Chipp is democratizing LLMs for SMBs 🌐

CV Deep Dive

Today, we’re diving into a conversation with Scott Meyer, co-founder and CEO of Chipp. 

Chipp offers SMBs a way to create custom ChatGPTs for their business. While others are focused on high-priced enterprise use cases, Chipp’s mission is to democratize LLM capabilities to the long tail of businesses. Their approach is about simplicity, privacy, and empowerment, giving non-technical SMB owners the tools to safely leverage AI for their businesses without any of the usual technical hurdles. 

Scott has a background that spans nearly two decades in tech and entrepreneurship. He previously founded an entrepreneurship program to support new businesses. The company raised a pre-seed in January of this year, led by M25 with participation from Cambrian Ventures and gener8tor 1889 Fund.

In our conversation, Scott shares the journey that led to Chipp, including some surprising pivots, and his thoughts on the paradigm of personal AIs.

Let’s dive in ⚡️

Read time: 8 mins

Our Chat with Scott 💬

Scott - welcome to Cerebral Valley! Could you introduce yourself and share what led you to co-found Chipp?

Let’s do it! I’m Scott, co-founder and CEO of Chipp. I’ve been in the tech and entrepreneurship space for almost two decades, always working to make technology accessible to folks like my friends and family here in Fargo! My journey to founding Chipp was rooted in a passion for empowering people, particularly those who don’t have extensive technical backgrounds, to benefit from the transformative power of AI.

Initially, we started Chipp with a focus on pay-per-use AI tools—kind of like Stripe for AI. The idea was that as AI tools became more mainstream, users would need an easier way to handle payments based on usage. However, we quickly learned that before people could sell an AI tool, they first needed a way to build it. That insight led to a significant pivot—from focusing solely on payments to providing an entire platform where people could create, brand, and deploy AI tools themselves. It was a journey that took us backward on the adoption curve—toward empowering people to build first. And that’s how Chipp became what it is today: a no-code, low-code solution for creating private, custom AI chatbots and applications.

Did the Chipp journey include any pivots?

Absolutely. Our original idea was all about payments for AI tools. We thought the next evolution of payments would be a model where users paid per use for AI services, just as credits cards moved from Stripes to Chipps! But as we got deeper into it, it became clear that people weren’t quite there yet. The market needed a way to create these AI tools in the first place—before worrying about payment models. So we pivoted to help users actually build the AI tools they wanted to sell. This pivot meant shifting from focusing purely on payments to providing a full platform for building, customizing, and embedding AI tools—covering everything from model selection to privacy to user authentication and branding.

How would you describe Chipp to the uninitiated?

Chipp is essentially a no-code, low-code AI builder that lets anyone create their own branded AI tools and deploy them on their site or as part of their business. Whether it’s a chatbot, a content assistant, or something else entirely, you can build it without needing to know any technical jargon. Our goal is to make AI as easy and accessible as possible, especially for those without a technical background. You don’t need to manage APIs, understand model tuning, or worry about the backend—we take care of all of that so you can focus on what matters: using AI to solve real business problems.

Who are your users today? Who is finding the most value in Chipp?

We’re seeing a lot of traction with agencies and small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Agencies, in particular, are using Chipp to create vertical-specific AI solutions that they can offer to their clients. For example, agencies are embedding chatbots on client websites to generate leads, assist with customer inquiries, and even help automate aspects of content creation. Chipp allows them to quickly create tailored AI solutions that can be white-labeled, which means our brand stays in the background, letting our users shine.

One cool thing about Chipp is our marketplace of over 600 use cases and templates, which helps users get started quickly. For instance, we have an agency, Growth AI Partners, in Chicago that’s using Chipp to provide lead generation tools as part of their marketing packages. They’re able to sell traditional marketing services alongside customized AI chatbots. This has made a huge difference in how they approach client engagements—adding value and creating more stickiness with their customers.

Are there any customer success stories that come to mind?

Absolutely. One great example is She Builds Solutions, founded by Meagan Beltekoglu. She used Chipp to create a series of AI tools for creatives, including a Podcast to Blog Assistant, which has cut the content creation time in half for some of her clients. She’s bundled these tools and sells them online, showing how Chipp can be a true game-changer for solo entrepreneurs and small agencies.

Another one is O’N Creative, started by Justin Ahrens. He used Chipp to create an interactive tool called “To Rebrand or Not to Rebrand.” In the first month, this chatbot led to six meetings and three paid presentations, significantly impacting his client pipeline.

We also have Growth Sciences, where Tom Panos built a property description writer for a property management firm in London. It used to take agents 15 minutes to write descriptions, and now, using the AI assistant, it takes less than 30 seconds.

And lastly – I love this one – Tyler Hansen, the Director of Technology at Plumbing and Heating Wholesale created the Hydronic Quote Helper with Chipp, saving his team an average of 1.5 hours daily on material list creation. These stories highlight the diverse ways Chipp can be leveraged—from marketing to operations to education. 

You mentioned agencies are white-labeling Chipp. How important is Chipp's own brand recognition in that process?

Yeah, it’s a balance. On our free plan, our logo and branding are included, so we still get visibility that way—over half a million chat sessions have been initiated with our branding on them. But our focus is on empowering our users to shine, so the white-labeling option is key for our customers. Most of our growth actually comes through education: running workshops, hosting hackathons like our upcoming hackathon in November, publishing educational content, and working directly with users to help them understand how to effectively leverage AI. Our whole team has an education background in some form, so it’s something we’re passionate about, and it also drives organic growth.

What would you say was the hardest technical challenge in building Chipp?

I think it's managing the tension between growth and stability. We have to be incredibly agile because AI tech is moving at lightning speed—new models, new capabilities are coming out all the time. But at the same time, we can’t over-engineer, because we need to maintain stability for our users. It’s always about balancing that push for innovation with making sure nothing breaks. We want to incorporate new technologies but can’t afford to compromise the reliability of our core services. It’s a constant challenge, but I think we’ve managed it well by keeping our focus on what our users really need, rather than just chasing every shiny new thing in AI.

How do you look at the competitive landscape, and what sets Chipp apart?

Chipp's North Star is ease. We want to be the simplest, most approachable way for people to use AI. Unlike some of the other no-code AI platforms out there, you don’t need to know how to connect APIs, and you don’t need your own API key. We take all of that complexity away. We also have a focus on privacy and branding—users own their data, their brand, and they can fully white-label their solution if needed. And lastly, the marketplace of use cases makes getting started easy. We help users by suggesting the best templates based on their specific needs, so they’re never starting from scratch.

You mentioned a lot of educational use cases. Could you elaborate on those?

Sure thing. One unique feature of Chipp is the ability to use video as a knowledge source—you can train your chatbot on YouTube videos, TikToks, or other video content. We’ve seen universities like Oregon State use this to create interactive learning experiences, such as a creative writing and storytelling tool designed for Native youth, which combines cultural education with technology. Northern Illinois University, on the other hand, has used Chipp to create a calculus tutor chatbot that can help students in multiple languages—helping fill gaps where human tutoring resources aren’t available. With our privacy options, universities and schools can safely use AI in their classrooms. These kinds of educational use cases are really exciting because they show just how versatile Chipp can be.

Are there any particular trends in AI that you find personally intriguing or exciting?

I’m fascinated by the trend of personal knowledge versus prepared knowledge. We’re seeing AI like Apple’s personal assistant and Microsoft Copilot focusing on individual data—things like your calendar, emails, documents—using your personal knowledge to help you. But Chipp is focused on helping people share their expertise in a way that others can tap into. For businesses, this means taking what you know and structuring it so that employees or customers can easily access it without having to navigate through a million hoops. I think that’s where the real power of AI lies—turning expertise into something actionable and scalable.

What’s the culture like at Chipp, and what do you look for in team members?

We’re a small, distributed team of five, spread across cities like Greenville, Kansas City, Fargo, Toronto, and London. Everyone at Chipp believes in making AI accessible, regardless of location or technical skill level. We’re highly responsive to customer feedback—very much a product-led team that iterates quickly based on what users need. We also focus a lot on education—not just building great tools, but also making sure our users know how to take advantage of them.

Community is also a big part of our culture. We have over 600 Discord members and Chipp “chapters” around the world, hosting local events in places like South Africa, UK, and Brazil. It’s all about creating a community of AI educators and builders—people who are curious about AI and want to learn, share, and grow together. We like to say, “You can be AI-curious—you don’t have to be an AI expert.” We want Chipp to be the entryway into the world of AI for as many people as possible.

Conclusion

To stay up to date on the latest with Chipp, learn more about them here.

Read our past few Deep Dives below:

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