How IVA Is Building an AI Customer Support Tool From Zero Revenue in 2023 (Interview with CEO Valdis Sprogis)

Introduction and Company Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Guys, getiva.ai launched just five months ago by Valvus and his partner, his co founder, Zeno. Four others on the team, they're bootstrapping so far. They've each put in several thousand dollars to help fund the business. They're about to land their two first paid pilots in the e commerce and hospitality slash travel niches. One of them will be a flat fee 5 k payment upfront, the other will be $149 a month as they test to determine what

00:22space they want to go down. They're focused on building a tool that helps these brands, these industries with great customer support using AI chat, GBT, etc. We'll see what happens next.

00:33Hey folks, my guest today is Valdost Brogus. He specializes in business development, sales, coaching, and project implementation. That experience helped his business clients achieve cost savings over a 100,000,000. In his previous roles, he worked in team management, CRM and startups, scale ups unicorns, and elsewhere. Again, now building a tool called Eva, eva.ai. Valvus, you ready to take us to the top?

00:54So where should we kick this off?

Valdis Sprogis

00:56>> That's correct.

What IVA Does and the Customer Problem

Nathan Latka

00:57Great. Well, I'm excited that you're here. Tell us what the company does and and maybe do that through a customer example you can share.

Valdis Sprogis

01:03>> Yeah. So what we do is basically we're building an enterprise customer support solution that pretty much cuts the customer support costs by as much as 97 percent, and ultimately delivers the response of any customer type queries in ten seconds or less. And this is actually what we're doing and what we're building. So this is for the industries and clients who need to kind of scale this at large, and who need to cut costs on operational matters,

01:29>> basically, to serve their customers better, faster and more efficiently.

Nathan Latka

01:32It's really hard to build a tool for everyone who's doing customer support because there are so many different people doing customer support. Are you building a specific niche or industry?

Valdis Sprogis

01:40>> Right now, we're looking at clients who basically have a lot of inquiries coming in. So a lot of basically requests from customers. And the focus is going to be mainly in the beginning in handling the complaints and kind of handling all the issues. We are very tricky where people need to kind of understand the context. So the tool that we're building is also understanding the context, what the people are asking, and then basically getting the right

02:05>> answer, putting together it using the API, the automation and AI and getting back to the client.

Target Industries: E-Commerce, Travel, and Hospitality

Nathan Latka

02:11But Valdosta, are you targeting any specific sector? Sales tools, the travel industry,

Valdis Sprogis

02:16>> hospitality? Yes, I know what you mean. So right now, yes, we would like to ideally in the beginning kind of go hard on exactly like travel space and actually, yes, hospitality, we would say this, and also the e commerce as well. So these are kind of the three segments.

Nathan Latka

02:32Those are, again, three very different support systems, right? An e commerce brand does support very different than a hospitality brand or a travel brand. So I guess, why, I guess, do you come from an e commerce background or why are you focusing on these spaces?

Valdis Sprogis

02:44>> Yes, we actually, we come from both of our cases, like Xeno, let's say comes technically and from kind of the efficiency side of things of the startups that have done something similar and built custom solutions to different industries and specifically, yes, to e commerce and kind of also travel companies. And I come also from the background where we worked with a lot of clients, basically, in terms of business, what they were doing. The span was pretty

03:11>> wide in terms of travel. It was hospitality. It was making also payments internationally. So I understand kind of we both understand this space equally well. So I understand what's kind of the driving problem there. The driving problem, although they're quite big industries, is the same. They have a lot of inquiries coming in, in terms of complaints, in terms of requests, in terms of, let's say, things that they need to amend, change like e commerce does with

Backgrounds of the Founders

Valdis Sprogis

03:35>> the products. And let's say the booking.com, for instance, has the same with booking hotels and flights. So it's that the principle of what the customer eventually wants at the end to receive is somewhat similar. That's why I understand the systems and and the process, like how it works in the back end.

Nathan Latka

03:48What are these customers paying you on average per month to use your technology?

Valdis Sprogis

03:52>> So right now, we are launching our first pilots actually. So with the with the clients, so we're very early on right now.

Nathan Latka

03:59Okay. Pre pre revenue, no customers yet?

Valdis Sprogis

04:01>> Yes. Exactly.

Nathan Latka

04:02So how are

04:03you structuring the pilot? Is it a paid pilot or free?

Valdis Sprogis

04:06>> This depends on kind of how biggest kind of ask what they wanna do with us. So right now, the the two pilots that we're lined up, we're going to do in November. So one is going to be a longer pilot where we're going to have a custom pricing. So we're going to discuss because this will be an implementation of a project where the company will use will not hire anybody in the support and will solely use

04:27>> just us. So it will be a full automation right from the get go. And that's

Nathan Latka

04:31And what will you charge for that, do you think?

Valdis Sprogis

04:34>> It would be somewhere similar to what bigger company would charge for licensing. So we would put a flat fee for the beginning, for integration, all the work would be $5,000

Nathan Latka

04:43$5,000 Yeah,

Valdis Sprogis

04:44>> it's $5,000 in the beginning. And the other one, are actually offering them to start off with a very kind of our lowest plan that we have in our pricing, which is 149 a month.

Nathan Latka

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05:18connect your Stripe account, you see your valuation real time, you can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founder Path dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company,

Pre-Revenue Status and Pilot Structure

Nathan Latka

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Pilot Pricing: Flat Fee and Monthly Plan

Nathan Latka

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Timeline: First Code and Company Founding

Nathan Latka

07:18jump back into the interview. And how long have you guys been working on this? When was the first line of code written?

Sponsor: Founder Path Valuation Tool

Valdis Sprogis

07:24>> So it was actually somewhere around May or June. So when we incorporated somewhere in that time. So actually, basically four or five months, built from kind of a scratch on the paper and having an idea to actually building a functional and repeatable.

Bootstrapping and Living Expenses

Nathan Latka

07:39And a lot of entrepreneurs, obviously, when they jump into their own thing, there's many months they go without pay. And you've got to have strategy to be able to pay your living expenses, right, while you're taking the risk on the startup. So you have guys haven't been paid for four or five months now. How are you covering living expenses?

Valdis Sprogis

07:53>> We have our savings and other means of getting the income. So we're fully bootstrapping right now, but we can do it for a little more while. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

07:59Okay. Are you guys doing consulting on the side or you're just solely living off savings?

Valdis Sprogis

08:03>> Yes and no. So both. I mean, Zeno has kind of a few things going on, a couple of things, so he's fine. He can go on like that. And I I I have some consulting guests on the side as well and savings. Mhmm. So

Nathan Latka

08:15are you are you taking consulting clients and converting them to the software? That's how you got the two pilots?

Valdis Sprogis

08:22>> Not really. The pilots actually came from introductions and from clients that I worked and served earlier before that I worked in in my previous job. So my consulting is more on the kind of an individual level, not on a company level.

Nathan Latka

08:34Why has it taken five months to get, you know, your first signed and paid pilot?

Valdis Sprogis

08:39>> Because in the beginning, we wanted to narrow down what we're doing because right now this, you know, the whole kind of when we talk about AI space, automation space, it's very saturated. There's a lot of noise right now, but everybody's doing everything, and it's kind of maybe hard to discern where is the focus. And so we wanted to really pin down where we wanna focus, like, where we're gonna be best at. It's just like you said

08:59>> before, building something for everything is not the point. So we wanted to kind of niche down, and that's why it took us a bit of a time to work through some sessions and brainstorm and find out where we want to be.

Nathan Latka

09:09A niche focus to me would sound something like we're serving ecommerce brands that are selling between a 2,000,000 per month with under a 100 SKUs, but that's not the answer you gave me when I said what are you focused on. You said hospitality, travel, and ecommerce, which to me sounds very broad.

Valdis Sprogis

09:24>> Yeah, I think that's a journey we're on right now that we're narrowing down. I think it's sometimes for startups in kind of the stage we are at, it's really hard to narrow down immediately the same customers because that kind of also limits your capability of getting those clients, right? So that means that we have to be very specific in what exact type of client we want. So maybe it might be even harder and take longer us

09:46>> to get it. So right now, we're gonna spread that focus out, and then we're gonna narrow that down. Mhmm.

Nathan Latka

09:51So are you waiting for clients to come to you, and then you're gonna pick one to focus on? Or are you saying we're to focus on this niche and you're going go get the customers in that niche?

Valdis Sprogis

09:58>> Not really, actually. We are, we're, we have ways of how we're getting to these clients that we're in the categories that we mentioned already. So we're exploring these options. We have the introductions. We have referrals. I'm tapping into that pool of clients that I worked before as well, like I said, in previous companies like in Wise, for instance. So I'm, we're taking that approach first because it's easier to get these stocks going.

Team Size and Paying Early Employees

Nathan Latka

10:18If you have one pilot, though, in travel and one pilot in e commerce, you're only two people. You don't have time to build world class solutions in both industries. So why isn't there more focus on just one industry?

Valdis Sprogis

10:28>> We're not actually two people only. We have about five to six more people right

Nathan Latka

10:32now. Okay. But Validus, statements is still the same, right? There are teams of hundreds of people focused on support just for travel. The point is you're a small startup and focus is how you win. Right? So I guess why why have you let yourself sort of stay wide at the top of the funnel?

Valdis Sprogis

10:46>> We're gonna because we're gonna start only on a on a small subsector or or or a small segment. So I think this is how it goes with B2B, at least, and also my previous experience where I worked at other companies. You start with a pilot, even in a bigger company, in a small kind of department and in one place. And to basically prove that it works because we know it works, and then we go from there

11:03>> on.

Nathan Latka

11:04I'm just saying though to maximize your I agree with that. But to maximize your success, you would say we're gonna do what you just articulated, but only for ecommerce brands. But you're gonna try this for ecommerce brands, travel brands, and hospitality brands. That's that's like you're divide you're diluting your your ability to focus on building world class in any one space.

Valdis Sprogis

11:19>> Yeah. No. For sure. I mean, that that makes sense. And that's what we want to try out because we we have a feeling that even though we're on kind of on equal footing in maybe in all these three categories, we know that we're gonna be definitely excelling in one more than we do in the others. I think that's what we wanted to quickly test out and

Nathan Latka

11:34I see.

Valdis Sprogis

11:35>> Just go for that one. That's the whole point. That we obviously want to spread out and be everywhere, then we're eventually nowhere. I mean, that's You mentioned pretty

Nathan Latka

11:41six people, your pre revenue.

11:42>> How are you how do you convince the other four people to do work for you without paying them?

Valdis Sprogis

11:47>> Well, we have means. We are actually paying something to those people, so they're not entirely working for free, and that's why I'm saying with your bootstrapping and and living off of savings. Okay.

Nathan Latka

11:55So you've invested your own personal money and Zeno has to pay some of these folks.

Valdis Sprogis

11:59>> It goes without saying.

Focus and Niche Strategy Discussion

Nathan Latka

12:00How much have you put on the line?

Valdis Sprogis

12:04>> For for my side, right now, it's just been a few thousand. I think from Zeno, can't speak for him. Yep. We'll we'll have to ask him, but I think it could be maybe a bit more from his side.

Nathan Latka

12:15Does that make you nervous? I mean, I don't know how thousands of dollars is relative. Right? Is that a lot of your net worth? Not a lot of your net worth?

Valdis Sprogis

12:21>> Relatively, it is. I mean, because, you know, I have family to keep up with as well. Right? And now I'm also dependent on the fact that my wife has to work. Right? And I have kids and stuff and and I have liabilities. So of course it is. And I mean, you have to kind of take out the, you know, the books and start to pencil everything down and think, you know, how long you're gonna run and,

12:39>> you know, do you call it a day or you continue pushing it. Right?

Famous Five: Books, CEOs, and Tools

Nathan Latka

12:42Yep. Yep. Well, Valdez, we're certainly rooting for you and thanks for being so open and transparent. In the meantime, here, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?

Valdis Sprogis

12:50>> What's my favorite book? Oh.

12:55>> Now I Oh, actually, is. It's the compounding effect.

13:02>> I forgot

Nathan Latka

13:03the That's good. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Valdis Sprogis

13:10>> A CEO. I

13:16>> think let me quickly check. There was

Nathan Latka

13:18No. You can say none. If these are rapid fire, if it's not top of mind, we can skip it.

Valdis Sprogis

13:22>> No. No. No. I can find that person, but okay. Let's let's write down. I think Arnold Schwarzeneg is actually CEO of his own company. Mhmm. So I would write him. I actually admire him, and he'd been following him for instance since forever.

Nathan Latka

13:33Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building Getiva?

Valdis Sprogis

13:40>> From the things that I've done, actually Canva. Canva.

Nathan Latka

13:43Number four, how many hours of sleep do get every night?

Valdis Sprogis

13:46>> Oh, I would wish I would have more. Probably around five, I think.

Nathan Latka

13:51Okay.

13:52>> And situation, mentioned married. How many kids?

Valdis Sprogis

13:54>> I have two kids.

Closing Summary and Wrap-Up

Nathan Latka

13:55Two kiddos. And how old are you?

Valdis Sprogis

13:58>> 35.

Nathan Latka

13:59Last question. Something you wish you knew back when you were 20, Valdes?

Valdis Sprogis

14:04>> That it's better to start working as early as you can before you go to study, because I think I realized that after I started studying, I should have actually started working for a few years and then went to study.

Nathan Latka

14:17Guys, getiva.ai launched just five months ago by Valvus and his partner, his co founder Zeno. Four others on the team, they're bootstrapping so far. They've each put in several thousand dollars to help fund the business. They're about to land their two first paid pilots in the e commerce hospitality slash travel niches. One of them will be a flat fee 5 ks payment upfront, the other will be $149 a month as they test to determine what space

14:39they want to go down. They're focused on building a tool that helps these brands, these industries with great customer support using AI, ChatGPT, etcetera. We'll see what happens next. Valdis, thanks for taking us to the top.

Valdis Sprogis

14:50>> Yeah. Thanks, Nathan. It was nice to be here.

Nathan Latka

14:52One 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

15:17Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button, and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big

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16:01up for that at nathanlacka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode. If you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We

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16:28>> See you.