Where did you get the idea for your startup?

Oleksandra Dovgopolaya. – “I possess a long-term passion for perfumes. Since my childhood, I remember poking my nose in every perfume bottle I barely could reach and passing the time in perfume departments. Thanks to modern technologies, I could find people with the same passion all over the world. I noticed that so many beautiful fragrances didn’t find their fans because of this or that reasons, sometimes obvious, sometimes not. I saw the size of the second-hand perfume market and the efforts of marketers to sell their products to users. It’s a normal situation where you like a fragrance in the store, find you dislike it once you get home, and don’t know how to get rid of it. It has always been interesting for me to understand why someone likes this particular perfume and dislikes another one and find the way to produce and sell the right products to the right customers.

We are now developing a recommendation engine based on a holistic approach towards the analysis, which combines first-hand user experience, and marketing and technique features of the fragrances. 

From the idea to its realisation, there is only one step… and yet. What triggered your entrepreneurial adventure?

“As mentioned above, I was looking for a way to influence the selection and selling of perfume. I had many different ideas, but the whole picture didn’t shape out. As it so often happens, the concept was formed at the most unexpected of moments. During a friendly chat about nothing, Vivino was mentioned and I suddenly understood that it could be a starting point. I began doing my own research, finding the leading players and the technologies that already exist. I am a professional at marketing communications with almost 20 years of experience, but at that time, I had my small local business. So I made my exit, and devoted all my time and energy to developing the new project. I am driven by my old passion and curiosity, as well as the challenge to answer what perfume should be worn when and where to promote a positive user experience. We are sure that it will help to save resources and have a positive social and environmental impact as well.

We often hear that it is essential to make mistakes. What do you think about this?

“Not being afraid of making mistakes is an essential soft skill. But I am not sure that this is only about mistakes. I think it is also about the ability to learn from mistakes. It’s like it was in the history of cartography, or The Age of Discovery. You are going to the place where you think your goal is, driving by your dreams, fears, or passion, whatever. You move forward, drawing your own map and charting your course on it, fixing the events of the last day in your ‘diary’ with their reasons and consequences. If you are afraid of mistakes, you cannot go ahead, but if you neglect your map, if you learned nothing from the previous situations, you will be lost and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”