In Their Own Words: Shota Giorgobiani, CEO Optio.ai
“In their own words” is a series of interviews with some of our alumni about the stage they were when they joined our programme and where they are now.
Today, we are joined by Shota Giorgobiani the CEO of Optio.ai, which markets AI tools for financial institutions.
At what stage were you when you applied for StartupYard?
When we joined StartupYard, we had an early prototype. The beta version of the product we launched before the demo day, was mainly built during the StartupYard acceleration period (sounds little bit crazy but it’s true).
At what stage are you now?
Currently we have several products that our customers love and are generating revenue, which is something that every founder dreams of...
How much money have you raised since leaving StartupYard?
We have not any official round after StartupYard yet, but we still got around 160K USD from Techstars and World Bank and currently are preparing for the first investment round, so numbers should be way more interesting near the end of the year.
How many jobs have you created so far? What kind of jobs?
Currently we are 8 in the company, engineers and business people and we continue to grow. Fun fact: recently 2 of our engineers left the company and moved to Facebook and Microsoft. I believe it’s the best metric – if someone decides to leave our company, they are welcomed by the best companies in the world and that makes me happy.
What has been the most challenging experience when growing the company?
It’s always different, based on the stage, geography and etc. Before StartupYard the hardest thing was to start, during and after StartupYard I believe it was finding product-market fit and addressing all the doubts that we had. Now it’s fund-raising and growing the company and I’m very curious what will be the next 🙂
What are you the most proud of so far?
It’s hard to choose one, so I’ll name a few: I’m proud that we started the company, back in 2016, despite the fact that there was a very little chance to survive and to grow. I’m proud that we’ve got into StartupYard and TechStars. I’m proud of being in the one of the first Fintechs that changes the landscape in Georgia and I’m proud of being a part of the company, where I can do the great things every day, with the smartest people I have ever meet.
How did StartupYard help you?
I’d say that in a many ways: It helped us to first lose focus (because of lot’s of opinions from the mentors) and after regaining it, way sharper than before. It gave us the ability to understand other country’s Fintech ecosystem, understand if there’s a demand for our product. It helped us to question everything and come up with the better answers and it helped us to reshape our vision, step-by-step. It also helped us to make next step in the development of our startup and get into Techstars and without StartupYard, it would not be possible.
What would you say to someone who hesitates to apply for our next program?
If you hesitate, it means you already see something in the accelerators and just are not sure about it. Give your curiosity a chance, you won’t regret. It will be hard, very hard, still it will help you in every possible way and not nessesarily you will understand it immediately, but maybe after some time.
So please – Go for it!
