The Exchanges

Q Dimitri, how does this work? How do you go from mushroom gathering And farming potatoes, and that very wholesome upbringing in that respect, to founding one of the largest female, how do you get into technology first?

A Between mushroom gathering and founding of FLO was 20 years. It means that it was a long professional journey before we founded FLO. Uh, and, uh, I spent half of my professional life in book publishing, and, uh, I wrote books by myself, computer books, and, uh, then we worked with my brothers in publishing house, and then we started our own publishing house, and, uh, I spent approximately 10 years, uh, in this world, world of books, and, uh, I was responsible for approximately 2000 titles of educational books, and, uh, honestly, I had a big pleasure from this work because it was, uh, so material. Like, you, you're working with something, and, and you're getting material result. It's almost like you're getting your baby, and you may touch it. Like, it was very physical pleasure with these, uh, books. And then a very big change happened when App Store was opened in 2008 and nine, and that moment we decided to work with mobile apps, and the idea was very simple to start from content apps based on books, and then gradually, gradually, it's a longer story, but we got to Flow.

AI assessment note: “Between mushroom gathering and founding of FLO was 20 years.”

Q When we look at flow, you break many rules with respect. We're often told when it comes to an idea, choose a problem that you've personally felt and can really empathize with. With respect, Dimitri, you're wonderful, But, you know, you, you don't empathize with period tracking. Um, is that bad advice to choose a problem that you know?

A I would say that any general advice is bad. Any general advice is bullshit. Every time when you say something like any sentence is every, each, like, like any general advice is bad. Any. And, uh, this advice is, uh, bad as well because this advice is, uh, just like, it, um, assumes that each situation is the same. But no, no, no. Like life is very, You understand each situation is very different, and usually when people ask this question, they assume two different questions. One question is, if it's not about your own pain, how did you find motivation? And if it's not your pain, how did you find knowledge? And motivation, I always wanted to do something meaningful. It was about books. It was about our other health apps. I have never had any motivation, for example, to work in gambling. If you propose me one bill and I would not take a CO position in gambling companies, just like, I just don't want it. It's against my values and I don't have any interest to that. And, uh, we understood very well the size of a problem because we had the experience with health and fitness apps before. Uh, but, uh, question about knowledge. We didn't have knowledge, but also we had humility to understand that we didn't have knowledge, and because of that, we started to analyze, and we started to listen to users and doctors, and I remember that before starting Flow, our document about this market an…

AI assessment note: “I would say that any general advice is bad... this advice is, uh, bad as well”

Q What is your biggest strength? What is your biggest weakness?

A I think my biggest strengths that I may analyze, I may make like a rather good conclusions in very simple manner. It means that people, they need clarity and simplicity, and I think I may provide clarity and simplicity. I'm not overwhelming them by information. I may take much of information on myself, but then I provide to them Like a solution, decision, description in very simple form and they understand and believe and follow. And, uh, my, my main weakness Sometimes I may be too slow for change. And, uh, uh, the biggest, uh, events in my life happened when the life burned my bridges. But now I understand that, uh, I should have burned my bridges by myself. For example, I started to make apps. Very significant reason was that because it was a crisis of, uh, 2008 in the, like, book publishing was in terrible situation. I started to focus just on flow because my old portfolio, like, declined because of political situation in region. And when everything was good, I was just delaying necessary change, and I was just waiting this crisis, like, for life to burn my bridges. And then, like, when necessary change happened, then, like, I started to move

AI assessment note: “I think my biggest strengths... my main weakness Sometimes I may be too slow for change.”

Q Dimitri, what was your first business? You said that, you know, your first job was at 16. What was your first business?

A My first job for money was, uh, gathering of mushrooms. And, uh, we had, uh, two types of kids in our village, uh, gatherers of Berries and gather yourself mushrooms. And it was two different types of businesses. Because in case of berries, you're like just sitting on the same place in the wood, and approximately you may gather the same volume of berries per day and stable income. In case of mushrooms, you should walk around the wood, and if you're lucky, you may get much mushrooms and even a lot of money, but another day you will get nothing. And, uh, psychologically, all kids were divided into two categories. Who preferred fixed income or who preferred, like, a mushroom gathering. And, uh, I and my brother, we always were mushroom gatherers. We always preferred, like, to take a chance for bigger gains and to have this journey around the wood rather than to sit on the place for fixed income.

AI assessment note: “My first job for money was, uh, gathering of mushrooms.”

Q When we look at flow, you break many rules with respect. We're often told when it comes to an idea, choose a problem that you've personally felt and can really empathize with. With respect, Dimitri, you're wonderful, But, you know, you, you don't empathize with period tracking. Um, is that bad advice to choose a problem that you know?

A I would say that any general advice is bad. Any general advice is bullshit. Every time when you say something like any sentence is every, each, like, like any general advice is bad. Any. And, uh, this advice is, uh, bad as well because this advice is, uh, just like, it, um, assumes that each situation is the same. But no, no, no. Like life is very, You understand each situation is very different, and usually when people ask this question, they assume two different questions. One question is, if it's not about your own pain, how did you find motivation? And if it's not your pain, how did you find knowledge? And motivation, I always wanted to do something meaningful. It was about books. It was about our other health apps. I have never had any motivation, for example, to work in gambling. If you propose me one bill and I would not take a CO position in gambling companies, just like, I just don't want it. It's against my values and I don't have any interest to that. And, uh, we understood very well the size of a problem because we had the experience with health and fitness apps before. Uh, but, uh, question about knowledge. We didn't have knowledge, but also we had humility to understand that we didn't have knowledge, and because of that, we started to analyze, and we started to listen to users and doctors, and I remember that before starting Flow, our document about this market an…

AI assessment note: “I would say that any general advice is bad... this advice is bad as well”

Q Dimitri, how does this work? How do you go from mushroom gathering And farming potatoes, and that very wholesome upbringing in that respect, to founding one of the largest female, how do you get into technology first?

A Between mushroom gathering and founding of FLO was 20 years. It means that it was a long professional journey before we founded FLO. Uh, and, uh, I spent half of my professional life in book publishing, and, uh, I wrote books by myself, computer books, and, uh, then we worked with my brothers in publishing house, and then we started our own publishing house, and, uh, I spent approximately 10 years, uh, in this world, world of books, and, uh, I was responsible for approximately 2000 titles of educational books, and, uh, honestly, I had a big pleasure from this work because it was, uh, so material. Like, you, you're working with something, and, and you're getting material result. It's almost like you're getting your baby, and you may touch it. Like, it was very physical pleasure with these, uh, books. And then a very big change happened when App Store was opened in 2008 and nine, and that moment we decided to work with mobile apps, and the idea was very simple to start from content apps based on books, and then gradually, gradually, it's a longer story, but we got to Flow.

AI assessment note: “App Store was opened in 2008 and nine, and that moment we decided to work”

Q My question to you is, okay, so then we start monetization. That's a new game. We've got to prove that we can make money now. We've proved that we've got users who love it. How did monetization go? Like we turn it on. How did it go?

A Monetization is interesting because, and I'm coming back to our discussion about brand and PR, like our big mistake at the very beginning was belief that it's enough to create value and people would buy. But then we started to understand that also we need to sell, we need to explain product, we need to experiment. And we started to do that and just one number. A conversion to premium on onboarding increased in several years eight times, 800%, because of, uh, optimization, because of hundreds of A-B tests, and because of this approach that we should not just create value, we need to explain value, we need to sell, and it was huge, much, huge shift in mindset in the company, because before that, you know, kind of, ah, it's significant, it's just to create the best product, and people will see and buy and on and on. You also should explain why they should buy. Even Apple spent much resources to explain that you're not like arriving to shop and you're getting your iPhone in gray box. It should be beautiful. It should be very attractive, and the same with monetization. It's a balance between value and how you sell this value, and you should find proper balance between that. You may be too focused on Selling and, uh, like over promise, or you may be like us, we did at the beginning, you may create value, but you may undersell and everything should be right. It should be right balance…

AI assessment note: “conversion to premium on onboarding increased in several years eight times, 800%”

Q So I'm an investor, and we chatted before about some of your views on VCs, which was entertaining. Um, I don't like competitive markets, Dimitri, because I think it's very hard to stand out. I think your customer acquisition costs are high, your churn is high, product marketing is difficult, and I find them challenging to invest in. What would you say to me with that mindset?

A It's good to have good competitors because, uh, uh, you have, uh, much opportunity to learn from them and the good competition speed up your own company because you just feel this, uh, competition. Your team should feel this competition. Team is not getting, uh, complacent, but also it's like pretty much like a fixed pie mentality that, ah, like I should have a monopoly to take this pie. No, when you have good competition, pie is getting bigger because, uh, Products are better, like customers are more educated, and total market is getting bigger. Of course, nobody wants to be in this kind of red blood, like red blood ocean market when you have tiny margin and a ton of competition, but, uh, in case if it's normal competition, it's, it's good.

AI assessment note: “when you have good competition, pie is getting bigger because, uh, Products are better”

Q What are the wrong conclusions that I would make comparing it to SaaS?

A For example, you may apply the idea that, uh, retention should be very high because if you lose your customer, you lose it forever, and it, uh, it's the fact for BtoB, but it's not the fact for BtoC because in BtoC, in case of consumer face snaps, customers come, customers go, customers come back, customers go. We already have maybe 40% of installs from users who used our app Previously. And, uh, because of that, you should analyze not like retention itself, but, uh, retention of revenue. For example, you should analyze how cohort behave in time and what you're, what revenue you are getting because of this behavior that people are coming back and forth. They stop subscription, they start subscription, and you just can't apply this very simplistic logic of business as that if people pay and then they charge, they will never come back or they will never start paying Again, it means that logic in analysis of retention should be very different.

AI assessment note: “apply the idea that, uh, retention should be very high because if you lose your customer”

Q Dimitri, what was your first business? You said that, you know, your first job was at 16. What was your first business?

A My first job for money was, uh, gathering of mushrooms. And, uh, we had, uh, two types of kids in our village, uh, gatherers of Berries and gather yourself mushrooms. And it was two different types of businesses. Because in case of berries, you're like just sitting on the same place in the wood, and approximately you may gather the same volume of berries per day and stable income. In case of mushrooms, you should walk around the wood, and if you're lucky, you may get much mushrooms and even a lot of money, but another day you will get nothing. And, uh, psychologically, all kids were divided into two categories. Who preferred fixed income or who preferred, like, a mushroom gathering. And, uh, I and my brother, we always were mushroom gatherers. We always preferred, like, to take a chance for bigger gains and to have this journey around the wood rather than to sit on the place for fixed income.

AI assessment note: “My first job for money was, uh, gathering of mushrooms.”

Q So I'm an investor, and we chatted before about some of your views on VCs, which was entertaining. Um, I don't like competitive markets, Dimitri, because I think it's very hard to stand out. I think your customer acquisition costs are high, your churn is high, product marketing is difficult, and I find them challenging to invest in. What would you say to me with that mindset?

A It's good to have good competitors because, uh, uh, you have, uh, much opportunity to learn from them and the good competition speed up your own company because you just feel this, uh, competition. Your team should feel this competition. Team is not getting, uh, complacent, but also it's like pretty much like a fixed pie mentality that, ah, like I should have a monopoly to take this pie. No, when you have good competition, pie is getting bigger because, uh, Products are better, like customers are more educated, and total market is getting bigger. Of course, nobody wants to be in this kind of red blood, like red blood ocean market when you have tiny margin and a ton of competition, but, uh, in case if it's normal competition, it's, it's good.

AI assessment note: “It's good to have good competitors because, uh, uh, you have, uh, much opportunity”

Q I'm fascinated on this one. You know, you, you've been very successful over the last 10 years. Um, what does money mean to you, Dimitri? You're such an analytical.

A Honestly, not so much, because I have a rather humble lifestyle. I don't, honestly, I despise luxurious brands. I despise luxury. I even don't have car, and I don't have any expensive item. I don't have anything would be Like, kind of branded or luxurious. Uh, I, I don't need, uh, like business classes or private jets. Uh, I would want to have, uh, interesting and meaningful life and feel that I'm useful. And, uh, and honestly, I never think about my personal money. I'm absolutely honest here. Like never, never. Because I have so little, uh, need for myself that it's not even a kind of motivation for me. Uh, I'm very motivated by the story of, uh, founder of General Atlantic, Chuck Flynn. You do know this story?

AI assessment note: “Honestly, not so much, because I have a rather humble lifestyle.”

Q Did you test pricing a lot? I know what a data-driven culture you have. When you look at the pricing that you have, what are your biggest lessons that you have from pricing?

A The biggest lesson from pricing is that you should not make your decision just based on price. You should understand the full funnel because you may increase your price, but you would decrease retention or activation, or you would destroy your user acquisition, and then your ultimate revenue would be smaller. It means that ultimately you should decide based on top line and bottom line in your P&L, And optimized for that, and then all these internal parameters, you should look on them together, because you should optimize the function of many variables, if you talk about mathematics, because it's not just about optimizing of price, it's about optimizing of five, six variables simultaneously, and you should optimize them to find, like, the best combination when you're getting the most revenue. From your product.

AI assessment note: “The biggest lesson from pricing is that you should not make your decision just based”

Q Why is that multiple so much better than yours?

A Because it's, uh, Public company which simultaneously is growing very fast top line and bottom line. They have simultaneously, 40, 50% of top line growth, and they have very nice, uh, profitability growth, and it's extremely rare to see such companies as a public, uh, companies. It's like just old rule of 40, and you rarely see, like, rule of 40, like 50, 60 at the public markets, and all the, like, you, like, people believe that they still have good potential for expansion, Because there are so many learners of foreign languages in the world. I think combination of these two factors, but I think mostly it's just because combination of 40% top line growth and the 20, and the growth of, the proportional growth of profitability is so rare. And it means that if you want to cost ten billion, we probably should achieve six hundred million in revenue and then show profitability and continue growing with the same pace.

AI assessment note: “Because it's, uh, Public company which simultaneously is growing very fast top line”

Q You also work with your brother, Yuri. I, not many people know this, but I work with my brother. He's sitting upstairs now. Um, I love it, but everyone says don't work with family. What's your biggest advice to me on how to make it work so successfully with your brother?

A Again, I repeat my advice. Never take general advice. General advice is always bullshit, and, uh, everything is nuanced, and, uh, I worked with my brother for 30 years or so if we start considering, like, our work from mushroom gathering or potato field work, and we always work together in Uh, book publishing in all our ventures, and I remember that, uh, our first boss in, uh, publishing house, and it was, uh, 2005 or so, we worked together in publishing house. We were responsible for computer literature. He said that you should always work together because you're so different, and when you combine, like, your personalities, it's almost perfect because Yuri is good to make a path, and you're good to make a road. And you understand that, uh, and that I'm maybe too slow in deciding something, maybe indecisive, but then when I start doing something, I'm doing that perfectly. And Yuri, like, he is the opposite. He's kind of idea generator. He's venture, uh, driver, but he's not an operational person altogether. But when we have, uh, this combination is almost perfect, and it works really well. But also, I have worked all my life with my wife. I married very early, like, uh.

AI assessment note: “when you combine, like, your personalities, it's almost perfect”

Q Did you test pricing a lot? I know what a data-driven culture you have. When you look at the pricing that you have, what are your biggest lessons that you have from pricing?

A The biggest lesson from pricing is that you should not make your decision just based on price. You should understand the full funnel because you may increase your price, but you would decrease retention or activation, or you would destroy your user acquisition, and then your ultimate revenue would be smaller. It means that ultimately you should decide based on top line and bottom line in your P&L, And optimized for that, and then all these internal parameters, you should look on them together, because you should optimize the function of many variables, if you talk about mathematics, because it's not just about optimizing of price, it's about optimizing of five, six variables simultaneously, and you should optimize them to find, like, the best combination when you're getting the most revenue. From your product.

AI assessment note: “The biggest lesson from pricing is that you should not make your decision just based”

Q When you first launched this v three of flow, having had the two which didn't work so well, and the simplified flow, Did you have immediate product market fit? Take me to that.

A That moment when we launched Floor, maybe one month ago, I immediately understood that it, uh, had chance to become really big because of retention. I saw, like, a retention I had never seen before, and we had many apps, and, uh, I just combined two numbers, like, total rest of the market, women, And retention. And I understood that potential is tremendous by combination of this two metrics. And retention is really rare in health and fitness, pretty natural, because retention is not about product. Retention is about user cases. What many people don't understand, that retention is not about product. Retention is about user cases. It means that you may create the perfect app for gym, fitness app, And perfect app for gym will have terrible retention. Why? Because gyms themselves have terrible retention. You know, it's like a gym business model, like to sell 1000 membership for a gym with capacity in 100 people because gyms know that, like, 900 people would never visit. And, and why apps would work better than gyms? Of course, they, it's about nature of people. They wouldn't. And, uh, It's so rare to see good retention in health and fitness, and when I saw that, I understood that it will be very huge.

AI assessment note: “I immediately understood that it, uh, had chance to become really big because of retention.”

Q Do you think that made your job much more difficult? Do you think respectfully, if you sounded like me, As we said, loo, not toilet. Uh, do you think that would have been easier?

A Much easier. Much easier. Because, uh, investors, they, especially in big funds, uh, you usually start your conversation not with, like, partners or mentioned partners, but with analysts or with principles. And, uh, this, uh, people usually have profile kind of, uh, Graduated in Harvard, MBA in Stanford, or graduated in Stanford, MBA in Harvard, and they believe in people like them, and they don't believe in people like me, and it's really difficult to bridge this barrier of, uh, this elite, because they really, kind of, sort you out, and, uh, and, uh, I understand, like, there's, like, there are many Talking about, uh, this problem that, I mean, it's so difficult to minorities of any kind race. And I may say that it's, it's a true. It's true because you just, uh, sorted out at this level of, uh, right people.

AI assessment note: “Much easier. Much easier. Because, uh, investors, they, especially in big funds”

Q What is your biggest strength? What is your biggest weakness?

A I think my biggest strengths that I may analyze, I may make like a rather good conclusions in very simple manner. It means that people, they need clarity and simplicity, and I think I may provide clarity and simplicity. I'm not overwhelming them by information. I may take much of information on myself, but then I provide to them Like a solution, decision, description in very simple form and they understand and believe and follow. And, uh, my, my main weakness Sometimes I may be too slow for change. And, uh, uh, the biggest, uh, events in my life happened when the life burned my bridges. But now I understand that, uh, I should have burned my bridges by myself. For example, I started to make apps. Very significant reason was that because it was a crisis of, uh, 2008 in the, like, book publishing was in terrible situation. I started to focus just on flow because my old portfolio, like, declined because of political situation in region. And when everything was good, I was just delaying necessary change, and I was just waiting this crisis, like, for life to burn my bridges. And then, like, when necessary change happened, then, like, I started to move

AI assessment note: “my biggest strengths that I may analyze... my main weakness Sometimes I may be too slow”

Q Have you always been this good? Like, you are objectively one of, like, the kindest humans I've had on the show. Really, this is, like, shows like this are why I love doing what I do. I didn't expect this type of show. Have you always been like this, or has it come over time?

A I just, uh, go to, but because of, uh, Many, many, many problems and pains I had, uh, in my life, and I have, like, a little regrets about my professional life, and my biggest regret that when I was young and when I was less sensitive, I fired several people without decency. It means in, in root form. And it was maybe 1015 years ago, and I still feel guilty because of, uh, that 10 years after. Just because to feel empathy, you should, uh, get pain by yourself, and then you start to feel, uh, pain of other people, and it's just like a trait of age and a trait of a difficult journey. I was not like that when I was young.

AI assessment note: “I was not like that when I was young.”

Q Not at all. Listen, I've wanted to make this happen for a while. I would love to start. I, I read actually an interview you'd done before, and I heard that you had a single mother who worked as a librarian. Uh, you got your first job at 16. Take me to that. How did those early years shape you as an entrepreneur?

A As I see you, I'm not so young. I'm 41 years old, and, uh, my childhood was in nineties in Belarus. Difficult times. Like, the world, Soviet world was destroyed. Like, everything ruined. People didn't have salaries. Shelters were empty. The salary of my mother was maybe 30 bucks and nothing to buy because shelters in shops were empty. And we were growing our own food. We had potato field, vegetables in this field. We had a garden. We were making like hundreds of jars of pickles, and mostly we were feeding ourselves by this production. Like, I still don't like potato, honestly. I can't eat anymore. But it was a good life lesson. It was a lesson of farming. And the lesson of farming, Teach. You just can't fake farming. It means that you should take potato, not eat it immediately, even if you're hungry, and you should put this potato to ground, and then you must not eat this potato next day, and even one month after, you should wait, and then you should work hard, and you should, you can't fake this job. And then, uh, it's like, you never have, uh, 100% of chances that, uh, you would get your potato back, because, I don't know, it may be hail, it may be froze, it may be bugs, but then, if you're lucky and you work hard, then you will get your harvest. But also, it's a lesson of diversification, because you should have not just potatoes, you also should have vegetables and the gard…

AI assessment note: “It was a good life lesson. It was a lesson of farming.”

Q So then you have this moment of, wow, we actually have something. Six month retention is incredible. How were you acquiring customers at that point? Customer acquisition from zero to a million is very hard. You have little brand, you have little word of mouth. How were you acquiring customers, and what did that look like?

A The most significant was to create the best product, and the best product means that users were happy, and they were providing good ratings, and then, like, system of promotion of App Store and Google Play started to work because they have algorithms which promotes good apps, and they usually look on retention, average rating, other parameters, and if your app is really good, it's like, you're Like, algorithm promoting your app at the top. The same as with website. And because the product was good, we got our first traffic, uh, just organically, but it was general traffic based on, uh, like, kind of searches like period tracker. But then when, because of retention, we started to get bigger and bigger and bigger audience, then, uh, Vault of Mouse started to work. And, uh, Vault of Mouse is, uh, probably The single predictable way how to get organic traffic, because if you have a big mall, then people would advise your product, and then you would start to get, uh, organic traffic. And now we have mostly organic traffic because of volt of mouse rather than because of, uh, such general generalistic searches like, uh, period tracker. But again, if you ask me what's prerequisite of organic traffic, I would say retention is prerequisite of organic traffic. Because first you need to get active audience. Users should get happy. They will start to advise your product, and then you will g…

AI assessment note: “we got our first traffic, uh, just organically, but it was general traffic”

Q Do you think that made your job much more difficult? Do you think respectfully, if you sounded like me, As we said, loo, not toilet. Uh, do you think that would have been easier?

A Much easier. Much easier. Because, uh, investors, they, especially in big funds, uh, you usually start your conversation not with, like, partners or mentioned partners, but with analysts or with principles. And, uh, this, uh, people usually have profile kind of, uh, Graduated in Harvard, MBA in Stanford, or graduated in Stanford, MBA in Harvard, and they believe in people like them, and they don't believe in people like me, and it's really difficult to bridge this barrier of, uh, this elite, because they really, kind of, sort you out, and, uh, and, uh, I understand, like, there's, like, there are many Talking about, uh, this problem that, I mean, it's so difficult to minorities of any kind race. And I may say that it's, it's a true. It's true because you just, uh, sorted out at this level of, uh, right people.

AI assessment note: “Much easier. Much easier. Because, uh, investors, they, especially in big funds”

Q I'm fascinated on this one. You know, you, you've been very successful over the last 10 years. Um, what does money mean to you, Dimitri? You're such an analytical.

A Honestly, not so much, because I have a rather humble lifestyle. I don't, honestly, I despise luxurious brands. I despise luxury. I even don't have car, and I don't have any expensive item. I don't have anything would be Like, kind of branded or luxurious. Uh, I, I don't need, uh, like business classes or private jets. Uh, I would want to have, uh, interesting and meaningful life and feel that I'm useful. And, uh, and honestly, I never think about my personal money. I'm absolutely honest here. Like never, never. Because I have so little, uh, need for myself that it's not even a kind of motivation for me. Uh, I'm very motivated by the story of, uh, founder of General Atlantic, Chuck Flynn. You do know this story?

AI assessment note: “Honestly, not so much, because I have a rather humble lifestyle.”

Q That is amazing. I absolutely love that. Um, yeah, there's no way that that would work for me. Um, are you a wartime leader or a peacetime leader, do you think?

A I was pretty effective in both modes because, uh, I have one trait, like, you know, there are four types of people based on a level of negative and positive emotions. Like people who have, uh, low emotions in case of a bad situation and, uh, like, like slow, low, high, high, low, high, high, low. Like, like it depends on how are your emotions high or low in, in case of Problems. And in case of excitement, for example, if you have a huge excitement, but also like a huge, uh, stress in case of problems, uh, probably you, it's difficult to be a CEO. And my advantage that, uh, I'm kind of low, low personality. It means that I never feel too much excitement, but also I never feel too much stress. And because of that, I'm just, uh, In case of all our calamities, I was very, very calm, and I didn't have much stress, I just played my duty.

AI assessment note: “I was pretty effective in both modes because, uh, I have one trait”

Q You also work with your brother, Yuri. I, not many people know this, but I work with my brother. He's sitting upstairs now. Um, I love it, but everyone says don't work with family. What's your biggest advice to me on how to make it work so successfully with your brother?

A Again, I repeat my advice. Never take general advice. General advice is always bullshit, and, uh, everything is nuanced, and, uh, I worked with my brother for 30 years or so if we start considering, like, our work from mushroom gathering or potato field work, and we always work together in Uh, book publishing in all our ventures, and I remember that, uh, our first boss in, uh, publishing house, and it was, uh, 2005 or so, we worked together in publishing house. We were responsible for computer literature. He said that you should always work together because you're so different, and when you combine, like, your personalities, it's almost perfect because Yuri is good to make a path, and you're good to make a road. And you understand that, uh, and that I'm maybe too slow in deciding something, maybe indecisive, but then when I start doing something, I'm doing that perfectly. And Yuri, like, he is the opposite. He's kind of idea generator. He's venture, uh, driver, but he's not an operational person altogether. But when we have, uh, this combination is almost perfect, and it works really well. But also, I have worked all my life with my wife. I married very early, like, uh.

AI assessment note: “Never take general advice. General advice is always bullshit, and, uh, everything is nuanced”

Q I love it. It's just so rare. You know, we interview a lot of American founders, Dimitri, and the humility that you have is, is not shared by a lot of them. What were the biggest challenges then as you started to scale monetization? What really became tough?

A What really changed, what we didn't understand when we started monetization seven years ago, that habit to pay of people for subscription is changing, because when we started monetization, our dream was, ah, maybe we would monetize five percent of American audience, because that time it was quite a bar. Now we monetized, maybe if we exclude teenagers, 25, 30% of our American audience, and we don't see that, uh, our Monetization is slowing down, but it's not just because the product is becoming better. It's true. It's not just because of our experimentation was true. It's also because people accepted the idea to pay for subscriptions, and it was huge cultural change. It, uh, and without that, uh, it would be impossible. Cultural shift.

AI assessment note: “what we didn't understand when we started monetization seven years ago”

Q That is amazing. I absolutely love that. Um, yeah, there's no way that that would work for me. Um, are you a wartime leader or a peacetime leader, do you think?

A I was pretty effective in both modes because, uh, I have one trait, like, you know, there are four types of people based on a level of negative and positive emotions. Like people who have, uh, low emotions in case of a bad situation and, uh, like, like slow, low, high, high, low, high, high, low. Like, like it depends on how are your emotions high or low in, in case of Problems. And in case of excitement, for example, if you have a huge excitement, but also like a huge, uh, stress in case of problems, uh, probably you, it's difficult to be a CEO. And my advantage that, uh, I'm kind of low, low personality. It means that I never feel too much excitement, but also I never feel too much stress. And because of that, I'm just, uh, In case of all our calamities, I was very, very calm, and I didn't have much stress, I just played my duty.

AI assessment note: “I was pretty effective in both modes because”

Q are one of the most humble people I've ever had on this show, and I've done 10 years of this show. Like, this is fascinating. Do you think there's ever a point where that holds you back? You know, Flow is a massive brand now. People care about the Flow brand. Do you think that the, ah, hesitation to spend money on billboards, brand, marketing, is gonna hold you back?

A Maybe, but, you know, there are many ways to be successful. It's a very simplistic way of thinking that, ah, there is manual how to run a company, like, and page 100, do that. Page 110, do that. If you look on history of any company or any SEO, you would see that everything is so nuanced, everything is so unique, every journey is so unique, and there are just Nothing. You may say, like, kind of, you should do that, and you shouldn't do that. Like, you just should understand your strengths. You should understand your way. You should not do something what's natural, not natural for you. And, but then, like, there are thousands of ways to be successful, and you just should choose your way to be successful, and, like, make your company successful.

AI assessment note: “Maybe, but, you know, there are many ways to be successful.”

Q What did you learn from them, and why did you beat them?

A It's very similar at the beginning with, like, a race. Like, all cars start approximately at the same point, or at the same point, and all cars are the same, and then you need, like, a little advantage, but then when you're making many, many, many rounds, like, you're getting more and more and more distance. It means that it's almost kind of a bifurcation point. You are getting A little advantage at the beginning, and then in years, your advantage is becoming huge. And the ultimate reason behind that, that, uh, it's a flywheel. Like, it's like just a cumulative effect of many things, and, uh, at the beginning, like, uh, our apps were honestly pretty much similar, but then probably we did some good product decisions. We Got additional resources, and we started to invest to our product much more than our competitors. We invested to product, just to product, up to this moment, one hundred fifty million, and, uh, we mostly had engineers in Eastern Europe, like, to understand that in standards of UK or United States, you should multiply that on two, and then we created this big flaw, this super app, because of this investment, and this product, Became so good, so much better than competitors, and it won naturally. But at the beginning, all our products were almost the same, and difference was very tiny.

AI assessment note: “we started to invest to our product much more than our competitors”