Having travelled abroad and become an English teacher and then a lecturer when she returned Niamh Kelly created Tigim because of her experience adapting the way she communicated with students to ensure it’s at their level of understanding. Since then she launch the platform that provides interaction intelligence for companies to help them create content that their customers can understand.
Having since got the backing of Enterprise Ireland and Angle investors, Tigim’s customers include Fortune 500 companies and the likes of Glanbia, Natwest Bank and CNP Santander.
Niamh is also working to break down the barriers to employment for underrepresented groups by teaming up with other companies in the accessibility space to provide knowledge and training to companies on different topics of accessibility through her platform Leaders For Accessibility. You can find out more about here:
- What was your background before you became an entrepreneur?
I trained first as a Zoologist with a Master’s degree in Wildlife Conservation. This led me to work on conversation projects in parts of Africa and Asia where we also taught English to the locals. Being a conservationist doesn’t really pay well, unfortunately, so between projects I trained as an English language teacher and then became a university lecturer designing science courses for international students.
- What was the eureka moment when you thought of the idea of Tigim? Why did you think there was a need for the company?
When you’re a language teacher, you constantly have to adapt the way you communicate with students to ensure it’s at their level of understanding. You may have the same lesson plan, but with different cultures and students with different levels of ability, your message is never going to land the same way. We do this naturally in our dynamic face-to-face interactions using facial cues and other non-verbal expressions. But it is not possible to do this with other forms of static content, like websites, application forms and printed materials. So it occurred to me when I was teaching at Trinity College, Dublin that we need some feedback loop to understand what people can and can’t understand to help us deliver the message in a better way.
It is really a result of my educational background and experience, as I saw the huge gap and need for a scientific way to understand people’s communication needs.
- Describe what Tigim does and how it has evolved over time?
Tigim provides interaction intelligence for companies to help them create content that their customers can understand (accessible), with the right stylistic features to increase engagement and business outcomes. We essentially have created the feedback loop that we naturally have in dynamic interactions for the online environment. This is through a combination of linguistic and behavioural analytics to understand customer’s cognitive and cultural needs that shapes their behaviour. Once we know this, we then use AI to optimise it for accessibility and impact.
The main evolution has been in the sector that we focus on and the development of our own unique modelling analysis. From my background, we started in the university sector, but I soon realised that there is a real lack of understanding in the corporate sector about how their level and style of communication causes them to lose customers. So this became our focus last year and now we work with large eCommerce companies, financial and scientific institutions.
- How does it make money? What pricing structures does it have?
We offer both consultancy to run large-scale analysis for companies, as well an annual subscription to our intelligence platform. The pricing depends on both the volume of analysis and the number of users.
- How have you bootstrapped the company? Have you sourced any outside finances since your launch?
We have raised €600k to date from Enterprise Ireland and a fabulous Angel investor.
- Who are some of your biggest customers? How did you go about acquiring them?
We won’t say names just yet, but we’re happy to say some Fortune 500 companies are on the list. Others include Glanbia, Natwest Bank and CNP Santander.
A lot of our customers have been acquired through cold outreach on Linkedin. While others have come from being part of networking groups like the Innovation Exchange who connect small and large businesses.
- You invested a huge amount of resources into the backend of the website. How did you go about building the website and what are some of its unique features?
Our efforts have been in developing our intelligence platform. As a non-tech founder, there was no way I could this without tech talent. We have a small (but super) team of two developers, computational linguist and machine learning/AI engineer. They are heroes that have brought it to life with the unique feature of providing that scientific feedback loop to know how to communicate with people to achieve the best business outcomes.
- Do you consider other companies in the digital accessibility space as competitors or collaborators?
I always consider collaboration first. In fact, in digital accessibility I believe that there are too few companies for anyone to be real competitors. The great thing is that we all have a shared goal of enhancing accessibility and I think at this stage we all occupy a different niche. From my studies in biology and evolution, I think competition is a good thing and we can all co-exist by finding our unique strengths and offerings. And if it can propel this sector further, then I hope many other companies are as open as I am to collaboration.
- How did you go about building out your team? How many people are involved with the company now?
Again, LinkedIn has been where I found my team and we are 100% remote with people working in Spain, Peru, Argentina and Sweden. We focus heavily on developing our intelligence system as this is the core substance that sets us apart and helps us to win big customers. As we grow, we will expand and the beauty of remote is that there are no limits to helping us find great people anywhere in the world.
- Outside of digital accessibility, what companies in the Diversity and Inclusion space are you big fans of?
I’m a huge fan of the Together Academy, a social enterprise that trains people with Down Syndrome to work in the hospitality industry. They also work at events for corporate organizations. If you haven’t been to their training cafe at the Wanderer’s FC in Ballsbridge, then you are missing out. The food is delicious, and the staff and management team are just brilliant. Any organisation that works painstakingly hard to remove obstacles to provide people with purpose and autonomy is getting a tonne of love from me. Check them out!