This founder is her own AI tool’s best customer

^{A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.}

While I love the range of creative applications and automations AI offers businesses, my favorite types of tools are those that tackle a tangible problem – something almost every business across any industry struggles. 

This week’s founder is tackling one of the biggest pain points: Prospecting.

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Olga Belkovich has spent 18 years at the intersection of brand strategy and lead generation. These are two separate disciplines in business but for Belkovich, they’re incredibly connected. One can’t work well without the other. 

Belkovich came across code that could automate lead generation on LinkedIn and while she got some traction with it, it wasn’t a product. “You need to understand how to build a lead generation strategy, how to define the audience and the communications strategy that directly drives conversion,” she said. So Belkovich made an offer to buy the technological foundation and turned it into a product. 

The most important work starts before the agent talks to anyone. “We try to get from the client not only information about the company and the product but, most importantly, to understand their customer: Who this person is, what really matters to them, why they make certain decisions, what they are worried about, and what kind of arguments actually work for them.” 

Once the communication parameters are set – so it best represents the brand, while also being able to adapt to the person it's speaking to – the agent conducts the audience search, collects and analyzes information about a person, checks whether they match the ICP, and if there’s a fit, it starts a conversation. 

“We also have a separate supervisory agent, which works like an internal manager. It regularly evaluates the quality of the responses and prepares reports. Our team can see those reports inside the admin panel and notice, for example, that communication quality is consistently high on one project, while on another project something is starting to drop and needs to be corrected.” 

The power of the prospecting comes down to how well the project brief is. Belkovich said this is where a lot of companies get tripped up, as they don’t articulate who their customer is. She believes AI can remove some of the manual marketing tasks before the call at the start of a sales journey. 

The U (in) AI business model is simple in that they sell the actual result. 

“Every client has their own dashboard and a deposit. The minimum deposit starts at €2,000. From there, a fixed amount is charged for each qualified target lead. The money is only deducted after the client has reviewed the lead themselves, confirmed that it matches the agreed ICP, and approved it,” Belkovich explained. 

Because the tool primarily uses LinkedIn for prospecting, U (in) AI clients are global – across the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Asia, and South America. They primarily work with service and consulting companies, manufacturing businesses, and startups looking for investment.

“We don’t want to be just another AI tool that finds a person and automatically sends them a message. What matters to us is what exactly we say to that person, why they should respond, and how well that communication fits the specific product, audience, and situation.” 

Their go-to-market approach was built around simplicity, too. They use the product themselves to land clients – which Belkovich said validates the efficacy of the tool. 

“It’s one thing when you say, ‘our tool can help you find clients.’ It’s completely different when someone asks, ‘so how did you find me?’ And the answer is very simple: ‘With this exact tool.’ For me, that’s much more convincing than any beautiful advertising presentation.”

In terms of scaling the software, they’re investing in events, conferences, summits, media, and case studies. “I want to talk more not only about the product itself but also about the real challenges of lead generation, communication, and what’s actually happening in the market right now,” Belkovich said. 

Second to marketing, she wants to transfer more of the expertise that currently lives inside the team directly into the product. She said there are things they deliberately don’t have over to AI yet which only an experienced marketer can see, feel, and act on. As a tight team of six, Belkovich views scaling not by headcount but by product improvements. 

Beyond her business, Belkovich is excited about agents becoming more personalized for each individual, as well seeing AI more integrated into the social environment and government infrastructure. 

“Eventually, AI will become something like electricity,” she said, and there’s no predicting how the next few years will play out.

If one of these stories stuck with you, I’d love to hear which one.

Speak soon,
Amanda

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