10 Best Startups to Watch 2021
The Silicon Review
“We work with each customer to identify the KPIs that drive business objectives and gamify them to maximize employee engagement and productivity as well as reduce attrition.”
Going into 2021, there’s no doubt your company will want to strengthen its defences, increase your employees’ productivity, and stay ahead of current and future trends. Introducing gamification could be the solution your business is looking for to meet these goals. Gamification allows you to provide engaging training initiatives, all while ensuring you educate your talent, improve their work-life balance, and attract and retain the future leaders of tomorrow.
ZIZO Technologies, Inc. is one such subscription-based Workforce Gamification Management Software company built to enable increased performance transparency and engagement. Its customizable business intelligence dashboard provides complete insight into activity metrics while a unique gaming experience increases staff engagement, development, and performance.
Zizo Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 2020 and is headquartered in Buffalo, NY.
Jimmy Chebat: Interview Excerpt
Q. In this dominating business and technology marketplace, there are hundreds and thousands of companies in every field/sector you can imagine. Do you think your company can outsmart the rest?
At ZIZO, we are confident in our vision and how we stack up against our competition. To us, it is not about outsmarting our competition, but rather how we can solve our client’s problems better than anyone else. Our product uniquely addresses a common problem, targeting the future generation of the workforce.
Q. A startup may or may not function as expected. It takes everything to stand out and compete in the business world. Was it the same for your company?
Yes, but luckily, I’m a seasoned entrepreneur and know to expect the unexpected. Of course, I couldn’t have predicted a global pandemic in our first year of operation, but the experience has strengthened our agility and ability to pivot when necessary. We are constantly making adjustments as we anticipate what the new world will look like post-Covid.
Q. A startup is defined by its core values. What are your company’s core values and how did they help you to succeed?
We have five values that we consider our pillars; trust, accountability, professionalism, communication, and agility. We hold our team to a high standard when it comes to our values, and I know that it makes a difference to our customers, as well as to our productivity. Agility became an important trait within the past year; startups require the ability to shift focus often and with ease; we are lucky to have a team that prioritizes this skill.
Q. Explain your services in brief.
ZIZO is a workforce gamification and performance management platform. We integrate directly with a business’s operating systems to store and organize business data in a centralized data warehouse. From there, we map the data into easily accessible dashboards so that stakeholders can access all the information they need about their business. Simultaneously, we work with each customer to identify the KPIs that drive business objectives and gamify them to maximize employee engagement and productivity as well as reduce attrition.
Q. Any company, big or small, must have the sense of authenticity and originality to succeed. What do you want to be, a leader or a follower?
A leader, of course. While there are other gamification solutions on the market, ZIZO is one of a kind, and we plan to keep it that way. We offer an immersive gaming experience unlike any other and have made a conscious effort to make staying ahead of the curve a part of our long-term plan.
Q. The biggest challenge a startup may face is ‘adaptability’. How do you manage to stay relevant to the consumer interests and needs of this high volatile market?
As mentioned above, agility is one of our primary values as a team. Our entire organization prioritizes the ability to recognize changes in our market and to adapt to meet the world where it is. In a world that is now in constant change, it’s one of the most important traits that an organization can have.
Q. How do you keep your company up and running? What are the factors that help your company to compete on a global platform?
As a leader, I operate from the ZIZO model - Zoom In, Zoom Out. I lead from a ‘zoomed out’ perspective, keeping an eye on the big picture, or as I like to say, above the forest. When specific needs require my attention, I ‘zoom in’ and get into the weeds with my team to address issues when necessary. The better the team you have, the less time you have to spend in ‘the weeds’ and the more time you can spend focused on the company as a whole. When I founded ZIZO, I knew that I wanted to find the right team from the start, and it has made a world of difference in our success.
Q. Customer service varies, but companies can still be successful. How do you maintain your customers’ trust and loyalty?
Our customer’s trust is the most important thing we can earn. This is something we prioritize from our development team to our customer success team. The integrity of the data and the algorithms that drive the automation of our system is critical to building a reliable and accurate platform at every level of interaction. If our users feel like they can’t use ZIZO to report their business performance accurately, we lose their trust, and we can’t act as a reliable solution. We will always prioritize the system and data integrity to avoid ever losing our customer’s trust.
Q. What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?
Just like we value transparency with our clients, I believe being transparent with your team is crucial to any leader’s success. The more I can be open and share with my team, the more they feel like a part of the company and empowered to be honest with me when I need to make changes. I’m not the type of person who wants everyone to agree with me and tell me what they think I want to hear, and I make it a point to let my employees know that. I can read books and attend leadership seminars, but nothing beats direct feedback from my team to help me understand where I need to focus on growth as a leader.
The Visionary Leader at the Helm of ZIZO Technologies, Inc.
Jimmy Chebat, Founder, also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of ZIZO Technologies, Inc. He has been an enterprising entrepreneur for over 20 years. Mr. Chebat’s IT background, love for all things data, and over a decade of experience as an owner of a call center inspired him to create ZIZO in early 2020. After experiencing a culture shock when he began working with the staff that refused to be accountable for their success (or lack thereof), Jimmy knew he needed to create a solution. What started as business analytics and intelligence tool transformed over the years to be an all-encompassing business management solution - ZIZO.