Pre-YC Demo Day: Msg.ai's Puneet Mehta on The Rise of AI, The Potential For Messaging and Life As A Current YC Startup
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2016
⏱️ 25 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Puneet Mehta, Founder @ Msg.ai, an artificial intelligence startup for conversational commerce and for an AI founder you don’t get much better than starting your career at IBM's TJ Watson Center, which is exactly what Puneet did. He then went on to build predictive platforms to power large-scale trading systems aka bots on Wall St. It is clearly not joust us who think he is awesome as Advertising Age named Puneet to the Creativity 50 list in 2014, honoring the most creative and innovative thinkers and doers.
1.)Â How Puneet made his way into the world of AI and came to be the founder of YC's latest, Msg.ai?
2.) How has the YC experience been for Msg.ai and for Puneet as a founder? Have YC been able to keep the same quality of mentorship with the largely expanding number in their latest batch?Â
3.) VC funding is usually very available to YC alums graduating, how will Puneet go about picking his investors? What are the fundamental determinants?
4.) What have been the biggest takeaways for Puneet? What has been the highlight? What has been tough? What was surprising and unexpected? How did Puneet deal with the requirement for 10% weekly growth?
5.) Taking a step back now, Puneet has stated before about building the Turing test for money. So what does he mean by this and how does he look at AI as a key driver for conversational commerce?
6.) What is it about messaging that makes Puneet believe this is the platform of the future? What is it that bots provide that has never been possible before?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Puneet's Fave Book:
This episode was supported by Wunder Capital, the leading online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in large scale solar projects across the U.S. Wunder’s solar investment funds allow you to earn up to 11% annually, while diversifying your portfolio, curbing pollution and combating global climate change. Do well by doing good and sign up for a free account here and join the thousands of people that are already achieving their investment targets.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the 20-minute VC. I'm your host, Harry Stebbings. And before we dive into the show today, |
| 0:05.6 | I want to direct your attention to the official Sasta podcast brought to you by Jason Lempkin and I, |
| 0:11.9 | where we have released our latest interview with none other than the legendary Mamun Hamid, |
| 0:16.5 | partner at one of the best performing funds in the world. It is, of course, social capital. So check that out by |
| 0:22.4 | searching for Saster on iTunes. But back to the show today. And as it's Friday, that can only mean one |
| 0:28.3 | thing. It's Founders Friday. And with YC Demo Day looming, we thought we would investigate the latest |
| 0:33.8 | batch and draw back the curtain on the world of YC and all that is entailed for founders. |
| 0:40.1 | Therefore, joining me from YC's latest batch, I'm delighted to welcome Puneet Mata, founder at |
| 0:45.9 | MSG.a, or message.aI, an artificial intelligence startup for conversational commerce. |
| 0:52.6 | And for an AI founder, you don't get much better |
| 0:55.4 | than starting your career at IBM's T.J. Watson Center, which is exactly what Poonit did. He then |
| 1:01.6 | went on to build predictive platforms to power large-scale trading systems, aka BOTS on Wall Street. |
| 1:08.2 | And it's clearly not just us who think Puneet is absolutely incredible, |
| 1:11.9 | as advertising age named Puneet to the Creativity 50 list in 2014, honoring the most creative |
| 1:18.5 | and innovative thinkers and doers. We'd also like to thank our sponsors for the show today, |
| 1:23.6 | Wonder Capital, the online investment platform backed by tech stars, and Wanda allow you to earn up to |
| 1:29.9 | 11% annually through investing in their solar funds, but best of all, they take absolutely no fees, |
| 1:36.6 | and rather brilliant news considering current market conditions, but your investment with Wanda |
| 1:41.0 | is independent of market performance. So join the thousands of people already |
| 1:45.3 | benefiting from using Wonder and sign up for a free account at Wondercapital.com forward slash 20 minute |
| 1:52.3 | VC and that's Wonder with a you and 20 minute VC all in letters. However, enough from me. So it's now |
| 1:59.0 | time to welcome the man himself, YC's latest, and I believe greatest next company, Puneet Mata, founder at message.aI. |
... |
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