Meet Rodolfo Ramirez

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rodolfo Ramirez.

Rodolfo, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in San German, a tiny town on the island of Puerto Rico. I moved to the states in my mid-teens, a transition that impacted my decision to go in a very different direction than what I thought I was going in life. After graduating from Texas A&M University with a bachelor’s in Biology and Psychology, I concluded that I wasn’t going to pursue medical school due to my overwhelming entrepreneurial “itch.”

Instead, I decided to pursue my own projects in media and tech in Boulder, CO. I decided to focus on further developing my growth marketing skillsets by collaborating on various projects in the College Station/Austin startup community. I started working as a growth hacker for the startup accelerator, Seed Sumo, based in Austin, TX. Following my stint at the accelerator, I went on to discover the vast opportunities that laid within the Cannabis Industry and became the co-founder of a media company that went through the leading cannabis accelerator, CanopyBoulder, in 2015.

During my involvement as CMO of TwoCubes Media, my duties spanned across all aspects of digital marketing and growth-hacking, while also serving as creative lead for all video production. The company went on to successfully raise capital in early 2016. Some of my most valuable contributions to the organization were: growing the site’s monthly unique visitors from 17K TO 250k in under a year, incorporating a vast influencer network exceeding +12M reach across all social platforms, and crafting their social strategy focusing on video virality which helped expand their platform’s social reach.

In 2016, an incredible opportunity was presented to me to become the VP of Growth of a B2C app within the cannabis industry. In February 2018, we sold the brand and assets of WeGrow, an educational platform for the cannabis industry, and made sure to keep the technology. Five months later, we launched a new, built from scratch platform — and called it swivl. I currently serve as a co-founder and COO of swivl, a human-in-the-loop AI platform. Everyone in the team is a previous founder in the tech space.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
If your dreams are big, you know that the path will be filled with ups and downs. One must always keep a positive attitude and patience with oneself, as life is more of a marathon than a sprint. A journey you must live day by day, instead of spending too long in the past or in the future. I only say this because it’s something that I have had to learn throughout this process.

– Imposter Syndrome during difficult times throughout this journey. Reasons like age or “lack of experience” have to do something with this.
– Everything has been self-taught.
– No prior B2B Enterprise Experience.
– My first company failed.
– Almost ran out of money during Christmas of 2016 & 2017.
– Worked multiple jobs or projects.

Please tell us more about your work. What should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I currently serve as a Co-Founder & COO of swivl. As in many other startups, we all wear many hats — mine being focused on all things Sales and Marketing strategy, and how I can continue to add processes to scale them. We are helping companies automate repetitive tasks.

Augment your customer support and engagement with a personalized assistant for your business. Our human-in-the-loop AI system combines natural language processing and user journey mapping in order to continuously improve the customer experience.

Imagine a customer landing on a website and being greeted by a friendly AI chabot. It’s like the Apple retail experience. The digital assistant understands what customers are looking for, answer their questions in context to current and past activity, route them to the recommended products or content, and escalate to a human whenever necessary.

The long-term vision for swivl is the Uberization of data labeling. Helping businesses continually get smarter without more overhead. We build AI tools for business automation. As jobs shift towards more automation, we want to give people the right tools to make sure AI is doing its job properly.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’d say that success in life and business (or specifically for me — progression in the right direction) is the combination of both deliberate practice and a diligent working ethic, mixed in with a bit of luck.

I know that the best things in my life have come from making a decision to pursue something, jumping into the abyss of uncertainty — fully knowing there will be ups and downs along the way — and giving it my all. I’ve learned over the last few years that having a set plan from start to finish is somewhat redundant, as you need to maintain that ability to adapt to change and pivot when necessary. All the while being prepared enough as for when luck strikes, you are ready to step up and succeed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tryswivl.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrySwivl
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodolfoaramirez/
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/try-swivl

Image Credit:
Kyle Hall
Linda Bergonia

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