Day: April 3, 2023

BE PATIENT: patience preserves time, energy, financial resources, and sanity. it makes you a better listener, student, co-founder, service provider, leader, and person overall. creating value takes time. creating sustainable value may take even more time. Patience.

Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles.

Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup?

In this interview we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experience about what it takes to create a highly successful startup.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Owen Sakawa, CEO and Co-Founder at Elloe AI, a customer engagement platform that creates value for brands and customers in a conversational, friendly, and engaging way called Customer Friendship. Owen is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about building companies and software that empower customers and businesses to build stronger bonds — much like the connection between friends.

What inspired you to start Elloe AI, and how do you see it changing the conversational AI space?

I have always been passionate about building companies and software that empower customers and businesses to build strong bonds, much like the connection between friends. When I first started Elloe AI, I saw an opportunity to use conversational AI technology to bring businesses and customers closer together. I wanted to create a world in which all people are welcomed by their favorite brand with a warm familiarity of a friend through the world’s most popular messaging apps.

At Elloe AI, we are challenging the status quo with our Autonomous Conversational AI technology powered by Unsupervised Machine Learning. We are leading the conversational AI space by focusing on the future, which is built by a strong bond between businesses and their customers. We imagine a world where everyone – customers, and small and enterprise businesses – treat each other as friends to the benefit of businesses, their employees, and customers everywhere. We believe that technology can bring people together in meaningful ways, and we are passionate about making that a reality.

TechCrunch’s recognition of Elloe AI as a “customer friendship platform for customer-loving brands” is a testament to our commitment to building strong relationships between businesses and their customers. We are proud to be leading the way in the conversational AI space and to be recognized for our efforts to create a more customer-centric and empathetic world.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

What makes Elloe AI truly stand out is our commitment to creating an autonomous conversational AI platform that continuously learns, adapts, and evolves to deliver increasingly personalized and engaging experiences for both businesses and their customers.

When we first began, our platform was effective, but it still required a significant amount of manual input and supervision. We knew that in order to reach our full potential and truly transform customer engagement, we needed a platform that could operate independently and learn from real-life interactions.

Our team worked tirelessly to develop sophisticated machine learning algorithms and natural language processing capabilities that would enable Elloe AI to understand the intricacies of human conversation, adapt to different contexts, and learn from each interaction. We also invested in creating a robust feedback loop that would allow Elloe AI to continuously refine and optimize its performance.

Today, Elloe AI has evolved into a fully autonomous conversational AI platform, capable of understanding complex customer inquiries, anticipating user needs, and providing accurate, personalized responses. This level of autonomy has not only distinguished Elloe AI from other solutions in the market but also allowed us to significantly improve customer engagement and satisfaction for businesses across various industries.

By staying true to our vision of autonomy, we’ve built a platform that not only meets the expectations of today’s consumers but also sets the stage for the future of conversational AI. As we continue to innovate, Elloe AI will remain at the forefront of this exciting and transformative industry.

Elloe AI has been named as one of the AI startups to watch in 2023. How does this recognition inspire you and the team at Elloe AI to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with conversational AI technology?

We are thrilled to be recognized as one of the AI startups to watch in 2023. This recognition inspires us to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with conversational AI technology. We are passionate about building technology that empowers businesses and customers to build strong bonds, and we believe that the recognition we have received is a testament to our commitment to this vision.

Moving forward, we will continue to invest in research and development, and to collaborate with experts in the field of AI and machine learning. We will also continue to listen to our customers and partners and to incorporate their feedback and suggestions into our platform’s development.

Ultimately, our goal is to create a world in which all people are welcomed by their favorite brand with a warm familiarity of a friend. We are excited to be at the forefront of the conversational AI space, and we look forward to continuing to innovate and to build strong relationships between businesses and their customers.

What is Elloe AI’s vision for the future of conversational AI, and how do you see it impacting the way businesses interact with their customers?

At Elloe AI, our vision for the future of conversational AI is one in which every interaction between a business and its customers feels like a conversation between friends. We believe that by using natural language processing and machine learning technologies, we can create truly personalized, engaging customer experiences that build lasting relationships between businesses and their customers.

We see conversational AI as a powerful tool for businesses to better understand their customers’ needs and preferences, and to provide more effective and efficient customer service. By using our platform, businesses can offer real-time support and personalized recommendations to their customers, which can help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

We also believe that conversational AI has the potential to transform the way businesses think about customer engagement. Rather than viewing customer service as a separate department, we believe that every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to build a stronger relationship. By using conversational AI to create more meaningful, human-like interactions with their customers, businesses can foster deeper connections and increase customer loyalty.

As Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation is not just about technology. It’s about how you connect people, how you create experiences.” At Elloe AI, we’re passionate about using technology to create experiences that truly connect people. We believe that conversational AI has the power to transform the way businesses interact with their customers, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of this revolution.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Everyone makes a mistake in life. the question is not will you face failure in life, it’s about how you choose to handle it. it’s all about your perspective of the situation. you get to choose! you choose how you respond to what happens to you in life.

So, like everyone else, yes, I have made mistakes but I choose to utilize those times to build character, learn from it, and win more in life. For instance, in the beginning, we thought RepairNet could sell itself and growth would be automatic. So, we launched our application, set pricing, and waited for customers to come rolling in.

We banked on the uniqueness of our product, its capabilities, and our pricing but forgot to reach customers and gain their trust. Then we quickly realized that we should first introduce ourselves to them and build a relationship. After that, hunting became our new growth strategy and we won most of our customers from related strategies.

I am only the man I am today because of these situations. what challenges you, will change you. The difference is, I have a game plan in place on how to win through failures. Most people are not prepared and when adversity hits, they don’t know how to break through and create a win.

It starts with your mindset which leads to your attitude which determines your actions which creates your results and ultimately your life! so if you want to win through obstacles, have a game plan in place to train and prepare when it comes.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

A large part of what we aim to do is bring happiness into the work equation. Higher levels of happiness improve the quality of life. It stems from the compilation of interactions that people have with their family, friends, and brands — as in today’s interconnected world especially through social media, brands have a bigger impact now than they did even a decade ago. If we can be a platform that genuinely adds to the betterment of people’s lives I feel like we are doing our part in adding to the world for the sake of others, not for ourselves.

I believe Elloe creates a positive change in the world by upending the cold, transactional way most people interact with their favorite brands. People, in general, are so atomized and isolated, especially after COVID, and I like the way our customers are able to create warm and meaningful moments for their customers.

In addition, I try to be a positive influence to other founders in the same space and spend as much time as possible giving back to the ever-growing startup ecosystem by sharing advice and experiences, doing 1:1 sessions with founders, and making angel investments in B2B SaaS.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Not spending enough time early enough on filling the various leadership roles in the business. You might have an overview as a CEO and founder when there’s 30 employees, but it’ll quickly become unsustainable and you’ll need the right leaders to contribute to this responsibility. You want your leaders as early as possible so you actually feel comfortable around them, because this will be your biggest challenge. As a CEO you need to spend your time on building the brand and the story around the vision.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks for your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

Founders should be looking at their own goals to determine whether or not venture capital is the right path for them or not. It can be absolutely crucial in order to scale fast and to reach the highest degree of maturity as early as possible. We saw a big gap in the market, especially in the US, a very customer-centric culture that is lacking in terms of the right tools to support customer service that lives up to peoples’ expectations. With this in mind it was important for us to scale fast and we needed venture capital for that. And I believe you should choose investors that can help you on your journey, with expertise, manpower and connections.

How has Elloe AI evolved since its inception, and what can we expect from the company in the future?

Elloe AI has come a long way since its inception. When we first started, our focus was on creating an AI-powered chatbot that could provide basic customer support. However, as we listened to our customers and learned more about their needs, we realized that there was a much bigger opportunity to create a platform that could help businesses build meaningful relationships with their customers.

Today, Elloe AI is more than just a chatbot. It is a full-fledged customer friendship platform that uses AI and natural language processing to provide a personalized and human-like experience. Our platform can handle everything from basic customer support to complex sales and marketing interactions, all while providing insights and analytics to help businesses make data-driven decisions.

Looking to the future, we are committed to continuous innovation and staying ahead of the curve. We are constantly exploring new technologies and partnerships to enhance our platform and provide the best possible experience for our customers. As Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” We are determined to be the leader in the customer service industry, and we will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

1. BE PATIENT: patience preserves time, energy, financial resources, and sanity. it makes you a better listener, student, co-founder, service provider, leader, and person overall. creating value takes time. creating sustainable value may take even more time. Patience.

2. TAKE RISKS: No entrepreneur or creator can create a successful business or product without taking a risk. A risk does not have a guaranteed or known outcome, but with experience and the right ingredients, one can take calculated risks. In a traditional sense, an entrepreneur has to fail to succeed, otherwise, they did not take enough risks. No matter what the scale of failure in a traditional sense, one should be able to learn and keep evolving and innovating. My entire career has been about taking risks, evolving, refining, and keep moving on to create great products.

3. BE CONSISTENT: You need to be willing to put in the work, willing to make mistakes, willing to learn from those mistakes, and willing to try again, all without hesitation. Think of this as working out. It takes the time to develop this and it only gets stronger every time you do. This is the attitude, mindset, a habit we have to drive us for success.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I am active on my personal LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as all of Elloe’s channels, including the blog. Feel free to DM me.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!