QMocha Founder and CEO Arvind Baliga sat down with Jessica Abo to talk about his new AI technology.
Jessica Abo: Can you tell us what motivated you to start QMocha?
Arvind Baliga: I started my career with a PhD in electrical engineering, working with quantum physics, quantum mechanics, and most of my career was as a telecom executive. A few years back, I started a consumer electronics company where we sold the product through our Shopify store. And as happens at a startup, I became the guy who was running Facebook ads. That was never intended, but here I was running those ads. We found that some images performed three times better than others, which got us very curious as to why that is, because the only thing that was different about these images was the backdrop.
The belts that we were selling were on a granite countertop, and not on a wood floor or a different surface. Now, why did that matter so much? Well, it’s because when you sell a product, you’re selling an experience, you’re selling an emotion, not just the product, and the backdrop tells the story. That inspiration has now become QMocha, and you can today download our app from the Shopify app store, and you can match any of your products to high-performing backdrops from our library or from Getty images.
How does it work?
QMocha is a Shopify app that you can install, and once you install the app, it will work with your existing product images. So you’ll be able to take any product from your store. Let’s say, you want your store to look festive for the upcoming holiday season, or maybe you want to do something for Valentine’s day. You can now find the appropriate backdrops and festive backdrops for the holiday season or Valentine’s day backdrops with chocolates, flowers, and you can now match any product to any backdrop. And you can now download those assets and use them in your ads on social media. You can use them on your website and lookbooks, or you can restyle your entire store for that promotion.
Can anyone use this technology or do you need special training?
You do not need specialized training to use QMocha. You do not need graphic design training. Anybody in your eCommerce store can actually use QMocha, and that’s because of the power of AI, which makes it possible for you to unlock your creative vision. Select your products in order to pick the appropriate backdrops, and then you run your campaigns. So that when you run your campaigns, it’s a cohesive look to your campaign. Using the same creative for your ads, that same inspiration carries through to your website and all the way into your product page. And you also get analytics, so you know what’s working and what’s not working.
How did you come up with the name?
The name QMocha is inspired by a couple of things, and mocha is always an inspiration. We love chocolate. We love coffee, we love the inspiration that it gives us, and the Q really is our heritage. Just starting from quantum mechanics and physics, that’s where I came from, and that kind of thinking has gone into the AI that we use today.
How much does it cost?
It is a subscription model. The monthly subscription starts at $100. To get the images are an additional small charge and with unlimited rights to use on your site. And we have the tier that’s right for your store, and the Shopify app is available right now in the app store. Downloading it and using it is as simple as 1, 2, 3, you’ll be up and turning in no time.
