STM Thought Leader: Alexander Tsatkin (Angry Russian) (26)
STM Thought Leader: Alexander Tsatkin (Angry Russian)
The Angry Russian, aka Alexander Tsatkin, is one of the most elusive characters in the affiliate marketing industry.
He’s most known for his extreme short temper (don’t let the profile photo fool you), his lack of mercy, and for pioneering the mobile affiliate marketing industry.
Alex went from being a struggling affiliate, to a successful affiliate, to business owner, to selling his business (in the millions) in record time.
I always knew Alex had something special about him. He always seemed to know how the future would shape up before it happened.
His mindset was very unique...
“The Universe Will Catch You.”
Alex always went by this motto. From day one when he quit his job, he knew that somehow he would fall on his feet and work something out.
The shouts of “Are you crazy?” “Don’t do it!” from his family and friends telling him were muted by his drive to succeed.
He’s a firm believer that time is the most finite resource we have, and he has only been able to find success when he was able to invest 100% of his energy towards one goal.
Alex got to a point in affiliate marketing where he was generating $XXX,XXX year profit, working far less than most full time employed peers, but he had nothing to show for his effort other than money. He was sick of living in standby mode waiting for big campaigns. So he publicly announced that he decided to try a “lifehack” and move back home with his parents to hone his skills in order to develop a real sustainable online business.
This action labelled the start of Alex’s sharp rise in the industry.
“Stop Trading Time for Money.”
Another concept Alex firmly believes in. It’s one of the hardest to adopt, but it is the key to success. Instead of always thinking of how will this action make him money he realized there is value in a process or helping others. It is the pay it forward notion that in business has always resulted in opportunities and connections that have paid dividends on his initial “free” investment.
Alex practices what he preaches so he posted a thesis on mastering mobile marketing on STM. This helped launch his extremely loyal follow to his new company “Mobaff” one of the first boutique mobile affiliate networks.
Despite the freedom after years of work he had nothing tangible to show. he knew he wanted to build some kind of business that had value besides just the money it was generating. He really did not have a clear plan of how it would come into fruition. Most of the actions and pivots he took were as needed bases. It started with trying to figure out how to make money with mobile advertising and led him to building a tracking platform, affiliate network, internal media buying, training, and a wonderful team with whom he really enjoyed working every day.
“There is No Bad Decision.”
The reason a “hard decision” is difficult is because you’re brain can’t fully understand how your choices today will play out tomorrow. Most of the time when Alex made a decision the outcome was far from anything he envisioned before making that choice. In addition many outcomes were disguised as a negative, or a setback, but then after time passed it made him realize that the outcome was the best possible thing that could have happened to him.
The key is to act and make choices quickly: it’s better to move forward. Like a shark you need to keep swimming, or you'll sink.
“The Next Level of Affiliate Marketing”
Building Mobaff really taught Alex to be more empathetic towards other people. In order to have a team that as driven as you, there needs to be a greater purpose.
Every individual has their own motivation whether its money, career growth, fulfillment, interesting work, what have you... but the underlying reason for why you are there needs to be the focal point to get everyone through the down turns. In that sense a company is similar to running campaigns as an affiliate, there will be ups and downs you’ll have to get through.
The measure of your business and your team is not how well things are going when things are on the upswing, but how you are able to recover and deal with the downswing.
I remember Alex once posted - “People are your greatest asset. We've all read 4 hour workweek, but I think Tim Ferris got it wrong. Outsourcing is not all it is cracked up to be. Of course you can find great people, but the time difference and language issues can be a real problem. By surrounding myself with talented people I got to a point where I can literally take off a week with minimal internet connection, and know that my team can handle any issues that might arise...can your outsourced team do that?”
Alex was blessed with being surrounded by smart, driven, and creative individuals who pushed each other and himself to be better despite obstacles that arose. MobAff was an affiliate-focused network. All the tools, training, offers, and management were designed to help affiliates grow their business. As long as he kept that purpose, it made business decisions and day-to-day operations easy. He was no longer bogged down with short-sighted opportunities to make money and understood the long term value of building strong relationships.
Two years later…
Why Did Alex Sell Mobaff?
The truth is that was his goal from the beginning. Like art, even the best piece of art is worthless if no one is willing to pay for it. His success metric was always finding another company willing to pay for his business. The most important aspect to any business is the process or systems. Selling a business came with a whole slew of new information he had to take in including legal, due diligence, negotiations, positioning, etc.
Going through the process was a very stressful, daunting and challenged many of his assumptions and revealed weakness both in his business and him as a person. The nice thing is now that he has been through it once, if he chose to exit again the second time he can avoid some of the pitfalls and have a much smoother experience. Like any process it only gets easier with repetition.
I’ve always joked around that Alex has some psychic/fortune telling abilities, but his knack for knowing what is the next big thing is plain ridiculous.
He revolutionized the mobile space, he revolutionized the tracking space, and he is about to revolutionize…….we will announce that soon. STM + The Angry Russian are creating something really amazing.
Alex/Angry Russian, thank you for your contributions on STM from literally day one. You are the only fortune teller I would listen to. We are proud to have you on as a STM Thought Leader.
I agree. He is real STM Thought Leader!
Awesome story, love these! wonder what the surprise is...... mobile spy tool? GET HYPE!
The asians are on the way down :P
Originally Posted by nt2000
I wont post what i want to say. Heard hes really angry and i dont want to make him angrier. 
Inspiring
I've started mobile marketing thanks to him and his guide.
Thank you Alex, you've opened a whole new world to me, I can't thank you enough for how fast I learned the basics of a space that was scaring me a lot at first.
It makes me laugh now when I think about how I'm confident when I design mobile creatives today... but in the beginning, I was scared as hell by the mobile world.
Awesome write up, mad respect for the Mad Russian.
Alex you're the man, treasure some of the convos a few years ago that planted a seed in me looking forward to seeing you next man!
Congrats to Alex! He's been a staple in the community for over half a decade. Can't wait to see his next moves
^^^
These guys and STM are what makes me wake up happy every morning. :-)
Awesome community!
Maybe one of his ancestors was Mongolian?
Russia is actually in Asia . NOT IN EU according to ME 
. And they are more related geneticaly to Asia then rest of europe.
Slavs and Scandinavians has more indian orginated R1a genetics than anyone in Europe. Anyway that is if you belive Wikipedia like i do So dont get angry with me if you dont belive it
Genetic history of Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe
R1a Gentic map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic...stribution.png
Purple R1a orginated in India
No monglians and east asians have very less common gene pool with Russian slavs, of cos you have turkic tribes in russia that are related to mongolia that is true. But in general Mongolians are more related to the Indian Tamils in south india. Which most probl was first people settle down in India and continue up to Mongolia and China , And the evolution changed there futures cos of the climat.
As i say this is what i belive from the info i found online. , its just what i found. So if this make you angry dont blame me . I dont wants to stear up usless things hehe .
Originally Posted by dr_ngo
[QUOTE=Mr Green;191912]Not a bad start to the speaking line up at STM London either![/QUOTE
Allstar team Suggestion to STM get someone to have at least one per month podcast, we can have interviews, and we can call in .for newbies . We use to have in it in the Adult industry, i really enjoyed it as newbie... To invited affiliate programs to speak on the show, and also affiliates to ask questions to the pros and industry experts. Its also keep us closer to the experts, that we can call in . And its good marketing tool to get more members aswell ...people only can listen if your member, but you can upload the old programs to youtube.
Very inspiring, these are the people because of whom STM is a B.S Free forum
You won't be able to find many guys that managed to stay in the biz for all this time.
Lots of one hit wonders and very few that managed to treat AM as a proper biz.
Respects to Alex for being one of these guys.
awesome mindset... love the universe will catch you. Control what you can... like yourself and your reactions.
Congrats.
Alex is one of the 1st affiliates i ever met in the industry and helped me start Mobile.
Lovely photo.
The Angle is going to be something else, can't wait to see this thing come together. Definitely a game changer
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Thanks to everyone for the kind words.
I've been in stealth mode for the past year, but have some very interesting projects in the pipeline including the Angle. I've been wanting to do this project for some time and thanks to Lorenzo and STM it will actually come into fruition.
Much respect to the Russian!
I was lucky enough to meet Alex when I first got into this game... He helped me get profitable fast!
(dnt know how long it would have taken me without his guidance & help)
He is the Oracle of affiliate marketing, everything he told me came true (good & bad lol)
He didn't know me, didn't ask me for anything in return... just reached out to me & gave me real solid, honest, hard hitting advice
don't know many people like that regardless of industry or business
thanks for everything broski
Can't wait to see what's next.
While busy with Mobaff, Alex would get on Skype calls with me just to listen to me bitch and help me see business in a different light. He's definitely angry, but he tells it exactly like it is, no filter. Not sure why he would have spent that time with me, but I am always super grateful.
Thanks Alex.
Originally Posted by ffclogin
Based on the people involved in this project, I can confidently predict that this is going to be a true game changer for the affiliate marketing industry.
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