Martin Langelo Lien, CEO & Co-Founder of Volt: $6 Million Raised to Build the Future of Messaging Ops

Identifying the Problem: Volt was born out of Martin’s personal experience running an SMS marketing company, where he encountered the inefficiencies of managing messaging infrastructure, inspiring him to build Volt.

Capitalizing on Industry Shifts: The introduction of 10DLC regulations in the SMS space created a compliance burden, providing the perfect opportunity for Volt to offer a streamlined solution to an industry-wide problem.

Pivoting the Product: Initially focused on analytics, Volt quickly realized that solving the core problem was more valuable than just identifying it, leading to a shift towards a more robust infrastructure solution.

First-Mover Advantage: Being the first to address the unique challenges of SMS compliance gave Volt a significant edge, with early adopters eager to solve a problem that few others were addressing.

Category Creation as a Strategy: Martin emphasizes that Volt is more focused on creating a new category—messaging ops—than just building a company, ensuring a long-term, defensible market position.

Zero-Dollar Marketing Strategy: Volt has achieved significant growth without spending on marketing, relying instead on targeted outreach through LinkedIn and leveraging the pain points of potential customers.