As a solo founder working full time on her startup from the beginning without a tech background, it was crucial for Kasia to have a supportive community of mentors and advisers. When Google for Startups opened Campus Warsaw in 2015, Kasia was one of the first in line to get involved in the Residency program. “With my background in corporate marketing and business, I had to learn everything from scratch: about technology, building a tech company, and scaling the business in the tech world. I was looking for knowledge and inspiration from the experienced mentors and I found it all within Google for Startups,” said Kasia.

Yosh.AI is now integrated with Google Assistant, and the company has quickly grown to employ 25 people in just one year. Yosh.AI has also become a Google Cloud partner, helping retailers to grow their e-commerce offerings by showing them how to implement Google Cloud technology. Kasia now mentors aspiring founders, sharing her experience of starting a successful deep tech company by herself without a tech background.

When COVID-19 first hit Europe in March 2020, the Yosh.AI team quickly leveraged their AI capabilities to help. Kasia offered the Polish government a voice bot to provide automated information to the 40,000+ people calling helplines daily for crucial advice on symptoms and hospital openings. The Polish government took up the offer within the hour. Kasia and her team have been so successful they have been recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the winning solutions in the organization’s #buildforcovid19 Hackathon.

The COVID-19 crisis also spiked demand for AI-assisted customer interactions, and Yosh.AI has seen a 400% growth since the pandemic began. Yosh.AI is showing companies of all kinds just what artificial intelligence can achieve. “2020 accelerated companies' openness to implementing automation and AI solutions,” said Kasia. “We’ve seen the readiness of enterprises to implement these solutions due to the sudden growth of e-commerce and online communication and a big demand in the market across various sectors including retail, banking, insurance and healthcare.”

“A huge part of where I am today is because Google for Startups gave me support and people believed in me,” said Kasia. “Coming from a post-communist country, with dreams but not sure how to make them happen – I met entrepreneurs who made me believe I could do it.”