this as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kirill Avery, 24, a founder and CEO. Buisness Insider has verified his claims. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When you’re young, you have energy, ambition, and ideas, but little capital. When you’re older, you may have resources, but less stamina or willingness to take risks.
That gap led me to an idea: what if you coudl borrow resources from your future self and build something right now? That’s why,at 21,I offered investors 2% of my future earnings over the following 15 years.
I didn’t want to peak at 17
I grew up in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Russia, and my family was neither wealthy nor highly educated. From an early age, I understood that if I wanted to succeed, I’d need to be self-sufficient and largely self-taught.
At 10, I taught myself to code and began making computer games. In the years that followed, I developed mobile games for my school friends, which many of them enjoyed playing. I felt like a celebrity.
In 2017, at the end of 10th grade, I dropped out of school after being offered a job as an engineer at VK, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook. A year later, when I was 16, I launched a livestream trivia app that went viral and became one of Russia’s most-downloaded games of 2018 across iOS and Android.
At 17, I was named on Russia’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
I didn’t want this to be my peak, but it became clear that Russia wasn’t the place to keep growing. I had to be in Silicon Valley.
Kirill avery sold a percentage of his future earnings to investors. Courtesy of Kirill Avery
In 2019, I went to California for the first time after securing a place at the Apple Worldwide Developers conference. that year, at the age of 17, I received an O-1 US visa for individuals with unusual ability.
Things were going well, but I was freaking out. I was accepted into Y combinator in 2021, and through it launched Lalabox, a live-stream shopping app for beauty products. I realized I was doing what many YC founders do: building a silly consumer app, when I wanted to work on something that could have a meaningful impact on society.
I wanted to build something to unconventional for most investors to fund, but didn’t have the resources. This is where the idea of borrowing from my future self took shape. I wasn’t aware of any other founders attempting this.
I used a SAFE agreement to sell my future
The structure is pretty simple. I created a holding company called Kirill Co. and signed a pledge that any new company I start or investment I make over the next 15 years must sit under this holding company.
The contract is a standard SAFE agreement, which Silicon Valley investors often use to provide cash in exchange for equity later. In my case, investors don’t get exposure to one company; they get exposure to everything I build during that period.
I capped the percentage of my future that can be bought at 2%, and I raised $500,000 in 2022, at age 21.
I could go on vacation and spend my investors’ money — but they know I wouldn’t
I update investors on how I’m spending their money a few times a year. They care most about my track record, my past personal revenue, how much my companies have made, and how much I fundraise.
The agreement doesn’t have many guardrails. There’s nothing stopping me from going on vacation for a few years and spending the investors’ money, for example. Though, my investors know me personally and understand how bad I feel that I’m 24 and not yet a billionaire. They know that I don’t give myself time to switch off.
My last startup, Human, and my current startup, Alien, are based around the idea of verifying who a human is online in the age of AI.
I’m certain I’ll be extremely successful
I truly believe in borrowing from your future self because it is advantageous to both investors and young founders. It has given me the freedom to work out what’s next and the resources to test different ideas. I plan to release documents to help others sell a percentage of their futures, too.
Sam Altman said that all the best founders believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion. They have extreme self-belief in their capacity for success.
By the time the 15 years are up,I’m 100% sure that I’ll be extremely successful.
