Maxim
From aiming for a RUB 50,000 monthly salary to launching an investor-backed startup
How it began
Maxim joined us in his third year at an IT university. His request was modest: “Help me find an internship in IT. It would be great if it paid at least RUB 50,000 a month.”
His parents saw what we saw: no spark, little confidence, and no enthusiasm. Maxim was moving on inertia. He studied because he was supposed to and chose IT because it was a popular field. The picture was familiar: everything looked fine from the outside, but the person inside had disengaged.
His parents saw what we saw: no spark, little confidence, and no enthusiasm. Maxim was moving on inertia. He studied because he was supposed to and chose IT because it was a popular field. The picture was familiar: everything looked fine from the outside, but the person inside had disengaged.
What the assessment revealed
We understood almost immediately that IT was a poor fit for Maxim. Simply telling him so would have been useless. A person has to reach that conclusion for themselves before it can change anything.
So we did the opposite: we arranged the exact internship he had requested with the owner of a well-known Moscow IT company, who also became Maxim’s mentor.
So we did the opposite: we arranged the exact internship he had requested with the owner of a well-known Moscow IT company, who also became Maxim’s mentor.
The turning point
One month later, Maxim was dismissed from the internship in no uncertain terms. His mentor told him: “Why are you wasting your time and everyone else’s? You are not an IT person. All you think about is sports.”
The mentor had identified the core issue. Sports truly occupied Maxim’s thoughts. Three years earlier, a serious injury had ended his path toward professional basketball. Since then, Maxim had believed that sports were closed to him. They could remain a hobby, but he needed something “serious” for a living.
The belief he had to overcome
The main obstacle was not the injury, but the belief that he could not build a life around what he loved. His mentor invited Maxim to look at sports from another angle—not as a player, but as a businessperson. What business model could he build around sports beyond a career on the court?
We arranged a series of meetings with mentors from the business world. Gradually, a direction took shape: sports management and the professional management of teams and clubs—a field at the exact intersection of the sport he loved and the business opportunities he had never seen.
We arranged a series of meetings with mentors from the business world. Gradually, a direction took shape: sports management and the professional management of teams and clubs—a field at the exact intersection of the sport he loved and the business opportunities he had never seen.
Where Maxim is today
The change was visible. Where Maxim had previously felt depressed and missed meetings we arranged for him, he was now almost unrecognizable: energetic, purposeful, and fully engaged.
Maxim launched a startup in the sports industry. He quickly attracted advertisers and sponsors, then found an investor: one of the program’s mentors, who believed in both Maxim and his idea.
Maxim is now in his second year of building the company—successfully, with genuine enjoyment, and with a strong income from work he loves.
Maxim launched a startup in the sports industry. He quickly attracted advertisers and sponsors, then found an investor: one of the program’s mentors, who believed in both Maxim and his idea.
Maxim is now in his second year of building the company—successfully, with genuine enjoyment, and with a strong income from work he loves.
