Dimitri is the co-founder of the app Flo, a period-tracking app.

What challenges did Dimitri face growing up?

Dimitri grew up in difficult times in Belarus during the 1990s, with financial hardships and the necessity to grow their own food.

How did Dimitri get into technology?

Dimitri initially worked in book publishing, authored computer books, and later transitioned to mobile apps after the App Store was launched.

What is Dimitri's view on simplicity in products?

Dimitri believes that simplicity is crucial for consumer-facing products, more so than the number of features.

How did Flo achieve initial growth?

Flo achieved initial growth through a focus on product quality, leading to high retention, organic growth, and word-of-mouth referrals.

Why does Dimitri not prioritize PR and branding?

Dimitri focuses on product development rather than spending on PR and branding, as he believes product quality is paramount.

What was a significant challenge for Flo as a company?

A significant challenge was relocating the company due to political instability in Belarus, which affected the team emotionally and operationally.

What is Dimitri's take on general advice?

Dimitri advises against following general advice, as each situation is unique and requires its own approach.

How does Dimitri view monetary success?

Dimitri views money as less important than living an interesting, meaningful life and aims to give back to society.

Dmitry Gurski: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health|E1205

01:25:53

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQS2w2kYrLU

概要

TLDRThe video is a detailed interview with Dimitri, the co-founder of Flo, a successful period-tracking app. Dimitri narrates his journey from difficult early years in Belarus, where he learned resilience and farming. Transitioning into technology, he initially worked in the publishing sector and then moved into app development with his brother. Their journey saw the creation of 20+ apps, ultimately leading to Flo after learning from failures. Dimitri emphasizes the importance of simplicity in product design, learning from competitors, and the uniqueness of every business story. Despite operating in a saturated and competitive market, Flo succeeded due to superior product simplicity and customer retention. Despite challenges like relocating due to political unrest in Belarus, Dimitri's philosophy rooted in delivering user value and retaining a humble, non-luxurious lifestyle stood firm. He critiques overemphasis on branding, suggesting product value naturally leads to brand development. Highlighting the importance of targeted leadership and decision-making, Dimitri reflects on his commitment to ensuring a responsible business ethos. The discussion provides a nuanced view of how different factors contribute to sustainable business growth, underscoring the belief in personal perseverance over luck.

収穫

🏆 Dimitri attributes success to simplicity in product design.
🌱 His lifestyle and work ethic root back to his humble beginnings in Belarus.
📈 Flo's growth was largely organic, stemming from strong user retention.
🤝 Personal perseverance and nuanced strategies overrule general advice in business.
🎯 Product quality is prioritized over extensive PR and branding efforts.
💪 Challenges like company relocation due to political reasons were overcome with trust.
🗝️ Unique business success stories don't follow general templates.
📚 Learning from competitors and own past mistakes drove Flo's evolution.
💡 Each decision and investment in product is crucial for long-term success.
🌍 A strong focus on creating social value is central to Dimitri's philosophy.
🛠️ Continuous experimentation and optimization were key to successful monetization.

タイムライン

00:00:00 - 00:05:00
Retention is about use case, not product. The unique use case of period tracking contributes to high retention.
00:05:00 - 00:10:00
Simplicity in consumer products is key to success. Various successful apps preceded Flo.
00:10:00 - 00:15:00
Background story of hardship and learning resilience through early life experiences and mushroom business.
00:15:00 - 00:20:00
Journey through publishing and transition to tech with the launch of successful apps.
00:20:00 - 00:25:00
Creation of successful apps, leading to Flo's success through simplicity and focus.
00:25:00 - 00:30:00
General advice is often not applicable; motivation and humility play crucial roles.
00:30:00 - 00:35:00
Learning from users and doctors led to Flo's success despite initial lack of knowledge.
00:35:00 - 00:40:00
Simplicity and product focus helped Flo compete in an existing market with many competitors.
00:40:00 - 00:45:00
High retention and user acquisition through word of mouth and exceptional product quality drove growth.
00:45:00 - 00:50:00
Initial user acquisition was organic, but quality of product led to long-term retention and growth.
00:50:00 - 00:55:00
Monetization was focused on value creation and retention, enhancing user experience.
00:55:00 - 01:00:00
Monetization succeeded through product differentiation and effective communication of value.
01:00:00 - 01:05:00
Scaling involved understanding pricing and subscription dynamics to optimize revenue.
01:05:00 - 01:10:00
Challenges in maintaining product simplicity amidst growth and feature expansion were highlighted.
01:10:00 - 01:15:00
Fundraising revealed cultural challenges in perception, emphasizing persistence and resilience.
01:15:00 - 01:20:00
Discusses personal philosophy on humility, luxury, and the responsibility of wealth.
01:20:00 - 01:25:53
Insights on learning from mistakes, staying focused, and the family dynamic in business.

よくある質問

Who is Dimitri?
Dimitri is the co-founder of the app Flo, a period-tracking app.
What challenges did Dimitri face growing up?
Dimitri grew up in difficult times in Belarus during the 1990s, with financial hardships and the necessity to grow their own food.
How did Dimitri get into technology?
Dimitri initially worked in book publishing, authored computer books, and later transitioned to mobile apps after the App Store was launched.
What is Dimitri's view on simplicity in products?
Dimitri believes that simplicity is crucial for consumer-facing products, more so than the number of features.
How did Flo achieve initial growth?
Flo achieved initial growth through a focus on product quality, leading to high retention, organic growth, and word-of-mouth referrals.
Why does Dimitri not prioritize PR and branding?
Dimitri focuses on product development rather than spending on PR and branding, as he believes product quality is paramount.
What was a significant challenge for Flo as a company?
A significant challenge was relocating the company due to political instability in Belarus, which affected the team emotionally and operationally.
What is Dimitri's take on general advice?
Dimitri advises against following general advice, as each situation is unique and requires its own approach.
How does Dimitri view monetary success?
Dimitri views money as less important than living an interesting, meaningful life and aims to give back to society.

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00:00:00
like smart people they work in McKenzie
00:00:02
and Founders they're crazy for consumers
00:00:06
Simplicity is much more significant than
00:00:08
number of features is much more
00:00:10
significant than anything what many
00:00:11
people don't understand that retention
00:00:13
is not about product retention is about
00:00:15
user case it means that you may create
00:00:17
the perfect app for gym will have
00:00:19
terrible retention why because gyms
00:00:22
themselves have terrible retention never
00:00:24
take general advice always if
00:00:27
you look on history of any company or
00:00:30
anyo you would see that everything is so
00:00:32
nuanced everything is so unique
00:00:33
thousands of ways to be successful and
00:00:36
you just should choose your way ready to
00:00:39
[Music]
00:00:49
go Dimitri I am such a fan of The
00:00:53
Incredible Journey with Flo so first off
00:00:55
thank you so much for joining me today
00:00:57
thank you for you for inviting not at
00:00:59
all listen I've wanted to make this
00:01:00
happen for a while I would love to start
00:01:03
I I read actually an interview you done
00:01:05
before and I heard that you had a single
00:01:07
mother who worked as a librarian uh you
00:01:10
got your first job at 16 take me to that
00:01:14
how did those early years shape you as
00:01:16
an
00:01:16
entrepreneur as as I see you I'm not so
00:01:19
young I'm 41 years old and uh my
00:01:23
childhood was in '90s in belus difficult
00:01:26
times like the world Soviet world was
00:01:29
destroyed
00:01:30
like everything ruined people didn't
00:01:33
have ceries shelters were empty cery of
00:01:37
my mother was maybe 30 bucks and nothing
00:01:39
to buy because shelters in shops were
00:01:42
empty and uh we were growing our own
00:01:45
food we had potato field vegetables in
00:01:48
this field we had Garden we were making
00:01:50
like hundreds of jars of pickles and
00:01:55
mostly we we're feeding ourselves by
00:01:58
this production like I still don't like
00:02:01
potato
00:02:02
honestly I can't eat anymore uh but it
00:02:06
was a good life lesson it was lesson of
00:02:10
farming and the lesson of farming teach
00:02:14
you just can't fake farming it means
00:02:18
that you should uh take potato not eat
00:02:22
it immediately even if you're hungry and
00:02:25
you should put this potato to ground and
00:02:28
uh then you must this potato next day
00:02:31
and even one month after you should WR
00:02:34
and then you should work hard and you
00:02:36
should you can't fake this job and then
00:02:40
it's like you never have 100% of chances
00:02:44
that you would get your potato back
00:02:46
because I don't know it may be hail it
00:02:48
may be froze it may bux but then if you
00:02:52
lucky and you work hard then you will
00:02:53
get your Harvest but also it's a lesson
00:02:56
of diversification because you should
00:02:58
have not just potato you also should
00:03:00
have vegetables and garden because like
00:03:02
if it's like bad Harvest of uh potatoes
00:03:06
and vegetables or apples or something
00:03:09
and like something you will have to eat
00:03:12
but you can't fake that tetri what was
00:03:14
your first business you said that you
00:03:16
know your first job was at s what was
00:03:18
your first business my first job for
00:03:20
money was uh Gathering of
00:03:24
mushrooms and uh we had uh two types of
00:03:28
kids in our Village uh gatherers of
00:03:32
berries and gatherers of mushrooms and
00:03:35
it was two different types of businesses
00:03:38
because in case of berries you're like
00:03:40
just sit on the same place in the wood
00:03:42
and approximately you may gather the
00:03:45
same volume of berries per day and
00:03:47
stable income in case of mushrooms you
00:03:50
should walk around the wood and if you
00:03:52
like you may get much mushrooms and even
00:03:55
a lot of money but another day you would
00:03:58
get nothing and and psychologically all
00:04:01
kids were divided on two categories who
00:04:04
prefer fixed income or who preferred
00:04:07
like a mushroom Gathering and I and my
00:04:10
brother we always were mushrooms
00:04:12
gatherers we've always preferred like to
00:04:16
take a chance for bigger gains and to
00:04:19
have this journey around the wood rather
00:04:21
than to sit on the place for fixed
00:04:23
income demet you how does this work how
00:04:26
do you go from mushroom Gathering and
00:04:29
farming potato potatoes and that very
00:04:32
wholesome upbringing in that respect to
00:04:34
founding one of the largest female how
00:04:37
do you get into technology first between
00:04:40
mushroom Gathering and founding of FL
00:04:44
was 20 years it means that it was a long
00:04:47
professional Journey before we founded
00:04:50
Flo uh and I spent half of my
00:04:54
professional life in book publishing and
00:04:57
uh I wrote B books by myself computer
00:05:00
books and uh then we worked with my
00:05:04
brother in for publishing house and then
00:05:06
we started our own publishing house and
00:05:09
I spent approximately 10 years in this
00:05:12
world world of books and I was
00:05:14
responsible for approximately 2,000
00:05:17
titles of educational books and H I had
00:05:20
a big pleasure from this work because it
00:05:22
was so material like you you're working
00:05:25
with something and you're getting
00:05:27
material result it's almost like you're
00:05:29
getting your baby and you may touch it
00:05:30
you like it was very physical pleasure
00:05:33
with this books and then uh very big
00:05:37
change happened when up store was opened
00:05:40
in 2008 and n and that moment we decided
00:05:44
to work with mobile apps and idea was
00:05:47
very simple to start from uh content
00:05:51
apps based on books and then gradually
00:05:54
gradually it's a longer story but we got
00:05:57
to flow well I mean Flo was the third
00:05:59
app that you did you did two before flow
00:06:02
what did you learn from the two before
00:06:04
flow not working that you took with you
00:06:07
to fly really we had much more than two
00:06:10
we had two attempts to create successful
00:06:15
Peri tracker but uh before floor we had
00:06:18
uh me and my brother and partners we
00:06:23
started two dozen of different apps some
00:06:26
of them successfully some of them less
00:06:28
successfully over all my brother and me
00:06:32
like we participate I participated in
00:06:35
different projects for different extent
00:06:38
uh um we had success uh with this apps
00:06:43
we had six exits up to this moment we
00:06:46
had exit to Google exit to Facebook uh
00:06:48
we started several companies uh um which
00:06:53
have has Revenue in 100 million 50
00:06:57
million it means that uh first like a
00:06:59
journey before Flor it was 5 six years
00:07:02
of work before FLW it was not so simple
00:07:06
than we just like decided we would
00:07:08
create successful Peri tracker and we
00:07:10
just started and it was immediate
00:07:13
success but even with our
00:07:15
experience like we got success with the
00:07:19
flaw from the thir attempt like the
00:07:22
first uh period tracker failed the
00:07:26
second period tracker failed and just
00:07:29
why did they fa
00:07:30
this apps what he complicated and what
00:07:34
we definitely learn from experience with
00:07:37
consumer facing product that for
00:07:39
consumers Simplicity is the most
00:07:42
significant it's much more significant
00:07:43
than number of features is much more
00:07:45
significant than anything Simplicity is
00:07:47
the key of success in consumer facing
00:07:52
products and uh probably we created uh
00:07:55
this uh first apps uh being
00:08:00
beautiful sophisticated but too
00:08:02
complicated for people it's my theory
00:08:04
but
00:08:05
honestly nobody knows it's always very
00:08:08
irrational at the beginning when we look
00:08:10
at flow you break many rules with
00:08:13
respect we're often told when it comes
00:08:16
to an idea choose a problem that you've
00:08:19
personally felt and can really empathize
00:08:23
with with respect dimetri you're
00:08:26
wonderful but you know you you don't
00:08:28
empathize with period tracking um is
00:08:31
that bad advice to choose a problem that
00:08:34
you know I would say that any general
00:08:38
advice is bad any general advice is
00:08:40
every time when you say some
00:08:43
like any sentence with every each like
00:08:46
like any general advice is bad any and
00:08:51
uh this advice is bad as well because
00:08:54
this advice is just like it assumes that
00:09:00
each situation is the same but no no no
00:09:03
like life is very nuanced and each
00:09:06
situation is very different and usually
00:09:09
when people ask this uh question they
00:09:14
assumed to different question one
00:09:16
question is if it's not about your own
00:09:19
pain how did you find
00:09:22
motivation and if it's not your pain how
00:09:26
did you find
00:09:27
knowledge and motivation and I always
00:09:30
wanted to do something meaningful it was
00:09:35
about books it was about our other heal
00:09:37
apps I have never had any motivation for
00:09:39
example to work in gambling if you
00:09:42
propose me one billion I would not take
00:09:45
your position in gambling company it's
00:09:47
just like I just don't want it's it's
00:09:49
against my values and I don't have any
00:09:51
interest to that and uh we understood
00:09:54
very well the size of problem because we
00:09:56
had the experience with health and
00:09:58
fitness apps
00:10:00
before uh but uh question about
00:10:04
knowledge we didn't have knowledge but
00:10:07
also we had humility to understand that
00:10:10
we didn't have knowledge and because of
00:10:11
that we started to analyze and we
00:10:14
started to listen users and doctors and
00:10:17
I remember that before starting FLW our
00:10:19
document about this market and potential
00:10:22
product had seven 100 Pages we making
00:10:25
still all decisions based on data and
00:10:28
based on user research I checked this
00:10:30
number up to this moment we have done in
00:10:33
flow more than 1,000 of user researchers
00:10:35
we have user research here in each
00:10:38
product team and we are talking with
00:10:40
users all the time then we combine that
00:10:42
with data from the app and we making
00:10:45
decisions subjectively and it was our
00:10:48
way to make a good product for users
00:10:51
without any all knowledge about this
00:10:54
field to listen users and doctors very
00:10:57
very careful and be very humble about
00:11:00
all knowledge how do you think about the
00:11:02
Henry Ford quote which is if if I listen
00:11:05
to my customers I'd be build a faster H
00:11:08
it may be right about uh absolutely new
00:11:12
category of something but uh when we
00:11:15
started our product our Market was
00:11:18
enough uh big and uh already formed we
00:11:22
had hundreds of competitors and some of
00:11:24
them big and some of them raised
00:11:28
significant capital and for example
00:11:30
let's imagine one of our competitors
00:11:32
glow it was started by Marx lein like a
00:11:35
key member
00:11:36
of ppal mafia they raised from Anderson
00:11:39
horovitz and Founders found 30 million
00:11:42
almost immediately they started 3 years
00:11:44
before floor and we had such competitors
00:11:47
and it was rather formed Market it was
00:11:51
not empty Market but it was also the
00:11:53
opportunity to learn from them it was
00:11:55
good opportunity to not to be a newcomer
00:11:58
but have advantage to learn from other
00:12:01
products what did you learn from them
00:12:04
and why did you beat them it's very
00:12:06
similar at the beginning with like race
00:12:12
like all cars starts
00:12:15
approximately at the same point or at
00:12:17
the same point and all cars are the same
00:12:20
and then you need like a little
00:12:21
Advantage but then when you making many
00:12:24
many many rounds like you're getting
00:12:26
more and more and more distance it means
00:12:27
that it's almost kind of before point
00:12:29
you getting a little Advantage at
00:12:31
beginning and then in years your
00:12:33
advantage is becoming huge and ultimate
00:12:37
reason behind that that uh it's a
00:12:40
flywheel like it's like just a
00:12:42
cumulative effect of many things and uh
00:12:45
at the beginning like U our apps were
00:12:48
honestly pretty much similar but then
00:12:51
probably we did some good product
00:12:54
decisions we got additional resources
00:12:57
and we started to invest to our prod
00:12:59
much more than our competitors we
00:13:01
invested to product just to product up
00:13:04
to this moment 150 million and uh we
00:13:07
mostly had engineers in Eastern Europe
00:13:09
like to understand that in standards of
00:13:11
UK or United States you should multiply
00:13:13
that on two and then we created this big
00:13:16
floor this super app because of this
00:13:19
investment and this product became so
00:13:22
good so much better than competitors and
00:13:25
it won naturally but at the beginning
00:13:27
all our products were was the same and
00:13:30
difference was very tiny so I'm an
00:13:32
investor and we chatted before about
00:13:33
some of your views on BS which was
00:13:35
entertaining um I don't like competitive
00:13:38
markets Demetri because I think it's
00:13:41
very hard to stand out I think your
00:13:42
customer acquisition costs are high your
00:13:44
churn is high product marketing is
00:13:46
difficult and I find them challenging to
00:13:49
invest in what would you say to me with
00:13:52
that mindset it's good to have good
00:13:54
competitors because uh uh you have much
00:13:57
opportunity to learn from them and good
00:14:01
competition speed up your own company
00:14:03
because you just feel this competition
00:14:06
your team feel this competition team is
00:14:08
not getting uh complacent but also it's
00:14:12
like pretty much like a fixed P
00:14:14
mentality that I like I should have a
00:14:17
monopoly to take this Pi no when you
00:14:19
have good competition Pi is getting
00:14:21
bigger because products are better like
00:14:24
customers are more educated and the
00:14:25
total Market is getting bigger of course
00:14:29
nobody wants to be in this like kind of
00:14:31
red blood like red blood Ocean Market
00:14:35
when you have tiny margin and a ton of
00:14:37
competition but uh in case if it's
00:14:41
normal competition it's it's good when
00:14:43
you first launched this V3 of flow
00:14:46
having had the two which didn't work so
00:14:48
well and the simplified flow did you
00:14:51
have immediate product Market fit take
00:14:53
me to that that moment when we launched
00:14:57
floor maybe one month ago go I
00:14:59
immediately understood that itth had
00:15:02
chance to become really big because of
00:15:05
retention I saw like a retention I had
00:15:10
never seen before and we had many apps
00:15:13
and uh I just combined two numbers like
00:15:17
total rest bar Market women and
00:15:21
retention and I understood that
00:15:24
potential is tremendous by combination
00:15:26
of this two metrics and retention is
00:15:30
really rare in health and fitness pretty
00:15:32
naturally because retention is not about
00:15:34
product retention is about user case
00:15:36
it's what many people don't understand
00:15:38
that retention is not about product
00:15:40
retention is about user case it means
00:15:42
that you may create the perfect app for
00:15:44
gym fitness app and perfect app for gym
00:15:47
will have terrible retention why because
00:15:50
gymss themselves have terrible retention
00:15:53
you know this like a gym business model
00:15:56
like to sell 1,000 membership for gym
00:15:59
with capacity in 100 people because gy
00:16:01
know that like 900 people would never
00:16:04
visit and and why apps would work better
00:16:07
than gyms of course they it's about n of
00:16:10
people they wouldn't and uh it's so rare
00:16:13
to see good retention and health and
00:16:15
fitness and when I saw that I understood
00:16:18
that it will be very huge what was it
00:16:20
about the retention numbers that you can
00:16:22
share that gave you such confidence was
00:16:25
it the D7 which is the day7 the D14 the
00:16:28
D28 was it the daily usage what was it
00:16:31
which made you go wow we have something
00:16:34
that's about longterm retention long
00:16:37
time retention it means that uh how many
00:16:40
users stays for six months and more so
00:16:44
okay so d180 which is 6 months what was
00:16:47
it it's again retention is user case
00:16:50
like you may improve retention by good
00:16:53
product or you may destroy retention by
00:16:56
bad product but the essence of attention
00:16:59
is the natural user case and natural
00:17:02
user case based
00:17:04
on natural nesty for women to organize
00:17:09
life around cycle what's you can't skip
00:17:12
that you may skip gym but you can't skip
00:17:14
period and because of that retention is
00:17:17
uh very good but then our big idea was
00:17:21
okay if it's so unique and retention is
00:17:23
so high could we build something more
00:17:26
available than period tracker based on
00:17:28
that and the ultimate reason why Flo
00:17:30
became so successful was this idea of
00:17:32
like kind of super app let's take period
00:17:35
tracker as a core product and let's
00:17:38
surround this Spirit trer by deeper
00:17:41
available Health features and content
00:17:44
and the Peri tracker would become driver
00:17:47
of requisition and more significant
00:17:49
retention but all the features around
00:17:51
would create value it's something
00:17:53
similar on Gmail ecosystem like G mail
00:17:57
itself drives acquisition retention but
00:18:00
this apps for documents editing for
00:18:03
calls Etc drives value but if you take
00:18:05
out email it would not work and the same
00:18:08
with Spirit tracker but if you don't
00:18:09
have this ecosystem is not monetizable
00:18:12
because the value is just too tiny did
00:18:14
you know that from day one I think uh we
00:18:19
concluded that uh very very early and uh
00:18:24
significantly because of our deep
00:18:25
analysis of the market I remember that
00:18:28
uh I recently reviewed my first deck for
00:18:32
our SE round in in 2016 and this idea of
00:18:35
bigle super app based on P trer was
00:18:38
already in this document it means that
00:18:40
it was very e
00:18:42
idea it just took like a n9ine years and
00:18:45
150 million of just product investment
00:18:47
he created and probably that moment we
00:18:50
didn't anticipate that it would take so
00:18:52
long and so much money so then you have
00:18:55
this moment of wow we actually have
00:18:57
something six month retention is
00:19:00
incredible how are you acquiring
00:19:02
customers at that point customer
00:19:04
acquisition from Z to a million is very
00:19:06
hard you have little brand you have
00:19:08
little word of mouth how were you
00:19:10
acquiring customers and what did that
00:19:11
look like the most significant uh was to
00:19:14
create the best product and the best
00:19:16
product means that uh users uh were
00:19:20
happy and they were providing good uh
00:19:24
ratings and then uh like system of uh
00:19:28
promo otion of App Store and Google Play
00:19:30
started to work because they have
00:19:32
algorithms which promotes good apps and
00:19:34
they usually look on retention average
00:19:37
rting other parameters and if your app
00:19:39
is really good it's like your like
00:19:41
algorithm promoting your app at the top
00:19:44
the same as this website and because the
00:19:46
product was good we got our first
00:19:49
traffic uh just organically but it was
00:19:52
General traffic based on uh like kind of
00:19:55
searches like period tracker but then
00:19:58
when because of retention we started to
00:20:00
get bigger and bigger and bigger
00:20:02
audience then Vol of mouse started to
00:20:06
work and Vol of mouse is probably the
00:20:10
single predictable way how to get
00:20:11
organic traffic because if you have a
00:20:13
big M then people would advise your
00:20:16
product and then you would start to get
00:20:19
organic traffic and now we have mostly
00:20:22
organic traffic because of va of mouse
00:20:24
rather than because of such General
00:20:27
generalistic search like uh Peri tracker
00:20:30
but again if you ask me what's
00:20:33
prerequisite of organic traffic I would
00:20:35
say retention is prerequisite of organic
00:20:37
traffic because first you need to get
00:20:40
active audience users should get happy
00:20:43
they will start to advise your product
00:20:45
and then you will get organic traffic
00:20:47
and and probably the biggest question is
00:20:49
how to get like initial audience in our
00:20:51
case we got them organically but in your
00:20:55
reality probably you must buy them it's
00:20:58
less realistic nowadays to get initial
00:21:00
audience organically so that was going
00:21:02
to be my question which is like do you
00:21:04
believe then if you build it they will
00:21:06
come or is that not the case and you
00:21:09
actually have to have a completely paid
00:21:10
strategy today it's much more difficult
00:21:12
nowadays and it used to be 10 years ago
00:21:15
much more difficult sometimes it happens
00:21:18
and very often because of
00:21:21
reality uh but in most of cases you need
00:21:24
to start this process by paid user
00:21:28
quisition but if your product is shitty
00:21:31
it will not be helpful how long did it
00:21:33
take you to get to a million users one
00:21:35
year one year was that much quicker than
00:21:38
you anticipated probably uh but also the
00:21:42
I remember again from this uh first deck
00:21:47
for uh Sid and as I understood you met
00:21:50
with our first investor FL Capital
00:21:52
Andrew yeah Andrew from Flint capital in
00:21:55
this deck you know like you're always
00:21:57
exaggerating your future in Dex from for
00:22:00
Venture capitals and of course uh like
00:22:03
we put like arrogant arogant lies to
00:22:07
this uh uh document we didn't believe in
00:22:10
this numbers um and you probably
00:22:13
shouldn't uh when you're like presenting
00:22:15
that investors and we say that ah like
00:22:18
in 2020 or 2022 we will have three or 4
00:22:23
million mon users and 3 million in
00:22:26
revenue and Company will cost uh 20
00:22:28
million probably real numbers like 10
00:22:33
times bigger at
00:22:35
least why did you get it so wrong what
00:22:38
did you not see I didn't think that uh
00:22:43
uh we would get big share of the market
00:22:46
so fast because Market was uh formed and
00:22:50
competitive and I didn't have hope to
00:22:54
get big share of this Market with
00:22:56
hundreds of competitors uh easily and uh
00:23:00
but it happened do you really think that
00:23:02
is just because you had a better product
00:23:04
ultimately yes ultimately yes because uh
00:23:07
up to the very recent times we we didn't
00:23:11
spend money for pay to requisition it
00:23:13
was organic growth and it was organic
00:23:15
growth because uh users liked our
00:23:18
products and the metrics of our product
00:23:21
were so good that App Store and Google
00:23:23
Play were promoting it but we we started
00:23:26
to spend like more or less significant
00:23:28
money for PID us acquisition maybe 2020
00:23:32
2021 before that it was like rather
00:23:34
minuscule volume why did you decide to
00:23:37
spend on paid then uh because we started
00:23:39
monetization and uh when we got
00:23:42
monetization it was just like kind of
00:23:45
you put money and you get money back you
00:23:47
put money you get money
00:23:49
back absolutely this is the case while
00:23:52
we're on that I spoke to some of your
00:23:54
team and they said well not a weakness
00:23:57
but you know something interesting about
00:23:59
Demetri is he doesn't love brand or PR
00:24:02
um and it's an interesting point because
00:24:05
most do actually why don't you like
00:24:08
brand or PR I don't understand what is
00:24:12
brand and once I try to understand uh
00:24:15
maybe two years ago I was in process of
00:24:17
hiring of Chief marketing officer and I
00:24:20
had uh maybe 30 different candidates to
00:24:22
meet and uh I was asking the same
00:24:25
question what's the brand by your
00:24:27
opinion to 30
00:24:29
and I got 30 different answers can I can
00:24:32
I give you mine yeah I think it's like
00:24:34
the way that it makes the customer feel
00:24:36
how they feel when they see your logo
00:24:39
when they touch your product that is
00:24:41
your brand what they what they say when
00:24:42
you're out of the room yeah but uh I
00:24:45
just uh don't feel that I understand
00:24:49
well this uh topic and very often people
00:24:54
they there are two words people used for
00:24:59
everything and for any situation and we
00:25:01
often without any meaning two
00:25:03
placeholders is brand and culture you
00:25:06
may describe everything by brand and you
00:25:08
may describe everything by culture but
00:25:09
usually it doesn't have any sense and
00:25:11
you need to ask clarifying questions
00:25:14
because you always may say our situation
00:25:16
is bad because we have bad brand or our
00:25:18
situation is bad because we have bad
00:25:20
culture yeah it describes everything and
00:25:22
nothing is the brand that you have with
00:25:25
flow and they talking about P I think I
00:25:28
think it's slightly different it's uh
00:25:31
it's mostly about my internal belief
00:25:36
that uh product defines everything and
00:25:41
uh I always very frugal in spending
00:25:46
money out of product it means I'm very
00:25:48
generous in spending money for product
00:25:50
and I'm very frugal very greedy to spend
00:25:53
money not for product and when I see
00:25:55
kind of budget for something like
00:25:57
several ,000 and I don't understand the
00:26:00
impact I bet I would spend this money
00:26:02
for product and I take this money and
00:26:05
move this money to product sometimes
00:26:07
even up to the up to extremes for
00:26:09
example I never use business class
00:26:12
because all the time and I I'm Running
00:26:14
Company with 200 million in Revenue
00:26:16
probably like it's the time to start
00:26:18
using business class for the COO but I
00:26:21
never use uh business class even in my
00:26:24
trips to United States even to Seattle
00:26:26
or San Francisco because all the time
00:26:28
I'm thinking okay 5 10,000 I would
00:26:31
better to pay one month of salary to
00:26:34
developer in lania then to waste this
00:26:37
money for my comfort and I was like take
00:26:39
this money and put this money Che
00:26:41
product It's My Philosophy that uh
00:26:44
product defines everything I don't think
00:26:46
I've ever had a CEO Like You on the
00:26:49
show honestly you are one of the most
00:26:51
humble people I've ever had on their
00:26:53
show and I've done 10 years of this show
00:26:56
like this is fascinating
00:26:58
do you think there's ever a point where
00:27:01
that holds you back you know flow is a
00:27:03
massive brand now people care about the
00:27:06
flow brand do you think that the uh
00:27:09
hesitation to spend money on billboards
00:27:11
brand marketing is going to hold you
00:27:13
back maybe but you know there are many
00:27:17
ways to be successful it's a very
00:27:20
simplistic way of thinking that uh there
00:27:22
is manual how to run a company like and
00:27:25
Page 100 do that
00:27:28
page 110 do that if you look on history
00:27:32
of any company or any Co you would see
00:27:35
that everything is so nuanced everything
00:27:37
is so unique every journey is so unique
00:27:40
and uh there are just nothing you may
00:27:44
say like kind of you should do that and
00:27:46
you shouldn't do that like you just
00:27:48
should understand your strength you
00:27:49
should understand your way you should
00:27:51
not do something what's natural not
00:27:53
natural for you and but then like there
00:27:55
are thousands of ways to be SU
00:27:58
successful and you just should choose
00:27:59
your weight to be successful and uh make
00:28:03
your company successful one big piece of
00:28:05
advice that's often given in startups
00:28:07
Demetri is speed is everything and
00:28:10
you've got to move really fast and
00:28:13
that's the secret to success in the
00:28:14
early days do you agree with that the
00:28:17
most significant early days is uh not to
00:28:21
die to early because usually you need to
00:28:24
iterate uh several times to find
00:28:27
something what works and uh you increase
00:28:30
speed but you waste your resources on
00:28:32
the way probably it's a b advice if you
00:28:35
combine your speed is the right spending
00:28:38
of resources and you just uh you have
00:28:40
your 1 million and it's enough to make
00:28:43
three four five iterations rather than
00:28:44
one then speed is the right word but I
00:28:47
would not say that it's about speed it's
00:28:49
about uh right distribution of resources
00:28:52
to have several chances for Success that
00:28:55
means that you need to raise in often
00:28:57
cases with consumer
00:28:58
a quite a large seed round how big was
00:29:01
your seed round it was 300,000 valuation
00:29:05
was 3 million but remember company was
00:29:07
in belus and it was 10 years ago like
00:29:10
it's everything was much cheaper but you
00:29:12
may believe that it's extremely good uh
00:29:16
300,000 at 3 million yeah yeah and
00:29:18
Company now costs like more than 1
00:29:20
billion it means that it's 300 X or yeah
00:29:24
300 x to this investment if I'm
00:29:26
calculating well
00:29:29
oh my
00:29:30
god wow okay um take me to that how was
00:29:35
the seed round they just uh decided to
00:29:39
invest to us because we had
00:29:43
successful success before with apps and
00:29:46
it was not like a so big belief in our
00:29:48
idea but more belief that ah these guys
00:29:50
will figure out something because they
00:29:52
had success before but uh and I think
00:29:56
they had arguments uh because it was so
00:29:59
contrarian idea but probably it was the
00:30:03
best or one of the best investment for
00:30:06
the fund in history of this fund like
00:30:08
you're like a a SE round investor or
00:30:11
Real Estate Investors you just need one
00:30:13
investment like that in your life and
00:30:15
you're done mean like you will be rich
00:30:19
yeah that that's the business model of
00:30:20
venture capital toet you that's why it's
00:30:23
a very good business it's one of the
00:30:24
only businesses in the world where you
00:30:26
can do a hundred things and mess up 99
00:30:29
of them can you imagine if I told you
00:30:31
you can do 99 versions of flow and 99
00:30:34
can be 98 can be
00:30:35
one's good but uh it's a to the
00:30:39
question what is the most required trait
00:30:43
of the founder and my personal opinion
00:30:46
that founder must be crazy because uh if
00:30:50
you are smart and you may understand
00:30:52
your odds like how would you do that why
00:30:56
would you decide to start something with
00:30:58
chances of success like 1 2 3 4 5% like
00:31:02
it's uh it's better to play Lottery like
00:31:04
smart people they work in McKinzie and
00:31:08
Founders they're
00:31:10
crazy because it's not rational it's
00:31:12
you're just crazy like you can't justify
00:31:14
that by any rational thinking why would
00:31:17
you do something with odds of success in
00:31:19
one person I worry that that is no
00:31:22
longer the case I agree with you crazy
00:31:24
and obsessed yeah I'm I'm I'm not too
00:31:28
dissimilar to you in these ways I'm
00:31:29
crazy and obsessed you know uh I could
00:31:32
have been a lawyer and paid very happily
00:31:35
and instead I decided to a
00:31:36
podcast which made no money but I love
00:31:39
what we do My worry is there's so much
00:31:42
money in Venture Capital that if you're
00:31:45
smart enough you can be a Founder play
00:31:48
the founder game play startups get paid
00:31:53
quite well and try it it's a free option
00:31:57
all we didn't have such luxury in our
00:32:00
days because uh but do you do you see
00:32:03
what I mean do you worry that it's the
00:32:04
same now where we don't have crazy
00:32:06
Founders like you I think uh times have
00:32:11
come back it means there was a period of
00:32:14
time between
00:32:15
approximately 2019 to 2022 when it was
00:32:20
true but nowadays it's quite difficult
00:32:23
Tois Capital it's quite difficult and I
00:32:26
think it's a it's again the same was
00:32:30
there ever an easy round to raise no
00:32:33
it's never easy but your numbers were so
00:32:36
good I saw your numbers in sensor Tower
00:32:39
I tweeted about our show and like I got
00:32:42
all of these data providers send me your
00:32:43
numbers and they are consistently great
00:32:47
because uh venture capital investment is
00:32:51
uh default no game and you may be very
00:32:55
good but in any case you will get 100
00:32:59
NOS to get one yes and what's the most
00:33:03
difficult for Founders is that she be in
00:33:06
this mindset when you every day you're
00:33:09
getting no no no no no and it's Soul
00:33:12
breaking it's really difficult even
00:33:15
layoffs are simpler because layoffs is
00:33:17
like computation cut and you just in two
00:33:20
or three weeks and you continue your
00:33:22
work but fundraising it's like just like
00:33:25
it's each day you're getting no no no no
00:33:29
no no no and you're stting to lose a
00:33:34
belief in yourself and you starting to
00:33:36
feel that maybe
00:33:39
I'm I had moments when I doubted that
00:33:45
maybe we are doing something wrong and
00:33:47
maybe I'm not a right person and for me
00:33:51
fundraising was also much more difficult
00:33:53
because of my Origins my accent and
00:33:56
because I'm kind of not kind of right
00:33:59
profile and I was pretty weird type for
00:34:02
investors it made my job of fundraising
00:34:05
much more difficult do you think that
00:34:06
made your job much more difficult do you
00:34:08
think respectfully if you sounded like
00:34:10
me as we said L not toilet uh do you
00:34:14
think that would have been easier much
00:34:15
easier much easier because uh investors
00:34:20
they especially in big fans uh uh you
00:34:24
usually start your conversation not with
00:34:28
like Partners or management Partners but
00:34:30
with analysts or with principles and uh
00:34:34
this uh people usually have profile kind
00:34:37
of graduated in Harvard and be in stford
00:34:40
or gradated in Stanford and be in
00:34:42
Harvard and they believe in people like
00:34:46
them and they don't believe in people
00:34:49
like me and it's really difficult to
00:34:53
bridge this barrier of uh this Elite
00:34:58
because they really kind of sort you out
00:35:01
and uh and uh I understand like there's
00:35:04
like many tokens about this problem that
00:35:07
mean it's so difficult to minorities of
00:35:10
any kind to race and I may say that it's
00:35:13
it's a true it's uh true because you
00:35:16
just uh sort it out at this uh level of
00:35:21
right people so I'm going to get in
00:35:23
trouble for this I think you are much
00:35:25
less fundable than
00:35:28
um a minority woman from
00:35:31
Stanford oh yeah yeah of course of
00:35:33
course of course and uh it's
00:35:37
easier nowadays when we have proven that
00:35:42
uh our product is monetizable and we may
00:35:45
achieve success but it was really
00:35:48
difficult at the beginning when I had
00:35:51
combination of my kind of weird
00:35:54
personality and all the combination of
00:35:58
disbelief in our model in our product
00:36:01
because we didn't have benchmarks to
00:36:02
show that I look like this like success
00:36:05
and we will make the same success
00:36:07
because uh it was first product of such
00:36:10
kind and nobody believed that it's
00:36:12
possible to build something monetizable
00:36:14
or successful my question to you is okay
00:36:16
so then we start monetization that's a
00:36:18
new game we got to prove that we can
00:36:20
make money now we proved that we've got
00:36:22
users who love it how did monetization
00:36:25
go like we turn it on how how did it go
00:36:28
monetization is uh interesting because
00:36:31
uh and I'm coming back
00:36:34
to uh our discussion about brand and PR
00:36:37
like our big mistake at the very
00:36:40
beginning was belief that uh it's enough
00:36:43
to create value and people would buy but
00:36:46
then we started to understand that also
00:36:48
we need to sell we need to explain
00:36:50
product we need to
00:36:52
experiment and uh we started to do that
00:36:55
and just one number conversion premium
00:36:58
on on boarding increased in several
00:37:01
years eight times 800% because of
00:37:05
optimization because of hundreds of ab
00:37:07
tests and because of this approach that
00:37:09
we should not just create value we need
00:37:11
to explain value we need to sell and it
00:37:14
was huge mind huge shift in mindset in
00:37:17
the company because before that you kind
00:37:19
of ah it's significant is just to create
00:37:22
the best product and people will see and
00:37:24
buy no no you also should explain why
00:37:27
they should buy even Apple spend the
00:37:30
much resources to explain that uh you're
00:37:32
not like arriving to shop and you're
00:37:35
getting your iPhone in gray box it
00:37:37
should be beautiful it should be very
00:37:40
attractive and the same with
00:37:41
monetization it's a balance between
00:37:43
value and how you sell this value and uh
00:37:47
uh you should find proper balance
00:37:49
between that you may be too focused on
00:37:52
uh selling and uh like over promise or
00:37:57
you may may be like as we did at the
00:37:59
beginning you may create value but you
00:38:02
may unell and everything should be right
00:38:04
it should be right BS I think you
00:38:06
consistently undersell I spoke to many
00:38:09
of your investors and they said that
00:38:10
you're their best founder but you
00:38:12
undersell yourself consistently when you
00:38:15
think about how to sell value and you
00:38:18
produce value and then there's how to
00:38:20
sell it what did you learn about how to
00:38:22
sell value through the monetization
00:38:24
process what I am some like maybe I
00:38:28
first question about this comment that
00:38:31
uh I can't sell myself no can't you
00:38:34
unell that's uh you're too humble it's
00:38:37
pretty natural because of uh my imposter
00:38:40
syndrome and inferiority complex and I'm
00:38:43
not even playing it's my PR Natural
00:38:45
State but also I think it's my
00:38:47
superpower because I'm always so I can
00:38:51
insecure about uh my position position
00:38:55
of the company that I'm always trying to
00:38:57
to do my job the best because I never
00:39:00
feel comfortable and uh it's a my pral
00:39:04
state and I believe that big part of my
00:39:06
success is just because of my imposter
00:39:08
syndrome and it's a like strange way you
00:39:12
get your superpower but what is uh true
00:39:16
has that got better with time Flo now
00:39:19
does 200 million in Revenue it is is
00:39:22
worth over a billion dollars do you have
00:39:25
less impostor inm no
00:39:28
no I would even say that I'm getting
00:39:31
more anxiety because now my
00:39:33
responsibilities are even bigger I
00:39:35
always like for me this round was kind
00:39:37
of you may imagine that this like a
00:39:39
sport when you're jumping like through
00:39:41
the bar and and when when you're
00:39:44
progressing you put your bar high and
00:39:45
high and one moment like my bar became 1
00:39:50
M high and I look on this bar and this
00:39:54
and Waring like could I jump so high
00:39:57
could don't I at least I will make the
00:39:59
best
00:40:01
attempt I I love it it's just so rare
00:40:03
you know we interview a lot of American
00:40:05
Founders Demetri and the humility that
00:40:07
you have is is not shared by a lot of
00:40:09
them what were the biggest challenges
00:40:12
then as you started to scale
00:40:13
monetization what really became tough
00:40:16
what really changed what we didn't
00:40:19
understand uh when we started
00:40:20
monetization 7 years ago that habit to
00:40:23
pay of people for subscription is
00:40:26
changing because when we we started
00:40:28
monetization our dream was maybe we
00:40:31
would monetize 5% of American audience
00:40:34
because that time it was quite a bar now
00:40:37
we monetized maybe if you exclude
00:40:39
teenagers 25 30% of our American
00:40:42
audience and we don't see that uh our
00:40:46
monetization is slowing down but it's
00:40:48
not just because the product is becoming
00:40:50
better what's true it's not just because
00:40:52
of our experimentation what's true it's
00:40:54
also because people accepted idea to pay
00:40:57
for subscriptions and it was huge
00:40:59
cultural change it uh uh and without
00:41:02
that uh it would be impossible cultural
00:41:05
shift did you test pricing a lot I know
00:41:08
what a data driven culture you have when
00:41:10
you look at the pricing that you have
00:41:12
what are your biggest lessons that you
00:41:14
have from pricing the biggest lesson
00:41:16
from pricing that uh you should not make
00:41:19
your decision just based on price you
00:41:21
should understand uh the full funnel
00:41:25
because uh uh you may increase your
00:41:27
price but you would decrease retention
00:41:29
or activation or you would destroy your
00:41:31
user acquisition and then your ultimate
00:41:34
Revenue would be small it means that
00:41:36
ultimately you should decide based on
00:41:38
Top Line and bottom line in your pel and
00:41:41
optimized for that and then all this
00:41:44
internal parameters you should look on
00:41:47
them together because you should
00:41:49
optimize the function of many variables
00:41:52
if you talk about mathematics because uh
00:41:54
it's not just about optimizing of price
00:41:56
it's about optimizing of five six
00:41:59
variables simultaneously and you should
00:42:01
optimize them to find like the best
00:42:03
combination when you're getting the most
00:42:06
revenue from your product can I ask on
00:42:08
the premium versus premium split what
00:42:11
have been some big lessons in how to
00:42:13
provide enough value in premium where
00:42:16
they retain and they love your product
00:42:19
but also keep enough value in premium
00:42:22
where they're willing to pay for it and
00:42:23
make that transition I think just
00:42:25
experimentation uh usually we deciding
00:42:29
that based on experiments we when we
00:42:32
creating something and they're deciding
00:42:34
to make it free or put behind pay wall
00:42:37
we testing to see how it would influence
00:42:40
Revenue but also how it would influence
00:42:42
retention and uh for us it's always
00:42:45
balance of two metric and we would never
00:42:48
accept uh uh experiment which would
00:42:51
increase Revenue a lot but also which
00:42:54
would destroy retention and it's a
00:42:57
combination of this two metrics the best
00:42:59
is like when retention is the same but
00:43:02
revenue is growing so when did we know
00:43:05
monetization was working when did you
00:43:07
look at it and go okay we've got a good
00:43:09
machine here in Cas of subcription
00:43:11
monetization the most significant is the
00:43:14
retention because uh if you are very
00:43:17
good in selling probably you may
00:43:20
convince people to pay for almost
00:43:23
anything uh but uh much more tricky is
00:43:26
that he provides so good service then
00:43:29
they would continue paying and uh uh
00:43:33
retention should be good and uh it's the
00:43:36
main sign of success of this business
00:43:38
model but this business model I believe
00:43:40
is the best model to create good product
00:43:43
because your incentives are aligned with
00:43:45
user because user pay just when you
00:43:49
create long-term value and it motivates
00:43:52
you to create long-term value because if
00:43:53
for example you monetize your product I
00:43:55
don't know by onetime payment then you
00:43:58
would optimize for conversion if you
00:44:00
monetize your product by advertising
00:44:02
probably you would try to increase
00:44:04
engagement as possible what we see in
00:44:05
media but in case of subscription you're
00:44:08
real optimized for Value because your
00:44:10
model works just when users stay and
00:44:12
continue to pay for years or it would be
00:44:14
just a trade meal and you would exhaust
00:44:17
grow very very fast so we have that
00:44:20
monetization engine working how long did
00:44:22
it take to get to a million in in
00:44:24
Revenue million is very simple it's
00:44:27
I don't million is very simple like 100
00:44:31
million is much more difficult so
00:44:33
Millions is very very simple how long
00:44:36
did it take to get to 100 million in
00:44:37
Revenue four years maybe wow but we had
00:44:42
the substantial audience when we started
00:44:44
monetization because we started
00:44:45
monetization in
00:44:47
2018 and product existed for three years
00:44:50
up to this how many users did you have
00:44:52
when you started that mation Journey
00:44:55
maybe 15 20 million w
00:44:58
w wow that's incredible is there
00:45:01
anything that you do differently about
00:45:02
how you launched monetization now you
00:45:05
know everything that you do I would do
00:45:07
that much earlier because uh start of
00:45:11
monetization unlocked for us fly whe of
00:45:14
value creation and it's very simple when
00:45:16
you start monetization you're getting
00:45:18
revenue and you may use this Revenue to
00:45:21
build product or to raise big around and
00:45:23
then you create better product and fly
00:45:26
whe starts to work but then you invest
00:45:28
more and more and more and distance
00:45:30
between you and competitors is getting
00:45:32
bigger and bigger and when you don't
00:45:34
have monetization you should be very
00:45:36
Scrappy and development is uh like very
00:45:39
frugal and development is very slow I
00:45:42
completely hear you on retention being
00:45:44
so important to any consumer app my
00:45:46
question to you is you know bluntly
00:45:49
given the use case being periods um it's
00:45:52
probably one of the only use cases in
00:45:54
consumer that is literally you you can't
00:45:58
avoid it you know anything from like
00:46:00
eating you can fast you can gym you can
00:46:04
not go to the gym is this a oneof case
00:46:08
that can't be replicated in health and
00:46:10
fitness uh it's difficult to find the
00:46:14
cases with good retention there are some
00:46:16
cases for example variable devices they
00:46:20
have very good retention just because
00:46:21
you have physically them and have you
00:46:23
thought about doing devices no no no no
00:46:26
no because because you always should be
00:46:29
focused you always should be focused
00:46:31
once I got very good lesson
00:46:35
from vard host like a founder of Hosta
00:46:39
Adventures many years ago and uh that
00:46:43
moment our company was uh big enough and
00:46:46
we had many ideas how to build our
00:46:49
product and many ideas for monetization
00:46:51
like because audience was big and I was
00:46:54
speeching to him describing we may do
00:46:56
that that and that and that and at the
00:46:57
end of my pach I asked him like V uh you
00:47:01
have experienced could you give me just
00:47:03
one advice but like the most valuable
00:47:05
you think for me and he said like young
00:47:08
man business and product building is
00:47:12
very similar to marriage you have many
00:47:14
opportunities before your marriage but
00:47:16
to be happy you should choose one and
00:47:18
really focus and my advice to you choose
00:47:21
one business model and be really focused
00:47:24
and uh I learned this lesson and was
00:47:27
very focused since and I I had a huge
00:47:30
resistance to all proposals to take any
00:47:34
other
00:47:34
opportunities I love that and vard's
00:47:37
fantastic my question to you is does the
00:47:39
super app not go against Focus because
00:47:41
with the super app mentality you are
00:47:43
building multiple products in in the
00:47:45
same time simultaneously versus purely
00:47:48
focusing on one product at a time are
00:47:52
are they paradoxical yeah for some
00:47:54
extent but you may solve this problem by
00:47:57
orc structure you may create teams which
00:48:00
solely focused on own part of the
00:48:03
product and for them it's a single
00:48:05
product and they have full focus on this
00:48:07
product and in our company each team has
00:48:10
own part of product to own then you have
00:48:13
like a difficulty to combine all this
00:48:16
parts to the single experience and it's
00:48:18
not easy it's very challenging but it's
00:48:20
the way how to have focus in the case of
00:48:23
super app what have been the biggest
00:48:25
lessons in how to create that
00:48:27
synchronicity between the different
00:48:28
parts it's extremely difficult we still
00:48:32
struggling is that the biggest weakness
00:48:34
that you have today do you think I think
00:48:36
it's really significant to save
00:48:40
Simplicity of our product because each
00:48:43
year we have deep research of our user
00:48:45
base what is the most significant for
00:48:47
them in our product and for seven or
00:48:50
eight years in a row the most popular
00:48:52
answer Simplicity Simplicity nothing
00:48:54
else and the biggest
00:48:57
uh mistake we might do is we might do is
00:49:01
to destroy this Simplicity because it's
00:49:03
the essence of our success and is the
00:49:05
essence of success for any product and
00:49:08
it's really difficult to have Simplicity
00:49:11
when you have so many features and when
00:49:13
you have this concept of super app it is
00:49:15
it's it's one of the hardest things it's
00:49:16
how do you prevent feature creep with
00:49:18
time and stay simple over time so we
00:49:21
have that success with
00:49:23
monetization now we get to the series a
00:49:26
and the the B I think how was the series
00:49:29
A's and B's it was always uh difficult
00:49:34
did you enjoy the meetings or not
00:49:35
already no because uh you need to meet
00:49:39
hundreds of investors and repeat the
00:49:41
same and at some moment it's just boring
00:49:45
like you're just repeating the same the
00:49:46
same again again again again it's just
00:49:49
boring was there one or two that stood
00:49:51
out I'm not trying to flutter them but
00:49:54
uh uh and my answer is honest but I was
00:49:57
really impressed by General Atlantic and
00:50:00
at the end of this process we had five
00:50:03
biders and I had really big hope that J
00:50:07
Atlantic would not provide a bad term sh
00:50:10
because they showed so much better
00:50:13
understanding of our business model and
00:50:14
show so deep approach then they really
00:50:18
impressed me by the depth of uh work and
00:50:22
I'm really happy by this outcome I'm not
00:50:24
even flattering it's not my nature but I
00:50:27
was kind of what did they do to impress
00:50:29
you so much firstly they had very deep
00:50:34
understanding of our business model
00:50:36
because of previous investment to Dingo
00:50:38
and CH and similar companies and it's
00:50:41
really rare to see investor with deep
00:50:44
understanding of consumer subscriptions
00:50:45
because there are not so many successful
00:50:48
consumer subscriptions and just several
00:50:50
public companies based on this business
00:50:51
model and most investors they just don't
00:50:54
understand this business model they
00:50:55
confuse it with some s and they're
00:50:58
making very wrong conclusions because of
00:51:00
that what are the wrong conclusions that
00:51:02
I would make comparing it SAS for
00:51:05
example you may
00:51:07
apply the idea that uh retention should
00:51:12
be very high because if you lose your
00:51:14
customer you lose it forever and it uh
00:51:17
it's the fact for B2B but it's not the
00:51:19
fact for b2c because in b2c in case of
00:51:21
consumer face naaps customers come
00:51:24
customers go customers come back
00:51:26
customers go we already have maybe 40%
00:51:29
of installs from users who used our app
00:51:32
previously and uh because of that you
00:51:34
should analyze not like retention itself
00:51:38
but uh retention of revenue for example
00:51:40
you should analyze how Cort behave in
00:51:42
time and what you what Revenue you
00:51:45
getting because of this behavior that
00:51:47
people are coming back and forth they
00:51:49
stop subcription they start subscription
00:51:51
and you just can't apply this very
00:51:53
simplistic logic of business s that if
00:51:55
people pay
00:51:57
and then they CH they will never come
00:51:59
back or they will never start paying
00:52:01
again it means that logic in analysis of
00:52:04
retention should be very different do
00:52:06
you think the consumer multiple hit that
00:52:09
happens with consumer revenue is fair so
00:52:12
if we look at say flow 200 million at a
00:52:15
billion that's a 5x that is much lower
00:52:19
than traditional enterprise software
00:52:21
companies would be afforded you know I
00:52:24
I'm sad to admit that I'm inv invested
00:52:26
in a SAS business that is at 7 million
00:52:28
in AR and valued at 1.3 billion I think
00:52:32
U for current market v may check this
00:52:35
number but uh average multiple to
00:52:38
revenue for public SAS at this moment is
00:52:41
close to eight and it was five last year
00:52:45
and it was 30 or so in 2021 it means
00:52:48
that it's declined five or six times as
00:52:51
well it means that uh do you think
00:52:54
that's right like
00:52:57
it's Market but do you think we
00:52:59
underappreciate consumer Revenue do do
00:53:02
you agree that uh in rational world
00:53:05
world rational world you can't have uh
00:53:09
in 2021 multiple 30 40 and in
00:53:14
2022 multiple five for the same company
00:53:18
like it's Market is not rational there's
00:53:20
a brilliant statement which is the
00:53:22
market can stay irrational longer than
00:53:24
your company can stay solvent
00:53:27
uh yeah yeah it's a it's and because of
00:53:30
that like even kind of conversation
00:53:33
about like what's fair price it's
00:53:36
useless because markets are irrational
00:53:38
like nothing is rational that there's
00:53:40
like a two years difference between uh
00:53:43
two events and uh in one event this
00:53:46
company cost 30 revenues and in another
00:53:48
event like five revenues and like you
00:53:51
may understand crisis you may understand
00:53:52
that rate was 2% higher or 2% lower but
00:53:56
it's not like a reason why company would
00:53:58
cost like five or six times uh higher or
00:54:01
lower it means that it's just reflection
00:54:04
that markets are very irrational and
00:54:06
price is irrational as well and again
00:54:09
it's a question when you're making
00:54:11
justification of future value of the
00:54:13
company based on current uh Market
00:54:16
multiples are you trying to lie to
00:54:18
yourself or so so because uh like uh who
00:54:21
knows if markets change Dynamic five
00:54:24
times in few years do you think in five
00:54:26
years time we'll have five plus $10
00:54:29
billion consumer subscription companies
00:54:31
we have duelingo today which is kind of
00:54:33
9 N and a half I believe maybe today 10
00:54:35
I need to check yesterday it was almost
00:54:37
10 okay so let's give it a 10 let's say
00:54:40
we give it a 10 but that's kind of it I
00:54:42
think uh we will have them because uh
00:54:46
this business uh model is growing and
00:54:50
you may just check numbers of apple and
00:54:53
you may see that uh Apple got from
00:54:57
consumer subscription in 2017 I know 5
00:54:59
billion and it's projected that we'll
00:55:02
get maybe 100 billion or so next year
00:55:05
like model is growing and because model
00:55:08
is growing then we'll have huge
00:55:10
companies do you think VC's provide
00:55:12
value of course what value do you think
00:55:15
we provide we have one uh I not maybe I
00:55:21
may share because he joked in Twitter we
00:55:25
have a
00:55:27
like early stage investor Nikita beer
00:55:30
very nice product you have nik's an
00:55:32
investor yeah yeah like a small investor
00:55:34
but he invested early and uh he joked
00:55:38
recently that uh the single role of
00:55:42
investor is that he outrage entrepreneur
00:55:46
and then entrepreneur have the full
00:55:48
energy to prove investor that he's wrong
00:55:51
and of course it's a joke but it's
00:55:53
partly true but I would say that good
00:55:56
investor May create ton of value by
00:55:59
proper work in the Bo and good board
00:56:02
brings ton of value and the biggest
00:56:05
value from the board that uh you're just
00:56:08
accountable and you have moments of
00:56:10
Truth like board meetings when you need
00:56:12
to make proper reflection prepare proper
00:56:15
materials and explain future explain
00:56:18
past and without board meetings you
00:56:19
would never have uh patience or energy
00:56:22
to do that but when you have such
00:56:24
moments of reflection then your business
00:56:25
is getting better because you're just
00:56:27
reflecting all the time and good
00:56:29
investors they been part of the board
00:56:31
they may provide good advice they may
00:56:34
make you bet it's almost kind of uh if
00:56:36
you have like a like coach like like
00:56:39
what's the difference between having
00:56:40
coach or visiting gym by
00:56:43
yourself accountability accountability
00:56:46
accountability is really significant for
00:56:47
Success what do annoying VCS do I want
00:56:51
to be the best VC we Jed about me being
00:56:52
a VC in my nth year but I want to be the
00:56:55
best VC and I care passionately about
00:56:57
that if you were to advise me Harry I've
00:57:00
met hundreds of VCS who said no don't do
00:57:03
these things what would those things be
00:57:05
if you meet like a first time
00:57:09
entrepreneur start your pitch from
00:57:11
explaining that uh it's normal and it's
00:57:15
default play for V to say no and it's
00:57:18
nothing personal and uh uh like you
00:57:22
should just like understand rules of
00:57:25
games and uh and just like put on your
00:57:30
wall like kind of billboard like right
00:57:33
like I will get 100 Nos and each time
00:57:35
you're getting no like put like just one
00:57:37
line and you should be very
00:57:42
very you should understand rules of the
00:57:44
game and it should not be like a
00:57:46
personal for you because you should that
00:57:49
you per say no when you get nose I I get
00:57:53
nose I fund raise too for my funds when
00:57:55
I get no I'm like I'm going to prove you
00:57:59
wrong it's a very very
00:58:01
significant driving force for success in
00:58:04
the case of many people is it for you
00:58:07
for some extent
00:58:11
uh for some extent but uh it was more
00:58:16
significant for me at the beginning
00:58:17
because uh at the beginning all people
00:58:20
around were so skeptical about our
00:58:22
business and idea and not just investors
00:58:24
and I had this bitterness all the time
00:58:28
that I didn't have any understanding of
00:58:30
our vision and any support and then when
00:58:33
we proved that our ideas are worthy and
00:58:37
this is a good sustainable business then
00:58:40
it became easy I get that totally do you
00:58:42
feel Vindicated now for everyone who
00:58:45
didn't believe in you who was like H
00:58:48
they don't know what they're doing do
00:58:49
you feel no because I'm just uh trying
00:58:54
like look like uh like
00:58:56
being just like a rational like like
00:58:59
some like weird folks from belus
00:59:02
starting through tracker and promising
00:59:05
that it will become unicorn and there
00:59:08
are no like examples of that and uh why
00:59:11
would you believe in that like like
00:59:14
nobody who is rational would believe in
00:59:16
that it's it was now it's so evident but
00:59:19
at that moment it was pretty rational
00:59:21
not to believe I get you it's just sad
00:59:23
our job is to believe in the outliers
00:59:25
it's to believe the best in people yeah
00:59:29
that's that's how I view our job I think
00:59:31
uh the main job of uh IL EST investor is
00:59:36
to distinguish cases with 100% of fail
00:59:43
with cases 99% of failure and cases with
00:59:48
small potential outcome and big
00:59:49
potential outcome and you should find
00:59:51
cases when fail is not 100% guaranteed
00:59:55
and but potential outcome is big and it
00:59:58
means that for you the most significant
01:00:00
is to understand that the team is uh not
01:00:04
uh stupid they know what they do and by
01:00:08
that you would reduce your chances of
01:00:10
fail from 99% to 95% but then Market
01:00:15
should be big because it's impossible to
01:00:17
get the disproportional outcome from
01:00:19
small Market Big Market you have a huge
01:00:21
Market I spoke to Jesse at at G before
01:00:24
this she said ask how does flow go from
01:00:27
a$1 billion company to a 10 billion
01:00:30
company we may I may answer this
01:00:33
question just uh using like benchmarks
01:00:36
for example what's the difference
01:00:38
between Flo and
01:00:40
doing partially it's
01:00:43
a scale of Revenue we have 200 million
01:00:46
they have 600 million and it's
01:00:47
achievable in several years for us to be
01:00:50
in the range of 600 million we have
01:00:53
approximately the same why is there
01:00:54
multile so much better than you
01:00:56
because it's a public company which
01:00:58
simultaneously is growing very fast Top
01:01:01
Line and bottom line they have
01:01:03
simultaneously 40 50% of Topline growth
01:01:06
and they have very nice uh profitability
01:01:08
growth and it's extremely rare to see
01:01:11
such companies as a public companies
01:01:13
it's like just old rule of 40 and you
01:01:17
rarely see like rule of 40 like 50 60 at
01:01:21
the public markets and all the like you
01:01:24
like people believe that they still have
01:01:25
good potential for expansion because
01:01:27
there are so many Learners of foreign
01:01:31
languages in the world I think
01:01:33
combination of this two factors but I
01:01:35
think mostly is just because combination
01:01:37
of 40% Top Line growth and the 20 and
01:01:40
the growth of the proportional growth of
01:01:42
profitability is so rare and it means
01:01:45
that if you want to cost 10 billion we
01:01:47
probably should achieve 600 million in
01:01:50
revenue and then show profitability and
01:01:52
continue growing with the same Pace can
01:01:54
I invest now I know it's
01:01:59
difficult listen my job is to be a VC
01:02:02
Demetri it's going to be worth a try
01:02:03
right um can I ask you a bit of a weird
01:02:05
one on your leadership do you think
01:02:07
you're a good CEO and how have you
01:02:09
changed as a leader over time um I have
01:02:12
nice story for
01:02:14
you when I was in Stanford Business
01:02:16
School we had one lesson with famous
01:02:19
Professor of
01:02:21
management and uh he did like the next
01:02:25
exercise he started to ask people in the
01:02:28
room what is the more what is the
01:02:30
necessary trait of good C and people
01:02:34
started to say like oh
01:02:37
this good co should Co should be
01:02:40
knowledgeable good co should have
01:02:42
integrity good should provide
01:02:45
inspiration and maybe in 20 minutes like
01:02:47
whiteboard was was covered by different
01:02:50
traits of good and then this professor
01:02:52
looked on this uh whiteboard and said
01:02:55
probably even Jus Christ was worse it
01:02:58
means that this lesson that people they
01:03:02
making kind of glorification of C that
01:03:05
seos should be perfect they should be
01:03:07
almost kind of gods but seos is just
01:03:09
like the same people and they can't be
01:03:12
so perfect of people think they should
01:03:15
be you should just understand your
01:03:19
weaknesses your strengths you should
01:03:21
understand why you're useful and you
01:03:23
should uh just uh make your proper work
01:03:26
as good as you can what is your biggest
01:03:28
strength what is your biggest weakness
01:03:31
my biggest strength that uh I may
01:03:36
analyze I may make like a rather good
01:03:39
conclusions uh in very simple manner it
01:03:43
means that uh people they need Clarity
01:03:46
and simplicity and I think I may provide
01:03:49
Clarity and simplicity I'm not
01:03:50
overwheling them by information I may
01:03:52
take much of information on myself but
01:03:55
then I provide to them like a solution
01:03:57
decision description in very simple form
01:04:00
and they understand and believe and
01:04:02
follow and uh my my main
01:04:06
weakness sometimes I may be too slow for
01:04:10
Change and uh uh the biggest uh events
01:04:15
in my life happened when the life burned
01:04:19
my bridges but now I understand that I
01:04:22
should have burned my bridges by myself
01:04:24
for example I started to make apps very
01:04:27
significant reason was that because it
01:04:29
was crisis of 2008 and like book
01:04:34
publishing was in terrible
01:04:36
situation I started to focus just on Flo
01:04:39
because um my old portfolio like
01:04:41
declined because of political situation
01:04:44
in region and when everything was good I
01:04:47
was just delaying necessary change and I
01:04:50
was just white in this crisis like for
01:04:52
life to burn my bridges and then like uh
01:04:55
Nic change happened then
01:04:58
like I started to move I'm fascinated on
01:05:02
this one you know you you've been very
01:05:04
successful over the last 10 years um
01:05:06
what does money mean to you Demetri
01:05:08
you're such an analytical honestly not
01:05:10
so much because uh I have a rather
01:05:14
humble lifestyle I don't honestly I
01:05:17
despise luxurious Brands I despise
01:05:20
luxury I even don't have car and I don't
01:05:23
have any expensive uh item I don't have
01:05:27
anything would be like kind of branded
01:05:30
or
01:05:31
luxurious I I don't need uh like
01:05:35
business classes or private
01:05:37
jets I would want to have a interesting
01:05:40
and meaningful life and feel that I'm
01:05:42
useful and uh and honestly I never think
01:05:45
about my personal money is I'm
01:05:47
absolutely honest here like never never
01:05:50
because I have so
01:05:53
little uh need for myself that it's not
01:05:56
even a kind of motivation for me uh I'm
01:05:59
very motivated by the story of uh J
01:06:02
founder of J Atlantic Chu F do you know
01:06:04
this story no please tell me uh J
01:06:08
Atlantic was started by a man who like a
01:06:11
huge forun by duty free shops by
01:06:14
starting duty free shops because of this
01:06:17
uh Venture and because of J Atlantic he
01:06:19
billions 9 billion or something like
01:06:21
that and then secretly he distributed
01:06:24
all his money for charity absolutely
01:06:26
secretly nobody know and he died like
01:06:30
two years ago and then the story became
01:06:33
public that he just uh gifted away in
01:06:36
his lifetime all his money and without
01:06:39
any proud without sharing to anybody
01:06:40
absolutely secretly and uh it's a the
01:06:44
best example for me how you should live
01:06:47
your life you should create something
01:06:49
available commercially but then it's
01:06:51
your duty to return this money for
01:06:54
society and to do that very efficiently
01:06:58
and I believe that uh if you're really
01:07:00
successful second part of your life
01:07:02
should be not to ear money but to spend
01:07:04
your money for the sake of society and I
01:07:07
believe that it's a huge sin to pass
01:07:10
billions to your children have you
01:07:12
always been this good like you are
01:07:14
objectively one of like the the kindest
01:07:17
humans I've had on the show really this
01:07:19
is like shows like this is why I love
01:07:20
doing what I do I didn't expect this
01:07:22
type of show have you always been like
01:07:24
this or has it come over time I just uh
01:07:28
got better because of
01:07:31
uh many many many problems and pains I
01:07:35
had uh in my life and I have like a
01:07:40
little regrets about my professional
01:07:43
life and my biggest regret that when I
01:07:47
was young and uh when I was less
01:07:50
sensitive I fart several people without
01:07:55
decency it means in in root form and it
01:07:58
was maybe 10 15 years ago and I still
01:08:01
feel guilty because of that 10 years
01:08:04
after just because to feel empathy you
01:08:08
should uh get pain by yourself and then
01:08:11
you would start to feel pain of other
01:08:15
people and it's just like a trait of age
01:08:17
and trait of a difficult journey I was
01:08:20
not like that when I was young you also
01:08:23
work with your brother Yuri
01:08:26
I not many people know this but I work
01:08:28
with my brother he sitting upstairs now
01:08:31
um I love it but everyone says don't
01:08:35
work with
01:08:36
family what's your biggest advice to me
01:08:40
on how to make it work so successfully
01:08:42
with your brother again I repeat my
01:08:44
advice never take general advice general
01:08:47
advice is always and uh
01:08:50
everything is nuanced and uh I worked
01:08:53
with my brother
01:08:56
for 30 years or so if we start
01:08:59
considering like our work from mushroom
01:09:01
Gathering or potato field work and we
01:09:05
always work together in uh book
01:09:08
publishing in all our Ventures and I
01:09:11
remember that uh our first boss in
01:09:15
publishing house and it was 2005 or so
01:09:18
we worked together in publishing house
01:09:20
we were responsible for computer
01:09:21
literature he said that you should
01:09:23
always work together because because you
01:09:26
so different and when you combine like
01:09:29
your personalities it's almost perfect
01:09:31
because Yuri is good to make a pass and
01:09:33
you're good to make Road and you
01:09:36
understand that and that I'm maybe too
01:09:38
slow in deciding something maybe
01:09:41
incisive but then when I start doing
01:09:43
something I'm doing that perfectly and
01:09:45
you like he is the opposite he's kind of
01:09:48
idea generator he's Venture uh driver
01:09:51
but he's not operational person alog
01:09:54
together but when we have uh this
01:09:56
combination is almost perfect and it
01:09:58
works really well but also I have worked
01:10:00
all my life with my wife I married very
01:10:03
early like uh how old were you when you
01:10:06
got married 21 wow 20 years ago and uh
01:10:10
she was uh student in the same group in
01:10:13
University and Sheed my trust because I
01:10:17
was very bad student because I was
01:10:18
working and she was helping me with like
01:10:21
advice when to visit University and with
01:10:24
different home task asks and she was my
01:10:27
friend at that moment and we started to
01:10:30
work together and again we have been
01:10:33
working together for 20 years she was
01:10:36
responsible for content in FLW at the
01:10:39
beginning of FLW and she's now my
01:10:41
executive assistant and we spent
01:10:44
together like working together 20 years
01:10:46
and very successfully your wife is your
01:10:48
EA yeah how how is that that must be
01:10:52
hard no it's very effective because uh
01:10:55
we may decide like uh what to do or what
01:10:58
not to do at the
01:11:01
breakfast that is amazing I I absolutely
01:11:04
love that um y there's no way that that
01:11:06
would work for
01:11:08
me um are you a wartime leader or a p
01:11:11
time needed do you think I was pretty
01:11:13
effective in both modes because uh I
01:11:16
have one tra like you know there are
01:11:20
four types of people based on level of
01:11:23
negative and positive emotion like
01:11:25
people who have low emotions in case of
01:11:30
bad situation and uh like like slow low
01:11:34
high high low high high low like like
01:11:36
it's depends on how are your emotions
01:11:38
high or low in in case of problems and
01:11:41
in case of excitement for example if you
01:11:44
have a huge
01:11:46
excitement but also like a
01:11:49
huge stress in case of problems like
01:11:54
probably you is difficult to be a CO and
01:11:57
my advantage that I'm kind of low low
01:12:00
personality it means that I never feel
01:12:02
too much excitement but also I never
01:12:05
feel too much stress and because of that
01:12:08
I'm just uh in case of all our
01:12:11
calamities I was very very calm and I
01:12:15
didn't have much stress I just played my
01:12:17
duty what was the biggest Calamity do
01:12:20
you think when you look back now what
01:12:21
was the oh that was hard emotionally for
01:12:25
our organization was hard uh this moment
01:12:29
when uh we got political instability in
01:12:32
belus and then war in Ukraine and we had
01:12:36
to relocate urgently the all company and
01:12:40
Al the I had to relocate myself in two
01:12:44
days I spent 38 uh years in belus and I
01:12:49
built my life I had like my house my
01:12:53
Gardens and I spent many years to my
01:12:55
Gardens and then I had to make decision
01:12:57
to move out of belus in two days and I
01:13:01
have never come back and then the same
01:13:04
decision most of our people had to make
01:13:08
and uh it was really difficult could you
01:13:10
imagine that you have built all your
01:13:12
life uh in country then in two days you
01:13:15
must uh move to another country with
01:13:17
your family and this was really
01:13:20
difficult and it traumatized uh uh me
01:13:23
and our people a lot I can't imagine
01:13:26
that one um I also can't imagine having
01:13:28
to move 100 plus people which you had to
01:13:31
do I believe it one more I believe that
01:13:34
uh when War started in 20 22 we had 70%
01:13:39
of our employees in buus it was more
01:13:41
than 200 and 90% of them were relocated
01:13:45
with families in several days how was
01:13:47
that process really difficult because uh
01:13:50
borders were closed it was impossible to
01:13:52
get papers and we had to organize no
01:13:55
flights and we had to organize Charters
01:13:58
to Armenia and turkey and then organize
01:14:01
you order Charters yeah yeah because we
01:14:03
didn't have flights and it was
01:14:05
impossible to make flights to Europe
01:14:07
because all flights were prohibited from
01:14:09
from the region did the company suffer
01:14:12
in any way I mean of course for half an
01:14:15
year we almost didn't have any progress
01:14:18
with our product because all people were
01:14:20
so stressed and defocused by moving
01:14:24
families and it was a huge huge
01:14:26
destruction and it was very expensive as
01:14:28
well how much did it cost many millions
01:14:32
uh it was very expensive but uh uh it
01:14:35
was significant to do because company
01:14:38
it's a te company and it's about people
01:14:41
and uh like this company would not exist
01:14:44
without people uh and also it was our
01:14:48
responsibility to provide this
01:14:49
opportunity to our people because it was
01:14:51
quite big chance that uh belus would
01:14:54
engage to the war and uh it would mean
01:14:57
that uh men would be drafted and borders
01:15:00
would be closed and it was real risk for
01:15:03
life for for men and we had to organize
01:15:06
this uh process what did you learn about
01:15:08
managing teams and people through this
01:15:10
process trust is the most significant
01:15:12
they should trust you like you should be
01:15:15
a really trustful person or a company to
01:15:18
convince 90% of your employees to take
01:15:22
family and belongings in today and to
01:15:24
move to another country you should be
01:15:27
really trustful for that my question to
01:15:29
you is when your mother looks at you and
01:15:31
your brother you guys have achieved such
01:15:33
success and when you look back to the
01:15:35
potato farms and the mushroom picking
01:15:38
what did she say she's not especially
01:15:45
emotional but she must be proud she has
01:15:48
never said
01:15:51
that would you like her too I don't
01:15:54
think that it would be natural for
01:15:56
[Laughter]
01:15:59
you I thank you so much this has been so
01:16:02
much fun so I'm going to do a quick fire
01:16:04
round so I say a short statement and you
01:16:06
give me your immediate thoughts does
01:16:07
that sound okay okay so what do you
01:16:10
believe that most around you disbelieve
01:16:13
I don't believe in talent I believe that
01:16:16
uh all people are approximately the same
01:16:19
we have the same processor and what
01:16:22
makes people different is just a hours
01:16:25
of hard work hard focused work and when
01:16:29
people say to me that I can't accomplish
01:16:31
something asking very simple question
01:16:34
how many hours of hard work have you
01:16:37
spent for that and if it's not about
01:16:40
thousand but why you think that you
01:16:43
should achieve something without
01:16:45
thousand of hours of hard work you don't
01:16:48
think smarts has got anything to do with
01:16:50
it like brains there are always extremes
01:16:52
but most of people they have plus minus
01:16:55
the same brain and believe me I know
01:16:57
many billionaires I uh I met many many
01:17:02
many successful entrepreneurs and not
01:17:04
just entrepreneurs and I have never seen
01:17:07
genuses but uh I believe that uh what
01:17:11
really distinguish successful people and
01:17:14
people who are not successful Beyond
01:17:15
just luck luck is really significant is
01:17:18
the ability to take risk and then work
01:17:22
really really hard and persistent for a
01:17:24
long time most of people they just can't
01:17:27
work really hard for very long time and
01:17:29
it's what distinguish successful people
01:17:32
and less successful people most people
01:17:34
don't have discipline which is you need
01:17:36
to not go out and drink with your
01:17:38
friends at the end of the day and go
01:17:39
back and work you need to come back
01:17:41
after the 90th no and pitch for the 91st
01:17:44
time hardest time in my life was when I
01:17:47
was in university but also I was writing
01:17:50
my books at nights and uh I usually was
01:17:54
uh
01:17:55
like working for 18 hours per day for
01:17:59
years and was sleeping just 6 hours or
01:18:02
so and four years but then like I
01:18:06
achieved a lot because of that and uh I
01:18:10
have very interesting story about uh my
01:18:14
my books like that sometimes you need to
01:18:18
see many things in prospects and uh you
01:18:22
need to put many dots on the map of uh
01:18:26
your life I was uh in 2004 I wrote like
01:18:31
a big book about action script it's a
01:18:34
program language of Mer media flesh and
01:18:38
that time I didn't ear much from that
01:18:41
but uh approximately next year in 2005
01:18:44
this book was gifted to one young boy he
01:18:47
was maybe 12 years old by his brother
01:18:50
and he said if you learn programming
01:18:52
from this book you would become a big
01:18:54
person and he learned programming from
01:18:57
this book he started to practice flash
01:19:00
programming and then 10 years after 15
01:19:03
years after he became co-founder of msqd
01:19:08
we sold
01:19:09
to uh uh we to U Facebook and then we
01:19:14
used part of this money to finance flow
01:19:17
it means that if I didn't wrow this book
01:19:20
in 2004 then probably he would not learn
01:19:25
program programming and MSD would not
01:19:28
happen and then FL would not have money
01:19:30
to be financed but distance between
01:19:33
these two events was more than 10
01:19:36
years and in your life you very often
01:19:39
you just need much time to see how all
01:19:42
lines will be connected but you have uh
01:19:45
dots to be connected you need to have
01:19:47
dots you need to do something you need
01:19:49
to move forward what CEO do you most
01:19:52
admire and why them I would say that uh
01:19:55
I'm against uh uh glamorization and of
01:20:00
cosos and making them Heroes and I even
01:20:03
don't like glass door when glass door
01:20:06
put like a rating of C because uh I
01:20:09
believe that when compan is big is or
01:20:12
not even big it's much more teamwork and
01:20:16
so is just a role and the people are
01:20:19
just people I always I always recommend
01:20:22
not to like a book like how to be a
01:20:25
great s like you have in your like book
01:20:29
library but she read biographies about
01:20:32
cosos about business and you would see
01:20:34
that even Steve Jobs he made probably
01:20:37
90% of mistakes in all his decisions and
01:20:40
many many stupid mistakes and uh he was
01:20:43
not good Al to alt together it's a it's
01:20:48
just kind of maybe the single common
01:20:50
trade between successful and uh between
01:20:53
all successful I may found is
01:20:56
decisiveness you should make decisions
01:20:59
and because when you make decisions you
01:21:00
move forward even if decisions when
01:21:02
decisions are stupid you're moving
01:21:04
forward and you're getting new
01:21:06
information and the next decision will
01:21:08
be better the worst is just this
01:21:11
analysis par paralysis not making any
01:21:14
decisions one of my closest mentors said
01:21:17
to me the other day the heaviest things
01:21:18
in life are not iron or gold but unmade
01:21:22
decisions yeah yeah and sometimes people
01:21:24
kind of they're trying to find like a
01:21:27
perfect solution but the truth of life
01:21:30
that nobody knows future and nobody may
01:21:34
make like a perfect decisions just based
01:21:36
on information or analysis because if it
01:21:40
were the case then minin or Banks would
01:21:43
be perfect business creators but uh like
01:21:46
you can't see unicorns which were
01:21:47
created by minin or Banks why because of
01:21:50
unpredictability of the future and if
01:21:53
future is unpredictable
01:21:55
then what's the best just make any
01:21:58
decision and move forward just not stay
01:21:59
as the place decide something and move
01:22:02
forward what have you changed your mind
01:22:04
on over the last 12 months I was much
01:22:07
more optimistic about uh time which
01:22:11
would be necessary for generative AI to
01:22:14
make impact on businesses and uh because
01:22:17
maybe two maybe in two years like two or
01:22:20
three years after the beginning of this
01:22:24
hype I still don't see many examples of
01:22:29
real business success based on Genera Pi
01:22:32
it means that maybe something in
01:22:34
programming maybe something in support
01:22:36
but it's like rather tiny like we can't
01:22:39
say that there is like any big case any
01:22:42
big business which changed business
01:22:45
model or got profitability or growth
01:22:47
because of generative pi and I had the
01:22:50
hope that the change would happen much
01:22:53
faster who do not have on the board who
01:22:56
you would most like to have on your
01:22:57
board let's say Melinda Gates because
01:23:00
probably Melinda Gates is a person who
01:23:02
is doing nowadays the most for female
01:23:04
health does it hurt you but it it's okay
01:23:07
for me to ask does it hurt you when
01:23:10
people criticize a male CEO of flow I
01:23:14
understand uh uh like why is they
01:23:17
criticizing uh but uh also I feel that
01:23:21
uh our success was so beneficial for the
01:23:25
industry because you VC and you know
01:23:27
that VC are making decisions based on
01:23:29
benchmarks and now like all VC VC will
01:23:32
start believing that it's possible to
01:23:35
have a great success in this industry
01:23:37
and all founders will have much easier
01:23:40
Journey than I had I'm trying to do the
01:23:44
best like for this company and I think I
01:23:48
was rather good in that but also I would
01:23:51
want of course to see that more women
01:23:55
are becoming very successful in this
01:23:57
journey what skill would you most like
01:23:59
to improve of yours in leadership this
01:24:02
tricky
01:24:04
one why It's Tricky one because I as I
01:24:07
said I don't believe in perfect
01:24:09
seos uh uh I believe that you should
01:24:12
understand your strengths and weaknesses
01:24:15
and then argument Yourself by people
01:24:18
with different strengths and then you
01:24:21
would have like a pretty solid team
01:24:27
without def defects and uh uh I don't
01:24:30
think that uh even this mentality that
01:24:33
you should be perfect is uh is right I
01:24:36
think it's significant to understand
01:24:38
your weaknesses and your strengths but
01:24:41
uh like for example nowadays like I
01:24:43
recently hired communication coach
01:24:45
because I think I'm rather bad in
01:24:49
communication I mean that's funny I
01:24:52
think you are probably one of the best
01:24:55
interviews I've ever done so I would
01:24:57
disagree with you having done 10,000
01:25:00
hours of these but sure final one are
01:25:03
you saying that to all your everyone
01:25:06
everyone of them yeah yeah yeah everyone
01:25:08
of you is thinking wow Harry's such a
01:25:09
nice guy final one Dimitri what question
01:25:13
are you not often asked that you should
01:25:15
be asked more Dimitri would you want to
01:25:20
eat something tasty
01:25:24
you know what I'll roll with it Demetri
01:25:28
I was really looking forward to this one
01:25:29
CU i l the business I didn't know how
01:25:32
you were going to be respectfully you've
01:25:34
been fantastic like you are funny you
01:25:37
are direct thank you for being so
01:25:39
brilliant and I I really have loved this
01:25:42
thank you much

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