An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
There are no things I think I would have wanted to hear before my start because my mistakes and successful decisions together created my next steps. I value my experiences, I read other people’s experiences, but I wouldn’t shift the prism of their success or failure to my path, as it is unique. There is no magic pill that can lead others to the same success.
As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Petr Malyukov, IT entrepeneur, CEO and Co-Founder of YOUS, a communication app with AI-powered translation.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Thank you for having me!
I was five or six years old when my father introduced me to the world of computers. At that time he had built the first ZX Spectrum computer, which was connected to the TV, and you needed to insert floppy disks to run games. Then the first Pentium appeared and at the end of the nineties, I started using the Internet. My father worked in a telecoms company and I experienced that miracle in the phase of its creation.
At an early age, I was fond of creating Flash games, and even then I thought about monetization of such mini-projects. Now, these memories make me feel nostalgic! As long as I can remember, I have had a passion for entrepreneurship, finding problems and trying to find possible solutions in a new way that was not yet on the market. I have always had this groundbreaking entrepreneurial spirit in me. Over fifteen years of passionate entrepreneurship, I built a dozen projects, starting with offline businesses and then getting into the digital space. I’ve tasted glorious victories, just as I did shattering downfalls of entrepreneurship. This experience is priceless.
Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My life is fascinating, and it is a patchwork of amazing people and events, so it is impossible for me to single out one thing.
Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?
Sincerity, kindness, and honesty are the key principles for me in proper relationships in life and in building a business. I appreciate people for their openness and courage to admit personal mistakes, as I value the experience of defeat more than its absence.
Philosophy is that the whole world is interconnected and arrives in balance, and in order not to disturb the balance, it is necessary to replenish it with available resources.
Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?
I describe my path to YOUS as going from a personal struggle to a big idea. Once I had to promptly find an interpreter for a Zoom meeting, who would help me understand the interlocutor and convey my thoughts to him. It took me two days to arrive at the solution. It included coordinating the date and time acceptable to the participants, paying for two hours of consecutive interpreting, as booking an interpreter for less time is not cost-effective, and finally finding a service that would ensure confidentiality, because you wouldn’t want to trust personal or business information to a stranger.
In my dreams, there was a convenient, affordable, and secure solution for what I needed, rather than what was present in the market. That was the moment when I started building YOUS, as I understood that the language barrier restricted international communication for me and millions of other people. This insight was fundamental to creating our platform.
I gave myself to the development of YOUS, and after a year our team launched the service which will become a connecting bridge between those people who previously faced communication difficulties due to the language barrier.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?
I can’t think of any. We design YOUS as a kind tool that acts as a personal assistant in communication for people who previously could hardly understand each other without it. As of now, the app cannot transmit emotions or speak in your voice in another language, but we are working on it. There is a low probability of mistakes when recognizing your voice in conditions characterized by extraneous noise, or if a user speaks too fast or uses abbreviated words. So in a way, this teaches people not to interrupt each other, to listen carefully and to speak calmly, something that people often miss.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?
Yes, it was exactly that occasion when I tried to find a fitting translation solution for a Zoom meeting. 🙂
What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?
We live in times when the online world has taken over a large part of our daily lives, and the pandemic has definitely accelerated this process. Online communication will only gain momentum, and we will build communication bridges that will help us communicate without language barriers.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
There are no things I think I would have wanted to hear before my start because my mistakes and successful decisions together created my next steps. I value my experiences, I read other people’s experiences, but I wouldn’t shift the prism of their success or failure to my path, as it is unique. There is no magic pill that can lead others to the same success.
Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?
I am learning to develop a mindset of a successful personality, so I am guided by matching beliefs: “the world is full of abundance,” “every day brings joy and pleasure,” “every aspect of life contains unlimited opportunities,” and “our success is in our own hands.”
There is one great truth on this planet: no matter who you are or what you do, when you truly desire something, you will achieve it, because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. This is your purpose on Earth.
In general, I believe in the materialization of thoughts 🙂
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
My name is Petr, I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of YOUS startup, an AI-based translator for meetings, phone calls, and messages.
Millions of people speak different languages and this is a problem for international communication. We help people communicate with native speakers of different languages using AI-powered translation technology. We make translation 8x cheaper and 30x faster than human interpretation. Our app now supports 16 languages. Available for mobile devices and via a browser. Are you ready to step aboard our startup and feel how together we can help millions of people?
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://yous.ai/ — our brand-new AI-powered communication tool
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrmalyukov/
https://www.facebook.com/pmalyukov
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Thank you!
Petr Malyukov’s Big Idea That Might Change The World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
