The RunTheWall Story: From Moscow to Brookvale

I did not grow up as an athlete. I grew up in front of a computer. My career path was IT: tech support, network engineering, eventually working at Yandex, one of the largest technology companies in Russia. If you had told the twenty-year-old version of me that I would one day run a sports equipment manufacturing company on the other side of the world, I would have laughed.

But life has a way of rearranging itself when you stop waiting for permission to try new things.

Starting Late, Starting Anyway

I came to sport later than most. At 19 I picked up mountain biking. It was my first taste of what physical challenge could do for your mind, not just your body. That led to snowboarding, and snowboarding gave me something I had never experienced before: a real community. In Russia, the snowboarding scene was tight. We trained together, traveled to mountains together, and pushed each other to improve. That community became a core part of who I was.

Then I discovered trampolining, and everything shifted again. My mentor was another Sergey who runs the “Do a Flip” franchise across Russia. He showed me that trampolining was not just a children’s activity. It was a serious athletic discipline that demanded body control, spatial awareness, and courage. The learning curve was steep and humbling, but the feeling of progression was unlike anything I had experienced.

I remember a period during my training when I noticed something in daily life. Running down the stairs in the Moscow metro, weaving through crowds, I felt like I had superpowers. My body could do things it simply could not do months earlier. I was faster, more agile, more aware. That feeling stuck with me. It still drives everything we do at RunTheWall.

Six Years of Planning, Then a Leap

Moving to Australia was not an impulse decision. I planned the move for six years. Six years of paperwork, research, saving, and imagining what life could look like on the other side. When I finally arrived, one of my earliest memories was going to Manly Beach at 4:30 in the morning. The sun was coming up and people were already running, swimming, surfing. I had never seen anything like it. In Russia, fitness culture exists but it is largely confined to gyms. Here, it was woven into everyday life. That moment confirmed I was in the right place.

I have been in Australia roughly six years now. In that time, I met my business partner through trampolining, which led to playing Dungeons and Dragons together, which led to a genuine friendship, which led to building a company. The best partnerships seem to form that way: through shared experiences, not business plans.

Why Manufacturing, Not Just a Gym

This is the part most people get wrong about RunTheWall. We are a manufacturing company first. We design and build wall-running and trampolining equipment. The training facility exists because we believe in our products and want to demonstrate what they make possible, but the core of the business is engineering and manufacturing.

My vision for RunTheWall is to become the benchmark for trampolining and wall-running equipment the way certain brands have become the standard in their respective industries. That means obsessing over materials, construction quality, safety, and design. It means controlling the manufacturing process rather than outsourcing it. It means building equipment that professionals trust.

Brymer and Oades (2009), writing in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, found that physically challenging activities can produce lasting positive transformation, including increased courage and humility. I have experienced that transformation personally. Building the equipment that enables it for others is the most meaningful work I have ever done.

The Adults-Only Decision

One of the earliest and most difficult decisions we made was to operate as an adults-only facility. Everyone in the industry told us this was a mistake. Children’s birthday parties are the revenue engine of every trampoline park in the country. Walking away from that market was financially painful.

But I had seen what happens when adults try to train in spaces designed for children. They feel out of place. They hold back. They stop coming. Adults need an environment where they can be beginners without embarrassment, where the coaching is designed for adult bodies and adult psychology, and where the community is made up of people in the same stage of life.

We chose quality of experience over quantity of customers, and it has made all the difference.

What We Are Building

RunTheWall exists because I believe adults deserve better. Better equipment. Better coaching. Better spaces. We help people become the superhero they always wanted to meet. That is not marketing language. That is what happens when a 35-year-old lands their first backflip, or a 50-year-old discovers they can run up a wall.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would leave a tech career in Moscow to manufacture sports equipment in Brookvale, I would not have believed you. But your life is very short and there is no tomorrow. If you feel like you are missing something, you might as well just go and try.

Want to learn more about our story and the team behind RunTheWall? Read the full RunTheWall story here.

References

1. Brymer, E. & Oades, L. (2009). “Extreme Sports: A Positive Transformation in Courage and Humility.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology. View study