How Emile Ferreira CEO, InsiteBot Can Help You Wow Your Customers While You Sleep?

Emile Ferreira is a serial bootstrap, award-winning software developer and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and bot whisperer of his own tech company, InsiteBot. He is a recipient of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Fellowship. In 2019, he was featured in the Morning Brew; one of the biggest tech newsletters in the world. He is 20 years old and lives in South Africa.

InsiteBot is an AI-powered website chatbot that’s as easy to set up as editing a spreadsheet. It provides instant answers to your customer’s questions while gathering insights for your business and boosting leads.

In an exclusive interview with AsiaTechDaily, Emile Ferreira says:

Launch early, fail early and grow from the teething pains, which helps you find bugs and discover which features customers care about. This is something I learned from Getting Real, a guide to launching a successful web app by Basecamp.

Read on to know more about Emile Ferreira and his journey.

#Startup https://t.co/4Us6QCxDHn – #Website #chatbot, as easy as editing a spreadsheet pic.twitter.com/LS0tWyd0oA

— SuperbCrew.com (@SuperbCrew_com) January 31, 2020

Please tell me about your personal background, and what are you working on currently?

Emile Ferreira: I’m a serial bootstrap entrepreneur and the CEO of my own tech company, InsiteBot. I’m 20 years old and live in South Africa. In my free time, I study BSc Mathematical Sciences at Stellenbosch University.

I’m a self-taught entrepreneur and software developer; I learned how to code at 12 years old. Since then, I’ve gone on to work at some ground-breaking tech companies, host talks, and create award-winning apps. More at emileferreira.com

InsiteBot is a personalized, AI-powered website chatbot. It’s as easy to set up as editing a spreadsheet and allows you to automate your customer conversion effortlessly. More than just a chatbot, context-aware interactions in your brand’s voice guide your user’s onboarding and keep them engaged at every stage of the customer journey. Pricing starts at $99/year. 

What motivated you to get started with your company?

Emile Ferreira: I’m still a child at heart; I love coding and creating cool things that help people. Entrepreneurship is just the tool to enables me to work for and fund myself.

Furthermore, I’m studying at Stellenbosch University on a full scholarship from the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, which is awarded to the top 100 young entrepreneurs in Southern Africa. It’s aimed at promoting high impact sustainable entrepreneurs on our continent. The scholarship and my drive to keep on creating solutions that better people’s lives are what motivated me to start my own company.

How have you attracted users and grown your company from the start?

Emile Ferreira: We launched InsiteBot in Product Hunt, where it trended on the front page, netting us thousands on users and investor interest within hours. However, early tech adopters aren’t our target market, business owners are, so this didn’t result in many paying customers.

We then moved to Facebook and Instagram ads, which has seen great success. We are able to target business owners at a very affordable rate, specifically. Our cost per click is just $0.01.

What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue? What strategy worked best?

Emile Ferreira: We are a SaaS (Software as a Service) B2B (Business to Business) company. We’ve automated our whole sign up process and host our backend on Google’s servers to keep our overheads low.

We offer a standard version of InsiteBot, as well as a pro version that allows it to be fully integrated with the brand image of the business. This will enable us to cater for both SMEs and more giant corporations.

How much money (funding) have you raised in total so far? When was the recent funding round? (Additionally, any plan for the future?)

Emile Ferreira: We just launched a few weeks ago and have not yet needed additional funding. However, we’ve been approached by venture capital firms (including Visionaries Club in Germany) about possible funding.

What are some marketing tips to help maximize the success of a product launch?

Emile Ferreira: I suggest launching your product on both Y Combinator and Product Hunt. These are necessarily just popularity contests, so make sure you have plenty of support before doing so. 

What is a good product launch checklist?

Emile Ferreira: Make sure you have a press release ready, plenty of support, and have stress-tested your product.

I see so many launches on Product Hunt that crash due to their backends not being stress-tested beforehand.

What’s the hardest thing about product launches?

Emile Ferreira: The hardest thing about launching a product is deciding when it’s “ready.” The truth is that your product will never be completely ready. 

Launch early, fail early and grow from the teething pains, which helps you find bugs and discover which features customers care about. This is something I learned from Getting Real, a guide to launching a successful web app by Basecamp.

What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company? (or What should all first-time startup founders know before they start their business?)

Emile Ferreira: Starting a company does not necessarily mean employing people. Salaries are a liability and often lead the startups running out of funds early. It’s surprising how far one can get bootstrapping alone with $0 in the budget. The ideal startup team size for a software company is 3 people.

What do most startups get wrong about marketing?

Emile Ferreira: Most startups think marketing is last on the to-do list. They should be marketing early, building a following, and getting user feedback.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And What advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing similar things like yours or in a similar direction?

Emile Ferreira: Entrepreneurship is about solving people’s problems and monetizing your solution. Someone told me that the best place to start is to look at and solve your problems because chances are, other people will have those same problems and discomforts.

What are the one or two things that you would do differently if you could go back to 10 years ago?

Emile Ferreira: If I went back 10 years ago, I would be just 10 years old. Back then, I had no idea what work I wanted to do when I grew up; the usual doctor, fireman, the engineer didn’t interest me. I wish someone had told me about entrepreneurship and how it can be a viable career path.

You can follow Emile Ferreira here.

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