Pedro Trillo, CEO, and Founder of Vizologi, talks about how his company helps others design the business model.

For BlastingTalks – exclusive Blasting News interviews with business and cultural leaders – we interviewed Pedro Trillo, CEO, and Founder of Vizologi, a tech startup that focuses on market intelligence and business model design.

Vizologi is a company whose goal is to help others with business model design; how did the company idea come up?

Vizologi was born while reading a book called “Disrupting Unemployment” by Vint Cerf, among others. In this book, great minds discuss solutions to a future scenario with a high unemployment rate, where some voices point to technological developments as the first cause of replacing people’s jobs; in particular, AI is mentioned as the great disruptive element.

Then, the primitive idea of Vizologi was to create a combinatorial algorithm based on the mash-up innovation method, using data from business models of companies, and processing the information with Artificial Intelligence, it was intended to create an “infinite” combinatorial system that generates at least one business model for each citizen of the world. The project began with the name Compass, and its challenge was to generate a personalized business model for each inhabitant of the earth, that is, 7.5 Billion different combinations, subsequently the idea matured.

What is your work? What benefits do your clients get from using your software?

This technological startup is dedicated to market intelligence and business model design.

We develop technology based on “Data Science” through an online tool. Then, based on combinations of successful business models, a creative, unique and differential service or product can be generated.

Our vision is to inspire business models not yet written. Our mission is to create a positive global impact through democratization and free access to business strategy knowledge for any citizen of the world.

Our customers have access to business strategy information to get inspired and create their own unique and creative business model for their startup idea or their established company.

How does Vizologi use Artificial Intelligence?

In obtaining data relationships, which is the central core of our product, we went through a manual and human learning process to see how to realize these relationships, serving as a basis for a later phase of AI implementation.

Canvas analysis prepares an AI that reads the information on the Internet, extracts the text parts of the research, and classifies the text into its business model canvas categories.

And the best will come this winter as we are preparing the creation of a generative business model, in which the user will enter two input words that define the company he wants to design. He will obtain a business model created by the combination of data that an autonomous Artificial Intelligence will perform thanks to our partnership with OpenAI.

How important do you think AI-focused startups are?

AI startups have a high disruptive power that will cause an imminent transformation of society and the economy.

With AI, we are already moving into a phase of global technology adoption that will bring about profound structural changes.

This technology is magical and multidimensional. It will increase our capabilities in all areas of activity. It will radically change the way we work. It will bring about a drastic change in terms of productivity and unimaginable wealth.

What is your role in technological innovation in companies?

Vizologi’s role is straightforward: we are the platform that brings together data, software, and the creative process to inspire startup ideas not yet written. So, on the one hand, we help our customers reduce risks in the early stages of idea development since they can evaluate business strategies that work. On the other hand, we offer them a product that triggers their creativity to create creative and unique business models.

What is it like to run a company with 100% AI – is it the future?

In October 2020, after the partnership with OpenAI, to use their GPT-3 generative text algorithm available from this winter, I have to admit that the startup was turned upside down, working as a 100% AI radically changes the operations of your company. It impacts all areas; at the product level, we will multiply the value of data x1000.
At the marketing level, we will automatically reproduce content generation and then grow the business organically. We will also create a future marketplace of ideas generated exclusively by AI that will increase sales. It’s about creating ‘superpowers’ for your product.

Regarding operations, we will configure our AI to perform 4 or 5 activities that three people would perform a priori. Well configured, the AI drastically reduces costs in new hires because it allows you to do a lot for a low cost of payment in APIs.

Some countries where you work remotely are India and Spain; in which other countries are you present?

Vizologi’s headquarters are in Alicante, and there are operations in Valencia, and the developers are in Goa, but we have collaborators in South America, United States, Canada. So we were born as a 100% remote company from the beginning. At Vizologi, we firmly believe that talent does not have to be confined to a specific city, so we work remotely from anywhere in the world. We don’t care where the person is located. We believe in their talent.

You serve more than 220 countries, and you grew 200% in this year of the Coronavirus pandemic. How have you managed it? What has been the key to your success?

There was a flat period of uncertainty at the beginning of the Coronavirus, and we had to act.

As a result, we began to open operations with partners and resellers both in the United States and India; as a result of these agreements, we achieved exceptional growth that we will maintain this year and in preparation for a more excellent investment next year to grow as a startup and serve medium and large companies in B2B.

Undoubtedly, you have not been affected by the COVID-19 crisis as most sectors, but how did you live those months of confinement and uncertainty both at a personal and work level?

In our case, our growth curve was flat in the most challenging months of this health crisis, and, subsequently, we managed an action plan with resellers that made growth explode. But, daily, we were informed of American studies of the impact on the SaaS market, analyzing the problems of the big players, such as the layoffs that occurred at Saleforce. Yet, we remained calm at all times, having recently overcome the ‘valley of death’ that all startups go through after the launch and the first few months of life.

Fortunately, in our sector and with our business model, we have withstood the impact of an extraordinarily severe crisis, so we are proud to have overcome these difficulties and to have reached a stable phase; growing in periods of crisis is always a motivation to do a good job, to strengthen what we are and to believe in what we are doing.

What are the medium-term challenges and the long-term ones?

We have a year full of surprises. We are working hard to release a new product version this winter, literally migrating to a generative AI company that will position us at another level in the market.

Next, in 2022 we will pivot, moving from a B2C startup to a B2B company to eventually offer our service to larger companies finishing the traction and growth phase to start with the scaling phase.

In between, we will plan a series A that will allow us to make the investment in digital marketing that we need to grow and become the international startup of reference in the business strategy markets and the categories of innovation and ideation software for companies.