Last week we were lucky enough to catch up with Romain Lapeyre, co-founder of Gorgias and one of our proud #ParisFounders Alumni.
As the #ParisFounders New York Edition is coming up on October 28th, we are reaching out to all our #PFE Alumni from the last edition to get some feedback and find out what are they up to. When TechStars announced that Gorgias made it into their Fall NYC class, we were thrilled.
How did you come up with the idea?
Alex (my co-founder) and I both did customer support and experienced that it can be repetitive. So we decided to create a suite of useful tools for customer support teams: a Chrome Extension that makes it super easy to insert text templates in your emails (ideal for startups responding to their customers in Gmail), and an add-on to Zendesk that suggests responses to customers’ requests.
What happened to Gorgias following your pitch at Paris Founders Event?
We met with a few startups interested in testing our products and got the first beta testers for the Zendesk add-on!
What is Gorgias up to at the moment? Any big project you’re working on?
Yep, we’re on a big project! After building an extension for Gmail and an addon for Zendesk, we’re now working on more ambitious product: a helpdesk that automatically pulls out all the necessary information to satisfy each customers’ request, and suggests how to respond to it. It’s based on a combination of machine learning and integrations with SaaS tools (your admin, Stripe, Intercom, etc.).
What has been the hardest challenge you have faced so far?
Our hardest challenge is yet to come: by building a helpdesk, we compete with large players well established in the space and need to build a robust product with a ton of features. We’re hiring French talent to overcome it!
What are you expecting from Techstars?
Our goal for Techstars is to connect with customer support teams, both in NYC and around the world. We’re already working with companies like Classpass and Plated. We love to be able to meet directly our user after a 5min ride in bike.
Unfortunately, our tickets for #PFENY are sold out, but you can still register on our waiting list here.