First pivot on 4th MVP after 1.5 years. From Messenger to Semantic AI.

Our founded history:

Before VOL AI , we were a system integrator, QEX for 4 years. Developed and deployed BPA custom software, CRM, ERP, integrations, Teams and Slack (a little bit).

We found a problem in our client's communication workflow - every company has tools for communications, but up to half of chat threads and meetings are unnecessary because of no structure, summary and tasks after call. They wasted important information, spent time and salaries on follow-up meetings. It's about 11M meetings per day and irrelevant work discussions costing companies $37B per year in the US.

Then I founded VOL

The product which should fix these problems and make team communication workflow efficient.?

Initially, the product part was a B2B messenger, and in the following steps we should have developed our own VR meetings with avatars and then Semantic AI to turn communications into tasks. If you are building a messenger, you need to develop a huge product foundation for at least six months, and only then your startup starts - you'll start to develop features that can provide some value to the clients. In a classic startup, your alpha-MVP already have value to your clients.

First MVP was on PWA

(progressive web app) for mobile and desktop. IOS and their Safari - is the baddest thing for web apps in the world. Tried to package it by Cordova for the Apple store. So, just don't try it and save a half year. We deployed it on Google Play, Windows store and web, makes some traction and close it. It was the wrong product market fit and a tech stack. We could try to find a better PMF than "productivity-enhancing messenger/fastest corporate messenger" and go to the India/Mexico market with PWA, where Windows + Android form factor works, but we are looking for the US market next 2 years only.

The second MVP was on Flutter.

We found a better market fit - "Agile work messenger," it works - we found 100+ teams for onboarding and tried to develop enough functions. It goes very hard. We onboarded 35 teams on a free plan (about 510 users) and have 125 on the waiting list. We can't onboard more. It makes no sense because until we have a sufficient amount of?stable?functionality,?our DAU, RR, and other metrics couldn't be high. Furthermore, since we had almost no resources left, it was practically impossible to develop the entire scope of the functionality with our own money.

The third MVP?

Developed on Unity - VR meeting rooms for mobile and VR Headset. We planned to integrate this with the second MVP. It gave our customers unforgettable emotions, and we got splendid feedback. Unfortunately, I'm very material and technical, so just VR + Avatars could not be a fit(like in Meta\Teams). Nevertheless, we have come up with great practical applications in some industries. I can't tell more because it remained a trade secret for a strategic reason, but I can say that we found some large corporations in Brazil, USA, and UAE which want to pay for this product.

We lived for a year on our own, bootstrapped for a very modest amount by a team of 8 awesome people. We counted that it was 3x(probably 4x+) cheaper than the average spend by other teams.

Srategic castling

We have done hundreds of interviews, custdevs, customer feedbacks, and two special meetings that finally conquered us - with Steve Newman (ex-Writely - Google Docs, Scalyr) and Eugene Fooksman (ex-WhatsApp 0-$19B+, AltoPass). Eventually, we realized that everything we did was right, except for one thing - we need to start from the part of the product that gives the most value - Semantic AI.

Amazon started out selling books and has grown into a substantial complex product. We're going gradually, step by step (doesn't mean slow), and after the growth of customers and resources, in ~3+ years will come to building a complex product(own calls, messenger, VR meetings, etc.). So we made a strategic castling and started "from the end" of the product roadmap.

This solution radically (4x+) reduces the cost of development and 5x+ less Lead Acquisition Cost (LAC), which is very high in messengers. And with this product, we really can grow many times faster in a first years.

Summary:

VOL AI is an extension for meetings. We turn meeting into actions by transcribing, splitting by topics and time codes, generating AI-based summaries(NLP) and turning it into Jira/Asana tasks.?

Our team (except engineers):

Tech advisor -? Daria Derkach , Engineering Manager of a 200+ team size, Berkeley SkyDeck Mentor.

Sales Advisor - Maria Kitaigora , leading sales for startups from seed stage to $3B valuation with a focus on conversational AI and PLG motion.

About our traction in 2 weeks after pivot:

1. $3k sales commitments ($214 pre-sales), 30 clients on a waiting list. MVP will be ready in a week, including AI summaries.
2. Our past client base (35+125 teams) is on the way to onboarding.
3. Fantastic conversion rate - every team wants to use and pay(90%+ in direct talks). Not for ordinary meeting transcriptions(what everyone does), our approach is very different - we have some secrets and will be filing patents soon.
4. Finally, change tech stack and architecture a third time, just top solutions in this industry. x2+ development speed from the classical approach, algorithms for summary and transcription will give us 2-3x+ less server transaction cost than competitors and works on-demand by streams (virtually no delay) in a year.
5. One investment commitment and several pre-commitments.

On this photo is one of my unsuccessful ultra swimming tries in 34-6F (1-2c) degree water in the Gulf of Finland, and I’ve done it on the 4th try in 6:45h, 12.5mi (20km) - after re-sewed the equipment from scratch. It's our 4th MVP in VOL, which is very symbolic.

Email me ([email protected]) if you want to try out VOL AI. I can provide you special limited conditions and early beta access.

Alex Tatarinov, Founder of VOL

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