[00:00:00 – 00:00:08] Nitin Bajaj

Welcome to The Industry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Shravani Vatti. Shravani, welcome on the show.

[00:00:08 – 00:00:10] Shravani Vatti

Thank you so much for having me, Nitin.

[00:00:10 – 00:00:14] Nitin Bajaj

It’s great to have you here. Let’s start with the big question. Who is Shravani?

[00:00:15 – 00:00:19] Shravani Vatti

Hi everybody, I’m Shravani Vatti, founder of Inwise AI.

[00:00:19 – 00:00:47] Shravani Vatti

Before starting Inwise, I worked at Microsoft and Unity in a different, in a few roles around product and business. And I saw this fundamental problem of work staying in conversations and never are actually making it to different systems of record, right? And I thought AI is a great way to make that happen. Before I worked at Microsoft, I acquired an MBA from Dartmouth, and before that, I started my own company.

[00:00:47 – 00:00:55] Shravani Vatti

This is by far the coolest experience I’ve had, even after Microsoft, Unity, and Enwise, starting my own company at the age of 22.

[00:00:55 – 00:01:01] Shravani Vatti

This was an art-based e-commerce startup in India, essentially connected around 3,000 artists to buyers across the world.

[00:01:03 – 00:01:08] Shravani Vatti

And yeah, I did that for 6 years and now I’m here with Inwise.

[00:01:09 – 00:01:24] Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. You actually answered a couple of my questions, but I’ll still dig through those and get you to answer them. You mentioned why you started Inwise. Give us a little more context and background around it.

[00:01:24 – 00:02:01] Shravani Vatti

So Inwise is essentially ambient intelligence for your conversations, right? It’s listening to where conversations are happening, be it in Slack, Zoom, et cetera. And then it understands what’s important, what’s not important, filters out, prioritizes, and all of that. And then it summarizes things in different systems of record like Jira, Salesforce, Linear, Notion, right? The fundamental problem is, I’ve observed both at my startup and Microsoft and Unity, people spend a lot of time in meetings just trying to get to the point or aligning themselves.

[00:02:01 – 00:02:12] Shravani Vatti

Mm-hmm. Just understanding even if there is a pre-read, like people are just spending a lot of time trying to get onto the same page and the main discussion is just like 5 minutes tops most of the times.

[00:02:12 – 00:02:53] Shravani Vatti

So the idea is to give that time back to people by already pre-generating all of these reports or even views that’ll automatically get people on the same page without a lot of back and forth, right? And also another thing I’ve observed is a lot of times there’s duplication of work. Mm-hmm. People are repeating themselves over and over in meetings. We cut down on all of that. The goal with Invise is to create industry’s first ambient intelligence, which is listening to conversations and making different dashboard views, etc., available for people, even if it is a VP or even an engineering manager or a chief revenue officer. So, yeah.

[00:02:54 – 00:03:04] Nitin Bajaj

Very interesting. Give us a sense for where you are in the journey with the product and what’s the vision and what kind of impact do you want to create?

[00:03:04 – 00:03:42] Shravani Vatti

Yes, the product is ready today. It’s live on the website. People can try it in a few different ways. One is they can add their own OpenAI and Claude license API key and try out the product. Another is a desktop downloadable, so they can just download and have it local on their machine. So think of it like an assistant that’s understanding over time how your conversations are going, how your people relationships are going, and it’s gonna redirect you if things are going a little wonky. But the product is live today.

We have around 250 users trying out the product, and we have pilots with multiple Fortune 100 companies going on at the same time.

[00:03:42 – 00:03:45] Nitin Bajaj

Very cool. That’s amazing.

[00:03:45 – 00:03:45] Shravani Vatti

Yeah.

[00:03:45 – 00:04:05] Nitin Bajaj

And, you know, as you said, it’s super exciting to be able to build something, and especially to be able to do it now, leveraging all the technology that is at our disposal. And at the pace at which things are changing, but also the pace at which people are starting to adopt things is exciting times.

[00:04:06 – 00:04:07] Shravani Vatti

Yeah.

[00:04:08 – 00:04:20] Nitin Bajaj

Now, as you work across a lot of these technologies, a lot of different people and personalities, I’m sure you come across many different challenges. What’s the one big one that you would wanna call out?

[00:04:22 – 00:05:06] Shravani Vatti

Because it has become so easy to generate content and because it has become relatively easier to build products, right? The next biggest bottleneck is still our attention span. And that is still a prized commodity. And we see more and more tools, products, content, just fighting for a very limited asset, right? And people are really, both our customers or people in everyday life too, really struggling to understand where do we prioritize or how do we prioritize so we can be most effective. Inwise helps with part of that. But the bigger problem is that as we are generating more and more and more stuff, where is—

[00:05:06 – 00:05:10] Shravani Vatti

how are we protecting our attention span? That is a big unknown.

[00:05:11 – 00:05:15] Nitin Bajaj

That’s a good and a big problem to solve.

[00:05:15 – 00:05:15] Shravani Vatti

Yeah.

[00:05:16 – 00:05:24] Nitin Bajaj

Now, as we talk about challenges, I I’d like to flip the coin and ask about opportunities. What’s the one that you’re most excited about?

[00:05:26 – 00:06:22] Shravani Vatti

I think just building in the AI era is, I’ve never thought, there was one other time which was in 2015 when I was building my first startup, Artisan. Mobile became ubiquitous, right? And then everybody started uploading their works on the website. There was an overnight shift. I see the similar transformation happening right now with AI. There is just limitless potential. But then again, how do we harness it becomes a very important question.

And some industry leaders defer to judgment and taste, right? Some, I mean, there are different points of view on how you can make more compelling and more complete products. Because one of the biggest things that we will see both this year and onward is the era of half-done products is over. Mm-hmm. The product has to be complete. It has to be superlative, right?

[00:06:23 – 00:06:28] Shravani Vatti

So that’s the era that we’re entering. And I think building in this era is like very exciting to think about.

[00:06:29 – 00:06:54] Nitin Bajaj

It is. And now as we talk about what’s to come in the future, I like to pause and reflect. And I’d love for you to share two moments from your past life. One where things did not work out as you’d expected. There was disappointment, failure, lessons, And another instance where things exceeded your expectation and became a success beyond your imagination?

[00:06:55 – 00:08:56] Shravani Vatti

The failure moment really comes with the creation of Artisan website. This was a decade ago. E-commerce was not a thing in India at that time. But the way I designed Artisan was that it would be for artists with a certain pedigree looking to be collected by art— by collectors, right? At that time, the way the market was structured in India, there was a lot of demand coming for everyday artists. They need not be trained, but they still wanted to— the way we were delivering was online via e-commerce, right? So for that particular distribution vehicle, the demand was coming from amateur— for amateur artists.

I did not— it took me a long time to connect that. I did not connect it immediately. But the lesson I took out of that is that You have to always be listening to the market and the pulse should be, the pulse on the market should be, is the entrepreneur’s like his biggest strength, right? We did later pivot, we added the vertical of just amateur artists and then that somehow became bigger than artisan. But yeah, it was very surprising. It took me a while to connect the dots and understand, okay, you know, collectors like to purchase in a certain way and e-commerce buyers are not the same as that. Serious collectors, there are different set of buyers that are coming up.

Catering that is like a different, different game altogether. And to answer your second question, which what exceeded my expectations would be within Wyse itself, the way when I do, when I do a small demo of the product, right, people immediately connect the dots with their everyday life and they’re immediately like, oh, these are all the ways in which I can use it. If you can build this one or two features, I love how Immediately people almost like have expectations out of the product, which shows like some association, right? Oh, why is Inwise not telling me that?

[00:08:56 – 00:08:58] Shravani Vatti

Inwise should tell me that, you know.

[00:08:58 – 00:09:24] Shravani Vatti

I like that it has that capability to pull in people, product, and then have that, oh, this is what I expect from Inwise, or this is what I need from Inwise. So it instantly creates that connection, the way we’ve designed the product, the way we’ve shown all of the nuances, right, of where we can mapping, extracting, and all of those things. It just makes people feel more involved. And I think I love that for a product to have that sense of pull.

[00:09:25 – 00:09:42] Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. And especially for what you’re building, it has to become a habit. It has to become a part of your daily workflow, whatever you do. And sounds like you’re able to get people right there as soon as they start thinking about the product. So that’s a great place to be.

[00:09:43 – 00:09:45] Shravani Vatti

Congratulations. Yeah, thank you.

[00:09:45 – 00:09:52] Nitin Bajaj

Now, outside of work, which we’ve talked about quite a bit, what do you do for fun? What’s your go-to de-stress?

[00:09:52 – 00:10:17] Shravani Vatti

Right now, I have a 1-year-old daughter. Seeing an idea germinate, like, within Wyse or with Artisan is one thing, but seeing a person come together is a whole another. And for her, everything is a discovery. She’s always amazed by the littlest of things. So rediscovering the joy in life through her has been, I think, has been quite an experience for me.

[00:10:18 – 00:10:25] Nitin Bajaj

That is such a beautiful place to be in. Enjoy it. The only thing I can share with you is time flies.

[00:10:25 – 00:10:32] Shravani Vatti

She’s growing amazingly well, has her own personality already. Surprisingly, yeah.

[00:10:33 – 00:10:34] Nitin Bajaj

Being a girl, I’m not surprised.

[00:10:37 – 00:10:44] Shravani Vatti

She learned to say no the other day and she uses it like, vociferously  And yeah, she’s pretty good.

[00:10:45 – 00:10:51] Nitin Bajaj

That’s awesome. Are there any books or a podcast that is a favorite that you would like to share?

[00:10:52 – 00:10:59] Shravani Vatti

I am really enjoying this book called Sizing People Up by Robin Reek.

[00:10:59 – 00:11:06] Shravani Vatti

He is an FBI agent, ex-FBI agent. And he’s written even another book called Code of Trust, which I’ve read already.

[00:11:07 – 00:11:20] Shravani Vatti

But essentially it’s about how to build trust and just about how to, how to be a reliable person rather, and how to be successful in corporate world as such.

[00:11:20 – 00:11:32] Shravani Vatti

And a lot of these things are things that filtered into us while we were growing up across time. But it’s really good to see all of that packaged up and through a lens of an FBI agent. It’s extra fun.

[00:11:34 – 00:11:35] Nitin Bajaj

That’s a great share.

[00:11:35 – 00:11:36] Shravani Vatti

Thank you.

[00:11:36 – 00:11:45] Nitin Bajaj

Yeah. Now on to my favorite part of the show. We call this the one-line life lessons. Shravani, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

[00:11:45 – 00:12:25] Shravani Vatti

I have, have a few. I don’t know if I have a whole lot. But the first life lesson that I somehow picked up along the way is that you already have the answer. To whatever be the challenge, right? There are oftentimes, many times at Invise or even otherwise, I’m— there’s a situation and I’m thinking, oh, what is the answer? Is there— what is the fix? Is there anything here?

Is there anything here? And then I just calm down and almost like meditate. And then it just comes to me almost intuitively that this is the best path to take for the situation. And it’s—

[00:12:25 – 00:12:27] Shravani Vatti

it happens so many times.

[00:12:27 – 00:12:48] Shravani Vatti

You just have to get into a place of like quietness and instantly the answer will come to you. And that is, that’s like one amazing thing which I would love for people to try and tell me if it works. And the second thing is I’m from Dartmouth College MBA, tak tak school basically.

[00:12:48 – 00:12:51] Shravani Vatti

They are a big believer in paying it forward.

[00:12:52 – 00:13:48] Shravani Vatti

Right. And I’ve, anytime a Taki reaches out to me, I always, we always respond. And it also extends out to other parts of life too, not just with Tak is I’m here because of so many people, and I would love to encourage and provide opportunities wherever, wherever possible. The third, and I think this is the final lesson for me, is like, don’t be too hard on yourself, is something that I don’t think there is enough number of times in the day we need to tell ourselves that, especially as the number of times we feel like I wish stretched in all directions, right? As a parent, as an entrepreneur, as so many other things. But just being graceful to yourself and giving yourself that sense of, okay, this is okay, let’s move on, makes it better for everybody too, immediately. So that is the final thing I can share from my life.

[00:13:49 – 00:14:12] Nitin Bajaj

Well, thank you for sharing those. And thank you for making the time to share your journey and your story. I am really excited at what you have been able to accomplish generally, but also specifically in what’s to come with Invise. And I know you’re just getting started. So congratulations and kudos to you. And it was great to share your journey with our audience.

[00:14:12 – 00:14:15] Shravani Vatti

Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity, Nitin.