The Exchanges

Q Yeah. Very interesting. Well, take us into that. Let's just fast forward to the product today and then we'll go back and get your and Sam's history. So the website header says automate your customer's Support calls with voice AI. Is this broad? Are you in a specific niche? Tell us what the product does today.

A Yeah. So I think when people write AI is the technology of our lifetimes. And when you look at the opportunities that people are zeroing in on to use AI inside of a business environment today, there are two big use cases people are pointing to. The first one is AI coding. And the second one is AI customer support. So we are in this massive opportunity space of AI customer support. And, and there are two approaches that That exists right now. There are these generic horizontal platforms that are really going after companies in any industry. And then there are these hyper focused verticalized industry solutions. And that's the bucket that we're in. So we started in the transportation space. We have added retail and healthcare over the last couple of years, but it is a very deep verticalized solution for companies in those industries.

AI assessment note: “hyper focused verticalized industry solutions. And that's the bucket that we're in.”

Q Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Okay, talk me about pricing. How do you, how do you get people paying for this thing? Is, you know, is average ACV called mid-market enterprise? How do you think about that?

A Yeah, so inside of these industries that we operate, one of the beauties is This works for companies of all size, and because of how easy it is to get up and running, it's not prohibitive, and it's not just for the large companies in a space. So for all organizations, we're able to offer no money up front. We handle the setup and the integration at no cost, and then we do what we call listen mode, which is basically intaking a couple thousand of their phone calls to understand across, you know, if we use a retail example, there are 200 different call topics where we have automated workflows out of the box. What are the ones that are most important for them, for that company, which then establishes a roadmap for, uh, what the prioritization is going to be for turning on new automations week over week. At the point when we do that, we'll enter into a proof of concept period and the customer's primarily just paying us a dollar 50 per contact that we're able to resolve end to end.

AI assessment note: “primarily just paying us a dollar 50 per contact that we're able to resolve”

Q Yep. Okay. Let's get more of the backstory. I obviously grow down everything today, but backstory, I think you Cornell guest lecturer, you know, first job hockey operations manager, something like that. Is this right? Correct my history here.

A Yeah. I was a hockey player growing up first. I'd say a shout out to Eric Nates, but first real serious job that I've, that I had was, was starting this company. Yeah. There we are with the LinkedIn. Um, so as I touched on at the start, Sam and I met way back freshman year of college, started our entrepreneurial journey, went through Cornell's e-lab accelerator program, which You know, is one of those things we wouldn't be here without that experience. Launched that ride sharing app, did it at Cornell, Syracuse, Binghamton, Oneonta, all of the big schools across upstate New York. And then, 2018 made the pivot to, hey, you know, maybe there's this much bigger and better opportunity to optimize all the business that's already happening on the phone. And took that leap and, and, and spent the first couple years, call it from 2018 through COVID, Really figuring out this whole business in the transportation industry, uh, and, and going from a point where we were working with a, you know, small operator in Ithaca, New York, to working with all of the largest transportation operators across the globe. At that point, turned around and, and raised our first significant round of funding, which was an eight and a half million dollar round.

AI assessment note: “first real serious job that I've, that I had was, was starting this company.”

Q Measured by what? What's efficiency mean to you?

A Just, just like, you know, annual burn figures. And it's funny, we're doing it in a space, right? There are companies doing AI customer support that are just so overfunded. And part of it is that their model requires it, right? A customer that we can get online and get achieving great results with one or two resources will require them, you know, year, multiple years with Um, so part of it is that like their economics demand that level of capital. Um, but I also think we've built this business by having a reference list as long as our customer list. Like this has always been a, we're going to get a customer. We're going to treat them right. We're going to deliver everything we told them that they were going to deliver. And then they're going to tell their friends about it. And inside of these industries, it's small networks and, and trust is sort of the ultimate currency. And it makes for a business that can grow really quickly that's also not going to burn a tremendous amount of money.

AI assessment note: “Just, just like, you know, annual burn figures.”

Q one of the key things you must do to activate them and keep net dollar attention high is figure out how to help them train your system with their brain, their context, whatever it is. How do you do that? And what is the thing they're usually giving you to train your system? Is it a bunch of Google docs? Is it a bunch of call history? What is it?

A Yeah. So the whole benefit of a industry specialized solution is that 95% of what any What a company is going to need. We already have in the platform out of the box. So when you think about those key integrations with the phone systems and with the dispatch platforms, when you think about all those, you know, types of topics that we just touched on that people might be calling for, we have those workflows out of the box battle tested across hundreds of customers and millions of calls. So when the next company signs up, it is this dynamic of standing on the shoulders of giants. And they can come in and they can very easily configure it to the specific business logic and brand preference of their company, but they don't need to go through this experience of building the whole thing ground up from scratch like you would need to working with any of the horizontal players.

AI assessment note: “95% of what any What a company is going to need. We already have”

Q That's great. What, how much time do you think you need to break fifty million of ARR? Is that a two-year goal, a one-year goal, three years?

A I think that the world has realized, you know, when we started this, it was, it was lunacy to talk about AI automating all of these conversations. And now we are at this moment where it is obvious, inevitable, and imminent. And I can't think, and you know, I have not been around technology for that long, but I can't think of a technology and a product category that an example where a new category was So obvious. So like broadly accepted so quickly and the level of investment that you're seeing, right? Like every company, every CX leader out there needs to have an answer for, you know, what is their perspective? What have they done? What have they accomplished with AI? So there is a, you know, there's a huge amount of interest in, in doing this and doing it successfully. And we certainly think that we have the right solution for companies in So, you know, time will tell. You and I can, can circle back when we cross the fifty million mark, but, uh, yeah, we're going, we're, we're growing quickly and, and having fun along the way.

AI assessment note: “time will tell. You and I can, can circle back when we cross”