Wyzerr provides a gamification and artificial intelligence-based survey service
Natasia Malaihollo, founder of survey service provider Wyzerr. Image Credit: Natasia Malaihollo
Wyzerr is a startup that provides enterprise-level market research service for both business and personal clients. Using the reliability of the artifical intelligence (AI) technology, Wyzerr is considered able to perform deep analysis on tasks that are deemed impossible to be done manually. But who would have thought that an Indonesian founder is behind the startup that has been widely talked about in American tech startup scene. Her name is Natasia Malaihollo, who was born in Ambon, the capital city of island province Moluccas.
Wyzerr’s success was not an overnight journey. Malaihollo spoke to DailySocial about how she began Wyzerr two years ago when the first startup that she founded experienced failure. Her perseverance had inspired Malaihollo to move forward; during the process, she learned that the failure was because she did not gather enough feedback when building the company.
She then tried out several platforms to gather various feedback to find out what customers of her first startup actually need, but she was dissatisfied with what the platform provided for her. She determined to build a survey system that feels fun to use, just like playing a game.
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“The ‘brain’ of our platform is the feedback data that we manage to gather through gamified surveys. All Wyzerr surveys are able to catch 25 questions in no more than 60 seconds,” she explains.
Finding meaning in failure by searching for new opportunities
Malaihollo was born in Ambon, from parents who were a native of the city. She came to live in the United States when she was only one-year-old, particularly in Southern California. She later went to Berkeley to study law. After working in several law firms, she finally decided that she is better off as an entrepreneur.
In June 2011, she founded Sooligan with her partner Nikka Umil. Sooligan was basically a social media-based platform to post tweets related to college life and activities. As a co-founder, in this startup Malaihollo dedicated herself in leading innovation and product development. But often she also needed to manage operational needs from securing an investor to building marketing strategy.
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But life took a different turn. In May 2014, Malaihollo decided that she was unable to continue Sooligan. Not being affected by her past failure, in June 2014 Wyzerr was born to offer its various abilities in gathering deep insights through feedback, for different kinds of purposes.
“When I decided to become an entrepreneur, I moved to the city where my first startup was founded. I have lived in Northwest Arkansas, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco. And now (with Wyzerr) I am living in Kentucky,” Malaihollo told her story.
Malaihollo studied computer science in school, though she ended up not choosing the field as her major in university. Her brother also happened to be a computer engineer. But she admitted that her biggest motivation to study computer science was because she had studied law in university, particularly patent law.
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Through the law firm that she previously worked in, she often witnessed innovation from her various clients in tech companies such as Samsung and IBM. She kept on developing her skills, and continued on teaching herself about product development and digital innovation.
High traction and brilliant achievement with Wyzerr
As Wyzerr CEO, Malaihollo is also in charge of aligning technological development to support the feedback survey platform. What she does is based on the mission to build a feedback technology that is fun, fast, and easy to use by both respondents and businesssses.
To fulfill those demands, Wyzerr is now consists of two product variants, Wyzerr Questionnaires and Wyzerr Insight. The questionnaire system that it implements was designed with fun user experience in mind, adopting the ways digital games adopted to make itself interesting for smartphone or desktop users. Based on gamification, filling the feedback form was done as effective as possible, with the average respondents requiring no more than 60 seconds to finish 25 questions.
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Lessons to learn from her rise and fall
Wyzerr is now available in various regions in Asia. The company is working on its ambition to expand further, with possibilities to enter the Indonesian market. From her startup journey, Malaihollo revealed the three key points that beginners need to pay attention to when starting up.
The first one is to always, always perform tests. Founders are often trapped by the constant stream of new ideas, and fast execution has become a trend among young leaders. For Malaihollo, performing tests before building something has vecome a ritual of its own. Be it before executing an idea, a product, or other forms of innovation.
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Second, Malaihollo stated that in Wyzerr she would never build anything that cannot be sold to the customers. She cited the example of Apple, which sold the iPhone even before the product was fully “finished.” This means that building customers’ trust should begin before the product is fully released to the public.
“Never build anything before you manage to succeed in selling it. If Apple can do this, so should we,” she said.
The last point is the willingness to adjust our idea and product if the market does not respond well to what we have created. Because often what seems interesting for us does not work so well when it is marketed to the public. Opening up your mind to keep on learning and innovating is the key here.
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The article Cerita Founder Asal Ambon Natasia Malaihollo dan Kesuksesan Startup Wyzerr di Amerika Serikat was written by Randi Eka and was first published on DailySocial. English translation by e27.
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