Avril Power #Giyst
Just a week away from our first AwakenHub mission to New York and launching our AwakenAngels fund with our friends Digital Irish and our Global Diaspora Ambassador, Mary Ann Pierce at the Bank of Ireland Hub.
Excited to bring a community of founders with us including six companies that will pitch on the night. Once being giyst -giyst’s innovative summarisation engine simply integrates with video platforms and produces automated video summaries. giyst also generates data to improve search and provide valuable content recommendations. We spoke to co-founder & SheGen2.0 participant Avril Power to find out about her founder journey.
To get us started - how would you describe yourself in 6 words or less?
Ambitious, creative, strategic and honest!
Describe your business and what prompted you to start it?
Our AI technology produces video snippets and summaries of longer form video content, which helps drive discovery and engagement. This enables the repurposing of content at speed and scale. Information overload and shortening attention spans is something that everyone experiences on a daily basis. And with the avalanche of video content we are expected to create and consume is completely beyond our reach. giyst aims to solve this using our technology to dramatically reduce the time and cost of repurposing video content.
Tell us a little bit more about you?
Grew up in Cork and back living here now, raising my family while building the business. I have a masters degree in marketing from UCD's Smurfit Business School and started my career working in various advertising and marketing agencies in Dublin, Toronto and London. What I loved about agency work was the focus on creativity and strategy coming together. Also worked in startups as well as multi-nationals so this commercial experience has really been valuable on my founder journey.
Fill us in on your female founder journey.
My experience has been really positive as a female founder. I feel that there is such fantastic supports and networks available to us as female founders - for me, AwakenHub has been a phenomenal network to be part of on this journey. The timing has definitely aligned for me as a female founder within the startup community. There's a shift happening, the network is growing and the supports are there if you go looking. It's important as a female founder to have the confidence in what your ask is and having the self-belief to sell yourself.
How has being part of the AwakenHub community helped your business?
The introduction to our partner MAP digital in the US market has opened so many doors for us and created such valuable opportunities. The network of women within AwakenHub has been an essential part of the progress giyst has made across potential customers, partners and investors.
As a founder - what are your non-negotiables?
Always take the next step - keep inching forward and moving the needle. Sometimes the whole path ahead can be overwhelming but I'm a big believer in just doing the next thing, keep progressing and then you look back and realise how far you've come.
What are your top three tips for other women founders?
1. Build your network. This is business critical - put yourself out there on linkedIn, at events. 2. Feel your fear and do it anyway. If there are things you are afraid of doing, just bite the bullet and do it anyway - you'll build your confidence and get better with practice. 3. Don't underestimate the power of just asking! Don't assume the answer will always be a no - you'd be surprised by what you can achieve by just asking!
What are you hoping to get out of your New York experience?
Building my network, moving closer to closing our seed round. Also looking to meet with potential clients and partners.
Where do you see yourself in 12 months and 5 years time?
In 12 months, we will have successfully raised our seed round and focusing on growing the business in the US, our primary target market while actively preparing to raise a series A funding round. In five years, I will have grown giyst to a global business and we will be the leaders in AI video summarisation. I would like to be in a position to help other female founders on their journey, as well as nurturing a diverse and inclusive culture within the organisation, where women are progressing in their careers. Moving towards an exit would be awesome also!
To finish up with what are six words to live by?
Integrity, joy, creativity, ambition, resilience, family.
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