Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Alireza Kenarsari-Anhari, CEO of Picovoice, located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Picovoice is the developer-first voice AI platform. It provides developers with the tools they need for adding voice to anything on their terms. There are so many voice products developers can build. Think about Alexa. With Picovoice, you can have a custom assistant named "Go Solo" for your website. You can transcribe an hour-long podcast in minutes or build a search engine similar to google to find queries within your audio library without converting to text.

Picovoice differentiates itself with its unique on-device voice processing technology. Voice products built with Picovoice technology are private, cost-effective, and reliable with zero latency. Its portfolio includes:

Its stack can run on anything from embedded devices to servers and web browsers, hence providing an immersive experience not achievable by any FAANG. We have been privileged to have great customers from various industries since the early days of Picovoice. NASA, Analog Devices, and LG are a few names that I can share.

Tell us about yourself

When I started Picovoice, I was a senior engineer at Amazon with expertise and patents in deep learning and speech recognition. While voice adoption among users was growing, voice technology was exclusive to only a handful of multinationals. Most enterprises were not able to afford it. Most developers didn't have access to state-of-the-art models. You had to go through long and exhausting sales processes even if you could afford it. I founded Picovoice with the mission of "being the developer-first platform for adding voice to anything."

Today, what you can do with Picovoice in a day would take months, if not years. We're the first and only company for many things. For example, we're still the only company that offers fully private and custom speech models for free. What motivates me is seeing that we get closer to that goal.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My goal was to build a business that is sustainable and technology that is best-in-class. I think we're on the right track and have the right people. We are growing with our customers rather than investors' money. There is nothing wrong with raising funds. We're also a VC-backed company. However, when you optimize your business for the next round, you can lose focus easily. We're focused on our customers, streamlining the developer experience, and building our technology. On my second point, we have been publishing open-source benchmarks for a long while, and I haven't heard of a single counter-argument. Our benchmarks have been used by several researchers.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Responsibility. Life is easier when you know how much you're going to make, work, and what to do. Now I have to think about the customers, team, and the board.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

It requires grit, persistence, and agility. There are so many challenges down the road, and you have to keep going. I concur that "running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss." I'm still chewing glass.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://picovoice.ai/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aipicovoice
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/picovoice/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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