Hello, and welcome to today's edition of Founders International, where we give you the update on startups and technology from outside of the US.

Here's what we have in store for you today:1. Conquering customer support without increasing headcount2. Fractional ownership in African real estate3. Why to post a video of yourself doing body weight squats on Twitter (or not, it's up to you)

Read time: 4 minutes

Conquering customer support without increasing headcount

A common problem for startups just getting off the ground, and even companies growing so fast they're flying by the seat of their pants, is customer support. That's because is becomes a predicament when you need to focus on your core product, but you also need to be getting feedback ON the product.

So, do you focus on helping your current customers and their problems and save yourself money, or do you hire someone so you can focus on improving the product to support the onboarding of new customers. That's what you call being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Most will end up hiring full time people or virtual assistants (which you can do by going to VALATAM to hire virtual assistants based in Latin America), or worst case trying to do it all themselves.

Well, two startups from Australia are helping you from feeling this pain just as they did, with TalkVia AI and a2b Transformation.

These two Australian companies joined forces recently to "build an army of generative artificial intelligence-based digital workers as an all-in-one solution for businesses struggling in the current economic slump."

TalkVia AI originally focused on customer service conversations using AI and helped businesses engage with customers on a larger scale.

a2b Transformation provided businesses with digital technology and solutions using automation, AI, and robotics.

Ray Guy, the founder of TalkVia AI knows that people often can't get enough customer support for what they really need for their company, and a2b knew that there was a huge opportunity for businesses to embrace AI as customers became increasingly fed up with long wait times and poor service, so they decided partnering was the best way forward.

They will be going up against the Google's, Amazon's, Microsoft's, and now Bing's (yes, Bing is back(?) now) of the world, so an uphill battle is to come. But, the teams are optimistic they have the bets product for two reasons: building one piece of technology that can be deployed on any device, and provide quality customer interaction.

Feature Newsletter: Creator's Companion

Today, we are featuring a newsletter you may be interested in checking out , called Creator's Companion.

Creator's Companion is a weekly newsletter keeping you up on the pulse of everything creator economy. That means everything from Youtuber's, to Twitch streamers, to podcast creators alike, you get the inside and detailed scoop on everything new and exciting in creator economy news.

Recent posts that I enjoyed checking out myself was one of their featured posts on Mr. Beast called "The Mr. Beast IPO" talking about how he was raising money by selling some equity in his brand, as well as the most recent post called "'For-you'-ification." It had some great insights on social apps, and how they all seem to be blending together and becoming the same for their users.

So, if you want to keep up on everything creator economy, Creator's Companion is the place to check out, and let them know that you came from us and show them some love!

Now, back to the news!

Fractional ownership in African real estate

There has been a wave of companies offering the idea of "fractional ownership" in the US and beyond, when owning something outright may be out of reach or inconvenient.

For many people, it mainly started with Robinhood, offering you the ability to buy a fractional share of stock of a public company. Other companies also followed this trend in different areas, such as Masterworks offering you fractional ownership of art pieces (you know, so you can put in your Twitter/LinkedIn bio "Art Connoisseur"), Fundrise in commercial real estate, and Rally Road in collectibles.

As we covered in previous issues, there are some really smart international entrepreneurs who take the ideas of successful US companies, and apply them to their regions in an industry that the idea could work. And you'd probably be dumb not to? If Coach K handed you his basketball playbook, you'd probably take some plays out of it for yourself.

And this is a case of that playbook. Meet Keble. Keble is offering fractional ownership to African's in real estate within Africa, the UK, and Dubai.

Why is this such a great opportunity? Well, African's have been for the most part locked out of home ownership in the past. It has only been for the wealthy, as lending/mortgages have been hard to come by, and very expensive for the average African person.

Keble is making ownership available to the masses, and this idea is already showing its worth. Retail investors on Keble raked in a total of $140,000 at an average of 10% in interest. How are they able to get such good returns already? Part of the edge for Keble is that they are helping fund development in the MENA region (Middle east/north African), so they are literally getting in on the ground floor of development. Better returns for them, and their users.

Keble is backed by global accelerator Techstars, and was one of the 12 startups that got into the first ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator Program. If that ain't proof there is belief in this, I don't know what is.

With parts of the continent of Africa growing at a rapid pace, an overall young population, and many being entrepreneurs/beginning to really gain wealth, all of that will contribute towards a growing and urbanizing region, so Keble is definitely a company to keep an eye on in the coming years.

Founder of the day

Today's founder of the day is Paras Chopra.

Why? Well, I found him on my Twitter timeline where he had a video of himself doing squats and I thought, what the heck is this dude doing, I need to find out more.

And boy am I glad I did, because this guy is awesome. Paras is only in his 30's, and has already been working on his startup Wingify for about 14 years. Wingify is a leading SaaS company in customer experience and conversion rate optimization space, and has 2500+ paying clients globally with almost 300 employees according to LinkedIn.

How can you tell this guy's got it? Well, he has the infamous "Forbes 30 under 30" in his bio, so you know he has to be doing something cool.

Obviously that's a joke, but what caught also my eye is Paras bootstrapped this company (started with his own money, didn't raise any funding), and it now does $30 million plus in top line revenue.

Him and his company are based out of India, and they are hiring. He also has started a new journey, which is definitely going to be worth checking out.

Lesson of the day: when you see someone doing body weight squats on your timeline, you should automatically dig further because they probably are a cool person doing cool things.

And that's all for today, if you want to get more follow us @Founders_Intl, or respond to this email. Yes, we respond to all emails, including yours. Try us.

BIG ASK

We are always on the lookout for cool companies and people based outside of the US to highlight. If you know of anyone, or you yourself are an interesting person running a company, respond to this email! We want to cover you in a future issue, because you and your company deserve it.

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💯 Freaking sick dude🤷‍♂️ Meh, do better next time😑 Bruh, I might unsubscribe after reading that