Great webinar, ill just add a few things to these posts and hopefully they are of interest.
Consult the presentation document above to see the presentation, the most useful slide is the
last 6 months and the
roadmap which I will paste here for the lazy folk =P
The structure is a little messy, but just follows the most important points discussed. If I missed anything feel free to add
Roadmap notes:
One of the biggest thing here is the result from the
Big-5 client onboarding and integration and the subsequent
Enterprise go to market. Lots to look forward to in 2023! People seem fixated on the SAAS self service platform soft launch, which is at the end of the year. Yes this will likely be big, but the enterprise launch to market will be big in my opinion as will the results from the big 5 client onboarding (this is a key measure of our product and its intrinsic value).
I was also happy to see that there is an emphasis on the lip optimisation and empathy generation - making it look better as well as building the functionality, so they are focused on the right things.
Presentation notes:
Platform is currently using ChatGPT 3/3.5 and will continue to do so. Efforts to upgrade to ChatGPT 4 will be straightforward and are likely to occur in the future. Unith team is watching this space and aware of developments with ChatGPT4 In my opinion this is a good thing that it is not distracting the current development. ChatGPT4 has its issues and these will be ironed out over time, so sticking with the previous version and fine-tuning the product is an excellent choice and provides less risk (I have seen other decision made by other executives to push the latest tech because it is hot just to have it cause issues). Far better to pin down our product while keeping an eye on ChatGPT functionality at a later date.
Website launch should be by the end of next weekCompany wanted to make sure it accurately reflected the brand and vision. This is an excellent decision as brand consistency and clarity is vital in any market, so I am glad they took their time with this one. The company has been through significant restructure and rebranding, so this was a big job!
Demo was fantastic and worked very well. Digital avatar was accessing data from ChatGPT engine on the fly, this is much better than alot of others out there that are trained on the data - so they are not real-time. Idans point is part of the first pillar of Uniths - that is to make it human, i.e.
real time conversation!
The fact that the avatar can query in real-time is a big win here, and Idan stresses this every chance he gets. The latency was very good, barely there at all, I imagine a big part of the work is to minimise that latency. By comparison, the Synthesia (spelling?) avatar may look better, but it essentially just converts text to video and does not operate in real time.
Later in the roadmap (following guided conversations) - the plan is to extend to multiple verticals - that is to allow avatars to develop specific knowledge about certain fields by training them on specific data sets. This will likely involve other clients in different industries and is part of the view to scale to other markets.
Q&A notes:
Unith can compete with larger competitors because it can charge less for its product (less operating costs) and remain competitive. It is the only one in the market offering this product at the prices which it does. Idans view is to ensure the product can remain at a competitive cost, larger competitors cannot ensure the same thing. Towards the end Sytze mentioned that Idan has pushed back against more rapid borrowing/dilution to help with expanding faster as he said its not needed, and it would push up the cost of the product - which he wants to keep it very competitive (which it is). This is great news as we dont want debt or dilution
Rather than the big 5 tech company developing the tech on their own, they sought out Unith specifically because of shared work (how they became aware of Unith) and because it was cheaper to outsource it to a company with market knowledge and expertise in the area (rather than train a bunch of employees and take them away from other work). This places the burden of proof on Unith to prove its product, which it is currently doing in a testing phase with the big 5 tech company. The results of this will inform the market about the intrinsic value of our product (i.e, when the next 2 licenses are purchased and subsequent demand).
The name of the tech company cant be released due to an NDA and it states that to use the name it requires senior exec approval from the big company, and comes along with alot of conditions. It was either take the deal now, or delay the deal until the terms could be changed, which put the deal at risk, so Idan took the deal. Excellent decision in my view. He said that once the product has been proven and more contracts are signed, then it would likely be feasible to both announce the name of the company as well as the nature of the relationship - but he said this may take time as big companies move slowly and are not as agile as Unith and other companies (startups etc). I think that just knowing we are working with a big 5 is enough now tbh.
Idan mentioned that the relationship and collaboration with the big 5 company is providing alot of experience and opportunities - this is huge IMO, the intangible but considerable benefit the team is getting from this relationship is very difficult to quantify and will enable them to avoid many pitfalls and build something that the market will love. Idan also mentioned due to the size of the big 5 tech company, if the product is proven, it is very scalable and would likely result in more licenses purchased due to how broadly it can be applied across the organisation.
A Freemium model will be released either with the soft-launch or after, and Idan specifically mentioned the same approach to market as Canva and Spotify - by providing some value for free, it will result in better subscription - I agree with this and it gets another tick from me.
Retention hasn't been an issue, despite having to restructure and build a new team, and the vision of the company has not changed over the past 18 months. This was good to hear, as the company has been through alot of change, but Idan and Sytze joined around the same time and seem very focused on the direction and vision.
Although recruiting senior talent with the right expertise (not just software developers but computer and data scientists with skills in NLP and image processing just to name a few) is a challenge, they just hired another new person who left their organisation after 11 years of work, and who is excited about the prospects that lay ahead. Idan is directly involved in the recruitment, which I liked hearing, and is only possible in small organisations like this one! He ensures that the new hires have the same vision for the organisation as well as the skills. This is a very big tick, as having the right people are key, and you want the person driving the organisation to be involved in this!
