[email protected] Interview
Interview with Tim Warren
“It takes longer. Start earlier. Work later. Work harder. Work longer. Work smarter. Raise more. Keep going. It never gets easier, it just gets bigger. .” – Tim Warren
Today we feature Tim Warren, the founder at Ambit. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
I’m Tim Warren, CEO, and Co-Founder of Ambit. Ambit is a conversational AI platform for customer service at scale. We specialise in working with large-scale companies that need to scale their customer experience.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
I worked with a small group to brainstorm and develop ideas that would take advantage of developing technologies such as AI. We chose conversation as we got excellent feedback from our interviews with people in market. I’d been involved in tech for years so it was a natural progression for me to found a company.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
Ambit is a conversational platform for large scale businesses. We are based in Auckland New Zealand and are operating into Australia and other regions that our customers serve.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
There’s no secret. Just hard work, research, being good people, making decisions fast and grit, perseverance and tenacity. I’m not calling us successful just yet, there is more work to do!
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
Biggest lesson is that it’s all about people. While I knew this before, it’s become even more obvious in a small company how a great person accelerates, and others can be a handbrake.
Doing this over I would take longer selecting the people, i’d be in R&D mode for longer, i’d raise more money, be in less of a hurry.
The market… it takes time to come to you. We had a great product, and we were a little early to have fit. Now the market has caught up so product-market-fit here we come!
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
I always tell my self this, however I’ll tell me again… “Trust your gut instinct with people.” Also that once there is a known people issue, act on it asap. It never improves.
I’m naturally a started of business and i’ve started a few, even within other businesses, i’d never do anything else. Apart from do it sooner!
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Google Suite is essential for collaboration. This is a day one setup item for any startup!
Document things and create structure – We use Confluence (and the Atlassian suite) for this. It makes it easy for DD and Audit – these are important if you sell to big companies. And you cant fake documentation.
AWS is base infrastructure for us.
Finally – have flex in your stack, some people like this tool, some people like that. Have a loosely coupled complimentary set of tools that let people work at their best, while being careful to avoid swapping tools with every hire…
I’m not solely reliant on anything. If we lost anything we could replace it with something else.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
The market… it takes time to come to you. We had a great product, and we were a little early to have fit. Now the market has caught up so product-market-fit here we come!
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Running payroll is actually one of my favourite things! I love rewarding people for their efforts.
Winning and lunching a new customer is always a thrill – as is when we get the results of a ROI case study.
There’s so much yet to do tho, hard to pick a single moment.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
My goals are simpler than they used to be:
I’d love to lead the company to a great outcome for customers and the team.
I want to raise my kids to be great and kind men.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
It takes longer.
Start earlier.
Work later.
Work harder.
Work longer.
Work smarter.
Raise more.
Keep going.
It never gets easier, it just gets bigger.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Ambit”
To learn more about Ambit Visit ambit.ai
Inspired by this story? Please share this story and other founder stories.
For more inspiring founders stories check out Founder Stories.
Disclaimer:
The views, thoughts, information, and opinions expressed in the text, videos, images belong solely to those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of Founderat.com and its corporate owners, employees, organization, committee, or other group or individuals.
More from Founder Stories
“Embrace any naivety you may have, and view it as an advantage. Start young, while you are naive, have room to fail, and don’t have too many obligations.” – Nik Froehlich
[email protected] Interview Interview with Nik Froehlich Today we feature Nik Froehlich, Founder at Saritasa, read their story.
“Don’t give up. Perseverance is key to start-up success. But it doesn’t mean doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for success! Try different approaches. It is important to fail fast and learn.” – Veena Giridhar Gopal
[email protected] Interview Interview with Veena Giridhar Gopal Today we feature Veena Giridhar Gopal, Founder at Salesbeat, read …
“Failure is just so common, so normal, we have to be used to that. It doesn’t mean we don’t need high standards to require ourselves, just don’t be discouraged.” – Xin Li
[email protected] Interview Interview with Xin Li Today we feature Xin Li, Founder at Xin Lin Productions, read …
