Interview with Flyte AI Co-Founder & CEO Shilpa Sharma

Okay, my name is Justin Betts. I'm the content and community manager at the Founder Institute HQ, and I'm here today with Shilpa Sharma. She's the CEO of Flight, an AI-powered note-taking platform that generates well-organized meeting minutes and action items directly from your call. Shilpa Sharma, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

So before we dive into your, your company Flight AI, uh, tell us a little bit first off the top about yourself or your own startup story. You know, what were the experiences of yours, professional, personal, that led you to founding this natural language AI startup?

Fantastic, sure. So I'll start with my background. I'm an engineer from my undergrad studies. I started my career with JP Morgan. I was on trading floor. It was very dynamic environment and I learned a lot. And after spending a couple years there, I decided to do an MBA. So I went to INSEAD. That's a French— that's— that college is in France and learned a little bit of French as well. And then from there I decided to go to Japan. So spent a couple years there, worked for Intel Corporation in enterprise B2B business and learned a lot there. And then back to Canada, I realized that tech is my passion and I really loved like taking new projects and understanding new things, innovative ideas. AI was my field because of my background. And last year I came across this idea of automated note-taking. So my co-founder and I, we realized this is something that we should probably do. And we started doing some of the like customer conversations to begin with. And we realized like this is something that we would love to do. So yeah, embarked on this exciting journey last year. And since then it's unstoppable. I love spending time on this. We are in our beta program today and we are giving it to our users to test our product and really excited to see more people coming in and joining this journey with us.

Awesome. Yeah, well, we're gonna definitely talk all about the product and some of the details there. I mean, I know a little bit because I'm familiar with your company as an FI company that, you know, Slate is conversational note-taking AI. But let's kind of, you know, hear it from you, sort of give us your short pitch for those unfamiliar. What is Slate AI?

Sure. So it's for all business professionals who don't like taking meeting minutes manually. We offer this AI-powered platform that can automatically take meeting minutes and action items right after a call. So that way business professionals don't have to worry about meeting minutes and they can have better conversation with their clients. So say goodbye to chaotic notes and say hello to Flight.

Perfect. Yeah, I like that. I like the tagline. I wanna dive into the, like the problem solution kind of framework. I mean, from researching a little bit and reading on your website, preparing for this interview, so salespeople can average, you know, more than an hour a day in, you know, a typical day in time spent basically taking meeting minutes and notes from their client conversations. I mean, talk to us about like the impact, I guess, of that productivity loss, just that time that's spent taking notes, and then, you know, how much of that can be recouped or recovered through implementation of a, solution like Flight?

Sure. That's a, that's a great question actually. So from my conversation, I've talked to more than 400, 500 individuals in the last 1 year to understand like how big is the pain point and talking specifically about salespeople. That's the only division that's like revenue generating machine for a company. So talking about the impact, it's a top line impact for a company. If a salesperson is spending like even 1 hour in a day in note taking. So that's one impact on top of We believe if you are talking to a client and if you are taking down notes instead of engaging with clients, it's an impact on client relationship as well. And then overall productivity too. So those are the impacts that a salesperson can have on the company as well if they are taking notes manually. So that was one thing that striked, 'cause this whole company started from a very casual chat with a salesperson who casually mentioned, you know what, I spent 25-30% of my time on note-taking, and that counts to around 1 day in a week, just note-taking for a salesperson. And that's a, that's a big commitment on note-taking, which is just a documentation and could be automated using AI tools, NLP. So my co-founder, who is the product development person, and he looked into technology stack while I was looking at like customer development and looked at like how big is the pain point. It was not just the salespeople. We realized like customer success teams who take care of the existing clients, account managers, sales development representatives. And not only that, these are customer-facing teams. They have immediate need of it. Um, product managers, marketing managers, even investors and advisors. They have ton of calls with portfolio companies or outside, and they need to keep a track of like conversations. So if after 3 months you're talking to someone or a company, you should be able to see or refer back and see like, okay, this is what I talked about. And that makes completely different conversation. And it's impressive for a person you're talking to. Like if you remember, okay, these are the 4 things we talked about earlier and probably we can follow up on that. So all those things collectively make overall like engagement on in conversation much more effective compared to just reinventing the wheel or probably just talking from scratch and not remembering everything. So all these things and all these criteria led us to like decide starting this company, building this platform, and we realized like now we have our users on the platform and they're using it. We can see like they come back again and it's not just the transcript, it's the well-organized summary with actions and questions and key takeaways. So all those things are contributing to their productivity. We believe in, if they were spending probably 2 hours in a day, We can save 80% of that time of note-taking, and they can just give like 10, 20%, and they are done with note-taking. And rest of the time they can innovate, they can sell, they can market, all sorts of things that they can do and contribute to their companies.

That's awesome. Yeah, I love that example that you gave, especially thinking back to the last time you touched base with that client. And yeah, those key action items being right there and be able to be brought up instead of rehashing. A conversation that you had a couple of months ago or the last time you had a touchpoint. So yeah, that totally makes sense for across those other teams, not just sales, but customer success and everybody who's going to have those like face-to-face touchpoints with clients.

So even, even in VC space, like most of the analysts that just take notes every time they're talking to a portfolio company. So we had those conversations with these junior analysts and they are like, if I have this tool, I will remember and keep the record of those things that we talked to, to our portfolio companies. And any other company that they're deciding to invest in.

Perfect. So you mentioned it a little bit earlier. Let's kind of talk a little bit, I mean, about the beta. I understand you're offering like a sort of a 30-day trial maybe for beta users who sign up to try at flightai.com is the email address. But tell us a little bit about the process for a new user and the details with the beta launch.

Sure. It's a very simple process. So we really, in this beta trial, this is like 30 days free trial. Try it out, give us the feedback. So it's a simple process to understand customer feedback. Like whatever we have built, this is coming from customer validation calls, but still talking about an idea and picturing an image like this is what the platform would look like compared to having that platform in your hands and really using it. This is like completely different things. So we want to make sure that our customers, what they were thinking, and now they have the product, they see it, they feel it, and they realize this is what they wanted in the first place. So we set up a quick call in terms of process. We learn about our users, like how they want to use it. We discuss our product features and then we onboard them on our platform. And then we just let them know, like, we are looking for feedback. So mostly like key features that we are offering as part of beta is the summary, because that's our core functionality. Everything else would be secondary. Everything else is doable, but the Summary, like literally summarizing the transcription. This is what our core offering is, and we want to correct it or perfect it to an extent where people are like appreciated and they want to use it over and again on ongoing basis. We extract key highlights, takeaways, key actions, all those things. So it's much easier for them to just listen to a conversation, be it a session, be it a normal one-on-one conversation. They are able to focus on the conversation better. So all those things are incorporated, And that's the simple process that we go through with our users and onboard them on the platform.

Perfect. Yeah. So this is a really great opportunity for somebody to get a foot in the door. If they are interested in the product, they can be a part of your iterative, really early process here to give you the feedback and help craft the product to meet their needs if they are one of your users.

Yeah, they will be our early adopters. It's the partnership because these early adopters, these tech enthusiasts who come on board early on, they get get to see how product is being built. So it's in like phase 1, but then they get to see after probably 2 weeks or 3 weeks, they understand, oh, things are changing. Because every week we make like new enhancements into the product and release it. So every Monday or coming week, they get to see new features, and then they report to us like, oh, you know what, I really love this feature, or I really like this, maybe we can tweak this. So they become more of a design partner with us, and they try to like kind of come up with new things, new ideas with us. So that's the exciting part, that they become more of like ambassadors and they love using the product. They become fan of it. And when they see the progress, they are like, okay, more invested into the whole program. And that's what we want from our users and whoever wants to come join the journey with us.

Perfect. Awesome. Yeah. So again, the website for those who are interested in getting in on the beta, it's at flightai.com. And I don't know if you mentioned this part, I just want to Like you mentioned that, you know, the core product is about like the summary sort of to start, but it integrates with Zoom as well as Outlook. Is that right? Salesforce? Are those all integrations or where is it now with—

Yeah. So now we have the platform. It's agnostic of any web conferencing tool. So really, if you want to use it, you can use it today. You don't need any integration. We want to invest on integration part once we confirm like the core technology works for people. On integration, The integration side, we are working on those features while testing the core feature. So yeah, they can use upload audio. So if you're sitting in a coffee shop or having normal conversation in person, not on Zoom call, as long as you have an audio, you should be able to upload that and get the notes out of it. That's one option. Another one is we have the recording feature on our platform. So if you're having a Zoom call, you can just like start FLYD in the background and can start like taking audios and create notes out of it. So you have those two options. Don't need integration right now, you are on Zoom or Teams or Cisco Webex or any other platform. As long as you are able to get the audio, you have the facility to get the notes from Flight.

Perfect. Well, that sounds great. It sounds like, yeah, that's a very broad applicability. I hadn't even thought about the in-person recording. So like in a coffee shop use case, that makes a lot of sense too. That's very interesting. I imagined only like we are right now. I was speaking virtually, but it totally makes sense that this would be a utility for face-to-face meetings as well. So that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that.

Actually, that's the idea we had. Like after a pandemic, people would love to have like in-person conversations and they would love to have like coffee chats or something. So we wanted to make it more agnostic of any platform. We didn't want to be dependent, but totally understandable given the hybrid environment and future of work. Hybrid would be there for a long time and Zoom would be there or any other web conference conferencing tool. So yeah, we would want to have both features there as part of the platform. That's why we kept it that way. But you are spot on, like for in-person or coffee chats, you should be able to gather some notes from those meetings too using Flight.

Awesome. You've obviously done a huge amount to build Flight AI to where it is today, having launched the beta. What are some of the biggest challenges, you know, that you've faced and overcome so far as a founder in building this company up to this point? Point?

Sure, that's a brilliant question actually, because like no one will stop keeping meetings or like stop talking about something. It's going to be there. Conversational AI would be there. It's a growing field. From challenges perspective, it's like you and I talking today, or anyone. You don't have the like set training data for AI to train on because It's like, it's not standard. You don't talk in a certain way. People have different styles, even for like note-taking. People have different styles of taking summaries. Few are like, this is kind of like Q&A, but there could be a simple conversation or an interview or something else where one person probably speaks 80% of the time and rest is like 20% of the time. Sometimes there are a ton of like interruptions because people are just debating about something. So all sorts of things to be like, taking into account to create summary that is legible, that's understandable, easily digestible. All those things required a lot of effort from our end. So last like 8, 9 months we have spent on building platform. It was all about building your algos, your AI in a way that it's able to understand and bring like crisp notes. And that's why we have a feature where you can actually change the summary length real time. And when you're using a platform, you should have Like you can choose the longest length of the summary versus just crisp few bullet points. So all those type of features we try to give. Totally, like if someone is speaking in completely like different accent and all that, those were the features that we had to build as part of our AI algo. Because accents, style, if it's a Q&A, if it's a normal debate, it's a conversation, it's a conference, it's a session, all those things need to account for to make it a broad solution. So yeah, those were a couple of challenges that we kind of like surpassed and still working on that. But yeah, it was exciting to see like when you create your algo in a certain way and people use it differently and you realize, okay, they use it in a different setting altogether. Maybe we didn't think about that. And that starts new conversation and new algos to be built. So that's what we have been doing from past one year. And yeah, it's there now and we are excited and give it to— giving it to our users and see if they like it, if they feel like this is something I was looking for or hoping for or even expecting from Or like 15-second pitch, probably. So those are the things we are testing as part of beta program.

Yeah, that sounds like a huge accomplishment, knowing that you're still in the iterative process, launching the beta. I mean, just outlining the spectrum of those differences in human conversations, it's like, yeah, wow, accents, yeah, the way people run meetings, interjecting on top of each other. Those sound like really big challenges. So yeah, you have a lot. A lot to be proud of.

And to add to that, Dustin, yeah, I mean, it was interesting to see like when we started giving out to our users, it was interesting to see the way people were using it. We kept it, okay, it must be 20, 30-minute normal business conversation, but we realized people take notes literally dictating to a platform. So, okay, today I'm going to do this, this, or this, and they want that dictated text to go and create notes on. So Those are the things that we are kind of like realizing and trying to like enhance those features that way. They should be able to create notes in a coherent way where they have right bullet points if they are dictating it to our platform and not just having Zoom conversation or just a coffee conversation. So all those things are part of like understanding and learning from customers.

That's so interesting. Yeah, all these different use cases. That's just another one that I hadn't even thought of, but it makes a lot of sense and it dovetails nicely into the next question that I want to ask, which is to have you kind of go and make a prediction. So there's been like a lot of prognostications about how one kind of narrow AI application or another is going to be like this one that finally like comes into all of our lives in like a really big way. So I guess as a founder at the forefront, do you have any predictions for the future of the natural language AI and over the next like 5 to 10 years how it'll change the ways that we live or work?

Sure. Actually, this is very interesting because in business world, keeping the content or knowledge, that's a challenge. And there are like so many employees and people, there are teams who keep the documentation and there are a ton of documentation that goes there. So like first and foremost, I would really like to emphasize on learning the way people speak and all that. So for example, if an employee, he was part of a company and then they speak in a session or when they give their talks and all that. So when, when they leave the company, there's ton of thing that that person did and company loses it. So keeping such tool in place in a company that is really helpful cuz they can keep that content and knowledge digitally as part of the platform. And that way they don't lose that knowledge and no one is doing like real documentation, typing everything down. It's It's all automatic when the person is speaking right there. So that's one application where I feel like in the long term, people will be able to leverage and spend more time on creative activities than documenting. Second, I believe like in the long run, conversational AI is going to grow really fast because more and more like applications are going on voice-based applications. So as you can see, like there's so many Even in hardware spaces, conversational AI is so popular. People are using Alexa and many other like voice-based tools to run their applications. And from software standpoint, I believe in next 5 to 10 years, these softwares would be like, if you are searching something, it should be voice-based. So you shouldn't be searching really like typing in, you should be searching by speaking. Can I get notes from that person or the company when I talked probably 3 months ago or something like that? That searching should be so powerful that when you are having a conversation with software, it should be able to bring those kind of search results quickly. So those are the things that I feel would be like in the long term would be more popular. And I think all the companies that are trying to do like innovative things in AI space, they will be focusing on that.

Yeah, I've definitely heard the search one before and that makes a lot of sense. But what you were saying before about the institutional knowledge because of like the big cost of in terms of turnover of employees. I mean, that makes a lot of sense too, that there could be big cost savings for large organizations that when they can capture that data from, yeah, from all the conversations that that person had when they were with the company. Yeah, that's a different one that I hadn't heard before. So I like that prediction too.

True. And even for like anything, for example, you have so many podcasts for podcasters, investors, advisors, they always have to go back and look at the conversation. So keeping that repository of knowledge and being able to like refer back on those notes, that's something that's going to last for a long time because even like if you use digital notes or like you're using Notepad and typing it out, it's hard to refer it back. So that searchability and then having everything on paper in the form of text when you are speaking, that automatic thing is really like the magic factor of the platforms like Flight.

Brilliant. Yes, that, that makes a lot of sense. My next question is to ask you kind of for general advice. So what advice would you offer for early stage or aspiring entrepreneurs that are just getting started where you were more than a year ago?

Sure. Yeah. So like being on this journey, I've learned quite a few things from my experience. Sometimes we went back and then tried like doing a few things again. So my learning, like I'll divide into 3 parts. First is like, it's a high momentum space. Like it's going really fast. So you need to keep that momentum when you are running a business. You need to understand, learn so agile that just react fast. You cannot take a long time. Because there are so many competitors and so many things that are happening in tech space overall. So that momentum, that speed has to be there. Uh, you need to have like brilliant people around you. So those who are willing to put in full effort as a startup, because they can choose to go somewhere else if they are being with you, like having the right team and binding them together. So really understanding their needs and motivating them to work on the projects, on the things that you're doing, because in startup it's not easy to manage everything. Things are all over the place. You have always, you have fewer resources and more things to do. So you need motivated people who are willing to put an effort, be it like late night effort or something. Sometimes you have to fix and resolve things overnight because tomorrow people will come and use your platform. So you have You have to have those kind of commitments from your team members. And third, which is the most important, is customer focus. Because what the market is telling you, what the customer is telling you, this is super important. Because yeah, I mean, you can decide doing things, but when people look at it from their angle, don't give them initial any pitch or something. And if you give them the platform and they start using it, they have completely different perspective. So being customer-focused and being good listeners, really understanding like what exactly do they think about it, whether they would refer it to their friends, whether they think they will use it on an ongoing basis. All those things you have to understand from your customers and that becomes your strategy. So always being close to customer is the key for a startup to learn and to grow faster.

Perfect. I think that advice is very broadly applicable for, for most startup founders, all 3 pieces of advice. So yeah, Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

The final question that I have for you is just sort of, you know, where is Flight AI headed next? Is there any news or updates that you want to share with the FI community in particular for anybody watching, or any asks for the audience?

Sure. So we recently started with Techstars and enjoying the journey. We are part of a big community now. We have a ton of mentors. We did FI before, I'm part of FI Seattle too. So it's, it's a lot of like good learnings and mentorship through the programs. Looking at like from my experience, having conversation with different customers, we realize educators, students, podcasters, investors, advisors, everyone is looking for something where they can automate the note-taking. So I would encourage everyone to go to our website, which is www.flightai.com. Feel free to sign up to be our beta users. We would love to work with you and get your valuable feedback.

Awesome. Yep, that website one more time, yeah, flightai.com. This has been really interesting for me learning about, yeah, this kind of natural language AI that we've been hearing so much about, but you're, I believe, the first company, Founder Institute company that I've had a conversation about it with. But yeah, just thinking about the ways that it's going to change how we work, work, and we're all really looking forward to keeping up with Flight AI and, and where you're headed next. So, uh, Shilpa Sharma, thanks so much again for joining us.

Thank you so much. It was great speaking with you and learning more about you as well. So thank you so much for having me.