20 Bots - that can help you - when Growing a Business

“Biz Bots, the SW that runs automated tasks are set to move well beyond today’s functionality, to deliver more complex, fundamental roles in running businesses. As intelligent systems & automation are further developed to serve the purpose of critical business functions, Bots will power and define the future of business”

Topics for using Bots for Growing your Business: Legal Issues, Customer Acquisition, Sales & Growth, Company Culture, Hiring new Employees, On-Boarding, Perfecting your Pitch.

Tens of thousands of Bots have been built to do things like promote movies, restaurants & products, but there’s also an entire group of Bots created to help businesses grow & streamline tasks. Chances are pretty good you will need more than just Bots to get your business off the ground, but the Bots below were selected because they can quickly do many of the things startups need to help in Growing a Business.

A. Handle Legal issues when Starting.

Advobot for Slack makes signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) as simple as picking a few drop-down menu options. The agreements can also be signed & shared online. Bots to simplify other processes common to startups — like making out a Stock Purchase Agreement or a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (to be SAFE) — are coming soon. Advobot was made by the creators of Visabot, whose bot helps people navigate the Green Card process for $150. As of last month, it had assisted more than 70,000 people in filing for Visa permits, primarily supporting the kinds of Visa permits likely to affect people working for startups in the United States. The company was formed in 2016 and graduated from the 500 Startups accelerator earlier this year.

LawTrades, has Slack, SMS, & Facebook Messenger Bots to connect startups looking for legal help with a Lawyer. Tell the Bot when you need to get started and the price range of Lawyer you’re able to afford, and a human Project Manager will return with recommendations. LawTrades can connect you with a Lawyer for help with things like incorporation of a C-corp business, filing for a Trademark or Patent, & Contracting review. In May, LawTrades began to offer Tradeable Automated Term Sheet, or TATS, which are documents similar to Y Combinator’s SAFE notes.

B. Initial Customer Acquisition

Whatever the business you hope to build, if any portion of it is customer-facing, services like Driftbot, ManyChat, Intercom, & others can automate interactions with customers who find your Landing page or send you a message on Facebook. They can also help you segment audience or send one-to-many messages. These Bots can gather personal info like name, phone #, & Email, so you can contact potential customers when the product launches. Qualified leads can be immediately handed over to a human..

C. Sales & Growth

Growthbot was made by HubSpot CTO and represents the company’s first venture into Bots. Growthbot can tell your marketing & sales teams about the Ad networks or marketing SW companies use, and it provides a general search for information about companies, from their top online posts to their Social Media accounts. Once found, you can add the business to CRM or Prospects list.

Bot Kit can quickly complete tasks like sending Email Ads to customers or creating Facebook ads through the use of a conversational interface. In June, Kit was made free to all Shopify merchants.

Sudo got part of its seed money from the Slack Fund and is designed to act as an assistant to sales teams. Sudo automates small tasks and can ask you questions, and you can ask it questions. Answers may draw on live Salesforce data or information within your Email, calendar, or contact list.

D. Company Culture.

When companies like Slack talk about using a conversational interface to create a new way to work, they’re not just talking about Bots that replace your Expense Reporting App. Some Bots are made specifically to reinforce positive company habits or culture.

Donut matches up people at a company so they can get together for coffee or lunch. Got a project that’s going to require two parts of the company to work together? Want to encourage collaborative thinking or help new hires get to know the existing team? Create a Slack channel, add everyone involved, and Donut will do the rest.

Growbot lets you share mini congratulations with team members in the form of positive Emoji reactions. A tally of teammates with the most positive reactions is served up to the person who installed the Bot, giving teams a new metric to identify standout performers at a company. Mini bonuses can be awarded through the Bot.

E. Find new Employees

First hires are essential, but if you need to fill gaps in your young company’s staff needs, there’s a Bot for that. Magic has been providing human Personal Assistant services by text message for years now. Earlier this year, Magic for Teams, which has offices in Manila & San Francisco, launched on Slack to provide remote temp workers to do a range of office tasks.

Mya Recruitment was made to help Hiring managers. After an application is received, Mya asks screening questions, verifies an applicant’s qualifications, and handles most things short of the actual job interview. Mya maker FirstJob claims its Bot is able to automate 75 % of the hiring process.

G. Employee On-Boarding

Obie 1 (whoops, that’s Star Wars) can help guide a new employee through the On-boarding process by introducing them to documents they’ll need to do their job. Once the new hire is settled, Obie can be used in a conversational manner to answer questions that start with Who, What, & How. It can cover a variety of company operations, serving up answers that draw on a suite of integrations from Google Drive to Salesforce to Evernote.

H. Perfect your Pitch

Pitchbot has 10-minute conversations designed to mimic a Pitch with an Angel investor, Seed round investor, VC fund, or startup Accelerator. The robo-investors rattle through a list of standard questions, like how long the founders have known each other and the size of the market you’re after. This bot is rather basic, but it’s a good start.

The AI VC guides you through a list of list of questions designed to get you ready to speak with a human investor. Both The AI VC and Pitchbot are a little simple for experienced Entrepreneurs, but they raise good questions that every startup founder should be able to answer.

Comments: Do you know any other Bots that would be good for Growing a Business?

from Venture Beat 04 Aug 17 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

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