In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzis welcomes Katerina Karanikolopoulos, Founder of Stradegio.ai. Katerina shares her unique transition from a career in pharmacy to leading a tech startup, highlighting her innovative AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) is a very large and broad spectrum of technologies which most people would be familiar with through... platform designed to enhance meeting efficiency and strategic execution. She offers valuable insights into balancing user feedback with long-term goals and navigating the competitive landscape with low-code/no-code tools.
Katerina talks about her unconventional journey from a pharmacy career to leading a tech startup. Her path included roles in mergers and acquisitions, strategy consulting for companies, and even considering a career in music. Despite lacking a technical background, Katerina took on the challenge of building her AI-driven platform, Stradegio.ai, which aims to reduce meeting overload and enhance strategic execution by leveraging low-code tools and her newfound coding skills.
Katerina discusses how her diverse career experiences have taught her the value of passion and determination in learning new skills, even those as complex as software development. She emphasises the importance of problem-solving in tech, highlighting how Stradegio.ai optimises meeting efficiency by providing structured analysis and actionable insights. The platform helps organisations make better decisions and save time by guiding team leaders toward clear goals, offering recommendations on the necessity of meetings, and suggesting ways to achieve desired outcomes more efficiently.
The conversation also explores Stradegio.ai’s focus on improving meeting outcomes through tools that promote thoughtful preparation and better decision-making. The app encourages inclusive discussions by allowing anonymous input, which minimises groupthink and fosters diverse perspectives. Katerina shares her entrepreneurial journey, stressing the importance of early customer feedback. She advises entrepreneurs to get prototypes into customers’ hands quickly to gather real-world data, iteratively improve the product, and balance immediate market needs with long-term strategic goals.
Finally, Katerina addresses the strategic positioning of Stradegio.ai in a crowded market, emphasising its unique focus on providing strategic guidance for meetings. She contrasts this with competitors who primarily reduce or eliminate meetings or focus on administrative tasks. Katerina also discusses the impact of Low-Code/No-Code tools on the competitive landscape, noting that while these tools democratize app development, success depends on effective distribution and customer engagement. She outlines her strategy for scaling Stradegio.ai, which includes refining the product, identifying the ideal customer profile, raising capital, and seeking co-founders to drive growth.
Topics Covered
- Katerina’s Career Change Journey
- Creating the Stradegio.ai Platform
- Learning New Skills
- Gathering and Using Customer Feedback
- Making Meetings More Effective
- Positioning Stradegio.ai in the Market
- Using Low-Code/No-Code Tools
- Plans for Growing Stradegio.ai
Important Time Stamps
- Katerina’s Non-Linear Path to Tech Entrepreneurship (0:07 – 7:00)
- Katerina’s AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) is a very large and broad spectrum of technologies which most people would be familiar with through... Tool Saves Weeks of Meeting Time (7:01 – 13:51)
- Inclusive Discussions, Better Results: The Future of Meetings with Stradegio.ai (13:52 – 17:08)
- From MVP to Market: Lessons in Early Adoption from Stradegio.ai (17:09 – 23:00)
- Stradegio.ai: Carving Out a Unique Space in a Crowded Market (23:01 – 28:31)
- Building Apps is Easy, Selling Them is the Challenge (28:32 – 32:04)
