AI Agents for E-commerce Customer Support

Minimal AI makes it easy for e-commerce brands to build and manage AI support teams that resolve 80%+ of tickets while increasing revenue.

Active Founders

Niek Hogenboom

Founder

Niek is the Co-Founder and CEO of Minimal AI He started his first business at the age of 16, selling and importing custom suits from his parents' house and sold the business 3 years later. After graduating from Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology, he spent a year leading the most successful solar racing team in the world and grew his startup SitRight to $2M+ revenue during covid. Later he did his master's research at the University of Oxford before founding Minimal AI

Niek Hogenboom

Founder

Niek is the Co-Founder and CEO of Minimal AI He started his first business at the age of 16, selling and importing custom suits from his parents' house and sold the business 3 years later. After graduating from Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology, he spent a year leading the most successful solar racing team in the world and grew his startup SitRight to $2M+ revenue during covid. Later he did his master's research at the University of Oxford before founding Minimal AI

Titus Ex

Founder

Titus is the Co-Founder and CTO of Minimal AI He previously worked as a data scientist / machine learning engineer at Uber and Soda, a Point-Nine backed data quality startup in Amsterdam. Titus holds an MSc in Applied Math and has been working on AI since 2018.

Titus Ex

Founder

Titus is the Co-Founder and CTO of Minimal AI He previously worked as a data scientist / machine learning engineer at Uber and Soda, a Point-Nine backed data quality startup in Amsterdam. Titus holds an MSc in Applied Math and has been working on AI since 2018.

Company Launches

Minimal: AI Customer Support Teams for E-commerce

See original launch post

Hey YC 👋

We're Niek and Titus from Minimal AI.

TL;DR

Minimal AI makes it easy for e-commerce brands to build and manage AI support teams that resolve 80% of tickets at human-level quality. The result: reduced support costs while actually improving customer experience and sales. 45+ brands use our agents to handle thousands of tickets daily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi9eLe0-z_Q

Problem

Everyone thinks AI customer support is solved. It's not. E-commerce customer support is complex and fast-paced. Stores have:

Fragmented tech stacks (e.g. Shopify + Zendesk + Shipbob + 12 other tools)
Policies that change weekly (return windows, shipping rates, product launches etc.)
Brand-specific nuances (tone-of-voice, upsell strategies etc.)

Current solutions force an impossible choice: spend months on expensive implementations with endless vendor calls and complex solutions (that break whenever your business evolves), or settle for basic black-box chatbots that frustrate customers. E-commerce brands can't afford to waste resources on either. Tom Blomfield even called current AI Customer Service tools vaporware:

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Solution

We make it easy for e-commerce brands to build and manage AI customer support teams that resolve 80% of tickets.

How it works
Users train and manage the AI Agents through a single conversational
interface called the AI Manager. Users can transparently see the Agent's reasoning, provide feedback, and watch it instantly update protocols. The AI Manager also spots gaps and proactively suggests improvements.

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For example, users might say:

"For ticket #12345, use the WMS tracking URL instead of Shopify next time"
"Orders from multiple ShipBob locations arrive separately - warn customers upfront"
"Damaged items need 2 clear photos before refunding"

The AI Manager instantly updates protocols and asks clarifying questions when needed. Done. Your Agents now handle similar cases perfectly.

It feels like outsourcing your support to a team of AI Agents, with the AI Manager as single point of contact.

Team

Niek and Titus have known each other for two years and met through mutual friends.

Niek (CEO) - Niek started his first business at the age of 16, selling and importing custom suits from his parents' house and sold the business 3 years later. After graduating from Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology, he spent a year leading the most successful solar racing team in the world and grew his startup SitRight to $2M+ revenue during covid. Later he did his master's research at the University of Oxford before founding Minimal AI.

Titus (CTO) - Titus previously worked as a data scientist / machine learning engineer at Uber and Soda, a Point-Nine backed data quality startup in Amsterdam. Titus holds an MSc in Applied Math and has been working on AI since 2018.

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