ABOUT VICTORIA: Linkedin | BETTERME

ABOUT ROCKETSHIP HQ: Website | LinkedIn  | Twitter | YouTube


KEY HIGHLIGHTS

📚 Victoria’s beginnings at Donetsk and her love for books

✈️ Moving to Kyiv to study and build a career

🪅 Transitioning from logistics to building viral content and then tech. 

🧰 Leveraging Facebook insights to discover niche topics to launch BetterMe.

📱 Test-driving the early versions of BetterMe on the team by trying out the practices on themselves.

🤸‍♂️ Why BetterMe has 6 different health and fitness related apps in the app stores.

🎧 Victoria’s self-care and self-improvement practices – and why she says business is a “spiritual game”.

KEY QUOTES

The elements for a successful business

I changed my life completely and kept persuading people that such a dramatic career switch is not scary. As every successful business everywhere is built on two key elements: revenue and cost, you focus on maximizing revenue and minimizing costs. And lack of experience could be compensated with ambitious productivity, and most important with the desire to learn, grow and develop.

Content creation is not all about creativity

I noticed that in social media, we only have between one and three seconds to catch users’ attention as they scroll through their news feeds. We need to pack this message but at the same time, make it as simple as possible for the customers’ brains to absorb it. I was surprised by how analytical and technical content creation might be. 

People might think it’s all about creativity, and you can literally craft everyone with your own post. Yes, it requires a lot of analysis and data, but it’s possible through absorbing users’ behavior and tastes. If you want the content to become viral, create what people want, not what you want. Create what people find interesting and useful, not you, not your boss or colleague. It maximizes chances to hit your audience’s core interest.

The launch strategy of BetterMe

How did we launch it? Having a lot of experience in content marketing, we started an intense campaign aimed at gathering an audience interested in health and weight loss issues on social media. We launched a Facebook page with tons of weight loss content to understand what people actually want and need. After maybe 100s of posts in the Facebook group, we gathered enough data to have a clear picture of our core audience and what are the most sought-after topics. 

After we had enough followers, we published Better Me’s closed app as a solution to the most urgent problem the audience was trying to solve in this Facebook group.  That exceeded our expectations for 10 days, we got about 100,000 installs. We received a lot of feedback and kept improving the testing of our solution on our audience, making it exactly the way people wanted to see it.

Connecting with the audience

What the post has to do is call for an emotional reaction to the pains and concerns of the audience. For example, sometimes to sell a weight loss app, you don’t have to put a beautiful woman on it. Your customers are dreaming to become better. You have to put an image of a real woman with real measurements that might not be perfect, that will call for a reaction.

The users that successfully lose weight

But some of those people are falling under the pressure of social judgment and trying to lose weight to be a better size. It’s hard to lose weight for someone, you have to do it for yourself. People who do it because they love themselves are more motivated, disciplined, and persistent than people who try to fit in with someone’s beauty standards. And discipline is crucial in the weight loss process. Discipline is core.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Shamanth 

I’m very excited to welcome Victoria Repa. Victoria, welcome to the show.

Victoria 

Thank you for inviting me.

Shamanth 

Absolutely. Victoria, you were raised in a tiny village in the east of Ukraine. You have said that you made your way through education and a lot of reading. Tell me about where you grew up and your first exposure to reading, what was it like?

Victoria 

I’m from a small village of just 500 people near Donetsk. My school was so tiny and I only had 12 classmates and lessons were barely 20 minutes long. In my early years, I excelled at formal education. But I knew that to excel at life, I had to learn many more things outside of the classroom on my own. Reading every book I could get hands-on from business titles to classics such as Tolstoy. From my upbringing, I learned not to wait for a guru that will teach me because, in my childhood, there were no good teachers.

Shamanth 

So when you went to Kyiv was that a culture shock? You went from a 500 person town to a bigger city that had 3 million people. What were some of the challenges you faced when you moved from a small village school to a big city?

Victoria 

I surprisingly didn’t feel a cultural shock. What I felt was a really big relief. I felt like I finally found my environment, big city, busy smart people and resources to grow and achieve. I adapted pretty fast and being busy at the university and surrounded by cool people really helped me with it. Kyiv School of Economics founded by George Soros has a really transparent admission system. I was surrounded by people with the same values who wanted to grow, so it didn’t matter where I came from, because we were on the same wavelength.

Shamanth 

So even though the culture was new to you, it sounds like you were excited by the new opportunities that you encountered in the city. When you graduated, your first job was as a finance manager for a transportation and warehouse firm. What was the path from working on transportation and warehousing to working in tech?

Victoria 

In university I took every single opportunity and participated in every competition that came my way. Thanks to that I got my first job at Procter and Gamble, they hired me to the logistics department right after my graduation. Working for one of the world’s largest corporations in the FMCG sector gave me a glimpse of what it meant to really strive for more. My manager was so demanding, he was obsessed with setting up and fine-tuning all the processes within his reach. 

Within a year, I learned from every professional I met and acquired so much knowledge that I felt like I started to plateau, it was time for a change for me. I applied and got into one of the largest digital publishing companies in Ukraine. I had no background in tech and literally dived into an absolutely unfamiliar industry. 

I was fascinated by how rapidly it grew and the many opportunities it opened up. I threw myself into the startup world and got the opportunity to pitch in business ideas and eventually joined one of the exciting startups within the company. So I decided to make an unusual switch from FMCG. I believe that to grow fast career-wise, you have to work in an industry that is also growing fast.

I was happy with my choice,

I changed my life completely and kept persuading people that such a dramatic career switch is not scary. As every successful business everywhere is built on two key elements: revenue and cost, you focus on maximizing revenue and minimizing costs. And lack of experience could be compensated with ambitious productivity, and most important with the desire to learn, grow and develop.

Shamanth

I certainly see that you really were thinking about moving to an industrial space that was growing faster than FMCG. But I’m curious how you prepared for that shift. Because if you’re working for a tech incubator that works on viral content, you have to learn a lot of things that you’ve never studied in economics school that you never were working on when you were working on transportation and warehousing. So how did you prepare and how did you learn for a job that required you to produce viral content?

Victoria

The key lesson that I learned in a start-up, you can’t prepare for everything. You just test and learn. Test, learn, and measure, measure, measure.

Shamanth 

You were working on viral content at this time. Can you elaborate and tell us more about what that means? What did your day-to-day look like when you were making this viral content?

Victoria 

My first position was as an analyst in the media department. I analyzed snippets, images, and headlines from media to find patterns that make content viral and create guidelines for our editorial team. Later, this helped me when I was launching Better Me. The ability to analyze patterns and create the most demanded product is one of the key factors of our success.

Shamanth 

At the time, you said you were analyzing a lot of viral content. What do you mean by viral content? When you say headlines and snippets, were these articles? What were the articles about? 

Victoria

They were articles covering topics from news to health, all about content in any topics that allow us to grow.

Shamanth

So this content is about various topics like health and fitness, and finance? Where were they getting published?

Victoria 

On Facebook 

Shamanth 

And how did the company make money?

Victoria 

Advertisements. Because people just read our articles and we used advertisements.

Shamanth 

Any advertisements on your website?

Victoria 

Yes. But because we were working with Facebook. 

Shamanth 

Got it? So Facebook would show ads on your website, through the audience network. That’s how you would monetize this content. You as an analyst figured out what was going viral, how do you magnify that, and while you were working on this content, what surprised you about some of that content that was going viral?  

Because you were seeing a lot of headlines, a lot of snippets, what surprised you at this time, when you’re looking at a lot of this data?

Victoria

I noticed that in social media, we only have between one and three seconds to catch users’ attention as they scroll through their news feeds. We need to pack this message but at the same time, make it as simple as possible for the customers’ brains to absorb it. I was surprised by how analytical and technical content creation might be. 

People might think it’s all about creativity, and you can literally craft everyone with your own post. Yes, it requires a lot of analysis and data, but it’s possible through absorbing users’ behavior and tastes. If you want the content to become viral, create what people want, not what you want. Create what people find interesting and useful, not you, not your boss or colleague. It maximizes chances to hit your audience’s core interest.

Shamanth

Can you think of an example where you looked at the data or your team looked at the data and you were said, “This is the kind of content we should make” and it actually went viral. 

Is there an example that comes to mind?

Victoria 

Yes. We know the trend now in health and fitness is the Keto diet, but no one knows that there really is a key trend and the key demand is the vegetarian Keto diet. There is a lack of research, meals, etc. But it’s a very huge demand, everyone needs a really clear guide for vegan and vegetarian Keto diets. So we thought, great, we can provide more info since there are no other players in this niche.

Shamanth 

So how did that analysis inform the idea that the vegan keto diet is something you should be writing about?

Victoria

We just posted on our social media. Previously we could post about 50 articles a day.

Shamanth 

You post 50 articles per day?

Victoria 

Yes. On every topic in health and fitness. Reaction is what we wanted. Everything absorbs a key topic that gets us the highest engagement.

Shamanth 

What metrics do you look at when you say engagement?

Victoria 

Of course If we talk about articles – it takes about three and a half weeks than if we talk about just video or images.

Shamanth 

Right. So you’re like, Okay, we want to understand what’s working in health and fitness, you think of 50 topics. You post everything. And then you see what comes up. That sounds like a lot of work.

Victoria 

The work is really needed to succeed in this overheated niche.

Shamanth 

Certainly, and let’s say you’re posting 50 articles on Facebook and you and your team were based in Ukraine at the time. All of these 50 articles are going up for a global audience. Was it easy to be based in Ukraine and understanding what global audiences want? Maybe what some housewife in Miami wants? 

Was it a challenge to think about people that are very different from you guys?

Victoria  

The challenge is mostly in people’s minds, the key is to make the first step. The practical difference is not such a huge challenge and lies in our audience, and its interest. You create content for people. Yes, there are Americans, Ukrainians, Brazilians, and Indians. But first of all, they are people. Followers have similar needs and interests.

Shamanth 

Certainly, we all have fairly fundamental needs. If you’re watching on Facebook, what resonates with one culture, much of it, not all of it, much of it can resonate with other cultures. 

You’ve spoken about how you guys are posting viral content. Over the years, at least from my understanding, Facebook promotes viral content less and less. Facebook basically says we’re going to promote paid content. If you need to go viral, we’re not going to promote organic content. So was that ever a challenge for you guys, as you were posting on your Facebook pages? 

Victoria 

Yes, of course. So we needed to find a new niche in our businesses. And one of them was we started the business of apps.

Shamanth 

You guys were looking for new ways to grow, and therefore apps. So how did you guys come up with the idea that apps are the right way to go? Rather than build viral content for maybe Snapchat or Instagram or a lot of other opportunities to continue to build viral content?

Victoria 

We just knew that the business of apps will grow. We understood from our site, we had a lot of experience in content. We just try to pack this content in our application. Our first apps were BoredMan, Beauty Hub, and Video Gif, all three apps failed.

Shamanth 

What was BoredMan?

Victoria 

It was just fun memes for men.

Shamanth 

So it’s basically a content app. You’re producing content that contains memes for men. And you said it did not work out well?

Victoria 

Yes. Because as we understood them, they didn’t address immediate and important enough problems. It wasn’t a pleasant, important experience that helped us realize, if you want to succeed in the long term, you have to create an app that solves problems, not kills time and money.

Shamanth 

Interesting. Did you guys have this insight when you were producing viral content for Facebook? Did you guys have that insight at all?

Victoria 

No, we did not have. We did not understand how people consumed content on Facebook. And if you’re just launching a new app, it’s different.

Shamanth 

You said when you were building the app, you learned that that app’s success depended on its ability to solve a problem. It sounds like the viral content was not necessarily geared at solving any specific problem. 

Why was that different? Why is an app geared toward solving a problem versus viral content, which is presumably entertaining, but not really solving a problem?

Victoria 

Because for viral content, you shouldn’t pay. In an application, you should pay because you provide something unique.

Shamanth 

So with viral content, you’re not wanting them to pay. You just want them to be entertained. And you’re monetizing them via ads. Whereas with an app, your expectation is that they will pay. 

Did you not think about, we could maybe make entertaining content that does not solve a problem, but monetize them via ads on the app. Did you guys think about that?

Victoria 

We knew that but if we monetize only with ad monetization, it’s not a good experience. It’s not promoted with an iOS subscription. Every app on Google and Apple are now interested in a subscription.

Shamanth 

Yes. And I think that with the subscription model the economics becomes so much stronger. Are you aware of any health and fitness apps that monetize via ad monetization at all?

Victoria 

Yes, so many examples, but they’re not in top locations. For example, the Android app on fitness publishers, it’s about maybe 20 applications, Leap Fitness Group, used only ad monetization for users. 

Shamanth 

It sounds like you guys were very clear that you will not monetize via ads, you will monetize via subscriptions. What inspired that direction for you guys?

Victoria

We were focusing mostly on speed. We prioritized speed over efficiency inside that in order to achieve big results. Of course, we were also focusing on subscriptions. We also considered the possibility of not only developed markets but also Latin America and Asia markets. But primarily for developed countries, it was subscriptions.

Shamanth 

Interesting. Is that because these developed countries have higher income people and are more prosperous? Is that why subscriptions are a better model?

Victoria

Maybe, we don’t know. 

Shamanth 

Just to rewind the clock a bit. You said you launched your first couple of apps and those didn’t work well, because they were not solving problems. They were just content. Your first app that was actually solving a problem was Better Me which is what you’re still running. When you decided to launch Better Me, what are the first steps that you took?

Victoria 

It was a joint decision with Better Me’s co-founder and my business partner Vital Laptenok. After a couple of failed products, we decided to focus on modern-day human problems. While working, my co-founder and I noticed the rapidly growing demand for high-quality health and fitness content. We researched the industry deeper and found out that seven out of 10 people in the United States are overweight now, and eight out of 10 will be in 20-30 years. 

In the future, this will constitute a major problem for most families in the world. We also found that the future for the app market has skyrocketed from virtually nothing to 500 million in just a few years as significant parts of the larger fitness industry will migrate online including mobile apps. We decided to take advantage of this opportunity and drive ourselves in creating something really valuable. Something that will affect people in a good way to become healthier. 

How did we launch it? Having a lot of experience in content marketing, we started an intense campaign aimed at gathering an audience interested in health and weight loss issues on social media. We launched a Facebook page with tons of weight loss content to understand what people actually want and need. After maybe 100s of posts in the Facebook group, we gathered enough data to have a clear picture of our core audience and what are the most sought-after topics. 

After we had enough followers, we published Better Me’s closed app as a solution to the most urgent problem the audience was trying to solve in this Facebook group.  That exceeded our expectations for 10 days, we got about 100,000 installs. We received a lot of feedback and kept improving the testing of our solution on our audience, making it exactly the way people wanted to see it.

Shamanth 

That’s so interesting. There are so many aspects of your answer that I want to dive into. So first of all, it sounds like you guys built a Facebook page, made viral content for the page, and built up the audience on the Facebook page because that’s what you were familiar with. 

So you knew that that’s a path that you were very, very familiar with and you knew how to get people engaged, you knew how to build up an audience out there. What isn’t very common though, is being able to transfer that audience from a Facebook page to an app. I don’t know anybody else who’s done that. And certainly not done that at a scale where you are able to drive 100,000 users per day, which I think is a humongous volume of users. 

So did you guys have a quantitative model of some sort that said, “Look, we need to get to X number of users liking Facebook posts. Then if we do that we know the app is going to be successful. That’s when we can send X number of users to the app.” 

What was the math like that you guys were doing? 

Victoria 

It really was not planned. Maybe now I wouldn’t recommend doing this. But as we grew back then it’s well for us. Today, we are one of the family health and fitness applications that have the biggest social media community. Now we have about 10 million followers on Facebook & Instagram. We also develop Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

Shamanth 

And are these primarily to engage your existing users? Or does this drive a significant quantity of new users? How do you describe your goals for your social pages right now, a couple of years after the app has launched?

Victoria 

Now we have about 20 to 30% of our community drive organically. We understood that when we promote our app, it just grows organically. Now we don’t follow any special purpose in our social media. We know that our social media grows organically. We post recommendations free for our users. For content that is interesting and if they want to go deeper, they install our app. 

Shamanth 

In some ways, it’s freemium, because you’re giving free content and free information. If they want more, they come into the app and they actually pay for it. 

So in many ways, you guys have much more in common as a media company than tech companies. Would you agree with that?

Victoria 

Absolutely. But primarily, we use all the analytics in our business, media and app. It’s data-driven and technology-driven.

Shamanth

Totally. What I will also underscore is, you built the business model based on your own strengths, because you had seen exactly how powerful viral content could be and you built the entirety of your business on that trend. 

Your app launched in 2017. Is that right?

Victoria 

Yes. 

Shamanth 

So the app launched in 2017. This was quite a time when many could argue that the app ecosystem had reached considerable maturity. But you were able to break into a relatively mature market, on the back of your app’s strengths. That’s something that I find very, very impressive about what you’ve done. 

According to my research, you basically tested an early version of your app on your own team. Can you speak about how you guys tested the app on your own team? 

Victoria 

After we understood that weight loss is a universal concern and a universal pain around the world, we knew the key direction and users that we first need 5 million users on our Facebook community with members from India to Alaska and everywhere in between. As I mentioned earlier, we used just the general approach, then we tried that before the release of our weight loss app, and when we developed it, we tried all diets on our team. 

Also, for the meditation app, we meditated 60 minutes every day. We would invite a guru and it was great because 80% of our team never ever meditated. We provided meditation for beginners. From iOS developers to happiness managers, everyone understood the plan of our new product and our release.

Shamanth 

So you guys tested the early version of the app on your own team. And did you get learnings that you could not have gotten just by looking at public literature or looking at your user base? What are the key learnings that you got just by looking at your own team?

Victoria

Yes, because it’s really rare today, when we have 5 million apps on iOS and every user will provide feedback. We understood that our vegetarian diet, which was something one of the best health and fitness teachers in the United States wrote, is really hard to follow. Because it has too many carbs. You just try to understand that it’s impossible to follow it and of course, provide feedback and change it.

Shamanth 

There are some posts that really resonate, that really take off on Facebook, Instagram, and all these platforms and there are some posts that don’t really take off. There are some posts that drive a lot of installs and subscriptions and there are some that don’t. So what are the characteristics of posts that really take off?

Victoria 

A post that will not only get likes but will also drive people to the funnel has to hit the audience interest on every level on every step of the customer journey. The post doesn’t have to be pretty but it can attract attention and motivate your audience to learn more. 

What the post has to do is call for an emotional reaction to the pains and concerns of the audience. For example, sometimes to sell a weight loss app, you don’t have to put a beautiful woman on it. Your customers are dreaming to become better. You have to put an image of a real woman with real measurements that might not be perfect, that will call for a reaction.

Shamanth 

So you’re seeking to provoke a reaction and certainly having realistic-looking people and posts is certainly one way to do that are the other examples that come to mind.

Victoria 

In our audience, we try everything and we have really drawn insights. For example, now we have a promo post, which is the best, it has the guidance of challenges. Just tables, no people, only tables about some challenges and stuff, 18 to 21 days of self-care challenge, etc.

Shamanth 

Interesting.

To switch gears a little bit. As of last week, you guys had six apps in the App Store, and four of your apps were ranked number 2, 4, 15 and 26 in the health and fitness space. So why have six different apps rather than six sections within one single app?

Victoria

We developed our ideas for two years. And today we understood that our goal is to create a health and fitness ecosystem that brings harmony to the body and soul. That’s what Harari wrote in his book Homo Deus. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little. More people commit suicide than being killed by soldiers, terrorists, and criminals put together. 

The modern 21st-century problem in developed countries is obesity and depression and we want to help people tackle that and live healthier and happier lives. When we started Better Me our goal wasn’t just to release one app, our goal was to be a platform that provides people with tools for self-care, and personal health management. There are so many aspects of health, including mental health, weight loss, health tracking, cardio performance, etcetera. We want to create an environment that allows people to take care of everything within one system. 

But as for your question about why six different apps, at first, in terms of development, it was easy to test, to understand what is a good demand topic. But in the long run, we are looking into putting all of our apps into one single app that will become maybe the Uber of health and fitness.

Shamanth 

So you guys were testing different topics and themes, and you wanted distinct applications to direct people to. 

Obviously you’ve seen not only how people interact with the content, but you’ve also seen people use the app and get results using the app. What are the kinds of people who succeed in losing weight and hitting their fitness goals as compared to those that fail? 

Are there specific characteristics that you see that distinguish these two groups?

Victoria 

One thing that I have noticed is that people with a strong internal motivation tend to perform better. You can’t take someone to lose weight. If people are happy with their weight and they feel well, it’s fine. There’s no need to force them to change. 

But some of those people are falling under the pressure of social judgment and trying to lose weight to be a better size. It’s hard to lose weight for someone, you have to do it for yourself. People who do it because they love themselves are more motivated, disciplined, and persistent than people who try to fit in with someone’s beauty standards. And discipline is crucial in the weight loss process. Discipline is core. 

Everyone that follows our program will get results. I think before losing weight, you should ask yourself, why do I need it? If your answer is because I want to feel better, I want to be healthy, I want to feel more confident and happy. You answer rightly but the motivation I want to look like an Instagram model will never provide you enough resources to achieve your goals.

Shamanth 

Certainly, that internal locus of control is something you exhibited at very, very different points in your life. Starting from when you sought out books to read in your village to when you sought out technology when you were in an FMCG role. One of the most impressive things about you, Victoria is when you said, and I quote, “I figured out my personal system that helps me be a good leader.” But the most impressive part was, “my daily routine includes waking up at 5 am, meditating for two hours, yoga, five hours of reading and self-development, a maximum of two meals a day, and solitude for self-reflection once in two weeks.” 

So if my math is right, that’s like, seven hours a day for reading, self-development, and meditation, a lot of people would say, I could never spend seven hours a day for myself. How do you manage that routine, run a company, run a team and be productive?

Victoria 

If I compare myself to five years ago and now I’m a really different person. The answer is to find your why. 

I have a team of 70 people and I’m responsible for their development. They believe in me, and in my vision, and they see me as their role model. In a way or subconsciously, I want my employees to be motivated, healthy and productive. I set an example. It is essential to have a clear mind in order to make the right decision without emotions or eagerness. It is worth giving up some weaknesses and working on your discipline to achieve success. 

My healthy routine is inspired by Buddhism philosophy. I wear the system, and I try to get rid of weaknesses, to get a clear mind and spirit, it helps me not only feel good but to be better in business and be a better leader. Business, for me, is a spiritual game. I become better, and whatever challenges I face, I look at the self-improvement process as challenges, achievements, and experiences. 

Shamanth 

Interesting. That’s a very, very uncommon perspective, to look at business as a very spiritual practice. You did say you were not like this five years ago, what inspired you to really adopt these principles in your life?

Victoria 

My vision is that I want to grow. It’s great that I have the opportunity to grow myself, grow my team and make something good for this world. Better Me, first of all, provides people with ideas, to live a happier and healthier life. This motivates me that I can bring something new to this world and be useful to this world.

Shamanth 

How do you think about your own productive time versus non-productive time? Because like I said, that’s pretty much seven hours of a day that you’re spending on introspection and contemplation, which is great. 

What would you say to somebody that would say, well, I could spend seven hours a day working rather than meditating and contemplating, it would be a better use of my time. 

Victoria 

I suppose that you don’t follow any role model and just hear yourself if you need something. 

I totally changed my mindset and my working routine and it’s working for me.

Shamanth Rao  44:29

I find that truly inspiring about you. Also to dig into your personal practices. You said, every two weeks you have solitude for self-reflection, what does that look like?

Victoria 

One day it’s great when I’m not communicating with anyone. I just see every plan that I need to do for these two weeks and understand how I can grow for the next two weeks, and how I can better enrich my team’s potential, personal communication and what to do next, how I can do the next step better, I always find what I can improve in the next step.

Shamanth 

And it sounds like the process of contemplation allows you to step back and figure out where you’re going to grow next. And it sounds incredible to me. And it’s something that I find very, very rare. 

It sounds like you’re incredibly driven, you invest your time in ways that are very, very fruitful for you. It would be easy for a lot of our listeners to think well, Victoria’s had no failures ever, because she gets to meditate two hours a day, she really doesn’t need anything. 

So can you speak to any really challenging moments or failures that you’ve experienced lately? To the extent you’re comfortable sharing, of course.

Victoria 

Personally, the key challenge is personal communication, that’s all about my team, all about my people. Because if they grow, the business will grow. The key problem was maybe one year ago, I was not confidently providing feedback and pointing to growth. I wanted to create a family, but I’m not a mother or father. We are a sports team. I needed a sports trainer or coach to allow people to play the game and immediately show red cards and let them go out from this field. 

If we have weak players in our team, we really go to that failure with a weak player in our team.

Shamanth 

Who do you learn from and who do you look to for inspiration?

Victoria 

For me, it’s the two best people whose work I have read and learned. It’s Andrew Chen from Andreessen Horowitz. Everything about investments in start-up product growth. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. 90% of problematic cases I have to deal with are covered in this book. Of course, I listen to his podcast, Masters of Scale, where he discusses with global leaders. I dream that one day I can be a guest on Reid Hoffman’s podcast also and get a chance to say thanks personally because I have read all his work from A to Z and his knowledge helps me to lead the company through some challenges.

Shamanth 

With regard to your personal and spiritual practices, are there inspirations that you have?

Victoria 

It’s mostly ancient knowledge like Ayurveda, Yoga etc.

Shamanth 

Where do you read about these things?

Victoria 

Bhagavad Gita and then you just go in deep. I would say Bhagavad Gita is everything about your mind. To improve yourself.

Shamanth 

Could you tell our listeners how they could find out more about you?

Victoria 

You can join my LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. 

Shamanth 

Victoria, thank you again for taking the time to be on the show.

Victoria 

Thank you.

A REQUEST BEFORE YOU GO

I have a very important favor to ask, which as those of you who know me know I don’t do often. If you get any pleasure or inspiration from this episode, could you PLEASE leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform – be it iTunes, Overcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast fix. This podcast is very much a labor of love – and each episode takes many many hours to put together. When you write a review, it will not only be a great deal of encouragement to us, but it will also support getting the word out about the Mobile User Acquisition Show.

Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are welcome, whether on podcasting platforms – or by email to shamanth at rocketshiphq.com. We read all reviews & I want to make this podcast better.

Thank you – and I look forward to seeing you with the next episode!