Founder Interview
How Flyte AI Reached 70 Beta Users on Under $500 of Infrastructure Spend Before Launch (Interview with CEO Shilpa Sharma)
- Interview Date
- October 13, 2021
- Interviewee
- Shilpa SharmaCo-Founder and CEO
Company Metrics at Interview Time
Total Funding
$120K
Beta Users (2021)
70
Team Size (2021)
2
Planned Pricing, 3 Tiers (2021)
$10-$89 per month
Historical Snapshot
These numbers were reported by Shilpa Sharma during her interview with Nathan Latka in October 2021 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See Flyte’s current numbers.
Key Takeaways
- 01Flyte AI was founded in January 2021 by Shilpa Sharma and her husband as a two-person team.
- 02The company raised $120,000 from Techstars, which took 6% equity.
- 0370 users were actively using the platform through beta access as of October 2021.
- 04The platform was pre-revenue at the time of the interview, with a paid launch planned within weeks.
- 05Launch pricing was set at $10, $29 and $89 per month by usage hours - five, sixteen and fifty - but the paywall had not been switched on at the time of the interview.
- 06The waitlist of over 300 to 350 sign-ups was built entirely through word-of-mouth with no marketing spend.
- 07Shilpa estimated 7 to 8 months of personal runway from savings to sustain the business.
- 08The company was targeting a $750K pre-seed raise at a target pre-money valuation of $7M to $8M, which the founder called a ballpark figure yet to be confirmed.
- 09MVP infrastructure costs were under $500, with both founders working full time on the product.
Company Metrics at Time of Interview
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total Funding | $120K | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Year Founded | 2021 | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Team Size (2021) | 2 | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Beta Users (2021) | 70 | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Waitlist Sign-ups (2021) | 300 to 350 | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| MVP Infrastructure Spend (2021) | Under $500 | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Planned Pricing - Light Tier (2021) | $10 per month | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Planned Pricing - Plus Tier (2021) | $29 per month | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Planned Pricing - Pro Tier (2021) | $89 per month | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Techstars Equity | 6% | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
| Personal Runway (2021) | 7 to 8 months | Founder interview, Oct 2021 |
Growth Breakdown
Revenue
Flyte AI was pre-revenue at the time of the interview. Shilpa expected to turn on the payment system within a couple of weeks of the recording, with the goal of being post-revenue by the end of 2021.
Customers
The platform had 70 active beta users who had continued using it after receiving beta access. An additional waitlist of over 300 to 350 people had signed up through the website, all acquired through word-of-mouth with no paid marketing.
Team
The company operated as a two-person founding team: Shilpa handling business development and her husband building the product. Shilpa left her own full-time job around April 2021; her husband had been working on the product full time for longer.
Funding
Techstars invested $120,000 in exchange for 6% equity. Founder Institute participated at an earlier stage through a 4% warrant but provided no cash. Shilpa planned to open a $750K pre-seed round by end of October 2021, targeting a close by Q1 2022.
Growth Strategy
Community and Live Events
Shilpa credited live events as the primary growth channel, including pitch competitions such as Seattle Angel Conference and Female Founder Alliance, as well as podcasts, webinars, and conferences. All waitlist sign-ups came through these channels with zero marketing spend.
Accelerator Programs
Participation in Founder Institute and Techstars gave Flyte access to networks of experienced founders who had exited companies, providing both credibility and community reach that helped spread word-of-mouth.
Customer Validation Calls
Pricing tiers were set based on direct interviews with potential customers including salespeople, podcasters, investors, and marketing managers. Shilpa benchmarked against competitor platforms and customer usage patterns to arrive at the three-tier structure.
Beta Feedback Loop
Over seven weeks of beta access, the team used active user feedback to develop new features. The 70 beta users who continued using the platform after initial access provided the product signal needed to move toward a paid launch.
Planned Integrations
Shilpa outlined plans to list Flyte on the Zoom marketplace and build integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot to make the tool more accessible to salespeople and customer success teams, expanding the addressable use case.
Best Quotes
“Flyte AI is an AI platform that creates well organized meeting minutes and action items for all business professionals who don't like taking meeting minutes manually. This is an AI powered platform, you can focus on the conversation without worrying about meeting minutes.”
“We are a team of two co founders. My husband is developing the product, and I'm the business development person, So we haven't spent a lot. It's really like less than $500 to pay for infrastructure, and we are able to capture a lot of leads just by word-of-mouth. We have a pipeline of over 300, three fifty users who have signed up through our website. No marketing dollars spent yet.”
“We have over 70 users who are already using our platform. They started with us beta access, but they are continuing to use it. We are getting great feedback. We have been able to develop a lot of features based on customer feedback.”
“So these price points are coming from customer validation calls. So if we are talking to salespeople or podcasters, investors, marketing managers, it's all coming based on their usage and all other B2B SaaS platforms they have been using.”
“We plan to raise. So right now, in beta program and getting initial customer traction, that was okay with us to just use our own money and tech stars money, but we'll open our pre seed round by end of October around where we'll raise some money to continue our growth and have more people on the team and have some marketing amount that we can spend on to get more people on our platform.”
“I wish I would have started doing my own business early on because this is something that's super exciting, and I'm loving every minute working on the startup. I've had multiple jobs in the past, but I feel like this is something I would have done earlier.”
What Happened Next
This interview captured Flyte AI at a very early stage in October 2021, just weeks before the team planned to launch paid tiers and open a pre-seed fundraise. At the time of recording the company was pre-revenue with 70 beta users and a two-person founding team. The numbers and plans discussed here reflect that specific moment and should not be taken as current figures. Visit the Flyte AI company profile on GetLatka for the latest available data.
View Flyte’s current profile and metricsFull Transcript
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and What Flyte AI Does
- 0:36Pricing Tiers and Beta Status
- 1:13Founding Story and Timeline
- 1:42MVP Cost and Waitlist Size
- 2:11How the Waitlist Was Built
- 2:44Accelerator Funding from Techstars
- 3:02Equity Split and Founder Ownership
- 4:07Beta Users and Launch Timeline
- 4:34Personal Runway and Living Expenses
- 6:23Pricing Rationale and Customer Validation Calls
- 7:45Zoom Marketplace and Planned Integrations
- 8:16Fundraising Plans and Pre-Seed Round
- 9:21Valuation Target and Investor Conversations
- 9:58Competitors: Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai
- 10:42Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
- 11:42Advice to Younger Self
Introduction and What Flyte AI Does
Nathan Latka
00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is Shilpa Sharma. She's the co founder and CEO of Flyte. She's passionate about entrepreneurship and innovative ideas, now building this tool, which is an automated note taking application called flyteai.com. Shilpa, you ready to take us to the top?
Shilpa Sharma
00:16>> Yeah, for sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Shilpa. I'm the CEO and co founder of Flyte AI. Flyte AI is an AI platform that creates well organized meeting minutes and action items for all business professionals who don't like taking meeting minutes manually. This is an AI powered platform, you can focus on the conversation without worrying about meeting minutes.
Pricing Tiers and Beta Status
Nathan Latka
00:36And Shilpa, what do people pay you on average per month to use the tool?
Shilpa Sharma
00:40>> So we are in the beta program as of now. We are yet to launch the platform. In a couple of weeks, we will launch it. It's a standard three tier light plus and pro. Light is like if you have five hours of usage, you can pay $10 for a month. If you are a professional, have a usage of around sixteen hours, it's $29. And if you're a power users like salesperson, customer success, or podcasters maybe, you
01:05>> will be paying $89 for fifty hours in a month.
Nathan Latka
01:09Okay. So you're pre revenue today then, correct?
Shilpa Sharma
01:12>> You're pre revenue.
Founding Story and Timeline
Nathan Latka
01:13When did you first write the first line of code for the platform?
Shilpa Sharma
01:18>> We started writing code early this year, so really founded this company in January 2021. But this idea came last year through our conversation with one of our friends. It was a very casual chat and he just mentioned how painful it is to take notes manually. So yeah, it started and we started exploring technology stack. We started working with customers as well and we are here today.
MVP Cost and Waitlist Size
Nathan Latka
01:42How much have you spent so far on the MVP?
Shilpa Sharma
01:48>> We are a team of two co founders. My husband is developing the product, and I'm the business development person, So we haven't spent a lot. It's really like less than $500 to pay for infrastructure, and we are able to capture a lot of leads just by word-of-mouth. We have a pipeline of over 300, three fifty users who have signed up through our website. No marketing dollars spent yet.
How the Waitlist Was Built
Nathan Latka
02:11And how did they get on your waitlist? How did they find you?
Shilpa Sharma
02:15>> So we go to podcast, webinar, conferences, and pitch events. So we participated in Seattle Angel Conference. We participated in Female Founder Alliance. That's again Seattle based company. And we have done two accelerators programs started with Founder Institute Seattle and recently graduated from Techstars as well. So all these communities have helped us to have the word-of-mouth spread the word and bringing these people on our platform.
Accelerator Funding from Techstars
Nathan Latka
02:44And Shilpa, you have to remind me, with those accelerators, how much capital did they put into the business?
Shilpa Sharma
02:50>> Founder Institute is initial stage accelerators, so they don't put any capital, but Techstars does, so they have around 120 k of investment in our business.
Equity Split and Founder Ownership
Nathan Latka
03:02And I forget, it's a pretty standard percentage wise. How much equity do they get?
Shilpa Sharma
03:08>> Founder Institute gets, like, they have a warrant, so around 4% and then Techstars at 6%.
Nathan Latka
03:14Does that feel fair to you having just gone through both programs?
Shilpa Sharma
03:18>> So my background has been in tech operations working for Fortune 100 companies, but never had done a startup, which is like tech startups. So I'm a first time founder and wanted to learn a lot from experienced people. So for me, at this stage, we believe that this was the right choice, given we have limited experience doing these things. With Techstars and FI Network, we found a lot of founders who have exited the companies and have great
03:46>> background in launching tech products. So that has been a great help. So totally justified.
Nathan Latka
03:52So Techstars has 6% and then FI Network has 4%, and then you and your husband own the rest of the business.
Shilpa Sharma
04:00>> That's right.
Nathan Latka
04:01That's great. Okay. So you're building a waitlist. When is the magic moment? When are you turning on the paywall?
Beta Users and Launch Timeline
Shilpa Sharma
04:07>> In couple of weeks. So we have built the platform. We have over 70 users who are already using our platform. They started with us beta access, but they are continuing to use it. We are getting great feedback. We have been able to develop a lot of features based on customer feedback. So yeah, that's exciting. It's been seven weeks now into the beta program. And in a couple of weeks, we'll add our payment system and start onboarding
04:32>> people on on our paid tiers.
Personal Runway and Living Expenses
Nathan Latka
04:34Now, Shilpa, you and your husband have been working on this site. Sounds like for the past ten months or so. I imagine you guys left your full time jobs to do this. You haven't been able to pay yourself from the company yet. So how are you paying for like rent and food and personal expenses?
Shilpa Sharma
04:48>> That's a great question. Actually, I was working full time until like April this year. So it's been a couple of months when we have started doing everything full time, but my husband has been working full time on this for a long time. Yeah, we are using our savings to pay our rents and food, but we are expecting like post revenue company in couple of weeks because we are at the stage now where we do see people
05:15>> liking the product, liking the notes created by Flyte and I would love to spread the word and see if we can get more traction on our website, on our platform, and would love to get people just using our platform to create notes. So hopefully by end of this year, we'll be post revenue and that way we want to turn the wheel and that would be an inflection point for us.
Nathan Latka
05:38If you look at your current savings and your current personal expenses, you can sort of calculate a life runway, right? How many months can you keep playing with Flyte AI before it has to be making substantial revenue to support you guys?
Shilpa Sharma
05:51>> For next seven, eight months, it's pretty okay for us to continue to run the business and have our run rate to a point where we feel like this would be comfortably We can spend on our rents and stuff. But yeah, it's pretty good runway.
Nathan Latka
06:07And Yeah. You're in Seattle. You're in Seattle, right? Seattle's not rent's not cheap there.
Shilpa Sharma
06:12>> Oh, I'm not based in Seattle. I'm currently in Toronto. I'm based in Canada. We incorporated our company in The US and started with Founder Institute in Seattle, so kept our headquarters there.
Pricing Rationale and Customer Validation Calls
Nathan Latka
06:23Very cool. Okay. So just the two of you right now, getting ready to launch. What is your initial price point going to be? What's the cheapest price?
Shilpa Sharma
06:30>> It's the light tier. That's $10 for a month, five hours of usage.
Nathan Latka
06:35Is that too cheap?
Shilpa Sharma
06:37>> I think so. Given the quality of notes that we create, it's a value for money.
Nathan Latka
06:43So why not launch at $1,000 a month?
Shilpa Sharma
06:48>> So these price points are coming from customer validation calls. So if we are talking to salespeople or podcasters, investors, marketing managers, it's all coming based on their usage and all other B2B SaaS platforms they have been using. So it's kind of like benchmarking against our competitors as well as the offering that we are providing as part of our platform, based on all those things like customer validation value that we are providing. It's not thousand, but $10
07:17>> for light usage, five hours. If they are a premium user using for more than fifty hours, then it's going to be $90. So that's what we believe. We'll always continue to discover more things as we become post revenue. Right now we are pre revenue, so it's all based on our interviews with potential customers. So we'll explore that more, Nathan.
Nathan Latka
07:36What does five hours mean? Do I turn this on on every Zoom call and it auto takes messages? So if a Zoom call is twenty minutes, that's twenty minutes used out of the five hours?
Shilpa Sharma
07:44>> Exactly.
Zoom Marketplace and Planned Integrations
Nathan Latka
07:45I see. Are you guys in the Zoom marketplace?
Shilpa Sharma
07:48>> We are working on that. So right now it's a web application. You can just use the link similar to monday.com or Asana, where you can just sign in and start using it. We have recording and uploading features. So as long as you have an audio or if you're using recording feature to create an audio, it'll create notes for you, action items, and everything. Mhmm. We are working on adding ourselves on Zoom marketplace and having some integrations
08:11>> on Salesforce and HubSpot so that salespeople can use it comfortably and easily.
Fundraising Plans and Pre-Seed Round
Nathan Latka
08:16Is your plan to stay bootstrapped or you guys think you'll raise?
Shilpa Sharma
08:20>> We plan to raise. So right now, in beta program and getting initial customer traction, that was okay with us to just use our own money and tech stars money, but we'll open our pre seed round by end of October around where we'll raise some money to continue our growth and have more people on the team and have some marketing amount that we can spend on to get more people on our platform.
Nathan Latka
08:47How much will you target to raise in October?
Shilpa Sharma
08:51>> We are targeting around $750k. Okay. Yeah.
Nathan Latka
08:56And and obviously, it's October now, so you think you'll probably you're trying to close that before the end of the year?
Shilpa Sharma
09:02>> By early next year because I believe by, like, December or so, we won't get a lot of, like, meetings from people. So I think by q one twenty twenty two, we should be able to complete the round. But we are starting to get investor CRM, all the pipeline and stuff, engaging with people to just get the traction there.
Valuation Target and Investor Conversations
Nathan Latka
09:21Targeting $750k, what cap do you think you'll raise it or what valuation would you target?
Shilpa Sharma
09:27>> Our pre money valuation target is around between like 7 and 8,000,000, but we'll see how it goes. We'll just have a conversation with a lot of investors to see how the market values our company. That's why we want to first see how the traction goes, how many people are willing to pay for something that we are offering and all that. It depends on a lot of variables and I believe that would decide our exact valuation. Right
09:54>> now it's just a ballpark figure, which we believe will be confirmed in a couple of months.
Competitors: Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai
Nathan Latka
09:58Pariko, I love this story. Now, you mentioned competitors a couple of times. Who do you think right now is sort of your closest competitor?
Shilpa Sharma
10:07>> Our closest competitors are Otter dot ai and fireflies.ai. So those kind of automatic transcription tools that are creating transcriptions, they are actually a little bit different because we create well organized meeting minutes and action items. We do see these competitors are creating transcriptions. So that's why we wanted to get a little bit ahead and see if we can create something that's more useful to business professionals and that they don't just look for highlight notes or something
10:36>> in a transcription that is like verbose transcript for a sixty minute meeting or so.
Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions
Nathan Latka
10:42Mhmm. Interesting. Well, we will see what happens. Notetaking app space is obviously hot. Evernote is sort of an old player in the space, but we will see what happens. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, Shilpa, favorite business book?
Shilpa Sharma
10:56>> Crossing the Chasm.
Nathan Latka
10:57Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
Shilpa Sharma
11:02>> Virgin CEO.
Nathan Latka
11:05Richard Branson?
Shilpa Sharma
11:05>> Richard yeah.
Nathan Latka
11:07Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Flyte?
Shilpa Sharma
11:11>> Online tool, meaning infrastructure or cloud system?
Nathan Latka
11:15Whatever you want to define it as.
Shilpa Sharma
11:18>> AWS.
Nathan Latka
11:20Number three or four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?
Shilpa Sharma
11:23>> Six to seven hours.
Nathan Latka
11:25Okay. And situation? Well, we know you're married because you mentioned your husband, but any kiddos?
Shilpa Sharma
11:29>> Not yet.
Nathan Latka
11:30No kids. Okay. And do you mind me asking how old you are?
Shilpa Sharma
11:34>> Between over 35.
Nathan Latka
11:37Okay, fair enough. Last question, what's something you wish you knew when you were 20?
Advice to Younger Self
Shilpa Sharma
11:42>> I wish I would have started doing my own business early on because this is something that's super exciting, and I'm loving every minute working on the startup. I've had multiple jobs in the past, but I feel like this is something I would have done earlier.
Nathan Latka
11:58Guys, flyteai.com, automated note taking taking app. They've powered the business. They've been building it over the last nine months. They raised $120,000 to do that, mainly from tech stars. It took 6%, so call it 2,000,000 valuation. Founder Institute also got 4% warrants. The rest of the equity, Shilpa and her husband, the co founders, they still own. They're looking to launch here the next couple of weeks. They've got 70 beta users on the platform launching with a
12:18price point at $10 a month. We will see what happens. Shilpa, thanks for taking us to the top.
Shilpa Sharma
12:23>> Thank you so much, Nathan. Appreciate it.
Nathan Latka
12:27One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU, CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM
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