Rupal Patel is the founder and CEO of VocaliD, an award-winning voice AI company creating custom digital voices for individuals and brands. By leveraging cutting-edge machine learning techniques, a proprietary voice blending algorithm, and the company’s crowdsourced voicebank dataset, VocaliD helps companies and individuals create high-quality, natural-sounding voices in just a few short hours. Rupal is also a founding member of the AITHOS Coalition, the Founder of STEM4SocialChange, and an Affiliated Faculty Member at Harvard/MIT. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Neuropsychology at the University of Calgary, her Masters of Health Science and Ph. D in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Toronto, and her Post-Doctoral Associate degree in Speech Communication at MIT.
Rupal joins me today to share what inspired her to start VocaliD and the steps she took to find the funding to launch the company. She shares the challenges she faced early in her entrepreneurial career and discovering her internal drive to scale the company. She shares how her team has grown and evolved since the company’s inception and why it’s critical for female founders to surround themselves with a solid team. She also shares the strategies she used to create her company’s message, why their messaging speaks to two specific audiences, and how she channels her inner strength when faced with uncertainty.
Surrounding yourself with a solid team, both on your staff as well as in the advisory or board capacity is vital.
Today on When She Founded:
- What inspired Rupal to start VocaliD and the gap in the market she hoped to fill
- How she found the funding to launch the voice AI company
- Transitioning into an entrepreneurial mindset and the challenges she faced when making this shift
- How the VocaliD team has evolved since its inception
- Why surrounding yourself with a solid team is critical to the success of your business
- The challenges of finding a co-founder with a vision, mission, and passion that is aligned with yours
- The phases of building the business that pushed the development of her AI technology to the next level and increased market awareness
- Strategies she used to increase consumer awareness and share her message with prospective customers
- Why VocaliD’s messaging speaks to two specific audiences
- Rupal’s prediction for the trajectory of her business
- What her team currently looks like and how it has evolved since the inception of the company
- Her passion for STEM4SocialChange and how they help teach children about voice technology and STEM as well as it’s social impact on the world
- Rupal’s advice for female entrepreneurs
- How Rupal channels her inner strength when faced with uncertainty