Dmitri Erchov — Startup Operator

01 About

I build the operating backbone early-stage startups need when they outgrow how they run. I rebuild GTM, install the cadence, and bring structure to execution — across operations, strategy, fundraising, hiring, finance, and automation, wherever the leverage actually is.

Scaled a deep tech startup from 18 to 55 people as Chief of Staff and then COO. Grew revenue 120% YoY on average and reached profitability. Sold to a strategic buyer.
Ran a $30M investment pipeline and structured $22M+ in debt deals at a private equity firm; interim operator at portfolio companies.
Co-founded an investment and advisory firm and grew it from 3 people to 25, managing a $65M+ portfolio of distressed assets. Sold to a banking group.

If you're a founder who has become the bottleneck, that's the work I want next. I'm looking for a Head of Operations or Chief of Staff role at a startup hitting that inflection point — on-site (I'll relocate for the right one) or remote.

02 Career

2024 — 2026

Head of Operations / Chief of Staff

Runzy

Boston, MA

GTM, sales ops, and the layer underneath that usually breaks. Cleaned up targeting, pricing, and the manual busywork around outbound — improving close rates to 65%+ and lifting revenue 20%+. Launched a daily newsletter and ad platform that became a new revenue line.
2024 — 2026

Strategy & Operations Advisor

HustlePay

San Francisco, CA

Payments startup building a checkout layer that lets shoppers combine multiple cards, wallets, and account balances in a single purchase.
2019 — 2024

Webgears

Redwood City, CA
1. 2023 — 2024
  
  Strategic Advisor
  
  Post-acquisition transition and continuity.
2. 2021 — 2023
  
  Chief Operating Officer
  
  Ran the business side of a deep tech startup as it scaled from 18 people to 55 and was acquired. GTM across multiple verticals, partnerships with Google and Autodesk, P&L, hiring — everything that wasn't the 3D engine itself. Revenue grew 120% YoY on average.
3. 2019 — 2021
  
  Chief of Staff
  
  Strategy, finance, hiring, and cross-functional execution — translating founder priorities into operating plans with real follow-through. Raised $4.6M in pre-seed and seed.
2015 — 2018

Managing Director / Equity Partner

SkySail Investment Management

Moscow

A mix of investing and operating. Managed a $30M pipeline, put together $22M+ in debt deals, and stepped in as interim operator when portfolio companies needed one.
2008 — 2015

Managing Director / Co-Founder

Clarus Capital

Moscow

Built an investment and advisory firm from three founders to twenty-five people, overseeing $65M+ in distressed assets. Ran day-to-day operations and client work across restructuring, interim management, and asset sales. Sold to a banking group.
2004 — 2008

Sr. Business Analyst / Project Manager

Arbella Insurance Group

Quincy, MA

Underwriting systems, fraud detection, and product expansion into new markets.

03 Open Source

Open-source tools for the work itself. Mostly Claude Code skills and operating tooling.

faultline Shipped

Pressure-tests early-stage operations work with sharp, context-grounded questions. The kind a good board member would ask before you noticed the gap yourself.
skill-safety-check Shipped

Static safety triage for agent skills. Point it at a repo or paste a skill and get a SAFE / REVIEW / DO NOT INSTALL verdict before you run it.
llm-knowledgebase Shipped

A safe, local LLM knowledge base with immutable sources and an agent-maintained Markdown wiki. The sources can't drift; the wiki on top of them can.
DeAI Shipped

A self-review skill that catches AI tells, voice mismatches, and weak substance in written work — before a human has to.
My_Claude.MD Shipped

An opinionated CLAUDE.md baseline for planning, debugging, security, and verification in Claude Code.

04 Side Projects

Pack or Stay Shipped

For anyone weighing a move between cities. Pick two metros, enter a salary, and it shows what each actually leaves you after taxes, housing and everyday costs — then answers in a word: pack, stay, or too close to call. Built on public data only — Census, BLS, IRS, the Tax Foundation — across 438 metro areas.
Source
Hi, Sweetie — Letters Shipped

Letters from a dad to his daughters, published as they're written.
Political Compass In progress

An interactive atlas of political movements and parties — Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Anarchists and the rest — mapped so you can see how they actually relate to each other.