Ovi Negrean @SocialBee. Building a SaaS on top of APIs

In this episode #30, we are talking with Ovi Negrean, Co-Founder @SocialBee (https://app.socialbee.com/), an AI-powered social media management tool that provides you with the tools to create engaging content effortlessly. Ovi shares the challenges and the effort it takes to keep up with all the changes in social media regulations when you’re building your product on top of their APIs. He digs into the way they build the culture at SocialBee and make sure everyone is included in the product development. Ovi also talks about some hacks and rules that help him and the team to successfully bootstrap the company for many years.

(0:00:05) – Success of SociaBee and Customer Communication 

I chat with Ovi Negrian, co-founder of SociaBee, a social media management tool. We discuss his background and how he has been able to create a successful business. We also talk about the importance of customer communication in the growth of SociaBee, their customer-centric approach, and how they strive to give the best experience for their customers. We end with a discussion on the need for formal titles and how SociaBee has adopted a balance between fun titles and more conventional titles.

(0:11:59) – AI Social Media Engagement Module Building 

I chat with Ovi Negrihan, co-founder of SociaBee, a social media management tool. We discuss how they implemented OpenAI’s API, the importance of creating good prompts for AI, and how they hand-curated a list of over 1000 post prompts specifically for social media. We also talk about their analytics module and how they prioritize customer feedback. Lastly, we discuss what they would do if a feature turned out to be unsuccessful.

(0:24:01) – Bootstrapped Startup With Productized Services 

SociaBee, a social media management tool, was able to survive in its early years with services and productized approaches. We explore how pricing for services and tools varies depending on the needs of the customer and how to think about them as two separate businesses with synergies between them. The biggest business expense is the team and the challenges of staying up-to-date with API changes. We also look at the expense of buying a domain name and the importance of showing growth and success.

(0:29:35) – Remote Work and Company Culture 

We discuss the recent trend of moving over the cloud and buying your own hardware, and how SocialV was able to go fully remote when COVID hit. We also explore how the team was able to build up a healthy company culture when all the employees are working remotely, as well as the benefits of having twice-per-year retreats. Finally, we look into asynchronous working and how it can help teams build trust and foster culture.

(0:39:00) – Sales Industry Inspiration and Competition

We explore the world of competition in the SaaS space and how SociaBee managed to find their own niche within it. We discuss how SociaBee was able to capture value by providing a lot of value to its customers and how the big players in the industry don’t always have the same capabilities as SociaBee. We also examine the importance of customer feedback in creating their own flavor of tools and services and how competition is beneficial for the success of the company.