ACHBD (What Comes Next): media on Russia's tomorrow

ACHBD (What Comes Next) is a media outlet about Russia's present and future — how industries, society, habits and the market are changing. I came up with the project and ran it as showrunner, launching it as a standalone editorial product with a clear content model and commercial durability from day one.

Context and task

ACHBD watches the present to work out tomorrow — how industries are rebuilding themselves, where society, habits and the market are heading. From the start it was built as a full editorial product with its own read on the country's future, editorial standards and a recognisable face. A media outlet like that gets read for its view of what's next.

We launched ACHBD inside News Media Holding as a standalone product: a clear content model, editorial standards and commercial durability from day one. The outlet was designed to stand on its own economics and audience, while the holding gave it a platform and its trust. A considered look at tomorrow is a scarce genre — and ACHBD held that spot.

Solution

As publisher I designed and launched the editorial processes: the role structure, planning, the production pipeline, quality standards and the publishing rhythm. Around that I set up the project's IT contour — the technical environment for the newsroom's work, its publishing and its day-to-day operations.

A separate task was to wire commercial viability straight into the product. I set the principles for native formats and the rules for packaging them and working with the commercial side — so that monetisation never broke the outlet's trust or its style. And I pulled the whole thing into one coherent code, meaning and visual alike, so the content reads as a single product.

Why does a media outlet about the future need its own craft map?

Inside ACHBD we launched a separate product — an interactive "craft map of Russia" (craft.achbd.media): a media service that gathers and visualises craft projects and local brands region by region. The idea was to turn a media outlet about the future into a practical tool people come back to, and to sharpen the positioning through a product newsroom.

The team designed the concept and mechanics: the map's logic, the card structure, categories, and the criteria for selection and updates. Then came the editorial and technical launch — filling it, moderating it, keeping it supported, so the product would live and grow. The map settled into the ACHBD ecosystem as a permanent service and opened a base for partner formats — selections, special projects, regional support.

A media outlet about the future gets stronger the moment it becomes a tool people come back to.