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Марія БровінськаStartup
19 September 2025, 09:00
2025-09-19
“We become the external operating brain for the client’s business.” Ukrainians in Texas have created an AI service that can read minds and sells better than Amazon. How the “telepathy effect” is changing the rules of the game in e-commerce
30-year-old Ukrainian Ilya Kostenko has created an AI algorithm that, according to the startuper, can read the minds of customers. Together with his wife Valeria in the USA, Ilya founded a startup that guesses the desires of customers with incredible conversion. His store FOX Nails USA sets trends in global e-commerce and works, according to Ilya, more efficiently than Amazon and changes the rules of the game in e-commerce. That is, now, according to the startuper, instead of the era of mass offers, an era of hyper-personalized commerce is coming, where each customer receives a unique experience adapted to his individual needs.
We tell you how a Ukrainian startup in Texas became the first swallow of the revolution, showing that the «telepathy effect» in e-commerce is no longer fiction, but a technological reality of today.
30-year-old Ukrainian Ilya Kostenko has created an AI algorithm that, according to the startuper, can read the minds of customers. Together with his wife Valeria in the USA, Ilya founded a startup that guesses the desires of customers with incredible conversion. His store FOX Nails USA sets trends in global e-commerce and works, according to Ilya, more efficiently than Amazon and changes the rules of the game in e-commerce. That is, now, according to the startuper, instead of the era of mass offers, an era of hyper-personalized commerce is coming, where each customer receives a unique experience adapted to his individual needs.
We tell you how a Ukrainian startup in Texas became the first swallow of the revolution, showing that the «telepathy effect» in e-commerce is no longer fiction, but a technological reality of today.
The desire to change the ecom world
Ilya Kostenko is a Ukrainian who began his story in the USA not with large investments, but with a deep understanding of the shortcomings of modern e-commerce. «A few years ago, I was actively involved in dropshipping on Amazon and other platforms and saw the system from the inside. I realized that all the giants of the market are built on one model — the „digital supermarket“ model. These are huge hunting grounds, where the client is forced to „hunt“ for the goods he needs,» says Ilya.
Ilya Kostenko
The idea for FOX Nails USA, which Ilya founded with his wife and partner Valeria Barbenitskaya, was born in late 2021 from this realization. According to him, the problem of «hunting» is especially acute in the B2B segment. «Our client is a professional nail technician. Purchasing materials for him is not shopping, but an operational burden that steals time and energy,» Ilya explains.
The startup explains: the idea was not to «compete with Amazon,» but to create a system where the customer doesn’t need to shop at all.
«We are creating a system that serves, not sells. We moved to the US to realize this vision, because it is the American market that is the most competitive and at the same time the most open to technological innovation,» says Ilya.
The core of the development team, according to Ilya, is located in Ukraine. «We have attracted talented Ukrainian engineers and data analysts who are working on creating the „brain“ of our system. I believe that Ukrainian intelligence can and should create world-class products,» he says.
How it works
From the crystallization of the idea to the launch of the first version of the business in the USA, about 6-8 months passed. «We started with our own savings, investing about $5,000 at the initial stage. These were funds earned from previous e-commerce projects,» he says. Currently, the platform operates in closed mode on the basis of our business FOX Nails USA. Users are professional nail technicians and beauty salons in the USA. «And we have a clear position: we do not work with companies or individuals from the Russian Federation,» says Ilya.
The startup currently has a dual monetization model. First, FOX Nails USA is an operating e-commerce business that operates according to the classic model.
«We earn on the margin from the sale of goods. This is our testing ground for testing and improving technology,» says Ilya.
The second source of monetization is Symbiotic Assistant (a SaaS platform), which Ilya sees as the future of his business. «We are ‘testing’ this technology in our own business in order to later offer it as a ready-made SaaS solution for thousands of other Shopify stores. The monetization model will be classic for SaaS: monthly subscription + a small percentage of sales generated by our system,» the startup explains.
«In short: Amazon is a passive storefront, we are a proactive partner. Amazon optimizes the search process. You enter a query — it gives the best result. We are working to eliminate the need for search as such,» explains Ilya.
According to him, the Symbiotic Assistant system integrates into the customer’s workflow. «It analyzes their order history to calculate the unique ‘consumption rate’ of each product. It connects to their calendar, notes, to see future needs. It even analyzes their public sources of inspiration, like Pinterest boards, to predict demand for new trendy products,» the startuper says.
As a result, the seller does not wait for the client to come to him, but comes to him with a ready-made solution. «As we say in the team: ‘We are no longer just a warehouse from which something is ordered. We become the external operational brain for our client’s business,’» notes Ilya.
Technology under the hood: how the «telepathy effect» works
The startup team is building the system on a modern, flexible, and scalable stack.
Backend («brain» of the system): Python, through its powerful libraries for data analysis and machine learning (Pandas, Scikit-learn, PyTorch).
Database: PostgreSQL.
Infrastructure: AWS (Amazon Web Services).
Frontend (merchant dashboard): React.js.
The key to so-called «telepathy» is a complex artificial intelligence system that works on several levels:
Deep behavioral analysis. The system tracks not only purchase history, product views, and additions to cart. It analyzes time spent on each page, cursor movements, even typing speed — indirect signals that indicate the level of interest and potential needs of the customer.
Predicting future trends for an individual customer. Machine learning algorithms compare data about a specific user with global trends in the nail industry, data on the popularity of certain techniques and colors among similar masters. This allows you to predict which products will become relevant for them in the near future.
Dynamically changing storefront and offers. Depending on the customer’s profile and current behavior on the site, the FOX Nails USA storefront changes instantly. The customer is offered not just random products, but those that are most likely to interest him.
» Anticipation» of need. The system is able to recognize moments when a customer may need a certain product, even if he has not yet started looking for it. For example, if a master regularly orders a certain type of brushes every two months, the system will automatically remind him of the need to update the stock and offer the best options.
Regarding language models: we do not use large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 for communication. «Our core is a set of custom predictive models (neural networks, gradient boosting algorithms). They are trained not on texts from the Internet, but on specific transactional and behavioral data of our customers. They solve highly specialized tasks: predicting the date of the next purchase, classifying customers, connecting an event in the calendar with the required set of products. This is a more targeted and effective approach for our business logic,» explains Ilya.
Conversion, turnover and users
Regarding the financial performance of FOX Nails USA: according to the founders, the startup is demonstrating stable growth. The business has reached an annual turnover of over $3 million. The dynamics are approximately as follows: the first year — about $500,000, the second — $1.5 million, now — they have exceeded the $3 million mark.
Valeria Barbenytska
With this level of personalization, FOX Nails USA is seeing significantly higher conversion and retention rates than the market average. Customers feel like the store understands their needs on an intuitive level, which significantly increases their loyalty and willingness to make repeat purchases.
«We’re not trying to sell as much as possible to everyone,» says Valeria Barbenytska, the company’s co-founder. «We’re trying to give each of our customers exactly what they need, exactly when they need it. And artificial intelligence makes that possible at scale.»
And now the most interesting thing: the average conversion in e-commerce fluctuates within 2-3%. In the case of FOX Nails USA, they look at another indicator — the acceptance rate. «When our system generates a Draft Order for a client and sends it to him, more than 70% of these offers are accepted and paid for without changes. This is not just a conversion, it is an indicator of the accuracy of our forecast. We do not convince the client to buy, we only offer to confirm what he already needs. Traditional e-commerce can only dream of such a level of „hit“,» Ilya convinces.
What’s next?
Currently, the startup is developing on its own funds and is not actively seeking investment, which allows it to maintain full control over the product vision. «However, we are open to strategic partnerships that can accelerate our expansion. There is interest from venture funds,» says Ilya.
He does not consider sales proposals: «We believe that we are only at the very beginning of a long journey.» Regarding the valuation of the startup, he will begin with the following: taking into account the revenue, unique technology and potential of the SaaS model, you can focus on multipliers for deep-tech SaaS companies in the e-commerce sector, which are often 10-15x of annual revenue.
The team has a whole list of tasks for business development in its plans. Among them are:
Launch of the Founding Partners closed beta program: We will invite a limited number of Shopify stores from other B2B niches (barbershops, tattoo studios, craft bakeries) to integrate Symbiotic Assistant.
Expanding integrations: We will add support for new calendar services and other platforms that are part of professionals' workflows.
Deepening AI: We will implement models that analyze not only text, but also visual content (photos from Pinterest, Instagram) for even more accurate trend prediction.
Public launch: Release on the Shopify App Store and scale to thousands of stores worldwide.
«We are not just building another tool. We are building a new operating system for B2B e-commerce, where loyalty is measured not by discounts, but by the depth of integration and trust,» Ilya assures.
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