From concept to 150K MAU and $500K ARR on a legal-media platform

PRObankrotstvo is a Russian legal-media platform on bankruptcy law, with a B2B engagement layer for the legal sector. I joined at an early stage as the operational lead for the product organization - owning product strategy, processes, hiring, vendor coordination, and stakeholder reporting alongside core PM work.

My legal background mattered here: five years in insolvency practice meant I understood both the content and the audience - lawyers - better than a generalist PM would.

I built and managed a cross-functional team of 15+ designers, developers, and content creators, and scaled the platform from concept to 150K monthly active users.

The key revenue decision was a pushback. Under real revenue pressure, the founder wanted to launch a paid B2B subscription within the first six months. I argued we didn't yet have product-market fit on the free tier, and monetizing without retention data would stall us. Instead I proposed: build the lead-capture CRM and document workflow tooling first, monetize through transactional promotional services for law firms, and revisit subscriptions once engagement signals were clear.

Mechanically, the B2B engine was a dual-sided platform strategy: a custom CRM handling lead capture and sales automation, plus streamlined document workflows for the promotional services law firms actually paid for.

After two years and three months I stepped out of full-time operations, and the company retained me as an external product, AI, and automation specialist - an engagement that continues part-time, about 30 hours a month. Working in focused iterations driven by user insights, I:

• Drove 50% audience growth in 8 months through end-to-end product iteration.
• Initiated, built, and shipped an AI-driven SEO metadata automation service (+30% efficiency) - I designed the architecture and integrated the generative model into the content workflow myself.
• Built Python data pipelines (Pandas, NumPy) and deployed API integrations across the operation.
• Authored an automated feedback system evaluating 117 partner law firms - replacing a manual assessment process with an AI-assisted one.
• In 2026, hands-on: built Recovery Club, a new closed-club product for systemic creditors, from scratch (Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL; in production since July 2026); an AI pipeline matching 2,233 publications to insolvency practitioners against the state register, piloted on 4 model configurations with a cost forecast; a payment module with automated invoicing.

• 0 → 150K MAU; $500K ARR in year two.
• A product organization and processes that kept working after I stepped back - which is why they hired me back as a consultant rather than replacing the systems.
• AI automation embedded in daily editorial and B2B operations, not as a pilot but as production tooling.

• Sequence monetization behind engagement signals. The transactional-first model bought us the retention data that made later products safe bets.
• Processes are a product. The internal CRM and workflows were as decisive for ARR as anything user-facing.
• Domain fluency compounds: speaking the audience's professional language shortened every discovery loop.