Goguma at 6 Months

I have a long awaited update — Goguma turned six months old on September 1st! It's been the roller coaster of a life time and we're only just getting started.

With that said, we are incredibly thrilled to announce that the next version of Goguma will be released next week! This new update will provide sweeping changes to how you use our product.

A bit more on that below but first I want to talk a bit more about how Goguma started, where we're at, and finally where we're headed.

Goguma yesterday

On March 1, 2024, I deployed the first version of Goguma.

Unbeknownst to many, however, the beginning of the story started months earlier. While I was working at an agency, my partner, Andy, and I started chatting about creating an app focused on marketing analytics. We kept asking ourselves, "Why was it that only the top echelon of businesses had access to any to marketing analytics, let alone marketing support in general?" And from those initial conversations, Goguma began to take shape.

It wasn't smooth goings at the start. I lost a job that I had recently accepted after I stood up to my boss during a three hour call where her only goal was to humiliate and intimidate. Following some poor advice only set me back further. The product wasn't being built and Goguma wasn't coalescing. I felt stuck.

Fast forward to two weeks before launch. Andy and I went to the mountains to pray and ask the blessing of my ancestors. Over the course of several hours, I cried and begged for them to help me provide for my family. We had delayed our lives because of choices that I had made and I needed a breakthrough. And as I wiped away my tears heading back down to our car, I felt the gears turning again.

I started talking to Andy more about using LLMs at the core of the application. When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, I felt that it was technology searching for a purpose. Was it cool and revolutionary? Sure. But I also didn't quite see how it could be more effective than, say, searching for things on Google.

But then it hit me. LLMs weren't groundbreaking because of their conversational user experience. They were groundbreaking because of the data behind them. I started to think about how ChatGPT was no different than a relational database, except the dataset was the public internet and the querying language was conversation. From there, I knew I had something.

I quickly emailed Haftan Eckholdt explaining my idea. I had been introduced to Haftan a few months prior through a mutual friend. When we first spoke, Goguma was still an app to help small businesses advertise by abstracting away the unneeded complexity of Meta Business Manager. It was too small of an idea for him to really sink his teeth into, but I figured this new approach would interest him.

I worked over the next week and a half to quickly develop a prototype to release to the world. (All while Andy and I had dueling stomach viruses; the little said of that the better.) And on March 1, 2024, I officially launched Goguma.

Goguma today

Over a year in and six months after launch, Goguma is miles away from where I started:

• We have users! And the feedback they have provided has been tremendous.
• We're cultivating even more relationships. There's a lot in the prospect pipeline — we have opportunities with large brands, nonprofits, small businesses, and even academic institutions on the docket.
• We have a team! A proper introduction will come tomorrow — and stay tuned for a deep dive into each of our team members starting the week of September 16th — but we now have:
  • Kim Jung Ha (Drew Shives) – Founder & CEO
  • Haftan Eckholdt (remember him?) – CxO
  • Matt Sarrel – Head of Sales
  • David Cannan – Software and AIOps Developer

Goguma tomorrow

We have incredibly exciting news to share about the newest release of Goguma coming to you next week:

• We've rethought our entire UX and how you interact with our product. Before, you could create your reports fully self-service but Goguma lacked the organization or structure to keep track of everything you purchased. Now, things will be structured into portfolios based on brand, product, etc. where all of your information will be housed.
• Reports will be summarized first with the opportunity to dig into the gory details at your choosing.
• Goguma will now understand your brand's style — either by uploading a style guide or having Goguma create one for you.
• And with that understanding, as well as the knowledge Goguma has about your brand and brand's audiences, Goguma will create ads for you that are designed to resonate and stimulate.

We have so much more to share next week when we release the new, refreshed Goguma! Until then, be on the lookout for an introduction to our team. And be sure to go to goguma.io to learn more. (And while you're there, say goodbye to our old website. It served us well but a redesign of that will also be dropping next week!)

Thanks again for being a part of our growing potato patch. And remember, Goguma is your GenAI agency where marketing happens at the push of a button.

Warmly,

Kim Jung Ha, aka Drew Shives