Joseph Valacich: There are some incredibly excellent companies and inventions. When I was contacted by Doug about this award, it blew me away because I never imagined that we would be the startup of the year. So quite a surprise, quite an honor. And in my mind, there's a lot of companies, it had to have been a very tough decision, but there are a lot of very great companies in the ecosystem at the U of A. So very proud.

Jeff Jenkins: I agree totally. It's a great honor. I know that the U of A has a lot of very fascinating and impactful startups in its portfolio and to be partnering with U of A and to earn this as a great honor. Never has the world been more virtual than it is today. Months ago... Take last year this time, I probably would have been flying down to the U of A to be talking with all of you. And now we're here over Zoom. Most companies are in a similar situation where even if they had an in-person presence before, they have been forced sometimes because of their own initiatives, but sometimes because of things like COVID to go virtual and some of them have felt very blind because now they do not have that relationship, that interaction with the person on the other end. We make it visible.

For the first time these companies can interact with someone on the other end of the computer, and by monitoring how that person is interacting with the web form, with the application, with the website, actually gain insight into the intent of that person. Whether they're struggling, whether they need help, whether they're confident and need to get through the process. So we really deliver vision to a previous line scenario for these companies.

Joseph Valacich: It's been a long journey in the sense that we're startup of the year. We've been around a while, but it's really been the last three years that we've really had the right team and we're moving the organization. And through that entire process, every time we have a question about IP what do we do with this? Or what do we do with that? Always Doug and Louis and the rest of TLA, if it’s Rakhi on a legal issue, or sends us out to Blank Rome to talk with them about patent protection. So it's been a very close partnership. I don't think we could have done this without them. And they've been extremely fair, extremely supportive and extremely helpful.

Jeff Jenkins: It's great to have someone like TLA in your corner, who has your best interest in mind always. And if any professor is debating whether or not to work through TLA or whether or not to patent their research, I would encourage them to. It's been a great experience and it has only made us better, both from a research perspective and a company perspective.