Today we have selected Sam Xia to take his interview. He is the Co-founder and CTO Of WikiPro Inc.
To start things off, how are you and your team doing in this pandemic?
COVID-19 has been a difficult time for everyone. We have not experienced anything like this. Our company is
working remotely during this time, as we follow CDC’s safety guidelines. Our business is growing nicely during this time, as the pandemic has prompted many business owners to look for ways to engage customers.
Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined this company?
I am the co-founder & CTO of WikiPro Inc. Prior to joining WikiPro, I worked at a few technology companies where I enjoyed solving real problems on a big scale. I am the inventor/co-inventor of about a dozen US patents.
Michael is the founder of WikiPro. He is a prominent CPA with a few offices under his name. He approached me about an issue that he was facing in 2016, where he had a hard time exchanging information to and from his clients. This issue led to a business idea. I turned his idea into reality, and the project known as WikiPro was used throughout his offices delivering promising results.
In Aug. 2018, I joined as CTO full-time. Since then, WikiPro has ramped up very quickly. We are glad that our system has been used by professionals such as lawyers, accountants, insurance agencies, etc.
How does your company innovate?
WikiPro innovates in a few ways:
1. We listen to our customers’ feedback. We are constantly talking with our customers for feedback. We are thriving to make our system simple, easy, useful, and powerful for business owners.
2. Our development runs using agile. Even though we have to work remotely during COVID, we still manage to have about 5 releases per week.
3. Our work is fun to work with. We work hard, play hard. Innovation comes when you work in an easy-going environment.
How the Coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
The pandemic has benefited our business. People are looking for ways to get jobs done remotely. WikiPro fits into the remote work tools category. WikiPro allows business owners to text, engage & convert.
Features include:
1. Remote communication via SMS. Two-way text messaging with existing business office phone numbers. SMS has a 98% open rate vs. a 20% open rate of email. On average, SMS is responded to within 60 seconds vs. 2 hours response time for email.
2. Get documents e-signed with SMS. Since the e-sign is in the middle of a text conversation, it is way easier and quicker to get a document signed without an office visit or personal touch.
3. Increase online reviews to businesses with our text-to-review system.
4. Convert more sales with the text-to-pay system.
Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
Yes, we have to make difficult choices. There are many marketing channels: like Google CPC, banner, social media, LinkedIn, email. But our marketing budget is limited. We have to make difficult choices in our marketing budget allocation.
The lesson is that we have to test different marketing campaigns. When the test result is out, we focus on the top two marketing channels and disregard the rest.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?
Initially, we signed up a CRM tool for our sales. Later on, we figured out it is best just to use our own system for the CRM. So we replaced the original CRM tools and used WikiPro as the sales tools.
It worked out nicely. WikiPro system is currently used for our sales and support system.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Our main competitor is Zipwhip. We plan to stay in the game as our product offering is much more comprehensive than Zipwhip. The product innovation enables us WikiPro a better product-market fit.
Your Final Thoughts
All in all, this has been a fun and challenging journey. We welcomed our new CEO Timothy Li last month. Tim brings his vast knowledge of marketing and sales to the team. Every business needs a tool to engage customers. Call/Email is dead. Text is the way to go. The market opportunity is big and there can be a few players in the market. I believe WikiPro is best positioned to help businesses grow, even after this pandemic.
- Spokesperson: Sam Xia
- Company: WikiPro Inc
- Website link: https://www.wikipro.us