The Exchanges

Q Is the brand that you have with Flow?

A And talking about PR, I think it's slightly different. It's, uh, it's mostly about my internal belief that, uh, product defines everything and, uh, I always very frugal in spending money out of product. It means I'm very generous in spending money for product, and I'm very frugal, very greedy to spend money not for product, and when I see kind of a budget for something like several 100,000, and I don't understand the impact, I bet I would spend this money for product, and I take this money and move this money to product. Sometimes even up to the Up to extremes. For example, I never use business class because all the time, and I am running company with two hundred million in revenue, probably like it's the time to start using business class for the CEO. But I never use business class even in my trips to United States, even to Seattle or San Francisco because all the time I'm thinking, okay, five, 10,000. I would better to pay one month of salary to developer in Lithuania Then she raised this money for my comfort, and I was like, take this money and put this money to product. It's my philosophy that, uh, product defines everything.

AI assessment note: “talking about PR, I think it's slightly different. It's, uh, it's mostly about”

Q So when did we know monetization was working? When did you look at it and go, okay, we've got a good machine here.

A In case of subscription monetization, the most significant is, uh, retention because, uh, if you are very good in selling, probably you may convince people to pay for almost anything. Uh, but, uh, much more tricky is that she provides so good service and they would continue paying and, uh, uh, retention should be good and, uh, It's the main sign of success of this business model, but this business model, I believe, is the best model to create good product because your incentives are aligned with user, because user pay just when you create long-term value, and it motivates you to create long-term value, because if, for example, you monetize your product, I don't know, by one-time payment, then you would optimize for conversion. If you monetize your product by advertising, probably you would try to Increase engagement as possible, what we see in media. But in case of subscription, you're really optimized for value because your model works just when users stay and continue to pay for years. Or it would be just a treadmill and you would exhaust growth very, very fast.

AI assessment note: “In case of subscription monetization, the most significant is, uh, retention”

Q So when did we know monetization was working? When did you look at it and go, okay, we've got a good machine here.

A In case of subscription monetization, the most significant is, uh, retention because, uh, if you are very good in selling, probably you may convince people to pay for almost anything. Uh, but, uh, much more tricky is that she provides so good service and they would continue paying and, uh, uh, retention should be good and, uh, It's the main sign of success of this business model, but this business model, I believe, is the best model to create good product because your incentives are aligned with user, because user pay just when you create long-term value, and it motivates you to create long-term value, because if, for example, you monetize your product, I don't know, by one-time payment, then you would optimize for conversion. If you monetize your product by advertising, probably you would try to Increase engagement as possible, what we see in media. But in case of subscription, you're really optimized for value because your model works just when users stay and continue to pay for years. Or it would be just a treadmill and you would exhaust growth very, very fast.

AI assessment note: “In case of subscription monetization, the most significant is, uh, retention”

Q What CEO do you most admire, and why them?

A I would say that, uh, I'm against, uh, uh, glamorization and of CEOs and making them heroes. And I even don't like, uh, Glassdoor and Glassdoor put like a rating of CO because, uh, I believe that when company is, uh, big, it's, or not even big, it's much more teamwork and, uh, CO is just a role and, uh, People are just people. My always, I always recommend not to read like a book, like how to be a great CEO, like you have in your, like, book library, but to read biographies about CEOs, about business, and you would see that even Steve Jobs, he made probably 90% of mistakes in all his decisions and many, many stupid mistakes, and he was not good altogether. It's, uh, such just kind of, maybe the single common trait between successful and, uh, between all successful CEOs I may found is decisiveness. You should make decisions. And because when you make decisions, you move forward. Even if decisions, when decisions are stupid, you are moving forward and you're getting new information and the next decision will be better. The worst is just this analysis paralysis, not making any decisions.

AI assessment note: “I'm against, uh, uh, glamorization and of CEOs and making them heroes.”

Q So, okay, so D-one 80, which is six months. What was it?

A It's again, retention is user case. Like, you may improve retention by good product, or you may destroy retention by bad product, but the essence of retention is a natural user case, and natural user case based on natural necessity for women to organize life around cycle. What's You can't skip that. You may skip gym, but you can't skip period. And because of that, retention is very good. But then our big idea was, okay, if it's so unique and retention is so high, could we build something more valuable than period tracker based on that? And the ultimate reason why flow became so successful was this idea of like kind of super app. Let's take period tracker as a core product. And let's surround this peer tracker by deeper, more valuable health features and content, and the peer tracker would become a driver of user acquisition and more significant retention, but all these features around would create value. It's something similar on Gmail ecosystem. Like Gmail itself drives acquisition and retention, but these apps for documents, editing for calls, etc. drives value. But if you take out email, it would not work. And the same with Spirit Tracker. But if you don't have this ecosystem, it's not monetizable because the value is just too tiny.

AI assessment note: “retention is very good. But then our big idea was”

Q What CEO do you most admire, and why them?

A I would say that, uh, I'm against, uh, uh, glamorization and of CEOs and making them heroes. And I even don't like, uh, Glassdoor and Glassdoor put like a rating of CO because, uh, I believe that when company is, uh, big, it's, or not even big, it's much more teamwork and, uh, CO is just a role and, uh, People are just people. My always, I always recommend not to read like a book, like how to be a great CEO, like you have in your, like, book library, but to read biographies about CEOs, about business, and you would see that even Steve Jobs, he made probably 90% of mistakes in all his decisions and many, many stupid mistakes, and he was not good altogether. It's, uh, such just kind of, maybe the single common trait between successful and, uh, between all successful CEOs I may found is decisiveness. You should make decisions. And because when you make decisions, you move forward. Even if decisions, when decisions are stupid, you are moving forward and you're getting new information and the next decision will be better. The worst is just this analysis paralysis, not making any decisions.

AI assessment note: “I'm against, uh, uh, glamorization and of CEOs and making them heroes.”

Q Listen, my job is to be a VC, Dimitri. It's got to be worth a try, right? Um, can I ask you a bit of a weird one on your leadership? Do you think you're a good CEO, and how have you changed as a leader over time?

A I have nice story for you. When I was in Stanford Business School, we had one lesson with famous professor of management, and, uh, He did, like, the next exercise. He started to ask people in the room, what is the more, what is the necessary trait of a good CEO? And people started to say, like, oh, this, like, good CEO should, CEO should be knowledgeable. Good CEO should have integrity. Good CEO should provide inspiration. And maybe in 20 minutes, like, whiteboard was, was covered by different traits of good CEO. And then this professor looked on this, uh, whiteboard and said, probably even Jesus Christ was worse. It means that it's in this lesson that people, they are making kind of glorification of theos. Theos should be perfect. They should be almost kind of gods, but theos are just like the same people, and they can't be so perfect as people think they should be. You should just understand your Weaknesses, your strengths. You should understand why you're useful, and you should just make your proper work as good as you can.

AI assessment note: “You should just understand your Weaknesses, your strengths.”

Q Is the brand that you have with Flow?

A And talking about PR, I think it's slightly different. It's, uh, it's mostly about my internal belief that, uh, product defines everything and, uh, I always very frugal in spending money out of product. It means I'm very generous in spending money for product, and I'm very frugal, very greedy to spend money not for product, and when I see kind of a budget for something like several 100,000, and I don't understand the impact, I bet I would spend this money for product, and I take this money and move this money to product. Sometimes even up to the Up to extremes. For example, I never use business class because all the time, and I am running company with two hundred million in revenue, probably like it's the time to start using business class for the CEO. But I never use business class even in my trips to United States, even to Seattle or San Francisco because all the time I'm thinking, okay, five, 10,000. I would better to pay one month of salary to developer in Lithuania Then she raised this money for my comfort, and I was like, take this money and put this money to product. It's my philosophy that, uh, product defines everything.

AI assessment note: “talking about PR, I think it's slightly different. It's, uh, it's mostly about”

Q So, okay, so D-one 80, which is six months. What was it?

A It's again, retention is user case. Like, you may improve retention by good product, or you may destroy retention by bad product, but the essence of retention is a natural user case, and natural user case based on natural necessity for women to organize life around cycle. What's You can't skip that. You may skip gym, but you can't skip period. And because of that, retention is very good. But then our big idea was, okay, if it's so unique and retention is so high, could we build something more valuable than period tracker based on that? And the ultimate reason why flow became so successful was this idea of like kind of super app. Let's take period tracker as a core product. And let's surround this peer tracker by deeper, more valuable health features and content, and the peer tracker would become a driver of user acquisition and more significant retention, but all these features around would create value. It's something similar on Gmail ecosystem. Like Gmail itself drives acquisition and retention, but these apps for documents, editing for calls, etc. drives value. But if you take out email, it would not work. And the same with Spirit Tracker. But if you don't have this ecosystem, it's not monetizable because the value is just too tiny.

AI assessment note: “essence of retention is a natural user case”

Q Listen, my job is to be a VC, Dimitri. It's got to be worth a try, right? Um, can I ask you a bit of a weird one on your leadership? Do you think you're a good CEO, and how have you changed as a leader over time?

A I have nice story for you. When I was in Stanford Business School, we had one lesson with famous professor of management, and, uh, He did, like, the next exercise. He started to ask people in the room, what is the more, what is the necessary trait of a good CEO? And people started to say, like, oh, this, like, good CEO should, CEO should be knowledgeable. Good CEO should have integrity. Good CEO should provide inspiration. And maybe in 20 minutes, like, whiteboard was, was covered by different traits of good CEO. And then this professor looked on this, uh, whiteboard and said, probably even Jesus Christ was worse. It means that it's in this lesson that people, they are making kind of glorification of theos. Theos should be perfect. They should be almost kind of gods, but theos are just like the same people, and they can't be so perfect as people think they should be. You should just understand your Weaknesses, your strengths. You should understand why you're useful, and you should just make your proper work as good as you can.

AI assessment note: “theos are just like the same people, and they can't be so perfect”

Q Well, I mean, Flow was the third app that you did. You did two before flow. What did you learn from the two before flow not working that you took with you to flow?

A Really, we had much more than two. We had two attempts to create a successful period tracker, but, uh, before Floor, we had, uh, me and my brother and partners, we started two dozen different apps, some of them successful, some of them less successful. Overall, uh, my brother and me, like, we, Participate, I participated in, ah, different projects for a different extent, ah, um, we had, ah, success, ah, with this, ah, apps. We had six exits up to this moment. We had exit to Google, exit to Facebook, ah, we started several companies, ah, um, which have, uh, has revenue in a 100,000,050 million. It means that, ah, it was, like, quite a journey before Flora. It was five, six years of work before Floor. It was not so simple, then we just, like, decided we would create successful period tracker, and we just started, and it was immediate success. But even with our experience, like, we got success with Floor from the third attempt. Like, the first period tracker failed, the second period tracker failed, and just-

AI assessment note: “Really, we had much more than two. We had two attempts”