HighLevel eyes long-term MSME sustainability as AI tools expand

• IN PHOTO (From left): HighLevel Co-founders Robin Alex, Shaun Clark, and Varun Vairavan. (Contributed photo)

HighLevel is looking to keep its AI-powered business operating system sustainable for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) over the long term, even as it continues to add new artificial intelligence tools and expand its operations.

Speaking with TechWatch PH on the sidelines of HighLevel LIVE Manila on Saturday, Aug. 8, HighLevel co-founders Shaun Clark, Varun Vairavan and Robin Alex said flexible pricing, local expertise and continuous training would be key to making increasingly sophisticated AI tools useful to small businesses.

Sold-out HighLevel LIVE Manila puts AI business tools in focus

“We think of ourselves as the hardware store. We think of our community, the partners and the entrepreneurs as the experts that are then taking our tools and building an outcome for their small businesses,” Vairavan said.

HighLevel is an AI-powered business operating system designed to help agencies and businesses generate leads, manage customer relationships and accelerate growth.

Figures presented during the Manila event showed that HighLevel has more than 150,000 customers and more than 600 certified admins, and supports over one million small businesses world-wide.

Flexible pricing for smaller businesses

Asked how HighLevel can remain sustainable for MSMEs as more features are introduced, the co-founders pointed to its reseller-driven business model.

Most of HighLevel’s software is offered through partners who can determine how much they charge their own customers depending on local market conditions.

“So today, most of our software gets resold through resellers. So in that case, they’re able to price the software however they want locally in the market,” Vairavan said. “We only set the price to them, not downstream. And it’s unlimited contacts, unlimited users, unlimited accounts. So there’s a lot of ability for them to price depending on what the market sensitivity is”.

The company also allows partners to white-label its technology, enabling agencies and entrepreneurs to package HighLevel services using their own branding and pricing structures.

“The most important part of our business is that you can white label it and represent it with your own brand as well as your own pricing,” Alex said.

The founders said this flexibility means partners can start customers with only the features they need rather than requiring every business to pay for the same package.

“Our partners can create their own plans and they can price it any way they want,” Clark said. “And so, as a result, it’s really about our partners pricing it out to their customers the way they know that their customers need it, because every market is different, right?”

Philippines part of HighLevel since early years

Clark, Vairavan and Alex said Filipino professionals have been using HighLevel since around the company’s first year of operation in 2018.

“We started in 2018, and I would be shocked that we didn’t have Filipino customers in 2018,” Clark said. “So, I guarantee you, we had them in our very first year of operation.”

Unlike a conventional geographic expansion in which a company deliberately enters a market, the founders said Filipino users initially came to HighLevel on their own.

“We don’t tap any market. They come to us,” Clark said.

HighLevel said many Filipinos initially used the platform behind the scenes while supporting overseas agencies and businesses.

“I think the Filipino market has been secretly powering our whole ecosystem,” Alex said. “A lot of agencies from around the world, a lot of businesses, come to the Philippines looking for great individuals to help support them as entrepreneurs as well as growing their business”.

The company now sees a shift in which more Filipinos are building and running businesses themselves instead of solely providing support to entrepreneurs overseas.

“I think the Philippines market is now stepping forward and actually running a lot of those businesses themselves,” Clark said. “And so, they’re becoming a huge entrepreneurial force in their own right.”

AI creating a more level playing field

The founders said AI is accelerating that transition by allowing entrepreneurs and smaller teams to perform tasks that previously required more manpower or specialized expertise.

“When we started high-level, the Filipino market was always massive for us. But it was always kind of from a virtual administration perspective, helping other agencies,” Alex said. “But now with AI, it’s almost a level playing field. Everybody now has the opportunity to become an entrepreneur, to start a business, and really provide impact.”

HighLevel also sees Filipino entrepreneurs as particularly quick to learn emerging technologies.

“I think we’ve seen that the Filipino market and the audience, the entrepreneurs here, are able to do it much faster than most other people,” Vairavan said. “And that’s really what we appreciate.”

HighLevel’s tools increasingly incorporate AI into functions that previously required more people or specialized skills.

The founders cited Ask AI, a tool that can import information from an existing e-commerce store, as well as another capability that can help create a website from the ground up in around five minutes, with changes made through conversational commands instead of conventional point-and-click editing.

For small businesses, HighLevel also offers Voice AI, which can act as an automated receptionist by answering calls, collecting lead information and booking appointments.

The company said its AI systems handled about 17 million calls and sent 215 million messages globally over the previous six months.

HighLevel also said an AI executive assistant is coming, which could allow users to call the system and give instructions such as canceling and rescheduling appointments.

Adoption becomes the next AI challenge

The founders expect AI models to continue improving, but said the larger opportunity will come from entrepreneurs turning those models into solutions for real businesses.

“I think what will happen is more and more use cases will be unlocked by a lot of entrepreneurs going in and helping small businesses build these tools out,” Vairavan said.

Rather than trying to predict every future AI use case, HighLevel said it intends to continue developing products based largely on feedback from its customers.

“We don’t guess. We wait for our customers to tell us because remember our customers are the people helping the small businesses,” Clark said. “So, it’s really our job to listen to them and then build”.

Over the next year, the company expects the focus to increasingly shift from the tools themselves to their adoption by businesses.

“I think, you know, from here to next year, the innovation is not with the tools in itself. It’s more about the adoption, getting them into the businesses, getting that to go faster and really with accuracy behind it,” Alex said.

Security, data residency part of expansion

As small businesses place more customer and operational information into AI-powered systems, the founders said security and data privacy remain major considerations.

HighLevel said it operates on cloud platforms, has local data residency in several countries and cited SOC 2 and ISO 27001 among its security credentials.

“We take security and, you know, data privacy, all of that very seriously,” Alex said.

Asked whether the company could eventually use data center infrastructure in the Philippines, the founders said HighLevel would examine available options as part of its country-by-country expansion. “For sure. I will definitely look at those options as well,” Vairavan said. “We are moving country by country. I think the things that become local to each country are things like the data center and residency, payments, telephony integrations, like making sure that we have good SMS and call options with best prices.”