The living archive
A Legendary Place
“Before the revolution, the premises were rented out to the Fencing & Gymnastics Society. Among others, the brothers Anatoly and Vladimir Durov trained here. Anton Chekhov once dropped in on the classes & was pleased with these ‘people of the future’, expressing his wish that ‘someday everyone in the country would be so strong and agile’.”
«До революции помещения сдавались Гимнастическому обществу, среди прочих здесь тренировались братья Анатолий и Владимир Дуровы. На занятия гимнастов и фехтовальщиков однажды заглянул Антон Чехов, который остался доволен этими „людьми будущего“ и высказал пожелания, что „когда-нибудь в стране все будут такими сильными и ловкими“».
1900s
The future was here first.
The Yellow Door doesn’t begin in 2011. Long before founders and startups, fencers and gymnasts trained at Strastnoi 12. Chekhov dropped in - and called them ‘people of the future’. A hundred years later, another strange collection of ‘people of the future’ turned up at the same address.
●Anton Chekhov ●The Durov brothers ●The Fencing & Gymnastics Society
Before the door
Before there was a room, there was a route.
By the late 2000s, Moscow and Silicon Valley were beginning to find each other. Russia had been producing extraordinary scientists, engineers and founders for generations; what it lacked was connective tissue to the wider startup world. So people began moving back and forth - carrying founders, investors, ideas and introductions with them. One trip became another. One introduction led to the next. Eventually, all that traffic needed somewhere to land.
“Before there was a yellow door, there was a habit of opening doors.”
- The founding brief
●Val Jerdes ●Aleks Volkov ●Mike Schwitay ●Dmitry Bolshakov ●Andrei Savichev ●Mika Ardova ●Anastasia Starygina
2010-11
Warm relations.
Esther Dyson was helping grow Yandex. Bill Reichert and Mark Iwanoski dropped by. Dmitry Anatolievich went through Cupertino. We helped some of the first Russian founders into Y Combinator and the other top accelerators - and the distance between Moscow and Silicon Valley grew a bit shorter: direct flights, beers on Tverskoi Boulevard with Steve Blank, Ashton Kutcher and so many others.
Moscow, 2010-11. The traffic was becoming a pattern. ●Esther Dyson ●Steve Blank ●Dave McClure ●Bill Reichert ●Mark Iwanoski ●Ashton Kutcher ●Jack Dorsey ●The Foresight team ●Vyacheslav Solonitsin
2012
Geeks on a Plane lands.
September 2012: Dave McClure (500 Startups) brings Geeks on a Plane to Moscow - four days of it, the sessions of 21 and 23 September among them, with Foresight Ventures on the ground. Dave and Esther Dyson share a stage at Digital October, at Limited Partners Unlimited, an evening Foresight Ventures co-organised with Digital October. We had a hand in bringing them over. The corridor, meanwhile, gets a room: one of the first co-working spaces for entrepreneurs in the centre of Moscow.
●Dave McClure ●Esther Dyson ●Geeks on a Plane ●The Foresight team
2013
A basement, as found.
The corridor finds a basement: reconstruction begins on Strastnoi Boulevard. In the same year a hand-built La Marzocco Strada leaves Tuscany and starts the long way round - California, Kyiv customs, then overland to Moscow.
“A wonderful place where you are always welcome and helped with everything. Thank you so much for being our home.”
- Djanette · Sinkhronizatsiya
“One machine, four borders - its own voyage, told properly at the Cappucinarium.”
- La Strada
●James Warren ●The builders
2014
The door opens.
Two and a half years of rebuilding a basement - back to brick and vaulted arch, rewired for a 240-volt Italian machine, room by room while the project kept running. This part was not romantic. Advalange took desks anyway: the first two residents, today around two hundred people and leaders in their market.
“You walk in a stranger and leave with a family - and, somehow, a term sheet.”
- a founding resident
●The founding circle ●(tag a founder)
2015
18 December, 19:30.
The doors open to the public - Yellow Door and West 4, with the jazz trio of Alexey Ivannikov playing against raw brick. Piano, double bass, saxophone. Coffee, art, music and conversation in one room, at last.
●Alexey Ivannikov Trio ●West 4 Coffee ●Natalia Borisova ●Esther Dyson ●Kat Mañalac
2016
Nights that became legend.
Press for champagne. The parties got harder to get into - which, naturally, only made everyone want in more. There was room for big questions too: a February talk on where good ideas come from, a June evening with Startup Grind’s London stage on the big screen and then an information session with Kat Mañalac of Y Combinator, and July fireside chats with Esther Dyson and Bill Reichert, both down the line from California.
“Holy smokes, Russia’s got game!”
- Y Combinator partners on the Moscow pitches · 3 February 2016
“The Yellow Door is a big, beating heart - you feel it the moment you walk in.”
- Anna Grom · resident
“Have you ever worked in an office cubicle? Yellow Door is the opposite. Open, fresh, free. In a word: soul. And the people who come here are just like you.”
- Dima Popov · Melon, Shazam
●Esther Dyson ●Guy Kawasaki ●Marvin Liao ●Katya Rets
2017
A soul brother in California.
The Palo Alto headquarters opens at 818 Cowper Street - so portfolio companies, friends and partners have somewhere to land. A door on each side of the portal, in the correct colours. In Moscow the demo days kept coming - Batch 4 in August, Batch 5 in December, founders showing what five weeks had done to a pitch. Brad Feld talked angel and venture investing down the line in May, and for Sputnik’s sixtieth birthday on 4 October the Singularity University Moscow chapter called an evening on space.
“Did you know the Yellow Door in Moscow has a soul brother in California? Yes - the Red Door!”
- The Yellow Door, September 2017
●818 Cowper Street
2018
The Valley flies in.
Garry, Phil and Chon - around one table, arguing about the future past 2am. No badges and no panels. In November, a Techstars Startup Weekend on the liveable city: fifty-four hours for developers, designers and founders to turn a question into a project by Sunday night.
“It's the portal from 'Guest from the Future' - you step through, and the world is suddenly bigger.”
- Arkady Meshkovsky · resident
●Garry Tan ●Phil Wickham ●Chon Tang ●Keith Teare ●Bob Dorf ●Ravi Belani ●Vivek Wadhwa ●Dixon Doll ●Victor Hwang
2019
54 hours, twice in one year.
Techstars Startup Weekend Moscow, twice: in June at EY’s offices, thirty pitches down to ten teams, mentors, a jury, and Digi.gift taking it ahead of Forest Vision and Data Gallery; then again at the end of November. In March part of the team went to Techstars Weekend in Prague, and that year we travelled to China with Kirill Lissovets - another chapter beyond Moscow. In December the chapter on Strastnoi Boulevard came to a close. The friendships did not: the next pages are written in new rooms, programmes and places. The densest year in the whole archive.
“The Yellow Door reminds me what great traditions of science, engineering and deep thoughtfulness we possess. And I understand how much we have to offer the world, and how much we can draw from it. I am grateful for this place.”
- Valeria Mayboroda · Grechka Media
2020
Labs is born.
Everything the parties had done by instinct, written into eight weeks - and a soft landing on the far side of the world. In April the Startup Weekend went online, teams from across Russia working on answers to COVID-19; the format changed, the working together did not.
“Labs turned our instinct into a plan we could actually run - and a soft landing an ocean away.”
- Roman Misheev · resident
●Roman Misheev ●Victor Hwang
2021
Thursday mornings, as always.
Founders Coffee keeps going - for a while even in Clubhouse. Free diving, online wellness, DNA sequencing, virtualisation of real estate: the topics change every week and the format never does. Seven years after taking their desks, Advalange is a market leader. The sixteenth and seventeenth Insiders batches reached their demo days in October and December - medtech, cybersecurity, retail, AI - each team taking questions and getting ready for the next step.
“The most intense, practical, no-bullshit five weeks I’ve ever spent. Worth every minute and penny.”
- Katya Rets · Teempla
●Katya Rets ●Advalange
2022
We stand in Moscow.
Founders Coffee ran through the spring as it has through every season - same morning, same chairs in a circle, same founders leaning in. The eighteenth Insiders batch started that July. We are proud to be here, and we are staying.
“February - March 2022. We stand in Moscow, and we’re sticking around. Where were you?”
- Founders Coffee · Moscow · every Thursday
“I love this place, these people, and everything they do and stand for: for this country, for the world, for their sincere optimism and kindness.”
- Andrey Lobanov · Algorythmika
●The Thursday circle
2023
Startup Grind, and bigger rooms.
The big rooms now - fireside chats, regional finals, a stage where every face in the crowd could write a cheque.
“Other places give you a programme. This place gave us a soul - and a home.”
- Dima Popov · resident
“YD is a power center of our startup community & a door to Silicon Valley and the world.”
- Elena Krauzova · Forbes Moscow
●Esther Dyson ●Cameron Teitelman ●Elena Krauzova · Forbes ●Armen Grigoryan · Yerevan
2024
Thursdays, and a chemistry lab.
Founders Coffee kept its Thursday morning: the same circle of chairs, new questions. In July we spent time with Galaxy Rays in a chemistry laboratory in Moscow - another part of the story: people, research, and work that takes years to answer. There is work worth paying attention to here, and we want more of it understood - by people who can help develop it, and by people who might use it.
●Galaxy Rays ●The Thursday circle ●(who was there?)
2025
SkyDeck in April. The World Cup in May.
Batch 19 Demo Day at Berkeley SkyDeck - one of our favourite accelerators around academia. In May the Startup World Cup came to Russia for the first time: a regional round at Tech Week, the first step on the road to the grand final in Silicon Valley and its million-dollar prize. In October the Moscow Startup Summit was full of our alumni.
“The course was created by Silicon Valley natives who are themselves investors and founders - and they show how the insiders actually operate.”
- Nikolay M. · Intensive alumnus
●Berkeley SkyDeck ●Startup World Cup ●(photos wanted)
2026
It goes, it bubbles, it grows.
A newly opened office, the Noodome partnership - and Founders Coffee and Startup Grind still filling Thursday mornings and Moscow evenings. In April the Moscow chapter flew out to Startup Grind’s Global Conference in Redwood City. The Intensives are heading into their thirtieth batch - Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk, this December - with the Studios and Innov8 Global Ventures working alongside the companies that come out of them. The Future of the Future, our evenings on science, technology and what comes next, is announced for December too. Seventeen thousand visitors, 690 residents and 7,000 gatherings on, the thread keeps going and keeps widening. The next frames are empty, and one of them has your name pencilled under it. Are you part of this yet? If not, you are missing out.
●Startup Grind Moscow ●You ●(tag yourself)
From Moscow
Into a wider world.
Our home was in Moscow; the conversations took us further. In 2019 we travelled to China with Kirill Lissovets. There were trips to India and Iran, a partner in Brazil and a partner in Mexico City - each one another place, another way of seeing, and people to get to know. Today the work includes walking startups into the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and Indonesia: where to begin, whom to talk to, what a team has to understand about a new market. BRICS is part of this wider story. So are the friendships made in Silicon Valley. What matters to us is what people can do together - and how those ties help the founders we work with.
●(tag a partner)
e iπ + 1 = 0
1748
1961
f s ≥ 2f max
1933
1968
1869
1957
iℏ ∂ψ/∂t = Ĥψ
1926
1949
max c Tx
1939
P(Ω) = 1
1933
1958
1949
The next chapter is yours to help write - add to the archive ↓
This archive is written by all of us.
Post the ones you especially loveWe confirm with you before publishing anything.
§ The legend
“They came from everywhere, and they all asked the same thing at the door - maybe we can fly to the sun?”
The sketches were never marketing. They were drawn by someone in the room, trying to capture a feeling no pitch deck could - the moment before the leap, when the door is still mostly closed.
Series - Yulia Tretyakova · The Night Climbers
● Become part of the history
There's a seat at the table for you.
Every face here began as a stranger at the door. We keep it small on purpose - and we're still letting people in. Here's where it happens next:
● The guest list
Get word of the next happening.
No spam - just the door, opening. Let's stay in touch.
The dispatch
A letter, occasionally.
Cohort openings, party invitations, the odd confession. Once a fortnight at most, and never boring - we'd be too embarrassed.
The channels
Hear it first.
The Telegram channel gets everything first - dates, photos, the odd rumour. Everyone else is fashionably late.
The envelope
Show us what you've got.