Andy Terekhin is an Israeli by way of Siberia who writes code, builds sales departments, and lives somewhere between time zones. He calls himself a “citizen of the world” — not as a catchy LinkedIn headline, but as a survival strategy. His philosophy is simple: when the scenery is constantly changing, you learn the most important skill of all — how to catch the wave, ride the crest, and stay on your feet.
Terekhin’s biography is a series of paradoxes. He has no higher education. In the academic sense, he is a “dropout.” Yet, in a twist of fate, he was invited to teach VR and AR development at Novosibirsk State University in 2017. He walked into lecture halls to prove a point: the market doesn’t care about a diploma. The market cares about what you can build with your own hands, right here, right now.
This principle — Action over Status — became the foundation of his agency, Terekhin Digital Crew.
The School of Audacity and the “Yellow Pages”
Terekhin’s career didn’t start with code, but with words. His first profession was journalism, which served as his business school. It gave him access to fascinating people and granted him a superpower: the ability to deep-dive into any topic — from narcotics to nuclear physics — in just two hours.
In 2002, he converted this skill into his first business. His arsenal consisted of a phone book and sheer audacity. Terekhin would open the directory and make cold calls: “Hello, do you need computer services?” By the end of the month, his portfolio included contracts with major insurance companies and real estate agencies.
Starting with PC repairs, he quickly pivoted to what actually grows a business: CRM implementation, ERPs, and automation. It was then he learned his first rule: Business isn’t magic; it’s the alchemical process of turning chaotic processes into a working system.
Tank Barrels and Millions Made on Cardboard
In 2015, Terekhin felt a shift in the zeitgeist: Virtual Reality was on the horizon. There was no market and no specialists. He had to become everyone at once: developer, project manager, tech evangelist, and, of course, salesman.
Selling VR when people still shied away from headsets was brutal. Clients would ask, “What is VR? Like 3D glasses for a Samsung TV?” With zero marketing budget, Terekhin’s team pulled a “knight’s move”: they glued together dirt-cheap cardboard viewers (an analog to Google Cardboard) but wrapped them in a slick design. They took these glasses to exhibitions as a free attraction.
The effect was explosive. The “cardboard scraps,” intended as disposable promo material, started flying off the shelves. With an investment of just 200,000 rubles (~$3k at the time), the company generated 2 million. Because marketing isn’t about budgets. It’s about ingenuity.
There were also projects that bent reality. For a museum, his team created a WWII tank simulator. In one scene, the tank barrel passed right at the player’s head level. The realism was so intense that grown men would instinctively duck to avoid the virtual steel. Then there was beStraight, a startup treating childhood scoliosis via VR games. The project secured investment and was piloted in boarding schools… but due to the war and its ties to the Russian market, it had to be shut down.
The Founder’s Achilles’ Heel
After years of launching dozens of projects (both his own and others’), Terekhin derived a formula: The perfect founder does not exist. Every startup has an Achilles’ heel.
- The genius techie writes perfect code but freezes in front of investors.
- The charismatic salesperson closes deals, but the product is held together by duct tape and prayers.
- Almost everyone lacks experience in fundraising.
His agency, Terekhin Digital Crew, acts as a Go-To-Market partner. Their job is to find the vulnerability and patch it. The work is built on three pillars:
- Development: If there is no product, the team builds the MVP. Simple websites or SaaS (Wix or React) are “peanuts” to them. The focus is on complex, interesting tech. A prime example is ADSAN, where AI analyzes building defects using drone footage.
- Marketing: Not just lead gen, but surgical strikes. For ADSAN, the team reached out to engineering giants in New York via LinkedIn with a 4% conversion rate (double the market average).
- Fundraising: Packaging the project so that investors see the money, not just the idea.
The Death of Google and the Birth of AI Visibility
Right now, Terekhin feels the same way he did in 2015 with VR. The search paradigm is shifting. People are stopping to “Google” — they are starting to “ask.”
Users go to ChatGPT for advice: “Recommend a CRM,” “Where can I order an audit?” And the AI gives recommendations. Traditional SEO is dying. AI Visibility Marketing is taking its place.
Noticing a stream of warm leads coming from ChatGPT, Terekhin decided to lead the trend. This led to his new project, RankCaster AI. The platform teaches brands to be visible to algorithms, creates semantic prompt cores, and analyzes mentions. It is a Blue Ocean, and Terekhin is already teaching others how to swim in it.
The Right to Fail and the “Gospel of the Founder”
Terekhin is far from the image of an infallible guru. His portfolio includes failures. Svivio — a dream project to make Israel green and clean — gathered a great team and public resonance but failed to find domestic funding. Terekhin admits this, but he hasn’t given up: he is currently seeking a new business model for a pivot.
Seeing many founders with fire in their eyes but no budget for an agency, he can’t simply walk away. For them, he writes a blog with the ironic title: “The Gospel of the Founder: How to Build a Startup Without Drinking Yourself to Death.” There is no “hustle porn” or sugar-coated success stories there. Instead, there is a detailed map of the landmines one should avoid stepping on.
Technologies change. Yesterday it was cardboard glasses, today it’s neural networks, tomorrow it will be something else. But the tools are secondary. The main thing driving Terekhin remains unchanged since 2002: the thrill of the pioneer. And if the success of the next startup requires opening a phone book and dialing a stranger’s number again — he’ll do it. Without a second thought.
Top comments (0)