Now it's personal! AI supported user recommendations

How it all started

The Founder and CEO of Froomle is Koen Verstrepen. Prior to Froomle, he carried out research on this subject and obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp. Koen started Froomle together with his supervisor Bart Goethals, who is also co-founder. “What I really loved about my PhD was that it was partly conducted with people who work at Netflix and Apple. Especially since Netflix is a forerunner in the field of AI personalisation,” explains Koen Verstrepen, CEO and founder of Froomle. 

According to Koen en Bart, there was a huge discrepancy between user experiences offered by Netflix and Spotify on the one hand and the rest of the market on the other. Many companies struggle with this. And so the idea for the start-up Froomle was born. “We knew we had the knowledge and technology to fill that gap. That's why we decided to help make user experiences all over the world smarter and therefore better”. 

What makes Froomle unique

It’s easy to use for the staff! A problem that a lot of their competitors face is that their users have to invest a lot of time to implement and understand the software. This often results in e-commerce sites having only a little bar at the bottom of the screen that says “recommended for you”. The problem is that this only uses about 10% of the devices’ screen which then only leads to 1% of the visitors’ attention going to that bar. You often see this bar at the bottom of the screen because they want to use pictures, promotions, etc. at the top of the page. This takes away the personalisation and is far from ideal.

Froomle makes a personalised and smart alternative for each of those modules. If you want to promote something, Froomle has a specialised module allowing you to promote in a personalised way. Some customers would rather pay a bit more for quality and only get a 20% discount, while others would prefer a 70% discount over getting the best product. Then, there are also different types of specialised options for e.g. when a client wants to personalise a collection. Because of these modules, Froomle is able to personalise a much larger part of a website in comparison to its competitors. 

Starting out is always the hardest

The first milestone for Froomle was their first customer. At that moment, they were financed by their investors and success. “In the beginning, you haven’t proven anything yet. There is not a lot of income or investors. Our tactic was to start working without an income, with the goal to get a paying customer as soon as possible. That’s a thrill!”

You’re constantly making important decisions, doubting your choices, and maybe returning to something you dismissed at first. Koen and Bart sometimes wonder if they made the right choice. “We have made mistakes. Today we make choices that would’ve been entirely different if we had made them two years ago.”

Start-up in a pandemic

Froomle dealt with COVID-19 the same as everyone, in a positive way. They tried to keep negative things under control and took on some positive challenges.

People now know there are a lot of possibilities online (the gain in efficiency is huge). Before Covid, it was normal to do everything in real life (commuting, airplane travel for meetings, salestalks). People are now aware this isn’t always necessary and the company believes we’ll end up in a mix of online-office. 

As an already cloud-based company, the start-up wasn’t that affected by the digitalisation. Their biggest challenge was losing the team dynamics because of a lack of physical contact. They solved this by using an online system (Donut via Slack) where two people of the company were put together every week for a 15 to 30-minute conversation that wasn’t about work. This offered a chance for them to have a deep conversation, even more than how it used to be before  those conversations were held at the coffee machine.

The second biggest challenge for Froomle was the sales, those were very hard for about 9 months. Even in e-commerce, which was booming at this point, sales were difficult. People were waiting for things to calm down. Luckily this is over now, people have gotten used to the new normal and they’re continuing business as usual.

Collaboration with Sandbox Hub

Froomle has already worked together with Mediafin and Mediahuis. The most challenging collaboration was with Mediahuis. They personalised the recommendations for the international newspapers of Mediahuis to their respective users. They did this for the websites, apps, push notifications,and newsletters. 

Today, Froomle is actively working for 7 brands at Mediahuis.  It’s been a strong partnership since the beginning and they want to upscale this success internationally. 

“Mediahuis gives a lot of input about how we can improve and what they expect from us.” 

When Mediahuis joined the Sandbox Hub, they gave Froomle a chance to present themselves to the Sandbox Hub network, this gave them a lot of visibility to an array of compelling media companies.

The most valuable thing about a collaboration with a media organisation is the importance of high-quality productions. The advantage of a partnership compared to a customer-deliverer-relationship is for the deliverer: getting useful feedback about your product and being able to learn from that. The customer also has an advantage: they are able to influence the product. They’re in the front row and can steer the product’s direction.

Froomle recommends working with Sandbox Hub, especially for start-ups that are interested in news media, broadcasters, publishers. Those are the ideal customers. 

Want to learn more about Froomle? Go to their website Froomle.ai or find them on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. Be sure to give their podcast a listen on Spotify: Value from Al.