Learn to deal with rejection early

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02/28/2022

Imburse, companies can solve their most pressing payment problems

Please introduce yourself and your start-up Imburse to our readers!

I am Carl, the CFO and co-founder of Imburse. We founded Imburse with a single goal, to simplify how companies access the global payments ecosystem and embed financial services into their operations. We provide our clients with a low code platform and the expertise to deploy new payment technologies, workflows and providers into their organisations via a single connection.

Imburse was founded in February 2018 and has grown rapidly since then. We are backed by some of the worlds leading technology investors and have over 50 employees across our offices in Zurich, Lisbon and London. Our clients include large multinational insurers such as Generali and Swiss Re. We have also developed key partnerships with renowned consultancies and core system providers, making our solution more readily available for our enterprise clients.

Prior to founding Imburse I had an extensive career in finance spanning a number of disciplines where I witnessed the challenges of technology integrations and financial operations first-hand.

How did you get the idea of Imburse?

We were forced into it as a pivot actually. We had a completely different business in 2012, in the flight tracking space. Our business model was to sell flight-delay insurance to consumers, and we needed to be able to do real-time payments to meet customer expectations. Unfortunately, the insurer we worked with did not have that functionality available and was not prepared to develop it. It would have cost them $ 500,000 and taken an estimated 15 months to deploy. We wanted to make our business a success of course, so we built what we thought would be a temporary solution. This was the beginning of Imburse. Our solution garnered a lot of interest, so it became clear to us then that this was the main pain point that needed to be solved.

Why did you decide to start with Imburse?

Many of the founders had started companies before and once we got an inkling that there is a problem that needed addressing and that companies are willing to pay for, we invested more time in understanding it. We found out that companies really struggle with technical integrations to payment providers and technologies, both from a time and cost perspective. It’s a common hurdle for many companies, especially those that rely on legacy IT systems. In short, we understood that this was a huge problem that companies are willing to pay for, it’s cross-vertical and it has global reach. These are great foundations for a start-up.

What is the vision behind Imburse?

Most corporations today are hampered by their own process inefficiencies, lack of access to specific skills, and, of course, budget constraints. A lot of resources, both financial and human, are wasted on helping complex and old systems cope to meet ever-evolving customer needs. We free up companies from these restrictions, allowing them to deploy their resources to build better companies, better products and generate more value for their customers. We focus on solving the payments integration problem, so that companies can allocate their resources to core business areas, all whilst still optimising and future-proofing their payments system. Aside from enabling connectivity to the payments world, Imburse also provides the payment expertise needed to make more informed business choices.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

The start was difficult. The main challenge is to get early investors excited about B2B software. The problems are sometimes more difficult to understand and not as well-known as customer pain points. In addition, B2B deals take longer to conclude and the solution needs to be essentially operational before it can be sold. The pool of early-stage investors who have a good B2B software market appreciation is small, but we managed to attract some of the best early-stage investors out there. This allowed us to invest in the product and grow the company successfully.

Who is your target audience?

We target medium and large corporates, specifically those with complex corporate structures, old IT systems or multi-market presence. This can include insurance, banking, utilities and healthcare, amongst others. Our solution is geographically agnostic, despite our initial focus on European markets.

What is the USP of your start-up?

With Imburse, companies can solve their most pressing payment problems whether the challenges are on the collection, pay out or data side. Through our platform, companies can access any payment provider or technology available in any market. This enables them to offer any payment method they want, from more traditional payment mechanisms to alternative payment methods and vouchers. Most importantly, we are accessible to enterprises with older, legacy IT systems and old finance processes. This means we are best positioned to solve the payments integration problem for any corporate globally.

Can you describe your typical workday?

I typically start my day with a workout which is usually followed by some time playing with my young daughter. After this we have a family breakfast and I spend some time getting the family ready for their daily activities.

I start the workday around 9:00 and prefer to spend my mornings on high concentration tasks, often involving financial, legal and compliance topics. This leaves my afternoons open for team engagements and strategic focus areas. I make sure I am home for an early dinner and am normally online for an hour or two once I have put the kids down for bed in order to close out open topics and prepare for the next day.

Where do you see yourself and your start-up Imburse Payments in five years?

In 5 years, Imburse will be the “go-to” solution provider for corporates and SMEs for anything related to the topic of payments. We will be a strong team sharing a common mission, and excited by the opportunity to grow even further into other industry verticals. Imburse will be a globally recognised brand in the B2B software space with a reputation for delivery and bringing value to our clients.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Don’t be afraid to spend money early on to ensure you build a solid foundation. Know what resources you need in order to achieve your next milestone and raise enough money to give yourself the scope and runway to achieve this. This includes allocating resources to get the proper legal advice and structures in place early on. The right advice really allows you to move through investment rounds and closing deals faster.

Secondly, hire more, earlier. We learned painfully how hard it is to hire good people and how long it takes. Spend time very early on to define your hiring strategy.

Lastly, learn to deal with rejection early. You need to find the right balance between taking feedback to improve your offering and ignoring negative people that may not understand your offering. There are unfortunately some investors who look to justify why not to invest, rather than look for opportunities to invest, and this means you will probably get more “no” than “yes”. It is an opportunity to learn.

Thank you Carl Strempel for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Try to maintain a healthy work life balance

By

StartupValley

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02/16/2022

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twoplus Fertility: twoplus Sperm Guide an effective, at-home fertility treatment

Please introduce yourself and your startup two plus Fertility to our readers!

I am Dr Benjamin Tee, co-founder of fertility tech startup twoplus Fertility. twoplus Fertility has developed the twoplus Sperm Guide – an effective, at-home fertility treatment to help increase the chances of natural conception by aiding more sperm cells to reach the egg.

How did you get the idea of twoplus Fertility / why did you decide to start it?

My wife and I faced our own problems conceiving. We were excited to start a family together after spending time on our careers. However, the longer the process took, the more frustrated we became. Fertility doctors eventually diagnosed unexplained infertility. I decided to channel my frustrations into understanding fertility and conception. I was surprised by the lack of a simple and effective home-based solution for couples that also preserved the privacy of the process. Most of the fertility products out there are focused on fertility tracking or incremental product improvements. None have concentrated on providing new, ground-breaking solutions to improve sperm transport to the egg.

What is the vision behind twoplus Fertility?

First and foremost, we wanted to ensure that couples have alternative options to achieve successful natural conception before or whilst seeking medical intervention. Sperm count among men has halved in the last 40 years while couples still struggle to get accessible fertility care. In other words, fertility health is declining among the adult population but the solution landscape has not changed much for the past decade. Focusing on solutions that make fertility care more accessible, frequent and affordable will help to unlock tremendous value for couples. This is a huge, relatively untapped, market opportunity.

The twoplus Sperm Guide is an effective, at-home fertility treatment to help increase the chances of natural conception by aiding more sperm cells to reach the egg. The small, comfortable device is used during sex to help sperm get to the right place. The device mimics cervical cap insemination, preventing leakage of sperm after sex, while also increasing the amount of sperm which reaches the cervical mucus. Without intervention, less than 1% of sperm reach the egg. The twoplus Sperm Guide has been shown in in-vitro testing to increase the effective sperm count by approximately eight times.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

twoplus fertility started mid pandemic and our main sales channel has been via our e-commerce store. There was a lot of engagement as couples decided to take the opportunity to start a family during the pandemic. When we started twoplus one of the aims was to reduce the barrier to quality fertility care. Even prior to the pandemic, getting access to fertility help was a challenge for most people around the world. The pandemic accelerated this further. We therefore had to carefully manage supply and demand at a time when people were searching for alternative solutions more than ever before.

Who is your target audience?

Our target audience is couples who have been trying to conceive for more than 6 months without success. The Sperm Guide can be used before, or whilst seeking, medical intervention.

What is the USP of your startup?

Our USP is providing an affordable option for couples to improve their chances of natural conception at-home by ensuring that more sperm reaches the egg during sex, as well as preventing sperm leakage afterwards.

Can you describe your typical workday ?

In a start-up your schedule tends to change a lot so we end up having to deal with a lot of spontaneous tasks that are time bound. Our days are usually packed with internal meetings and meetings with shareholders. No two days are the same and there is always something new to look forward to. We also try to make time to talk to our users and of course invest lots of energy in to new product development based on what are customers tell us they want or need.

Where do you see yourself and your startup twoplus Fertility in five years?

We are currently developing new products that will soon be ready for launch. There is no shortage of opportunities in the fertility space! Our longer-term aim is to become a one-stop hub for fertility solutions. We have big ambitions: we want to help 1 million couples conceive over the next 10 years.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Try to maintain a healthy work life balance. Spend some quality time with your family and friends which will help keep you rejuvenated and mentally healthy.

Always ask for feedback and maintain healthy discussions. It will help you understand different angles to a problem you are facing/solution you are developing.

Don’t stop trying and don’t be afraid of failures. One of the most common obstacles we face is coming up with revolutionary ideas that don’t always pan out. Each failure presents you with a new learning opportunity and gives you the path towards success

Thank you Dr Benjamin Tee for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Don’t Worry About Perfect

By

StartupValley

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02/14/2022

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Trust Energy Africa high quality, durable, portable and affordable solar products

Please introduce yourself and your startup Trust Energy Africa to our readers!

Elvis Kadhama is 28-years-old Ugandan, clean energy social entrepreneur and environmentalist. He is committed and passionate about changing people’s lives, income and saving the environment through catalyzing clean energy transition in rural Uganda. He’s committed to change the mindset that most people are having towards carbon emissions, he believes through sensitization and training of rural populations on the health, financial and environmental benefits of clean energy products, Elvis graduated from Uganda College of Commerce Tororo in 2015 with a Business diploma, Elvis is a Young African Leadership Initiative-YALI RLC EA (2018) Alumni, Bridges for Enterprise Ambassador Uganda, One Young World Ambassador, Elvis is the Founder and Executive Director of Trust Energy Africa Limited and he also believes in the role clean energy products have in improving individual livelihoods and sustainability.

Trust Energy Africa Limited (Formerly Pearl Entrepreneurs Academy) is a cleantech social enterprise established in 2018 to empower under-served markets in last mile communities with holistic solutions to their economic and social challenges by providing them with access to clean, affordable, durable and high-quality Solar products and economic opportunities. The Enterprise aims to spread clean energy products across Uganda and Africa with the help of a direct sales network of Entrepreneurs.

Trust Energy Africa provides education, distribution, financing and after-sales support for clean energy products which include portable solar lanterns, and Solar Home Systems to families living on less than $2 a day in rural Uganda that create healthier and safer homes, increase productivity, reduce household expenses and provide additional income-generating opportunities. Trust Energy works with families in rural and urban slums of Uganda to address their energy needs and Trust Energy’s range of solar products is designed to replace kerosene, allowing families to save money while improving their health.

How did you get the idea of Trust Energy Africa?

For years, my family was exposed to smoke and fumes while lighting using kerosene lamps, unaware of the effects that these dirty fuels would have on our health and wellbeing. In 2018, my grandmother died in a fire outbreak caused by a kerosene lamp and after spending extensive time implementing microfinance initiatives in rural Mayuge District, I knew firsthand the suffering arising from a lack of access energy in remote communities.

In the same year 2018, I witnessed Annet (a widow) lose both her home and her son in the blink of an eye due to a kerosene lamp fire. This incident echoed countless stories shared by the women she was working with in their savings group, who seemed to have accepted a dangerous fate in the face of limited energy options. I felt that even in the remotest areas of the world, renewable energy solutions could alleviate that suffering. While solar seemed like an obvious, scalable solution, there was a lack of awareness and distrust in solar products were a major barrier to adoption.

In February, 2018 I conducted research in rural communities of Uganda and discovered that, approximately 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributed to household air pollution produced by inefficient energy sources. I learned about alternative energy sources during the burial of this Annet’s son. I was determined to improve the quality of life for low-income households in rural communities such that nobody else would have to face the pain and financial strain caused by pollutive fuels. All these stories beat me far but later inspired me to come up with a holistic solution to the problems hence founding Trust Energy Africa Limited.

Why did you decide to start with Trust Energy Africa?

Trust Energy Africa addresses the environmental, financial, and health issues caused by unsustainable lighting practices in rural Uganda. There is a critical need for clean energy solutions in Uganda. According to government sources, only 15% of the population in Uganda (independent sources put this as low as 9%) has access to electricity. This translates to 29 million people, mostly low-income populations in rural areas and urban slums – who burn fossil fuels, usually kerosene, for light and heat. It is estimated that 1 million liters of kerosene are burned daily in Uganda alone. Households and small businesses that rely on kerosene for lighting spend up to 20 percent of their annual incomes on energy.

They spend more on medical bills due to the negative impact on health outcomes from kerosene fumes. 30 percent of the population that uses kerosene report having lost property to kerosene related fires, yet kerosene is expensive, frequently cause fire outbreaks and emits significant amounts of CO2, causes deforestation as people cut down trees to get firewood to burn at night and numerous eyes, lung and chest complications affecting especially women and children.

What is the vision behind Trust Energy Africa?

Trust Energy Africa envision a world where low-income communities in Uganda have access to clean energy products that transform their health, environmental and socioecomic outcomes and break the poverty cycle.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

Lack of Seed funding: When we started, we did not have funds to recruit team members, acquire an office space, or head sales, finance and administration. However, to get startup capital, we formed a partnership with Enventure enterprises Uganda, offering us clean energy loans at affordable interest rates. We’ve also received grants from Family and friends, the Pollination Project and the McGinnity Family Foundation.

Entrepreneurship: We had limited access to information about establishing and sustainably growing a business. To learn more, we participated in several entrepreneurship boot camps and programs.

Impact Tracking: We face difficulty in tracking quantitative and qualitative impact accurately. However, we collaborated with pro-bono consultancy organizations and Hubs to create impact tracking tools.

Competition: Our Company faces competition from fake, substandard clean energy products on the market, leading to high cases of defaulting customers. To overcome competition, we educate our customers on the benefits offered by our products, including but not limited to 1-2 years of warranty and a 3-5-year lifetime of products.

Consumer Attitudes: Changing customer perception from traditional cooking and lighting practices remains difficult. We tried our best to change customer attitudes towards clean energy products by providing them with education and training through village meetings.

Who is your target audience?

Trust Energy targets customers that are of low-income households living on less than $2 PPP a day. In Uganda, these people are generally smallholder famers and small business owners living in under-served, off-grid markets, aged 18-65 years, both men and women, and our beneficiaries are family members of our customers, namely female family members and children, who experience the highest exposure to unsustainable lighting and cooking practices.

What is the USP of your startup?

Trust Energy provides customers access to high quality, durable, portable and affordable solar products, convenient delivery to customers door steps, after- sales service like (product maintenance and repair), follow up calls on customers. To ensure we reach the people in need, we recruit local women and youths as Energypreneurs who bring solar and cook stoves straight to families’ doorsteps, educating customers about the new clean energy technology and providing a payment plan to fit their budget.

Can you describe your typical workday?

Elvis likes to start each day by going over my schedule to make sure any sales, calls or meetings I have are on top of mind and I get any prep work for those done first thing. Then, I usually answer my emails while I’m still fresh.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Trust Energy Africa in five years?

I am someone who loves learning about new technology and trends around the world, so in the next five years, I see myself as having established a strong knowledge on what’s new and emerging in the digital marketing in clean energy, I also see myself and Trust Energy as a big energy company employing over 1,000 youth and women as Energypreneurs, impacting over 100,000 low income families and leading a successful team that is result oriented.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

As a self-made social entrepreneur, I advise aspiring founders out there that;

Don’t Worry About “Perfect”

One piece of advice at the very beginning would be: “Don’t try to perfect your product too much before launching it.” The more time you spend building your product without getting feedback from real users, the higher the risk you are taking. At some point, you might even realize that your customers want something very different from what you have just given them.

You will find that most early adopters are more than happy to use a new product, even though it may still need some tweaks to work optimally. In fact, I’ve come to see that most of them just love to be part of the process. That makes it your job to align your expectations and be open to their feedback.

Teamwork Matters

There are three important things that must be in place when you start a company. The first (and most essential) is having a team that is completely aligned in terms of your vision. That’s because building a company is not about building a personal brand – it’s about building an entity that outlasts you, and that cannot be accomplished by just one person. Your team members should all have complementary skill sets that enable your vision to come to life.

The second thing is the idea itself. It needs to be one that you feel can materially change the way that things are done now and in the future. Building a company is a long-term commitment, and the worst thing you can do to yourself as a founder is to waste those early years on concepts that might not ultimately be worth your time.

The third part is your support system. A support system can range from your family to your friends to your business ecosystem, and even to early investors who might provide funding. These are the people who will support you and help you stay sane while you’re going through the complex process of getting your company off the ground.

Think Like a Customer

Too often, founders work on an unproven idea for months before taking it to the market. That’s a mistake. The single condition for having a real business is to have a paying customer. If someone is willing to pay for your idea, it means your solution solves a real problem. This is why you need to think and act like a customer-first company from day one.

Test your assumptions on real clients with real needs in the real world. Don’t spend too much time strategizing, because real world feedback will either crush your initial idea or force you to tweak it in order to be viable. I like to say “plan to change the plan” because execution eats strategy for breakfast. Bringing customers inside your company and inviting them to the drawing table will be your best decision ever. Chances are the problem you are solving for this client is universal, and experienced by most companies who share similar traits. Do unscalable things first and then take these learnings to build your path to scale.

Thank you Elvis Kadhama for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Take utmost care of your team

By

StartupValley

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02/10/2022

0

Inntot: digital broadcast radio receiver solutions at very low cost

Please introduce yourself and your startup Inntot Technologies to our readers!

I am Rajith Nair and i am one of the founders of Inntot Technologies. I have completed my post-graduation in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras and have 22 years of experience in the automotive and consumer electronics entertainment domain spread over Royal Philips Electronics, Wipro Technologies, LSI Logic and Inntot Technologies.

Inntot Technologies is a technology driven company with prime focus on enabling cost effective next generation digital radio receiver solutions. And inntot has Software Defined Radio IP Solutions for Digital Radio Mondiale (AM and FM bands) Receivers, DAB/DAB+ Receivers, HD-Radio Receivers (in collaboration with Xperi), CDR Receivers and ISDB-T Receivers and is all set to play a pivotal role in the Analog Sunset of AM and FM broadcast radio transmission paving way to Digital broadcast Radio Transmission in the near future.

Inntot Technologies is the winner of several prestigious awards including National Technology Awards 2021 of Government of India, Industrial Innovation Awards 2017 of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) – for the Best Service Start-up and Top 10 Promising Start-ups of India., ASSOCHAM 4th ICT Awards 2020, DRM Enterprise Award 2019 instituted by Digital Radio Mondiale Consortium.

Inntot’s solutions power Digital Radio Receivers of some of the major car manufacturers worldwide.

How did you get the idea of Inntot Technologies?

Digital Radio Broadcasting is being mandated across the globe by all countries due to the advantages of multiplying the number of channels, excellent quality Audio for long distance reception and availability of useful data like traffic, news etc. Digital Radio will also play a crucial role in bridging the digital divide in developing countries such as India by providing free access to educational programs and on a large-scale deployment. It is also useful in broadcasting emergency warning in the event of natural disasters in an automated fashion to all radios including car, desktop and mobile phones when mobile networks may be completely dysfunctional. Also, Digital broadcast Radio is a viable and useful option in rural and remote areas where ensuring internet access may not be that easy.

However, current Digital Radio Broadcast Receiver solutions (DRM/DRM+, DAB/DAB+, HD-Radio, CDR) in the market require dedicated chips to perform complex operations like Demodulation in hardware and hence end solution becomes very costly due to high chip costs. Such high costs prevent swift penetration into emerging and high-volume markets like India, European Union, South Africa, Indonesia where the usage of Digital Broadcast Technology is mandated by Government as part of shut down of Analog Radio transmission in AM and FM bands.

It is the need to the hour for digital broadcast radio receiver market to have a high- quality solution that is cost effective.

Why did you decide to start with Inntot Technologies?

Inntot was formed with the very idea of breaking the general convention that high quality and cost effectiveness will not go hand in hand. With strong and considerable experience of founders in the area of digital broadcast receiver solutions, we decided to take up the challenge of coming up with high quality and cost-effective solutions based on the concept of Software Defined Radio with our own patented improvisations.

What is the vision behind Inntot Technologies?

Inntot’s vision is to facilitate the availability of the best of next generation radio broadcast technology to common man at very low cost.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

Inntot’s software-based IP solution is a direct competitor of radio decoder chips manufactured by semiconductor giants who are well established in this industry. It has been an amazing journey for Inntot to develop the first product prototype, optimize the solution for the best performance and rope in the major customers who are accustomed to using the solutions of major semiconductor giants. Now, Inntot solution is being used by major customers and is in production for some of the heavy weights in car manufacturing industry replacing their first-generation solution based on the radio decoder chips provided by established semiconductor companies.

For every new customer, Inntot has to get its solution evaluated and validated for the feature and performance. This customer acquisition cycle is generally very lengthy. This process is getting easier as Inntot solution is now in production for some of the major companies.

Building cost intensive testing infrastructure and niche area competency were some of the other challenges faced during product/IP development.

Who is your target customer?

Our target customers are Automotive Tier-1 companies for in-car and aftermarket automotive products, consumer product companies for desktop radios and combo products and smart phone manufacturers.

What is the USP of your startup?

USP of Inntot solution is in terms of

Cost: Using Inntot solution will save at least 3-12 USD for the manufacturer.

Quality: Inntot solution is high performing and provides competitive
advantage to its customers with granted patents and multiple productizations.

Time-To-Market: Inntot solution is reusable and proven IP which reduces
Time to Market in a substantial manner.

Easy Maintenance: Inntot solution is easily maintainable using software upgrade.

Chip related:

unaffected by the global shortage of chips since the solution is software based.
Saves energy and environment by eliminating the need for radio decoder chip.

Can you describe your typical workday ?

Being a start-up founder and also CEO, I have to wear multiple hats and play multiple roles. Typical tasks during a day involve business development activities, customer interactions, project reviews, touch basing with key team members and certain operational activities.

I usually keep a “To do List” with different categories of role that I have to perform and that is really helpful. I am flexible with the working hours and this could be both advantage and disadvantage from a personal perspective.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Inntot Technologies in five years?

Inntot plans to raise next round of investment with the objective of expanding its solutions globally. And inntot has a vision of become market leader for the digital broadcast radio receiver solutions in next 5 years and acquire much of the market in in-car and after-market solutions in automotive segment along with a substantial presence in the upcoming segments of consumer electronics and smart phones.

Inntot plans to further improvise its IP solutions for providing outstanding performance and further reduced costs.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Always dream big!

Keep attempting with the right intentions and be open for changes! Success will come to you for sure!

Take utmost care of your team. Your team members are your biggest asset!

Thank you Rajith Nair for the Interview

Picture Rajith Nair

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Invest your time in your education

By

StartupValley

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02/09/2022

0

Dogo personalize training plan for dogs that is based on positive reinforcement and clicker methodology

Hi there! Could you please introduce yourself and Startup Dogo to our readers?

I’m Tadas Žiemys co-founder of the Dogo App. My background is computer science and more specifically, I have been working as an iOS developer for the last 12 years. Nowadays I don’t have many chances to write code (even though I still love it!) and my main responsibilities in the company are trying to find perfect Pricing for the services we offer and the most important job – leading the team by making sure everyone can do their best work.

Where did you get the idea to start Dogo?

It all started when we adopted our dog Ūdra from the shelter. She was such a cute small devil and we decided to try out dog training school. Very quickly we understood 2 things: Ūdra does not enjoy the company of other dogs during the training. And that Ūdra is extremely smart and loves training! She learned everything very quickly, enjoyed the attention, the treats, and all this quality time together. We decided to continue the training at home and started looking for tools that could help us with that. We didn’t find anything better than books so we came up with our own idea – first a gamified mobile app that your dog loves! Everyone loves their best friends but smartphones are big attention thieves and we wanted to change that by creating Dogo – my dog’s favorite app.

What is Dogo’s vision?

At Dogo, we help, educate and motivate everyone who lives, works, and spends time with dogs to create a unique and enriching relationship for the benefit of dogs and their parent(s)

From idea to launch, what have been the biggest challenges so far and how did you finance yourself?

Having an amazing idea, that you believe in and that solves the real problems is incredibly important but the first step is to start. Most of the ideas die in our heads and we don’t even try them in the real world. It almost happen to us too, as we had the idea in 2013 but only started working on it in 2016.

We financed ourselves for the first 2.5 years first by working on the idea after work, on weekends, later from our personal savings and by freelancing. First external money came accelerator (APX). They were incredibly helpful to make us “investor-ready”. After that, we got money from angel investors and my previous bosses – Moritz Hohl and Marius Jeuck. They also mentored us and with their help, it became much easier to attract other amazing angels. And just recently, we closed our last round that was led by Change Ventures and Monkfish.

Who is your target audience?

Our ideal customer is young professionals, living a busy urban life that just got their first puppy. We have content for all different behavior challenges and different environments but our focus has been early stages of a dog’s life so if you just got a puppy Dogo is the best thing you can get for yourself to become the parent that your dog deserves.

How does Dogo work? What is your USP? What differentiates you from other providers?

When user downloads the app, we ask them to enter information about their goals, what their dog know and struggles with. Then we generate and personalize the training plan that is based on positive reinforcement and clicker methodology. Then everyday, users have lessons that are separated into 3 parts – theory, execrise for dog and activity to do together with the dog. Once users learn a trick or think that they know the exercise well they can take an exam. Film how their dog does it, send it to our dog trainers and then in 24h we send back if they passed it and add additional tips and suggestions what could they do to improve. Our biggest differentiators from competitors is amazing UI/UX and customer success that will make sure we will find a personal solution to our customer’s needs

Where do you see yourself and Dogo in five years?

At Dogo our sturcture is not based on a traditional hierarchical system. We work as self-organizing team where authority and decision-making is distributed throught the different teams and roles. In 5 years I see my role being less hands-on but being able to focusing more on making sure that as organization we are fulfilling our vision and that everyone in the company knows well why we exist. How we pursue our purpose is as important as making sure we are fullfilling it.

We want to grow as company so that we would be able to do more for our users. With new colleagues joining we will be able to expand and be useful for entire dog parent journey from the very puppy to the golden senior years. We want to be a one-stop app that covers all dog parent needs. If we can do it in 5 years – amazing. If it will take us 15 years to get there, it’s also ok!

What three tips would you give founders?

invest your time in your education. read books, take courses. You will need to fill in so many different roles so you must learn new things quickly

It’s a marathon. Pace yourself and take care of yourself and the people around you. It’s easy to burn out and it takes a lot of time to recover.

Coaching and mentoring is an incredible way to boost your productivity, grow and achieve incredible things faster than you imagined. I absolutely recommend finding a coach and mentor who could help you.

Thank you Tadas Žiemys for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Think like a user

By

StartupValley

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02/08/2022

0

Movingto is a marketplace to compare and review visas, law firms, accounting and other services

Please introduce yourself and your startup Movingto to our readers!

I’m Ana Ibanez, a product designer and digital nomad who has lived in many different countries. I help companies build industry-leading products that delight and inspire users. However, this time I build my own Movingto,

A comparison website for ex-pats and digital nomads to help them move abroad. Remote work is an on growing trend that is here to stay.

We compare visas, law firms, tax numbers and more to make moving countries simpler and cheaper than ever before. At the moment we are only focusing on Portugal but planning to expand to other countries very soon.

How did you get the idea of Movingto?

My husband and I were both living in London and decided that we wanted to move to Lisbon with our newborn child and found the whole process slow, expensive and stressful. We wanted to create a better way for more people to enjoy this amazing country. We decided to create moving to remove the stress, expense and mistakes that most people make when moving to Portugal.

Why did you decide to start with Movingto?

After we moved to Portugal in April I started to do a lot of research and benchmarking. Then I did some wireframes and the design system in Figma. I have a developer who helped me to build the site so by June it was up and running.

Since then I have changed lots of things from the site, we are still learning what works and what doesn’t by checking Google Analytics. Every day we learn and iterate.

What is the vision behind Movingto?

There are lots of things you need to move to another country but the most important is your visa to be able to live and work.

Also, Portugal has a NIF number also non as a tax Payer number. Without one you can’t do anything in Portugal, not get your Visa, rent a place, or open a bank account. The list goes on. There are lots of companies that do NIFs also the law firms that can do your Visa can do NIFs but the price range is huge.

We made some tables where you can compare all the companies that offer to do your NIF by price, turn around and review rating.

You can see very quickly what is best for you. My husband and I spent weeks doing research just to get the best company

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

The biggest challenge at the beginning is to keep working when you see very little growing.

Who is your target audience?

Digital nomads and ex-pats from around the globe

What is the USP of your startup?

Movingto is a marketplace to compare and review visas, law firms, accounting and other services to enable people to move freely around the world.

Can you describe your typical workday?

Currently, I’m working on adding more law firms and companies to the site, reviewing them and comparing them on our tables.

I also have a writer who helps me with all the content. We try to write about trending searches on google like ‘How to move from the US to Portugal?’, ‘What is the NHR tax regime?’, or “is Portugal a crypto tax-free heaven’?

Where do you see yourself and your startup Movingto in five years?

Opening to at least 5 other countries. We would like to do Spain, Australia and Indonesia next.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

1. Don’t give up, everything you do everyday compounds and one day without realising you have a business running on your hands

2. Fundraise wisely, not every startup needs funding, this is very controversial advice. MailChimp was purchased for $12B by Intuit. they build the business without ever taking venture funding.

3. Think like a user, If you really want to build a delightful product that gives value to users and solves a real problem.

Thank you Ana Ibanez for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Prioritise your mental and physical health

By

StartupValley

-

02/03/2022

0

Lotuly offer translation services in around 90 languages and cover 40 subjects

Please introduce yourself and your startup Lotuly to our readers!

Lotuly : We are striving to help businesses communicate with their customers in the language of their hearts and showing them a way to experience a world of understanding through translation.

We both have a passion for languages and sustainability, we also love dogs and I personally (Mariona) enjoy playing the guitar and Robert loves to play football (he almost made it professionally). Being a native Spanish & Catalan speaker I struggled with fear of rejection (my husband/business partner having Romanian roots too).

As a company we’ve managed to successfully onboard Fortune 500 companies and work with top startups giving us the push we needed and the support we craved. We doubled our revenue after launching and we hope to keep on growing sustainably.

When we came to England back in 2015 we started working as freelance translators mostly translating into Catalan and Spanish. We built a portfolio of all sorts of clients and little by little we managed to create a global team of translators.

One of the best implementations we’ve put in motion is planting trees for translated words through our partners Ecologi.

We strive to help businesses communicate more effectively and in a meaningful way because we know how it feels to be misunderstood due to language barriers, I know how it feels to speak other languages, I know how it feels to always be the one that doesn’t fit in a place that it’s not your own country, so we created Lotuly with the goal of taking that weight off our clients’ shoulders.

I moved through those challenges and strived to help other young people overcome the same feelings of rejection. We give a lot of opportunities to young people, to work with us and feel appreciated no matter where they are from.

How did you get the idea of Lotuly?

Before my husband and I moved to England we were selling antiques in several markets in Spain. It was here that we translated our first documents, explaining the specifics of the items we were selling to our buyers. This led to a series of further enquiries for translations. Eventually, it got to a point where we were making more money from translating than from selling. And Robert and I realized how much we enjoyed the feeling of breaking through the language barrier and helping people to understand each other. That was our ‘aha’ moment and this is essentially where our business idea came from.

Branding and naming wise, Lotuly comes from two Latin words: The name Lotuly is a combination of two Latin words. LO comes from the word Logus, which means ‘words’. TULY comes from Tratuli, which means ‘translation’.

Why did you decide to start with Lotuly?

When I did freelance work I noticed that prospective clients would usually list something like the following: I’m trying to reach a new market, my copy is in English and well, it’s also translated with Google Translate but I’m not getting the ROI that I was expecting.

Boom! That’s what made us come up with a solution. You can argue there were other giant translation agencies and we didn’t stand a chance but they operate on a business model that undermines freelancers and they pester translators with mass emails trying to see who will do it cheaper and faster – that’s where we come in. We decided enough is enough, we’ve experienced that atrocious way of doing business and the only ones benefiting were agencies with deep pockets – not the clients.

Clients would get bad quality, and often machine translation therefore losing money in the long run and at the same time suffering from a damaged reputation.

Big agencies would charge a lot of money and pay very little to its translators or sometimes not pay anything at all until 90 days after invoicing. We’ve scrapped that and decided to operate our translation agency by putting our translators first. We pay them upfront, they choose their place of work and time they want to do the work and they can do it remotely. We vet them, interview them and make sure they understand what we value about them. And we make sure we offer human translation done by qualified experts in the subject matter. We love tech but machine translation and all these AI services like Google Translate are not sufficiently advanced in order to take over human translation, yet. And a lot of B2B companies have seen a huge improvement in their sales by having their content translated by a human expert translator.

What is the vision behind Lotuly?

Make a difference in the translation industry, not only educating our clients on the importance of translation and localisation done by humans but also helping translators get paid what they deserve. When we started we were afraid to reject a project even if the payment was ridiculously low because we were always thinking that maybe in the future that client would paid more so we want to help translators get paid for the work they do but also help see clients the importance of having a text translated by a human instead of a machine.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

Our business was and still is 100% bootstrapped, we’ve always reinvested what we’ve made back into the business. We’ve not been successful at securing any funding from the government or any schemes offered because we couldn’t find any suitable ones for what we do. The industry, ‘Translation’ doesn’t exist when you try to choose what category your business is so it always ends up being the odd ”other.’’ Despite all that we’ve managed to stay afloat and to be fair at the beginning of the pandemic we’ve turned over the same amount we did in the previous 6 months, in just 1 month.

In the beginning there was this feeling of guilt or fear of rejecting a project, you would always think, am I making a mistake by walking away? Am I throwing away an opportunity to work long term with this company/client? But there are several red flags that unfortunately I had to learn the hard way and these moments make or break you especially during a pandemic and needing clients to push harder and advance your business to the next level.

If a company does not want to pay upfront how do you know they’ll want to pay you afterwards?

There was this client who I worked several times with, so there was trust between us and he always paid upfront, then suddenly he started asking for new projects but he did not pay me, he said that he would do in 30 days, as we had worked together before I trusted him, in the end I spent around 2 months working for this person and I only got a couple of hundreds of the total amount which was over $4k.

To this day I haven’t seen the money,once I told him I wouldn’t do any other projects he ghosted me, unfortunately it happened again with a big dentist who has several clinics around Europe. Since then, I’ve implemented several steps to avoid going through that situation again such as charging upfront.

When they do not respect your boundaries or time:

I’m available for my clients all of my working hours, and sometimes even more, I always try to go above and beyond for each project but there was this time that a renowned doctor, she needed an urgent file translated within hours, I said that we can help her without a problem but then she asked me to do some copying and pasting (from one language to another, that means also checking that the translation already done is up to our standards of quality), which I said that is fine no problem, I’ll charge a small fee for the time invested doing that, which is normal, right? If you don’t have the time to do something then you pay someone to do that instead, isn’t it?

But of course she did not like that despite her consultancy turning over millions she was very concerned that I would charge her for my time as it was only copying and pasting, and well, unfortunately we did not end up collaborating as I found quite insulting what she said, but if it would have been when I started out I would probably have given in and let myself be disrespected not only with my time but also from the way she spoke to me and working without being paid.

This is why I always encourage people who are starting out to have their values and boundaries very clear because if they do, clients will see that and they won’t be able to “play” with them.

Who is your target audience for Lotuly?

We target mainly Software, e-Learning, e-Commerce companies and also Marketing agencies but our focus is to be able to help businesses that have products or services which are highly marketable to an international audience.

What is the USP of Lotuly?

Lotuly helps businesses reach their global audience by adapting their content to the local market (also called localisation). In simple terms we turn their English documents, websites, apps or software into the language of their customers’ hearts all while we invest in the planet by planting 1 tree for every 500 words we translate.

We offer translation services in around 90 languages and we cover 40 subjects. Thanks to the free and instant quote tool we’ve created, potential customers know the cost and timeline of their project before committing to hiring us making us fully transparent and honest.

Can you describe your typical workday ?

Of course, even though not two days are the same, it normally starts with opening the computer, checking emails and answering them accordingly, do a last check and deliver any project that we may need to deliver that day, create some social media content, engage with other business owners and businesses on different platforms and also trying to find new clients that we can onboard, pitch our deck to our ideal audience, build relationships through LinkedIn and Bizfluence and if we get another project then get that project started by assigning it to the translator/s, check all the emails again.

And at some point we try to get some breaks in between all these activities in the middle of the day for a 1 hour walk with our Chief Happiness Officer (family dog) and finish the day off by seeing if there’s anything else we can solve that day or if it can wait until the next one (planning is super important).

Where do you see yourself and your startup Lotuly in five years?

Integrate our API with more marketing agencies and find the right partners (we have developed a unique quotation tool where by selecting the pair of language, subject and word count you will be given an automatic quote in seconds without the need of giving any personal information/you can also drop a file in one of the twelve formats we currently support and the tool will count the words automatically).

Also develop and tweak our MVP by integrating a function where our clients will be able to see how many trees we are planting as a result of their project since the beginning, now we have to tell them manually but in the near future we hope to integrate this option.

Be in the top 3 translation agencies in the UK that put human translation at the forefront of everything and invest highly in the environment/offsetting its carbon footprint and at the same time put a lot of emphasis in treating translators with the respect they deserve, paying them upfront or on time.

This year we want to plant at least 1,000 trees in our forest through our partners Ecologi, push our new subscription based translation service we are offering to our clients and break the £500k in turnover and hire our first full time employee.

In the next 3 years we would like to reach our goal of crossing £5M in turnover and increase our full time team of employees to ten.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Don’t wait until everything is perfect because as a business owner it’ll never be, we delayed our launch almost a year just because we wanted to have everything perfect. In the end, there’s always so many things to do but your advantage is that your customers do not know that. So get your business out there as soon as it’s presentable and gather feedback.

Ask as many people as you can for feedback and tell them to please tell you what they like but most importantly what they don’t like, some feedback will sting a bit but it may help you to push your business forward as they may see something that you did not, that’s the raw and unfiltered feedback you are looking for in order to build a successful and robust, product, service or business.

Prioritise your mental and physical health. If you are not well, no one will be able to care for your business, or what is a business if you are not able to enjoy it? Always trust your gut feeling, if something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t. Be able to detach yourself from rejections, don’t take them personally, learn from them and move on, there is no point in thinking about it. You can’t force someone to understand the importance of your product or the good you are doing to their business and eventually the ROI. If they don’t see the value, move on to the next one.

Thank you Mariona Bolohan/ Lotuly for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Stay focused

By

StartupValley

-

02/02/2022

0

ARION ultra-thin smart insoles with nano-tech sensors and advanced training pods

Please introduce yourself and your startup ARION to our readers!

I live in Eindhoven in the Netherlands but was originally born in the UK/Britain. I’ve always had a passion for technology and the human body and took this with me in many of the choices I’ve made. I studied Physics and also Sports, Exercise Sciences, and Biomechanics as a double major at Loughborough University and went on to do a PhD at the Sports Technology Institute.

During my PhD I met with TNO, the Dutch National Research Institute, who were collaborating with the Sports Technology Institute on a project focused on 3D printing of running shoes. TNO ultimately invited me to come and work with them as part of a research group based in Eindhoven focused on wearable sensing systems to measure the human body for a variety of applications ranging from elderly fallers, rehabilitation, safety in the workplace, and a variety of sports of which running, and running related injuries was a key focus.

I was working on a project that was focused on measuring human biomechanics using sensors that included pressure sensing insoles, and co-ordinated research with several institutes across Europe including, the Luxembourg Institute of Health and Maastricht University. After almost 8 years of research we had established a number of patents and a huge amount of knowledge related to human movement, particularly in the field of running and running-related injuries which would ultimately form the basis for our ARION innovations.

How did you get the idea of ARION?

During my first research project at TNO, we were approached by Dutch elite running coaches that were searching for a way to better understand how their athletes were moving to be able to objectively measure and compare running biomechanics in the top athletes they were working with. At this time, back in 2008, it was about the time the very first iPhone was being introduced to the market, and most peoples ideal of wearable technology was a basic Nokia phone or a standard wrist watch, so most of the world was not familiar with such small compact sensing devices and it was the first time researchers were able to start making measurements in the field in scalable fashion and opened the door to a huge number of opportunities to learn how humans move in natural environments.

In my years of studying and researching the human body and the power of exercise on our physical and mental health, it became clear that there is a huge amount of science that can bring benefit to people around the world, but this science is often captured and trapped in research papers, and in the minds of experts and scientists. With ARION we aim to make exercise sciences accessible to anyone through the interactive experiences and visualisations that our products provide.

Why did you decide to start with ARION?

After almost 8 years of research and development, the patents and knowledge that we had developed at TNO could only reach users if all this work would be translated into products and a commercial proposition in the market. As a research institute, TNO was not in a position to do this, and required entrepreneurs or company’s to take over the knowledge position and translate it into products. With the years I had worked on this proposition and the potential I saw in the opportunity, I made the choice to leave the comfort and stability of my job at TNO and searched for a business partner that had the skills and experience to develop products. Ultimately I teamed up with Jurgen van den Berg and together we founded our first start-up company in 2015, which would ultimately lead to the creation of ARION.

What is the vision behind ARION?

We believe that every runner, and every run, is completely unique. Because of this, we require a better understanding of ourselves as individual runners. Our unique metrics, the meaning behind them, and the relationships between them. Specific to our bodies, our technique and our goals. This is our individual Running Identity.

ARION is a next-generation innovation that grants you an unparalleled understanding of your Running Identity. Helping you to run faster, longer, and safer. At ARION we help people improve the way they move, by making cutting-edge movement and exercise sciences accessible and meaningful for everyone.

How difficult was the start and which challenges did you have to overcome?

Building a start-up is hugely challenging. We started our adventure with little more than personal savings and some patents and technical knowledge. Building a team with no resources is incredibly challenging, and it means everyone in the company has to learn and experience things well outside of their comfort zone, a lot of the things you might take for granted when working in a large organization. We had to be the legal department, the financial department, the sales and marketing department, build our own supply chain and production processes, and everything in between. All the time you’re trying to build the business, you also need to attract the attention of investors and try to raise funds to be able to hire a bigger team and move to market more quickly.

The early days of the start-up adventure are incredibly exciting but require a huge amount of tenacity, commitment and drive to get through some tough times when there’s little or no money to help solve your problems. In the beginning it’s a typical chicken and egg challenge, you need money to build and manufacture, or at least prototype, to get proof from the market that there is sufficient commercial opportunity for this truly innovative and new product. Investors can provide the funds you need, but they usually want to see proof that there’s a sufficient market to justify the investment.

In the end we unlocked this challenge over a period of more than 18 months by committing all our waking hours to building and testing our first basic concept products together with enthusiastic believers, and using tools like pre-orders to build sufficient proof points for the first investors to be sufficiently convinced to fund our proposition and allow us to build the foundations of the company we are today.

Who is your target audience?

As Nike says, “if you have a body, you are an athlete”. So we believe our innovations can benefit anyone looking to improve their mobility and movement. Our key audience right now are the specialists of the running industry, running brands, retailers, and runners that are passionate about running and everything it has to offer. Our earliest customers were runners themselves, dedicated enthusiasts that are inspiring athletes, participating in running events and marathons, and tend to be thought leaders and influencers in their local communities.

We have stayed close to the heart of the running community as we have increased our focus in running retail, working together with and supporting the hubs of the running communities, providing exceptional expertise and services, supported by our products. Today we are targeting strong partnerships with the most influential players in the industry, running centered brands that are leading shoe innovation, and retailers that are leading the way in next-generation retail experiences and digitization.

What is the USP of your startup?

Since founding the company in 2015 we have built a tightly knit, multidisciplinary team of talented individuals that have embraced and built upon the foundations of over a decade of research. This team translates the rich knowledge base, expertise, and patents into products that have formed the unique ARION eco-system. Capable of providing meaningful services at every level of the running industry. I think ARIONs extensive roots in science, research, and technical expertise is unique in this industry and means we are able to make cutting-edge movement and exercise sciences accessible to the world of running.

Can you describe your typical workday?

Almost every day is different in the start-up world, so I’m not sure there is such a thing as a typical workday. We usually start the day with a stand-up, each sub-team spends a few minutes together to align what they’re working on and where they are spending their time, identify bottlenecks and dependencies and ask for help from each other. I try to pull meetings next to each other, right at the beginning or end of the morning/afternoon to create space for focus blocks to spend uninterrupted time on my focus.

We try to hold a regular off-site strategy day once every quarter to give us space to think outside of day-to-day operations, and recheck our strategy and plans and make decisions regarding the course we are following. I also find it highly valuable to find opportunities to join sales team visits to customers from time to time. It can be very insightful to be able to hear and understand how customers look at your products and company.

Where do you see yourself and your startup ARIONin five years?

With ARION we are building an eco-system capable of providing services at every level of the running industry. In 5 years time we aim to be a key enabler in the industry, ensuring that runners are able to find shoes that perfectly match their personal biomechanics and movement patterns to reduce injury risk and improve performance.

We want to become part of the consideration process when buying new shoes, helping people understand their own unique running technique, and guiding them to select the optimal shoe technologies to match their individual needs

Ultimately we also aim to help shoe brands and manufacturers identify opportunities for new shoe innovations to create even better shoe designs. We are already working directly with retailers and brands to help create even better, faster, and safer running shoes based on the data and insights we have generated through our product innovations.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Don’t give up – it will get difficult, it will feel impossible at times, but tough times will pass and if you find a way through, you’ll know you’ve really achieved something.

Don’t be afraid to change your plans – whilst it’s important to test your plans and ideas fully, and this will mean investing time, money, and energy into them, there can be a point when it is important to make the decision to change course, and try another direction. Agility is one of the most powerful assets of a start-up. It’s not a failure, it takes bold and brave steps to change your plan when something is not working. You need to continually evolve and respond to the world around you.

Stay focused – whilst changing course is positive, you need to choose a course first to be able to change it. It’s very tempting to jump on every opportunity that comes across your path, especially when you might be short on funds or resources, but spreading yourself too thin will mean you don’t really validate if anything is, or is not, working. From making these mistakes ourselves, I would, and I’m sure the rest of our team would advocate focus, push all your energy into a clear course, then change the course if it doesn’t work.

Hedging your bets by doing too many things at once is a trap almost every entrepreneur will fall into. It’s incredibly hard to say no to tempting opportunities when you don’t know if your current plan will work out, but failing fast is now recognised as a strong strategy and is only possible when you have sufficient focus.

Thank you Andrew Statham for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Conviction: You will meet significantly more doubters than believers

By

StartupValley

-

01/20/2022

0

Zoog adapts children’s books to the medium of creative video communication, enabling family members to communicate with the children in their lives across the technological gap in an entertaining way

Please introduce yourself and your startup Zoog to our readers!

My name is Yoav Oren and I am the Co-Founder and CEO of Zoog. Prior to building Zoog, I held several leadership positions at SimilarWeb, including serving as the company’s Chief of Staff and General Manager of Greater China.

Zoog adapts children’s books to the medium of creative video communication, enabling grandparents, parents, other remote family members or educators to communicate with the children in their lives across the technological gap in an entertaining way. Through Zoog’s mobile app, anyone can bring a book to life and literally become “part of the story” utilizing AR masks, filters, and other visual overlays.

Kids are engaged and excited when they see their loved ones “in” the stories they love. Zoog was created so that even oceans and generations apart, your family can enjoy memorable moments through creative interactions.

How did you get the idea of Zoog? Why did you decide to start with Zoog?

When the pandemic hit us all, the world as we knew it changed overnight. Everyone was affected by the changes that COVID brought, especially feeling the uncertainties of how the world will change and when we will go back to normal. However, the most immediate effect I personally felt was not necessarily in the line of my work, but rather how my children were directly impacted by the boundaries and hurdles that the pandemic brought with it.

Communication took the first impact. Suddenly, we were isolated from the world and all communication turned to video – with Zoom and FaceTime leading the way in our families. My kids couldn’t stand this. In fact, they couldn’t do it at all and did anything to avoid these calls with their distant relatives.

Despite my wife and I nudging them to spend a few minutes on the phone with their grandparents, they couldn’t do it. I learned that they experienced these calls as boring and repetitive, and they simply weren’t interested in small talk.

I looked for alternatives and tried several options -products that claimed to solve the problem – but nothing worked, my kids stood their ground.

This created a frustrating situation for all parties involved in the call-for my kids who simply wanted me to leave them be, for my parents who were used to communicating or seeing their grandchildren and suddenly were not able to, and for us as parents, feeling like we needed to bribe our kids every time we wanted them to spend some time with their grandparents, or other distant family members on a call.

Although the pandemic amplified the cross-generational video communication problem, it also presented a unique opportunity. Video communication, for the first time, became the overarching norm in the world and affected us in the business world, the education world, and even in our own homes – everyone got used to the fact that this is the new way to communicate and felt the need to evolve and adapt. This opened a special window of opportunity for us to solve a growing problem that would only become more severe, while also giving us the opportunity to work on something that we were affected by in our own homes. In addition, we felt that our initial target audience, young grandparents, were ready and receptive to video products more than ever before.

We found a problem that directly affected not only us, but the people who we cared about the most; we found purpose and right then decided to quit our respective jobs, take the leap of faith, and build Zoog.

What is the vision behind Zoog?

Our vision is to become the world’s leading content-driven family communication platform. As we continue developing our product, we will offer a richer variety of content, different ways to interact, and experiences to be shared together both live and asynchronously. We see that communication, especially with children, will be intertwined with content, and Zoog sits at the epicenter of this crossroad. In order to carry out this vision, we are currently building tools that could be used by any content creator. Soon, any author, illustrator, or publisher will be able to create fun, engaging, and educational content directly on Zoog, using our built in templates or by connecting with an AR designer on our platform.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

Matan, my co-founder, and I met in January of 2020. I decided to quit my job a few months prior to that and pursue an entrepreneurial dream. And I had an idea that I was passionate about and was searching for quite some time for the right co-founder.

I spent different periods with different potential co-founders, some very talented and great people, but there are so many variables that go into finding the right co-founder. First, there needs to be a complimentary skill set – each person needs to bring to the table something that the other does not have. Second, the person needs to have the right professional experience. Third, the timing needs to be right as starting a startup is probably one of the most difficult decisions anyone can make. And to top all this – and probably the most important thing – there simply needs to be a click – you need to like the person you will be spending most of your time with.

What’s interesting is that the person who introduced Matan and me is actually one of the potential co-founders I was considering. He ticked most boxes, but in the end it came down to boldness and his ability to take that leap of faith to leave his job and just go for it.

Matan and I immediately clicked. We simply enjoyed being together and really felt that at our core we shared the same values as well as a complimentary skillset. More importantly, we trusted each other. After our second meeting, Matan said, “let’s do this.” He quit his job and we started the following day.

During our first week working together, we sat down and had a two day intensive session answering 50 questions for founders – tough and revealing questions. It was like going through basic training, even though neither one of us could predict that this was the easy part of the beginning of our journey.

A month after we started working together, my wife gave birth to our third child. Two weeks after that, my wife was rushed back to the hospital with a severe kidney infection. I stayed home with three kids (including a newborn) while she was hospitalized for two weeks. The day she returned home was the day that the Prime Minister announced a nationwide quarantine due to COVID-19. All this, while we were trying to build a startup.

Matan stuck by me the entire time, working around the clock and according to my schedule. I remember telling him: “This is our beginning and I know it is rough, but if we get past this, we can get past anything.”

My kids ended up spending 56 days at home throughout the first year of our startup – not an easy task to juggle at all. Nevertheless, we were able to find the right balance, to develop our product while balancing a delicate family situation and prevail.

Who is your target audience?

Zoog’s target audiences: 1. Children between the ages 1-10; 2. Young grandparents/baby boomers; 3. Parents.

Digital engagement among the baby boomer generation has grown dramatically. From mobile to social, gaming to streaming, we’ve seen boomer numbers go way up during the pandemic on all digital fronts.

What is the USP of your startup?

Our solution offers several key factors that differentiate us from our competition:

1. Hands-on research:

We’ve designed and adjusted our product roadmap together with a unique group of people from our target audience– a group of 50 young grandparents who’ve been part of our beta since day one. This has allowed us to learn how our users see our product, how they use it, and what is essential for them in our solution.

2. Tapping into the creator economy and democratizing it:

We’ve made it easy and intuitive for anyone to become an AR content creator! While typically this is reserved for younger audiences (generations Z, Y, etc.), using Zoog, anyone (literally) can create AR content that is engaging, fun, and at the same time educational, which they can share with their loved ones and with the world. People like to be creative and we’ve developed a tool that allows anyone to do so.

3. Experiences don’t have to be live:

Creating bonds, if it is between grandparents and their grandchildren, between traveling parents, teachers, servicewomen and men, and the children in their lives works perfectly well when we do not need to rely on synchronization and sufficient bandwidth. Zoog allows AR creations to be recorded, stored, and shared, so we can create everlasting memories and experiences that are meaningful and enjoyable for everyone. Amongst our competitors, we are the only company that offers asynchronous experiences that are enjoyable both for the creator as well as the receiver; experiences that are saved, forever.

4. Easy feedback loop:

Zoog offers a super easy solution for reciprocating comments – from emojis to text, and even video responses – the kids (or any family member) can share their responses with the video creator in an easy way, and just like the videos, the responses are saved and can be viewed, always.

Can you describe your typical workday ?

As a startup, there isn’t really a “typical day” as each day presents its own unique challenges. However, we are creators at heart and have a typical creative process which includes either working with an existing book/published text or actually writing a story from scratch with one of our in-house authors. After our author completes the text according to our format, our storyboard artist puts together a first storyboard draft, which is the script defining what will happen artistically in each “scene” and page of the story.

In the storyboard we define which elements will be in 2D, 3D, what kind of backgrounds we want, where the storyteller is going to be placed and what AR masks we want to add to make them part of the story. We also define the sequence of events and the soundtrack we want to add, as well as how we want the text to appear in the story. After this part is done, our creative director assigns tasks to our 2D animator and our 3D artist and then they prepare all assets needed for the story. We then create the scenes inside Camera Kit (powered by Snap) and then our engineering team adds the new story to our app. We then have multiple QA reviews before we release the content onto our app and to our audience.

While this is happening, our marketing team creates campaigns around our content and promotes them on our social media channels. Simultaneously, our product and engineering teams continue to develop new features and improve our product flow within our app as well as our frontend site. All this while our CEO speaks with investors, brands, and major studios and publishers to create more content partnerships for Zoog.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Zoog in five years?

In five years, Zoog will offer a platform for any content creators to be able to produce AR content meant for children, directly on Zoog. In addition to opening up Zoog to external developers and creators, we will expand our offering into additional verticals, the first of which will be education – offering Zoog as an educational product both for teachers to create engaging content for their students, and for children in order to encourage them to read on Zoog. And in addition, we will be able to offer deeper insights to our audiences about the usage of their content: For the publishers and authors—engagement metrics about the usage of their content, for the parents and teachers—reading progress of the children.

Last, as we develop more content and grow our audience, we will be able to add a layer of AI–a recommendation engine that will offer more specific content per individual user across many categories and interests.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Focus:

There is a lot of noise when building a startup and a lot of potential distractions. Try your best to focus on the single KPI that will move your business forward at each stage and time, and make sure this KPI is aligned with the entire team’s work.

Partner:

The entrepreneurial journey is a lonely one. Find a partner that you trust, enjoy being with, and that compliments you professionally. The same goes for hiring the right people, especially at the beginning, as you are building the company’s culture. Can’t emphasize the importance of people and finding the right people you trust and believe in your vision enough.

Support:

Make sure that you have the right support system at home. It is a crazy ride and you want to make sure that your significant other, your family, children (if you have them) understand what you are going through and are supportive. Very hard to succeed without this.

Communicate:

Both with your family, but also internally with your team – be honest, open, and share your struggles. I find that the more I am open with my team, the more helpful they are, and the more committed they are to help make our collective dream a reality.

Conviction:

You will meet significantly more doubters than believers. Smart people who will tell you that they do not believe in what you are doing. Remember your own “why” and reiterate (outload to the world and to yourself) your own conviction.

Marathon:

It can be frustrating that while you are trying to run a sprint, the rest of the world isn’t moving at your pace. Remember that, and remember that the entrepreneurial journey is a marathon, not a sprint.

Last, take whatever I just said (and any other advice you get) with a grain of salt–trust your own instincts and go for it! It is a ride of a lifetime!

More information you will find here

Thank you Yoav Oren for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

How to Survive the Death of Cookies with Chat Marketing?

By

StartupValley

-

01/20/2022

0

For a long time, cookies were the cornerstone of most online marketing campaigns, providing valuable information about potential customers that helped to target those most likely to respond in a positive way. With Google planning to eliminate cookies from its platforms in the near future, marketers are looking to adjust to the new circumstances. A great solution could be already at hand, but despite the fact that chat marketing is a well-known technique its potentials are still not obvious to many business owners and even digital marketing professionals.

What Does the ‘Death of Cookies’ Mean for Online Marketing?

Online promotion requires access to user data in order to be efficient, and cookies are able to provide troves of information about the online actions of each user. Their expected replacement with a more privacy-sensitive mechanism in 2023 raises some serious questions about the viability of targeted online campaigns that were so prevalent in the recent period. Brands are facing the possibility of having to ‘operate in the dark’, without any insights about their potential customers. This is why in the industry circles the upcoming change is sometimes referred to as ‘Cookie Apocalypse’, illustrating the level of uncertainty and fear in the marketplace. Even more seriously, the changes reflect the shifting attitude of online users who are increasingly concerned about their privacy and less likely to tolerate invasive ads.

How Can Conversational Marketing Replace Traditional Online Ads?

Elimination of cookies will effectively prevent collection of third-party data, but there are other ways to learn about users. In conversational marketing, information is freely offered by the participants in the chat and collecting it is both legally and ethically acceptable. Since most brands are already in direct contact with customers through social media platforms, adopting a new approach based on one-on-one communication through live chat is simply the logical next step. Conversational methods may not be a true replacement for cookie-based campaigns of the past, but they offer an alternative that won’t be affected by the coming ‘apocalypse’. If used the right way and with the right technological tools, this approach can actually lead to improved performance of your online campaigns.

Advanced Chatbots Open New Possibilities for Interaction

To truly maximize the impact of social media conversations on their sales and profits, marketers should strongly consider chatbot technology. Chatbots designed specifically for social media chat conversations can be programmed to interact with online contacts and convert some of them into paying customers. This process is more interactive and less invasive than bombarding users with repetitive messages based on their demographics and interests, and it opens some amazing possibilities for relationship building. Instead of chasing clicks and rewarding instant action, with chatbots it’s possible to focus on long-term loyalty without sacrificing short-term revenues.

“To reduce dependence on third-party data and enable one-to-one customer relationships, I believe you’ll start to see brands launch first-party data strategies to gain new insights and engage consumers in new and innovative ways. Businesses need to re-invent how they connect and build relationships.” Explained Ryan Dearlove, founder at Chit Chat Agency, a leading bot development agency.

Embracing Large Scale Automation Based on AI Algorithms

Once they are set up, chatbots operate independently and are capable of maintaining natural conversations about topics relevant to the brand. This is possible thanks to their software configuration that incorporates some of the latest Artificial Intelligence concepts. Those bots are smart, can be customised in many different ways, and they learn about the people they interact with. Those features make them ideal for large scale automation efforts, which may be a necessity in the rapidly expanding social media universe. Embracing this trend early brings numerous advantages, especially for businesses that market products or services to mass audiences. The campaigns of the future will be larger, more direct, and more focused on customer satisfaction, and they might well be managed by smart chatbots that are already available today.

Photo by pixabay

Autor: Frank Hamilton

More articles from Frank Hamilton you can find here

Frank Hamilton is a blogger and translator from Manchester. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.