Missed Flow Investment

A story about how Shaan missed investing in Flow, a women's health app that grew to $192M in annual recurring revenue, because he didn't follow up on an investment opportunity that came through a friend.

"It's 2020 and I'm getting dinner with a friend, and we're only like 40 minutes into dinner and he's like 'I gotta go.' I'm thinking 'Was it me? Was it something I said?' He says 'No no, I hate to leave but I gotta go meet with this founder from Belarus.'

Later, I see an email from my friend saying 'Sorry I had to jet so early but this company is really interesting.' He tells me about this company called Flow and he's investing in it, and says if I want in he could get me in.

Today or yesterday, I'm scrolling on Twitter and I see Flow is one of the biggest success stories in consumer startups - $192 million in ARR with 60 million active users. It's been the fastest growing health app for like 4 years. I'm like 'Why does this app sound familiar?' I go back and look at my email and see that I could've invested in this thing years ago had I just replied to this email from my friend.

The company was started by twin brothers from Belarus/Lithuania. They were raised by a single mother who was a librarian. At 15 years old, they knew they had to make money. One brother would go to school for 8 hours then work for 8 hours every day. They taught themselves to code, wrote books, and eventually started making apps. Flow wasn't their first success - they had two failed health apps before creating Flow, which became the #1 women's health tracking app in the world."