Anton Yudin · 2001 to today

How I Got Here25 years, two countries, one habit: understand how the whole business works, then make it grow.

This is the full road of my business growth work, including the parts that did not go to plan. Open any year to see what the situation was, what I did about it, and what changed. Use the filters to see only my life, my work, what I built, or what I learned.

25 years at a glance

Each bar is one chapter. Hover to read it.Each bar is one chapter.

My story, chapter by chapter

  1. 2001-2003MoscowWork

    Signal troops: the phone network, the computer network and the alarm systems. By my second year I was the one person who knew how the whole network worked.

    The situation

    A brigade of five battalions plus special-purpose companies, a headquarters with around 30 offices, depots, checkpoints and a canteen. One local exchange with 300 internal lines, 50 outside lines from the city and the General Staff, a 40-computer network, and alarm systems on almost every door and window. I was assigned to signal troops because before the army I had worked as a club DJ and knew computers, which was rare in 2001.

    What I did

    A soldier finishing his service trained me for six months, and when he left I was the only person who understood the whole system. I led a team of 10 soldiers, chose who worked with me, and set a fixed diagnostic order: check the signal at the station first, then the line, then the device, then send the right person. We also installed alarms, access control and video surveillance in barracks, armories and depots, wired to the brigade duty officer. I kept the brigade's lines to the General Staff running, and worked as the radio operator when units deployed on operations.

    What changed

    I memorized every number on the exchange and could predict most faults from the call, because I had fixed each one before.

    What I took from it

    Every system has a small number of points where it breaks. Find them, write down the order you check them in, and a hard job becomes routine.

  2. 2003-2004MoscowWork

    Right after the army, the brigade's head of communications hired me to run his crews: fire alarms, video surveillance, access control, phone systems and IT networks.

    The situation

    My former commanding officer had started a company installing these systems on military sites. He knew I understood them better than anyone he had.

    What I did

    I worked from the documentation and equipment lists to design the systems with the client and the engineers, inside government regulations. On site I checked every installation against the blueprints with the crews' foremen, had them correct what was off, then did the final connection and setup myself and handed each site over to the client with a live demonstration.

    What changed

    Five sites delivered and handed over working.

  3. 2004-2010MoscowEducation

    State University of Management, faculty of marketing and advertising. Six years of study, six years of work.

    The situation

    I left construction sites because I wanted a career in business, and I needed a degree to get there.

    What I did

    I saved money, prepared for the entrance exams, and took jobs that fit around classes. Every job in the entries below ran alongside the degree.

    What changed

    Master's degree in marketing, specialization in brand management, 2010.

  4. 2004-2006MoscowWork

    Svyaznoy, mobile phone retail at Gorbushka, the biggest electronics market in the country, when mobile phones were brand new.

    The situation

    Svyaznoy had 18 stores inside Gorbushka alone, among more than 1,000 competing sellers. Hundreds of phone models, and customers who did not know how to choose.

    What I did

    For the first six months I read books on sales psychology and consumer behavior and tested them on the next customer. I stopped pushing and started asking questions, then showed the best option and explained why. Then I found a whole group of customers no one else was serving.

    The story

    Customers in railway uniforms kept coming in and asking for several phone models at once. I asked why. Conductors, drivers and their assistants rode between Moscow and the regions several times a week, and back home phones were harder to find or cost more, so friends and relatives asked them to bring phones from Moscow. I went to Moscow's five major train stations and met the trains from the regions. The offer was simple: text me the list and your train time, and someone meets you on the platform with everything, at the best price. I pulled stock from all our stores in Gorbushka and ordered the rest from the main office. The list grew to 70 regular buyers, and I brought in colleagues to keep up. I was selling far beyond my own store.

    What changed

    Within six months of finishing training I ran my own store. In 2005 I was named "Best of the Best", the #1 salesperson in the entire chain by sales volume.

    What I took from it

    The best growth often sits outside the business, in demand nobody is serving. Go and look where the customers actually come from.

  5. 2006-2008MoscowWork

    Fanplay: portable audio and video games. Hired to run retail operations, then asked to lead the chain's expansion.

    The situation

    Dirty stores, stock gathering dust in back rooms instead of on shelves, missing price tags, staff overcharging customers, high turnover, and a buying department ordering products nobody asked for.

    What I did

    Rebuilt how the chain sold, bought and paid its people (the story below), then led expansion into the new malls opening at major metro stations: site selection, leases, contractors, equipment, assortment, pricing and staff.

    The story

    When I took over, the chain had no standard. Stock sat in storerooms instead of on shelves, prices were not marked, so staff named their own and overcharged, and buyers ordered cheap products nobody had asked for without ever checking with the sales floor. On the first day I showed what the standard looked like: in one store I cleaned the shelves, fixed the lights, put every product out with a correct price and served customers myself. That store took a week's revenue in one day. Then I built the system behind it. People who wanted to work that way stayed, and the rest were replaced. Everyone was trained in honest selling and paid bonuses by product segment and for hitting the plan, so they earned more without overcharging. I collected what customers were actually asking for on the floor and made buying stock that before anything new. Within a year revenue was 2.3 times higher, and the owner asked me to open more stores.

    What changed

    Eight new stores in two years. One of them, in a mall full of jewelry stores and with little foot traffic, closed after six months. After that I judged every site by who shared the floor and where people actually walked, and the next six stores all worked.

    The ending

    In 2008, I saw the crisis coming and advised the owner to stop buying stock on credit and pay suppliers in cash, because a currency drop would double what we owed. He kept spending. When the crisis hit, he asked me to hold back staff salaries so he could pay the banks. I refused, and he let me go. Three months later, the company went bankrupt. I helped several store managers take over their leases and keep their stores running with new suppliers from my network.

    What I took from it

    People come first, even when it costs me the job. And a plan has to survive the worst case, not only the expected one.

  6. 2008-2009Moscow and other citiesWork

    Invited sales trainer with a corporate training company, for sales teams from cosmetics sellers to construction equipment manufacturers.

    The situation

    Many sales teams still believed selling meant pushing and lying.

    What I did

    I built a sales training on helping the customer choose: asking the right questions, handling objections honestly, closing, following up, and building relationships that bring the next deal. I adapted it live to each room. Some sessions were short, some were a full day on stage.

    What changed

    More than 40 companies in one year.

  7. 2009EuropeLife

    Traveled through Germany, Austria and France and brought back a business idea

    In Germany I saw cars covered in fun stickers, "Baby on board", cats, dogs. Nobody sold them back home.

  8. 2009-2010MoscowVenturesEducation

    rusticker.ru, vinyl car stickers: where I learned digital marketing, paid search, SEO and social media on my own money.

    The situation

    I had never built a website, run a search ad, or optimized for search.

    What I did

    I built a simple website, drew the first stickers myself, found a print shop with a plotter, and ran a social media campaign: 20 orders in three days. Then I bought my own plotter and vinyl, hired a developer to build a proper online store with sizes, colors, and online payment, and hired freelance designers to fill the catalog. Then paid search, social media marketing, and a second website, spasibo-dedu.ru, for Victory Day.

    The story

    The first week of paid search in Moscow was slow. So I opened the campaign to the whole country, and the orders came in faster than I could print them. Within weeks I had rented a workshop and hired two people just to cut, pack and ship. Then I built a second website with stickers for Victory Day, and it reached 300 orders a day through April. I knew every print shop would copy those designs by the next year, so I sold both websites while they were at their peak.

    What changed

    Within six months the online store took more than 100 orders a day from across the country. I sold both websites and kept the equipment.

    What I took from it

    How the whole online machine works: the website, all of digital marketing (paid search, SEO, social media), production and fulfillment, learned with my own money. I still use it every day.

  9. 2010MoscowVentures

    Commercial vehicle graphics and full vehicle wraps, sold through a print shop's business clients.

    The situation

    I had the equipment and the skills. A print shop had B2B clients. We became equal partners.

    What I did

    Added vehicle branding and full wraps to the print shop's offer and ran production.

    What changed

    The work came in, but my partner routed orders through a separate company and asked me to cover costs. I ended the partnership. He took most of the equipment to recover his share, and I moved on to other projects.

    What I took from it

    Agree on the numbers, the reporting, and the exit before you start, not after. Every partnership I propose today starts there.

  10. 2011-2013MoscowWork

    An interior finishing company, an online electronics store, a flower studio, a print shop, and more.

    The situation

    Business owners who needed help growing their companies.

    What I did

    I joined projects as a consultant or partner: marketing, bringing in more customers, hiring, managing freelancers, building teams and departments, and restructuring how the business ran.

    What changed

    Most of the work came through referrals. This is where I learned most of what I know about how different businesses work.

    What I took from it

    Every industry looks different on the surface but is similar underneath: customers, sales, people, numbers.

  11. 2012ThailandLifeEducation

    Eight months traveling Thailand and visiting its factories

    Traveled the country, learned a different culture, and visited manufacturers to see how their production lines were organized and run.

  12. 2013LondonWork

    Market entry strategy. They wanted retail. I showed them a cheaper way into the market.

    The situation

    A client's audio supplier invited me to London to meet Bowers & Wilkins, who planned to open their own stores in Moscow and needed someone who knew local retail from the inside.

    The story

    I went to London as the person who could help them open stores. We spent a week there: the production line, meetings in London, and a tour of Abbey Road Studios, which uses their speakers. At the end, I told them the opposite of what they had brought me for. Their money would work harder in the hands of local distributors, who already had the stores and the customers, while London kept control of the brand, the marketing campaigns, and the budget. I gave them the case for it and the list of risks. They agreed.

    What changed

    Within a few months, they signed with the distributors who brought me.

    What I took from it

    The right advice is sometimes the one that cuts you out of the work. That is the only kind I give.

  13. 2014-2015MoscowWork

    BKC-International House. The brief: keep teachers' dollar salaries, ruble prices and the profit. I rebuilt sales, marketing and customer service, and created free English classes in Moscow's parks that ran for five summers.

    • ~4,000people the first summer
    • 12parks
    • 10person call center built from scratch
    • 6 → 1IT staff
    • 2019still running, at least

    The situation

    In 2014, the dollar doubled against the ruble. The owner paid native-speaker teachers in dollars and could not raise prices. Each school took its own calls on its own number, so a caller who couldn't get a class at one school was simply lost, and the office couldn't say how many people called or what they asked. A 10-person internet department ran the websites, and a 6-person IT team drove between schools.

    What I did

    I was invited after a talk on business processes. I asked for a two-week audit, interviewed almost everyone in the office and every school administrator, and brought the owner a list of problems and a plan to fix them. Then, reporting to the CEO:

    • Built a 10-person call center from scratch, trained for a month on every program, location, and teacher, and moved all schools onto one main number
    • Set up a custom CRM connected to the phones and the website, so we tracked every call, request, and signed contract, and could send each student to a school with space
    • Built a 5-person marketing department (two marketing managers, digital marketing, events, design), moved the websites into it and dissolved the internet department
    • Moved to a cloud CRM, so IT went from six people to one
    • Launched social media marketing, Yandex and Google Ads, new offers, school events and conferences
    • Created free English classes for everyone in Moscow's 12 biggest parks (the full story below)
    • Represented the company on TV shows and at conferences, and at the Obrazovanie i Kariera (Education and Career) exhibition at Gostiny Dvor, where our pavilion was named the best and most original

    The story

    One day in a park, I saw a poster for free yoga and went to look at the stage where they held it. The idea came on the spot. I went to the city office responsible for Moscow's parks and offered free English classes for anyone who came. They loved it. My one condition was that our promoters could work in the parks during the classes, which is normally not allowed, and they agreed. It was summer, so there were no children in the schools, and the promoters were our own school administrators and managers, who knew every answer. A separate website took registrations for every park, collected contacts, asked people to share with friends and leave a review, and then sent them offers to join paid classes. From June to August we ran three classes a day, Wednesday to Saturday, in 12 parks from Gorky Park to Krasnaya Presnya, with at least 20 people in every class.

    What changed

    The phones did not stop. About 4,000 people came to the parks that first summer [Afisha]. By September every class was full, schools added classes and hired more teachers, teachers kept their dollar salaries and prices stayed competitive. The program outlived my time there: it grew to 14 parks [RIAMO], Gorky Park and Vorontsovo ran it as their own events [Gorky Park] [Vorontsovo], and it was still on park calendars in 2019 [Perovsky Park].

    What I took from it

    When costs double and prices cannot move, the answer is in the system: one front door for every customer, data on every call, and demand you create yourself. Build it well, and it keeps working long after you leave.

  14. 2014-2015MoscowEducation

    Went from elementary to advanced English in one year

    Intensive course every weekday from 8 to 12, before work.

  15. October 2015San FranciscoLife

    At 32, on a student visa, with no contacts in the country. A startup founder heard what I had done in Moscow and offered me a job.

    The situation

    I came for a three-month English course to take my language further.

    What I did

    Through a new acquaintance I met the founder of a startup. When he learned what I had built in Moscow, he asked me to take on the company's digital marketing and online presence and offered to sponsor a work visa. I agreed.

    What I took from it

    The work you have done travels with you. One conversation turned a three-month course into a new chapter.

  16. Late 2015San FranciscoLife

    Accepting the offer meant not going back. Everything I had built in 32 years stayed in Moscow.

    Why I stayed

    By then the country I had grown up in was heading somewhere I could not follow. After Crimea I did not want my life, my work or my taxes to be part of it. And I had a dream from childhood: to live in California.

    What it cost

    Friends, family, my network, my name in the market, the positions I had worked for since I was 18. All of it was left behind with one decision. In San Francisco nobody knew who I was. I started again as a student, then as the newest person in a small company, in my second language.

    What I took from it

    The hardest part of starting over is not the work. It is letting go of who you were. I would make the same decision again.

  17. 2016San FranciscoEducation

    Scored 120 out of 120 on the TOEFL

    Scored 98% on the placement test, went straight into TOEFL preparation, and took the course four times while my visa status required full-time study.

  18. 2016San FranciscoLife

    Selected in the H-1B lottery

    236,000 petitions for 85,000 visas. With a foreign degree, I was in the draw for 65,000. Until my status started in October, I studied in the mornings and worked unpaid afternoons for the company.

  19. January 2016 - December 2019San Francisco Bay AreaWork

    Bright Pattern, cloud contact center software. My first U.S. job, and the one my immigration depended on.

    The situation

    The company sold to contact centers with 300+ agents. Buyers that size have their own technical teams and choose through sales, not through the website.

    What I did

    Ran digital marketing alongside the marketing manager while the green card process moved forward.

    What changed

    Green card after four years. I left the company right after.

    What I took from it

    Marketing cannot carry a business that grows through sales. Before spending on any channel, look at how the customer actually buys.

  20. January 2017 - November 2019San FranciscoLife

    Green card through the national interest route

    The employer-sponsored process froze, so I proved my own case on my degree and experience. Four years from arrival to permanent residence.

  21. 2017StanfordEducation

    Trained my American accent at Stanford

    Accent Reduction for Non-Native English Speakers, Stanford Continuing Studies.

  22. January 2020 - August 2023Los AngelesLifeWork

    Moved to Los Angeles two months before COVID, and worked as a freelance marketing strategist

    I went looking for a business I could grow the way I grew BKC. Two months later, COVID shut most of it down. Freelance marketing strategy for startups on Upwork.

  23. 2021-2022Los AngelesVentures

    Wefixitup. Two technician friends had too little work. I said I would fill their calendars.

    The situation

    They had skills and no steady orders.

    What I did

    Registered the company, built the website, launched Google Ads, answered the phones, and ran the schedule.

    What changed

    Their calendars filled, up to five jobs a day each. Keeping technicians on time and honest took all my time while ad costs grew, and after a year, I closed it.

    What I took from it

    Filling the calendar was the part I was good at and enjoyed. Managing technicians was not. I would rather grow a business with an owner who runs the trade.

  24. 2022Los AngelesVentures

    Catchy Wraps. A business I knew from the inside, brand first.

    What I did

    Formed the LLC, registered the Catchy Wraps trademark with the USPTO, built the website, and secured @catchywraps on every social platform.

    What changed

    I built the brand before I finished the economics. The numbers showed a good living for an owner running the shop himself, but no model that would grow past one location, so I stopped before spending on a shop. The company is still open and serves as my test account for everything I build.

    What I took from it

    Get the economics right before the brand. Stopping at the plan stage is the cheapest decision you will ever make.

  25. August 2023San DiegoLife

    Moved to San Diego and called it home

    After living in San Francisco and Los Angeles and exploring the entire West Coast, I found the place I wanted to stay. San Diego became my home.

  26. September 2023 - January 2025San DiegoWork

    West Coast Heating, Air Conditioning and Solar, San Diego. Hired to build a marketing department, I ran the whole growth function for 17 months and connected marketing, sales and operations into one growth system.

    • +67%peak-season revenue
    • 848rebate-backed installations in 2024, up from 454
    • 170heat pump water heaters sold in two months
    • ~60%lower Google Ads budgets for the same lead volume
    • +47%appointments set

    The situation

    Two outside agencies ran Google Ads and Yelp and declined to share their numbers. The website lost visitors, leads came in through many channels with nowhere to track them, and nobody owned the result.

    What I did

    • Fixed everything demand would land on first: website redesign, conversion tracking, company email, and one lead tracker for every channel
    • Trained customer service, paid a bonus per appointment set, and pushed for seven-day coverage before the heat hit
    • Brought Google Ads, Yelp and Google Business Profile in-house, ended both agency contracts and moved budget to what worked
    • Turned the old customer database and state rebate programs into new revenue with retention and email marketing
    • Moved the company to ServiceTitan CRM before summer

    The story

    In early 2024, three rebate programs stacked to up to $8,700 on one heat pump water heater. The company had years of past customers in its database. One email campaign to that list sold 170 in two months, and the rebate money in our territory ran out by the end of May. That year the company's rebate-backed installations nearly doubled [TECH Clean California].

    What I took from it

    Growth needs three things in one place: the authority to act, accountability for the result, and a share in the upside. Every partnership I take on today starts with all three.

    Case study: coming soon

  27. February - June 2025IndonesiaLife

    Became a U.S. citizen, then took four months in Bali

    December 2024 citizenship interview. Ten years from student visa to passport. I marked it by surfing in Uluwatu until June.

  28. October 2025 - April 2026San DiegoWorkVentures

    Airmaxx, San Diego, family-owned since 1995. My first engagement as a business growth partner under Yudin Growth, hired as a consultant, not an employee.

    • 54%lower cost per lead
    • 2×form conversion rate, 5.1% → 10.1%
    • 45% → 27%bounce rate
    • ~20%of search clicks from non-brand searches, up from ~5%

    The situation

    A trusted name with no marketing department, no connected marketing strategy and no data. The website hadn't been updated in years, pages were hardcoded so every change needed a developer, and about 95% of search visits came from people already typing "Airmaxx".

    What I did

    • A 19-day marketing performance audit of every channel, with a roadmap for each
    • Google Local Services Ads first, for the fastest new leads
    • New brand positioning, a rebrand and a new logo
    • Website redesign into a fast, modern site the team can edit, with local SEO service-area pages and the missing service pages, such as mini-split installation
    • Conversion tracking on every interaction, and every account moved under the company's own control

    The story

    The audit's biggest finding was hidden in plain sight. The company wasn't reaching new customers online at all, only people who already knew the name. So the rebuild focused on the services and areas people actually search for. A service the site never mentioned before, mini-split installation, became one of its top pages for new customers. Non-brand search went from about 5% of clicks to about 20%, and AI assistants like ChatGPT now send visitors who convert better than any other channel. The website now turns twice as many visits into requests.

    What I took from it

    A company can run for 30 years on its name alone. Growth starts when you can see where every new customer comes from.

    Case study: coming soon

  29. April 2026 - nowSan DiegoEducationVentures

    Multimar. Marketing is changing: the routine work people sell by the hour, like setting up campaigns, posting and reporting, is moving to AI. I wanted to know exactly where the line falls, so I built it.

    The situation

    Every agency and software vendor now claims AI. Owners have no way to tell what is real. I did not want to advise on AI based on articles. I wanted to build it myself and see what it can and cannot do.

    What I did

    Built a working platform on Next.js and Supabase, connected to Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Ads, Google Business Profile, and WordPress, with AI agents that each do one job:

    • An intelligence layer that pulls the data, decides the next move toward the business's goal, directs the agents, and checks the work
    • A content strategist, a blog writer, and a review responder that write in the company's own voice and in real customer language taken from sales calls and support tickets
    • A keyword tracker that checks local rankings on a map grid across the service area, plus signals from People Also Ask, featured snippets, and AI Overviews
    • A competitor watcher that studies rivals' marketing and blogs, and an industry trend watcher that reads the news for each industry every week
    • Guardrails so two posts never compete for the same search, and campaigns that plan content in sequence over 90 days
    • A client portal with reports, approvals, team invitations, and billing
    • It runs on my own Catchy Wraps accounts as the live test
    • More than 60 AI agents so far, and we keep adding new ones whenever a new task or source of information comes up
    • A prospect search that finds companies by type of business and area, plans the cheapest way to reach the owners, and remembers where every contact came from

    What changed

    When I saw large platforms already sold similar tools, I stopped thinking of Multimar as another startup. I made it my own engine instead. It finds the companies I want to work with, collects and organizes the evidence behind every Business Growth Diagnostic, and grows with every project. We are still building it. The bigger result answered my question: AI runs the routine. Judgment, taste, and knowing the business still come from people.

    What I took from it

    Pay for brains, not hours. AI can take the routine off a team, so people spend their time on the thinking only they can do. Because I have built it myself, I know every step of AI integration, from finding what to automate to choosing who builds it and getting it working inside the business.

  30. February 2025 - nowSan DiegoVenturesWork

    Yudin Growth started in February 2025 with a website I began in Bali. Today it has its first client behind it, its own platform, and a product with a fixed price.

    What I did

    • First client: a 30-year San Diego HVAC company, from audit to handover
    • yudingrowth.com, rebuilt from the ground up, with my story and the partnership models I offer
    • The Business Growth Diagnostic: seven areas and 59 categories reviewed in about two weeks, for a fixed $7,500
    • An online report with findings, a prioritized action plan, a six-month roadmap, a People Performance Review and a follow-up review
    • A Business Growth Calculator that lets an owner see what a few better numbers could be worth
    • Three ways forward after the report: the owner's team implements the plan, we manage the implementation, or I take full responsibility as their business growth partner, with my upside tied to what we build together

Frequently Asked Questions

Anton Yudin is a San Diego business growth consultant and the founder of Yudin Growth. Over 25 years in Moscow and the United States he has run sales, marketing and operations inside other people’s companies and built companies of his own. He now helps established owners find and capture their next growth.

He led a chain of 14 language schools through a currency crash, grew a 16-store retail chain’s revenue 2.3 times in one year, and built an e-commerce site to more than 100 orders a day. In the U.S. he was a digital marketing manager at an enterprise software company, then grew a San Diego HVAC and solar company’s peak-season revenue 67%.

A master’s degree in marketing and brand management from the State University of Management in Moscow, earned over six years while working full time. In the U.S. he scored 120 out of 120 on the TOEFL and trained his American accent at Stanford Continuing Studies.

In February 2025, with a website he began in Bali. His first client was a 30-year San Diego HVAC company, from audit to handover. Today Yudin Growth has its own AI platform with more than 60 agents and a fixed-price product, the Business Growth Diagnostic.

In San Diego since August 2023, after San Francisco and Los Angeles. He works with businesses in San Diego County and remotely.

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