"Special thanks to the Elf-merchant" - this phrase is familiar to those who are not alien to the series dubbed by the Courage-Bambay studio or popular Russian video blogs. Or, perhaps, the name of a fairy-tale creature, engaged in a completely mundane occupation, is associated with a virtual store full of upgrade opportunities and all sorts of treasures for the characters of famous online games? Who is this Elf merchant - a person or a group of people, what is hidden behind such a mysterious pseudonym, and why are they so grateful to him?

A very real person

A young man, active and enterprising, an Internet businessman who launched many significant projects on the Russian Internet and turns virtual money and ideas into real income, bears in real life a completely non-exotic name - Yaroslav Andreev.

Born in 1983 in St. Petersburg (then - Leningrad), grew up and lived there permanently until recently. Childhood was not plentiful, it is difficult to call it even fully secured. He entered two universities, left both of his own free will - one in the second year, the other - in the third.

However, the ability to make money out of thin air is as much a gift of nature as any other talent. Yaroslav early began to turn into income what others consider entertainment, and often vice versa - an expense item - online games. Gamers with little time or desire to do everything in the game on their own, but willing to pay for improvements are the first sponsors of Elf Merchant stores.

How did the Elf merchant appear?

Who is this unearthly being who gave a name to an absolutely material entrepreneur and his projects?

Yaroslav, who himself was keen on online games in the past, received his first significant income from the sale of surpluses of his own game currency for real rubles. Later he put the case on stream and hired players. Bought from some, sold to others.

In one of the games, Yaroslav created a character whose name is now famous in certain circles - this is an elf merchant. Who earns a living, and the hawker - exchanging goods for money. The business, initially carried out by Yaroslav through ISQ, has developed into online stores, and the character Elf-merchant has become part of the names of some projects and the pseudonym of the founder.

Yaroslav Andreev is a very active and versatile person, in addition to functioning online stores with goods on the gaming theme, he is a participant in many various ongoing projects:

• information and training portals;
• dating sites;
• unique clothing brand UniFashion;
• musical group LITTLE BIG;
• network of St. Petersburg dance schools "Shtab";
• "NIIstrommash", associated with the equipment of factories for the production of bricks;
• owns a cafe-bar "Beavers and ducks";
• conducts individual consultations on business development and organization;
• launches its own brand of socks.

And this is not a complete list.

Helping the development of someone's undertakings, Yaroslav in some cases resorted to a simple and effective advertising move - mentioning his creative pseudonym in projects, thanks to which many people found out who this Elf merchant was.

In the photo, the Elf merchant, together with the manager of VK music projects, take a selfie on the roof of Nevsky Prospekt, where the company's office is located.

At present, Yaroslav Andreev is actively working in his Wildjam blogging agency: he finds, supports, and often creates bloggers and glorifies their name, then earning money by placing ads on their blogs.

Relations with the studio "Courage-Bambay"

Who is the Elf merchant, many thought while watching American sitcoms in the studio's voice acting. For a long time, at the end of the series, gratitude addressed to him sounded.

At one time, while relaxing watching these films, Yaroslav appreciated the abilities of Denis Kolesnikov, the creator of a home studio that dealt with their cheerful and talented Russian voice acting, and financially supported the project.

For some time, the Elf-merchant worked with Courage-Bambay as a financial director. At this time, he has no official contacts with the studio, but it was he who attracted the sponsor - the airline ticket company, which you can hear about at the end of the newly released series to this day.

Tell us about your first business experience.

“I was about twenty years old. I liked to play computer games. And I thought it would be good to make money on what I like. As a result, a service appeared for the sale of game currency and "keys" to games. It was my first business that still exists today.

- Has anyone helped you?

— At first, I did everything myself, over time, a partner appeared, with whom we continued to develop the company. There was no outside help.

- Was there a start-up capital?

No, I started everything from scratch. No investment of money. I have never attracted investments. I work for my own money.

Here is just a partial list of ongoing projects in which Yaroslav Andreev participated:

— — souvenir shop on the gaming theme
— — online store of game currency
— — gaming news site
— — knowledge base for the game Aion
– elfconsult – consulting on increasing turnover, profit, monetization, etc. business projects
— Sh.T.A.B. - a network of dance schools in St. Petersburg
— BEAVERS AND DUCKS — restaurant in Moscow on Chistye Prudy
- - meeting website
- - meeting website
— — clothing brand
- "Time to Go" - a popular travel show on Youtube
- LITTLE BIG - musical group, group
— NIISTROMMASH — design and reconstruction of equipment and factories for the production of bricks.

Yaroslav himself says that the list of his projects is a little longer, but with some - there is a non-disclosure condition. He is also a co-founder and coordinator of the closed business club WIN WIN (St. Petersburg, more than 100 participants)

But where did you study?

- I have only a secondary education. Studied at two universities, dropped out of both. One in the 2nd year, the other in the 3rd year.
I advise people to study in practical classes outside universities, read books, communicate personally with professionals in the field that interests them. Trainings are mostly nonsense, as they are taught by the so-called "info-businessmen", people who themselves have done nothing but training, and who teach others what they themselves cannot do.

So you have mentors...

- Previously, I did not ask anyone for advice, I was too self-confident. Now I often consult with people if they are more competent than me in some matter. Of course, I want people around me to support me. But in general, their opinion has never been a goal for me. If I think that I am doing the right thing, then if others disapprove of my actions, I will still continue to do as I decided.

It is important that I believe in myself and my team that I work with.
Most people do not believe in themselves or in others. And don't pay attention to them. Perhaps my only guide that I can name is the image of “I” in 5 years. And this "I" should be much better than today's "I". This is what I'm working on.

— How much do you earn?

- My personal income is sufficient to allow myself to live in pleasure. I won't name numbers. I have the opportunity to travel a lot. Favorite place is Thailand.

— Well, well, and the prices for your consultations?

— Paid consulting costs from 30 thousand rubles (one-time consultations). It all depends on the task of the business and is calculated individually. Payment always comes with a full money back guarantee in case a person is not satisfied with the result.

- I got the impression that you do nothing in life for other people - for free. Don't you think that there are things for which it's still not worth taking money? Well, at least for "cleansing karma"?

That's what I wanted to ask about. I once watched the TV series The Big Bang Theory - this is such a funny comedy about American scientists who constantly find themselves in comical situations. And suddenly I heard the phrase: "special thanks to the elf merchant." Did you happen to be mentioned?

— Yes, “elf-merchant” is my nickname, and it was really said about me. A few years ago, when there were no translations into Russian of The Big Bang Theory, I decided to help promote this series. I financed his translation at the Courage-Bambay studio. The series began to enjoy wild popularity among Russians. For a while, I worked with the studio as CFO, helped make pricing, found and helped to conclude some fairly large contracts. At the moment, I have no common interests with the studio.

- From communication with you, one gets the feeling that you are a rather relaxed person ... But how does this fit with today's realities? The dollar exchange rate, the economic crisis... Why do you keep smiling? What, nothing upsets you?

“My whole life is my hobby. I do not divide time into "work / leisure / hobbies". I do what I like. I like my business, I like communication with my friends, I like helping talented people achieve success, I like to travel, especially to warm countries. There are no clear plans, there is a “vector”: to become better and more successful tomorrow, and so that when the time comes to die, I do not regret a single day of my short life.
To be successful, you need to love what you do. Well, burn out once, is that a problem? We all learned to walk not at once, we fell, got up, fell again. It's the same with success. Each new fall makes you stronger and more experienced and brings you one step closer to success.

A crisis is a good incentive for new achievements. When a crisis happens, he always pushes me. Think of everything as a game, and it will be easier. Don't sweat it.

For those who want to learn more about Yaroslav's advice - a selection of his video interviews and speeches:

http://youtu.be/BNsu-oL5irQ
http://youtu.be/hKdULApKyMo
http://youtu.be/SuWzfcprjf4
http://youtu.be/zw9w2Xc2sEM
http://youtu.be/yZINdzD2B9k
http://youtu.be/UVwRBeRUwhk
http://youtu.be/M1ff9Bf0ffc
http://youtu.be/r9urQ1z_2lU
http://youtu.be/4T-joYDLYgw

- Why do you open the door to the office with a fingerprint?

People were distracted. At first, the door simply opened, and everyone came in at once. It distracted me. I started to close it with a key, it turned out even worse. People are knocking, waiting - I'm distracted. I go to the door, open it, say: "I'm busy," I close the door, sit down.

At some point, I decided: we put an electronic lock. Now I see on the monitor who came. If not opened, then - busy. If I'm not busy, then I open the door from the remote control. If I'm completely free, I go to the common room and work there.

Tell us about the last book that influenced you.

There is no such book. Books don't affect people. There is no such thing that I read and: “Oh yes, you need to do this!” If a person has written a book - it's just his opinion, which I'm trying to analyze.

I like to read business literature or something on psychology. The last thing I liked was "Shoe Salesman" by Nike founder Phil Knight. Interesting and inspiring autobiography. It is not about business, but about how a particular person coped with life's difficulties. Just recently I read "Turn on the charm according to the methods of the special services" by Jack Schafer - interesting, but sometimes boring and banal.

In principle, I like the story about interaction with people, behavioral psychology and mass psychology. This is interesting to me because I work with artists, clients, I live in society and I want to understand how we interact. Sometimes I even open textbooks on deviant psychology - pretty cool.

If we talk about fiction, then I recommend reading the book "The Greatest Trader in the World." It is about motivation, business and approach to life in general.

Have you thought about writing a book yourself?

I think it's been five years. I even write stories. When the stories are positive, it's not interesting. It's interesting when there are fakups, when something happened. I wonder how the man got out of this. I have a huge amount of stories about fakapy. It also seems to me that before writing something, I should become a little more interesting person for society. More serious, successful.

I don't want to be seen as a small entrepreneur or someone who has become more of a writer than a businessman, or more of a writer than a producer.

- Do you consider yourself successful now?

Partly. The only criterion for success is that I must enjoy twenty-four times seven. For me, success is not a matter of money. For me, success is when a person does what he enjoys, and this brings him income. It doesn't matter which one: it can be a hundred thousand, a million, or ten million.

When I see that a person comes to work at ten in the morning, leaves at seven in the evening, is dissatisfied all the time, and then spends the money he earns on entertainment, I understand that he is dissatisfied for half his life and tries to get rid of this discontent for half his life. Since I am crazy about what I do, I am successful.

I know a lot of businessmen who wrote a bunch of books, painted colorful palaces, but in reality everything turned out to be wrong. I don't want that. I want to be ugly

Yaroslav Andreev

Elf merchant

I can say that the coolest interviewer on YouTube is Dud. I can say that the coolest hype on YouTube is Nikolai Sobolev. I can say that the coolest lifestyle bloggers are Amiran Sardarov, Dima Maslennikov and Dima Gordey

Yaroslav Andreev

Elf merchant

What do you miss in your life right now?

Time and self-discipline. Human beings are lazy by nature. He came up with an automatic transmission, a car, a TV remote control, the Internet, an airplane - everything to keep his ass off the couch.

When I need to wake up at eight in the morning and go somewhere, I ask myself: why not sleep for another hour or two? Then I sit in the office and think: why not go home early? Self-discipline is to force yourself to go to the gym, not eat fast food, wake up early, go to the office, chat with clients. This is a constant work on yourself. A lot of people ruined their lives by starting to enjoy success and killing their discipline.

Unfortunately, as I get older, I get a little more lazy. It’s not that I’m old, I feel pretty young, but, for example, at twenty years old it was much easier for me to break loose somewhere. Now I already want greenhouse conditions, less I want to do something on my own. I want to call the employees and say: “Do it without me.” Many things need to be beaten out of oneself by force.

- Why?

I am a fatalist and I believe that there is no meaning in life. We are all going to die - that's 100%. Yes, there are disputes - is there something after death: someone believes that there is a paradise, someone believes that there is rebirth, someone believes that there is nothing. I refer to the latter. Within our lifetime, we will all die. Moreover, we will die not when we [it] want - like a hundred years from old age - but we will die a rather sudden or stupid death a little earlier than we would like. It's just a mathematical possibility.

Most often, we regret that we did not receive something in this life. If everything is reduced to one, then we did not enjoy it. We love sweets because they are a delight. We love sex because it is pleasure. We love to travel because it is a pleasure. Everything around is a delight. I realized one simple thing: you need to live your life in such a way that you can enjoy every day as much as possible.

If I sit, be lazy and do nothing, then I won’t be able to buy expensive things, travel, provide my loved ones with everything they need, and simply won’t be able to pay for my health. Therefore, I wake up and understand: “Yaroslav, come on, you go and earn something else. To make it even better, to enjoy life even more.” Every day I enjoy more and more.

I wake up in the morning and get high from the process, I get high from what I do: from communication with clients, from service, from earnings. It is important that this story is not about money. If I have ten times more money, it is unlikely that anything will change: there will be the same hotels, the same cars, the same clothes.

I don't aspire to the Forbes list, I don't need it. The issue is not the amount of money.

Yaroslav Andreev

Elf merchant

I often spend money on nonsense. For example, a PR woman will write in a chat: “Guys, I'm sorry, I'm not in touch, my iPhone is broken,” I will bring her a new iPhone. It doesn't make any sense, but I enjoy it.

- What was the last time you got high?

We had a rooftop party just a couple of days ago. We spent a decent amount of money just like that, but made a holiday for bloggers.

- How old do you feel?

Young. You know, it seems to me that there are some toggle switches inside of us: a child, a young, an adult, an old man. At eighty a person can be a child, and at thirty an old man. I feel on the edge - between young and adult.

Why on the edge?

When it comes to business, communication with clients, with managers - I am the most mature and responsible. When it comes to fun - I can fool around, make fun, show my tongue. I walk around the office, singing and dancing, and the employees look at me like I'm an idiot.

I communicate with twenty-year-old popular guys. They are insanely young, insanely progressive. They grow very fast, change and keep me young. I don't feel like an old man next to them. It doesn’t happen that they come: “Hello, Uncle Yaroslav,” although we have a difference of almost a generation.

- How would you like to die?

Painless and with no regrets. I want people not to cry at my funeral, but smile and rejoice at the fact that I knew them. One must be glad that there was such a person, and not roar that I am no more.

I have a friend who is a Comedy Club resident. I told him: "Ilyukha, if I survive you, you will be the leader of my funeral." He twisted it at his temple and asked: “Yarik, are you kidding?” I say, "No, I'm not kidding." He doesn't seem to fully believe it. Ilyukh, if you are reading this, I am not joking!

I somehow accepted death. It's not that I'm not afraid, I just know that sooner or later it will happen. I have learned to enjoy today because it could be my last.

Our mutual friend described you like this: “Crowds of bloggers come to him who have had a hype on something and they don’t know what to do.”

The word "crowd" is probably the wrong word. [I have] many bloggers, but each of them is individual, it is not a crowd. Now we have 130-something exclusive authors. In addition, I communicate with a large number of bloggers who work with us in a different format.

- Is it exhausting?

Any athlete is exhausted by training, but he still gets high from them. That is, it is exhausting, but not in a bad way, but as a kind of pumping yourself up, as an expansion of your capabilities. Previously, I could communicate with ten bloggers, now - with a hundred. Previously, I could manage to do one number of things to do, now - another. It motivates. Another motivation is responsibility. I can't let mine down. I can let myself down: I’ll sleep more - I won’t earn somewhere. But how can I then look into my own eyes and say that I didn’t do something for them if they trusted me?

Have you ever wanted to quit everything?

As soon as it appears, I will drop everything. I have no regrets about anything. I don't worry about losing anything, I'm not afraid to start from scratch. If I suddenly wake up and decide that I’m tired, I’ll just come and say: “Guys ... Yulia, don’t roar!” (Turns to his employee.) I'll just come and say: “Guys, I'm tired of everything, I'm leaving. Do what you want".

- But what about “I can’t let my people down”?

Here is a very important point. First, I build a structure: I have employees, a manager who work. Secondly, I will let my people down more if I don’t love my job. If two parents live together, do not love each other, but live for the sake of the child, then the child will still be unhappy. He will feel this dislike. If I don’t love and get high, I won’t be able to fulfill my duties. I won't be able to do what I'm supposed to, and it will get worse. I'd rather be honest.

- Didn't your tower get blown off because of the money?

You know no. I have been an entrepreneur for a long time. There were ups and downs. Once upon a time there was a lot of money, once in a complete asshole. Like a heart diagram. The tower was not torn down, but the attitude changed. It's trite not to look at the price tag in the store. Even in my head, the thing that says: “You need a car, you need an apartment” ceases to sit. When I couldn't afford something, I had the thought that I needed it. Now it’s much easier for me: it’s easier for me to treat money, although I appreciate every ruble, because I earn it myself.

For me, money is the equivalent of my benefit to society. It seems to me that any waste of money is stupid: that I will buy a car, that I will buy diamonds, that I will buy clothes. It's all stupid, it has no universal meaning. It's just a waste of money