 This episode of the podcast is supported by Audible. You can download and listen to the world's best storytelling. I use it all the time to and from work. You can listen to audiobooks, original series and more on their free app. To get your free 30 day subscription, which includes a free book, click on the link in our show notes and enjoy. Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. Today I had an awesome guy come in, Matthew Westerway, who I've known for a long time and he's the co-founder of a great tech startup based in South Africa called voice.ai, who I will let describe exactly what it does, but super, super cool. And we hear about him and his co-founders journey, starting a tech firm in South Africa, the challenges, all the difficulties they faced in growing the business, finding funding, expanding to Europe, all of that cool stuff and what are in store for them. So really, really cool. Hope you enjoy it. Hey, it's Lewis. Welcome to the podcast. Enjoy our conversations anytime, anywhere. Cool, we're live. Thanks for coming in, Matt. Thank you so much. Thank you for so much for having me. No pleasure. It'd be like we tried to arrange it about 5 million times, then had to cancel and then you went home to Africa and then finally back. Yeah, thanks Lewis. So we've been doing a lot of traveling and seeing your podcast, seeing how sort of viral it's gotten, neither we had to try and get on it. Thanks, thanks, thank you. How come you're back in London? We spent the week at a conference in Dublin called Sastok. It's the leading conference for Sast companies, so software as a service companies. Once a year in Dublin and then just decided to come over to London to do a few meetings because it's so close to Dublin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice. How'd you find Dublin? I loved it, very nice. Didn't get that much chance to explore because we were just in the conference, but the people are very friendly, like very warm and they have a lovely accent. Yeah, I might need a visa to go there once Brexit happens, I think. That's one thing about being in South Africa, we don't need visas for Dublin, for Ireland, yeah. Perfect, perfect. It's awesome. I'll need it wherever I go now, I think. So what is Voight.ai? So, renounced voice, we spell it VOIC for voice of your customer. We're a BDB SaaS platform in the cloud web-based platform to help companies analyse their call centre conversations. Nice. So we specifically focus on insurance companies because believe it or not, when you hear them say this call is recorded, there are generally people listening to those calls. So we have a platform where the calls come in, we flag the ones that they should look at, so they don't have to look at all the calls. Oh, we see, okay. So you've got all of this data of the calls and then your software analyses them, flags up the ones that need to be listened to by a human. Cool, how'd you come up with that? So, my co-founder, Letabona, we had a design agency before and we were doing a lot of user research, so interviews with people and that's where we uncovered the challenge of analysing audio conversations. Nice. We looked for a solution, couldn't find anything and then we engineered, so we built something, and realised, hey, this can be scalable. We always wanted to build a scalable business and we also always wanted to have an impact on customer experience, customer service, helping companies understand people and that's why we had the agency to talk to people. So you started the agency? Yeah, had the agency. Was that Stratford University? Stratford University. And you guys met at uni? Yeah, cool. And then had this idea, created this platform to analyse conversations, realised, hey, this is our chance at having a huge impact, scalable business and then we were running pilots and we came across the call centre industry, realised that for every 20 agents you've got one person listening to calls. So like the managers like listening and... There's actually a dedicated role called the Quality Assurance Analyst and then we discovered that in insurance, on the sales side, when they sell policies over the phone, they listen to every single call once the sales been done to make sure that it was compliant. Right, right. And if they find an error in one in 10 calls, there's nine out of 10 calls that I listen to for no reason. Yeah, cool. So you've automated that basically? Basically. Nice, nice. How's it been? So you've done it two, three years or? Just going on two years. Yeah. We started last year FEB, last year FEB up until December was very exploratory so we were running various pilots with companies and then at about March this year we sort of struck the vein with insurance companies. Great. Now we're growing at two, three companies a week. Nice. Thousands and thousands of hours of audio being pumped through our platform. Amazing. Takes a long time to find the vein. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you tried different industries and different... Yeah, dozen odd use cases and then once you strike the vein then it pulls and then it's like you have to double down. You have to focus, yeah. And you're from South Africa? From South Africa. What's it like starting a tech firm being young in South Africa? I think I couldn't think of a better place. So we fortunate in that we have developing country but we have a developed infrastructure. So we have all the capabilities you need to build software business. Obviously the affordability of talent, of labor. Yeah, yeah. Developers of five years experience or you know, what, 30,000 pounds a year. It's probably like four times cheaper than they are in the UK. Yeah, yeah. And then you also have the infrastructure. You have the good talent and then just the amazing quality of life. You know, driving around to work, sunny weather, beautiful mountain. But this is in Cape Town. That's in Cape Town. What about Joburg? Joburg is where the business is. Yeah. So it's we go there once a week to meet customers. Oh, so the customers are there and then the nice work-life balance is in Cape Town. Yeah. So we busy now. We're serving customers in different parts of the world and we've decided to build our sort of inside sales approach. So inside being you have your own sales team? Yeah, and inside. So it's all over the internet. Oh, okay, right. So we don't have to have a field presence in the markets. Oh, perfect. So you do like a video call and yeah. That's the way to stay in sunny South Africa. Nice. And serve customers anywhere. And do you want to keep the business base as Africa? That's a good question. You know, we want to sell the business in seven to 10 years time and you have to have the business in the market where your acquirers are going to be. Yes, yeah. And that means that we'd have to move our business into Europe. I think it comes, yeah. Yeah. From the perspective of the business being registered and the IP being housed in the market where you want it to be acquired. Yeah, yeah. So that's something we're going through at the moment, yeah. Okay, cool. Do you see yourself moving from Cape Town and somewhere in Europe? Yeah. So we've settled on Amsterdam. Ah, okay. So the Netherlands is very friendly towards tech companies. A lot of the European companies are. A lot of European countries. We have a particular advantage and one of our angel investors is a Dutch ambassador. Oh, perfect. So her name's Bonnie Hobach. She's amazing. She's been plugging us into the various networks and Amsterdam and the Hague. The Hague is an amazing province as well for tech companies. Right. And that's actually where we've put our first foot down in the Hague, yeah. Brilliant. And how did you get involved with her? She was the Consulate General in Cape Town for the Netherlands. Brilliant. Just, you know, to get some advice. Like a mentor type, yeah. And then we had a lot of offers from investors and she actually said to us, guys, I think it's too early for you to be taking on these kind of investors. I'll put some money in. Nice. So she was the first person to write a check in February last year. Brilliant, brilliant. So we're just gonna get proof of concept, make sure it works and just study. Was there like, you're quite keen just to go big early? Early on, the goal is to find product market fit. So that means you actually have to talk to the customers a lot. So it's more about talking to customers, finding out what they need, what their behaviors are and then after you find product market fit, then you can throw fuel in the flames. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're at that point now where it's about growth but last year was very expiratory, like making mistakes, learning and so forth, yeah. Yeah, well, it's been the biggest challenge. Is it like first year of just trying to get it to work? The challenges in the beginning, it's always product market fit. You know, that's very hard. It's like we've struck a vein now with insurance but we know we have another up to a year to really have a proper understanding of the market. So that's always challenging because without that, you can't just throw fuel in the flames. You need to be sure. Otherwise, you'll crash and burn. The challenge now is finding the right people. So, you know, you're being in recruitment. Getting quality hires is the challenge. What's been the biggest? So I'm the CEO, so I focus on HR team takes up about 60% of my time. What I've noticed recently, I've missed that on a few grade hires, just based on timing. Like I've just contacted people and they've just said, ah, two weeks ago, I chose this job. So it's timing is just goes down to chance. Like I've been unlikely with timing. We've learned that you always need people that are smarter than you and better than you. And in a startup, it's hard to get experienced people because experienced people are going to work. They've got 12 years experience and they're looking for really leadership roles. You find they want to work in maybe a bigger firm. Yeah, they can manage a team of people. So we need people that are actually not in a leadership position but are able to get the hands of it and actually do tasks and things. So finding smart people there is a challenge. It's tough. It's really tough. It's also defining like the roles you need to do and then really thinking about the spec and the talent you need. The other thing is with startups, you tend to go for younger people. The problem with sometimes with the younger like grads and stuff is in a startup environment, you don't always get loads and loads of training. And, you know, being the CEO and whatever, you're busy doing so many different tasks. It's finding someone that's happy with ambiguity, you know, not necessarily knowing exactly what they're going to do and someone just able to kind of get on with it and be comfortable doing that. Exactly. We've made mistakes before where we'd bring on guys to help us with sales, for example. And Lataba and I founders, we do all the sales at the moment and we'd have someone who's just wants to pick up a product and sell it. Every week we're coming to them and saying, okay, you know, this has changed, this has changed. And we realized that it's actually unfair on them. Because they just want to sell. And we actually still are finding things. So until we've gotten that process, that repeatable sales process defined, we can't actually give it to anyone. No, true. And it's always evolving. I mean, you've evolved a lot over the last couple of years and it's going to continue to do that. I know this is a bit unfair question because you're sitting in the audience, but what's it like working with a co-founder? It's excellent. I couldn't imagine the ability to do a co-founder, just in general, because you have days when it's extremely tough on, you say one of you and the other one is always there to carry the slack, to pick it up if you're not having the best day. If you alone and you're doing it yourself and you have a bad day, there's no one else who's having a good day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. That's true. And do you have complimentary skill sets? Yes. How do you split the different tasks? Tabor is very much a problem solver. So she likes to get done with the engineering and the product and solve problems and build a good engineering team around problem solving and development. On my side, I don't know why I said engineering, but I have quite a strong passion for business. So sales, fundraising, administration, the business side of things. I actually enjoy that. All the sexy stuff. Yeah. Not really. Fine. So it's worked quite nicely. Yeah, yeah. So it's been fortuitous. We're actually, we're at the stages where the team will know if there's a question, this is Leta War. She handles all the product engineering stuff. It's something to do with their payslip. It's me. So yeah. Fine, nice. It's a lot of founders, entrepreneurs. And the mindset is a real big thing. She mentioned, you know, when you're on a down, you have a bad day. How have you gone about adjusting to a lifestyle where it's down to you, you've got to get out there and make the sales, otherwise the money's not coming in? Or you've got to plan your day effectively. Have you spent some time thinking about? In terms of like the mental, mental health, it's a popular topic at the moment. Some people say it's like, it's a curse being a founder because you go into this life that you live that's actually the work life balance is not there. So you're working harder, longer, for less money. Harder, longer. You're always working, you're always thinking about it. I mean, I haven't worked out the work life balance at the moment, to be honest. And I don't think anyone in our team has, even though the team members, we try and make sure that they, you know, get home around seven, eight, and Leta and I will stay on to midnight, two nights a week. And getting that right, I don't know, to be honest. I don't think we're ever going to get a right. You have to grind. I mean, like, if you look at the most successful people, they're working like super, super hard. Yeah. You hear most successful businessmen only late on in their life. They say, oh, no, work life balance, you know, don't work too hard, self-development, but they all worked extremely hard to get there. But also, we still look at Warren Buffett still working. He's like 90 odd now. Bess ass. I mean, I did these guys, because also you're like, if work is your life and you're used to working super hard, it's very difficult just to stop. And why should you as well? You know, like in the UK, the retirement age has been scrapped now. Oh, really? Roughly, if you're born in, let's say, the UK now, you'll probably live to around about 100. So they say you'll probably be working your whole life. So it used to be education, work, retirement, like three stages to life. Now most people end up having three careers. 20 years, you get a little bit bored. So the kind of standard like three stages, I think it's gone now. And you're going to just resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be working super hard. I think that the nice thing then about having your own business is you don't have a date when people are expecting you to move on. We can do this for the rest of our lives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you enjoy doing your own thing? Love it. So one of the things and why I wanted to be an entrepreneur is I just didn't want to report to anyone. I mean, that's, I know that's like really honest, but I just didn't feel like being told what to do. You just want to take like crack on, do your own thing. Have you ever worked for anyone else? Never, never worked for anyone else. It's straight out of uni. You guys met and then... Six years out of uni now, going on six years and all. You learned a lot, it's a really steep learning curve. Yeah, at least I know now what I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Which is good. Yeah, like the mentor side. Have you, have you got other mentors now? Have you found that useful or? Yeah, a hundred percent. Mentorship is definitely the one factor that has the greatest impact on your chances of success. Like the more mentorship you get, the higher your odds of success. Guaranteed. Second time, third time founders have higher success rates because they don't make the same mistakes. And if someone's made those mistakes and they tell you about them, you will have a different odds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as you also have the mindset of, you know, if you fail, you learn from it. And it's fine to fail, you know? I mean, the problem is it's actually in the UK is people are a little bit scared to fail. And so then it stops a lot of people trying stuff. Like in the US, for example, they just go for it. What's the worst that can happen? You get another job, you learn, you move on. So it's a really, it's a good mindset to have. That's an interesting point. Yesterday, you know, took a big shot, went for something out of our reach. We were hesitant to do it because we were like, oh, we're on such a winning streak. Let's just carry this on. But we went for it and we failed. And you know, it just drives. You just set that failure as the next target. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you carry on? Yeah, because the next thing after failure is a success. And you just keep on, keep on going, keep on going. You know, they always say like under-promise and over-deliver. But then a lot of the time that stops you from actually striving for something that maybe is a little bit big, but you probably could deliver it. Yeah, that under-promise over-deliver, we're actually very bad at that. Over-promise and worry about delivering later, that's fine. Get the work in. No. How's like, how's it been raising funding? So I said 60% of my time is team and hiring. The other 25 or even up to 40% is fundraising. So it's the one positive about fundraising is speaking to VCs and investors is like free management consulting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because their panel beats your business and they ask you questions that you've never thought of. I mean, the nice thing is we're going through fundraising process at the moment. So amounts of advice and realizations we've come to because of the VCs has been priceless. Yeah, that's really cool. So the fundraising now is a bigger part of your job than it was to start with or you've always kept it as... Jenny, what happens is you fundraise, it takes you up to six months, that lasts you 18 months of runway and then 12 months in, you start the other six months to raise for the next 18 months. So every year you start a new fundraising process. Crazy, until you start profiting and then... The thing about the venture space is that we're at the point now where we've gone down the VC route and going down the VC route means you've downed that route for life now. So you have to continuously put capital to work and to grow your business. You can't one day say, actually, I'm happy with the current stage we're at. I don't want to grow it anymore. You grow until you hit the sky, like you don't stop. So you just keep going into the sell? You keep going into the sell. You have to give your... You got to invest as a 100XM money back. Right. Yeah, I want you to be the one company out of the dozen or two that they've invested in. It's going to return for all of them. Three X, so... Yeah, yeah. So you just got to keep, like, interesting, interesting. So it's an interesting mindset to get into. You got to be quite comfortable, not necessarily making profit or making money, but keep on the growth, keep on hiring, keep on developing the product. There's one good rule of thumb. Let's say you raise a million dollars. You must get your annual revenue to a million dollars. That's like the rule of thumb. You raise 10 million, you must get your annual revenue to 10 million. If you raise 10 million and your annual revenue doesn't get to get to one million, you're in problems. Then you're going to crash and burn. So you have to put the capital to work. Yeah, yeah. There's no point raising money and then you actually waste it. You don't turn it into revenue. Rosie. Yeah. I mean, so once you get this money in, have you guys sort of advice on where to invest it? How to spend it? Or you've just trialled an error and... Actually, the statistic, I think, is around about 70% of investment goes to hiring. Right, okay. So it's all into people. And then growth, if you're doing paid acquisition, it'll go towards that. But it's people. So we're currently a team of five. We're going to double our size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's people, yeah. Nice. And you're going to hire them firstly in South Africa and then as you transition to the Netherlands. So we will, for as much as possible, keep the team and the workforce down in South Africa. Yeah, yeah. It's just very capital efficient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When we start having presence in different markets, like for example, when we go to the US, we have to hire a VP of sales in the US. You have to bring out a sales function there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Engineering product design supports can be back in South Africa. Yeah, yeah. Have you found interesting cultural differences between doing business in South Africa and compared to Europe? Yeah, so South Africans, I mean, obviously I'm biased, I'd like to love South Africans. They're very proud of being a South African. Absolutely. Europe is, there's multiple countries, so there's multiple cultures and stuff. And often it helps to have someone in that market who can be a partner or an advisor who can help you. Nice. And then in terms of like plans for the future, so you touched on it a little bit. So expanding to new markets, develop the product. Is anything else on the horizon in terms of different products or are you going to focus on your core? Yeah, so we are going to focus double down on carrying double-angle insurance. Yeah. So we're working a lot at 25 companies now doing about 100,000 hours a quarter. Wow. We want to get that to a million hours a year. So... Sounds like a lot. Yeah. The target for end of next year is 100 insurance companies. 100 insurance companies. We've got, we know that in the UK we've got about 1,100 in South Africa, 300 in the States, 6,000. And these are general insurance companies? These are combined and mixed. Yeah. Our sweet spot is with the life insurance. Oh, with life insurance? Yeah. Okay, fine. That's our sweet spot. Nice. Awesome. Great to have you on. Thanks for coming in. How do people get in touch with you? Thanks, Lewis. It's been a pleasure being on your show. Pleasure, pleasure. To get in touch, you can email me on Matthew at voice.ai. So that's M-A-T-H-E-W at P-O-Y-C.ai. Or you can go to our website, voice.ai, and contact us there. Perfect. Available on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok. Oh, Snapchat, maybe TikTok. Have you started with TikTok? Not yet, but I've heard it's far away. It's supposed to be, yeah, it's maybe the next massive thing. I'm going to start too, but you need to invest a lot of time in these platforms. Yeah, I know. Take over your life here. Yeah. Well, we'll stick all of that in the show notes as well. Thank you very much for coming in. Thanks. Thanks Lewis. Pleasure. Hey, folks, thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe in all the usual places.