Company Overview
Michael Salem is the CEO & Founder of Renew-IQ, the first AI-powered platform built for insurance professionals, keeping you on track, and organized. Learn more at https://www.renew-iq.com/.
Can you tell us a little about your background before starting at your company?
I practiced law for several years, and worked with AON before moving into venture at a corporate venture fund. I had the opportunity to incubate several companies and see ideas grow into products and customers.
How did you start at your company? What were the first steps you took to get it off the ground and how did you identify the need for your product/service in the market?
I leveraged the relationships I had within insurance to better understand whether the challenges I saw were shared by others. I spent time having coffee and beers with brokers and others to ask not just the problems they were having, but asking about the impact on their personal time and stress. These conversations resulted in recruiting advisors before I eventually met my CTO and co-founder. We continued to ask potential customers about the problems they were having – specifically the challenges with managing their insurance renewals, and piloted an MVP with several groups.
What innovations or unique features set your company apart from others in the industry?
We focus on user experience using visual cues to elevate critical tasks and priorities. We don’t expect or want users to have to spend more time or effort on yet another platform, and our goal is to reduce their onscreen time, freeing up time for more important work, like business development.
What has been the most effective strategy for scaling your business?
Word of mouth and relationships are critical in the insurance business. We don’t view our customers as users; we are partners aligned in seeing their success. People need to trust their partners, and we aim to make sure every user knows the faces behind our company. We are real people available by phone any time a partner needs us. By building trust, we build confidence in our product.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the future of your company
LLM’s are improving at a blistering speed, and automation and AI will change how brokers conduct business, both with their customers and carriers. Our goal is to be the first call our partners make when they have an idea or problem to solve, not just one of their many providers. We feel the insurance industry will look very different in just the next 3 years, and we want to be a part of the wave of innovation coming to our industry.
