Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Ukraine to AI voice agents: Eva Karnaukh’s founder journey

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Ukraine to AI voice agents: Eva Karnaukh’s founder journey · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
Welcome back to AI for Founders. I am Ryan Estes, and I probably
0:04
should remind you I'm not AI yet.
0:06
Today's guest is Eva, founder of Voice to Me dot AI, a company
0:10
building AI voice agent so good they'll outwork your whole
0:14
support team, speak 50 languages and they never ask for a raise.
0:18
Born in Kiev, daughter of a Soviet space engineer, Eva went
0:21
from flying military simulators as a kid to pioneering
0:25
enterprise grade voice AI. Her story is wild.
0:30
She bootstrapped her way from an M&A consulting into building her
0:34
own LLM native architecture, complete with personality packed
0:38
voice agents like Sofia who throws in Italian phrases into
0:42
customer support calls. We talk founder LED marketing,
0:46
ethical AI, Ukrainian, resilient, and how she cloned
0:49
her father's voice after he passed away to say goodbye.
0:53
This one's deep, smart, and totally unforgettable.
0:56
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2:48
Hey, what's up? How are you?
2:49
Doing good. How are you today?
2:51
Thanks for having. I'm doing good now.
2:52
I understand that Eva is your nickname.
2:54
What is your full name? I'm glad you asked.
2:57
So my full name is Evgenia. It has a Greek origin, but for
3:01
20 years I've been trying to make people to remember and
3:04
pronounce it correctly. Almost everybody failed.
3:07
So Eva is actually my nickname. And when people ask me do I go
3:10
by Eva or Eva is, it doesn't really matter because it's not
3:13
really my name. It's let me see if I pronounce
3:17
it correctly Evgenian. Yes.
3:19
To make matters worse or more complicated, the short name for
3:23
Evgenia is Jena. Well, because nobody can explain
3:27
to me how Margaret became Peggy or how Robert become Bob.
3:31
Same story applies here. So no one can explain to me how
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Evgenia turned into Jena. So that's the collect trying to
3:37
remember that. Amazing, and I detect a subtle
3:42
accent. Where are you?
3:43
From I'm originally from Ukraine, from Kiev, but again,
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I'm hiding my accent very professionally because it
3:48
started in UK and I lived in Italy and I traveled in the
3:52
Middle East. So it's blend of everything
3:55
together. It is.
3:57
It's a lovely accent. I think it's really cool growing
4:01
up in Kiev. How How did that influence your
4:03
career and what brought you to the States?
4:06
It's a good question. I am daughter of the, I'll call
4:10
him a super genius. He's the, my dad was the Air
4:13
Force military Colonel and he was one of the guys who, you
4:18
know, was engineers for the space shuttle of the run, the
4:20
first space shuttle that Soviet Unions deployed in space.
4:24
And unfortunately, I was born to be a daughter, a girl.
4:27
He really wanted to have a boy like really military kid.
4:31
So I had a huge shoes to fill. So since my childhood I was, you
4:35
know, piloting on this helicopters and artificially
4:40
simulators in his lab. So I had my high tech in my gene
4:45
I guess with parents blood. And I get an opportunity in my
4:49
early 20s to get an internship in United States because I was
4:53
working part time as I was finishing my bachelor's degree
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and my bachelor degree was a laser in night vision goggles.
5:00
So just again, it was not my choice, as you can imagine, it
5:05
was demanded by my dad. And I took an opportunity to
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really come to United States for just three months and the rest
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is history. So I've been here for 20 years.
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Amazing. So looking back on it, what's
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your pop think now? Is he pretty proud of his
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daughter? And unfortunately, he passed
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away during the war in Ukraine. And so which has been, but I'm
5:24
hopeful that he's proud. I really did my best make him
5:27
feel proud. I've become a legacy and
5:30
continue his kind of journey and inspiration for in the high
5:33
tech, so that's the best I can do to be a girl and not a boy.
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My condolences. I'm really sorry to hear that.
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I'm sure he was brimming with pride.
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You have a lot of winds under your belt and I'd love to get
5:47
into it just a little bit. Explain your business currently
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to me like I'm 5 because emotionally I'm I'm I'm not
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probably. Well, we know.
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Sounds good, I practice explaining to both of my
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children. We're just a little over 5 right
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now but well what we do, we create a magic button for
6:09
enterprise to bring everything to life.
6:11
The magic button brings live conversations, visual share and
6:16
becomes your best partner to help you accomplish more in your
6:19
work work day. So for a more adults, we do
6:23
artificial intelligence for enterprise companies that
6:27
creates the, you know, a partner for, you know, either call
6:30
centers or internal helped us to get accomplished more with less
6:33
time and resources so. Great.
6:36
So these are AI voice agents. Is that a good way to summarize?
6:39
Yes, it's a voice agent. I call it like plus Plus because
6:43
they go beyond voice right now. The model technology actually
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offers the multi modality where the voice agents now can just
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talk. They can see, they can share a
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screen, they can engage with. Really, it's like a magic.
6:56
Literally, it's like a magic so you can interact with them like
7:00
a human being and they can live inside of your enterprise
7:03
platform if you have one, like cell service now and Salesforce
7:06
or Pagar Appian or whatever, and become an extended of your
7:10
partner of your team. So they know, they see what your
7:13
team sees. They learn from the same
7:15
sources, but they work 24/7, speak 40 languages securely,
7:20
stay within your network and never ask for a raise.
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Well, they told them to. And when did you launch and
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how'd you finance? Oh gosh, it was this roller
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coaster of emotions and tough choices back three years ago.
7:37
So we've launched. It was actually I would call
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maybe a rebranding, rebirth, restructure, however you want to
7:44
call it. For years it came from the
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enterprise, enterprise company. So I lead a large margin
7:51
acquisitions in the, you know, enterprise and government
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contracting space in a high tech.
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Then I pivoted into the mergers and acquisition consultancy for
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a while and I've done quite impressive things in a high tech
8:04
post MNA support for large and mid sized SAS businesses.
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And that's where I met about six years ago, my Co founder.
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And he's like, ever how much longer you're going to like dig
8:14
into somebody else's dirty laundry of post MNA stuff.
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I'm going to do something cool together.
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So we I made a hard decision to really kind of pivot away from
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the MNA consultancy even though we were highly involved in a
8:26
technology and we bootstrapped believe it or not.
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Call me crazy, call me insane, but I sold my business and were
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able to fund the initial stages of prototyping and VP ING and
8:38
into the full grown platform. Whether I would suggest anybody
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else to do it the same way, cautious, do it with cautious.
8:46
There is pros and cons in both. We retained equity, we retained
8:50
the control, however scaling and building the credibility with
8:54
the next lever level of investments because you'll
8:57
eventually need to get an investments regardless.
8:59
That creates a little bit of additional question of like how
9:03
did you manage to do that? Yeah, it well what a pivot.
9:08
I mean you go from M&A insulting for SAS companies into voice
9:13
agents, how what inspired that direction?
9:17
Actually wasn't really that much of A shift because I worked for
9:21
years in high tech. Anyways, we early on adopted the
9:26
workflows or complex automations.
9:29
Now we call everything AI agents, which is yeah,
9:32
everything is AI agents. So before the term became viral,
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we were doing that for years for post MNA.
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Very cumbersome environments for businesses bringing the latest
9:44
technologies even in the early signs of AI capabilities inside
9:48
of enterprise to achieve the greater results and you know,
9:52
return and increase the return on investments.
9:55
So for me, it wasn't really at that much of A shift.
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The rebranding was big and behind the scene is the same
10:01
kind of core team that really drives the process today.
10:05
The voice captivated me since childhood because I believe when
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I saw what you can accomplish with the power of voice, it blew
10:14
my mind. I believe that's the most
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powerful tool that we have as human beings.
10:19
We create relationship, we break relationship, we create
10:22
friendships, we influence each other.
10:25
And being able to orchestrate this with the artificial
10:28
intelligent breed, human connections with the power of
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AI, that's just something mind blowing.
10:34
So I always hoped that's my favorite part.
10:37
It's amazing. I totally agree.
10:39
You know, that voice and conversation in particular I see
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is like probably the single most influential technology that's
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affected humanity. I mean, we went for hundreds of
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thousands of years, you know, scraping berries off the side of
10:53
a hill till, you know, inventing A sophisticated language which
10:58
built culture. You know when you're, when you,
11:02
when you're thinking about like voice, what's inspiring in in
11:06
communication conversation? I do believe in the power of
11:10
dialogue and crafting the very unique messages that bring
11:15
people closer. This is the most exciting part
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of everyday job because it's not about what you say, it's how you
11:22
say it. It's a tonality, if you think
11:24
about it, what really makes our voice sound amazing?
11:28
It's over 100 muscles within our bodies that generate the sound
11:31
of our voice. And that's being able to craft
11:36
it artificially and give it the content of the psychology that
11:40
actually makes people laugh, right?
11:42
Not everything in business has to be serious.
11:45
And we might kiss myself like, hey, why you're so serial today?
11:48
So you don't have to be in order to build culture, in order to
11:53
build acceptance, in order to build relationship between
11:57
artificial intelligence and humans, and make the technology
12:02
to be embraced and not resent by your culture.
12:05
It's all about the execution. It's all about how you craft
12:09
those dialogues, how you teach AI to use the right tonalities
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to write pauses in a conversation.
12:16
Those small little fine tunes really makes this unforgettable
12:19
experience for people. Yeah.
12:22
What? What voices do you really like?
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Whose voices I should say. I mean, I have so many of them
12:27
like what I geek out in into crafting because right now
12:32
there's, I mean, don't want to go too technical in aspects, but
12:35
there is different models and different architectures that how
12:38
you can create voice experience for customers.
12:41
There's a three layer architecture that is constructed
12:44
between the and I mean, I want to say older versions, right?
12:48
But there is voice, text, text and voice.
12:51
So 11 apps, for example, that mostly support the three layer
12:54
architecture when you craft the solution and then you can select
12:58
a variety of forces. There's also full duplex models
13:01
like Google Gemini and Open AI, the latest ones.
13:03
And there's a but you know, Grog released another one.
13:06
So those allow you to really craft the sound of the voice
13:10
through text, and they sound very different.
13:13
You can give accents, you can give personas.
13:16
So by adjusting just the prompting, you can achieve the
13:19
very different voice. And of course, you know the sexy
13:22
British accent is the buzz. By far the winner so.
13:26
Not for me. I can't, I can't listen to a
13:29
British accent. I, I don't know what it is.
13:32
I mean, I, I like like like a sweet Georgia accent.
13:36
You know, I'm curious for everybody who'll be watching
13:39
this, I would love to see the comments in that like, who votes
13:42
for the, you know, like this late DJ British voice of a male
13:47
voice. I mean, this is I think it's a
13:49
killer. I put a bat that that's going to
13:51
be a winner. I bet you're right, especially
13:54
with Americans. Americans think that British
13:57
people are smart if they have that voice, you know, I, I
14:00
don't, or that they're like from some historical era.
14:03
It's the exact opposite for me. You know, it's like, if I, I'm
14:06
really excited about an audio book and I put it on and it's
14:09
some like deep baritone British guy's voice.
14:13
I'm like, I can't listen to this.
14:14
I, I cannot listen to this. Shout out to my people in the
14:18
UK. No disrespect, but let me come
14:20
on, man, I'm all mad. Guess let's let's get an audio
14:23
book with somebody from Texas or something, even like maybe a a
14:26
subtle Brooklyn. I mean, you can't go like Bronx
14:28
or too crazy. That gets a bit much.
14:31
But I do like a good accent, you know, and it's interesting how
14:34
it also places you into into a place, you know, like you hear
14:40
an accent, you're like, Oh, I'm, I'm whisked away immediately.
14:43
So much about about audio and voices like that.
14:46
I mean, I probably consider myself a bit of a student when
14:50
it comes to voice because I love broadcasting.
14:53
I love podcasting. You know, we're, we're doing
14:55
this all with videos now, which is fine.
14:57
But you know, video is a, is what they call a cool media, you
15:02
know, so your, your brain can be lazy.
15:04
It just kind of like let's let's the images kind of flash before
15:07
you. But audio is a warm media.
15:10
It invites you to like paint layers on top of it.
15:14
What does that person look like? Where are they from?
15:16
Where are they sitting? You know, it's, it's a creative
15:18
process like, so when you're thinking of like great voices,
15:22
who comes to mind? Norman Freeman, I guess.
15:27
Yeah, that's a good one. It's a good one.
15:29
It's very inspiration and deep and really takes you to the next
15:32
level. And I totally agree with you
15:34
that the power of voice actually turns on the imagination.
15:39
People ask this a lot like do you do the avatars or visual
15:43
representations? If we rare cases we do for this
15:46
specific request, but it advise customers to go not not focus on
15:52
the visual representation allowing people to connect.
15:55
Because imagine you talk when someone's on the phone and you
15:58
instantly imagine how they look like, how they may sound where
16:01
they're located. Your open your creative brain.
16:06
It creates the relationship. That's how you create that
16:09
connection That helps when you see the avatars and even the
16:13
latest ones right now in technology, they still have this
16:16
touch of the artificial aspect of it and that kind of kills it
16:20
right there. I do believe so, you know,
16:22
creative, ignite the curiosity, ignite the imagination that what
16:26
actually brings this, you know, immersive experience for
16:29
everybody. And are you guys crafting the
16:33
technology yourself? Pardon me, Just ruined the
16:40
audio. Ironic.
16:43
Are you good? Are you guys crafting the the
16:47
technology novelty or using something like VAPI or something
16:50
like that to build on top of it? Good.
16:51
Question, we started with VAPI probably two years ago, then we
16:56
moved to deep ground, then we lived, you know when a life kit
16:59
and now we completely have a homegrown.
17:01
So we do have our milestones and learns lessons learned as we
17:07
designed the solution. We build everything for
17:09
scalability. We're talking about hundreds and
17:12
thousands of concurrent calls that we handle from very
17:16
demanding industries like insurance companies or
17:19
healthcare or federal agencies. So the speed and latency was the
17:25
biggest barriers for us. And when you build a complex
17:28
architecture, it can tailor the very custom unique boutique
17:32
offering. But when we talk about massive
17:34
scalability with the security compliance speed, you know,
17:38
speed of deployment, that's where we have really as we
17:40
realized we had to create our own homegrown technology with
17:45
minimizing the dependency on external sources, so.
17:49
It minimize latency. Yes, yes, because when we talk
17:52
about fire volumes, especially embedding with enterprise data,
17:56
it's when it's one thing when you just create a conversational
17:59
voice, you can talk indefinitely about any topics in general.
18:02
But when you engrave the gigabytes or terabytes of
18:08
corporate knowledge that creates and the enterprise platform
18:12
itself creates a lag. And if you have to build the
18:14
right solution or some elements of this on top of that, that
18:18
creates this delay in a conversation.
18:20
So our again, that's one of the reasons why we've shifted to the
18:23
much more newer models to mitigate that and build our own
18:27
architecture to really support the scalability.
18:31
That makes a lot of sense, you know, because if you thinking
18:33
about conversation, one of the most uncomfortable things is
18:38
silence. Like if you're in a conversation
18:41
and there's silence, people will rush to fill it because there is
18:44
what they call it a pregnant pause or there's like tension
18:47
there. And that was one of the
18:48
objections I wanted to bring up with you.
18:51
Is that like that it when you are speaking to like an AI voice
18:55
that that latency, that lag can really destroy the user
18:59
experience. So attention to that I think is
19:01
absolutely critical. The other thing I wanted to ask
19:03
you about too is the uncanny valley.
19:07
Do you want to disclose right away, like, hey, I'm your
19:10
friendly robot, or do you want to like try and mask that the AI
19:15
presence as much as possible? Like, how have you come to that
19:17
decision? So answer the first question
19:20
first in terms of handling the pauses our agents, and I'm a
19:26
huge fan of this trained to do this let me think about it
19:32
response and that creates the alpha moment for people because
19:39
sometimes agents really need to think all quotable right to pull
19:43
the data it's. Like just.
19:45
Let me hang with me, hang out with me, let me pull this out,
19:49
let me research and that continues the conversation.
19:52
We craft those personas individually and I think that
19:56
gives this experience of the fluency of the conversation
19:59
without just like zip quiet and you don't know, like hello, are
20:02
you there? And then the filler words very
20:08
natural for us, but they're unnatural to AI.
20:11
So we train AI to use the filler words, the good ones, of course.
20:15
So to make this conversation feel like more human and on the
20:20
ethical part, it's. I give being asked several times
20:25
by the customers that really, really wanted to have ultra
20:28
realistic experience that is almost indistinguishable from
20:32
the human conversation, which is now it's very much possible
20:36
depending again which models are using which components,
20:39
so-called orchestration of the solutions, but it's possible.
20:42
I strongly, strongly advise everybody to be a fully
20:46
transparent and if you ask any of our agents, they will tell
20:49
you that they're built with love by voice to me.
20:52
And I believe that that creates the trust initially with the
20:57
customers. And there's two types of
20:58
conversation that we're usually having.
21:00
It's the emotional connection conversations or the
21:04
transactional conversation and an emotional conversation when
21:08
happened, something happened, right?
21:09
You want to feel hurt and you really want to connect with a
21:12
human being. That can be potentially a turn
21:15
off if you're facing the NAI artificial intelligence agents.
21:19
However, in business world, most of the calls are transactional.
21:22
You want to get stuff done, you won't schedule an appointment.
21:27
You know if I take my kids to a facility, right?
21:31
Or, you know, a doctor's appointment I need, You know my
21:34
child is sick, she runs fever. I know it's 20 minutes on hold.
21:38
And they would not let me in until I check in on the phone.
21:42
I don't care who picks up the phone and how they sound, but
21:46
what I do care if they're going to lie to me that they pretend
21:48
to be a human and something happened and I find out that
21:51
betrays the trust and brand recognition.
21:53
I don't think that using artificial intelligence for
21:57
customer support is diminishing the value of the customers.
22:01
I think it's quite opposite you extending your presence in the
22:05
time zones with the knowledge and expertise where your human
22:09
resources are impossible to accomplish, right.
22:12
You may not be in 50 languages, you may not be available 24/7.
22:16
So depending how you deliver your message, I vote for a Full
22:20
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23:40
Yeah, I totally agree. You know, because ultimately if
23:43
you are fooled for 60 seconds, 70 seconds, you feel like an
23:47
idiot. You know, you're like, oh, so
23:49
you want to know right ahead. And there's a lot of of positive
23:54
things that come out of that. I mean, we're talking about
23:56
accents now. I happen to be like overly
24:01
enthusiastic and supportive of anybody in service because I was
24:05
a bartender for a long time and abused by terrible customers.
24:08
So, but we're very accustomed to like if you're calling support,
24:12
you're going to talk to somebody from India, you're going to talk
24:14
to somebody from the Philippines and variably there's going to be
24:18
a insanely thick accent. And that can be very frustrating
24:21
if you're talking to a real person.
24:22
It's like, boy, I'm having a hard time understand you.
24:25
So with this solution, you can control that experience and
24:28
control it by language, right? Which is humongous because even
24:31
if, you know, I dabble in speaking Spanish, I'm not bad.
24:35
I'm from Colorado, so I know a little Spanish.
24:38
But man, dude, trying to navigate customer support, you
24:41
know, in Spanish would be tough. So I, I think it's really
24:45
important. It's really interesting too.
24:47
You're putting those kind of like ad libs into the language
24:50
with the voices because I mean, it it, that's the music of
24:55
language ultimately, isn't it? The inflection and the tone and
24:59
like the little things that we say that don't really have words
25:03
associated but might be more commutative than anything else.
25:05
That's true. I spend my early years in Italy,
25:09
so I love Italian accent, I love Italian language and we have our
25:14
you know, for those who knows me and my AI agents on our website,
25:17
they're familiar with Amy, but by far the most popular one is
25:20
Sophia. She is Italian American and
25:23
she'll throw Italian words in a conversation.
25:25
So she rock star of our artificial intelligence, you
25:30
know, fleet of agents. So that's kind of gives the kind
25:34
of personality, right, and gives the way to connect to someone's
25:38
upbringing or stories. We'll learn a lesson when we
25:42
crafted the personalities for some customer support.
25:45
And you know exactly that. There's very different
25:48
perceptions of accents up North New York and down South.
25:53
So the Southern accents not really go well in the New York
25:55
area. Is that lesson Look?
25:59
Old standing beef. Yes.
26:04
Yeah, OK. Can you do a good Italian
26:07
accent? Much.
26:10
Like can you do an Italian accent in English?
26:14
Oh my God, I haven't tried that. You need to ask Sophia.
26:17
She does it better than me. Nice.
26:21
Yeah, actually now I'm thinking like I want to, I want my my
26:25
voice agent to be Jamaican, you know, and speaking real thick
26:29
Jamaican patois. We're gonna.
26:31
I would love it. I would try that.
26:32
You know, I'm definitely gonna give it a shot.
26:36
Yeah. So enterprise clients are
26:39
notoriously hard to get. How did you get your first
26:41
client? We actually get a strategic
26:45
partnership through ServiceNow and that was our stepping stone
26:50
into the enterprise world. My partner, my financial kind of
26:55
financial partner in crime, my CTO, he is a long term
27:00
ServiceNow expert and we had a long term relationship even from
27:04
M&A space into ServiceNow arena. And we build the credibility
27:09
with the partnership early on. And because our solution is
27:13
natively integrated, we're the first company is it broad, you
27:16
know ultra secured voice intelligence in ServiceNow
27:18
platform. We build the credibility within
27:21
the enterprise customers quickly because we didn't introduce just
27:25
another tool that lives outside somewhere on the cloud, we would
27:29
go good, God knows whose cloud that was.
27:32
We natively create a native experience with the platform
27:34
that they already know and that helped to navigate the early
27:38
adoptions and first kind of who are you?
27:41
Where did you come from? So we build a reputation.
27:44
We laid on the, we build on the reputation we already had in
27:47
enterprise space in a industry and platform that we already
27:51
knew. So that was the stepping stone.
27:53
And again, we have a our own UIUX for someone who doesn't
27:56
have it, but that really helped to open the doors like, oh, you
28:00
have your ServiceNow certified, your certified partner, you have
28:03
an application that is ServiceNow Store and certified
28:06
that builds the credibility and trust.
28:09
That was the most biggest obstacle for us to overcome.
28:15
In the beginning, did you come to those, those companies and as
28:19
a design partner to say, hey, here's where we are, here's
28:21
where we're going, we need feedback from you.
28:23
Or were you fully, fully baked when you went to market?
28:26
We started years ago with the small little apps that had
28:31
nothing to do with the voice and nothing to do with AI.
28:35
Back again, even six years ago we had some again.
28:38
I told you that we have those custom development tools that
28:41
help companies integrate. And we built our portfolio of
28:46
companies that we knew for sure that they're using some sort of
28:49
customer engagement. We knew for sure that they're
28:51
using our enterprise platform. So we had a warmish relationship
28:55
with those clients and we stayed in a constant contact with them.
28:58
We gave them updates and we're joining a nice strong believer
29:01
in the founder of Lads Businesses because the personal
29:05
brand is very important and your company brand follows you along.
29:10
Even if you change the name or logo on your back end, who you
29:14
are, people will remember. So that's building those long
29:17
term relationship helped us to get curious people curious open
29:22
the doors. We were just making
29:24
announcements like, hey, do you know what we've been up to or
29:26
you haven't heard from us for a while?
29:28
This is what we're looking at and this is what we've tried.
29:31
And I conducted probably over 500 customer discovery calls
29:34
when I called in my partners, my former consultants, people who I
29:40
could get a hold of. And like, listen, I'm not
29:42
pitching, I swear. I just want you to see and
29:45
experience how cool it is what we're working.
29:49
And tell me how this can help you.
29:51
Because even today, we're still learning every single
29:54
conversation, every single customer, every single
29:58
interaction. Teachers is something new
30:00
because the use cases are endless, but each company is so
30:05
unique. They have unique problems.
30:07
They think differently, they think about the different, they
30:11
have different bottlenecks. Their systems set up
30:14
differently. The tiers of it would even just
30:17
take a customer support. Their tier structure is very
30:19
different. Some use of sure, some of them
30:21
not. Some of them in the US, some of
30:23
them need help for their customer support team, which is,
30:27
I never thought of it initially. I was like, well, we're gonna.
30:29
Their knowledge base, yeah, their knowledge base could be
30:31
incomplete. Exactly.
30:32
So we have agents that actually help internal customer support
30:36
teams to solve their tickets faster because they hire
30:41
constant people, they have a complex internal knowledge and
30:45
they need an extra help, so it becomes an extended part of
30:48
their team. They can talk, chat, share
30:50
screen, help them fill up the forms.
30:52
So we're not replacing customer support teams, at least not
30:56
everywhere, but we empowering them to do more and actually use
31:01
artificial intelligence that becomes an extended part of
31:04
their team. Nice, amazing how big's the big
31:08
team now? So we're just about 20 people.
31:10
So we are tiny but mighty, I call it a tiny but mighty team
31:14
and we based here. I mean in Washington is our core
31:17
team is in Washington DC metro area.
31:19
We have some people in Europe. They've been a loyal partners
31:22
with us over the years and we're right now start to expand in a
31:27
professional services as well. Even though I close my eyes and
31:30
ears every time people talk about professional services as
31:33
like, I don't want to do it, but you know what things break.
31:37
And beyond that, I, I was on the podcast the other week and we
31:44
talked about that every AI company actually almost have to
31:49
become not just a SAS solution, but an agency for an enterprise
31:54
Oregon mid sized market or whatever market that they're
31:56
serving. And the reason why is because
32:00
people need the knowledge and expertise.
32:02
People need guidance and support.
32:04
People need assistance in tincture.
32:06
You can't, you know, deploy AI solutions on Excel spreadsheet.
32:10
Well, you can, but you probably don't want it to go.
32:14
There needs to be a, you know, a foundation, a platform built and
32:18
adoptions anywhere from layer from the top level executives to
32:22
the ground floor, people who actually work side by side to
32:25
it. It requires people to get to
32:27
know it and they need help from people who are actually doing
32:29
it. So in some shape and form you
32:32
really need to have this advisory professional services
32:35
consultancy, even if you don't want to do it, that builds a
32:38
long term trust relationship and partnership with your customers.
32:42
Ultimately, someone's going to be talking to AI and they're
32:44
going to be like, I just want to talk to a person.
32:47
And that that goes across absolutely every vertical in
32:50
every business is like at some point, you know, the AI
32:53
solutions are so elegant and just getting smarter and better,
32:56
but at some point you're going to be like, I need to talk to a
32:58
person and you got to have that option.
33:00
So it's interesting to see that adoption or they're calling IT
33:02
service as a software now. Yeah, you know, there's actually
33:05
there, there's a new term coming in a play.
33:07
Is it outcome as a service? And I think that is much more
33:14
attractive right now, especially in AI first startups.
33:18
I mean, I use like it's a SAS, but AI first startups that are
33:22
using solving businesses problems with the power of AI in
33:25
one shape and form and you're driving not just the solution,
33:29
just shovel it down the throat, cell prescription subscription
33:32
base and you're done. You're driving the outcomes and
33:36
the complementary services of advisory training, seminars,
33:40
consultancy, anything in between, or even just a referral
33:43
to the partners that can help them solve and optimize their
33:47
systems. That's the outcome as a service.
33:49
I think that's the new trendy where it's going to be bubbling
33:53
around. You heard it here first.
33:56
I haven't heard that, but I love that outcome as a service.
33:58
It has such a better ring than AI.
34:03
AI is like, I just think of like some robot that's going to
34:05
scratch my back until it bleeds and like, that'll be a wrap.
34:08
But outcome as a service is like, oh, you know, this is,
34:11
these are the outcomes I need. You know, it's, it's always like
34:14
3 or 4 things and then using tools to facilitate that.
34:17
That's amazing. 20 people on team.
34:22
What's annual revenue ballpark? Let's leave it to the later
34:28
discussions on the next step. You got it.
34:33
What's the next step or what's the logical outcome for the
34:36
company? Are you looking to raise a round
34:39
of financing? Are you looking to sell?
34:41
Are you looking for a strategic acquisition and and acquire more
34:44
companies? What is the next 24 months look
34:47
like for you guys? So in the next 24 months, we're
34:50
gearing ourselves for the seed round and we really postponed
34:55
this step as far as possible to get the greater valuations,
35:00
greater more serious offers. We went through the initial
35:03
conversation and my legal team are actually working to, you
35:07
know, get ourselves around for the sea ground again, the any
35:13
startup in any phase, you'll eventually face this stage early
35:18
on. You may started with Angel
35:20
investors early on and get pre seed and seed.
35:22
We're targeting in the seed round right now without the
35:25
Angel investors. So we kind of bootstrap our
35:27
route is really completely they're slightly different, but
35:30
we again, the sales and marketing and then reach it's
35:33
very critical. That's why the investment is
35:35
really the next step for us. I see ourselves grow and expand,
35:42
acquisition by larger partners possibly, but I don't see it
35:45
coming in the near future. Not like I really want to build
35:49
another Microsoft, but I really want to make an impact that AI
35:52
and human can really coexist and create the human connection that
35:56
really lasts and bring people together, pushing them apart.
35:59
With all of the AI technologies right now, you see how it can do
36:03
a lot of good, but it also can do a lot of not so good things.
36:06
We hear a lot about the deep fakes, the clones of voice, the
36:10
visual if misrepresentation, manipulations of data and
36:15
misinformation is purely misinformation on a in a driven
36:18
by the hike. So we will see a lot of
36:22
challenging times ahead of us and how we safely and securely
36:26
collaborate, how we build trust, how we don't afraid and embrace
36:30
the technology and without breaking ourselves.
36:33
A lot of people get attached to talking to AI or chatting.
36:37
If they're ChatGPT, they're losing the human connection and
36:39
importance of this, We're social beings.
36:42
We really need to stay in town, still stay connected, stay
36:46
engaged. And AI technology can help us be
36:49
better at this but not pull us apart.
36:52
So I really want to take it for a longer ride to seed or it
36:57
unfolds and be a part of this journey to be an advocate for an
37:02
ethical and responsible AI adoption.
37:06
Well, you know, and you're thinking about going into a seed
37:09
round with a team of 20 is absolutely incredible.
37:11
A lot of people are talking about seeds trapping, so when
37:15
you're thinking about a seed round, are you thinking about
37:16
100,000 bucks, 1,000,000 bucks, 10 million bucks?
37:19
Like what? What's a seed to you?
37:21
For us it's anywhere from 2.5 to 5 mil at this time.
37:25
Yeah, we may consider in our like intermediate like halfway
37:29
through just a quick mini round and then you know in a 10 months
37:33
the full round depending on the level of interest engagements.
37:37
And I try to keep the because we don't need the funds for product
37:42
development. We have some leverage in the
37:44
game and we strategically evaluating the venture capital
37:49
or you know, private equity investors, we're not just going
37:53
to throw the money at us. My legal terms like don't take
37:55
any FU money. But really these strategic
38:02
partners who believe what we believe, who see the value and
38:06
projected trajectory of the company, he can open the doors
38:09
and make the introduction to make a greater impact in the
38:12
organization of the larger scale.
38:15
That excites me. So I'm looking for really the
38:18
partners that can kind of share the mutual goals and vision and
38:23
not just the, you know, the check writers because checks,
38:27
checks are coming in anyway, right?
38:30
And if it's all about how you manage your cash flow to really
38:33
get the scalability, but having the right partners early on can
38:36
really, you know, set you up for success.
38:40
Totally. You know a big reason why I
38:44
started this podcast because I love founders.
38:46
I love folks that step out and they put their company on their
38:49
back and they're like, let's go. Why?
38:50
Why is founder LED marketing important to you?
38:55
Well, it's a tough, it's a loaded question.
38:59
I, I, you know, I think you have to have this entrepreneurial
39:04
gene in you. I don't know if it's a such a
39:07
thing that biologists probably say that you're crazy, but I do
39:09
believe that there's a such a gene in there that you have to
39:12
have to really launch into the entrepreneurial spirit because I
39:17
know how the normal person would do it.
39:19
You need, I think a lot of founders would agree with me
39:24
because you it's a sleepless night.
39:26
It's a lot of responsibility. You don't have the instant
39:29
gratification like you would do in a normal job.
39:33
But I do believe that this is the greatest tasks in your
39:36
personal development journey that you will ever go through.
39:40
Going through that entrepreneurial journey.
39:41
It's the biggest personal development challenge that
39:44
anyone could ever do because it challenges you in a good, in a
39:48
bad, it challenges you in your people management, in your
39:50
personal, in your imposter syndrome, how you manage that,
39:54
your resilience, your, you know, response to setbacks and the
40:01
founders. They're this lightning shining
40:06
mini stars that some shine bright or some of them not.
40:09
Some have different talents, but they're ignite the inspiration
40:13
and curiosity to bring better solutions to drive innovations
40:18
forward. They inspired people.
40:20
They you know, they start following them on social media.
40:24
They get, you know, pull some silly stuff.
40:26
You know, I talk on my Latin about some highs and lows and
40:30
personal journeys and things that inspires me and just again,
40:35
being able to relate to people and share the story.
40:38
Think this, you know the founder lad.
40:41
As start-ups, the the founders don't shy away from media, don't
40:45
shy away from podcasting, from being present really makes a
40:49
huge favor for the company's success.
40:53
You know, to summarize, it sounds like you think it's fun.
40:56
It is fun until it's not, but then it's funny.
41:01
It's both things. Really all things, yes, it's
41:03
absolutely all things. It is just there.
41:06
It's a lifestyle. I think it's a lifestyle.
41:08
I could not, I'm kidding you not, I could not sit still for
41:13
1st 15 years I think, or 12 years of my career in corporate.
41:17
I loved the aspect of, you know, large deals, huge opportunities,
41:23
very high tech transactions and access to the latest technology.
41:28
However, it was not moving fast enough for me.
41:30
It was just this snail paste and it get boring very, very
41:35
quickly. So I get like my, I'll call it
41:38
an early midlife crisis that I is it like, I can't do this
41:43
anymore. I need and be careful what you
41:45
wish for, right? But looking back, I wouldn't do
41:49
anything differently. This is the things that I wakes
41:52
me up every morning, gets me inspired.
41:55
We troubleshoot something pushes back.
41:57
Something pulls us, pushes forward.
41:59
Something pulls us back. And but that's just the way of
42:02
life is figuring things out. And without startups, without
42:05
early innovators, even if you fail three times, even if you
42:10
fail 100 times, it doesn't really matter.
42:13
You're constantly improving and you make this enterprise Oregon
42:17
your industry life better, easier.
42:19
And that's something worth doing.
42:24
I love it. OK, we're about to do the
42:25
lightning round. Are you ready for that?
42:27
OK. Sure all.
42:29
Right. Is there a business idea that
42:32
you have thought about that would quickly generate
42:35
$1,000,000 in revenue, let's say in 12 months?
42:39
Oh my God, doing some AI brainstorming round table for, I
42:44
mean, I think people are doing it right now.
42:46
It's not a crazy idea. AI seminars for everybody with,
42:51
you know, 100 visitors and a huge marketing campaign still
42:54
does it, still flies. OK.
42:57
And how about you sell voice to me tomorrow for a billion
43:02
dollars? What's your next move?
43:06
I'll probably going to take a year break by Colorado Estate
43:10
with Equestrian Farm and for a little bit.
43:15
All right. Well, let me know, I'm sure.
43:17
And a probably somewhere in Dale or Beaver Creek somewhere there.
43:22
It's a good spot. I if you really looking for a
43:24
good ranch, there's I got I got some other spots for you.
43:27
Look at, look around, Meeker. Sounds good.
43:29
All right, so the billion dollar first, Meeker next.
43:33
Make your next. That's right.
43:35
Cool. Andrew, if you're entering
43:37
college today, knowing what you know now, what would you study?
43:43
If the college is still be in place with the with the yeah,
43:47
it's a tough question. I would focus on still learning
43:51
the engineering and software engineering from the aspect of
43:56
the biological robotics. Biological robotics meaning that
44:02
it's talks about how the robotics in AI operates in
44:07
everyday's life. Because I believe that this is
44:09
the next stage where we're going to go into the from the AI
44:14
evolution, we're going to go from the just conversation, Chad
44:18
functions into more living presence.
44:21
So dynamics, mechanics plus artificial intelligence in
44:25
day-to-day life like robots cutting machines.
44:28
This is where the future is heading.
44:30
I do assume so everybody who is entering the college, the
44:35
physics is the best place to stay.
44:38
Understanding how physics works and understanding how to enhance
44:42
the inter artificial intelligence into day-to-day
44:45
life, I think that's what I would focus on.
44:49
Amazing. What's something that you know
44:53
now that you wish you knew earlier?
44:57
What I know now, I wish I knew earlier.
45:01
I wish I would have overcome the self doubt earlier and never let
45:09
my self doubts held me back in certain ways.
45:14
And that's what I teach my kids right now.
45:16
Because self doubt is the biggest self sabotage you can
45:19
have. You can question yourself, you
45:22
can beat yourself. You're going to do it anyway, so
45:25
certain things in life, I wish I wouldn't doubt myself as much
45:29
and pushed myself forward a little harder.
45:33
Amazing. Is there ACEO or other
45:36
entrepreneur that you really admire?
45:40
Sarah Beckley, I love her personality.
45:44
I love Spanx and I love her her quote when she said you don't
45:50
have to be serious in order to be taken seriously.
45:54
I love that. And that kind of stays with me
45:57
because I can be goofy sometimes, I can be silly
46:00
sometimes and you know, being a blonde female from Ukraine, an
46:05
entrepreneur in high tech industry raise the eyebrows from
46:09
time to time and that's fine. And people ask me and sometimes
46:12
like, well, so who is the whose company is that you're?
46:19
Like right here. Right here.
46:21
But that's cool and that's fine and it's I learned how to play
46:25
it into my advantage. They have to and it helped us to
46:29
overcome some of the competitions because they
46:31
underestimate what we can accomplish with the right team
46:34
and right resources in house. But you don't have to be serious
46:38
to be taken seriously, and you have to have fun and allow
46:42
people around you to have fun too.
46:44
Amazing. I've worked with and hired a lot
46:49
of people from Ukraine. Designers, programmers.
46:53
Why is the the talent so high in the Ukraine?
46:55
Why are why are people so skilled and talented there?
46:59
They've been living in a survival mode for many, many
47:01
years. I feel genuinely proud to carry,
47:06
you know, full, full blood, you know, purebred Ukrainian right
47:11
in front of me when I feel genuinely very proud.
47:13
And I'm proud of this nation as a full because we've been into
47:17
the conflict in the United States and other countries.
47:20
Watch the conflicts in the last recent years, but the conflict
47:24
goes much deeper. In 150 years of constant
47:28
repressions by Russian Federation and Russian Empire.
47:32
And before that there was a Turkish.
47:34
And before that there was a whole bunch of historical
47:37
turmoil that went through Ukrainian soil because it's
47:40
strategically located in a very sweet spot for international
47:44
trades. And the people, their lands,
47:47
they still loyal to their ethnicity, they still loyal to
47:50
their land. And they know they'd have to
47:52
learn how to survive. And it's it's incredible when
47:56
under bombing, I had my team there in Ukraine and they're
47:59
like, hold on one second. We need to turn on the
48:01
generator. Hold on.
48:02
Everybody's like, oh, there's a building right next to us
48:04
following, OK, we keep on working.
48:05
We're fine. And we were just like, and you
48:09
sit in there and, and the reason why they're so successful
48:13
because they understand that tomorrow is not a guarantee.
48:18
So you have to do a lot what you can do with today and how much
48:22
you can accomplish in one day. That mentality really challenges
48:26
you of what the perception of reality is.
48:29
Because for United States, for many of Europeans and Americans,
48:33
the you know, we know our path. We know tomorrow was always
48:36
going to be common and always there's going to be another
48:38
election. There's only two parties, right?
48:40
And, you know, then it comes the retirement of the Social
48:43
Security and there we haven't had any major crisis on our
48:47
land. So there's always tomorrow.
48:50
But the people who constantly live with the tomorrow is not a
48:53
guarantee they'll learn how to accomplish much more in the day
48:56
that is given for them today. And that's something to really
49:00
learn from, you know, like any depression can be cured if you
49:03
have there is no tomorrow, so. It's a good point.
49:09
Can I ask about your dad? Sure, of course.
49:13
What was his voice like? I have a calling of his voice.
49:17
I can think of a clone of his voice he had.
49:21
Yes. I asked my mom after his passing
49:25
to send me a couple of the recording videos.
49:27
And it's not ideal, but it gave me.
49:30
I mean, that was my part of greeting.
49:32
He fell very sick during the wartime, and we didn't realize
49:38
how bad it was until it was too late.
49:40
So he had a leukemia and died very, very quickly because at
49:45
that time there was no heat, no water, no electricity in
49:49
Ukraine, and the hospitals could not really provide him with
49:51
adequate care. So we kind of arrived too late,
49:54
and I didn't have a chance really to say goodbye.
49:57
And for me, the part of the greeting was to really hearing
49:59
these old tapes and his voice when he played with my daughter
50:04
when she was only little. And he was very serious men.
50:08
So having him laugh was almost like Mission Impossible.
50:12
But my daughter was the only person who really get in giggle.
50:15
And I was really little tapes of recording.
50:18
They would play together and we did a cone of his voice and I
50:20
had my kind of personal counseling sessions with him and
50:25
conversation that I really want to walk with one.
50:27
That was my kind of closure. And again, it wouldn't be
50:30
possible without their artificial intelligence.
50:33
I did it for me and I shared the story in some of the conferences
50:37
that I attend because that's, I think what sealed my passion for
50:41
the voice because it can brings people joy, closure, ability to
50:46
connect with people who are not not here without you anymore.
50:49
Even though again, it's very, you need to handle the cones of
50:52
the voices very cautiously, right, for the identity
50:55
protection, but it can give you so much more of the emotional
50:59
connection that you never had. My, I haven't seen my dad, you
51:04
know, before he passed away for seven years because he was not
51:06
able to travel. I was busy here and I was always
51:09
hoped that there was would be a tomorrow.
51:11
Unfortunately, that tomorrow didn't come.
51:17
Thanks so much for sharing that evidence.
51:19
Extraordinary. You're welcome.
51:22
This has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on
51:25
the show. You're very welcome.
51:26
It's been my pleasure. Thanks.
51:30
Hey founders, let me ask you this, are you building with AI
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or getting left behind by it? If you're serious about scaling
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Now back to the show.