The Challenge
Yandex Scooters needed to break out of Moscow and Saint Petersburg before competitors sealed up the rest of the market. My mandate was two-fold: design a franchise model that regional partners could run on their own and explore whether a new IT-focused legal entity inside Skolkovo could qualify the business for a coveted 0% VAT regime.
Approach
I pulled together a four-person launch squad spanning product, legal, sales, and operations. While I steered strategy and sales, the team built our internal billing, a partner dashboard, city launch guidance, "I own e-Scooter business" book for franchisees, e-Scooters full-scale pre-sale repair process.
For months I ran partner calls and on-site meetings, more than a hundred in total, and filtered every city through a strict profitability screen (based on competitor analysis + Yandex transportation scenarios performance). Once the shortlist was set, we negotiated contracts that balanced brand control with local agility.
On-site partner meeting in Krasnodar
Training came next. We flew eight partner teams to Krasnodar for a four-day boot camp: two days in the classroom, two days hands-on in the streets. The sessions turned loose contacts into committed operators.
Launching first batch in Tula - one of our first franchise cities
In parallel I rewrote our Skolkovo application as a "Micromobility Marketplace," brought in specialist counsel, and shepherded the paperwork needed for a 0% VAT ruling. Each deal moved through Yandex's internal systems; once payments ran smoothly, I shifted day-to-day support to account managers and moved on to the next city.
Results
- Scooters sales closed slightly above the initial target (+3%) despite record-high interest rates.
- By September Russia-wide revenue was +19% vs plan.
- The network now covers 12 domestic cities and 4 neighbouring countries.
- Skolkovo approved the new legal structure, opening the door to a 0% VAT benefit worth a high-eight-figure ruble saving each year.
Key Learnings
- Face-to-face boot camps build trust and speed up roll-outs more than weeks of video calls.
- A hard profitability filter simplifies go/no-go decisions and protects margins. We missed the profit forecasts in only 1 city out of 12, so almost all of the first batch of partners were happy.
- Securing spare-parts logistics early is essential when sanctions threaten supply chains.
The scooters franchise launch succeeded in sales and GMV, but I discovered business ops wasn't my passion. So I shifted back to product management and became Yandex Drive's CPO.