We had the opportunity to interview Arjun Rai, founder and CEO of HelloWoofy. A marketing platform driven by AI and data science.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and HelloWoofy?

A: As a 4x time founder and small business owner, we knew exactly what it's like being forced to compete against larger competitors with unlimited marketing budgets and resources. We launched the company back in 2016 with a mission to empower every small business owner to compete with a categorically new platform driven by data science saving the needless hours of grunt work in curating, creating, and posting content (often times "winging it" as a marketing strategy). Today, the platform not only helps type content based on your inputs, but also creates content based on your graphics, suggests engaging unique emojis that relate to content in real time, and so much more. Think what it would be like to have your 10 person social media agency work 24/7 and be available at your fingertips...that's HelloWoofy.com. 

Q: How did you get the idea for HelloWoofy?

A: Being a founder of several prior ventures including my own social media agency meant we had a unique perspective into what it means to save small business owners from needless grunt work required by existing platforms (especially the non creative UI often times present on popular marketing dashboards). And so it was time to build a platform from the ground up, categorically new entirely driven by data science...for the price of a cup of coffee a day. Today, supporting thousands of business owners around the world we can say the idea of HelloWoofy has saved customers hours of work every week. 

Q: Your website uses a lot of technical jargon, in simple terms can you give us a real world example of how your product would benefit a typical user.

A: A typical customer, that's also a small business owner, wants to know why a marketing post did really well on social media and why it didn't when creating their next schedule. Fortunately, HelloWoofy helps to create content for the customer, suggest relevant images to use with the post, recommend contextually aware emojis to drive engagement and much more within seconds of the customer starting to type their post. That's right, autocomplete built right into the platform means AI assisting the customer as if they have an entire team of copywriters are their fingertips 24/7. At the end, the customer has a series of posts created that can be used to post with on social media (soon, the same technology will allow customers to type long form articles such as blog posts 20% faster using our autocomplete technology). 

Q: There are so many companies that exist to save users time and manage their social media, what makes your company different?

A: That's very true and if you ask Elon Musk a similar question on how Tesla exists in a crowded market of cars, he'll say Tesla (TSLA) focuses on energy and making it accessible to as many people as possible. In fact, if you ask if GM (GM) or Ford (F) is a competitor, he'd say no...to Ford, Tesla is absolutely a competitor but only because it too (like in our case with saving time) has 4 wheels and a steering wheel... but doesn't mean they are the same. 

For HelloWoofy, our focus is on the aspects around data science and making that accessible to as many business owners as possible. It's this focus that suddenly allows small businesses to have an extra advantage when competing against larger competitors with unlimited marketing budgets and resources. What if AI could assist you to create engaging posts, suggest relevant images out of millions of possibilities, type copy, suggest emojis that are shown to be more engaging and much more? Forget saving time, you suddenly can stop "winging it" as a strategy for running your marketing and focus on making data driven decisions. That's how we're different. Give it a spin!

Q: What kind of traction have you had since you first launched?

A: We launched under 5 months ago and have already amassed over 2500 customers from around the world and currently on track to generating over $100,000 in sales. We're projecting to growing to $20,000-$25,000/month in revenue with a goal of 15,000 customers by the end of the year. One of our patent pending technologies, that allows you to autocomplete and see engaging emojis, has been used over 700,000 times, more than 14,000 campaigns have been launched, over 200,000 posts have been added into the smart library across our customer base in just a few months. Wow, right? We're hustlers and on a mission to empower EVERY SMB with data driven marketing...join us!

Q: How will HelloWoofy improve the lives of its users?

A: Simply put, we build creative and data driven products that our focused marketers deserve and we do it at a price point everyone can afford. 

Q: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of business/financial advice, what would it be?

A: Ship fast. Test early. Hire Slow. 

Q: Are you looking for additional funding or have a crowdfunding campaign? If so, what are you looking for in a potential investor, and how can interested readers get in touch/learn more?

A: Yes, we're currently running a Republic.co/HelloWoofy equity crowdfunding campaign that is up for another 19 days where anyone can invest as low as $100. We were also on the TV show Meet the Drapers, won first round and will be competing in semi finals. As a result of this, billionaire investor Tim Draper of Draper Associates (formerly DFJ Ventures) invested twice into our company). The founder himself has put in nearly $170,000 into the company and previously raised a small amount of angel funding. 

If anyone wants to learn more, simply email me at arjun [@] hellowoofy dot com (for Republic related questions, all discussions must take place on that platform due to SEC rules and regulations). 

Q: Is there anything else you want to share with our audience?

A: Well, if any of your readers can relate to the journey of an entrepreneur, they know it takes a LOT to go anywhere in life. Knowing this, we are building a company that is foundational to every entrepreneur around the world because grit is in our DNA. We know what data science driven products we as a collective need to compete against unlimited marketing budgets and resources...let us help you win. You're just one post away...

You can also watch our demo here: