Dmitry Gurski: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health|E1205

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). ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:58) How Early Life Experiences Shape Entrepreneurial Journey (05:57) Two Apps that Didn’t Work Before Flo (12:02) Learnings from Other Competitors (16:19) Key Retention Metrics That Signal Product Success (18:54) How Early Customer Acquisition Was Achieved (23:48) Why Dmitry Doesn’t Like Brand or PR? (28:04) Is Speed is Everything? (28:55) Fundraising (36:14) The Shift to Monetization (47:35) Super Apps vs. Product Focus (00:56:48) What Not to Do as a VC (01:00:20) From a $1 Billion to a $10 Billion Company (01:01:57) CEO Self-Reflection (01:05:01) Relationship to Money (01:08:22) How to Successfully Work with Family (01:12:18) The Most Challenging Moment (01:16:03) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- 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? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Flo App on Twitter: https://twitter.com/flotracker Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #dmitrygurski #flo #founder #ceo #venturecapital #monetization #app #femtech