Consolto.com -- The Israeli Startup Bringing CRM-powered Videochat to Businesses of Every Size

We at Consolto are on a mission to help businesses compete on a global level. Our one-click videochat solution is fully integrated with a suite of backoffice tools and unique features to help businesses simplify, organize and enhance videochat sessions with their prospects and clients. 

Our hope is that with our business-focused conferencing solution, anyone can offer high impact, one-on-one digital services and even exceed those provided by larger organizations. 

The Problem with Other Digital Solutions 

Right now setting up a videochat with a client can be somewhat of an awkward process with current solutions like Zoom, Skype or Google Hangouts which were not built for business to client scenarios. They require either: 

• Some sort of client installation -- bummer.
• Username/Password credentials -- where is that darn password?
• Sending a link or an email to connect with prospective clients -- tedious.
• Adding to contacts -- privacy anyone?
• Little to no backoffice capabilities. How’s one supposed to get any business done?

Another important aspect that is poorly addressed by these solutions is their ability to manage the sessions. For example, Zoom does not save texts from chats, so important notes and insights written during sessions are lost. These types of solutions make it difficult to manage sales or consultation sessions. 

We developed Consolto so that it would be easy for anyone to install; just one line of code is all it takes to deploy an impressive roster of high impact functionality that simplifies the management of videochat business interactions. These functionalities include video calls, live chat, meeting scheduling, in-app invoicing and payments, CRM-like followup notifications, client analytics to name just a few with even great features coming soon - stay tuned!

The Story Behind Consolto

The idea of Consolto originated in 2012 when our CEO and founder, Ilan Harel, was a senior Engineering Manager at Intel. He’d grown tired of the corporate grind and was exhausted by the petty politics and endless meetings that just got in the way of getting things done. He wanted out of the rat race and dreamed of entrepreneurship.

But his dream didn’t end at his own doorstep. Ilan knew quite a few talented individuals who had described similar frustrations with the corporate career path. They also dreamed of freedom and entrepreneurship but didn’t know how to market their talents to the rest of the world.

With that thought in mind, we launched the first version of Consolto. It was an online marketplace for freelancers to connect with clients. And it failed spectacularly. Consumer tech simply wasn’t there yet -- smartphone technology was still maturing and the broadband network didn’t have the bandwidth it does today. So Consolto was put in a box on a shelf and left to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

Fast forward to 2018 and we decided it was time to brush off the dust. We pivoted towards embedded videochat as a way to amplify the capabilities of websites without access to the same resources as the big boys. Our goal was to supercharge our users with a website-based web conferencing solution that came with a full set of back office capabilities to enhance customer interactions, simplify sales and retention and organize back office operations. 

Fast Forward to Now

Covid-19 hasn’t been bad to us. As more and more businesses turned to digital as their best hope to generate new revenue, Consolto’s website was hit with a flood of organic traffic. Across the world, freelancers, consultants, sales people and other businesses that required quick, no hassle personal meetings to operate, subscribed to our premium service. Paid subscription grew by nearly 1,000% within two months.

But fast success quickly brings new challenges. The huge surge in growth challenged our team to quickly scale operations and roll out a slew of new capabilities aimed at satisfying both new and veteran users.

Ilan Harel CEO and Founder of Consolto: “At the end of the day, if we can deliver a fully-functional CRM behind the videochat, we’ll be able to give even the smallest of players the same retention, sales and marketing capabilities of enterprise CRMs. Only then can videochat can take its rightful place as a front line sales tool.”