The story behind Overeducate, Not Oversell and why this company started with recognizing patterns that others miss.
Books that shaped this company
Before diving into the origin story, here are the books that influenced how we think about building Unstuck Engine. Not as a reading list you should follow, but as context for understanding our decisions:
On culture and people:
- No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer
- What you do is who you are by Ben Horowitz
- The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
- Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
On growth and strategy:
- Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman
- Built to Last by James Collins
- Competing against Luck by Clayton Christensen
On execution:
- The Almanack by Naval Ravikant
- Pitch Anything by Oren Claff
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
We didn't read these to copy frameworks. We read them to understand patterns. And the biggest pattern in my life? Spotting opportunities that others miss, and selling solutions before they're obvious.
2 skills, 1 origin
I've been good at 2 things since childhood: seeing opportunities before they're obvious, and selling to anyone.
The first time I realized this was 1990. I was 15, living in Odesa - still the USSR back then.
I was playing in a televised talent show as team captain. Halfway through the season, I noticed something: the show had no sponsors.
So I did what seemed logical to a 15-year-old: I took the Yellow Pages, borrowed a fax machine, and sent 3,000 faxes to companies in Moscow. Then I traveled there (24-hour train ride), had three meetings, and closed one deal.
$100,000 in sponsorship packages. For a TV show I was just a contestant on.
Nobody asked me to do this. I just saw the opportunity and took it.
The pattern repeats
1993: Co-founded a baby food distribution company. Post-Soviet markets needed Western products but had no distribution. Built the largest network in the region. Company still operates today.
1997: Became a millionaire at 22. In Ukraine in the 1990s, this meant something different than in the U.S.—the average salary was $30/month. Being a dollar millionaire at that age felt like winning the lottery.
1998: Lost everything when local currency crashed 70% in 3 months.
I was 23 with a newborn daughter. Suddenly, I couldn't afford to buy her formula. That's what "lost everything" means—not abstract numbers on paper, but standing in a store calculating if you can feed your child this week.
1999: Started over. Built a luxury travel agency while everyone was still recovering from the crisis.
2005-2006: Traveled to the U.S. for the first time to attend an MBA program at Kellogg School of Management. Philip Kotler - the father of modern marketing - taught several of our sessions.
This wasn't just about the degree. It was about understanding how American businesses think about customers, markets, and growth. I returned to Ukraine with frameworks that didn't exist there yet. That knowledge became the foundation for what came next.
2007: Launched Ukraine's first online travel agency. E-commerce was new. Travel e-commerce seemed insane. Most people said Ukrainians would never buy travel online.
2013: Hit $1M in daily sales. Used machine learning - traditional ML, not generative AI, to optimize pricing and inventory in real-time. This was before "AI" was trendy. Most competitors didn't even know this was possible.
2014: Russia invaded Crimea. My business served both Ukrainian and Russian customers. Overnight, serving both became impossible. Exited the company.
2015: Spent 6 months in an Osho Ashram in India.
This wasn't a vacation. I arrived with PTSD from losing everything again. Daily meditation, complete environment shift, no access to news or business. It took 6 months to process the loss and rebuild belief in myself.
I met Arturo Mendoza there. He was processing his own reinvention. Years later, we'd reconnect in the U.S.
2018: Launched Primeclass, my online university—bootcamps for high-paid creative careers. Built income-share agreements before ISAs were mainstream. Students paid 10-14% of income after getting jobs, not upfront tuition.
2021: Reached 25,000 students.
2022: Russia invaded Ukraine again. Full-scale war this time.
I lived in Odesa, near the port - a constant target. Daily air raid sirens. Explosions close enough to feel. My previous office building, where I'd built the travel business to $1M daily, was destroyed to the ground. It made the cover of The New York Times - not because it was my office, but because it was one of dozens destroyed that week.
Friends went to war. Some didn't come back. That's unbearable in a way that's hard to explain—watching people you grew up with disappear one by one.
I finished my business obligations, then left. Not evacuating - evacuating implies you plan to return. I left knowing I wouldn't come back. You can only live under an erupting volcano so many times before you accept it's time to move.
Relocated to the United States with my family.
The pivot that changed everything
April 2023. San Diego.
9 months after immigrating, I was trying to replicate Primeclass with American students. Same ISA model. Everything looked good—students graduating, revenue coming.
I attended ASU+GSV, the world's largest EdTech conference. Afterward, Ashok Kamal invited me to an AI conference.
Halfway through the sessions, something hit me physically. Heart racing, sweating, shivering simultaneously.
AI was going to destroy my business model.
Not eventually. Soon.
Fewer high-paying jobs in creative industries meant fewer students who could afford our ISAs. The SAG-AFTRA strike 6 months later proved this wasn't paranoia.
I sat there for hours. Heart pounding. Brain running at light speed, searching for the exit.
Then the second realization: I had to pivot to AI.
AI wasn't new to me—I'd used ML in 2013. But generative AI was different. This was 4 months after ChatGPT launched. Even the most experienced people only had four months with generative AI specifically. My advantage? I'd used ML in 2013. I understood what models could and couldn't do. Most people were either dismissing AI or treating it like magic. I knew it was neither.
I called Serhat Pala the next week. We'd been introduced through 5 degrees of separation - I didn't know him when I arrived in the U.S. Told him I was shutting down Primeclass to pivot into something I barely understood.
No pitch deck. No financial projections. Literally a plan sketched on paper.
He invested a month later.
Not because the plan was good. Because he saw the pattern I'd been repeating for 30 years: spot the shift early, move before anyone else, figure it out while moving.
4 pivots, 2 months of runway
We explored several concepts. Each one taught us something crucial, but not all of them worked.
Pivot 1: AI for hotel review analysis
We built an AI system that analyzed hotel reviews far deeper than existing products. Our solution was genuinely better. But hotels use broad, universal platforms - even if they're weaker - because the hospitality industry is conservative. We could make money, but it would be slow.
I said no. If I'm going to rebuild from scratch, it has to be fast.
Pivot 2: ChatGPT for companies
We wanted to build custom AI assistants for enterprises. Then I realized: ChatGPT and Claude would own this space. They have infinite resources and direct relationships with enterprises. Building a layer on top of them was a race we'd lose.
Killed it within weeks.
Pivots 3 and 4: Education AI, sales automation—each one revealed something about what the market actually needed versus what we thought they wanted.
Often, we had two months of runway. That's it. Two months to validate, build, launch, or kill it and try again.
This is where Fail Fast as a principle came from. Not as a slogan, but as survival. When you have 60 days, you don't have time for committees or perfect plans.
Finally, we landed on B2B targeting. Not because we planned it from day one, but because we kept listening to what the market actually needed.
Why education, not just business
Here's something that connects all of this: I've always loved learning and sharing what I learn.
Kellogg wasn't my only teaching moment. I've spoken at TEDx about modern GTM—breaking down the formula V × CR × (GM - CAC) across segments 1 through N. I've taught workshops. I've mentored founders.
When I launched Primeclass in 2018, it wasn't just a business opportunity. It was the intersection of two things I'd been doing my whole life: building businesses and teaching people how to succeed.
That's why "Overeducate, Not Oversell" isn't marketing copy. It's how I've operated for 30 years. Teaching first, selling second. Or more accurately: teaching IS the selling.
The pattern in the businesses
Look at every business I've built:
Baby food distribution: Feeding children in a country where good nutrition was hard to find.
Travel agency: Helping people explore the world, learn about other cultures, expand their perspectives. Travel isn't just vacation—it's education about how other people live.
Primeclass (online university): Helping people build careers and financial independence through education. Not selling courses. Selling transformation.
Unstuck Engine: Helping both buyers and sellers win by making every interaction valuable.
Every single one was about helping people. Not in an abstract "corporate social responsibility" way. But literally: the business model only worked if people's lives got better.
I didn't plan this pattern. I just can't get excited about building something unless both sides win.
Why this matters for Unstuck Engine
That pattern—seeing opportunities early and moving before consensus forms—is now embedded in our product.
Seeing opportunities early means aggregating intent signals before they're obvious to everyone else.
Moving before consensus means reaching out when buyers are researching, not when they've already made a shortlist.
The whole philosophy of Overeducate, Not Oversell comes from 30 years of selling to everyone. B2B, B2C, large enterprise, SMBs, luxury clients, budget-conscious students.
The best sales conversations were never about overcoming objections. They were about education.
When I sold sponsorships at 15, I wasn't "closing" skeptical executives. I was showing them viewership data and explaining how sponsorship worked.
When I built the travel agency, I wasn't convincing people to travel. I was teaching them about destinations they'd never heard of and showing them itineraries they didn't know were possible.
When I sold Primeclass bootcamps, I wasn't pushing students to enroll. I was showing them career paths and salary data and portfolio examples.
The pattern was always the same: the best "selling" is education delivered at the right moment.
And that's exactly what Unstuck Engine does. We help you find buyers when they're ready to learn. We score for fit so you're educating the right people. We aggregate signals so you reach out at the exact moment they're researching solutions.
From surviving to thriving
I've lost everything 3 times. Built it back each time.
The first time (1998), I thought it was luck. The second time (2014), I realized it was a skill: the ability to see what's coming and move before everyone else does.
Here's what losing everything three times teaches you: attachment to any specific business model is a liability. The model doesn't matter. The principle does.
Primeclass failed. But the principle—education beats selling—survived. That principle became Unstuck Engine.
Most people wait for certainty before acting. I learned early that certainty doesn't exist. You see a pattern, you place a bet, you iterate fast.
That's why our culture is built around Fail Fast. That's why we structure work as Bounty tasks (experiments) instead of Standard tasks (known processes). That's why we hire for learning ability, not just experience.
The biggest competitive advantage isn't what you know today. It's how fast you can learn and adapt when everything changes.
Russia invaded twice. AI disrupted my business. Currency crashed. Markets shifted.
Every time, the companies that survived weren't the strongest or the smartest. They were the fastest to adapt.
Why both sides have to win
Every time I sold successfully, both sides won.
The TV show got funding. The sponsor got visibility. The travel agency customer got their dream trip. The student got a career.
Every time I built something that lasted, I'd optimized for both sides of the transaction.
Every time something failed—whether it was the hotel reviews AI or the ChatGPT wrapper—I'd optimized for what I wanted to build, not what the market actually needed.
That's why our mission is "Build a world where every GTM interaction matters to both sides."
Not because it sounds good. Because I've lived both outcomes. I know which one builds companies that last.
When you help buyers learn instead of pushing them to buy, you build trust. When you aggregate signals to reach out at the right moment instead of spamming everyone, you respect their time. When you score for fit instead of chasing every lead, you make sales efficient for your team and valuable for the buyer.
Both sides win. That's not idealism. That's the only model that survives disruption.
One more thing about diversity
I'm an immigrant founder from Odesa - one of the most multicultural cities in Eastern Europe. Greeks, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Bulgarians: Odesa was a trading port for centuries, built by people from everywhere.
Now I live in Los Angeles - one of the most multicultural cities in America. It's the only place that feels like home. Both cities sit by the water. Both were built by immigrants. Both thrive on diversity, not despite it.
Growing up there, diversity wasn't a corporate value we discussed in meetings. It was just reality. Your neighbor spoke a different language. Your classmate's family celebrated different holidays. Your business partner had a completely different background.
When we talk about building a diverse team at Unstuck Engine, it's not because it's trendy. It's because I've never known how to build any other way.
The belief that all people are worthy—regardless of where they're from or what language they speak—isn't something I learned from a handbook. It's something I grew up with.
And honestly? It's a competitive advantage. When your team spans continents and cultures, you see opportunities that homogeneous teams miss. You understand buyers in markets others don't even know exist.
Next: Who we build for — The specific companies and people we're designed to help.
Deep dive: Our culture — How Fail Fast and other principles create a company that adapts faster than competitors.
See it in action: What Unstuck Engine does — The multi-dimensional scoring system that makes precision scalable.
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