Growing up in Belarus, the idea of living near the ocean was merely a fantasy for Sergey Oreshko. Winters were long, summers were short, and the concept of palm trees swaying in a warm breeze felt like something from another planet.
Today, Oreshko wakes up in Delray Beach, just a short walk from the Atlantic, and laughs about how he traded heavy coats for year-round sunshine.
“I am from Belarus, a very cold country, and being somewhere near the ocean was my childhood dream,” Oreshko told Refresh Miami. “I made it happen.”
That dream has unfolded alongside a remarkable entrepreneurial career. Oreshko is the co-founder of MyNetDiary, one of the most successful food and fitness tracking platforms in the world. Now with more than 28 million users, the app pioneered an accessible way for everyday people to keep a food diary online. The inspiration, surprisingly, came not from healthtech but from Google Maps.
“When Google Maps came out around 2004, it felt like a completely different kind of web experience: dynamic and interactive,” he said. “We wanted to do the same thing for nutrition, combining the proven science of food tracking with modern technology. That’s how MyNetDiary was born.”
Two decades later, MyNetDiary sits near the top of the health and fitness charts on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. Its freemium model offers a free tier – barcode scanning, macro tracking, water logs – without third-party ads, and has grown almost entirely through word of mouth. Premium subscribers unlock structured diets, recipes, and advanced tools, but the foundation of the business has always been accessibility.
Now, Oreshko is betting on a new chapter. His latest project, PlateAI, takes the lessons of MyNetDiary and reimagines them with artificial intelligence.
“PlateAI is our next-generation app,” Oreshko explained. “It combines our 20 years of expertise in nutrition and healthy living with modern AI technologies. It works like a coach in your pocket, available 24/7.”
PlateAI can scan meals, log foods through voice, and even analyze restaurant menus to recommend dishes that fit a user’s dietary needs. “You can ask questions, get feedback on nutrition, or see suggested meal plans. We designed it for people who want something easier and more natural, even if it’s less precise than traditional calorie counting,” Oreshko asserted.
Unlike MyNetDiary, which is free to download, PlateAI runs on a subscription-only model. The reason is simple: AI is expensive.
“Our AI models are compute-intensive and take a lot of resources to operate,” Oreshko said. “That makes PlateAI different, but also allows us to focus on building smarter, more personalized tools.”
Oreshko and his longtime business partner, Vasili Smaliak, run the 30-person company from South Florida, though their team is spread across the U.S. and Europe. The business has remained bootstrapped from day one. Oreshko landed in Delray two years ago, coming most recently from the Philadelphia suburbs.
As for what’s next, PlateAI’s roadmap is packed. Features in development include more intelligent menu scans and expanded international versions in multiple languages. Oreshko’s ambition is clear: to make healthy living simpler, more intuitive, and available across cultures.
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