Typewise Profile

Describe your product or service: 

“Typewise builds market-leading autocorrect and text prediction AI that increases typing speed, decreases errors, and massively boosts productivity. We offer a smartphone keyboard app, a desktop solution for businesses and individuals, and an API for developers.”

Describe your company values and mission: 

“We're on a mission to make daily lives easier by 'decoding human thoughts.' Current interaction with our digital devices happens only at 10% of the speed of our thoughts. Given that we spend more than 6.5 hours on our digital devices every day, the result is a massive loss of productivity — time that could be spent on more enjoyable activities.

Our privacy-friendly AI text prediction technology will boost the average person’s productivity by 2-3X over the coming years.”

How are you funded? I.e. venture capital, angel investors, etc. 

“Angel investors.”

How big is your team? Tell us a little about them (I.e. co-founders, freelancers, etc.) 

“14 full-time employees; a mix of developers, sales, marketing. More details here [on our website].”

Did you always want to start your own business? What made you want to become an entrepreneur? 

“Typewise is a story years in the writing. Co-founders Janis and David met in school developing their first tech products – a school library database and a music categorization AI. Over time they built a friendship around their shared passion for technology.

This shared enthusiasm sustained their friendship as they moved through university and into their separate careers in data science (Janis) and strategy (David), with most talks returning to tech. But one question continued to confound them: How can we use technology more productively? From an early Kickstarter campaign and development of a prototype, Typewise has already come a long way.”

How did you come up with your startup idea? How did you decide to actually act on the idea? What gave you confidence that you were on the right track? 

“After the launch of the Typewise Keyboard App in late 2019, the app quickly gathered the first 100,000 downloads. From there on, it was clear Typewise could be something bigger. Janis and David started to build a team and surrounded themselves with awesome and highly motivated people. 

During a successful seed round [in] mid-2020, raising $1 million, Typewise appeared on the Swiss reality show ‘Die Höhle der Löwen’ and convinced two investors of the necessity of a keyboard for the 21st century.”

How did you come up with your company name? Did you have other names you considered? 

“We originally called our company/product 'WRIO' - but switched to 'Typewise' later which fitted our product better and was more memorable.”

What is the greatest challenge you faced in starting your business, and how did you overcome it? 

“There are a lot of challenges; getting people to adopt a new keyboard layout is perhaps one of them. We have over 1.6 million downloads of our keyboard app, but we know a lot of people abandon the keyboard because the layout is different to traditional QWERTY keyboards and takes a little getting used to.

We are currently working on some onboarding improvements to help deliver value (faster, more accurate typing) more quickly to new users.”

Who is your product or service made for? Who is your target market? 

“Typewise Keyboard App is made for any smartphone user who wants to type faster, type more accurately, and type with 100% privacy.

Typewise Autocorrect and Text Prediction for Desktop is made for businesses wanting to increase productivity by enabling faster text input - for example, customer service software or customer support departments of any business.

Typewise API is for developers who want to add powerful autocorrect and text prediction AI into their own products, platforms, or applications to help people write faster and more accurately.”

What's your marketing strategy? 

“A mixed approach: advertising, PR, organic growth (ASO and SEO), content marketing.”

How did you acquire your first 100 customers? 

“Via a Kickstarter campaign.”

What are the key customer metrics / unit economics / KPIs you pay attention to to monitor the health of your business? 

“App downloads, users, paying users, retention and revenue.”

What's your favorite book on entrepreneurship? 

“‘Traction’ by Gino Wickman.”

What is your favorite startup or business podcast? 

“I don’t have one, I prefer listening to fiction (currently Dune).”

What is something that surprised you about entrepreneurship? 

“It always needs to look shiny on the outside but there are a million fires to fight on the inside.”

How do you achieve work/life balance as a founder? 

“Not opening my laptop on weekends and spending time with the family; doing a workout before dinner to refresh.”

How do you stay motivated? 

“Talk to others (in the team but also other founders), get energy from these conversations.”

Did you have to develop any habits that helped lead you to success? If so, what are they? 

“Scrum, put in clear blockers to work on things and not float from topic to topic.”

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