# Roman Semyannikov

> Roman Semyannikov is a Dubai-based founder who builds projects across EdTech, crypto and AI, mostly in partnership with influencers. His projects have reached 60K+ students in 50+ countries and generated over $17M in revenue, starting with an online school for moms he co-founded at 18 that made $6M+ over 2.5 years. At 22 he co-founded EVEDEX, a decentralized exchange where users keep custody of their own funds, which closed a funding round with Morningstar Ventures.

I build projects across EdTech, crypto and AI. They’ve reached 60K+ students in 50+ countries and generated over $17M in revenue.
At 22, I co-founded [EVEDEX](http://evedex.com), a decentralized exchange where users keep custody of their own funds. It’s live today and recently hit $900M+ in 24-hour trading volume.

## Chapter I: School for Moms

How we built an online academy for moms that 26K people went through in the first 3 months, and made $6M in revenue over 2.5 years.

I was raised by a single mom, who worked three jobs at once to support our family. I saw how hard it was, and I decided to create online education for complete beginners like my mom on how to earn a living online.

At 18, I teamed up with a friend. We had no marketing budget, so we looked for an influencer with a large audience we could partner with. We made a list of every CIS blogger with 3M+ followers and started reaching out.

My partner and me, the year we started.

Our list of CIS bloggers with 3M+ followers.

The manager of one of these influencers replied. I was the happiest person alive! But not for long: then they ghosted us. We tried long messages, short messages, every approach. Nothing worked.

The manager replied. Then silence.

We couldn’t close anyone, so we decided to travel to one of them in person. The next day we were on a plane to Almaty. We texted them: “we’ll be in your city tomorrow. Let’s meet!”

“We’ll be in your city tomorrow. Let’s meet!”

Almaty, right after the meeting.

We met. She was one of [the biggest influencers in the CIS](http://instagram.com/super.mamasita), with 5.8M followers at the time. They were surprised we’d actually come, and decided to work with us. We signed the contract the next day.

Then we started marketing on her page: we traveled across cities to meet moms and showed the learning process live.

We priced the program at $60 so more moms could afford it.

| Launch funnel | Result |
| --- | --- |
| Instagram story views | 450,000 |
| Lead conversion | 10.7% |
| Leads | 48,027 |
| Purchase conversion | 55% |
| Purchases | 26,415 |
| Average order value | $61 |
| Revenue | $1,608,160 |
First launch. Revenue was 120,188,837 RUB.

In the first 3 months, we made $1.6M in revenue and $1.1M in profit with organic traffic only.

Website.

First launch P&L statement.

Netology’s 2021 Russian EdTech market research ranked our program #2 among influencers’ programs in the IT & Marketing category, with 31.9M total reach.

Ranked #2, IT & Marketing.

[Netology research, page 196 ↗](https://u.netology.ru/backend/uploads/page_assets/documents/file/62210/edtesh_research_2022.pdf)

Here are a few messages from our students. Someone even bought their first car because of our program!

“Bought my mom a new Hyundai Tucson.”

First client: 75,000 ₸ a month.

Her client is already getting new leads.

First client, a kids’ store: 40,000 ₸.

+1 client at 75,000 ₸, 50% paid upfront.

Two clients found, one already paid in advance.

Landed her very first client.

Second client: 15,000 ₸ for a 24.6k-follower account.

Found her first client through friends.

First client paid, the second wants her full-time.

We created a 2-month program with video lessons, step-by-step guides, and mentor support throughout.

We also visited orphanages and raised money for children in need.

This project changed tens of thousands of lives: moms landed their first online jobs, learned new skills, made connections, and found friends.

I learned that you don’t need to have everything figured out to build something cool. You need to take ownership, find a way to make things happen, and be willing to do whatever it takes to get the first version off the ground.

## Chapter II: School in Brazil

Once we succeeded with our academy in the CIS, we decided to launch the second school on a different continent.

**$230K** revenue

**3,770** students

**6M** follower partner

**4.5 mo** landing to launch

I had just turned 20. Most of my friends thought we’d lost our minds when we decided to move to Brazil without speaking Portuguese or knowing anyone there.

Rio de Janeiro, just after we moved.

We ran 30 customer development calls with Brazilian moms and found out that they needed the same thing, so we kept the product with some small adjustments.

We sent thousands of cold emails and messages to find an influencer and got no results. So we asked a friend with a large following for help: she started messaging influencers from her own account, which made people trust us more.

A friend with a large following wrote to influencers for us.

Cold outreach in Portuguese.

Sadly, it didn’t work out. After months of failed outreach, we tried something unusual. We found a way to get a handwritten proposal and a gift to her in person. And it worked!

The gift and the note.

It worked. We signed at the first meeting.

She agreed to meet, and at that meeting we signed a contract with her. She had 6M followers. We showed the learning process live on her page. Our content grew her reach by 40%, and our stories got 1M+ views.

Visiting a mom at home.

With a student’s family.

Moms and kids at a mall.

Reach up 40%.

Four and a half months after we landed in Brazil, we were ready to launch. We had a team of eight. We priced the two-month program at about $60: mentors, live sessions with guest speakers, homework, and a community.

Website.

Pricing page.

Payments.

We had 200K website visits. 40K people clicked the buy button, and 3,770 completed their purchases. Students rated the program 9.8/10 on average, based on 830 responses.

| Launch week | BRL |
| --- | --- |
| Revenue | R$1,270,063.58 |
| Hotmart commission | R$85,734.99 |
| Hotmart disk space | R$11,476.76 |
| Fact expenses | R$479,176.22 |
| Expenses, taxes | R$89,318.45 |
| Profit | R$604,357.16 |
Revenue of about $230,000 at the time’s exchange rate.

### What went wrong

We were aiming for $2M+, and I think we had a real shot at it! But we didn’t adapt our launch strategy. We skipped the opt-in and kept sales open for a week, while successful launches in Brazil used short sales windows. We gave people too much time to put off the decision, and our conversions suffered.

The lesson: don’t assume what worked in one market will work in another. Adapt, and bring in people who know the market better than you do.

### After Brazil

We kept building. Over the next three years, our other online schools generated more than $9M in combined revenue.

Today, my schools rank among the top 1% of creators on GetCourse, one of the largest online education platforms in the CIS.

Top 1% of schools on GetCourse.

[GetCourse top listing ↗](https://getcourse.ru/top?school_id=monetizator2026_2)

## Chapter III: Crypto

In April 2024, when I had just turned 22, I co-founded EVEDEX: a decentralized exchange that’s as easy to use as Coinbase, but users keep custody of their own funds. Then I sold my stake and left before the launch.

EVEDEX on CoinMarketCap: $928M in 24-hour derivatives trading volume, November 2026. [CoinMarketCap ↗](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/evedex)

**260** influencers promoted us

**676K+** website visitors

**150K+** mini-app users, hour one

**1M+** new followers

### How it started

I wanted to build in crypto, but I didn’t know a single thing about it. So I spent two weeks learning the basics of crypto, then reached out to a crypto influencer, and together we came up with an idea.

His referrals were generating $1B+ in perpetual trading volume every single month on centralized exchanges. So we set out to build our own decentralized exchange and keep that volume instead of sending it to someone else. We decided to make a DEX for complete beginners, so they could trade directly from MetaMask, Trust Wallet, etc., while we earned a commission on every trade.

He had the audience; my partner and I had a team that could build and launch. He funded 80% of the company, and my partner and I put in the other 20%.

### The first campaign

I recruited 300+ crypto influencers with 17M+ combined followers and 2.5M daily reach, and got 260 of them to promote our first early adopter campaign. It brought 676K+ website visitors, and participants minted all 50K badges. Half of them were claimed in the first 24 hours.

1.2M views, 676.9K visits.

### Advisors through cold outreach

In parallel, my goal was to bring experienced people onto our advisory board to cover areas where we were weak. So I did what I love: cold outreach. It brought us advisors like the CCO of Binance US, the Head of Partnerships at Robinhood, a Director of Product at OKX and others.

### The second campaign

The second marketing stage was a Telegram mini-app. We got 150K+ participants in the first hour after the launch. We ended up with 1M+ new followers across our socials.

150,000 in the first hour.

### Raising the round

Because the project was self-funded, at some point we started running out of money. So we started setting up calls and meetings, and decided to go to a crypto conference in Singapore to find new opportunities and raise capital. I met 100+ founders and investors at TOKEN2049 to open fundraising conversations.

This process took five months of follow-ups and pitches from our team, and we closed a round with Morningstar Ventures (announced in November 2024).

[Morningstar Ventures invests in EVEDEX ↗](https://x.com/EVEDEX/status/1852374097591763446)
[Morningstar Ventures: 2024 in review ↗](https://blog.morningstar.ventures/updates/2024-a-year-in-review)
[Morningstar Ventures Summit ↗](https://x.com/Morningstar_VC/status/1914353197654983141)

At the time, I could barely believe what was happening: just 6 months earlier I didn’t know a single word of crypto.

### Why I left

Over time, we started seeing the company’s future differently. I realized we were no longer aligned on where to take it, so I decided it was the right time for me to move on. I sold my shares and stepped away.

This taught me that choosing the right co-founder is just as important as choosing the right idea. You can have the same goals on paper, but very different ideas about where to take the company. Resources, connections and audience can get you started, but shared values and a common vision are what keep you building together.

EVEDEX launched in 2025 after I left. It’s live today.

[evedex.com ↗](http://evedex.com)

Fun fact #1

## Content for the Wolf of Wall Street

I watched The Wolf of Wall Street years ago and thought it would be pretty wild to work with Jordan Belfort one day. Now my team runs his content.

We grew his audience by 150K+ followers in 60 days.

Behind the scenes.

That’s how we organize our content job.

Here I am in his videos.

Behind the scenes.

[Reel 1 ↗](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DfIRe2spuoP)
[Reel 2 ↗](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeSJ7yCPr4j)
[Reel 3 ↗](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd4ay03puJL)

Fun fact #2

## 178K users in one month, $0 on ads

A friend had built an AI-powered photo generation tool and asked me to figure out distribution. I partnered with two influencers, created white-label versions of the product under their own brands, and had them promote it to their audiences.

We brought in 178K users in just one month, without spending a dollar on ads.

The two branded versions.

Fun fact #3

## A Guinness World Record livestream

I spoke at Iman Gadzhi’s online event about my method of working with influencers.

The event set the Guinness World Records title for the most viewers of a business consulting livestream on YouTube: 203K live viewers.

## Community

I’ve been sharing what I build and learn along the way. Today, my accounts have 60K+ followers combined across Instagram, YouTube and Telegram.

[Instagram](https://instagram.com/semyannikov1)
[YouTube](https://youtube.com/@deadalienman)
[Telegram](https://t.me/semyannikov)

I also organize meetups in different cities and run mentorship programs teaching people how to work with influencers and grow businesses through influencer marketing. Over two years, more than 200 clients went through these programs.

Podcasts

[**Podcast #1** Watch on YouTube ↗](https://youtu.be/KUKJpiFsFUk)
[**Podcast #2** Watch on YouTube ↗](https://youtu.be/Uk3Xh7MzELs)

## FAQ

### Who is Roman Semyannikov?

Roman Semyannikov is a Dubai-based founder who builds projects across EdTech, crypto and AI. His projects have reached 60K+ students in 50+ countries and generated over $17M in revenue.

### What has Roman Semyannikov built?

At 18 he co-founded an online school for moms with an influencer partner, which made $6M+ over 2.5 years. At 20 he launched a school in Brazil with a 6M-follower influencer, and at 22 he co-founded the decentralized exchange EVEDEX.

### What does Roman Semyannikov work on now?

His team runs Jordan Belfort's social media. He organizes meetups in different cities and runs mentorship programs teaching people how to work with influencers and grow businesses through influencer marketing: more than 200 clients over two years.

### What is EVEDEX?

EVEDEX is a decentralized exchange where users keep custody of their own funds. Roman co-founded it at 22 and sold his stake before launch; it is live today and recently hit $900M+ in 24-hour trading volume.

### How can I contact Roman Semyannikov?

Email romanbillion@icloud.com, or reach him on LinkedIn, Instagram (@semyannikov1) or Telegram (@semyannikov).

## Contact

- Email: [romanbillion@icloud.com](mailto:romanbillion@icloud.com)
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-semyannikov-320a06189/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/semyannikov1/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadalienman
- Telegram: https://t.me/semyannikov