Money I Never Counted: An Entrepreneur’s Path from Growth at Any Cost to Happiness
Prologue
In 2022, together with partners, I brought in investors and launched a marketing agency, Ed.Partners. By 2026 I had exited the business, selling my stake. Looking only at the numbers, the story looks like a genuine success: revenue reached up to 200 million rubles a year, the agency worked with hundreds of education projects, I became a co-founder of a second company — an online veterinary medicine school — and for a while all of it looked like a straightforward success story.
But if you look past the numbers, the picture gets a lot more complicated. Along the way I drove myself into a deep depression, gained 130 kilograms, numbed the stress with alcohol almost every evening, grew distant from my parents and brother, and came close to divorce. The company grew faster than I did as a person — and at some point that stopped being a coincidence.
Today, after therapy, dozens of books and talks absorbed along the way, conversations with more experienced entrepreneurs, and above all an honest conversation with myself, I can look back at this path without resentment. I’m grateful for it — and above all grateful to my wife, who stayed by my side while I was learning to be a person, not just a founder.
This isn’t a list of advice. It’s the chronology of one path: from an idea that seemed brilliant, to an understanding of what actually builds a sustainable business — and a sustainable life. I’ve gathered my business takeaways here alongside notes from therapy and pieces of essays I wrote along the way, and tried to lay it all out in the order it happened. Let each insight be a lived piece of experience rather than a slogan.
Insight #1. Revenue is blinding without profit standing next to it
When I was just starting the business, I made investors a simple offer: the agency would accumulate roughly 300 million rubles in total revenue, and once it hit that mark, my stake in the business would grow. Everyone agreed. At the time it seemed reasonable.
Today I see this as my first, and most systemic, mistake. I put revenue growth front and center and never tied the deal to growth in profitability or margins. Had I watched both metrics with equal attention, I would have made far clearer-headed decisions and understood much sooner that what matters isn’t how much money passes through the company, but how much stays in it.
My head was literally consumed by revenue growth, not profit growth — and the agency really did grow: roughly 10% month over month for two years straight. Success creates the feeling that it will always be this way. That feeling turned out to be the most expensive illusion of all.
Insight #2. A big team is not proof that a business is serious
Believing in endless growth, I poured a great deal of money into the team. At one point the agency employed 50 people. Today I’m certain the same growth could have been delivered by roughly fifteen. Profitability would only have been higher, and I could have redirected the freed-up money into development.
Managing a smaller team that I had grown myself would have been far simpler. This is one of those conclusions that’s impossible to reach in advance — only in hindsight, once you can see how many resources went toward scale for its own sake.
Insight #3. I was investing in a shrinking market without noticing
I hadn’t accounted for the fact that the war that began in 2022 would gradually shrink revenue across the market I worked in. I thought the market was growing and would keep growing forever. In reality it was gradually contracting — and I kept investing in it without even realizing what was happening.
This wasn’t a mistake in a single decision; it was a failure of attention: I saw what I wanted to see, not what was actually happening. Later, while working out market rules for a different essay of mine, I formulated a clear principle for myself: a market has to be growing now and in the future — and you can never mistake a temporary spike for a real trend.
Insight #4. “Nice guy” isn’t about kindness — it’s about manipulating yourself
I didn’t know how to delegate, and I was in every chat at once: with clients, with accounting, with investors, inside the team. I felt I had to be the thread running through every process in the company. In reality, what I needed was to build a team with a high level of trust and quality control — and to be able to call a bad result a bad result instead of handing out one more chance.
That’s when I came across the book No More Mr. Nice Guy. It explained me to myself: people like this become accommodating not because they’re kind on the inside, but because being agreeable is their survival strategy — their way of getting what they need. I recognized myself in it. I should have been honest with myself and with colleagues, should have known how to say “no” — instead I was always trying to be liked by clients, employees, partners, and investors. That turned out to be a trap.
Later, in therapy, I put the same idea a different way: I avoid conflict because I grew up believing I’d lose it. We often act from a place of “best intentions” — but forget to add “best intentions for myself.” Boundaries aren’t about being harsh; they’re a tool, and you have to learn to use it.
Insight #5. Working for five people, I earned less than any of them
Despite being the main driver of growth, I didn’t earn more than the core team members — I earned less. It seemed to me that real growth had to involve some sacrifice: someone who fully believes in the idea should deprive themselves a little in order to secure the result. The more I restrained myself, the more that restraint was absorbed by others — not because anyone acted dishonestly, but because I never marked where my willingness to give things up ended.
In therapy I broke this pattern down: I deprive myself hoping for reciprocal action from the other side; I’m afraid to assert my rights through conflict; I don’t look for a position of strength. The solution turned out to be as simple as it was hard: never deprive yourself without reciprocal action from a partner, don’t be afraid of conflict, hold your line clearly, and always get agreements in writing.
Insight #6. An equal partnership is a fragile construction
Tied to this same agency was my second venture — an online veterinary medicine school, where I was invited on as a co-founder. There I ran into a situation I can now name plainly: I believed for far too long that a partnership rests on trust and good intentions, and I understood far too late that it needs to rest on clear agreements and clearly defined roles instead.
When the other founders started pointing out my missteps, I thought I’d found a way out: I offered to make one of them CEO, forgave part of a financial debt, found money to refinance it, and even raised her salary — I thought it was a temporary, tactical move. But management gradually shifted to her entirely: over the back office, the team, the investors. I thought I was being generous; in fact I had simply stopped participating in managing my own business. By the time I was given a choice — accept a modest payout or watch the client base move to another legal entity — I was already so burned out that I agreed without resistance.
Today, summing up that story, I’ve put together a short list of takeaways:
I shouldn’t have given up the CEO seat — it would have been far more sensible to keep both the equity stake and the salary proportional to my contribution.
I shouldn’t have believed blindly in partnerships — they’re something you can’t influence directly.
I shouldn’t have only conceded and deprived myself — an equal partnership without clear boundaries usually doesn’t survive the test of time.
I wanted recognition, and I got it — I connected the right people, earned tens of millions from nothing, gave a lot away at my own expense. But recognition, it turns out, is irrational: the more you give away for free, the less it’s valued.
What I actually got paid for was connecting people who knew how to do things I didn’t. Next time, I’d build a business on what I myself know how to do.
Insight #7. Rock bottom gives you something success never can — honesty with yourself
Through all of this I never put my own happiness first, and I worked myself to exhaustion. Along with the experience, I got a deep depression, weight problems, and a drinking habit — when I could simply have enjoyed the results. I became someone who drank a bottle of wine most evenings and washed it down with something fatty, reached 130 kilograms, grew distant from my parents, stopped talking to my brother and friends, and became far less open with my wife than I used to be.
That was the low point — and it’s exactly where the way back began. I’m not ashamed that it happened. Without that path, I would never have reached these conclusions.
Insight #8. Coming back happened not in work, but in life
Work does not equal the right to a life — a thought I carried out of therapy almost word for word, and it became a turning point for me. I didn’t retreat into work; I learned to retreat into the right to a life instead.
Today my wife and I are, thankfully, doing well. I make time to read, I’ve lost weight down to 100 kilograms, I’ve learned to run 42 kilometers — something that used to seem unthinkable. I’ve learned to value the moment instead of living only for goals. We got a cat, who teaches me every day to enjoy simple things. I’ve almost stopped drinking daily, fallen in love with fishing, and gained an incredible amount from it. I’ve made peace with my parents — today they’re among my closest friends.
None of this happened on its own. My wife put in no less effort than I did — and if I had built the business and the life together with her from the start, instead of alongside her, the path would have been far gentler.
Insight #9. Therapy taught me to talk to myself honestly
With a therapist I unpacked several patterns that had been steering me long before I noticed them.
The first: the drive to claim my place in the world not by appealing to fairness, but by asking a simpler question — “What do I need to do for things to be right?” — without appeals to a fairness the world never actually guarantees anyone.
The second: a habit of sorting people into a matrix of “stronger than me / weaker than me” and “useful to me / not useful to me,” where the most dangerous people seemed to be the ones who were both strong and useful. That described my anxiety in business relationships fairly precisely: I was bracing for danger in places where, most of the time, there wasn’t any.
The third: a need to keep everything under control — companies, people, processes, the future. Behind it was a wish to be recognized as “the main guy,” and right behind that recognition came responsibility for an outcome that, in reality, could never depend on me alone.
Out of this came a few practical rules I use now: - Don’t forbid yourself from being angry, anxious, or sad — but stay in control of it and don’t linger there. - Don’t disappear into work completely — make time to enjoy yourself, your family, your hobbies, and yes, your work too. - Learn to say no, including to yourself — not because you’re obligated to, but because you respect yourself. - Stay ambitious, but in moderation, without letting ambition become the only source of your self-worth. - Cross out “should.” Replace it with “can and want.” That’s what a real choice looks like, and I have the right not to do something if I don’t want to.
Insight #10. Money likes transparency more than schemes
When the company was just starting to grow, we brought on someone experienced in setting up a back office — accounting, legal, HR document flow. That same person also had another side: he moved money through several companies to dodge taxes, and a large volume of off-the-books cash flowed through the business, which we treated as normal. Later, that same group stopped keeping proper management accounting and one day simply failed to notice 40 million rubles of their own revenue — despite otherwise strong growth. Those companies don’t exist anymore.
We inherited that model, and spent far too much time trying to save on taxes instead of saving on what was actually unnecessary. A similar story happened with the online veterinary school: we failed to keep the legal entity’s ownership structure within the threshold required for the simplified tax regime, the tax authority noticed, and we ended up owing about 4 million rubles retroactively. The accountants and lawyers hadn’t caught it — but I was the one who had to answer for it. I calculated a fair valuation of the business myself, accounting for that sum, and exited at a discounted price, taking responsibility on myself. The people I worked with on that project are wonderful, and I genuinely wish the school continued growth.
The takeaway from both stories is the same: it’s better to run everything above board and live with peace of mind, to double-check the numbers the way my wife always advised, and to remember that legally minimizing taxes and running off-the-books schemes are two entirely different things.
Insight #11. A personal brand is more reliable than a partnership
When we started Ed.Partners, every service on the website was framed not on its own, but tightly bound to the specific partner who delivered it — with their credentials and track record attached. A personal brand sells, because people buy from people: up to 44% of a company’s market value is shaped by how its leader is perceived, and every unit of trust converts into real money — average deal size grows, deals close faster, the cost of borrowed capital drops.
At the same time, personal brand and partnership are often in tension. Investors reasonably prefer to back people who don’t work alone — so there’s a replacement in case something goes wrong. But from the perspective of the person being invested in, the question looks different: why do I need a partner at all, if the core expertise can be learned in a month and the work can be handled through employees, without splitting equity, salaries, and opinions with anyone?
There’s no direct correlation between the number of partners in a business and personal wealth. Any partnership is dependency and risk, and the benefits it offers can almost always be replaced by employees instead. That doesn’t mean partnerships are never worth it — it means the decision to form one deserves the same level of sobriety as a hiring decision, not the same level of trust as a friendship.
Insight #12. Ambition is fuel that turns into poison all too easily
It’s worth honestly asking yourself: what state was I in when I decided to build this business? If it came from wanting to prove to myself that I was “good enough” — that’s bad fuel. If it came from wanting to show others how great I am — also bad. The right motivation sounds different: to earn a certain amount by creating something I genuinely enjoy the process of building, while also being useful to people.
Ambition is dangerous because it turns into a pattern — it’s psychologically easier to arrive not at “grow something and enjoy it,” but at “defend my pattern,” proving over and over what you already proved yesterday. Until you have a clear answer to “what exactly do I need this money for,” your brain can’t build a picture of the future or generate a genuine need to move toward the goal. I, too, should have honestly asked myself why exactly I needed to earn so much, and what specifically I’d spend it on — instead of chasing a social expectation planted in childhood: the belief that you should have what the neighbor has, or better.
Insight #13. Health and rest aren’t a reward for success — they’re its precondition
A chronically exhausted entrepreneur looks busy — that’s exactly the catch. That kind of person is constantly rescuing something, never has time for anything, narrows their circle of contact, and keeps needing to be stimulated by external things. You can work sixteen-hour days for a while, numb the stress with food and alcohol, and not notice what’s happening to you — the first year you’ll manage, the second you’ll manage, and by the third the problems start: less effectiveness, fewer new ideas, less motivation.
I say this from bitter personal experience: while trying to save the company, I deprived myself, my rights, and my own salary — and afterward spent a long time unable to climb out of that spiral. One principle turned out to be genuinely useful: poor people save on their own development, while rich people pay to accelerate it, because they know exactly what gives them energy and what drains it. Sleep, rest, movement, nature, healthy food, gratitude, learning something new — these give energy. Negative thinking, dwelling on the past, procrastination, sleep deprivation, overwork, and alcohol take it away.
I also came to value what I call “closing the loop of contact” — the ability to genuinely leave work behind in the evening instead of continuing to think about it. It helps to know in advance what you’ll do right after work; it helps to work somewhere other than home, so the line between labor and rest doesn’t blur; and it helps to have your own ritual for ending the day — a walk, a massage, a swim.
Insight #14. Focus and discipline beat motivation
Discipline matters more than motivation — and it isn’t about perfection, it’s about consistency. You can’t be fully charged every single day, but you can, every single day, do the small number of things the outcome actually depends on. Revenue loves speed. Profit loves discipline.
The Pareto principle applies here almost literally: only 20% of your effort produces 80% of the result, and that’s exactly where focus belongs. Once you manage that, “I don’t have time” turns into “I have priorities” — and everything else can and should be delegated to the team. I also noticed a state in myself I call a “clog” — when getting absorbed in day-to-day tasks makes you ineffective and unable to see yourself from the outside. It usually comes from exhaustion, fear, overthinking, doubt, and a lack of clear goals. The fix is simple: set a five-minute timer, write down every option for freeing up time, then pick one — without judging the ideas while you’re writing them down.
Insight #15. Listening to your wife isn’t a gesture of goodwill — it’s a strategy
Research, including Gottman’s work, confirms it: people who listen to their wives and take care of them tend to earn more. Behind this is more than biology — there’s a genuinely functional team logic. In strong couples, no one measures who’s more tired or whose contribution matters more — each person has their own zone of strength, and that’s the result of an agreement, not a fight over roles.
I love my wife very much, but for a long time I kept choosing everything but her, every single day. If a person does one thing well — family, work, hobbies, or personal life — everything else, as a rule, suffers. I learned this too late, and it took real effort and patience to restore the balance. My wife is genuinely smart and level-headed — and one of the conclusions I’ve drawn along the way is that I should have been consulting her from the very beginning, not after the fact, once exhaustion had already piled up.
Insight #16. A good product is built from the client’s side, not your own
Real mastery in product work means deeply understanding the audience, catching demand as it emerges, and turning it into solutions. You need to understand what the user actually wants — their task, their pain, their desired outcome — then build a feature that precisely answers that need, package it carefully, and present its value in the client’s own language.
A good example is our work with the online veterinary school: we grew their revenue fivefold in a month, barely touching the product itself. We clearly defined the target audience — its pains and the exact words it uses to describe itself — and rebuilt communication around that language instead of our own. The product was already strong; the value simply wasn’t reaching the client before.
A second important principle: a good product is the result of working with constraints. When revenue drops, the mistake is jumping straight to a fix. The right order is to first understand the reason behind each constraint, and only then look for a hypothesis to test — never the other way around.
Insight #17. The market matters more than the product
Even a strong founder in a small, narrow market is unlikely to ever build something truly large — that takes either a big market or a genuinely unique platform. When we launched Ed.Partners in the EdTech niche, offering influencer and CPA marketing services, both directions had strong growth drivers. But two or three years in, that hit its ceiling, and growing in a stagnating market became a lot less compelling.
From that I drew a rule for myself: a market has to be both mature and growing at the same time, and it’s critical not to arrive too early, before the bet has proven out, or too late, once the market has closed up and an oligopoly runs the show. Another observation: the harder it is to enter a market, the less competition there is on it — which is exactly why, over time, I shifted focus away from the easy-to-start world of influencer marketing and toward the far harder task of building a partner network in CPA.
Insight #18. Sales rest on honesty, not manipulation
Working in sales directly, I learned that numbers matter more here than intuition: conversion into a reply, conversion from a reply into contact with the decision-maker, conversion from contact into a signed agreement, conversion from agreement into payment — and how long, on average, each step takes. Without these numbers, it’s impossible to plan how many calls you need to make today to hit a revenue target three months from now.
But the main lesson isn’t about numbers — it’s about the courage to say no. The moment someone tells you no, the real selling begins — and the same is true in reverse for the salesperson: if they never learn to turn down the wrong clients, they end up serving everyone regardless of ticket size, and profit never follows. It’s important, in doing this, not to slide into “selling the outcome” — promising guaranteed success under any conditions: that lowers conversion right away, but it sharply raises average ticket size and retention, because the client understands their share of the responsibility and doesn’t bombard the team with inflated expectations later.
The best salesperson, oddly enough, isn’t the one who runs a flawless presentation — it’s the one who genuinely believes in the product and shares that belief in conversation rather than in slides. When I stopped showing presentations altogether and simply talked with the client about their problem, my conversion rate was at its highest.
Epilogue. The profit you won’t find in a report
Looking back today, I don’t regret starting this business, and I still consider it a success — that money let me live without denying myself anything, help people close to me, and it still lets me go a full year without working if I choose to. But that turned out not to be the most valuable part.
I learned a great deal that can now be turned into experience and income far greater than before. I gained many new connections and now advise or invest in several companies. But most of all, I became someone who notices when it’s time to stop, who can ask for help, who can call a bad result a bad result, and who can say no — including to myself.
If I were building a business again, I wouldn’t do it to prove anything to anyone — I’d do it out of a wish to create something that makes the world better. I’d start watching profit, not just revenue, much earlier. I wouldn’t be afraid to go without partners where I could manage on my own. And from day one, I’d remember that my wife is the one person in my life who chose, entirely on her own, to spend it with me, expecting nothing in return. That’s exactly why I walk away from this whole path, difficult as parts of it were, with gratitude — for her, and for the person I became by going through it.