WEBVTT
00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:01.262
Hey, what is up?
00:00:01.262 --> 00:00:04.530
Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
00:00:04.530 --> 00:00:11.646
As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and there's quite a few things that we have already been talking about here in the new year.
00:00:11.646 --> 00:00:14.717
We're talking about luxury brands and experiences.
00:00:14.717 --> 00:00:35.249
We're talking about AI as a disruptive force, and I would argue that all of these things point us in one direction, and that direction is that the more personalized you can get, the more high touch and concierge that you can get in your business, the more you're going to stand out in a world where everybody is just trying to rely on AI for the solution.
00:00:35.249 --> 00:00:53.390
And today's entrepreneur is doing such cool work when it comes to technology, when it comes to personalization and communication in our businesses, which applies to every single one of us, and she's applying a tool, a technology that all of us have in our pockets, and that is the power of WhatsApp that lives on our phones.
00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:55.106
So let me tell you all about today's guest.
00:00:55.106 --> 00:00:56.847
Her name is Teresa Overski.
00:00:56.847 --> 00:01:02.953
She has over 20 years of experience when it comes to tech, strategy, operations and finance.
00:01:02.953 --> 00:01:12.269
She has worked for some of the biggest brands, worked for and with some of the biggest brands in the world, including WhatsApp themselves Meta, morgan Stanley, harvard and Yale.
00:01:12.269 --> 00:01:19.441
Most recently, she's been building business products for communication over WhatsApp, which we're going to talk about that solution here in today's episode.
00:01:19.441 --> 00:01:21.165
She's also a citizen of the world.
00:01:21.165 --> 00:01:25.173
She's lived and worked in Tokyo and Paris and London for half of her career.
00:01:25.173 --> 00:01:39.236
She's now broadcasting to us from New York City today, but we're going to hear about her incredible company, coral Messaging, where, if you want to get personal with your prospects, with your clients, with your customers, then we're going to talk about how to make that happen.
00:01:39.236 --> 00:01:41.043
So I'm not going to say anything else.
00:01:41.105 --> 00:01:44.019
Let's dive straight into my interview with Teresa Overski.
00:01:44.019 --> 00:01:45.423
Going to say anything else?
00:01:45.423 --> 00:01:46.745
Let's dive straight into my interview with Teresa Overski.
00:01:46.745 --> 00:01:50.591
All right, teresa, I'm so excited to have you here on the show with us.
00:01:50.591 --> 00:01:57.902
First things first, welcome to the show.
00:01:57.902 --> 00:01:58.644
Thanks, it's great to be here.
00:01:58.644 --> 00:02:02.781
Heck, yes, you have such a cool background and I love how one thing has seemed to lead to another and all the things that you're doing today.
00:02:02.781 --> 00:02:04.504
So take us beyond the bio.
00:02:04.504 --> 00:02:05.206
Who's Teresa?
00:02:05.206 --> 00:02:06.850
How'd you start doing all these cool things?
00:02:08.855 --> 00:02:09.799
Let's see, I kind of.
00:02:09.799 --> 00:02:20.384
I've been working for 20 years, mostly in a very corporate jobs and to be honest, I kind of just followed my nose and it led me down some really interesting paths.
00:02:20.384 --> 00:02:44.093
In the very beginning I was doing corporate strategy and then I moved to Tokyo to do some asset management work, so in finance and that driver was really just to be in Tokyo, right, and that was the job, was a vehicle to get me to Tokyo went to business school, then went back into finance, into some like more serious finance investment banking did in london.
00:02:44.093 --> 00:02:55.989
Uh, found myself covering tech companies while as an investment banker and that led me to then make the hop from financial advisory as an investment banker into a tech company itself.
00:02:55.989 --> 00:03:08.146
So I went in and then did corporate development and operations at a paris-based tech company called deezer it's just like spotify, so it's music streaming and then I found myself in the tech world with that.
00:03:08.146 --> 00:03:14.475
So I ended up going back to Meta and working at headquarters there, back to the mothership.
00:03:14.475 --> 00:03:22.290
I wanted to really work in a big tech company and see how things are supposed to be run at one of the biggest and most successful tech companies in the world.
00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:30.572
Found myself working on WhatsApp, kind of just stumbled into it, had an opportunity and saw that WhatsApp was a product that I'd used a lot.
00:03:30.572 --> 00:03:36.911
So I was passionate about it and it also just looked like a lot of great growth and work to be done there.
00:03:36.911 --> 00:03:50.128
So I took the opportunity and then spent most of those years while I was at Meta at WhatsApp, learned a lot about WhatsApp and about early stage businesses, because we were effectively a startup within Meta.
00:03:50.128 --> 00:04:04.908
I was working in the WhatsApp business products division and took all those learnings and then, not long after I left Meta, I started a company myself that is a B2B SaaS company related to WhatsApp.
00:04:04.908 --> 00:04:07.633
So I took all those WhatsApp learnings and I'm applying them now.
00:04:08.373 --> 00:04:13.379
Yes, I love that, Teresa.
00:04:13.379 --> 00:04:18.232
Oh, tokyo is so on my travel bucket list for this year and I feel like you just gave me another added push to make it that way throughout this year.
00:04:18.232 --> 00:04:25.163
But I'm so excited because part of your experience, of course, in living abroad is inevitably WhatsApp becomes your primary form of communication.
00:04:25.163 --> 00:04:26.699
In living abroad is inevitably WhatsApp becomes your primary form of communication.
00:04:26.699 --> 00:04:29.228
It's something that I've been exposed to on my travels.
00:04:29.228 --> 00:04:33.572
I feel like we underestimate the way and the extent to which it can be used for business.
00:04:33.572 --> 00:04:35.867
I see it anytime in a foreign country.
00:04:35.867 --> 00:04:36.610
It's so cool.
00:04:36.610 --> 00:04:42.072
You can direct message the company and ask them questions about hours or what they have.
00:04:42.072 --> 00:04:42.653
All of that.
00:04:42.653 --> 00:04:51.535
Talk to us about that power of WhatsApp for a lot of business owners, who probably overlook it, especially if we're only operating in that lens of life here in the US.
00:04:53.202 --> 00:04:59.773
Yeah, everything you said is very true, and I was working at the WhatsApp business products division, so I was seeing it all firsthand from the beginning.
00:04:59.773 --> 00:05:06.632
And WhatsApp started making these business products around 2018, which is when I started working on it, while I was at Meta.
00:05:06.632 --> 00:05:08.880
And it's true, it is.
00:05:08.880 --> 00:05:10.185
In a lot of countries.
00:05:10.185 --> 00:05:11.942
It's the Internet WhatsApp is.
00:05:11.942 --> 00:05:14.490
A lot of businesses don't have a Web page.
00:05:14.490 --> 00:05:23.478
They have a WhatsApp profile and so that's the way that people discover them and talk with them as a business, and it's amazing.
00:05:23.478 --> 00:05:24.983
I think there's about 100 million businesses in the world right now using WhatsApp to talk with them as a business.
00:05:24.983 --> 00:05:29.196
And it's amazing I think there's about 100 million businesses in the world right now using WhatsApp to talk with their customers.
00:05:29.196 --> 00:05:33.490
And, of course, whatsapp is a peer-to-peer consumer.
00:05:33.490 --> 00:05:37.831
Private messaging network is 2 point something.
00:05:37.831 --> 00:05:43.226
We're getting close to 3 billion active users globally, so businesses have really tapped into that.
00:05:43.226 --> 00:05:49.331
They see where the customers are and they want to be messaging them where their customers already are.
00:05:50.180 --> 00:05:52.425
Yeah, that's incredible 100 million businesses.
00:05:52.425 --> 00:05:55.833
That is a wild stat to be introduced here today.
00:05:55.833 --> 00:06:01.562
Probably, teresa, a lot of people are thinking I don't even know what I would message with my customers.
00:06:01.562 --> 00:06:05.130
I've never had a direct line of communication to them.
00:06:05.130 --> 00:06:10.276
Sure, a lot of businesses have a website and a contact form, which is so impersonal.
00:06:10.276 --> 00:06:12.502
Talk to us about some of those use cases.
00:06:12.502 --> 00:06:16.552
Why do businesses interact with customers or potential customers via WhatsApp?
00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:29.047
Yeah, well, most businesses get their feet wet in customer service and that's also tends to be most customers' first exposure to how and why they would talk with the business over WhatsApp.
00:06:29.047 --> 00:06:34.625
So it's just like emailing with a business, just like using their web chat application.
00:06:34.625 --> 00:06:37.201
If you have to your their website, log in and then use web chat.
00:06:37.201 --> 00:06:40.569
All the same idea, except you're just doing it over WhatsApp.
00:06:40.569 --> 00:06:43.343
So you don't need to log into anything, you don't need to go to a website.
00:06:43.343 --> 00:06:47.612
You can just use the app that you're on your phone on every day to talk with the business.
00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:51.146
Yeah, and what's the workflow look like to support that?
00:06:51.146 --> 00:06:53.764
That's what I've always wondered when I'm messaging these companies.
00:06:53.764 --> 00:06:55.148
Who's on the other side?
00:06:55.148 --> 00:06:55.848
Is it the owner?
00:06:55.848 --> 00:06:56.110
Is it?
00:06:56.110 --> 00:06:56.872
A staff member.
00:06:57.879 --> 00:07:06.194
Yeah, yeah, so for small and mid-sized businesses, there's kind of a supercharged consumer app that they tend to use.
00:07:06.194 --> 00:07:29.170
It has just a few more features and tools than the WhatsApp consumer app that we all use has, but the real power comes with WhatsApp's APIs and that's really meant for enterprises much bigger businesses, who need some customizations and need to really talk to their customers at scale customizations and need to really talk to their customers at scale and they need to plug in that functionality to Zendesk or, you know, to their customer service tools.
00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:40.603
That are all multi-channel and WhatsApp is just one of many channels that they talk with their customers on and eventually so I mentioned customer service tends to be the first place where customers and businesses get exposed to this.
00:07:40.603 --> 00:08:02.552
But eventually, when consumers get comfortable with it, then businesses also end up doing sales over WhatsApp and marketing over WhatsApp, and we've seen that happen, starting years ago, in a lot of very highly penetrated countries for WhatsApp, like India, Brazil and Asia a lot as well, and it's often called conversational commerce.
00:08:15.028 --> 00:08:22.694
Yeah, teresa, you're dropping some, some really technical insights here and, obviously and it's often called conversational commerce, your website, the different niches that you've also identified.
00:08:22.694 --> 00:08:30.204
Talk to us about Coral Messaging, because it seems like you've got a bit of an unfair advantage, taking all that experience of yours into your own venture.
00:08:30.204 --> 00:08:31.108
What's that look like?
00:08:31.108 --> 00:08:31.889
What's the mission?
00:08:31.889 --> 00:08:34.264
What is it that you're rolling out to help other businesses grow?
00:08:35.267 --> 00:08:35.548
Yeah.
00:08:35.548 --> 00:09:01.493
So myself and my co-founder both met and worked together at WhatsApp and while we were there working on the API, businesses would come to us in a few industries mostly financial services and luxury retail asking WhatsApp to build certain things and tools that they wanted, because their employees were talking to their customers over WhatsApp already and they were just using the consumer WhatsApp, the one that you and I use every day.
00:09:01.493 --> 00:09:06.024
And that was a problem for businesses because they couldn't see anything that was happening.
00:09:06.024 --> 00:09:12.028
And that's bad for financial services because they get fined by regulators for not being able to see that.
00:09:12.028 --> 00:09:28.725
And it's also bad just for pretty much all other industries in the world because they really want to own their customers and see the interactions with their customers and they're blind to that if it's all happening over the consumer WhatsApp app, blind to that if it's all happening over the consumer WhatsApp app.
00:09:28.745 --> 00:09:41.866
So when WhatsApp released some new functionality that allowed an API to kind of see those chats and be part of those chats, kind of like a fly on the wall in the background, we jumped at the chance to be a company that builds the application layer on top of that API, and that's what we're doing.
00:09:41.866 --> 00:09:52.735
So our product released in October and so far we have a few clients onboarded and a lot of interest from financial services and luxury retail.
00:09:52.735 --> 00:10:05.365
Because of those reasons, all those years ago when I was at WhatsApp and companies like that were coming to us asking for it, yeah, I love that overview, especially because you introduced a topic that probably most entrepreneurs overlook.
00:10:05.405 --> 00:10:09.216
And I love marketing and I love the concept of ownership.
00:10:09.216 --> 00:10:11.783
What are those platforms and those channels that we own?
00:10:11.783 --> 00:10:13.148
We always hear about?
00:10:13.148 --> 00:10:19.071
You know, the money is in the list and for a lot of people, that means the stereotypical email list that we all use.
00:10:19.071 --> 00:10:30.331
But a lot of people, their list is their social media and they are at the mercy of Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and everyone changing those algorithms and all of a sudden, I can't reach those people anymore.
00:10:30.331 --> 00:10:35.720
That's the beauty to me of email, of SMS, of WhatsApp, is it's that direct line of communication.
00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:42.323
Talk to us about those ownership considerations, because a lot of people are building platforms on channels that aren't theirs.
00:10:42.323 --> 00:10:48.931
What is it about WhatsApp that enables us to retain those conversations and foster those relationships?
00:10:49.879 --> 00:10:53.869
Yeah, well, it's a very highly engaged platform and audience.
00:10:53.869 --> 00:11:02.313
So if you look at the stats, the open rate and view rate of messages over WhatsApp is just much higher than email and SMS.
00:11:02.313 --> 00:11:05.788
So, right there, it's just a really engaged audience.
00:11:05.788 --> 00:11:08.965
And you talked about ownership a little bit.
00:11:08.965 --> 00:11:14.682
So we're targeting businesses that already have these people as customers.
00:11:14.682 --> 00:11:19.773
So it tends to be what we call a relationship selling use case.
00:11:19.773 --> 00:11:35.510
So think wealth managers, private bankers, investment bankers, in finance, they have ongoing conversations with clients and relationships that last years sometimes Same goes for luxury retail, and so these are already people that have purchased products from these companies.
00:11:35.510 --> 00:11:54.865
They're already customers of these companies, but it tends to be a relationship with a lot of recurring sales, and so that's why the company in some sense already has them as customers and owns them, but they're just so blind to what they're asking for and how their relationship with their brand or company is building and evolving.
00:11:54.865 --> 00:11:57.731
So we're opening that up to people a little bit.
00:11:58.541 --> 00:12:09.672
You use the word recurring, and so when I think about WhatsApp, I do think of it as a highly personalized channel because it's direct messaging, back and forth, one-to-one, not one-to-many.
00:12:09.672 --> 00:12:15.552
With the recurring aspect in mind, I think about I'm going to call it real estate agents.
00:12:15.552 --> 00:12:17.567
That's what I'm going to use as the example in today's episode.
00:12:17.567 --> 00:12:25.307
Realtors seem like they're really good, teresa, at having those touch points with their prospective customers, with their existing customers.
00:12:25.307 --> 00:12:36.144
My parents, for example, bought a house here in Florida a few years ago and their realtor is really great on every birthday, being like hey, happy birthday, if you want to sell your house, I'm here If you want to get a new house.
00:12:36.144 --> 00:12:37.607
What's sort of recurring?
00:12:37.607 --> 00:12:40.221
How can we enhance those relationships through WhatsApp?
00:12:40.221 --> 00:12:43.267
Is that something that is similar to what realtors are doing?
00:12:43.267 --> 00:12:44.107
Is it built in?
00:12:44.107 --> 00:12:47.452
Is it something they can program through a SaaS company like yours?
00:12:47.452 --> 00:12:48.774
I'd love to hear those insights.
00:12:49.461 --> 00:12:50.803
It's so funny you bring that up.
00:12:50.803 --> 00:12:51.645
You are spot on.
00:12:51.645 --> 00:13:20.947
So I didn't mention real estate brokers before, but we've talked to them a lot and they seem like they're great candidates for a product like ours as well, because indeed they tell us that about 90% of their work is through referrals and that's how they get new clients, and so a lot of their job is just maintaining those relationships over time after a sale, and they do send messages on birthdays and that's part of what they need to do to maintain that relationship.
00:13:20.947 --> 00:13:28.352
And most of those conversations and relationship building happens over messaging channels and if you're not in the US, it tends to happen over WhatsApp.
00:13:28.352 --> 00:13:46.606
So our product kind of loops in to those one-on-one conversations, those relationships that have built over time, and is basically a virtual assistant to the real estate broker or to the private banker or the wealth manager or the luxury fashion advisor what have you?
00:13:47.448 --> 00:13:59.249
And it, first and foremost, we're just a third phone number in the chat that can just see everything happening in the chat, which can then be helpful to that salesperson, that real estate broker in the background.
00:13:59.249 --> 00:14:07.024
It can archive all the content, save it down, let the company and the parent company see it all and so they can understand their best customers.
00:14:07.024 --> 00:14:13.846
But once that virtual system is in the chat, it can also then do automations based on chat content it's seeing.
00:14:13.846 --> 00:14:27.250
So if they see that a task needs to get done say the real estate agent needs to put some information in their CRM system about this buyer then it can go do it for them and save them that hassle in that time.
00:14:27.250 --> 00:14:40.966
And then kind of the last level is that that virtual assistant can also say things into the chat which then would harness generative AI and that can also help the seller build those relationships.
00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:49.022
It can kind of the virtual assistant can put in more kind of generic content announcements, and then that saves the seller needing to do that work.
00:14:49.022 --> 00:14:50.947
And then the seller can just be themselves.
00:14:50.947 --> 00:14:58.333
You know they're like the person who's actually the name and their phone number and they're not sending that generic content but they're riffing off of it.
00:14:58.333 --> 00:15:10.796
You know, like maybe someone the client will get a corporate event invite sent into that employee client chat and the employee can say, hey, I'll be there, like let's get a drink before this event.
00:15:10.796 --> 00:15:26.476
So it kind of merges all of those worlds, any communication that a client is getting from a company or a brand in one place and lets that seller, that relationship holder with them, really represent the brand in its entirety and see everything that's going on with this client.
00:15:26.476 --> 00:15:34.633
And so it can just be one holistic place where the client builds that ongoing relationship with the company, the brand and the person, the seller.
00:15:41.065 --> 00:15:41.586
Yeah, that is very cool.
00:15:41.586 --> 00:15:51.763
Okay, I knew for sure we'd go into AI here in today's conversation, but hearing that third party, this virtual assistant, in every single conversation, Teresa, when can I embed this into all of my iMessages, because that sounds amazing?
00:15:51.763 --> 00:16:06.735
Along those lines, though, talk to us more about the impact of AI into all of this, because it is not only deepening those relationships but and also freeing us humans up to focus on other things, but, like you said, it's also taking care of things for us.
00:16:06.735 --> 00:16:09.489
Talk to us about how AI is playing into all of this.
00:16:11.011 --> 00:16:12.934
Yeah, I mean it can.
00:16:12.934 --> 00:16:43.524
Agentic AI can do tasks in the background for people I gave an example earlier and, like you said, frees up their time to really focus on the relationships and the person on the other side of the chat really growing quickly, as you probably all know if you're involved in the tech space but I do.
00:16:43.524 --> 00:16:43.926
It's interesting.
00:16:43.926 --> 00:16:56.730
It can go in the direction of making relationships more robotic and stale a little bit, but we're really trying to harness it to deepen relationships and really single out and isolate the more human contact that these industries have with their clients and that no one wants to go away right Like't.
00:16:56.730 --> 00:17:03.028
You don't hire a wealth manager in order to get messages and stock pick recommendations from a bot.
00:17:03.028 --> 00:17:14.891
You you want to talk with a human and so it frees them up to be able to give that more personalized advice without having to worry about all the other stuff that they need to do for their jobs makes sense.
00:17:15.271 --> 00:17:24.671
I want to call this out because I think it's important in this conversation, because both you and I have kind of called out the regional tendencies when it comes to WhatsApp versus iMessage, especially here in the United States.
00:17:24.671 --> 00:17:26.076
What's that vision, though?
00:17:26.076 --> 00:17:33.154
Do you believe in the future of market penetration for WhatsApp here in the States, or are you looking at that more international clientele?
00:17:33.154 --> 00:17:34.915
I'm super curious to hear those predictions.
00:17:36.057 --> 00:17:37.337
Or are you looking at that?
00:17:37.337 --> 00:17:38.179
More international clientele?
00:17:38.179 --> 00:17:39.480
I'm super curious to hear those predictions.
00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:46.343
Yeah, we're starting internationally right now Because WhatsApp, if you're a global company, whatsapp is the top of your list of communication channels with your customers.
00:17:46.343 --> 00:17:57.817
But indeed I think about these days maybe a quarter or a third of US citizens are regular users, or sorry, people who live in the US, reside in, reside in the US, are regular users of WhatsApp.
00:17:57.817 --> 00:18:10.318
I think it's around 100 million people is what WhatsApp released lately and it's like having worked at WhatsApp and worked at Meta, it's a really important thing for that company to continue penetrating the US.
00:18:10.318 --> 00:18:14.834
I mean, it's their home market, so anyone would care about that and want it.
00:18:14.834 --> 00:18:54.977
No-transcript, we'll really see it and feel it in the business products aspect, because then suddenly companies will realize this is the channel to reach customers at, instead of the fragmentation that we have today.
00:19:01.684 --> 00:19:02.126
And they'll go all in.
00:19:02.126 --> 00:19:02.730
Yeah, I hope that you're right.
00:19:02.730 --> 00:19:04.578
The only time I recall Apple trying to have some sort of business application and iMessage.
00:19:04.578 --> 00:19:09.333
After you place an order at the Apple store, you'll get like this gold verified badge in your iMessages.
00:19:09.333 --> 00:19:12.467
But it's one way communication you can't even reply to that.
00:19:12.467 --> 00:19:19.960
There's no human supporting it, whereas I mean I think about when I went to Costa Rica, for example, the local corner store it's not even a grocery store.
00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:25.835
You can direct message them and get a reply, and with WhatsApp's tools, even language isn't necessarily a barrier.
00:19:25.835 --> 00:19:28.904
It can translate on the fly, and so it's just so convenient.
00:19:29.105 --> 00:19:31.694
I think about that customer experience here in the US.
00:19:31.694 --> 00:19:34.356
We're a country that prides itself on customer experience.
00:19:34.356 --> 00:19:36.678
This is one way for us to get closer there.
00:19:36.678 --> 00:19:59.336
But, teresa, I want to ask you this because a lot of people don't know what they don't know, and I imagine when you talk to these business owners, whether it's wealth managers, whether it's the luxury retail world, how many of them come to you saying this is what I wish could happen in my client relations, versus you listening to their business problems, listening to their current state and then you coming up with those solutions for them.
00:20:01.286 --> 00:20:14.086
It's always a little bit of both, right, because we can bring to the table what we know is possible on WhatsApp and they don't know that, especially because WhatsApp's functionality is always evolving.
00:20:14.086 --> 00:20:21.047
So, in that sense, we bring some ideas to the table and, based on functionality we know is, they're coming down the pipeline.
00:20:21.047 --> 00:20:26.888
And then they, of course, bring the knowledge of their day to day, like no one knows that better than them, right?
00:20:26.888 --> 00:20:42.326
So it's always important to listen very hard to that part of what they're telling you, because ultimately, that will help you narrow down the true problems that they have that your product can solve and therefore determines if they'll use your product.
00:20:43.348 --> 00:20:44.352
Yeah, makes sense.
00:20:44.352 --> 00:21:16.957
I want to get inside that business mind because I didn't humble brag for you earlier in today's episode and conversation, but you are obviously very smart, you've got the academic achievements to back it up up, as well as the business experience, and I really want to pick on that part of your brain because it seems to me like you've been so intentional about the way that not only you're setting Coral Messaging up, but the way that you and your co-founder are rolling it out with regards to the niches that you've identified and the way that you're implementing that technology with your existing clients, with an eye on the future expansions that you have in mind.
00:21:16.957 --> 00:21:22.875
Talk to us about the formation of Coral Messaging how much strategy and intention went into the way that you're rolling out?
00:21:24.586 --> 00:21:25.186
A good amount.
00:21:25.287 --> 00:21:26.068
I'm glad you asked.
00:21:26.730 --> 00:21:52.214
We spent a good few months validating the ideas with potential clients, people in the financial services and luxury retail world and other industries too, right, and there's also really strong signal from other industries and at some point you need to pick a path to focus on because that will determine the features that you build and you need to go with it, while always keeping an open mind to all of the other industries and use cases that are coming your way.
00:21:52.856 --> 00:21:53.960
So I'll give you an example.
00:21:53.960 --> 00:22:27.298
It's early days for us right now, but we already have a few clients onboarded and they are from a diversity of industries healthcare, payments, construction industry, and then also there is retail and financial services and it's our job at this stage to be open to all these industries and how they might want to use our product and to hear them and understand and assess the commonalities across industries and kind of see what takes off.
00:22:27.298 --> 00:22:56.698
Like I think a lot of what you're doing is in at a very early stage at a company is putting your ear to the pavement and seeing what happens and just being hyper aware of what signals you're getting from the market and what's noise, and listening and figuring out how you can shape that into something coherent that does a good job at solving discrete problems across as many clients as you can.
00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:02.941
Yeah, I love the way you've articulated that, teresa, especially thinking about keeping our ears to the pavement.
00:23:02.941 --> 00:23:09.353
There's so many things that are changing so fast in all of our industries and it sounds like you just fully take that on board.
00:23:09.353 --> 00:23:19.592
You say, yeah, we'll figure out a construction project, we'll find all those real life business applications, and then the other side of it that I would imagine is also keeping your finger on the pulse of what's changing tech wise.
00:23:19.592 --> 00:23:21.877
I mean, you obviously had the behind the scenes.
00:23:21.877 --> 00:23:25.255
Look into the way that WhatsApp operated, having worked there yourself.
00:23:25.255 --> 00:23:29.371
But how do you stay on top of the future direction that those are all moving in?
00:23:29.371 --> 00:23:32.135
I feel like WhatsApp is constantly launching new features.
00:23:32.135 --> 00:23:34.480
Is that something that you're actively eyeing?
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:40.553
Is it something that plays into the role that you guys play behind the scenes, because there's new API integrations all the time?
00:23:40.553 --> 00:23:43.240
How do you stay on top of all of these moving parts?
00:23:43.240 --> 00:23:43.721
Teresa?
00:23:45.894 --> 00:23:57.637
Yeah, so we're an official WhatsApp partner, so we share information with them and they share information with us just as part of what we need to do for and with them as part of that partnership.
00:23:57.637 --> 00:24:12.913
Um so, and then, outside of whatsapp, there is so much going on in ai and it does touch on our business and that, to be honest, I find it's a lot more challenging because it's changing so fast.
00:24:12.913 --> 00:24:30.474
Um, so, I'm not sure that I'm doing a very good job keeping up with the AI news right now and how it's evolving, but I'm doing my best through newsletters and you know, former colleagues and people who are other startup founders who are deep in and right now too, and just kind of sharing information.
00:24:30.474 --> 00:24:34.365
Yeah, teresa, I always love in these conversations, talking to you not only as a subject matter expert when it comes to WhatsApp and just kind of sharing information.
00:24:34.385 --> 00:24:52.452
Yeah, teresa, I always love, in these conversations, talking to you not only as a subject matter expert when it comes to WhatsApp and that personalized messaging with your clients but also as one of us, also as a fellow entrepreneur, and I know that you've started your business with a fellow founder, so there's two of you who are behind the scenes at Coral Messaging as founders.
00:24:52.452 --> 00:24:53.855
What's that look like?
00:24:53.855 --> 00:24:56.038
How are you guys coordinating?
00:24:56.038 --> 00:24:57.540
How are you strategizing?
00:24:57.540 --> 00:24:59.363
Do you have separated roles of?
00:24:59.363 --> 00:25:01.973
Teresa, you focus on this, louis you focus on this.
00:25:01.973 --> 00:25:03.439
What does that look like behind the scenes?
00:25:04.529 --> 00:25:09.923
Yeah, we found that our skill sets are pretty complementary to each other, which is great.
00:25:09.923 --> 00:25:44.695
So we do a lot of dividing and conquering, but we always come together when it comes to decisions or ideas or thoughts or how things are evolving, because it is so valuable and my co-founder's name is Louis and he has been excellent and I can't imagine doing this without him and we always come together to bounce ideas off of each other, discuss things because and it is so valuable to have that other other mind in the conversation, especially someone who knows and understands WhatsApp so deeply and it I can't I can't imagine starting a company without a co-founder.
00:25:44.695 --> 00:25:52.571
There's just so many ways that you could get into your head and not have someone that truly understands what's going on to bounce ideas off of.
00:25:52.571 --> 00:25:55.159
So just so grateful to have him.
00:26:01.029 --> 00:26:01.351
Yeah, for sure.
00:26:01.351 --> 00:26:04.021
And also the fact that both of you have that background in understanding the product so well.
00:26:04.021 --> 00:26:14.518
I'm sure a lot of people might think well, you guys, everything is probably smooth sailing, it's easy to build on top of You're already a WhatsApp verified partner but I'm sure it also comes with some challenges and obstacles along the way.
00:26:14.518 --> 00:26:17.183
So, teresa, give us some of those insights.
00:26:17.183 --> 00:26:22.549
I mean, I'm sure that, starting your business, you had an idea of what it's going to look like and how it's going to function.
00:26:22.549 --> 00:26:26.118
But what are some of those things that have surprised you immediately out of the gates?
00:26:27.082 --> 00:27:04.982
Yeah, early stage startups are delicate and you forget that, especially if, like myself, I had mostly corporate jobs for the last 20 years where you know there's infrastructure there for you, there's a recruiting team to help you hire people, there's, you know, company events and kind of formalized like feedback to help keep you know employees and people informed on their progress and give them feedback.
00:27:04.836 --> 00:27:10.159
And just without all of those things in place, it's just very easy to you know to lose someone, for example, and if at this early stage, when you're just a few, if you're just a few employees, losing one person can really slow you down and be a big problem.
00:27:11.800 --> 00:27:17.645
So I've just I've been surprised at how delicate things are sometimes and it really is a challenge.
00:27:17.645 --> 00:27:49.441
And the other thing that we run into, which is kind of the price we pay for working with WhatsApp on such early functionality and getting such privileged access to it, is that WhatsApp's building their functionality too, that we're building our application on top of, so they're also at an early stage of building this, and so sometimes things don't work, or sometimes it's not fully staffed at WhatsApp, and so we're in this interesting position of you know something doesn't work.
00:27:49.441 --> 00:28:02.651
We don't know if it's our product or their product and we have to go figure that out with them and, like I said, kind of finding out all those bumps in the road about the platform upon which we're building is is.
00:28:02.651 --> 00:28:09.092
You know, it's the price we pay for having the privilege of having such early access to this new functionality.
00:28:09.092 --> 00:28:12.198
So it's worth it, but it does.
00:28:12.198 --> 00:28:14.784
It creates extra time.
00:28:18.250 --> 00:28:18.833
Yeah, Teresa, I'll tell you.
00:28:18.833 --> 00:28:23.071
It also reveals your attitude towards it, though rolling with the flow, because, as you said, you use that word delicate.
00:28:23.071 --> 00:28:26.461
When we're starting any new venture, there's so many delicate parts of it.
00:28:26.461 --> 00:28:40.923
It makes me want to ask you this I've really enjoyed asking more and more entrepreneurs this question, particularly this year, and that is about time horizon how far out you're looking, because I feel like we're at such an incredible inflection point in time with the rise of AI.
00:28:40.923 --> 00:28:51.221
I mean, for us, we obviously saw the start of the internet when we were super young and, with that in mind, we are that generation that is also seeing AI as this inflection point.
00:28:51.221 --> 00:28:59.582
It makes it a little more difficult to look far out into the future, but it also makes it more fun to navigate all the rapidly changing environments.
00:28:59.582 --> 00:29:03.539
Are you and Louis looking one year out, three years out, Are you looking?
00:29:03.539 --> 00:29:04.382
I love quarters.
00:29:04.382 --> 00:29:07.284
That's like kind of where I work because I know what I can do in 90 days.
