Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Vlad Plessovskikh, Co-Founder of fitolio, located in Limassol, Cyprus.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We are a social wellness app, “fitolio.” Our app focuses on creating a community for users while adding a meaningful monetization channel for wellness and fitness creators. We are a platform, so our customers are both creators and users looking for guidance on their fitness and wellness journey.
Tell us about yourself
Our founder team, Saveli, Elias, and I, have been working together for over ten years now, and we happen to be serial entrepreneurs. We have worked on ventures spanning online marketing and advertising, consumer products, video delivery platforms, and Data Centres. fitolio is our latest endeavour and is Elias’ brainchild. It focuses heavily on the creator economy and the user experience.
We have been working on the project for approximately two years. We had an outsourced tech team for the first year, and in March of 2022, we hired an internal tech team to work full-time on fitolio. We are now one month away from a full launch of the fitolio v2 and are extremely excited to share our vision with the world. We are beyond proud of what our tech team has been able to accomplish in such a short period of time.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Our biggest accomplishment as owners, besides the ability to continuously work together for over a decade, has to be the ability to constantly reinvent ourselves. We live in a constantly changing world, and working in technology, the impact of that change is even more hard-felt. We try to keep ourselves involved and informed about the major trends, but the main success factor is recognizing our limitations and ensuring to always bring on board more knowledgeable team members. At the end of the day, staying ahead of the curve is a colossal team effort.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Being accountable to everyone. Being your own boss is actually being accountable to everyone. When working in a hierarchy, we tend to be accountable for our work to basically one boss. Being your own boss, you end up being accountable to everyone. You are accountable to your shareholders, clients, and suppliers, and yet your most important accountability is to your staff since they invest significant portions of their lives into the project, and this responsibility is the hardest to carry.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Do not walk that path alone. Entrepreneurship is a difficult endeavour. Rare are those who can efficiently and effectively master its many facets alone. We recognized that a long time ago and worked towards better understanding each other in order to identify our strengths and mitigate our weaknesses.
- Obsess about the client and the product. The client is always right, not in the sense that they don’t make mistakes. But as a combined entity, the client or the market will always reward the best product. The job of the entrepreneur is to create this product and put it in the hands of the client.
- Plan ahead: always plan ahead. Whether it is your project path, cash flow, burn rate, or your hiring objectives. The goal is to be proactive as much as possible. The alternative will age you significantly.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://fitolio.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitolioapp/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fitoliolive/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fitolio/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Turn your craft into recurring revenue with Subkit. Start your subscription offering in minutes and supercharge it with growth levers. Get early access here.