2:18 – Being André Borschberg’s son
15:45 – The market for voice AI
21:08 – A co-founder leaves the company
26:52 – How to look for advisors
32:59 – Having offices in several countries
Teo Borschberg is the co-founder and CEO of oto.ai, an AI-powered voice intelligence solution. Teo started his entrepreneurial career after obtaining his maturité (high school diploma). He relocated to China, where he spent 8 months working in a factory, 6.5 days a week. During this time, he started to resell paintings and furniture from China to Europe, and his first company, Artefact Co, was born. Three years later, upon the completion of his Bachelor in Hospitality Management at Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, Teo returned to China to start his second company, the media advertising business Good Media. In 2015, he sold Good Media and reoriented himself towards the US. He joined SRI International, a renowned non-profit research institute as Entrepreneur in Residence. In this position, he was tasked with finding business opportunities for the cutting edge technologies the Institute was developing. This is where the idea for OTO.ai originated. Three years later the company has raised $ 5.8 m in seed financing, has analyzed over 10 m conversations and serves 10 large customers globally. While OTO.ai was originally selling mainly to call centers, they – as so many others – had to pivot during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Within a few short months, the company set itself up to offer an API / SDK to its product in order to let developers use it in almost any context imaginable – from wearables to smart home devices, and even telemedicine.
“It’s always dangerous to have a technology and be looking for a market, instead of having a market and be looking for a technology.”
“I will only say we have a product-market fit the day we have customers kicking down our door to get their hands on the product.”
If you would like to listen to more episodes on AI, check out our conversations with Aldo Podestà, David Alain Bloch and Martin Keller.
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