Dmitry Gurski: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health|E1205
Resumo
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.
ConclusΓ΅es
- π Dimitri attributes success to simplicity in product design.
- π± His lifestyle and work ethic root back to his humble beginnings in Belarus.
- π Flo's growth was largely organic, stemming from strong user retention.
- π€ Personal perseverance and nuanced strategies overrule general advice in business.
- π― Product quality is prioritized over extensive PR and branding efforts.
- πͺ Challenges like company relocation due to political reasons were overcome with trust.
- ποΈ Unique business success stories don't follow general templates.
- π Learning from competitors and own past mistakes drove Flo's evolution.
- π‘ Each decision and investment in product is crucial for long-term success.
- π A strong focus on creating social value is central to Dimitri's philosophy.
- π οΈ Continuous experimentation and optimization were key to successful monetization.
Linha do tempo
- 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.
Mapa mental
Perguntas frequentes
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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- 00:00:00like smart people they work in McKenzie
- 00:00:02and Founders they're crazy for consumers
- 00:00:06Simplicity is much more significant than
- 00:00:08number of features is much more
- 00:00:10significant than anything what many
- 00:00:11people don't understand that retention
- 00:00:13is not about product retention is about
- 00:00:15user case it means that you may create
- 00:00:17the perfect app for gym will have
- 00:00:19terrible retention why because gyms
- 00:00:22themselves have terrible retention never
- 00:00:24take general advice always if
- 00:00:27you look on history of any company or
- 00:00:30anyo you would see that everything is so
- 00:00:32nuanced everything is so unique
- 00:00:33thousands of ways to be successful and
- 00:00:36you just should choose your way ready to
- 00:00:39[Music]
- 00:00:49go Dimitri I am such a fan of The
- 00:00:53Incredible Journey with Flo so first off
- 00:00:55thank you so much for joining me today
- 00:00:57thank you for you for inviting not at
- 00:00:59all listen I've wanted to make this
- 00:01:00happen for a while I would love to start
- 00:01:03I I read actually an interview you done
- 00:01:05before and I heard that you had a single
- 00:01:07mother who worked as a librarian uh you
- 00:01:10got your first job at 16 take me to that
- 00:01:14how did those early years shape you as
- 00:01:16an
- 00:01:16entrepreneur as as I see you I'm not so
- 00:01:19young I'm 41 years old and uh my
- 00:01:23childhood was in '90s in belus difficult
- 00:01:26times like the world Soviet world was
- 00:01:29destroyed
- 00:01:30like everything ruined people didn't
- 00:01:33have ceries shelters were empty cery of
- 00:01:37my mother was maybe 30 bucks and nothing
- 00:01:39to buy because shelters in shops were
- 00:01:42empty and uh we were growing our own
- 00:01:45food we had potato field vegetables in
- 00:01:48this field we had Garden we were making
- 00:01:50like hundreds of jars of pickles and
- 00:01:55mostly we we're feeding ourselves by
- 00:01:58this production like I still don't like
- 00:02:01potato
- 00:02:02honestly I can't eat anymore uh but it
- 00:02:06was a good life lesson it was lesson of
- 00:02:10farming and the lesson of farming teach
- 00:02:14you just can't fake farming it means
- 00:02:18that you should uh take potato not eat
- 00:02:22it immediately even if you're hungry and
- 00:02:25you should put this potato to ground and
- 00:02:28uh then you must this potato next day
- 00:02:31and even one month after you should WR
- 00:02:34and then you should work hard and you
- 00:02:36should you can't fake this job and then
- 00:02:40it's like you never have 100% of chances
- 00:02:44that you would get your potato back
- 00:02:46because I don't know it may be hail it
- 00:02:48may be froze it may bux but then if you
- 00:02:52lucky and you work hard then you will
- 00:02:53get your Harvest but also it's a lesson
- 00:02:56of diversification because you should
- 00:02:58have not just potato you also should
- 00:03:00have vegetables and garden because like
- 00:03:02if it's like bad Harvest of uh potatoes
- 00:03:06and vegetables or apples or something
- 00:03:09and like something you will have to eat
- 00:03:12but you can't fake that tetri what was
- 00:03:14your first business you said that you
- 00:03:16know your first job was at s what was
- 00:03:18your first business my first job for
- 00:03:20money was uh Gathering of
- 00:03:24mushrooms and uh we had uh two types of
- 00:03:28kids in our Village uh gatherers of
- 00:03:32berries and gatherers of mushrooms and
- 00:03:35it was two different types of businesses
- 00:03:38because in case of berries you're like
- 00:03:40just sit on the same place in the wood
- 00:03:42and approximately you may gather the
- 00:03:45same volume of berries per day and
- 00:03:47stable income in case of mushrooms you
- 00:03:50should walk around the wood and if you
- 00:03:52like you may get much mushrooms and even
- 00:03:55a lot of money but another day you would
- 00:03:58get nothing and and psychologically all
- 00:04:01kids were divided on two categories who
- 00:04:04prefer fixed income or who preferred
- 00:04:07like a mushroom Gathering and I and my
- 00:04:10brother we always were mushrooms
- 00:04:12gatherers we've always preferred like to
- 00:04:16take a chance for bigger gains and to
- 00:04:19have this journey around the wood rather
- 00:04:21than to sit on the place for fixed
- 00:04:23income demet you how does this work how
- 00:04:26do you go from mushroom Gathering and
- 00:04:29farming potato potatoes and that very
- 00:04:32wholesome upbringing in that respect to
- 00:04:34founding one of the largest female how
- 00:04:37do you get into technology first between
- 00:04:40mushroom Gathering and founding of FL
- 00:04:44was 20 years it means that it was a long
- 00:04:47professional Journey before we founded
- 00:04:50Flo uh and I spent half of my
- 00:04:54professional life in book publishing and
- 00:04:57uh I wrote B books by myself computer
- 00:05:00books and uh then we worked with my
- 00:05:04brother in for publishing house and then
- 00:05:06we started our own publishing house and
- 00:05:09I spent approximately 10 years in this
- 00:05:12world world of books and I was
- 00:05:14responsible for approximately 2,000
- 00:05:17titles of educational books and H I had
- 00:05:20a big pleasure from this work because it
- 00:05:22was so material like you you're working
- 00:05:25with something and you're getting
- 00:05:27material result it's almost like you're
- 00:05:29getting your baby and you may touch it
- 00:05:30you like it was very physical pleasure
- 00:05:33with this books and then uh very big
- 00:05:37change happened when up store was opened
- 00:05:40in 2008 and n and that moment we decided
- 00:05:44to work with mobile apps and idea was
- 00:05:47very simple to start from uh content
- 00:05:51apps based on books and then gradually
- 00:05:54gradually it's a longer story but we got
- 00:05:57to flow well I mean Flo was the third
- 00:05:59app that you did you did two before flow
- 00:06:02what did you learn from the two before
- 00:06:04flow not working that you took with you
- 00:06:07to fly really we had much more than two
- 00:06:10we had two attempts to create successful
- 00:06:15Peri tracker but uh before floor we had
- 00:06:18uh me and my brother and partners we
- 00:06:23started two dozen of different apps some
- 00:06:26of them successfully some of them less
- 00:06:28successfully over all my brother and me
- 00:06:32like we participate I participated in
- 00:06:35different projects for different extent
- 00:06:38uh um we had success uh with this apps
- 00:06:43we had six exits up to this moment we
- 00:06:46had exit to Google exit to Facebook uh
- 00:06:48we started several companies uh um which
- 00:06:53have has Revenue in 100 million 50
- 00:06:57million it means that uh first like a
- 00:06:59journey before Flor it was 5 six years
- 00:07:02of work before FLW it was not so simple
- 00:07:06than we just like decided we would
- 00:07:08create successful Peri tracker and we
- 00:07:10just started and it was immediate
- 00:07:13success but even with our
- 00:07:15experience like we got success with the
- 00:07:19flaw from the thir attempt like the
- 00:07:22first uh period tracker failed the
- 00:07:26second period tracker failed and just
- 00:07:29why did they fa
- 00:07:30this apps what he complicated and what
- 00:07:34we definitely learn from experience with
- 00:07:37consumer facing product that for
- 00:07:39consumers Simplicity is the most
- 00:07:42significant it's much more significant
- 00:07:43than number of features is much more
- 00:07:45significant than anything Simplicity is
- 00:07:47the key of success in consumer facing
- 00:07:52products and uh probably we created uh
- 00:07:55this uh first apps uh being
- 00:08:00beautiful sophisticated but too
- 00:08:02complicated for people it's my theory
- 00:08:04but
- 00:08:05honestly nobody knows it's always very
- 00:08:08irrational at the beginning when we look
- 00:08:10at flow you break many rules with
- 00:08:13respect we're often told when it comes
- 00:08:16to an idea choose a problem that you've
- 00:08:19personally felt and can really empathize
- 00:08:23with with respect dimetri you're
- 00:08:26wonderful but you know you you don't
- 00:08:28empathize with period tracking um is
- 00:08:31that bad advice to choose a problem that
- 00:08:34you know I would say that any general
- 00:08:38advice is bad any general advice is
- 00:08:40every time when you say some
- 00:08:43like any sentence with every each like
- 00:08:46like any general advice is bad any and
- 00:08:51uh this advice is bad as well because
- 00:08:54this advice is just like it assumes that
- 00:09:00each situation is the same but no no no
- 00:09:03like life is very nuanced and each
- 00:09:06situation is very different and usually
- 00:09:09when people ask this uh question they
- 00:09:14assumed to different question one
- 00:09:16question is if it's not about your own
- 00:09:19pain how did you find
- 00:09:22motivation and if it's not your pain how
- 00:09:26did you find
- 00:09:27knowledge and motivation and I always
- 00:09:30wanted to do something meaningful it was
- 00:09:35about books it was about our other heal
- 00:09:37apps I have never had any motivation for
- 00:09:39example to work in gambling if you
- 00:09:42propose me one billion I would not take
- 00:09:45your position in gambling company it's
- 00:09:47just like I just don't want it's it's
- 00:09:49against my values and I don't have any
- 00:09:51interest to that and uh we understood
- 00:09:54very well the size of problem because we
- 00:09:56had the experience with health and
- 00:09:58fitness apps
- 00:10:00before uh but uh question about
- 00:10:04knowledge we didn't have knowledge but
- 00:10:07also we had humility to understand that
- 00:10:10we didn't have knowledge and because of
- 00:10:11that we started to analyze and we
- 00:10:14started to listen users and doctors and
- 00:10:17I remember that before starting FLW our
- 00:10:19document about this market and potential
- 00:10:22product had seven 100 Pages we making
- 00:10:25still all decisions based on data and
- 00:10:28based on user research I checked this
- 00:10:30number up to this moment we have done in
- 00:10:33flow more than 1,000 of user researchers
- 00:10:35we have user research here in each
- 00:10:38product team and we are talking with
- 00:10:40users all the time then we combine that
- 00:10:42with data from the app and we making
- 00:10:45decisions subjectively and it was our
- 00:10:48way to make a good product for users
- 00:10:51without any all knowledge about this
- 00:10:54field to listen users and doctors very
- 00:10:57very careful and be very humble about
- 00:11:00all knowledge how do you think about the
- 00:11:02Henry Ford quote which is if if I listen
- 00:11:05to my customers I'd be build a faster H
- 00:11:08it may be right about uh absolutely new
- 00:11:12category of something but uh when we
- 00:11:15started our product our Market was
- 00:11:18enough uh big and uh already formed we
- 00:11:22had hundreds of competitors and some of
- 00:11:24them big and some of them raised
- 00:11:28significant capital and for example
- 00:11:30let's imagine one of our competitors
- 00:11:32glow it was started by Marx lein like a
- 00:11:35key member
- 00:11:36of ppal mafia they raised from Anderson
- 00:11:39horovitz and Founders found 30 million
- 00:11:42almost immediately they started 3 years
- 00:11:44before floor and we had such competitors
- 00:11:47and it was rather formed Market it was
- 00:11:51not empty Market but it was also the
- 00:11:53opportunity to learn from them it was
- 00:11:55good opportunity to not to be a newcomer
- 00:11:58but have advantage to learn from other
- 00:12:01products what did you learn from them
- 00:12:04and why did you beat them it's very
- 00:12:06similar at the beginning with like race
- 00:12:12like all cars starts
- 00:12:15approximately at the same point or at
- 00:12:17the same point and all cars are the same
- 00:12:20and then you need like a little
- 00:12:21Advantage but then when you making many
- 00:12:24many many rounds like you're getting
- 00:12:26more and more and more distance it means
- 00:12:27that it's almost kind of before point
- 00:12:29you getting a little Advantage at
- 00:12:31beginning and then in years your
- 00:12:33advantage is becoming huge and ultimate
- 00:12:37reason behind that that uh it's a
- 00:12:40flywheel like it's like just a
- 00:12:42cumulative effect of many things and uh
- 00:12:45at the beginning like U our apps were
- 00:12:48honestly pretty much similar but then
- 00:12:51probably we did some good product
- 00:12:54decisions we got additional resources
- 00:12:57and we started to invest to our prod
- 00:12:59much more than our competitors we
- 00:13:01invested to product just to product up
- 00:13:04to this moment 150 million and uh we
- 00:13:07mostly had engineers in Eastern Europe
- 00:13:09like to understand that in standards of
- 00:13:11UK or United States you should multiply
- 00:13:13that on two and then we created this big
- 00:13:16floor this super app because of this
- 00:13:19investment and this product became so
- 00:13:22good so much better than competitors and
- 00:13:25it won naturally but at the beginning
- 00:13:27all our products were was the same and
- 00:13:30difference was very tiny so I'm an
- 00:13:32investor and we chatted before about
- 00:13:33some of your views on BS which was
- 00:13:35entertaining um I don't like competitive
- 00:13:38markets Demetri because I think it's
- 00:13:41very hard to stand out I think your
- 00:13:42customer acquisition costs are high your
- 00:13:44churn is high product marketing is
- 00:13:46difficult and I find them challenging to
- 00:13:49invest in what would you say to me with
- 00:13:52that mindset it's good to have good
- 00:13:54competitors because uh uh you have much
- 00:13:57opportunity to learn from them and good
- 00:14:01competition speed up your own company
- 00:14:03because you just feel this competition
- 00:14:06your team feel this competition team is
- 00:14:08not getting uh complacent but also it's
- 00:14:12like pretty much like a fixed P
- 00:14:14mentality that I like I should have a
- 00:14:17monopoly to take this Pi no when you
- 00:14:19have good competition Pi is getting
- 00:14:21bigger because products are better like
- 00:14:24customers are more educated and the
- 00:14:25total Market is getting bigger of course
- 00:14:29nobody wants to be in this like kind of
- 00:14:31red blood like red blood Ocean Market
- 00:14:35when you have tiny margin and a ton of
- 00:14:37competition but uh in case if it's
- 00:14:41normal competition it's it's good when
- 00:14:43you first launched this V3 of flow
- 00:14:46having had the two which didn't work so
- 00:14:48well and the simplified flow did you
- 00:14:51have immediate product Market fit take
- 00:14:53me to that that moment when we launched
- 00:14:57floor maybe one month ago go I
- 00:14:59immediately understood that itth had
- 00:15:02chance to become really big because of
- 00:15:05retention I saw like a retention I had
- 00:15:10never seen before and we had many apps
- 00:15:13and uh I just combined two numbers like
- 00:15:17total rest bar Market women and
- 00:15:21retention and I understood that
- 00:15:24potential is tremendous by combination
- 00:15:26of this two metrics and retention is
- 00:15:30really rare in health and fitness pretty
- 00:15:32naturally because retention is not about
- 00:15:34product retention is about user case
- 00:15:36it's what many people don't understand
- 00:15:38that retention is not about product
- 00:15:40retention is about user case it means
- 00:15:42that you may create the perfect app for
- 00:15:44gym fitness app and perfect app for gym
- 00:15:47will have terrible retention why because
- 00:15:50gymss themselves have terrible retention
- 00:15:53you know this like a gym business model
- 00:15:56like to sell 1,000 membership for gym
- 00:15:59with capacity in 100 people because gy
- 00:16:01know that like 900 people would never
- 00:16:04visit and and why apps would work better
- 00:16:07than gyms of course they it's about n of
- 00:16:10people they wouldn't and uh it's so rare
- 00:16:13to see good retention and health and
- 00:16:15fitness and when I saw that I understood
- 00:16:18that it will be very huge what was it
- 00:16:20about the retention numbers that you can
- 00:16:22share that gave you such confidence was
- 00:16:25it the D7 which is the day7 the D14 the
- 00:16:28D28 was it the daily usage what was it
- 00:16:31which made you go wow we have something
- 00:16:34that's about longterm retention long
- 00:16:37time retention it means that uh how many
- 00:16:40users stays for six months and more so
- 00:16:44okay so d180 which is 6 months what was
- 00:16:47it it's again retention is user case
- 00:16:50like you may improve retention by good
- 00:16:53product or you may destroy retention by
- 00:16:56bad product but the essence of attention
- 00:16:59is the natural user case and natural
- 00:17:02user case based
- 00:17:04on natural nesty for women to organize
- 00:17:09life around cycle what's you can't skip
- 00:17:12that you may skip gym but you can't skip
- 00:17:14period and because of that retention is
- 00:17:17uh very good but then our big idea was
- 00:17:21okay if it's so unique and retention is
- 00:17:23so high could we build something more
- 00:17:26available than period tracker based on
- 00:17:28that and the ultimate reason why Flo
- 00:17:30became so successful was this idea of
- 00:17:32like kind of super app let's take period
- 00:17:35tracker as a core product and let's
- 00:17:38surround this Spirit trer by deeper
- 00:17:41available Health features and content
- 00:17:44and the Peri tracker would become driver
- 00:17:47of requisition and more significant
- 00:17:49retention but all the features around
- 00:17:51would create value it's something
- 00:17:53similar on Gmail ecosystem like G mail
- 00:17:57itself drives acquisition retention but
- 00:18:00this apps for documents editing for
- 00:18:03calls Etc drives value but if you take
- 00:18:05out email it would not work and the same
- 00:18:08with Spirit tracker but if you don't
- 00:18:09have this ecosystem is not monetizable
- 00:18:12because the value is just too tiny did
- 00:18:14you know that from day one I think uh we
- 00:18:19concluded that uh very very early and uh
- 00:18:24significantly because of our deep
- 00:18:25analysis of the market I remember that
- 00:18:28uh I recently reviewed my first deck for
- 00:18:32our SE round in in 2016 and this idea of
- 00:18:35bigle super app based on P trer was
- 00:18:38already in this document it means that
- 00:18:40it was very e
- 00:18:42idea it just took like a n9ine years and
- 00:18:45150 million of just product investment
- 00:18:47he created and probably that moment we
- 00:18:50didn't anticipate that it would take so
- 00:18:52long and so much money so then you have
- 00:18:55this moment of wow we actually have
- 00:18:57something six month retention is
- 00:19:00incredible how are you acquiring
- 00:19:02customers at that point customer
- 00:19:04acquisition from Z to a million is very
- 00:19:06hard you have little brand you have
- 00:19:08little word of mouth how were you
- 00:19:10acquiring customers and what did that
- 00:19:11look like the most significant uh was to
- 00:19:14create the best product and the best
- 00:19:16product means that uh users uh were
- 00:19:20happy and they were providing good uh
- 00:19:24ratings and then uh like system of uh
- 00:19:28promo otion of App Store and Google Play
- 00:19:30started to work because they have
- 00:19:32algorithms which promotes good apps and
- 00:19:34they usually look on retention average
- 00:19:37rting other parameters and if your app
- 00:19:39is really good it's like your like
- 00:19:41algorithm promoting your app at the top
- 00:19:44the same as this website and because the
- 00:19:46product was good we got our first
- 00:19:49traffic uh just organically but it was
- 00:19:52General traffic based on uh like kind of
- 00:19:55searches like period tracker but then
- 00:19:58when because of retention we started to
- 00:20:00get bigger and bigger and bigger
- 00:20:02audience then Vol of mouse started to
- 00:20:06work and Vol of mouse is probably the
- 00:20:10single predictable way how to get
- 00:20:11organic traffic because if you have a
- 00:20:13big M then people would advise your
- 00:20:16product and then you would start to get
- 00:20:19organic traffic and now we have mostly
- 00:20:22organic traffic because of va of mouse
- 00:20:24rather than because of such General
- 00:20:27generalistic search like uh Peri tracker
- 00:20:30but again if you ask me what's
- 00:20:33prerequisite of organic traffic I would
- 00:20:35say retention is prerequisite of organic
- 00:20:37traffic because first you need to get
- 00:20:40active audience users should get happy
- 00:20:43they will start to advise your product
- 00:20:45and then you will get organic traffic
- 00:20:47and and probably the biggest question is
- 00:20:49how to get like initial audience in our
- 00:20:51case we got them organically but in your
- 00:20:55reality probably you must buy them it's
- 00:20:58less realistic nowadays to get initial
- 00:21:00audience organically so that was going
- 00:21:02to be my question which is like do you
- 00:21:04believe then if you build it they will
- 00:21:06come or is that not the case and you
- 00:21:09actually have to have a completely paid
- 00:21:10strategy today it's much more difficult
- 00:21:12nowadays and it used to be 10 years ago
- 00:21:15much more difficult sometimes it happens
- 00:21:18and very often because of
- 00:21:21reality uh but in most of cases you need
- 00:21:24to start this process by paid user
- 00:21:28quisition but if your product is shitty
- 00:21:31it will not be helpful how long did it
- 00:21:33take you to get to a million users one
- 00:21:35year one year was that much quicker than
- 00:21:38you anticipated probably uh but also the
- 00:21:42I remember again from this uh first deck
- 00:21:47for uh Sid and as I understood you met
- 00:21:50with our first investor FL Capital
- 00:21:52Andrew yeah Andrew from Flint capital in
- 00:21:55this deck you know like you're always
- 00:21:57exaggerating your future in Dex from for
- 00:22:00Venture capitals and of course uh like
- 00:22:03we put like arrogant arogant lies to
- 00:22:07this uh uh document we didn't believe in
- 00:22:10this numbers um and you probably
- 00:22:13shouldn't uh when you're like presenting
- 00:22:15that investors and we say that ah like
- 00:22:18in 2020 or 2022 we will have three or 4
- 00:22:23million mon users and 3 million in
- 00:22:26revenue and Company will cost uh 20
- 00:22:28million probably real numbers like 10
- 00:22:33times bigger at
- 00:22:35least why did you get it so wrong what
- 00:22:38did you not see I didn't think that uh
- 00:22:43uh we would get big share of the market
- 00:22:46so fast because Market was uh formed and
- 00:22:50competitive and I didn't have hope to
- 00:22:54get big share of this Market with
- 00:22:56hundreds of competitors uh easily and uh
- 00:23:00but it happened do you really think that
- 00:23:02is just because you had a better product
- 00:23:04ultimately yes ultimately yes because uh
- 00:23:07up to the very recent times we we didn't
- 00:23:11spend money for pay to requisition it
- 00:23:13was organic growth and it was organic
- 00:23:15growth because uh users liked our
- 00:23:18products and the metrics of our product
- 00:23:21were so good that App Store and Google
- 00:23:23Play were promoting it but we we started
- 00:23:26to spend like more or less significant
- 00:23:28money for PID us acquisition maybe 2020
- 00:23:322021 before that it was like rather
- 00:23:34minuscule volume why did you decide to
- 00:23:37spend on paid then uh because we started
- 00:23:39monetization and uh when we got
- 00:23:42monetization it was just like kind of
- 00:23:45you put money and you get money back you
- 00:23:47put money you get money
- 00:23:49back absolutely this is the case while
- 00:23:52we're on that I spoke to some of your
- 00:23:54team and they said well not a weakness
- 00:23:57but you know something interesting about
- 00:23:59Demetri is he doesn't love brand or PR
- 00:24:02um and it's an interesting point because
- 00:24:05most do actually why don't you like
- 00:24:08brand or PR I don't understand what is
- 00:24:12brand and once I try to understand uh
- 00:24:15maybe two years ago I was in process of
- 00:24:17hiring of Chief marketing officer and I
- 00:24:20had uh maybe 30 different candidates to
- 00:24:22meet and uh I was asking the same
- 00:24:25question what's the brand by your
- 00:24:27opinion to 30
- 00:24:29and I got 30 different answers can I can
- 00:24:32I give you mine yeah I think it's like
- 00:24:34the way that it makes the customer feel
- 00:24:36how they feel when they see your logo
- 00:24:39when they touch your product that is
- 00:24:41your brand what they what they say when
- 00:24:42you're out of the room yeah but uh I
- 00:24:45just uh don't feel that I understand
- 00:24:49well this uh topic and very often people
- 00:24:54they there are two words people used for
- 00:24:59everything and for any situation and we
- 00:25:01often without any meaning two
- 00:25:03placeholders is brand and culture you
- 00:25:06may describe everything by brand and you
- 00:25:08may describe everything by culture but
- 00:25:09usually it doesn't have any sense and
- 00:25:11you need to ask clarifying questions
- 00:25:14because you always may say our situation
- 00:25:16is bad because we have bad brand or our
- 00:25:18situation is bad because we have bad
- 00:25:20culture yeah it describes everything and
- 00:25:22nothing is the brand that you have with
- 00:25:25flow and they talking about P I think I
- 00:25:28think it's slightly different it's uh
- 00:25:31it's mostly about my internal belief
- 00:25:36that uh product defines everything and
- 00:25:41uh I always very frugal in spending
- 00:25:46money out of product it means I'm very
- 00:25:48generous in spending money for product
- 00:25:50and I'm very frugal very greedy to spend
- 00:25:53money not for product and when I see
- 00:25:55kind of budget for something like
- 00:25:57several ,000 and I don't understand the
- 00:26:00impact I bet I would spend this money
- 00:26:02for product and I take this money and
- 00:26:05move this money to product sometimes
- 00:26:07even up to the up to extremes for
- 00:26:09example I never use business class
- 00:26:12because all the time and I I'm Running
- 00:26:14Company with 200 million in Revenue
- 00:26:16probably like it's the time to start
- 00:26:18using business class for the COO but I
- 00:26:21never use uh business class even in my
- 00:26:24trips to United States even to Seattle
- 00:26:26or San Francisco because all the time
- 00:26:28I'm thinking okay 5 10,000 I would
- 00:26:31better to pay one month of salary to
- 00:26:34developer in lania then to waste this
- 00:26:37money for my comfort and I was like take
- 00:26:39this money and put this money Che
- 00:26:41product It's My Philosophy that uh
- 00:26:44product defines everything I don't think
- 00:26:46I've ever had a CEO Like You on the
- 00:26:49show honestly you are one of the most
- 00:26:51humble people I've ever had on their
- 00:26:53show and I've done 10 years of this show
- 00:26:56like this is fascinating
- 00:26:58do you think there's ever a point where
- 00:27:01that holds you back you know flow is a
- 00:27:03massive brand now people care about the
- 00:27:06flow brand do you think that the uh
- 00:27:09hesitation to spend money on billboards
- 00:27:11brand marketing is going to hold you
- 00:27:13back maybe but you know there are many
- 00:27:17ways to be successful it's a very
- 00:27:20simplistic way of thinking that uh there
- 00:27:22is manual how to run a company like and
- 00:27:25Page 100 do that
- 00:27:28page 110 do that if you look on history
- 00:27:32of any company or any Co you would see
- 00:27:35that everything is so nuanced everything
- 00:27:37is so unique every journey is so unique
- 00:27:40and uh there are just nothing you may
- 00:27:44say like kind of you should do that and
- 00:27:46you shouldn't do that like you just
- 00:27:48should understand your strength you
- 00:27:49should understand your way you should
- 00:27:51not do something what's natural not
- 00:27:53natural for you and but then like there
- 00:27:55are thousands of ways to be SU
- 00:27:58successful and you just should choose
- 00:27:59your weight to be successful and uh make
- 00:28:03your company successful one big piece of
- 00:28:05advice that's often given in startups
- 00:28:07Demetri is speed is everything and
- 00:28:10you've got to move really fast and
- 00:28:13that's the secret to success in the
- 00:28:14early days do you agree with that the
- 00:28:17most significant early days is uh not to
- 00:28:21die to early because usually you need to
- 00:28:24iterate uh several times to find
- 00:28:27something what works and uh you increase
- 00:28:30speed but you waste your resources on
- 00:28:32the way probably it's a b advice if you
- 00:28:35combine your speed is the right spending
- 00:28:38of resources and you just uh you have
- 00:28:40your 1 million and it's enough to make
- 00:28:43three four five iterations rather than
- 00:28:44one then speed is the right word but I
- 00:28:47would not say that it's about speed it's
- 00:28:49about uh right distribution of resources
- 00:28:52to have several chances for Success that
- 00:28:55means that you need to raise in often
- 00:28:57cases with consumer
- 00:28:58a quite a large seed round how big was
- 00:29:01your seed round it was 300,000 valuation
- 00:29:05was 3 million but remember company was
- 00:29:07in belus and it was 10 years ago like
- 00:29:10it's everything was much cheaper but you
- 00:29:12may believe that it's extremely good uh
- 00:29:16300,000 at 3 million yeah yeah and
- 00:29:18Company now costs like more than 1
- 00:29:20billion it means that it's 300 X or yeah
- 00:29:24300 x to this investment if I'm
- 00:29:26calculating well
- 00:29:29oh my
- 00:29:30god wow okay um take me to that how was
- 00:29:35the seed round they just uh decided to
- 00:29:39invest to us because we had
- 00:29:43successful success before with apps and
- 00:29:46it was not like a so big belief in our
- 00:29:48idea but more belief that ah these guys
- 00:29:50will figure out something because they
- 00:29:52had success before but uh and I think
- 00:29:56they had arguments uh because it was so
- 00:29:59contrarian idea but probably it was the
- 00:30:03best or one of the best investment for
- 00:30:06the fund in history of this fund like
- 00:30:08you're like a a SE round investor or
- 00:30:11Real Estate Investors you just need one
- 00:30:13investment like that in your life and
- 00:30:15you're done mean like you will be rich
- 00:30:19yeah that that's the business model of
- 00:30:20venture capital toet you that's why it's
- 00:30:23a very good business it's one of the
- 00:30:24only businesses in the world where you
- 00:30:26can do a hundred things and mess up 99
- 00:30:29of them can you imagine if I told you
- 00:30:31you can do 99 versions of flow and 99
- 00:30:34can be 98 can be
- 00:30:35one's good but uh it's a to the
- 00:30:39question what is the most required trait
- 00:30:43of the founder and my personal opinion
- 00:30:46that founder must be crazy because uh if
- 00:30:50you are smart and you may understand
- 00:30:52your odds like how would you do that why
- 00:30:56would you decide to start something with
- 00:30:58chances of success like 1 2 3 4 5% like
- 00:31:02it's uh it's better to play Lottery like
- 00:31:04smart people they work in McKinzie and
- 00:31:08Founders they're
- 00:31:10crazy because it's not rational it's
- 00:31:12you're just crazy like you can't justify
- 00:31:14that by any rational thinking why would
- 00:31:17you do something with odds of success in
- 00:31:19one person I worry that that is no
- 00:31:22longer the case I agree with you crazy
- 00:31:24and obsessed yeah I'm I'm I'm not too
- 00:31:28dissimilar to you in these ways I'm
- 00:31:29crazy and obsessed you know uh I could
- 00:31:32have been a lawyer and paid very happily
- 00:31:35and instead I decided to a
- 00:31:36podcast which made no money but I love
- 00:31:39what we do My worry is there's so much
- 00:31:42money in Venture Capital that if you're
- 00:31:45smart enough you can be a Founder play
- 00:31:48the founder game play startups get paid
- 00:31:53quite well and try it it's a free option
- 00:31:57all we didn't have such luxury in our
- 00:32:00days because uh but do you do you see
- 00:32:03what I mean do you worry that it's the
- 00:32:04same now where we don't have crazy
- 00:32:06Founders like you I think uh times have
- 00:32:11come back it means there was a period of
- 00:32:14time between
- 00:32:15approximately 2019 to 2022 when it was
- 00:32:20true but nowadays it's quite difficult
- 00:32:23Tois Capital it's quite difficult and I
- 00:32:26think it's a it's again the same was
- 00:32:30there ever an easy round to raise no
- 00:32:33it's never easy but your numbers were so
- 00:32:36good I saw your numbers in sensor Tower
- 00:32:39I tweeted about our show and like I got
- 00:32:42all of these data providers send me your
- 00:32:43numbers and they are consistently great
- 00:32:47because uh venture capital investment is
- 00:32:51uh default no game and you may be very
- 00:32:55good but in any case you will get 100
- 00:32:59NOS to get one yes and what's the most
- 00:33:03difficult for Founders is that she be in
- 00:33:06this mindset when you every day you're
- 00:33:09getting no no no no no and it's Soul
- 00:33:12breaking it's really difficult even
- 00:33:15layoffs are simpler because layoffs is
- 00:33:17like computation cut and you just in two
- 00:33:20or three weeks and you continue your
- 00:33:22work but fundraising it's like just like
- 00:33:25it's each day you're getting no no no no
- 00:33:29no no no and you're stting to lose a
- 00:33:34belief in yourself and you starting to
- 00:33:36feel that maybe
- 00:33:39I'm I had moments when I doubted that
- 00:33:45maybe we are doing something wrong and
- 00:33:47maybe I'm not a right person and for me
- 00:33:51fundraising was also much more difficult
- 00:33:53because of my Origins my accent and
- 00:33:56because I'm kind of not kind of right
- 00:33:59profile and I was pretty weird type for
- 00:34:02investors it made my job of fundraising
- 00:34:05much more difficult do you think that
- 00:34:06made your job much more difficult do you
- 00:34:08think respectfully if you sounded like
- 00:34:10me as we said L not toilet uh do you
- 00:34:14think that would have been easier much
- 00:34:15easier much easier because uh investors
- 00:34:20they especially in big fans uh uh you
- 00:34:24usually start your conversation not with
- 00:34:28like Partners or management Partners but
- 00:34:30with analysts or with principles and uh
- 00:34:34this uh people usually have profile kind
- 00:34:37of graduated in Harvard and be in stford
- 00:34:40or gradated in Stanford and be in
- 00:34:42Harvard and they believe in people like
- 00:34:46them and they don't believe in people
- 00:34:49like me and it's really difficult to
- 00:34:53bridge this barrier of uh this Elite
- 00:34:58because they really kind of sort you out
- 00:35:01and uh and uh I understand like there's
- 00:35:04like many tokens about this problem that
- 00:35:07mean it's so difficult to minorities of
- 00:35:10any kind to race and I may say that it's
- 00:35:13it's a true it's uh true because you
- 00:35:16just uh sort it out at this uh level of
- 00:35:21right people so I'm going to get in
- 00:35:23trouble for this I think you are much
- 00:35:25less fundable than
- 00:35:28um a minority woman from
- 00:35:31Stanford oh yeah yeah of course of
- 00:35:33course of course and uh it's
- 00:35:37easier nowadays when we have proven that
- 00:35:42uh our product is monetizable and we may
- 00:35:45achieve success but it was really
- 00:35:48difficult at the beginning when I had
- 00:35:51combination of my kind of weird
- 00:35:54personality and all the combination of
- 00:35:58disbelief in our model in our product
- 00:36:01because we didn't have benchmarks to
- 00:36:02show that I look like this like success
- 00:36:05and we will make the same success
- 00:36:07because uh it was first product of such
- 00:36:10kind and nobody believed that it's
- 00:36:12possible to build something monetizable
- 00:36:14or successful my question to you is okay
- 00:36:16so then we start monetization that's a
- 00:36:18new game we got to prove that we can
- 00:36:20make money now we proved that we've got
- 00:36:22users who love it how did monetization
- 00:36:25go like we turn it on how how did it go
- 00:36:28monetization is uh interesting because
- 00:36:31uh and I'm coming back
- 00:36:34to uh our discussion about brand and PR
- 00:36:37like our big mistake at the very
- 00:36:40beginning was belief that uh it's enough
- 00:36:43to create value and people would buy but
- 00:36:46then we started to understand that also
- 00:36:48we need to sell we need to explain
- 00:36:50product we need to
- 00:36:52experiment and uh we started to do that
- 00:36:55and just one number conversion premium
- 00:36:58on on boarding increased in several
- 00:37:01years eight times 800% because of
- 00:37:05optimization because of hundreds of ab
- 00:37:07tests and because of this approach that
- 00:37:09we should not just create value we need
- 00:37:11to explain value we need to sell and it
- 00:37:14was huge mind huge shift in mindset in
- 00:37:17the company because before that you kind
- 00:37:19of ah it's significant is just to create
- 00:37:22the best product and people will see and
- 00:37:24buy no no you also should explain why
- 00:37:27they should buy even Apple spend the
- 00:37:30much resources to explain that uh you're
- 00:37:32not like arriving to shop and you're
- 00:37:35getting your iPhone in gray box it
- 00:37:37should be beautiful it should be very
- 00:37:40attractive and the same with
- 00:37:41monetization it's a balance between
- 00:37:43value and how you sell this value and uh
- 00:37:47uh you should find proper balance
- 00:37:49between that you may be too focused on
- 00:37:52uh selling and uh like over promise or
- 00:37:57you may may be like as we did at the
- 00:37:59beginning you may create value but you
- 00:38:02may unell and everything should be right
- 00:38:04it should be right BS I think you
- 00:38:06consistently undersell I spoke to many
- 00:38:09of your investors and they said that
- 00:38:10you're their best founder but you
- 00:38:12undersell yourself consistently when you
- 00:38:15think about how to sell value and you
- 00:38:18produce value and then there's how to
- 00:38:20sell it what did you learn about how to
- 00:38:22sell value through the monetization
- 00:38:24process what I am some like maybe I
- 00:38:28first question about this comment that
- 00:38:31uh I can't sell myself no can't you
- 00:38:34unell that's uh you're too humble it's
- 00:38:37pretty natural because of uh my imposter
- 00:38:40syndrome and inferiority complex and I'm
- 00:38:43not even playing it's my PR Natural
- 00:38:45State but also I think it's my
- 00:38:47superpower because I'm always so I can
- 00:38:51insecure about uh my position position
- 00:38:55of the company that I'm always trying to
- 00:38:57to do my job the best because I never
- 00:39:00feel comfortable and uh it's a my pral
- 00:39:04state and I believe that big part of my
- 00:39:06success is just because of my imposter
- 00:39:08syndrome and it's a like strange way you
- 00:39:12get your superpower but what is uh true
- 00:39:16has that got better with time Flo now
- 00:39:19does 200 million in Revenue it is is
- 00:39:22worth over a billion dollars do you have
- 00:39:25less impostor inm no
- 00:39:28no I would even say that I'm getting
- 00:39:31more anxiety because now my
- 00:39:33responsibilities are even bigger I
- 00:39:35always like for me this round was kind
- 00:39:37of you may imagine that this like a
- 00:39:39sport when you're jumping like through
- 00:39:41the bar and and when when you're
- 00:39:44progressing you put your bar high and
- 00:39:45high and one moment like my bar became 1
- 00:39:50M high and I look on this bar and this
- 00:39:54and Waring like could I jump so high
- 00:39:57could don't I at least I will make the
- 00:39:59best
- 00:40:01attempt I I love it it's just so rare
- 00:40:03you know we interview a lot of American
- 00:40:05Founders Demetri and the humility that
- 00:40:07you have is is not shared by a lot of
- 00:40:09them what were the biggest challenges
- 00:40:12then as you started to scale
- 00:40:13monetization what really became tough
- 00:40:16what really changed what we didn't
- 00:40:19understand uh when we started
- 00:40:20monetization 7 years ago that habit to
- 00:40:23pay of people for subscription is
- 00:40:26changing because when we we started
- 00:40:28monetization our dream was maybe we
- 00:40:31would monetize 5% of American audience
- 00:40:34because that time it was quite a bar now
- 00:40:37we monetized maybe if you exclude
- 00:40:39teenagers 25 30% of our American
- 00:40:42audience and we don't see that uh our
- 00:40:46monetization is slowing down but it's
- 00:40:48not just because the product is becoming
- 00:40:50better what's true it's not just because
- 00:40:52of our experimentation what's true it's
- 00:40:54also because people accepted idea to pay
- 00:40:57for subscriptions and it was huge
- 00:40:59cultural change it uh uh and without
- 00:41:02that uh it would be impossible cultural
- 00:41:05shift did you test pricing a lot I know
- 00:41:08what a data driven culture you have when
- 00:41:10you look at the pricing that you have
- 00:41:12what are your biggest lessons that you
- 00:41:14have from pricing the biggest lesson
- 00:41:16from pricing that uh you should not make
- 00:41:19your decision just based on price you
- 00:41:21should understand uh the full funnel
- 00:41:25because uh uh you may increase your
- 00:41:27price but you would decrease retention
- 00:41:29or activation or you would destroy your
- 00:41:31user acquisition and then your ultimate
- 00:41:34Revenue would be small it means that
- 00:41:36ultimately you should decide based on
- 00:41:38Top Line and bottom line in your pel and
- 00:41:41optimized for that and then all this
- 00:41:44internal parameters you should look on
- 00:41:47them together because you should
- 00:41:49optimize the function of many variables
- 00:41:52if you talk about mathematics because uh
- 00:41:54it's not just about optimizing of price
- 00:41:56it's about optimizing of five six
- 00:41:59variables simultaneously and you should
- 00:42:01optimize them to find like the best
- 00:42:03combination when you're getting the most
- 00:42:06revenue from your product can I ask on
- 00:42:08the premium versus premium split what
- 00:42:11have been some big lessons in how to
- 00:42:13provide enough value in premium where
- 00:42:16they retain and they love your product
- 00:42:19but also keep enough value in premium
- 00:42:22where they're willing to pay for it and
- 00:42:23make that transition I think just
- 00:42:25experimentation uh usually we deciding
- 00:42:29that based on experiments we when we
- 00:42:32creating something and they're deciding
- 00:42:34to make it free or put behind pay wall
- 00:42:37we testing to see how it would influence
- 00:42:40Revenue but also how it would influence
- 00:42:42retention and uh for us it's always
- 00:42:45balance of two metric and we would never
- 00:42:48accept uh uh experiment which would
- 00:42:51increase Revenue a lot but also which
- 00:42:54would destroy retention and it's a
- 00:42:57combination of this two metrics the best
- 00:42:59is like when retention is the same but
- 00:43:02revenue is growing so when did we know
- 00:43:05monetization was working when did you
- 00:43:07look at it and go okay we've got a good
- 00:43:09machine here in Cas of subcription
- 00:43:11monetization the most significant is the
- 00:43:14retention because uh if you are very
- 00:43:17good in selling probably you may
- 00:43:20convince people to pay for almost
- 00:43:23anything uh but uh much more tricky is
- 00:43:26that he provides so good service then
- 00:43:29they would continue paying and uh uh
- 00:43:33retention should be good and uh it's the
- 00:43:36main sign of success of this business
- 00:43:38model but this business model I believe
- 00:43:40is the best model to create good product
- 00:43:43because your incentives are aligned with
- 00:43:45user because user pay just when you
- 00:43:49create long-term value and it motivates
- 00:43:52you to create long-term value because if
- 00:43:53for example you monetize your product I
- 00:43:55don't know by onetime payment then you
- 00:43:58would optimize for conversion if you
- 00:44:00monetize your product by advertising
- 00:44:02probably you would try to increase
- 00:44:04engagement as possible what we see in
- 00:44:05media but in case of subscription you're
- 00:44:08real optimized for Value because your
- 00:44:10model works just when users stay and
- 00:44:12continue to pay for years or it would be
- 00:44:14just a trade meal and you would exhaust
- 00:44:17grow very very fast so we have that
- 00:44:20monetization engine working how long did
- 00:44:22it take to get to a million in in
- 00:44:24Revenue million is very simple it's
- 00:44:27I don't million is very simple like 100
- 00:44:31million is much more difficult so
- 00:44:33Millions is very very simple how long
- 00:44:36did it take to get to 100 million in
- 00:44:37Revenue four years maybe wow but we had
- 00:44:42the substantial audience when we started
- 00:44:44monetization because we started
- 00:44:45monetization in
- 00:44:472018 and product existed for three years
- 00:44:50up to this how many users did you have
- 00:44:52when you started that mation Journey
- 00:44:55maybe 15 20 million w
- 00:44:58w wow that's incredible is there
- 00:45:01anything that you do differently about
- 00:45:02how you launched monetization now you
- 00:45:05know everything that you do I would do
- 00:45:07that much earlier because uh start of
- 00:45:11monetization unlocked for us fly whe of
- 00:45:14value creation and it's very simple when
- 00:45:16you start monetization you're getting
- 00:45:18revenue and you may use this Revenue to
- 00:45:21build product or to raise big around and
- 00:45:23then you create better product and fly
- 00:45:26whe starts to work but then you invest
- 00:45:28more and more and more and distance
- 00:45:30between you and competitors is getting
- 00:45:32bigger and bigger and when you don't
- 00:45:34have monetization you should be very
- 00:45:36Scrappy and development is uh like very
- 00:45:39frugal and development is very slow I
- 00:45:42completely hear you on retention being
- 00:45:44so important to any consumer app my
- 00:45:46question to you is you know bluntly
- 00:45:49given the use case being periods um it's
- 00:45:52probably one of the only use cases in
- 00:45:54consumer that is literally you you can't
- 00:45:58avoid it you know anything from like
- 00:46:00eating you can fast you can gym you can
- 00:46:04not go to the gym is this a oneof case
- 00:46:08that can't be replicated in health and
- 00:46:10fitness uh it's difficult to find the
- 00:46:14cases with good retention there are some
- 00:46:16cases for example variable devices they
- 00:46:20have very good retention just because
- 00:46:21you have physically them and have you
- 00:46:23thought about doing devices no no no no
- 00:46:26no because because you always should be
- 00:46:29focused you always should be focused
- 00:46:31once I got very good lesson
- 00:46:35from vard host like a founder of Hosta
- 00:46:39Adventures many years ago and uh that
- 00:46:43moment our company was uh big enough and
- 00:46:46we had many ideas how to build our
- 00:46:49product and many ideas for monetization
- 00:46:51like because audience was big and I was
- 00:46:54speeching to him describing we may do
- 00:46:56that that and that and that and at the
- 00:46:57end of my pach I asked him like V uh you
- 00:47:01have experienced could you give me just
- 00:47:03one advice but like the most valuable
- 00:47:05you think for me and he said like young
- 00:47:08man business and product building is
- 00:47:12very similar to marriage you have many
- 00:47:14opportunities before your marriage but
- 00:47:16to be happy you should choose one and
- 00:47:18really focus and my advice to you choose
- 00:47:21one business model and be really focused
- 00:47:24and uh I learned this lesson and was
- 00:47:27very focused since and I I had a huge
- 00:47:30resistance to all proposals to take any
- 00:47:34other
- 00:47:34opportunities I love that and vard's
- 00:47:37fantastic my question to you is does the
- 00:47:39super app not go against Focus because
- 00:47:41with the super app mentality you are
- 00:47:43building multiple products in in the
- 00:47:45same time simultaneously versus purely
- 00:47:48focusing on one product at a time are
- 00:47:52are they paradoxical yeah for some
- 00:47:54extent but you may solve this problem by
- 00:47:57orc structure you may create teams which
- 00:48:00solely focused on own part of the
- 00:48:03product and for them it's a single
- 00:48:05product and they have full focus on this
- 00:48:07product and in our company each team has
- 00:48:10own part of product to own then you have
- 00:48:13like a difficulty to combine all this
- 00:48:16parts to the single experience and it's
- 00:48:18not easy it's very challenging but it's
- 00:48:20the way how to have focus in the case of
- 00:48:23super app what have been the biggest
- 00:48:25lessons in how to create that
- 00:48:27synchronicity between the different
- 00:48:28parts it's extremely difficult we still
- 00:48:32struggling is that the biggest weakness
- 00:48:34that you have today do you think I think
- 00:48:36it's really significant to save
- 00:48:40Simplicity of our product because each
- 00:48:43year we have deep research of our user
- 00:48:45base what is the most significant for
- 00:48:47them in our product and for seven or
- 00:48:50eight years in a row the most popular
- 00:48:52answer Simplicity Simplicity nothing
- 00:48:54else and the biggest
- 00:48:57uh mistake we might do is we might do is
- 00:49:01to destroy this Simplicity because it's
- 00:49:03the essence of our success and is the
- 00:49:05essence of success for any product and
- 00:49:08it's really difficult to have Simplicity
- 00:49:11when you have so many features and when
- 00:49:13you have this concept of super app it is
- 00:49:15it's it's one of the hardest things it's
- 00:49:16how do you prevent feature creep with
- 00:49:18time and stay simple over time so we
- 00:49:21have that success with
- 00:49:23monetization now we get to the series a
- 00:49:26and the the B I think how was the series
- 00:49:29A's and B's it was always uh difficult
- 00:49:34did you enjoy the meetings or not
- 00:49:35already no because uh you need to meet
- 00:49:39hundreds of investors and repeat the
- 00:49:41same and at some moment it's just boring
- 00:49:45like you're just repeating the same the
- 00:49:46same again again again again it's just
- 00:49:49boring was there one or two that stood
- 00:49:51out I'm not trying to flutter them but
- 00:49:54uh uh and my answer is honest but I was
- 00:49:57really impressed by General Atlantic and
- 00:50:00at the end of this process we had five
- 00:50:03biders and I had really big hope that J
- 00:50:07Atlantic would not provide a bad term sh
- 00:50:10because they showed so much better
- 00:50:13understanding of our business model and
- 00:50:14show so deep approach then they really
- 00:50:18impressed me by the depth of uh work and
- 00:50:22I'm really happy by this outcome I'm not
- 00:50:24even flattering it's not my nature but I
- 00:50:27was kind of what did they do to impress
- 00:50:29you so much firstly they had very deep
- 00:50:34understanding of our business model
- 00:50:36because of previous investment to Dingo
- 00:50:38and CH and similar companies and it's
- 00:50:41really rare to see investor with deep
- 00:50:44understanding of consumer subscriptions
- 00:50:45because there are not so many successful
- 00:50:48consumer subscriptions and just several
- 00:50:50public companies based on this business
- 00:50:51model and most investors they just don't
- 00:50:54understand this business model they
- 00:50:55confuse it with some s and they're
- 00:50:58making very wrong conclusions because of
- 00:51:00that what are the wrong conclusions that
- 00:51:02I would make comparing it SAS for
- 00:51:05example you may
- 00:51:07apply the idea that uh retention should
- 00:51:12be very high because if you lose your
- 00:51:14customer you lose it forever and it uh
- 00:51:17it's the fact for B2B but it's not the
- 00:51:19fact for b2c because in b2c in case of
- 00:51:21consumer face naaps customers come
- 00:51:24customers go customers come back
- 00:51:26customers go we already have maybe 40%
- 00:51:29of installs from users who used our app
- 00:51:32previously and uh because of that you
- 00:51:34should analyze not like retention itself
- 00:51:38but uh retention of revenue for example
- 00:51:40you should analyze how Cort behave in
- 00:51:42time and what you what Revenue you
- 00:51:45getting because of this behavior that
- 00:51:47people are coming back and forth they
- 00:51:49stop subcription they start subscription
- 00:51:51and you just can't apply this very
- 00:51:53simplistic logic of business s that if
- 00:51:55people pay
- 00:51:57and then they CH they will never come
- 00:51:59back or they will never start paying
- 00:52:01again it means that logic in analysis of
- 00:52:04retention should be very different do
- 00:52:06you think the consumer multiple hit that
- 00:52:09happens with consumer revenue is fair so
- 00:52:12if we look at say flow 200 million at a
- 00:52:15billion that's a 5x that is much lower
- 00:52:19than traditional enterprise software
- 00:52:21companies would be afforded you know I
- 00:52:24I'm sad to admit that I'm inv invested
- 00:52:26in a SAS business that is at 7 million
- 00:52:28in AR and valued at 1.3 billion I think
- 00:52:32U for current market v may check this
- 00:52:35number but uh average multiple to
- 00:52:38revenue for public SAS at this moment is
- 00:52:41close to eight and it was five last year
- 00:52:45and it was 30 or so in 2021 it means
- 00:52:48that it's declined five or six times as
- 00:52:51well it means that uh do you think
- 00:52:54that's right like
- 00:52:57it's Market but do you think we
- 00:52:59underappreciate consumer Revenue do do
- 00:53:02you agree that uh in rational world
- 00:53:05world rational world you can't have uh
- 00:53:09in 2021 multiple 30 40 and in
- 00:53:142022 multiple five for the same company
- 00:53:18like it's Market is not rational there's
- 00:53:20a brilliant statement which is the
- 00:53:22market can stay irrational longer than
- 00:53:24your company can stay solvent
- 00:53:27uh yeah yeah it's a it's and because of
- 00:53:30that like even kind of conversation
- 00:53:33about like what's fair price it's
- 00:53:36useless because markets are irrational
- 00:53:38like nothing is rational that there's
- 00:53:40like a two years difference between uh
- 00:53:43two events and uh in one event this
- 00:53:46company cost 30 revenues and in another
- 00:53:48event like five revenues and like you
- 00:53:51may understand crisis you may understand
- 00:53:52that rate was 2% higher or 2% lower but
- 00:53:56it's not like a reason why company would
- 00:53:58cost like five or six times uh higher or
- 00:54:01lower it means that it's just reflection
- 00:54:04that markets are very irrational and
- 00:54:06price is irrational as well and again
- 00:54:09it's a question when you're making
- 00:54:11justification of future value of the
- 00:54:13company based on current uh Market
- 00:54:16multiples are you trying to lie to
- 00:54:18yourself or so so because uh like uh who
- 00:54:21knows if markets change Dynamic five
- 00:54:24times in few years do you think in five
- 00:54:26years time we'll have five plus $10
- 00:54:29billion consumer subscription companies
- 00:54:31we have duelingo today which is kind of
- 00:54:339 N and a half I believe maybe today 10
- 00:54:35I need to check yesterday it was almost
- 00:54:3710 okay so let's give it a 10 let's say
- 00:54:40we give it a 10 but that's kind of it I
- 00:54:42think uh we will have them because uh
- 00:54:46this business uh model is growing and
- 00:54:50you may just check numbers of apple and
- 00:54:53you may see that uh Apple got from
- 00:54:57consumer subscription in 2017 I know 5
- 00:54:59billion and it's projected that we'll
- 00:55:02get maybe 100 billion or so next year
- 00:55:05like model is growing and because model
- 00:55:08is growing then we'll have huge
- 00:55:10companies do you think VC's provide
- 00:55:12value of course what value do you think
- 00:55:15we provide we have one uh I not maybe I
- 00:55:21may share because he joked in Twitter we
- 00:55:25have a
- 00:55:27like early stage investor Nikita beer
- 00:55:30very nice product you have nik's an
- 00:55:32investor yeah yeah like a small investor
- 00:55:34but he invested early and uh he joked
- 00:55:38recently that uh the single role of
- 00:55:42investor is that he outrage entrepreneur
- 00:55:46and then entrepreneur have the full
- 00:55:48energy to prove investor that he's wrong
- 00:55:51and of course it's a joke but it's
- 00:55:53partly true but I would say that good
- 00:55:56investor May create ton of value by
- 00:55:59proper work in the Bo and good board
- 00:56:02brings ton of value and the biggest
- 00:56:05value from the board that uh you're just
- 00:56:08accountable and you have moments of
- 00:56:10Truth like board meetings when you need
- 00:56:12to make proper reflection prepare proper
- 00:56:15materials and explain future explain
- 00:56:18past and without board meetings you
- 00:56:19would never have uh patience or energy
- 00:56:22to do that but when you have such
- 00:56:24moments of reflection then your business
- 00:56:25is getting better because you're just
- 00:56:27reflecting all the time and good
- 00:56:29investors they been part of the board
- 00:56:31they may provide good advice they may
- 00:56:34make you bet it's almost kind of uh if
- 00:56:36you have like a like coach like like
- 00:56:39what's the difference between having
- 00:56:40coach or visiting gym by
- 00:56:43yourself accountability accountability
- 00:56:46accountability is really significant for
- 00:56:47Success what do annoying VCS do I want
- 00:56:51to be the best VC we Jed about me being
- 00:56:52a VC in my nth year but I want to be the
- 00:56:55best VC and I care passionately about
- 00:56:57that if you were to advise me Harry I've
- 00:57:00met hundreds of VCS who said no don't do
- 00:57:03these things what would those things be
- 00:57:05if you meet like a first time
- 00:57:09entrepreneur start your pitch from
- 00:57:11explaining that uh it's normal and it's
- 00:57:15default play for V to say no and it's
- 00:57:18nothing personal and uh uh like you
- 00:57:22should just like understand rules of
- 00:57:25games and uh and just like put on your
- 00:57:30wall like kind of billboard like right
- 00:57:33like I will get 100 Nos and each time
- 00:57:35you're getting no like put like just one
- 00:57:37line and you should be very
- 00:57:42very you should understand rules of the
- 00:57:44game and it should not be like a
- 00:57:46personal for you because you should that
- 00:57:49you per say no when you get nose I I get
- 00:57:53nose I fund raise too for my funds when
- 00:57:55I get no I'm like I'm going to prove you
- 00:57:59wrong it's a very very
- 00:58:01significant driving force for success in
- 00:58:04the case of many people is it for you
- 00:58:07for some extent
- 00:58:11uh for some extent but uh it was more
- 00:58:16significant for me at the beginning
- 00:58:17because uh at the beginning all people
- 00:58:20around were so skeptical about our
- 00:58:22business and idea and not just investors
- 00:58:24and I had this bitterness all the time
- 00:58:28that I didn't have any understanding of
- 00:58:30our vision and any support and then when
- 00:58:33we proved that our ideas are worthy and
- 00:58:37this is a good sustainable business then
- 00:58:40it became easy I get that totally do you
- 00:58:42feel Vindicated now for everyone who
- 00:58:45didn't believe in you who was like H
- 00:58:48they don't know what they're doing do
- 00:58:49you feel no because I'm just uh trying
- 00:58:54like look like uh like
- 00:58:56being just like a rational like like
- 00:58:59some like weird folks from belus
- 00:59:02starting through tracker and promising
- 00:59:05that it will become unicorn and there
- 00:59:08are no like examples of that and uh why
- 00:59:11would you believe in that like like
- 00:59:14nobody who is rational would believe in
- 00:59:16that it's it was now it's so evident but
- 00:59:19at that moment it was pretty rational
- 00:59:21not to believe I get you it's just sad
- 00:59:23our job is to believe in the outliers
- 00:59:25it's to believe the best in people yeah
- 00:59:29that's that's how I view our job I think
- 00:59:31uh the main job of uh IL EST investor is
- 00:59:36to distinguish cases with 100% of fail
- 00:59:43with cases 99% of failure and cases with
- 00:59:48small potential outcome and big
- 00:59:49potential outcome and you should find
- 00:59:51cases when fail is not 100% guaranteed
- 00:59:55and but potential outcome is big and it
- 00:59:58means that for you the most significant
- 01:00:00is to understand that the team is uh not
- 01:00:04uh stupid they know what they do and by
- 01:00:08that you would reduce your chances of
- 01:00:10fail from 99% to 95% but then Market
- 01:00:15should be big because it's impossible to
- 01:00:17get the disproportional outcome from
- 01:00:19small Market Big Market you have a huge
- 01:00:21Market I spoke to Jesse at at G before
- 01:00:24this she said ask how does flow go from
- 01:00:27a$1 billion company to a 10 billion
- 01:00:30company we may I may answer this
- 01:00:33question just uh using like benchmarks
- 01:00:36for example what's the difference
- 01:00:38between Flo and
- 01:00:40doing partially it's
- 01:00:43a scale of Revenue we have 200 million
- 01:00:46they have 600 million and it's
- 01:00:47achievable in several years for us to be
- 01:00:50in the range of 600 million we have
- 01:00:53approximately the same why is there
- 01:00:54multile so much better than you
- 01:00:56because it's a public company which
- 01:00:58simultaneously is growing very fast Top
- 01:01:01Line and bottom line they have
- 01:01:03simultaneously 40 50% of Topline growth
- 01:01:06and they have very nice uh profitability
- 01:01:08growth and it's extremely rare to see
- 01:01:11such companies as a public companies
- 01:01:13it's like just old rule of 40 and you
- 01:01:17rarely see like rule of 40 like 50 60 at
- 01:01:21the public markets and all the like you
- 01:01:24like people believe that they still have
- 01:01:25good potential for expansion because
- 01:01:27there are so many Learners of foreign
- 01:01:31languages in the world I think
- 01:01:33combination of this two factors but I
- 01:01:35think mostly is just because combination
- 01:01:37of 40% Top Line growth and the 20 and
- 01:01:40the growth of the proportional growth of
- 01:01:42profitability is so rare and it means
- 01:01:45that if you want to cost 10 billion we
- 01:01:47probably should achieve 600 million in
- 01:01:50revenue and then show profitability and
- 01:01:52continue growing with the same Pace can
- 01:01:54I invest now I know it's
- 01:01:59difficult listen my job is to be a VC
- 01:02:02Demetri it's going to be worth a try
- 01:02:03right um can I ask you a bit of a weird
- 01:02:05one on your leadership do you think
- 01:02:07you're a good CEO and how have you
- 01:02:09changed as a leader over time um I have
- 01:02:12nice story for
- 01:02:14you when I was in Stanford Business
- 01:02:16School we had one lesson with famous
- 01:02:19Professor of
- 01:02:21management and uh he did like the next
- 01:02:25exercise he started to ask people in the
- 01:02:28room what is the more what is the
- 01:02:30necessary trait of good C and people
- 01:02:34started to say like oh
- 01:02:37this good co should Co should be
- 01:02:40knowledgeable good co should have
- 01:02:42integrity good should provide
- 01:02:45inspiration and maybe in 20 minutes like
- 01:02:47whiteboard was was covered by different
- 01:02:50traits of good and then this professor
- 01:02:52looked on this uh whiteboard and said
- 01:02:55probably even Jus Christ was worse it
- 01:02:58means that this lesson that people they
- 01:03:02making kind of glorification of C that
- 01:03:05seos should be perfect they should be
- 01:03:07almost kind of gods but seos is just
- 01:03:09like the same people and they can't be
- 01:03:12so perfect of people think they should
- 01:03:15be you should just understand your
- 01:03:19weaknesses your strengths you should
- 01:03:21understand why you're useful and you
- 01:03:23should uh just uh make your proper work
- 01:03:26as good as you can what is your biggest
- 01:03:28strength what is your biggest weakness
- 01:03:31my biggest strength that uh I may
- 01:03:36analyze I may make like a rather good
- 01:03:39conclusions uh in very simple manner it
- 01:03:43means that uh people they need Clarity
- 01:03:46and simplicity and I think I may provide
- 01:03:49Clarity and simplicity I'm not
- 01:03:50overwheling them by information I may
- 01:03:52take much of information on myself but
- 01:03:55then I provide to them like a solution
- 01:03:57decision description in very simple form
- 01:04:00and they understand and believe and
- 01:04:02follow and uh my my main
- 01:04:06weakness sometimes I may be too slow for
- 01:04:10Change and uh uh the biggest uh events
- 01:04:15in my life happened when the life burned
- 01:04:19my bridges but now I understand that I
- 01:04:22should have burned my bridges by myself
- 01:04:24for example I started to make apps very
- 01:04:27significant reason was that because it
- 01:04:29was crisis of 2008 and like book
- 01:04:34publishing was in terrible
- 01:04:36situation I started to focus just on Flo
- 01:04:39because um my old portfolio like
- 01:04:41declined because of political situation
- 01:04:44in region and when everything was good I
- 01:04:47was just delaying necessary change and I
- 01:04:50was just white in this crisis like for
- 01:04:52life to burn my bridges and then like uh
- 01:04:55Nic change happened then
- 01:04:58like I started to move I'm fascinated on
- 01:05:02this one you know you you've been very
- 01:05:04successful over the last 10 years um
- 01:05:06what does money mean to you Demetri
- 01:05:08you're such an analytical honestly not
- 01:05:10so much because uh I have a rather
- 01:05:14humble lifestyle I don't honestly I
- 01:05:17despise luxurious Brands I despise
- 01:05:20luxury I even don't have car and I don't
- 01:05:23have any expensive uh item I don't have
- 01:05:27anything would be like kind of branded
- 01:05:30or
- 01:05:31luxurious I I don't need uh like
- 01:05:35business classes or private
- 01:05:37jets I would want to have a interesting
- 01:05:40and meaningful life and feel that I'm
- 01:05:42useful and uh and honestly I never think
- 01:05:45about my personal money is I'm
- 01:05:47absolutely honest here like never never
- 01:05:50because I have so
- 01:05:53little uh need for myself that it's not
- 01:05:56even a kind of motivation for me uh I'm
- 01:05:59very motivated by the story of uh J
- 01:06:02founder of J Atlantic Chu F do you know
- 01:06:04this story no please tell me uh J
- 01:06:08Atlantic was started by a man who like a
- 01:06:11huge forun by duty free shops by
- 01:06:14starting duty free shops because of this
- 01:06:17uh Venture and because of J Atlantic he
- 01:06:19billions 9 billion or something like
- 01:06:21that and then secretly he distributed
- 01:06:24all his money for charity absolutely
- 01:06:26secretly nobody know and he died like
- 01:06:30two years ago and then the story became
- 01:06:33public that he just uh gifted away in
- 01:06:36his lifetime all his money and without
- 01:06:39any proud without sharing to anybody
- 01:06:40absolutely secretly and uh it's a the
- 01:06:44best example for me how you should live
- 01:06:47your life you should create something
- 01:06:49available commercially but then it's
- 01:06:51your duty to return this money for
- 01:06:54society and to do that very efficiently
- 01:06:58and I believe that uh if you're really
- 01:07:00successful second part of your life
- 01:07:02should be not to ear money but to spend
- 01:07:04your money for the sake of society and I
- 01:07:07believe that it's a huge sin to pass
- 01:07:10billions to your children have you
- 01:07:12always been this good like you are
- 01:07:14objectively one of like the the kindest
- 01:07:17humans I've had on the show really this
- 01:07:19is like shows like this is why I love
- 01:07:20doing what I do I didn't expect this
- 01:07:22type of show have you always been like
- 01:07:24this or has it come over time I just uh
- 01:07:28got better because of
- 01:07:31uh many many many problems and pains I
- 01:07:35had uh in my life and I have like a
- 01:07:40little regrets about my professional
- 01:07:43life and my biggest regret that when I
- 01:07:47was young and uh when I was less
- 01:07:50sensitive I fart several people without
- 01:07:55decency it means in in root form and it
- 01:07:58was maybe 10 15 years ago and I still
- 01:08:01feel guilty because of that 10 years
- 01:08:04after just because to feel empathy you
- 01:08:08should uh get pain by yourself and then
- 01:08:11you would start to feel pain of other
- 01:08:15people and it's just like a trait of age
- 01:08:17and trait of a difficult journey I was
- 01:08:20not like that when I was young you also
- 01:08:23work with your brother Yuri
- 01:08:26I not many people know this but I work
- 01:08:28with my brother he sitting upstairs now
- 01:08:31um I love it but everyone says don't
- 01:08:35work with
- 01:08:36family what's your biggest advice to me
- 01:08:40on how to make it work so successfully
- 01:08:42with your brother again I repeat my
- 01:08:44advice never take general advice general
- 01:08:47advice is always and uh
- 01:08:50everything is nuanced and uh I worked
- 01:08:53with my brother
- 01:08:56for 30 years or so if we start
- 01:08:59considering like our work from mushroom
- 01:09:01Gathering or potato field work and we
- 01:09:05always work together in uh book
- 01:09:08publishing in all our Ventures and I
- 01:09:11remember that uh our first boss in
- 01:09:15publishing house and it was 2005 or so
- 01:09:18we worked together in publishing house
- 01:09:20we were responsible for computer
- 01:09:21literature he said that you should
- 01:09:23always work together because because you
- 01:09:26so different and when you combine like
- 01:09:29your personalities it's almost perfect
- 01:09:31because Yuri is good to make a pass and
- 01:09:33you're good to make Road and you
- 01:09:36understand that and that I'm maybe too
- 01:09:38slow in deciding something maybe
- 01:09:41incisive but then when I start doing
- 01:09:43something I'm doing that perfectly and
- 01:09:45you like he is the opposite he's kind of
- 01:09:48idea generator he's Venture uh driver
- 01:09:51but he's not operational person alog
- 01:09:54together but when we have uh this
- 01:09:56combination is almost perfect and it
- 01:09:58works really well but also I have worked
- 01:10:00all my life with my wife I married very
- 01:10:03early like uh how old were you when you
- 01:10:06got married 21 wow 20 years ago and uh
- 01:10:10she was uh student in the same group in
- 01:10:13University and Sheed my trust because I
- 01:10:17was very bad student because I was
- 01:10:18working and she was helping me with like
- 01:10:21advice when to visit University and with
- 01:10:24different home task asks and she was my
- 01:10:27friend at that moment and we started to
- 01:10:30work together and again we have been
- 01:10:33working together for 20 years she was
- 01:10:36responsible for content in FLW at the
- 01:10:39beginning of FLW and she's now my
- 01:10:41executive assistant and we spent
- 01:10:44together like working together 20 years
- 01:10:46and very successfully your wife is your
- 01:10:48EA yeah how how is that that must be
- 01:10:52hard no it's very effective because uh
- 01:10:55we may decide like uh what to do or what
- 01:10:58not to do at the
- 01:11:01breakfast that is amazing I I absolutely
- 01:11:04love that um y there's no way that that
- 01:11:06would work for
- 01:11:08me um are you a wartime leader or a p
- 01:11:11time needed do you think I was pretty
- 01:11:13effective in both modes because uh I
- 01:11:16have one tra like you know there are
- 01:11:20four types of people based on level of
- 01:11:23negative and positive emotion like
- 01:11:25people who have low emotions in case of
- 01:11:30bad situation and uh like like slow low
- 01:11:34high high low high high low like like
- 01:11:36it's depends on how are your emotions
- 01:11:38high or low in in case of problems and
- 01:11:41in case of excitement for example if you
- 01:11:44have a huge
- 01:11:46excitement but also like a
- 01:11:49huge stress in case of problems like
- 01:11:54probably you is difficult to be a CO and
- 01:11:57my advantage that I'm kind of low low
- 01:12:00personality it means that I never feel
- 01:12:02too much excitement but also I never
- 01:12:05feel too much stress and because of that
- 01:12:08I'm just uh in case of all our
- 01:12:11calamities I was very very calm and I
- 01:12:15didn't have much stress I just played my
- 01:12:17duty what was the biggest Calamity do
- 01:12:20you think when you look back now what
- 01:12:21was the oh that was hard emotionally for
- 01:12:25our organization was hard uh this moment
- 01:12:29when uh we got political instability in
- 01:12:32belus and then war in Ukraine and we had
- 01:12:36to relocate urgently the all company and
- 01:12:40Al the I had to relocate myself in two
- 01:12:44days I spent 38 uh years in belus and I
- 01:12:49built my life I had like my house my
- 01:12:53Gardens and I spent many years to my
- 01:12:55Gardens and then I had to make decision
- 01:12:57to move out of belus in two days and I
- 01:13:01have never come back and then the same
- 01:13:04decision most of our people had to make
- 01:13:08and uh it was really difficult could you
- 01:13:10imagine that you have built all your
- 01:13:12life uh in country then in two days you
- 01:13:15must uh move to another country with
- 01:13:17your family and this was really
- 01:13:20difficult and it traumatized uh uh me
- 01:13:23and our people a lot I can't imagine
- 01:13:26that one um I also can't imagine having
- 01:13:28to move 100 plus people which you had to
- 01:13:31do I believe it one more I believe that
- 01:13:34uh when War started in 20 22 we had 70%
- 01:13:39of our employees in buus it was more
- 01:13:41than 200 and 90% of them were relocated
- 01:13:45with families in several days how was
- 01:13:47that process really difficult because uh
- 01:13:50borders were closed it was impossible to
- 01:13:52get papers and we had to organize no
- 01:13:55flights and we had to organize Charters
- 01:13:58to Armenia and turkey and then organize
- 01:14:01you order Charters yeah yeah because we
- 01:14:03didn't have flights and it was
- 01:14:05impossible to make flights to Europe
- 01:14:07because all flights were prohibited from
- 01:14:09from the region did the company suffer
- 01:14:12in any way I mean of course for half an
- 01:14:15year we almost didn't have any progress
- 01:14:18with our product because all people were
- 01:14:20so stressed and defocused by moving
- 01:14:24families and it was a huge huge
- 01:14:26destruction and it was very expensive as
- 01:14:28well how much did it cost many millions
- 01:14:32uh it was very expensive but uh uh it
- 01:14:35was significant to do because company
- 01:14:38it's a te company and it's about people
- 01:14:41and uh like this company would not exist
- 01:14:44without people uh and also it was our
- 01:14:48responsibility to provide this
- 01:14:49opportunity to our people because it was
- 01:14:51quite big chance that uh belus would
- 01:14:54engage to the war and uh it would mean
- 01:14:57that uh men would be drafted and borders
- 01:15:00would be closed and it was real risk for
- 01:15:03life for for men and we had to organize
- 01:15:06this uh process what did you learn about
- 01:15:08managing teams and people through this
- 01:15:10process trust is the most significant
- 01:15:12they should trust you like you should be
- 01:15:15a really trustful person or a company to
- 01:15:18convince 90% of your employees to take
- 01:15:22family and belongings in today and to
- 01:15:24move to another country you should be
- 01:15:27really trustful for that my question to
- 01:15:29you is when your mother looks at you and
- 01:15:31your brother you guys have achieved such
- 01:15:33success and when you look back to the
- 01:15:35potato farms and the mushroom picking
- 01:15:38what did she say she's not especially
- 01:15:45emotional but she must be proud she has
- 01:15:48never said
- 01:15:51that would you like her too I don't
- 01:15:54think that it would be natural for
- 01:15:56[Laughter]
- 01:15:59you I thank you so much this has been so
- 01:16:02much fun so I'm going to do a quick fire
- 01:16:04round so I say a short statement and you
- 01:16:06give me your immediate thoughts does
- 01:16:07that sound okay okay so what do you
- 01:16:10believe that most around you disbelieve
- 01:16:13I don't believe in talent I believe that
- 01:16:16uh all people are approximately the same
- 01:16:19we have the same processor and what
- 01:16:22makes people different is just a hours
- 01:16:25of hard work hard focused work and when
- 01:16:29people say to me that I can't accomplish
- 01:16:31something asking very simple question
- 01:16:34how many hours of hard work have you
- 01:16:37spent for that and if it's not about
- 01:16:40thousand but why you think that you
- 01:16:43should achieve something without
- 01:16:45thousand of hours of hard work you don't
- 01:16:48think smarts has got anything to do with
- 01:16:50it like brains there are always extremes
- 01:16:52but most of people they have plus minus
- 01:16:55the same brain and believe me I know
- 01:16:57many billionaires I uh I met many many
- 01:17:02many successful entrepreneurs and not
- 01:17:04just entrepreneurs and I have never seen
- 01:17:07genuses but uh I believe that uh what
- 01:17:11really distinguish successful people and
- 01:17:14people who are not successful Beyond
- 01:17:15just luck luck is really significant is
- 01:17:18the ability to take risk and then work
- 01:17:22really really hard and persistent for a
- 01:17:24long time most of people they just can't
- 01:17:27work really hard for very long time and
- 01:17:29it's what distinguish successful people
- 01:17:32and less successful people most people
- 01:17:34don't have discipline which is you need
- 01:17:36to not go out and drink with your
- 01:17:38friends at the end of the day and go
- 01:17:39back and work you need to come back
- 01:17:41after the 90th no and pitch for the 91st
- 01:17:44time hardest time in my life was when I
- 01:17:47was in university but also I was writing
- 01:17:50my books at nights and uh I usually was
- 01:17:54uh
- 01:17:55like working for 18 hours per day for
- 01:17:59years and was sleeping just 6 hours or
- 01:18:02so and four years but then like I
- 01:18:06achieved a lot because of that and uh I
- 01:18:10have very interesting story about uh my
- 01:18:14my books like that sometimes you need to
- 01:18:18see many things in prospects and uh you
- 01:18:22need to put many dots on the map of uh
- 01:18:26your life I was uh in 2004 I wrote like
- 01:18:31a big book about action script it's a
- 01:18:34program language of Mer media flesh and
- 01:18:38that time I didn't ear much from that
- 01:18:41but uh approximately next year in 2005
- 01:18:44this book was gifted to one young boy he
- 01:18:47was maybe 12 years old by his brother
- 01:18:50and he said if you learn programming
- 01:18:52from this book you would become a big
- 01:18:54person and he learned programming from
- 01:18:57this book he started to practice flash
- 01:19:00programming and then 10 years after 15
- 01:19:03years after he became co-founder of msqd
- 01:19:08we sold
- 01:19:09to uh uh we to U Facebook and then we
- 01:19:14used part of this money to finance flow
- 01:19:17it means that if I didn't wrow this book
- 01:19:20in 2004 then probably he would not learn
- 01:19:25program programming and MSD would not
- 01:19:28happen and then FL would not have money
- 01:19:30to be financed but distance between
- 01:19:33these two events was more than 10
- 01:19:36years and in your life you very often
- 01:19:39you just need much time to see how all
- 01:19:42lines will be connected but you have uh
- 01:19:45dots to be connected you need to have
- 01:19:47dots you need to do something you need
- 01:19:49to move forward what CEO do you most
- 01:19:52admire and why them I would say that uh
- 01:19:55I'm against uh uh glamorization and of
- 01:20:00cosos and making them Heroes and I even
- 01:20:03don't like glass door when glass door
- 01:20:06put like a rating of C because uh I
- 01:20:09believe that when compan is big is or
- 01:20:12not even big it's much more teamwork and
- 01:20:16so is just a role and the people are
- 01:20:19just people I always I always recommend
- 01:20:22not to like a book like how to be a
- 01:20:25great s like you have in your like book
- 01:20:29library but she read biographies about
- 01:20:32cosos about business and you would see
- 01:20:34that even Steve Jobs he made probably
- 01:20:3790% of mistakes in all his decisions and
- 01:20:40many many stupid mistakes and uh he was
- 01:20:43not good Al to alt together it's a it's
- 01:20:48just kind of maybe the single common
- 01:20:50trade between successful and uh between
- 01:20:53all successful I may found is
- 01:20:56decisiveness you should make decisions
- 01:20:59and because when you make decisions you
- 01:21:00move forward even if decisions when
- 01:21:02decisions are stupid you're moving
- 01:21:04forward and you're getting new
- 01:21:06information and the next decision will
- 01:21:08be better the worst is just this
- 01:21:11analysis par paralysis not making any
- 01:21:14decisions one of my closest mentors said
- 01:21:17to me the other day the heaviest things
- 01:21:18in life are not iron or gold but unmade
- 01:21:22decisions yeah yeah and sometimes people
- 01:21:24kind of they're trying to find like a
- 01:21:27perfect solution but the truth of life
- 01:21:30that nobody knows future and nobody may
- 01:21:34make like a perfect decisions just based
- 01:21:36on information or analysis because if it
- 01:21:40were the case then minin or Banks would
- 01:21:43be perfect business creators but uh like
- 01:21:46you can't see unicorns which were
- 01:21:47created by minin or Banks why because of
- 01:21:50unpredictability of the future and if
- 01:21:53future is unpredictable
- 01:21:55then what's the best just make any
- 01:21:58decision and move forward just not stay
- 01:21:59as the place decide something and move
- 01:22:02forward what have you changed your mind
- 01:22:04on over the last 12 months I was much
- 01:22:07more optimistic about uh time which
- 01:22:11would be necessary for generative AI to
- 01:22:14make impact on businesses and uh because
- 01:22:17maybe two maybe in two years like two or
- 01:22:20three years after the beginning of this
- 01:22:24hype I still don't see many examples of
- 01:22:29real business success based on Genera Pi
- 01:22:32it means that maybe something in
- 01:22:34programming maybe something in support
- 01:22:36but it's like rather tiny like we can't
- 01:22:39say that there is like any big case any
- 01:22:42big business which changed business
- 01:22:45model or got profitability or growth
- 01:22:47because of generative pi and I had the
- 01:22:50hope that the change would happen much
- 01:22:53faster who do not have on the board who
- 01:22:56you would most like to have on your
- 01:22:57board let's say Melinda Gates because
- 01:23:00probably Melinda Gates is a person who
- 01:23:02is doing nowadays the most for female
- 01:23:04health does it hurt you but it it's okay
- 01:23:07for me to ask does it hurt you when
- 01:23:10people criticize a male CEO of flow I
- 01:23:14understand uh uh like why is they
- 01:23:17criticizing uh but uh also I feel that
- 01:23:21uh our success was so beneficial for the
- 01:23:25industry because you VC and you know
- 01:23:27that VC are making decisions based on
- 01:23:29benchmarks and now like all VC VC will
- 01:23:32start believing that it's possible to
- 01:23:35have a great success in this industry
- 01:23:37and all founders will have much easier
- 01:23:40Journey than I had I'm trying to do the
- 01:23:44best like for this company and I think I
- 01:23:48was rather good in that but also I would
- 01:23:51want of course to see that more women
- 01:23:55are becoming very successful in this
- 01:23:57journey what skill would you most like
- 01:23:59to improve of yours in leadership this
- 01:24:02tricky
- 01:24:04one why It's Tricky one because I as I
- 01:24:07said I don't believe in perfect
- 01:24:09seos uh uh I believe that you should
- 01:24:12understand your strengths and weaknesses
- 01:24:15and then argument Yourself by people
- 01:24:18with different strengths and then you
- 01:24:21would have like a pretty solid team
- 01:24:27without def defects and uh uh I don't
- 01:24:30think that uh even this mentality that
- 01:24:33you should be perfect is uh is right I
- 01:24:36think it's significant to understand
- 01:24:38your weaknesses and your strengths but
- 01:24:41uh like for example nowadays like I
- 01:24:43recently hired communication coach
- 01:24:45because I think I'm rather bad in
- 01:24:49communication I mean that's funny I
- 01:24:52think you are probably one of the best
- 01:24:55interviews I've ever done so I would
- 01:24:57disagree with you having done 10,000
- 01:25:00hours of these but sure final one are
- 01:25:03you saying that to all your everyone
- 01:25:06everyone of them yeah yeah yeah everyone
- 01:25:08of you is thinking wow Harry's such a
- 01:25:09nice guy final one Dimitri what question
- 01:25:13are you not often asked that you should
- 01:25:15be asked more Dimitri would you want to
- 01:25:20eat something tasty
- 01:25:24you know what I'll roll with it Demetri
- 01:25:28I was really looking forward to this one
- 01:25:29CU i l the business I didn't know how
- 01:25:32you were going to be respectfully you've
- 01:25:34been fantastic like you are funny you
- 01:25:37are direct thank you for being so
- 01:25:39brilliant and I I really have loved this
- 01:25:42thank you much
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