Олександр Кузьменко Startup 4 September 2025, 09:00

Personal wish hub — Ukrainian wish list creation platform Rewish has already gathered 350,000 users and is approaching $13 million in purchases through the service this year. Interview with the startup's co-founder

Rewish, a Ukrainian service that helps users create and share wish lists, has turned three years old. During that time, it has become the largest such platform in Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of users and over 2.5 million wish lists.

dev.ua spoke with Rewish co-founder and CPO Zhanna Orlova and learned how the startup was born from an overheard conversation, the desire to change the culture of gift-giving, and what the company’s ambitions are for the next three years.

— Please tell us about the Rewish startup. How does it work?

Rewish is the largest platform in Ukraine for creating wish lists.
The platform helps users store everything they like in a personal wishlist format: from clothes and gadgets to books, travels, or experiences.

Rewish allows you to:

add products from different stores to one wishlist;
simplify the process of choosing and purchasing a gift;
receive gifts that will really evoke pleasant emotions;
receive additional benefits when purchasing desired products.

For businesses, Rewish is a next-generation marketplace. The platform allows brands to highlight their products in wishlists, add special offers and promo codes, and get deeper analytics about the preferences of their target audience.

Today, Rewish has over 350,000 users and almost 3 million added products. Every month, our users fulfill over 30,000 wishes, and this year the volume of purchases from wish lists will exceed $13 million .

Rewish is not just about products, but also about emotions, people and their stories. We help restore the ability to dream, to speak boldly about what you want, and make the process of choosing and giving gifts simple, honest and personalized.

— How did the idea to create Rewish come about? What problem did you want to solve for users and stores?

The story of Rewish began with an overheard conversation between two young ladies. It was on the eve of the holidays, and one of them was complaining to the other that she would have to hint and remind them again about which gift would really please them. Probably, at the same moment, someone else was trying to guess the young lady’s thoughts, remembering all the hints and interviewing her friends to really guess with the gift.

Then the idea came — why not finally make this process more modern, and at the same time simpler and more pleasant. Of course, it was already clear then that it was not about creating another digital wish list, which were already on the market. The challenge was to change the culture of giving and receiving gifts.

In 2022, we launched Rewish with a mission — to give people the opportunity to talk honestly about what’s important and unite people to fulfill their dreams. After all, Rewish is more than just a gift. It’s about meaningful consumption — giving something that really makes you happy, something that won’t just sit idle in the corner.

Essentially, we are solving two big problems for users and businesses.

For users, gift giving is often associated with stress: people spend a lot of time searching, doubt whether they guessed the right choice, size, color, or receive things that they don’t need at all. Rewish helps to avoid this — you collect everything you want in your own wishlist, share it with your friends, and they know exactly what to give. This makes the process sincere, simple and without awkward situations

On the other hand, businesses face another challenge — how to understand what their audience really wants and how to increase sales without unnecessary pressure. Rewish gives brands access to insights about user preferences, allows them to add special offers and promo codes to make their products more visible in wish lists.

In fact, we have created a new organic marketing and sales channel, where the brand interacts with the user at the moment when they are already interested in the product.

— How does the Rewish platform work for buyers and online stores? How does your service differ from standard wishlist functions in marketplaces?

Rewish is a platform that connects people and brands around dreams and desired purchases. For dreamers, Rewish works as a personal wish hub.

You can add any products from any sites to one wishlist — regardless of the store or marketplace. It is easy to share your wishlists with friends, family, colleagues, via social networks or messengers. Users get confidence that their wishes will be heard, and loved ones will not spend money on things that will not bring pleasant emotions.

For e-commerce companies, Rewish is a tool to increase their sales, providing unique tools for working with warm leads. Through Rewish, e-commerce companies see which products users add to their wishlists, and can offer promotional codes, promotions, and special offers directly on products that people are already interested in. This is not just advertising — it’s about interaction at the moment when the purchase decision is already being formed.

The average conversion rate for purchased items from wishlists is 13%-18%, and for some segments and online stores this figure reaches 40%. Latest figures for August: MAU 152,000, number of purchased and donated items for August — 42,000.

What exactly does Rewish offer for e-coms:

Analytics for products in wish lists.
Placing promotional codes and special offers directly on products in wish lists.
Simple integration of the «Add to Rewish» button on online store products to make filling out wish lists as easy as possible.

According to Amazon and Shopify statistics, ~80% of products added to wishlists built into online stores are never purchased. Users simply forget about added products, since each site has its own separate wishlist.

Unlike built-in wish lists in online stores and marketplaces, Rewish is not tied to a single store. We allow you to collect products from different sites, marketplaces and brands in one place. This is much easier to manage, all products are at hand and this list is easy to share with loved ones, which increases the likelihood of purchase not only by the user, but also by his close circle and other users of the platform who see these products and copy them to their own wish lists.

Rewish is not only about shopping, but also about recommendations: users create collections, recommend each other favorite things, books, places. We added elements of social networks to Rewish, which make the interaction experience more personalized — users can follow each other, track what new friends add to their wishlists, complete tasks together, find associates by interests and move towards common goals.

For brands, Rewish opens up a new marketing channel that is not found in regular wish lists — insights, promo codes, and organic interaction.

— Rewish recently turned three years old. How has the platform’s design and functionality evolved over this time?

In three years, Rewish has gone from a simple service for creating wish lists to a multifunctional platform that connects people, brands, and experiences.

When we launched Rewish in 2022, the main idea was very simple — to give people the opportunity to collect the products they wanted in one place and share them with friends. It was an MVP with basic functionality: adding products, creating wishlists, booking gifts and the ability to share a link.

During this time, we have already radically updated the interface twice, making it easy, visually clean and intuitive. Now Rewish looks like a modern lifestyle product, which our users note when they recommend Rewish to their loved ones and talk about it on their social networks. We worked a lot on the visual identity so that the platform felt emotionally warm, friendly and inspiring.

As the platform evolved, we added the ability to create Collections, allowing users to share their favorite products, books, places, and experiences, creating their own collections.

This year, we are actively developing the stream of integration with brands — we launched B2B functionality that allows online stores to add promotional codes, promotions, and special offers that are displayed directly on products in wish lists.

Search capabilities have been significantly expanded — now you can find products that other users have already added to their wishlists and see current offers from brands. And brands can receive insights into which products end up on wishlists, which helps them better understand their customers.

Today, Rewish is not just about wishes, but about creating experiences around dreams and sharing them. We see the platform as a bridge between people who dream and brands that help make those dreams come true.

— What is the team behind Rewish? Who are the founders, how many employees?

Rewish is currently being developed by two co-founders and an investor partner who were at the origins of the project and are shaping its strategy.

Vitaliy Skladchykov is the co-founder and CEO of Rewish. He has over 10 years of experience in Software Development, several of which he held the position of Head of Software Development. Vitaliy is responsible for the technical strategy and scaling of the platform. His expertise in building complex technological solutions allowed Rewish to lay a strong engineering foundation and ensure its scalability.

Zhanna Orlova is the co-founder and CPO of Rewish. She has over 8 years of experience in Product Management and launching digital products for Ukrainian market leaders, including Kyivstar, Multiplex, and FUIB. At Rewish, Zhanna focuses on developing user experience, product strategy, and partner ecosystem, creating solutions that combine value for users and businesses.

Oleksiy Slobodzyan is CMO of Rewish, with over 10 years of experience in Performance Marketing. At Rewish, he is responsible for user acquisition and retention, forms a marketing strategy, and develops the UI/UX component of the platform.

In total, a small team of 6 people is working on the product. Each of us combines several roles and covers several competencies at the same time. We quickly test hypotheses, adapt and move according to our strategy. It is this flexibility and shared energy that allows us to grow and scale Rewish.

— How much did it cost to develop the startup? Were grants or investments involved?

The development and launch of Rewish cost more than $100,000, which was invested by our partner. This allowed us to create a stable platform, quickly test hypotheses, and develop functionality.

In addition, we received marketing grants as part of the Ukrainian Startup Fund selection. Thanks to these funds, we were able to work with the creative agency Idealers, which developed a brand identity and positioning for Rewish.

We also went through a startup acceleration at Yep!, which gave us valuable experience: feedback from market experts, development of new business streams, product structuring, and brand packaging.

All these stages are part of our journey, which allowed us to better understand our audience, form a clear development strategy, and grow.

— How is Rewish monetized? Does it make a profit, and if so, how much?

We have tested several monetization hypotheses and today we are focused on developing the B2B direction using three key models:

% of sales through the platform — under this model, Rewish has more than 100 partners connected, whose products users most often add to wishlists and purchase.
Subscription for e-commerce is a new direction that provides stores with advanced functionality: user behavior analytics, promo code integration, product visibility in wishlists, and inclusion in recommendations. 10+ partners joined at the launch stage.
Integrations with major players — we are negotiating and testing cooperation models to provide marketplace and large retailer clients with additional Rewish functionality.

Regarding profitability: we are currently actively investing in product development and scaling. We have reached 150,000 UAH of monthly revenue. Our goal is to reach a stable operating profit by the end of 2025.

— Are you already working with a number of Ukrainian businesses, or do you plan to scale to other markets?

The Ukrainian e-commerce market remains the main and very promising one for us. This year, over $13 million worth of goods will be purchased and gifted through Rewish, but this is not even 1% of the market volume. We see significant potential for growth and, in parallel, we are improving services for our B2B partners.

Among the first brands that are already actively integrated with Rewish are Foxtrot, Terra Incognita, Aviatsiya Halychyny and other well-known Ukrainian retailers. We continue to expand our network of partners to make the platform as useful as possible for both users and businesses.

At the same time, Rewish is available for use in five languages, which does not limit its use only in Ukraine. Currently, the platform is actively used by dreamers from over 70 countries around the world .

— At the beginning of 2023, you had about 2,000 users, and already this year you reported 350,000. What is the reason for such rapid growth?

We believe that growth is the result of an iterative agile approach and a deep understanding of user needs.

First, we launched a minimal prototype and engaged 2,000 users to closely observe their real-world behavior, get feedback, and improve the platform.

Next, we ran a small promotional campaign with an emphasis on influencer marketing on social media, which allowed us to attract another 15,000 new users.

And then the word-of-mouth effect began to work organically: users created their own wishlists and started sharing them with friends, loved ones, colleagues, and subscribers. And this is a natural part of our product, because sharing your desires and recommendations is easy and organic.

Currently, 90% of all registrations are purely organic, without advertising costs. This confirms that we were able to create a convenient, aesthetic and useful platform that covers the key tasks of users.

We are also proud that Rewish has formed an active community of people who dream boldly, share what is important, and support each other. It is this energy of users that has motivated the team over these three years and driven growth.

— What does the Rewish team want to achieve in the next three years?

We see our main goal in changing the culture of gift giving and making the process of choosing truly desirable things simple, enjoyable, and transparent for both users and brands.

We want lists to become an integral part of people’s lives — a tool that helps them dream, share what they want, and get what really matters. And the platform’s metrics will confirm the results along the way.

Our key areas of development:

Promoting wishlist culture — we want Rewish users to receive only the gifts they dream of, and brands to have additional opportunities to promote their products.
Maximum simplification of wishlist creation — we place the «Add to Rewish» button on the product pages of the largest e-commerce sites so that filling out the wishlist takes place in one click.
Development of the B2B direction — we will provide brands and online stores with advanced tools for analytics, interaction with the target audience, and highlighting their products in wish lists.
Improving service for dreamers and partners — we remain as customer-oriented as possible and will develop functionality for both parties.

We set ourselves ambitious but achievable goals for the next three years:

3,000,000 MAU — monthly active users.
5,000+ connected B2B partners.
GMV $300 million — the annual volume of purchases of goods from wishlists through the platform.

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