Interview with Yoav Barel, founder of The Chatbot Summit
Yoav, you are the founder of the Chatbot Summit. For our readers that don’t know you yet, could you introduce yourself and tell us about your background within the chatbot ecosystem?
Yes! It is great to be talking with you.
I am a tech entrepreneur working in tech over 17 years and love it. My work lets me collaborate with others on creating the best digital experiences for people. Before launching Chatbot Summit, I have been lucky to lead and work with great teams at the forefront of some of the most exciting developments in tech at leading industry companies, including Sun Microsystems developing and deploying leading Telco’s; Oracle, where we put the first Telco App Store on Android and deployed it with Verizon; and at LivePerson, where we created the first Enterprise App-Messaging customer service product and launched it with U.S. T-Mobile. At LivePerson, it hit me that conversational experience was going to be the next digital revolution. Back then, we called them “Conversational Service Apps,” which are today’s Chatbots.
I left LivePerson to dive into Chatbots but was not sure what form that would take — maybe a tech startup. Being around other Chatbot enthusiasts in Tel Aviv made me realize Israel did not have a place for our Chatbot community. The first event I created was Chatbots World Tel Aviv and the response was amazing.
We had over 200 people attend the first meetups, all around Tel Aviv. Something larger was needed to hold, and grow, the exploding interest and momentum of the Bot revolution, so I created Chatbot Summit. Chatbot enthusiasts and tech entrepreneurs came on board quickly and we created the first summit from A-Z in less than 3 months. We got over 1,000 people to participate, from early stage startup founders to industry brands such as IBM, Oracle, Cisco, LivePerson, Deloitte, and many more. We had many international participants from all over the world — the US, Canada, Europe, and the far east.
Our mission with Chatbot Summit is to connect all the key players in the forming Chatbot economy — from brands to corporate tech to Bot entrepreneurs to freelancers and developers — in one place where we can collaborate and drive the revolution.
Where do you see the Chatbot Summit in 3 years, and more generally, the chatbot industry?
In 3 years, our goal is to have capacity for four Chatbot Summits per year, one on each continent. In 2017, we will have two (Berlin and Tel Aviv) and in 2018, we will likely expand to Asia and/or the US. In addition, we are planning on hosting monthly Chatbot Summit Community Events in leading Chatbot cities around the world. We are currently looking for local partners for each of these events, so if you are reading this and would like to partner with us, please feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or use our website’s partner application form.
The best way to follow us and see what we are doing with Chatbot Summit is to sign up through our website or like us on Facebook. When we start introducing monthly community events, for example, you will be one of the first to know all the details!
As far as the Chatbot industry, it is growing rapidly and much faster than the App industry grew in its first year — the way I see the market, Bots will probably replace 95% of Apps (not counting games) within the next 5 years. Already today, as many of you probably know, most of the time spent on Apps is on messaging Apps.
The Chatbot Summit is going to be held in Berlin next Monday! Why Berlin?
We are so excited! We knew Chatbot Summit needed to be in Europe, where it would be easier to bring together decision makers from big brands (a key group driving this revolution forward) with new tech, corporate tech, other brands, freelancers, developers, and startups. These folks need a powerful forum for collaboration and business growth and development, and we could provide that by launching a second Chatbot Summit, seeing our success in Tel Aviv.
Around that time, I got a call from head of LivePerson EMEA, Michael Bommer, who said he thought it would be a perfect opportunity to bring Chatbot Summit to Berlin as soon as possible. With the headwind from him, a thriving startup ecosystem, and a great city to experience, it was clear — Berlin would be the next destination!
I’m sure it wasn’t easy pulling all this together! How did you manage bringing in all the big players?
Well, bringing in the top brands was not easy, to say the least. The German culture, especially with its top brands, is quite reserved, so it was a challenge to move fast. But after putting the right team together, which included: Alon Meiraz, now Director of Product at HPE, Batya Mor, former CEO at MobCo Media, Hemdat Sagi, former Commercial Attache of Israel in Berlin, and Niran Amir, now Customer Success Manager at WalkMe, we brought in the top German brands as sponsors. Two of the first joiners, after LivePerson, were Deutsche Bank and Berlin Partners. We were successful in bringing other major brands on board such as SAP, Deloitte Germany, Amazon Germany, Facebook and more.
Getting top speakers from leading brands was tricky at first, but we were able to secure speakers from Deutsche Post, Zalando, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, Vodafone, ThomasCook, Nestle, Google, and many other leading brands. And then we had to pull in the startup community and all the top Chatbot experts from around the world. We were lucky enough that word about Chatbot Summit in the Bot community spread like fire and we collected over 300 (!) speaker applications from the leading Chatbot companies around the globe. I am happy to say we have with us the top leaders, such as Beerud Sheth, CEO at GupShup; Peter Buchroithner, CEO at Swell; Ariel Jalali, CEO at Sensay; Paul Walsh, CEO at MetaCert, Kuan Huang, Founder of Poncho, and many more.
For our first Chatbot Summit in Tel Aviv, we worked with the amazing People & Computers, one of the leading tech producers in Europe. We knew it was the right thing to partner with them again to take the charge on producing the event and help take it to market. Led by Dahlia Pelled, ‘Peli the Tiger,’ and Ben Pelled and their great team (Natali Gabai, Niv Clyman, Gili Ben Zvi, Keren Ginor, and Hagar Livny), they came on board, driving event production together with our local partner ASTOR-MONTERO, a Berlin-based boutique event planning company.
Lastly but not least, we partnered with PIABO PR, one of the leading PR firms in Germany led by Tilo Bonow and his great team (Maria Urban, Anja Wiesen, and Dominik Kratzenberg) who did a superb job bringing in leading media partners to Chatbot Summit Berlin, such as Reuters, WirtschftsWoche, t3n, GIGA, Berlin Valley, Futurezone, Gründerszene, Crisp Research, and Startup Valley News.
As a result of all this amazing collaboration, Chatbot Summit Berlin will offer cutting edge insight from leading corporate, tech, and startup companies across the globe, in addition to leading Bot freelancers and developers, all of whom will speak to the rise of the Bot industry, what is being developed right now, and how industry and developers can keep their finger right on the pulse. Our event offers unprecedented access and opportunity in the Bot world for participants to network amongst the key players in the Bot revolution.
What is the ‘Chatbot Boulevard’ and why is it an opportunity for chatbot and AI startups to be part of it?
The Chatbot Boulevard is this amazing opportunity for Chatbot startups, where they reserve a booth at the event to network and demonstrate their product directly to potential customers, investors, and the media. This is where Chatbot startups can increase their exposure to some of the leading power players in the Bot revolution during an event driving the worldwide development of the Chatbot economy. I looked at the map today and was amazed to see we have close to 30 startups exhibiting! How crazy is that?!
Awesome! Could you give us more informations on the upcoming Startup Competition?
Looking at the Chatbot startups exhibiting themselves on the Chatbot Boulevard, we, a team made up of various keynote speakers, sponsors, and participants, will rate the startups on most innovative, most promise for rapid growth, and likely immediate customer engagement. We had dozens of startups apply and our team of judges selected the top 13 startups who made it to the finals. The finalists are Ophi, Hu:toma, DOCYET, Wikifriend, Bot Media, Favizone, Testmybot, MailClark, Saveboost, TeamBot.ai, Helloguide, Friendly Rides AI, and Sentimer Technologies.
I heard you have launched your own company, Sunrize? What is Sunrize and what’s next for you?
WOW! News travels fast in this small community :-).
I actually did a quiet launch of Sunrize, as most of the my time I dedicate to Chatbot Summit. At Sunrize, we help leading brands create better digital experiences for their customers. We believe that ‘Conversational A.I.’ aka Chatbots is the next major shift in digital experience and are centering our mission and vision around this revolution. I am currently building the core team, which will be composed of top Chatbot professionals, industry leading entrepreneurs, as well as investors. I will reveal the wider vision later on this year, but here are the main pillars I am looking at:
- Chatbot Summits and community events. We are building a core team to take Chatbot Summit to the next level.
- A boutique strategy consulting practice will help leading brands create better digital experiences for their customers. This would include advising business strategy, an area I would love to develop as a brand consultant. When talking with brands or startups, I emphasize that making a strategic plan to run your business with Bots puts you at the forefront of the next digital wave.
- Angel investing in early stage conversational AI startups. Having been approached by several early stage venture capitalists and angel investors who want to co-invest, we want to give back and invest in early stage AI startups as well as startups at other phases and help them grow faster.
- Education/Keynotes/Evangelizing the Bot revolution. I get many requests to speak at other organizations about the Bot revolution and the work we are building with Chatbot Summit. My team and I want to be best equipped to answer these outreaches and be a part of building greater community in the Bot world.
Thank you Yoav for answering our questions!
If you didn’t get your tickets for the Chatbot Summit yet, use the coupon CHATBOTCOM20 to receive a 20% coupon.
See you all in Berlin next Week!
