Two founders and a borrowed name.
Russian-American, founded in New York,
working from Tampa Bay.
New York / Tampa Bay
Our story
It began with websites.
A Russian-American couple founded Onegin Group in New York City in early 2021. COVID restrictions were hitting small businesses hard, so we started with what they needed: web design, business planning and project consulting.
We later moved to the Tampa Bay area and kept building for local businesses. Over time clients asked for more: someone to run the program behind the launch, a straight answer on AI, a product built properly. Today that work is four practices. The project consulting of 2021 became the second of them.
The name
Мой дядя самых честных правил
My uncle, man of firm convictions . . .
Named for a flawed hero.
Eugene Onegin is the hero of Pushkin’s novel in verse, published in parts from 1825 and complete in 1833. He is a St. Petersburg dandy who speaks perfect French, reads Adam Smith and is bored by nearly all of it. Pushkin calls him a good friend and still doesn’t spare him. Onegin turns down a heartfelt letter, kills a friend in a duel, and understands what he lost years too late.
We named the company after him for his range: a Russian at home in European culture, as we are Russians at home in America. We kept the breadth and left the manners.
By commission
Why we work by commission.
A commission is a simple arrangement. Someone wants a thing made, someone else agrees to make it and answer for it, and both know the terms before work starts. Palaces, railways and jeweled eggs were made that way, and so is a good bakery website.
We don’t admire everything about the eras that did it best, and plenty of those fortunes deserved the criticism they got. What we take is narrower: the habit of commissioning well. Hire the best people you can find, give them time, and expect the work to outlast the brief.
St. Petersburg
New York
How we work
Four rules we keep.
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Take the time.
Every design commission includes three rounds of revisions before anything is built. A week spent on the plan costs less than a month spent on the fix.
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Measure seven times.
The English proverb says measure twice, cut once. The Russian one says seven times. We plan closer to the Russian standard.
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Keep it simple enough to run.
We choose tools you can run without us, like Squarespace for a small business or a one-page report for a PMO. If you need us to change a headline, we built it wrong.
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Bad news travels first.
If a date is slipping, a budget is thin or an idea won’t work, you hear it from us early and in plain words.
Where we work
Tampa Bay, and anywhere.
Based in Tampa Bay, founded in New York. Clients anywhere, mostly remotely.