Vertex US Spotlight: A Q&A with Etie Hertz, CEO of Loris.ai

I was thrilled to connect with Etie Hertz, CEO of Loris.ai, for this installment of our Vertex US Spotlight series! When we initially invested in Loris in 2019, I was impressed with how their product interweaved empathy and efficiency into customer service teams. It’s an overlooked aspect of technology and isn’t something that we often see.

Give us your elevator pitch — what does your company do?

Loris is an AI assistant for text-based conversations (chat/SMS/email/messaging) that plugs into existing customer service platforms (Zendesk, Salesforce, LivePerson, Twilio, etc.). Our real-time coaching software equips customer service teams with live guidance, helping agents respond to requests more efficiently and effectively, ultimately improving Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

What drew you to this field?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to express emotion and empathy through text over the years. For me, there aren’t many things more interesting than understanding the way humans interact with one another over digital channels.

I’ve built and experimented with different messaging platforms for over a decade. I helped create a messaging app that allowed for synchronous communication, which immediately scrubbed the texts sent by both parties (this was before Snapchat existed). Additionally, I built an Instagram-style messaging app for my wife’s dietitian business.

As people increasingly download software and services to their phones without ever speaking to a salesperson, the only time that companies and customers actually communicate is when something bad happens. So customer care is becoming the brand for so many fast-growing businesses, and those conversations are as compelling as they are important.

If you were to draw a line from your current passion for this field back in time to a specific point in your youth, where would it go? Tell us about that memory.

My initial thought is sending my first email as a freshman at the University of Illinois in ’95. Marc Andressen had just founded Netscape on campus so everyone at school had an email address but there were few people I knew that I could send a message to. The sudden ability to send an electronic message was incredibly powerful — could I connect with friends back home? Family around the world? How do you talk to them through this medium? Would there be new rules about how humans engage in this format? The possibilities seemed endless.

When you were a kid, what did you think you’d grow up to be?

My wife actually found a letter I wrote to my future self as an 8-year-old. I said I would be a mathematician and build rockets.

Where did you start your career? What was your first job in this industry?

I actually started my career as a corporate attorney at a large, international firm in New York City, focused on M&A and VC work. After advising startups for several years, I thought I had a few interesting ideas worth pursuing and left in ’07 to jump in.

When you reflect on your life and work, what are you proud of?

Without question, my incredible wife and three amazing children. In terms of work accomplishments, building and growing my payments startup and selling it to a larger software company which was also acquired, allowed our early employees (who took a risk with us) to have a pretty amazing ride in a relatively short period of time.

What additional impact does your company have that didn’t make it into your elevator pitch?

When you hear the term ‘AI’ it sounds very cold and automated. Our focus, though, is on the humanization of AI. Loris uses machine learning to make difficult conversations between an agent and the customer more empathetic. By taking away the need for agents to make decisions on the fly that they may not be ready for, Loris helps reduce the immediate decision-making process for the betterment of the agent and reduces the risk of escalating tensions with the client. The combination of humans plus machines is what enables the ability of empathy at scale.

What’s something that your coworkers don’t know about you?

I’m a pretty good juggler and an excellent beat-boxer.

What is your desert island book or movie?

The movie probably needs to be a comedy, so either Trading Places or My Cousin Vinny.

If I had to read one book hundreds of times, I would pick Thinking Fast and Slow since I think you could pick up an interesting new tidbit each time (or PIllars of the Earth because I can’t imagine it being a bad read even after 100 times).

You have a whole day at your disposal, but work isn’t allowed. What do you do?

Find the biggest mountain with the freshest powder that day and ski from sunrise to sunset.

If you could solve one issue in the startup world by snapping your fingers, what would it be and why?

Finding a way to detoxify social media and go back to a world when (at least certain) facts were not disputed.

Name and unpack one challenge in working at a startup that no one ever told you about?

Plenty has been written about perseverance and grit in business and life. A challenge that is less often discussed is how lonely it can be to run a startup. There are not a ton of places to interact with other folks going through the same struggles at the same time. This is obviously even more challenging during Covid.

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten that you’d share again?

Early in my career I assumed that people in business owed something to one another — there was a certain level of empathy that was expected. I quickly realized that no one cares about your issue despite how important or urgent a problem is in your mind. They are dealing with their own internal struggles, so don’t take anything personally. Try to move the ball forward each day with a positive attitude, and, over time, with a bit of luck, things will work out.

Thank you for sharing your story, Etie!

This was also published on Medium.