Given the state of economy, startups are prioritizing "profitability" over striving to become "unicorns," and so are we. It's less magical, sure, but at least it pays the bills! Customer Support had been a struggle for us since long & fixing it felt like an opportunity to me.

The struggle was real, and there were many of it (as shown). Random 🧠 - "Why would someone with a tech/product expertise work as a support agent?" It’s like - Lionel Messi doing a full time job at Decathlon, though the theory has some merit, but is ultimately flawed.

The idea: Dukaan's own AI assistant, which would answer customer queries instantly and precisely, anywhere. AI sounds cool! But wait... My understanding of AI is equivalent to my understanding of ACID properties of a database. All I knew was the FULL FORM.

But then life isn't about possessing all skills yourself; it's about having contacts who do. And I have @ojasvi_yadav - this kid is ahead of the pack when it comes to AI/ML, and also leading the AI/ML efforts at Dukaan. He started working on it immediately.

Honestly, I was as skeptical as a cat at a dog show. Coz I've seen the nature of customer queries on Dukaan, thousands of them. It ranges from "how to add multiple warehouses?" to "मेरा पेआउट आज नहीं मिला तोह खाके जहर खा के मर जाऊँगा". And million more such cases in between!

A day later, he came up with the working demo of the chatbot and asked me to try The bot was answering almost all common questions about Dukaan instantly & accurately. However, account-specific questions like "why has my payout been pending for 2 days?", the answers fell short.

A day later, he came up with another demo and this time bot answered both generic as well as account-specific questions, instantly. Let's name her "Lina" and @_ggpush to prod. Next? Of course GGpush Posted this in Dukaan VIP community on FB & slept.

Next morning ~200 live chats and ~1400 support tickets have been marked as 'resolved' by Lina. I literally started feeling like Edward Morra from the movie "Limitless" is running the entire customer support of Dukaan by himself, seriously! But wait! that's not the end...

The start of something beautiful... "Subhash, how difficult it would be to build a platform that will give everyone their own Lina like AI assistant?" He said "2 hours! max!" Let's build it then! A̶v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶r̶s̶ Dukaandaars Assemble - I've got a great Sunday plan ;)

@subhashchy @NeelSeth7 @imaginaryloop - figured out the all-things-AI, data extraction etc. I got the frontend ready in like 20 mins, while @nikamanish breathed life into the skeleton It's almost 6 am, "Welcome To The Machine" by Pink Floyd is being played in the background...

The result? 🚀 Imagine having your own AI assistant, who knows your business inside out & can answer customer queries instantly, 24/7. And not just generic queries but queries that are user/account specific. Give it a try:

In the age of instant gratification, launching a business is not a distant dream anymore. With the right idea, the right team, anyone can turn their entrepreneurial dreams into reality. Overnight! To all the dreamers, doers, and disruptors out there - your time is now!

P.S. We're hiring for multiple roles at Dukaan. If you're passionate about AI, E-commerce, Product Design and want to be part of the unfuckwithable team, you know how to reach out to us. Note: Lionel Messi, we're keeping a spot open for you, just in case 😉

@suumitshah As expected, didn’t find any mention about the 90% staff that were laid off. What assistance were they provided?

@arnob1 As expected, 'someone' will get offended on behalf of 'someone else', so I had this reply ready: Assistance ke bare mein jab Linkedin pe post karunga tab dekh lena mere dost, yahaan Twitter pe log "profitability" dekhte hai "sympathy" nahi. Also - "it was tough decision" 💔

@suumitshah @threadreaderapp unroll

@suumitshah But these metrics only tell us half the story. Any impact on churn and customer satisfaction?

@suumitshah ✍️Basically he used '90% layoff' as a 'content hook' for thread ✍️In a single thread announced lay off & hiring, launched a new solution, without mentioning what happened to those 90% speaks abt org culture ✍️Customer feedback abt 'resolved tickets' was a missing part story

@suumitshah It’s lame to start a sales pitch with “I laid off 90% of my team…” Come on dude

@suumitshah I'm Curious to know the impact on the CSAT scores and customer feedback, would you be open to share those?