Dmitry Gurski, co-founder and CEO of Flo Health, reflects on his early career mistakes and personal growth as a leader.
Insight
Gurski: Conducting layoffs is emotionally easier for founders than venture fundraising
“Even layoffs are simpler, because layoffs is like computation. Cut, and you're just in two or three weeks, and you continue your work. But fundraising, it's like, just like, it's each day you're getting no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and you're starting to lo…”
Insight
Gurski: VC junior screeners favor elite Harvard and Stanford alumni profiles
“Investors, they, especially in big funds you usually start your conversation not with, like, partners or mentioned partners, but with analysts or with principles. And this people usually have profile kind of Graduated in Harvard, MBA in Stanford, or graduated …”
Insight
Gurski: App retention depends on underlying use cases, not product quality
“What many people don't understand is that retention is not about product. Retention is about user case. It means that you may create the perfect app for gym and you'll have terrible retention. Why? Because gyms themselves have terrible retention.”
Insight
Gurski: Acquiring early mobile app users organically is no longer realistic
“In our case, we got them organically, but in new reality, probably you must buy them. It's less realistic nowadays to get initial audience organically.”
Opinion
Gurski: Most VCs misevaluate consumer subscription startups by applying SaaS metrics
“Most investors, they just don't understand this business model. They confuse it with SaaS, and they're making very wrong conclusions because of that.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2029
Gurski: Five or more $10B+ consumer subscription companies will exist by 2029
“I think we will have them because this business model is growing, and you might just check numbers of Apple, and you may see that Apple got from consumer subscription in 2017 and five billion, and it's projected that we'll get maybe one hundred billion or so n…”