Digital Business continues its series highlighting young entrepreneurs who have achieved success at a young age, as part of the Gen Z project. We previously shared the story of Mark Vasilevsky from Almaty: the young man established a design studio at 19 that now generates $1 million in revenue. Today’s featured individual is Eldar Azamatov – a native of the small city of Osh, located in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Eldar started coding during his teenage years. Since then, he has developed dozens of mobile games, one of which earned him over $30,000 by the age of 17.
Eldar is now 23 and serves as the CTO at Outtalent. This company is a career accelerator headquartered in San Francisco, dedicated to preparing programmers for interviews at tech giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and others. Eldar spoke exclusively with Digital Business about his fascination with gamedev, how he began earning money from games while still in school, and the reasons behind selling his most successful project. Furthermore, he shared insights on ascending to the role of CTO and co-founder in an international EdTech startup at such a young age.
Gamedev Kick-off: Eldar began coding at age 11 in Osh, using an old laptop. At 17, he created the horror game School Story, which garnered 100 million views on YouTube and brought the creator $30,000.
Viral Triumph: At its peak, School Story had 20,000 concurrent players, and its servers frequently crashed due to overload. Eldar later sold the project to a Malaysian company.
Career Hack: To secure a position at the Outtalent accelerator, Eldar didn’t wait for an offer; instead, he proactively found and fixed a bug in the startup’s payment system over a weekend, greatly impressing the founder, Tilek Mamutov.
Rise to CTO: At 22, Eldar became the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Outtalent. In recognition of his contributions to the platform’s development, he received an equity stake valued in the millions of dollars.
The Product: Outtalent currently assists programmers in securing roles at BigTech firms (Google, Meta, Amazon). The startup is valued at $60 million and maintains referral partnerships with 70 major global IT companies.
Expert Advice: To break into a technology giant, Eldar recommends first becoming a “top specialist” in your local market and actively engaging in networking.
“I had to code on my brother’s old laptop, which heated up like a kettle”
– I was born and raised in Osh. It’s Kyrgyzstan’s second-most populous city after Bishkek. The local population is generally uninterested in modern technologies. That’s why my parents were concerned when I became obsessed with games at age 11: I enjoyed the virtual world so much that I decided to get into gamedev.
The environment around me was not conducive to this pursuit. Societal aggression levels were high, particularly towards geeks, who were often ridiculed. So, when people ask how I managed to create several successful game projects while living in Osh, I often joke that Kyrgyzstan is the perfect country for developing horror games.
I became a gamer thanks to Minecraft and Roblox, which I played obsessively after school. My fascination with horror was sparked by Creepeepasta folklore—a collection of scary stories children used to share around campfires. It was through Creepypasta that I first learned about Slender Man and Jack the Ripper. These characters left such an impression that I decided to create games in the horror genre.
I developed my skills independently: reading advice from experienced game designers online and learning the C# programming language through YouTube tutorials. Simultaneously, I built websites to earn pocket money. Both endeavors were challenging because I had to code on my brother’s old laptop, which took 30 minutes to boot up and became as hot as a kettle.
“Servers constantly crashed due to the influx of users”
– I created my first games at age 11 using the free GameMaker engine. It was easy and fun. First, I developed a zombie shooter where the objective was to eliminate enemies to clear a level. Then, I released a platformer styled after Mario. Unfortunately, only my brother got to appreciate their gameplay. My parents confiscated the laptop to limit my gaming time and sent me to a village. When I returned and got the machine back, all the files on it had been deleted.
I consider the game School Story, which I developed at 17, my main youthful achievement. It’s a multiplayer online survival horror where players try to escape a school while being hindered by monsters and puzzles. People immediately liked the game. Within a month of its publication on the Roblox platform, it had been played over a million times collectively. My friend Artur Rustamov helped write the scenario where players had to restart the level after every death.
The narrative was key to the game’s popularity, even though the graphics were very poor. Servers constantly “dropped” due to the sheer volume of users. At its peak, 20,000 people were playing simultaneously.
When I realized this, I thought I was about to get rich from games. I immediately rushed to my parents and jokingly announced that we were already millionaires and could move to Dubai. They didn’t grasp what I meant, but they started taking my hobby more seriously.
“A 14-year-old Indonesian helped me with monetization”
– We released the game in a rather raw state. I recall one streamer playing School Story and encountering every possible bug without ever finishing the game. Such mishaps would always catch us off guard. More than once, I had to leave my friends and rush home to rewrite code.
I lived at this pace for 7 months. But ultimately, the hard work paid off: the game became beloved, partly thanks to let’s players who collectively amassed over 100 million views on YouTube while playing School Story.
Monetization assistance came from Andri, a 14-year-old from Indonesia. He approached me directly because he was passionate about School Story. First, he located and fixed errors I had missed, then he suggested several revenue streams. These included developer donations, a paid continuation from the level where the user died, and the option to purchase in-game items that eased progression, like a flashlight and a medkit.
I also handled marketing: initiating promotion within Roblox aimed at students, emailing streamers, and organizing focus groups on Discord. I still communicate with Andri. I am deeply grateful for his help, which, by the way, he provided free of charge.
In total, the revenue generated from School Story’s monetization amounted to $30,000 over its lifespan. In 2022, a Malaysian company, Gauthmath, contacted me with an offer to purchase the game. I decided to sell it, despite a steady monthly income of $1–2 thousand. The transaction with the Malaysians finalized quickly, but I prefer not to disclose the exact sum. I can say only that it was under $10,000. It’s rewarding that the game is still active, having been visited over 21 million times in total.
“I wrote the code for all the key platform components”
– After selling School Story, I released about ten more games, but none achieved similar success. Consequently, I didn’t earn substantial amounts. I soon outgrew my youthful passion and sought employment. In 2023, I joined Outtalent as a full-stack developer. The path to this role was unconventional.
I saw a job posting from the project’s founder, Tilek Mamutov, on social media. I contacted him and passed several technical assessments, but I felt this wasn’t enough for employment, so I decided to take proactive steps. At the time, Outtalent was grappling with an issue processing payments to mentors, which Tilek himself had mentioned. I requested platform access, identified the bug’s cause over the weekend, and fixed it. I informed Tilek about it on Monday. He was pleasantly surprised and immediately extended an offer.
I worked as a full-stack developer for two years. During this period, we completely built out the Outtalent infrastructure. Furthermore, I personally coded all the platform’s core systems. This effort contributed to the company’s valuation rising to $60 million. Tilek recognized my contribution to the service’s growth and offered me the position of CTO. He also granted me an equity share equivalent to several million dollars. I was 22 years old at the time.
“If an error occurs, the blame will fall on me”
– My colleagues reacted positively to my promotion. The company currently employs 10 people, and I am the youngest among them. In my initial months as CTO, the primary challenge was learning to guide the team and mentor new hires. Everything else—automating operations, marketing, sales—came more easily. However, the responsibility undeniably increased: regardless of who introduces a bug in the code, I will be held accountable.
Currently, as CTO, I oversee Outtalent’s technical operations to ensure all stages of the interview preparation program function correctly. We facilitate mock interviews for IT specialists with more experienced developers and among themselves. We also provide access to a community and proprietary applications that offer a significant edge in securing employment.
Additionally, we source top-tier job openings for applicants. But the service’s most crucial value lies in recommending our graduates to trusted referrals within 70 major IT firms. These are our contacts who can help navigate the resume screening process.
“Before joining BigTech, one must first become a top specialist at home”
– Today, my responsibilities include strategic decisions regarding key client engagement and business scaling. We estimated the soft engineering market in developing nations to be worth $20 billion. Currently, we only capture a sliver of this volume, indicating significant room for growth. In the future, we plan to collaborate not just with IT professionals but with anyone aspiring to work at top-tier companies.
I have confidence that our startup will scale in the near future, enabling us to help an even larger number of talented individuals globally land their dream jobs.
My advice to young people in Central Asia is not to be afraid and to pursue their aspirations. For those choosing the engineering path, I recommend mastering English and continuously deepening expertise within a narrow specialization. It is vital to first become a leading specialist in your home country; this will pave a smoother path into BigTech.
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