The IELTS bet: I’m building the tool that gets me in

I need a number. IELTS Academic, Band 7 or higher. It’s the gate to the programs I want — in the UK, Hong Kong, Europe, the US — where people are building at the frontier of AI and product. No score, no door.

A standardized test is a blunt filter for talent. Fine. I’m not going to argue with the gate. I’m going to walk through it the only way that actually interests me: by building the thing that gets me there, out in the open.

What I’m building

Writing is the hard part of IELTS, and underneath writing sits vocabulary — the academic words I simply don’t have yet. So I’m building a vocabulary coach that’s personalized to me. Not generic flashcards.

It teaches each word inside the three worlds I actually live in: economics, travel, and code. “Volatile” shows up as a volatile market, a volatile exchange rate, and a volatile variable — then the app walks me from base words up to Band-8 ones as I go. Russian interface, English content, Claude doing the teaching.

The honest status

The app isn’t finished. The exam is in August 2026. I haven’t sat it yet. This is a notebook, not a victory lap — and I’ll post the band scores, including the embarrassing first one.

Why I’m doing this in public

Two reasons. One, building in public keeps me honest and moving. Two, I’d rather be found than apply cold.

I’m trilingual — Russian, English, Chinese. I’ve spent years inside Chinese factories running production. I ship software fast with AI. If you run a program and that combination is interesting — or you’re building a company and want an operator who speaks three languages and gets things shipped — reach out.

I’m on LinkedIn and X. Follow the build, or pull me into yours.

— Ivan