#RVoSu — Voxbone, Shachar Radin-Shomrat
The Real Voices of Scale-up Series.
Intro’
Voxbone is a communications-as-a-service (CaaS) business that is changing the way telecommunications are provisioned and built. Since launching in 2005 Voxbone has become fully licensed in 63 countries, powering 92% of the world economy.
We sat down with Voxbone’s CCO, Shachar Radin-Shomrat, to hear about Voxbone’s rebrand, the challenges she’s faced scaling global tech businesses and the motivations behind her move from software engineering to corporate management.
Listen to the full podcast here.
You joined Voxbone as CCO in early 2017. One of the first things you did was a rebrand. What factors led to that decision?
Our mission is to save companies from telecom hell. A lot of the telecom space is very traditional, some processes have not been updated for decades. For businesses who want to expand internationally that means engaging with 40–60 carriers. We’re trying to make that simpler.
Voxbone holds a very unique position in the market and has very strong assets. It powers 92% of the world economy — even the telco companies use Voxbone as they expand their services worldwide. We are the communications super power behind the scenes of many of the cloud communications solutions that companies use on a daily basis. That’s why we often say that we are the best kept secret in cloud communications.
When I joined, Voxbone was lacking a story to package this altogether. The branding used to be quite standard, almost like a telco. When you want to disrupt an industry you cannot talk as though you are the same kind of creature. My role was to bring Voxbone’s true nature to light.
What is Voxbone’s true nature?
We like to keep things weird, we’re geeky people and that’s what makes Voxbone so unique. A pure attention to detail means that we can improve the product with all sorts of tiny changes.
We brought all of this together with the tagline that says, “strangely simple”, because we’d like to make global communications strangely simple.
How will Voxbone stay at the forefront of the sector in years to come?
We’re fully licensed across 9000 area codes in 63 countries. This has created very high barriers to entry for new players because it’s difficult to replicate and you cannot shortcut regulatory processes.
The most important thing for us is to ensure that we provide excellent services to businesses that work with us. There will be more hype trends but we won’t necessarily rush into those. We’re constantly working on delighting our clients and optimising our core offering. On top of that, we’re adding new services that bring added value, e.g. speech analytics.
Can you tell us more about speech analytics and what it can be used for?
Artificial intelligence analysis requires a very high quality of audio and our voice services enable recording that is AI ready. On top of that, we also integrate with speech analytics providers such as the Google speech analytics engine. We are solving the fragmented ecosystem of having one telephone or communication provider, a different recording provider and different speech analytics providers.
In terms of use, customer services and support calls can be used to identify key words or specific sentiments. The results can be used to identify certain key words that are associated with different actions. For example, if a client mentions he/she is looking for a particular service, the analytics engine automatically recognises the service mentioned and autonomously takes the appropriate actions.
After graduating you were hired as a Software Engineer for a telecoms company. Why did you move into advertising 3 years later?
I love software engineering, it’s analytical and it makes things happen. However, I felt I was missing the bigger picture. I didn’t want to just build a very small portion of the platform or product, I wanted to be at the intersection of business, technology and creativity. I looked for a role that would bring all these elements together and I found a single position that did, a Strategic Planner.
Strategic Planners work within advertising agencies, they’re a hidden gem that not many people know about. They are the brains of the agency and it’s such a fascinating role. I joined McCann Erickson as a Strategic Planner and it was exactly what I’d been looking for. In a single day I could work on briefs from ~40 different companies. It was very diverse and it gave me the opportunity to work with management teams from leading companies across different industries. It was quite a business education in itself!
In 2010 you landed a role at myThings. During your time there you worked you way up to CMO and helped drive significant growth. What’s been key to your success?
There were a few key factors. Clearly we were offering the right thing at the right time. Using machine learning to deliver personalised advertising was cutting edge in 2009.
On top of that, I brought a combination of software engineering and advertising expertise to the table. Being able to bridge the gap between the two was invaluable.
While working for myThings you relocated from Israel to London. Then in early 2017 you landed the role of CCO at Voxbone. What learnings could you bring forward from your previous roles and what was completely new?
I’ve been scaling B2B technology companies at a global level for more than 10 years now. I think what is unique in my current role is the domain expertise. CaaS is a new domain for me, however, there are many transferable skills. Increasing brand awareness with very little budget and generating demand to drive sales are key. I’ve been doing this all for a while now so it is just about shifting tactics. It’s a different target audience but a similar toolbox.
If you could have a conversation with your former self, what would you say?
I’d tell myself to trust my instincts. When I look back at my career path it all makes sense because it blends advertising, technology, strategy and marketing. However, back then, I faced a lot of uncertainties. I essentially left a very lucrative software engineering job to take a new path that I wasn’t sure would pay off. I’ve been told it was brave, but at the time it felt like the only option available to me. I needed to find a role that fulfilled my intellectual curiosity and my drive. I’d like to tell my old self that everything will turn out fine – I think that’s what I would do. And also buy a bit of bitcoin!
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To find out more about Voxbone, check out their blog here.
Learn more about the Real Voices of Scale-up series and listen in to other episodes here.
