New founders are encouraged to “not speak for themselves” when building new companies in AI, and instead focuses on the products they intend to build and the problems they want to solve. Generic AI is the latest topic in the VC space, but it is not enough to build powerful AI technologies. Success depends on whether or not it solves clear user problems, how effectively it enables trust and adoption, and how well it integrates into the actual workflow.
At least that’s according to Lotan Levkowitz, general partner of early-stage VC Globe Ventures. As a writer for the Enterprise-Ai-Startup Playbook, Levkowitz outlines some of the key ways Startups can navigate the “structural shifts” that founders felt, providing enterprise AI founders with real-world insights with AI.
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Lotan Levkowitz, general partner at Grove Ventures
(Photo: Yoram Reshef))
“The thing we see over and over is that people think it’s because AI can do a lot of different things,” he told CTECH. “But, like many of the technologies before, I think AI is just a fundamental technology. The secret is how it ultimately creates value for the target consumer, user and buyer. The fact that AI can do a lot doesn’t mean that customers want to do a lot. So products are more important than ever.”
It helps you think of AI as a utility. Today, no company boasts using electricity to run its business. They simply have it. The same must be said about AI. A company’s success doesn’t involve the sole inclusion of AI, just as electricity alone doesn’t bring about business success. The “AI for X” era may be here for now, but founders must do more to achieve long-term business success.
The playbook serves as a practical guide for founders building AI-powered products for enterprise use. Rather than focusing on the technology itself, it focuses on how to build a sustainable, user-employed, and defensive AI business. It is created based on Grove Ventures knowledge and hands-on experience supporting early-stage startups, addressing three key issues. How to implement AI in your workflow, how to bring business outcomes, how to create internal recruitment within your organization, how to build long-term data strategies to achieve a competitive advantage.
We provide two examples of how companies can use AI to create meaningful solutions for their customers. Not only does it provide technology as a service, but it is a way to deliver it to suit the customer’s workflow. Israeli companies Navina and Activefence have been highlighted in particular to help medical professionals make clinical decisions and to reduce the pressure placed on moderators and doctors by using AI to flag harmful content online.
“You need to find the right problem you want to solve and whether it’s a doctor or a moderator, you need to understand the lives of the users and try to make him a hero,” explained Levkovitz. “Make him trust your data, trust your insights, trust your recommendations, and he tries to resolve things he doesn’t want to do. The doctor doesn’t want to cross thousands of data points in the file, and the moderator doesn’t want to see a picture of the corpse.”
Much of the focus of a playbook is on how to build a data strategy to ensure growth over time and how to integrate it into existing workflows. Therefore, founders need to note that the success of their company is not just in their technology, but in their implementation. After that, as network effects are put on hold and data improves, values appear as more customers use the product. “AI is not just a product, it’s also a tool for scaling and refinement of your data strategy,” says Playbook.
Despite providing insights and lessons to founders on how to make enterprise businesses successful, the playbook acknowledges that we are all still at the start of the AI revolution and that most of the disruption is still ahead of us. “Startups don’t have silver bullets.” “There’s still so much to discover.”
Founded in 2017, Grove Ventures invests in early stage companies such as Enterprise Saas, AI, DeepTech and HealthTech. It is currently under $500 million control.
