UK-Based Software as a Service Company Hits the Top at Fastest-Growing Startups Rankings
With >100 000 subscribers and over 70 employees in the UK and across Europe, Software as a Service B2C company in wellness sector, Ruby Labs hit the fastest-growing startup global rankings, which allowed its founder, the Ukrainian millennial entrepreneur Roman Taranov grow the business expanding the company and reaching an ARR of $30M.
Ruby Lab’s mission is to build high-value products that help people live better lives. That’s how their global-leading mobile apps were born.
Hint, RL’s first launch is the biggest astrology mobile app globally, allowing a 70% market share. Within 6 to 12 months after its release, it exceeded 30M downloads with an average rating of 4.1. The app resulted from a large-scale research effort that found that being astrology a 10Bn market, it was not widely digitalized. So, after making sure there was an under-served audience, Ruby Lab’s team built a product ready to fulfill the gap in the market.
That’s how Astrology (that was Hint’s first name) was born. Now it leads the global app market, and it also hit third place in the lifestyle apps rankings.
Happy with Hint’s success, Ruby Labs decided to go ahead and create another product, so they started searching for more unexploited niches in the $4.2 trillion wellness industry. That’s when they ran into a World Health Organization’s report that showed that obesity had tripled since 1975, being more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, overweight.
Aimed at helping people become healthier and live longer, Able focuses on a generally more significant part of fitness: nutrition. Roman and the RL team have decided to make Able available to the public in-app and web-based versions to optimally monetize this new project, therefore avoiding notoriously high commission fees from leading app stores.
The Drivers of Success
But it’s not all about finding good market gaps and building products for under-served audiences. Mr. Taranov succeeded at building a team of high-performing experts by turning his leadership and management skills into a company based on core values such as inclusion, diversity, learning, balance, and kindness.
That, combined with flexible work culture, above-average salaries, and paid vacations that can be requested with as little as one week in advance, makes Ruby Labs a thriving work environment where people feel committed and dedicated to the company’s growth.
Employees at Ruby Labs state they feel empowered to grow professionally, included, encouraged to think outside the box and to work creatively.
About Roman Taranov
Roman Taranov is a Ukrainian Millennial entrepreneur whose passion for technology and innovation goes back to his humble early childhood in Ukraine. His hunger for success and economic growth came to fruition when his parents brought home a computer, and he discovered the power of technology, becoming rapidly skillful at it.
After finishing school, he pursued a law degree but quickly dropped out to be an entrepreneur.
Before creating Ruby Labs, he founded RGK Mobile. This m-payment service provider rapidly grew into a global-leading business working with mobile carriers such as Orange, Vodafone, Axiata, T-mobile, among others.
Now, Roman is also an investor with over ten tech companies in his portfolio.