometimes impossible to talk to him: he could think for 20–30 seconds before squeezing out a single word.

He always hired people eagerly but never promised a specific salary and always complained that the previous employees were just slackers who didn't do anything. He quickly got rid of everyone as soon as new candidates appeared on the horizon.

But the main thing was — he always did terrible work. Whatever he did, it looked like something made by a person who had just seen Photoshop for the first time. Then again, that's hardly surprising: the work was always done by exactly those kinds of "specialists."

Why did no one complain or sue? The answer is obvious — kickbacks.

Scam #4: Maps of Tver and the Tver Region

Then a company called "Maps of Russia" appeared. The recipe was the same: cheap labor, pompous name, terrible quality, kickbacks. Only maps of Tver and the surrounding region were ever published. A legend emerged that only this company had the right to print maps of Tver, and nobody else did. Advertising space was sold. The maps were, of course, printed in quantities tens of times lower than claimed.

Scam #5: Tver Region Tourism Website

Through the maps, a connection with the Tver Region tourism committee emerged. A project to create a website — a unified information center for tourism in the Tver Region — appeared. Someone had to do it, right? Who? "Maps of Russia" was right there. Budget money was allocated. Moreover, the website hadn't even been created yet, but the unified information center had already signed contracts with sanatoriums and resort bases and started collecting money for "information services."

How did they manage to charge businesses for a nonexistent service? Very simple: they said it was being done under the auspices of practically the governor himself. Well, and kickbacks, kickbacks. In the end, they stole someone else's website wholesale, filed a report, and shut the company down.

My acquaintance, with a kind smile, started telling everyone: "Spent a budget with six zeros!"

Scam #6: The Tver Region Exhibition Stand

At the end of 2006, the company I worked for was contacted by the Tver Region Development Department. They urgently needed exhibition stands designed for international trade shows. The department representatives complained that their contractors had produced god knows what, and the governor was extremely displeased. In particular, for the agriculture stand, the brilliant solution proposed was to stretch a photo of flax across the entire wall. The flax was shot on a point-and-shoot camera — it was some field with barely distinguishable blue flowers.

Who did the design? Of course, "Maps of Russia." We rushed to produce a good design, along with brochures and a presentation. The Tver Region won second place for stand design, losing only to the Krasnodar Territory. But the money still went through "Maps of Russia," and we would have gotten nothing if the head of the agriculture department hadn't been arrested.

Do you think our hero was upset? Not at all. A little time passed, and everything went back to normal. Using our design as a base, "Maps of Russia" began making brochures and stand designs. Of course, everything got much worse — the concept gradually degraded — but what can you do: contracts go where the managers have a flexible kickback policy.

Conclusion: Learn to Do Business the Russian Way

When I'm standing at a bus stop and my acquaintance drives by in an expensive SUV, I think: where did I miss my chance?

Why, when I took out loans in the '90s, did I always pay them back with all the insane interest? I was worried about my reputation. Back then, everyone took out loans and never paid them back. But I, the fool, always paid. I thought I was building a reputation as a responsible person. Who needs that?

Why was it that so often, when I tried to make good websites, sooner or later someone would show up who did terrible work but managed to make deals with the clients?

Why did we rush to create a great exhibition stand for the Tver Region on a tight deadline, when in the end, the ones who reap the rewards are those who know how to pull the wool over people's eyes?

Afterword

Honestly, I didn't expect the article to evolve into an "Evil Post." That arguments would erupt about the SUV. I conceived this topic as a joke riffing on stories of successful young American startup founders like Christian Owens and Lippiner.

In reality, I don't envy my acquaintance who earned his SUV by doing shoddy work. You should envy those who made an excellent product and managed to earn money from it. But even then, don't envy the money — envy the fact that they managed to support themselves and their loved ones doing what they love.

2023 Afterword

The young man ended up badly. He lost all his businesses. At some point he was severely beaten, and he went on a drinking binge. The last information about him was: he ended up in a local psychiatric facility.