A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

From mushroom-picking in Belarus to $200M/year. How he built Flo Health into a $1B health app. | Dmitry Gurski, Founder of Flo Health

Mar 10, 2025

Dmitry Gurski, founder of Flo Health, shares his extraordinary journey from picking mushrooms in Belarus to leading a billion-dollar health app with 75 million users. He reveals how simplicity in product design outperformed rivals and emphasizes that user retention is key for success. Dmitry discusses the brutal fundraising process, facing over 200 rejections, and the importance of team dynamics for startups. Learn why targeting a broad audience and embracing failure can lead to lasting impact in the competitive health app market.

01:13:34

Episode guests

Dmitry Gurski

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Dmitry Gurski's journey from a potato farm in Belarus to founding Flo Health exemplifies the importance of perseverance and resilience in entrepreneurship.

Flo Health's success stems from prioritizing user retention and simplicity, positioning it favorably against competitors with more complex features.

The challenging fundraising landscape for female health startups highlights the need for persistence and adaptability in securing investment.

Deep dives

Dimitri's Unconventional Journey

Dimitri's journey from a humble beginning on a potato farm in Belarus to becoming the founder of Flow highlights a unique entrepreneurial path. He started working young, cultivating discipline and resilience through hands-on farming experiences. This early exposure to hard work shaped his outlook on business, teaching him the importance of commitment and patience, especially when it comes to yielding results. Despite launching Flow in a saturated market with established competitors like Glow, Dimitri's understanding of perseverance and adaptability set the stage for his eventual success.

Intro

2min

From Potato Farm to Business Success

7min

Designing for Success: The Health App Journey

15min

Navigating User Retention in Health Apps

10min

The Entrepreneurial Journey: From Writing to Apps

18min

Trailblazing Health App: Evolution and Impact

6min

Seizing the Opportunity: A Commitment to Flo Health

2min

Navigating Product-Market Fit and Funding Challenges

15min

This is one of the wildest founder journeys you’ll ever hear. Dmitry Gurski went from growing potatoes and picking mushrooms on a farm in Belarus to building Flo—a billion-dollar company with 75M monthly users that dominates the health and fitness category worldwide. He started Flo in a market already controlled by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin’s startup, which had $30M in funding from a16z. Today, Flo is 100x bigger than its once-dominant rival.

Dmitry shares raw, unfiltered startup truths—like why he got rejected by 200+ VCs, why 90% of startup failures are team-related, and why most founders are delusional about product-market fit. He breaks down how simplicity beats complexity in product, why retention is everything, and how deleting features can actually boost revenue.

If you’re a founder, this episode will fundamentally change how you think about perseverance, pivots, and building something that lasts. Listen now—you’ll be referencing this one for years.

Why you should listen:

Why big market beats niche – How Flo won because it targeted all women’s health while competitors focused only on fertility.
How Retention is the real test – A product with natural recurring use cases (like periods) has built-in retention, unlike fitness or productivity apps.
Why simple wins – The first version of Flo was less complex than competitors but had far better predictions—accuracy mattered more than features.
Fundraising is brutal – Flo got 300+ investor rejections before raising $300M. Many VCs just didn’t “get” the space.

Keywords
startup, entrepreneurship, product design, user retention, Flow app, health and fitness, early stage founders, product market fit, simplicity, user engagement, retention, user case, app development, entrepreneurship, product market fit, mobile apps, business strategy, team dynamics, failure, success, risk, uncertainty, decision making, market demand, competition, product-market fit, fundraising, entrepreneurship, startup success, female health

Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:09:10) Why you Need to Keep it Simple
(00:13:10) Why B2C is All About Retention
(00:19:05) Why you Need to Delete Features
(00:24:14) PMF is about the Shape of the Curve
(00:39:17) When to Persevere, When to Pivot, and When to Quit
(00:42:22) More attempts = more success
(00:51:34) The Idea for Flo
(00:59:05) Finding Product Market Fit
(01:02:07) Advice for An Early Stage Founder
(01:10:22) A Potato Story

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