Welcome to Snowflake’s Startup Spotlight, where we learn about companies building their businesses on Snowflake. In this edition, we’ll hear how Maria Marti, founder and CEO of ZeroError, used her experiences as an engineer and an executive to build a team and create the AI analytics assistant she always wanted — but never had.
What inspires you as a founder?
My team and my customers. The passion that my team puts into everything we do, and the looks in our customers’ eyes when they see what ZeroError can do for them — how it solves a real issue for them.
Explain ZeroError in one sentence.
ZeroError is an enterprise AI platform designed to detect errors and fraud in data.
What problem does ZeroError aim to solve? How did you identify that issue?
There are two critical moments when you are on a data-driven team: one, when you need to make decisions with data you received; and two, when data needs to leave the organization. There is no room for mistakes. When you are presenting to the Board, or talking with regulators, your data has to be perfect. Today, we solve this the same way we did 20 years ago — with a lot of manual processes. Current data catalogs and quality tools can take a long time to implement. The user needs to pre-define almost everything, and the tools generally don’t have the flexibility to adapt to a very dynamic data environment. That’s why we created ZeroError.
ZeroError is the application that I needed in my past roles as an executive in Fortune 100 companies, but it did not exist. ZeroError applies the power of AI to help improve data quality and analytics. Our proprietary AI detects complex data anomalies without human input and without defining rules. It is an executive-centric application for critical and timely decision-making, reporting and controls.
As a founder and innovator, what is your take on the rapidly changing AI landscape?
We are so fortunate to live in this exciting time. I truly believe that AI is not here to replace humans, but to help us achieve more and make us more efficient.
At our heart, we are an AI company. ZeroError is your AI assistant for analytics, and I think that’s super cool. We developed our proprietary AI and integrated other LLMs into our offering. We’re launching AI copilots focused on specific business solutions and customer needs. Our approach is different because we have a unique combination of knowing the issue we are addressing inside and out, the team’s years of experience as agents of change in large organizations, our superb tech skills, and loving what we are doing. Passion is everything!
How is the AI surge changing what businesses expect from their platforms and tools?
Expectations are definitely very high. In the case of ZeroError, I would say that businesses are surprised by what we can achieve with AI — but at the same time, they expect to be surprised. Many AI applications, especially those focused on business intelligence, “assume” that the data they receive is perfect. That is a huge assumption. Any good BI needs good data; you have to understand and trust your data quality to be able to trust the output of your apps. During Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, we got so much attention and traction because ZeroError is a platform that tells the user if they can trust the data.
How do you leverage Snowflake to push the envelope in your industry?
Working with Snowflake has been a critical building block. Snowflake makes our business lives easier, allowing us to focus on what we are really good at. The Snowflake platform is tremendously intuitive, and gives us the flexibility to grow and to structure our Snowflake instance in a way that fits our changing needs.
For a startup, time is everything: you need to go fast, iterate and continue to innovate. Snowflake has been key in accelerating our time to market. The cost transparency is critical for any startup, and we share the common passion of putting customers at the center of our businesses.
What’s the most valuable piece of advice you got about how to run a startup?
Always be true to yourself and remember why you created the company, especially in the difficult moments. That came from my father, who has been an entrepreneur all his life.
What’s a lesson you learned the hard way?
All my life I took mistakes as an opportunity to learn. I think that not taking risks is the biggest risk you can take. And of course if you try new things, you are going to make mistakes, but that is an opportunity to improve and to get better. I always tell my teams and partners: It is when something does not work that the true character of the partnership comes up and we have an opportunity to differentiate ourselves and become stronger as a team.
Learn more about ZeroError at www.zeroerror.ai. If you’re a startup building on Snowflake, check out the Powered by Snowflake Startup Program for info on how Snowflake can support your startup goals.
