The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health: Scaling to $1BN Valuation, 75M Users & Getting 100s of No's From Investors Along the Way with Dmitry Gurski

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Sep 23, 2024

Dmitry Gurski, Co-founder and CEO of Flo Health, discusses his journey from potato farming in Belarus to leading a billion-dollar women's health app. He shares valuable lessons about leadership and why craziness, not just intelligence, is vital for founders. Dmitry dives into the realities of securing funding, especially as a minority founder, and emphasizes the importance of resilience in facing rejection. He explores the balance between freemium and premium models, and encourages a product-focused approach over conventional branding.

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INSIGHT

Retention is About User Case

User retention is determined by the inherent user case, not just the product itself.
A perfect gym app might have poor retention because gym-going itself has poor retention.

ADVICE

Avoid General Advice

Never take general advice.
General advice is always bullshit, because every situation is nuanced and unique.

ANECDOTE

Childhood Lessons

Dmitry Gurski's childhood involved farming potatoes and gathering mushrooms in Belarus.
Mushroom gathering taught him about risk and reward, while farming taught him about hard work and diversification.

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Dmitry Gurski is the Co-Founder and CEO of Flo Health, the leading women's health app and the first European femtech unicorn. Launched in 2015, Flo Health has grown to over 70 million monthly active users and 5 million paid subscribers. The app is recognized as the #1 recommended tool for period and cycle tracking, and it recently achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Beyond Flo, Dmitry is a partner at Palta, a co-founding company with a portfolio of successful startups including Simple App, MSQRD (acquired by Facebook), AIMatter (acquired by Google), and Wannaby (acquired by Farfetch).

In Today's Episode with Dmitry Gurski We Discuss:

1. Why 99% of Startup Advice is BS:

Why does Dmitry believe that speed is not the most important thing?
Why does Dmitry believe that competition is actually a good thing?
Why does Dmitry believe that craziness not intelligence is the most important trait in founders?
Why does Dmitry believe that fundraising is simply a numbers game?
What does no one understand about retention that everyone should know?

2. From Potato Farms to Billion Dollar Apps:

What a childhood in potato farming taught Dmitry about leadership and technology?
How mushroom farming taught Dmitry about diversification and focus?
How does Dmitry advise people analyse the hardest moments in their life?
Why Dmitry does not believe in talent? What else is there?

3. Scaling to Flo's First 1M Users:

What were Dmitry's biggest lessons from two failed prior versions of Flo?
What is the secret to success in consumer subscription?
How did Flo acquire their first customers? What worked? What did not work?
Why does Dmitry not believe in brand and PR?

4. Building a $200M Revenue Market Leader:

What have been Dmitry's biggest lessons on monetisation?
How does Dmitry think about retaining product simplicity with time?
What are the first things to break in the scaling of a company?
What did they do with Flo that he wishes they had not done?