Leap of faith

I talk to friends, AI experts and some colleagues about the idea of a multi-skill digital assistant designed to help people like us with recurring tasks. There is nothing like this on the market, the people are excited about the idea. I am excited too! But is something like this technically possible?

On December 5, Brian is born. At first, he can only do small talk and tell jokes. I am experimenting with chatbot technology, RPA, researching further online skills and databases. I analyse all top AI 100 companies in order to find out which of them are potentially helpful for business professionals like me. I can get no sleep – new skill ideas come late in the evening, in the middle of the night, very early in the morning… the only relief is to write them down – a mind map of 50 potential skills is the result.

It will work! We have built the architecture for Pro Brian and we see the technological prove that Brian will work and it will be amazing! The first users test the translation skill and they are loving it. It is not perfect, but it saves a lot of time!

AskBrian GmbH is founded. We have some funding, have done all the registration and paperwork. In parallel, we develop the free skills of Brian.

Pro Brian is alive! For the first time, the end-to-end architecture works! Brian answers emails and performs tasks in the background. This is just amazing! Still, much more to do: he can process only smaller files, he is not stable and the translation quality is not good enough.

Champagne Breakfast: In the night, we had a technological breakthrough when all PowerPoint slides are translated and formatted correctly. The founder is crying. Happiness. We intensify the client conversations in order to start free trials. So exciting!

Brian is running, we have paying clients, 600+ users, more than 1000 requests a month. We are improving the deliverability, solving special issues, adding translation of pdf, png, and jpg files. Now we are ready to onboard further clients and start contacting investors.

We experience very positive traction, amazing feedback, and great potential. The founders decide to dedicate 100% of their passion and energy to Brian. We believe we owe it to our clients, we owe it to Brian and we love building Brian. With additional power, we move faster.

The world is struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy slows down and this is the time where we push even stronger and close our first external financing round!

We have gained private investors from leading consulting firms and startup founders – Investors from consulting firms such as Bain, Oliver Wyman, Stern Stewart, EY and the founders of Flaconi, Zenloop, Kartenmacherei and more! With our new supporters, we have so many more possibilities!

On 6 July 2021, our company took a significant step forward with the successful completion of our pre-seed investment round. This key milestone will allow us to accelerate the development and market expansion of Brian, which is set to change the business world.

Under the leadership of FOSTEC Ventures, a capital increase was executed with additional contributions from existing investors as well as new investors such as Carcharodon Capital, COREventures, and Whistler.

In August 2023, AskBrian was successfully acquired by think-cell, the leading productivity software provider specialising in data-driven PowerPoint presentations. This move signals an exciting period of growth and innovation for both companies. Together we are creating the conditions to redefine productivity in the professional sector.