Armenia-based technology company 10web is working to apply artificial intelligence toWordPressWebsite construction, by integrating generative AI models such as Llama2, GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion, strives to improve the ease of use of WordPress website construction. Compared with closed-source solutions such as Wix and Squarespace, WordPress, as an open source content management system, is often difficult for beginners to use and requires moreadvancedweb design skills, and does not provide hosting services, users need to handle more backend tasks.
According to estimates by w3techs, WordPress still accounts for 40% of websites on the internet, thanks to its rich customization options. To improve the ease of use of WordPress, the engineering team of 10web in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, integrated generative AI models such as Llama2, GPT-4, and Stable Diffusion into its site-building platform. However, the development of this tool required a huge effort because "architecturally, it is not easy to build a platform for WordPress," as Arto Minasyan, co-founder of 10web, said.
Minasyan believes that focusing on solving WordPress's usability problem will ultimately succeed because its open source community is large, with two million developers. Founded in 2017, 10web is currently doing well, with about 20,000 users as paying customers, and a total of 1.5 million sites have been generated.
The company has two ways to make money: charging per website or per traffic. In the future, 10web plans to introduce a payment system that allows users to charge their customers and take a commission from them. Currently, the company generates $5 million in annual recurring revenue each year, and founder Minasyan said it expects to reach $25 million by the end of next year.
The company’s success is partly due to its favorable location in Armenia, which enjoys abundant and cheap engineering talent. “In Armenia, we can get AI talent at about four times the price in the United States,” Minasyan noted. Meanwhile, Armenia’s capital tech hub has spawned the country’sFirstThe unicorn Picsart provides valuable experience for other startups.
Given Armenia’s relatively small economy, its entrepreneurs have been venturing abroad, particularly targeting the U.S. market. These companies hire engineers in Armenia to tap into local technical talent, while hiring marketing and business development staff in the U.S. 10web’s 70-person team has adopted a similar strategy. For fundraising, having a presence in the U.S. has its upsides.
“Armenian startups at 99% are all targeting the U.S. market,” Minasyan said. “If you want to raise less than $1 million, you can get funding from venture capitalists in Armenia, but if you want to raise a few million dollars for a seed round or tens of millions for a Series A, you need to go to the U.S.