Hello, hello, is there anybody in there? We feel comfortably numb and excited to present you our Blog. Why did we start it? It’s simple: it’s been a tough year full of insights, changes and realizations. The best we can do now is to share some of our wisdom with you.

For the first time in the history of the Internet, we want to run a really interesting non-sorry-SEO-optimized company’s blog — just plain-spoken engaging stories about real us, technology and the world we all live in.

Let’s start with some of our top realizations and conclusions about the product, people, life, death and robots as told by our product team. Go!

1. It turns out there is a right side of a problematic situation. And we were on it

Oh well, one more time about 2020. It was a horrible year. But we chose the right time and place to win. People wanted to have fun during a pandemic, because people are people. We need fun and communication, especially when we are self-isolated, afraid and bored. And the Reface app was just a perfect tool for it.

Zoom pitchings and meetings with partners and investors are easier than exhausting and long, time-consuming flights abroad. Online communication helped us a lot. Online one love.

And last but not least, traffic pricing lowered last year, so we just used that factor to become viral, yay! This is how we’ve turned a problematic situation into a win.

2. Don’t let the fear of new technologies hinder their development

You know, we’ve heard it all: they’ve been telling us that synthetic media and the neural networks generated videos are a total evil and we’re on a way to the last episodes of Black Mirror where we all gonna suffer and die in a digital hell. Ha! No, no and no. Here’s what we say: providing access to the technology to a wider audience is a way to fight misuse. Media experts go all paranoid about the potential harm caused by synthetic media. As creators of such technology, we’re also paranoid and hate to see nasty things created with the help of new AI/ML technologies (especially our technology). Our take on countering the misuse is to turn the forbidden fruit into a household item.

Just think back to the 2000s — after the apps like Microsoft Paint and Adobe Photoshop became widespread, no one would freak out about a picture of a guy riding a unicorn into the sky over Tatooine anymore. Political opponents French-kissing each other? That will also hardly hit the news. Everyone knows it’s fake! “Photoshopped!”

3. Humans just looove themselves

Frankly speaking, at some point, we just couldn’t figure out why people loved our app. Why did they go for it? Why did it have a viral effect? We kept asking ourselves these questions. And then we understood that as human beings, we just love discovering new things about ourselves. The content we consume also tells us more about ourselves and things that make us tick. We define ourselves through our interaction with new meanings. Even if these new meanings are our own faces embedded in a clip from our favorite movie or a new music video by Nicki Minaj.

4. Don’t try to be a smartass when it comes to naming

It’s a funny part of our experience. We had to rename the app at the peak of its popularity and we survived. The first app we launched in January 2020 to test face swapping in GIFs was called Doublicat. A wordplay — “double cat” + “duplicate.”

A few months in, we realized that the naming sucked. Nobody could remember how to spell it. Our friends and investors from the US explained that we just misspelled our own title! You spell “duplicate” with “du” — not “dou”. As a result, we had to rename the app while it was crushing the top download charts. Our undercover naming-creator (aka creative designer) Rus came up with the new app name — Reface. And. It. Worked.

But our main revelation is that it’s really possible to create incredible things on a world-class level even if you’re just a small team of dreamers and doers from Kyiv. Just do your thing, no matter what.

5. People matter. We are building a people-first company

Okay, this is our philosophy: people — product — profit. Strike one: we hire the coolest cats out there, and we do really care about them. Strike two: together we make a unique product. Strike three: this product brings money and fame. Yes, profit.

Let’s set it straight, we are so ambitious and our plans are so big, that we can’t just win without the most weird, talented and open-minded people onboard. That’s why all of them crazy creative pirates are here with us, so we can just tear everything up and conquer the world. This is what we are here for.

Those were our simple but golden insights we wanted to share with you. People love themselves, and knowing that might bring you success. Don’t be afraid of tech. Give tech to the people instead. Use simple words in naming, so anyone can understand you. Almost every problematic situation has a potential to make you a winner. Always value people, they are the Alpha and the Omega of any company .

Now you know it, use it wisely ;)

See ya