Forbes 30 under 30 Asia Class of 2022 was announced recently, with seven Bangladeshis selected to join the global ranks of thinkers and shapers of tomorrow. Among them, selected under the category 'Enterprise Technology', was Shuvo Rahman, the founder of Alice Labs, an AI-based multi-channel sales and support platform that helps online businesses. Last year, the company raised $500,000 in a seed round by Anchorless Bangladesh and HOF Capital.

Alice Labs, founded in November 2018, caters to e-commerce and B2B (business-to-business) companies by providing digital tools that streamline customer service and sales. Their core product MyAlice is a SaaS (software as a service) platform that manages sales support and marketing needs via a social messaging channel that automates conversations with the use of AI and machine learning. According to Shuvo Rahman, founder of Alice Labs, MyAlice helps clients reduce operational costs, reduce friction in customer support and enables more organised control of businesses. 

Alice Labs currently has around 300-400 paying customers, with about 2000 businesses, including Unilever and Maybelline, using MyAlice to support their sales service. MyAlice works by connecting a majority of social and messaging panels like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, etc. into one dashboard. This way, the user can combine all support and sales queries in one place, enabling the team to manage the business better. This not only helps with creating and managing orders but also helps connect with customers and clients as well.

A look into how the MyAlice interface can be used. Photo: Courtesy

"If you are using multiple channels and there are queries coming from those different channels, there are chances of mistakes and miscommunication happening. Due to this, customer experience is bound to turn negative after some time. Addressing such issues, MyAlice puts all sales and e-commerce channels in one window where the user can have the whole picture - being able to support and sell easily," explained Shuvo. He added that the data from the software can be used for marketing the product as well. 

Regarding his recent achievement of making it to the Forbes 30 under 30 Class of Asia 2022, Shuvo expressed that this was a dream come true. "In 2019, when I saw Elius (Hussain Mohammed Elius, co-founder of Pathao) in Forbes 30 under 30, I challenged myself to be there one day. I think I am happier than I should be because I lived up to that challenge. This achievement helps me believe that persistency and planning can achieve anything," he stated.

Shuvo completed his CSE from BUET in 2015, and he believes his experience has helped him address the growing trend of social media being used to conduct wholesale support worldwide. "My background involved working with machine learning and AI, so when building my team, I tried to bring in people who have the calibre and willingness to implement new technology in this country," said Shuvo. He believes that the landscape of natural language processing (NLP) and AI has improved over the years, so it is crucial to utilise such technology to solve existing problems.

In terms of improving the current IT sector of Bangladesh, Shuvo believes that there is already a large quantity of international-level talent in Bangladesh. "These are the same people that go to Google, Apple and Amazon and work at higher incentivised rates. We need to make sure these talents stay in the country by providing them similar rates and ensuring we can nurture them whenever required," he added.  

MyAlice user interface. Photo: Courtesy

"Being a SaaS company means that anyone can go into the MyAlice site and start using the software by subscribing to the service," said Shuvo. Regarding future goals, Shuvo said that what he wants is to build the company further. "We want to make our ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) $1 million. Not only do we want to increase revenue and client size, but we also want to help more people improve their sales and support as well," he claimed.