#373 – How Davit Baghdasaryan built the world's best voice AI by solving problems others ignored

A story about turning personal frustration into breakthrough technology—and why great products come from pain you actually feel.

This Episode is for SaaS founders struggling to identify their real target audience—and wondering how to separate urgent problems from nice-to-have features.

Most SaaS companies don't fail because of bad tech. They fail because they try to solve problems they don't actually feel.

Davit Baghdasaryan, CEO of Krisp AI, took a different path. Former head of product security at Twilio, he spent evenings in Armenia taking morning calls from San Francisco—dealing with background noise that existing solutions couldn't touch. One personal frustration became the foundation for technology that now processes over a billion minutes monthly and powers 80% of human-to-AI voice interactions.

And this inspired me to invite Davit to my podcast. We explore how building from real pain creates unbeatable product-market fit. Davit shares insights about choosing problems with no alternatives, why great demos feel like magic, and how focusing on essence over speed built technology that companies like Discord and Twilio now license. You'll discover why their "marketing experiment" desktop app became Product of the Year—and how they accidentally created infrastructure that now processes over a billion minutes monthly.

We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies: – They focus on the essence – They offer something valuable and desirable

Davit's story proves that breakthrough technology starts with problems that personally bother you.

Here's one of Davit's quotes that captures his philosophy on problem selection:

"In order to understand the pain, you need to understand the alternative. If you are in an office, the alternative is to go find a quiet room—probably not that painful. But if you're in an airport or call center with people speaking next to you, there is no alternative."

By listening to this episode, you'll learn:

1. Why understanding alternatives reveals true market urgency
2. What separating horizontal from vertical markets actually means
3. When building hard technology first pays off long-term
4. Why great demos feel magical instead of technical

For more information about the guest from this week:

Guest: Davit Baghdasaryan, CEO of Krisp AI

Website: krisp.ai

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