The Future Is Now: Pavel Osokin of AMAI On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Don’t ask, just sell. Customer development played a bad joke on me. I used to hear from everyone that I needed to interview the market. Unfortunately, the clients’ ideas about an unfinished product often add up, and the result is dodgy. Today, I believe that Customer Development should only be done with those who already clicked the “Buy” button.
As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pavel Osokin.
Pavel is a founder & CEO at AMAI. He is an entrepreneur with 15 years who founded and bootstrapped five startups. He is a mentor at Founder Institute, an investment scout for several venture funds and an advisor to two startups. Was named one of the top entrepreneurs to watch in 2018.
Pavel started his business with $100 and reached a $3.3M turnover in 3 years in the construction industry. As a tech innovator, in 2017 he founded Como Capital, a full-service provider of high loaded blockchain projects, and has worked with clients such as Coursera. In five months, the startup grew its team to 27 people.
Aimed to help entrepreneurs automate the selling process, in 2019 founded AMAI — a San Francisco-based startup that produces ultra-realistic AI Voice Engines. Pavel leading the operation and strategy at AMAI with a professional ambition to install its voice technology into every phone in the world
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
As a boy, I was fascinated by cars. One day when I was a child, I saw a Bentley Continental GT that belonged to the owner of a well-known Internet provider parked on the street. At that moment, I decided that I wanted to drive such a car and would do whatever I had for it. As well as enjoying early morning wake-ups, I was also curious about the world. So from the age of 13 on, I was looking for new opportunities to earn extra money and I tried my hand at everything that presented itself. My first buying and selling deals were when I was at school, buying and selling scooters, phones, and more. Entrepreneurship opened up many opportunities to me when I was young.
Later, I founded my first company. With an investment of $100, I reached a turnover of $3.3M in three years. Later, I became interested in blockchain and founded Como Capital in 2017. And when I needed synthetic voices, I realized that there was no single option on the market that would satisfy my business needs both in quality and price. Thus, in 2019, my partner and I began to develop our own code and founded AMAI — an AI voice engine startup.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
When I was 18, I served in the military. Mobile phones were prohibited by army regulations. I saw that this ban was distressing to the conscripts, and decided to create some sort of dark marketplace. The mobiles were brought to me by those who wished to sell them and then went to those who desired to purchase them. With 2,500 conscripts to serve, I was able to start a small but lucrative business.
Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
In a short period of time, we have developed a technology of such complexity that we are still unaware of its full scope. Over 97% of people cannot distinguish synthetic AMAI voices from real ones. There are obvious uses for text-to-speech technology, for example, voice-over for audiobooks and films. With the help of a synthetic voice, it will be possible to voice-over all the books in the world. But there are also less obvious uses that are no less important: for instance, medicine. Now voice assistants can recognize a person’s mood, which will help them in the future to help people more clearly, for example, in psychotherapy. Moreover, we strive to provide enterprises with convenient solutions. Our AI voice editor, for example, has a handy editor that, without coding skills, allows you to change moods, highlight accents, and change the language.
How do you think this might change the world?
The words about “technology changing the world” are a bit of a cliché, I know. Because of this, many young start-ups are trying to influence the global IT market without too much consideration for the end users. Meanwhile, it’s the end user who drives technological development even of the most complex enterprise solutions. Currently, we are developing the technology and looking at how people can use it comfortably. It may not turn the world upside down, but it will become an indispensable assistant in many area. Financial institutions, for example, will be able to process customer requests even more efficiently using AI call centers. In this way, foreign books in their language will become available to people from different countries, and they won’t be as expensive as they are currently.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Of course, we are aware of possible dangers of technology and we attempt to address them during development. Right now, for example, the problem of deep fakes is becoming more and more urgent, and we are going to combat it through stricter regulation regarding the use of our votes and full control over the distribution process. Essentially, we are talking about a more conscious development of technology, and startups have an advantage here: they can enter the market with stricter principles and capture an audience that is always looking for safer and more reliable solutions. Large companies often kill technologies rather than develop them because of their own business model that forms the basis of their revenue streams but can’t keep up with the current demands.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
Together with my business partner, I had a brainstorm on what any company would need, without exception. In our mind, there was no question that it’s sales. We saw the future in technologies that would replace people, but at the same time increase the companies’ efficiency. Thus, we began to create a robot that could write, respond to emails, messengers, etc. At some point, however, we realized that the robot should also call, not just write. After a short search for quality voices, we hired our first employee to prototype our own voice. As a result, we created voice technologies that were well-liked by the first users and we concentrated our efforts on that.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
There needs to be more experimentation in using text-to-speech in different fields, as well as constant feedback from different markets. We are constantly developing our technology and extending it to different languages. We do this by searching for clients in specific regions, from which we receive feedback. We would like to experiment more, so anyone who comes to us (employee or client) and gives us a great idea will receive our comprehensive support. First and foremost, technologies are driven by ideas, then by money.
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
A lot of our effort is put into content marketing, where, by the way, our engine is more than useful — now everyone wants to turn their articles into podcasts. As a marketing company, we never say that our technology will replace humans — on the contrary, we promote the idea that it will complement human capabilities and give them super-strength.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
This person (or rather people) may have been our first clients who paid us and believed in us when we only had a prototype. We believe this was the biggest help and confirmation of our hypothesis. It gave us strength and confidence that we are doing something worthwhile.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
We do not exaggerate the importance of technology when we discuss kindness. In order to be useful, technologies must be based on the needs of people around the world — only then will it make sense to do anything. For example, we do not want to limit ourselves to English for voice acting, as we see great potential in mastering other languages and even rare dialects. Everyone is now focused on the English-speaking market because it has the most money, but if a person sincerely writes a scientific publication or a book, he or she wants to share his ideas with like-minded people regardless of their country of residence and language. Localization is one of the major technology trends we support. As an international company, we hire people from all over the world and select them only if they have a real interest in the development of this field: we hire from countries as diverse as Russia, Kazakhstan, Greece, Spain, and the USA. Internationality helps to understand the needs of many.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- The number of attempts determines success. I founded several companies, but my experience wasn’t always positive, I went bankrupt three times. As a result, I learned to tolerate mistakes and realized that you have to keep doing what you believe in.
- Make sure there is a demand before creating a product. Many of my mistakes had to do with the fact that you have to sell your product before making it.
- Don’t ask, just sell. Customer development played a bad joke on me. I used to hear from everyone that I needed to interview the market. Unfortunately, the clients’ ideas about an unfinished product often add up, and the result is dodgy. Today, I believe that Customer Development should only be done with those who already clicked the “Buy” button.
- Don’t be afraid to send cold messages, even to CEOs that lead large companies. To attract customers, I’ve always tried to use advertising. However, if you come up with a cool product that solves someone’s pain, they’ll buy it even after a cold call about an unfinished product. That’s how I signed the first contracts for AMAI and my other projects.
- Look for partners that you will trust 200%. Five of my business partnerships have failed, but my current co-founder is the best partner I could hope for. So, if you can wait and assure yourself of the person, don’t settle for half measures.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My suggestion would be to share your shares with another startup in exchange for its shares. Thousands of companies could form such a partnership and, thus, would be more assured against failures. On the other hand, they would be more interested in helping each other.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Success is measured in a number of attempts. Every wrong move gets rid of another failure and brings you closer to the coveted 20% of the right actions. Everything will work out if you don’t give up on your intentions.
Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Soon, we will be on almost every computer and phone. Our synthesized voice will be able to speak in all languages and translate unknown words automatically. Eventually, you will be able to watch videos in Farsi, talk on vacation in Bahasa, listen to Morgan Freeman in pure French, and even talk to your microwave about problems at work and ask your refrigerator to order bread. We already voice-over audiobooks, podcasts, articles and help call-centers. Investors have very little time left to catch the departurting train, because we are certain that voice is the next Internet revolution.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/posokin/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
The Future Is Now: Pavel Osokin of AMAI On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
