The Inspiring Story: Krish Ramineni, Co-Founder & CEO at Fireflies.ai

Have you ever been in a meeting and forgotten what was discussed a few hours later? It’s a common scenario we all encounter, and let’s face it – it can be a tad awkward to circle back with the same question. Well, here’s some important news for you! If you haven’t tried Fireflies.ai note taker yet, it’s actually the solution to your issue. And who is the CEO of Fireflies? The person behind this helpful tool is Krish Ramineni.

But creating Fireflies.ai app wasn’t a quick and easy task for Krish Ramineni. He went on a long journey to understand what people really needed and then worked hard to build the product. In today’s article, we’ll talk about Krish Ramineni, the CEO and co-founder of Fireflies.ai, a person who is recognized by Forbes in the 30 Under 30 list. Let’s explore the inspiring story of someone who turned a common problem into a clever solution.

Krish Ramineni’s background

Krish Ramineni’s life story is like an exciting journey full of different experiences. He was born in India but moved to the United States when he was five. He did all his schooling in the U.S., from elementary to high school, and then to UPenn for his college studies.

After college, he worked as a product manager at Microsoft, a big tech giant. Later, he had a choice to go to Cambridge for more studies or to start a business. Guess what Krish Ramineni chose?

Meeting the right partner

Krish Ramineni’s entrepreneurial journey began unexpectedly during his college days. While at UPenn, he crossed paths with his future co-founder Sam Udotong through mutual friends while participating in hackathons and school events. Back then, starting a business wasn’t their primary focus; they were simply fueled by a shared passion for innovation.

Their journey gained momentum as they collectively won hackathons and earned prize money. The initial spark of success ignited a desire to explore more ideas. However, it wasn’t until Krish left his position as a product manager at Microsoft that they delved into projects for the sheer enjoyment of it. As the summer drew to an end, Krish had to make an important decision  – whether to pursue graduate studies at Cambridge or take a different path. 

Thus, Krish and Sam (who was finishing studies at MIT), decided to seize the opportunity and dive headfirst into the startup world.

“It was a very natural and spontaneous process. The interesting thing about all of that is that we went into the B2B space, and we had very little work experience. Sam was working on Firefly straight out of college, and I had a little over a year of work experience, that’s about it, so we were very novices, and we made every mistake Under the Sun.” shares smiling Krish Ramineni in one of his interviews.

Krish Ramineni’s simple yet so powerful words resonate with everyone starting their journey. Insufficient experience, a lack of knowledge, and tons of mistakes should not serve as reasons to give up. Krish’s advice is very clear: if you possess a strong motivation to learn and genuinely commit to the learning process, success is not only achievable but inevitable, just like his own journey with Fireflies.ai. 

“Traditionally, B2B Enterprise Founders have five to ten years of experience, they’re usually much older, and they actually know how a company works. They have a good gut sense of what to build, so we had to learn everything from scratch. For example, I myself didn’t even know what a CRM was or how it worked when we started Fireflies, but it’s been a fast learning process for us.” says Krish Ramineni about the start of his journey with Fireflies.ai.

Thus, unlike more seasoned founders who typically boast years of experience, Krish and his co-founder Sam were relative newcomers. They lacked the conventional wisdom that comes with age and experience in understanding how companies operate. Despite the hardships, their journey has been a rapid learning process, and the lessons learned from their initial mistakes have become invaluable stepping stones in their quest to build and grow Fireflies.ai.

Mistakes&advice

But being stubborn in learning is not the only key to success. Krish Ramineni also shares a crucial lesson from his entrepreneurial journey, cautioning against a common mistake made by many founders, particularly those with engineering and product-focused backgrounds. Krish Ramineni recounts a time when he and his co-founder fell into the same trap of being enamored by impressive technology, specifically natural language processing and machine learning.

They made the mistake of trying to fit this technology into a problem they wanted to solve. In Krish’s perspective, the key for any entrepreneur, regardless of experience level, is to reverse the traditional approach. 

Rather than starting with a technology and attempting to find a problem for it, he advocates for identifying a substantial, real-world problem first. This problem, as he puts it, should be “really, really big and meaty,” something genuinely worth solving. The crucial advice he imparts is to avoid artificially creating a problem that doesn’t naturally exist.

Krish’s core lesson is to delve into the landscape, discover a pain point, and truly understand it. Only then should one work backward to figure out the necessary solutions, technology, and engineering infrastructure. The key takeaway is clear: entrepreneurs should address existing problems rather than inventing hypothetical ones, ensuring a genuine product-market fit and a more robust foundation for success.

The birth of Fireflies.ai

But before Krish and Sam discovered the actual problems that exist in the real world, they had a long journey to figure it out. 

Krish Ramineni’s main idea was always to understand conversations using natural language processing (NLP). At first, Krish and his partner wanted Fireflies to track messages and create a to-do list automatically whenever someone made a promise in a conversation. But, there was no right market, and the technology wasn’t as good back then.

Afterward, they tried other things, like making a tool for managing projects on Slack and creating Slack Bots. Even though these ideas didn’t work out, they learned a lot and kept some important technology.

Then, they had a breakthrough moment. Krish and his team realized that there was a big opportunity in the world of meetings. Unlike emails that you can easily check again, it’s hard to remember what was said in a meeting. So, they decided to use their NLP technology to transcribe meetings, make them searchable, and create notes and action items. And that’s what Fireflies.ai does today.

Fireflies.ai’s success

So, what is Fireflies app?  Well, how often have you found yourself in a meeting without taking notes? Perhaps a pen is out of reach, or the pace of the discussion makes it challenging to jot down important points while actively listening.

That’s where Fireflies.ai steps in to assist – taking the burden of note-taking off your hands, ensuring you never miss a crucial detail. Fireflies.ai seamlessly captures and organizes the key insights from your meetings, making your experience more productive and stress-free.

How does Fireflies.ai work? Using cloud-based technology, it automatically transcribes and takes bullet notes during user calls and meetings, capturing key information from the conversation. You might wonder, does Fireflies work with Zoom? Or does Fireflies AI work with teams? Yes, and even more. Fireflies.ai has formed significant partnerships with leading providers such as Zoom, Slack, Salesforce, Dropbox, and Asana. Besides, it has successfully secured $19 million in funding from investors like Khosla Ventures and Canaan Partners.

Remarkably, the company has experienced remarkable growth, expanding its team from 10 employees to 70 in less than a year. The impact of Fireflies.ai is evident in the widespread adoption of its services. Over 2.5 million people have benefitted from AI-generated meeting notes provided by Fireflies.ai, and the service is used by more than 200,000 organizations, including prominent companies such as Compass, Delta, Uber, Expedia, and Nike. 

Bottom line

Fireflies.ai’s success strongly reinforces Krish’s belief that success comes from identifying and proactively solving existing real-world problems.

His early life has been a mix of moving to new places and trying different jobs, and all these experiences led him to where he is now with Fireflies.ai. Krish believes that every part of his journey, whether it was studying at UPenn, working at Microsoft, or starting a business in Boston without any experience at all, has helped him become the person he is today.

Krish’s story is not just about reaching specific places but about the lessons and growth he gained along the way. Fireflies.ai, the company he co-founded, is not just a result of his ideas but also a reflection of the person he became through all these experiences.

“Journeys and experiences led to where we are today with Fireflies.ai, and I don’t think I would be the person I am without having gone through all of that,” says Krish Ramineni about his long journey to success.

Thanks to Krish’s story, we can see that trying different things, learning from your experiences, and not being afraid of making mistakes – will finally help you find the right path.