June 13, 2025
Back then, we could still fit on a single Zoom call without anyone needing to mute. Things were early, a little messy, and full of unknowns. But that's where it all started.
So I figured it's time to share the story. Not a grand origin story, just a snapshot of how we got here.
In late 2023, I began exploring the AI space. Nothing fancy, just curiosity at first. I was on exchange at SMU in Singapore and started hacking on a side project with a friend from NUS. We ran a few pilots, got early interest from clients, and called the project Aceflow.
It was enough traction for me to make a pretty big call: I left a consulting job in Dubai to pursue it full time.
But like most early projects, things shifted quickly. My co-founder decided to go in a different direction. Within a few weeks, I found myself back in Europe. No job, no product, no team. Just the hunch that the AI wave was real and worth staying in.
One thing that stuck with me from Singapore was the importance of complementary co-founders.
I wasn't looking for just a technical lead. I needed someone who could build from scratch, push back on ideas, and turn vague concepts into something real.
A few weeks later, a former colleague from eMatura introduced me to Frenk, a researcher finishing his master's in Utrecht with deep experience in LLMs from his time at UC Berkeley.
Our first call happened at an airport. Casual, no pressure. But something clicked. We started small, explored a few concepts, and decided to build together.
By the end of 2024, we had our first major client, a market leading consulting coaching firm in the UK, and officially went full time.
We explored different directions, but one space kept pulling us in: AI-powered simulations for soft skills. Especially tools that use voice, feedback, and analytics to help people practice complex skills like negotiation or leadership.
In early 2025, I moved to India to go heads-down on building. We landed another client, a leading skills-training firm in Switzerland, and began sharpening our product around three things:
We also grew the team:
Today, we're 14 people across product, engineering, and sales.
Epistemy builds AI-powered training tools for companies that take skill development seriously, especially in executive coaching, negotiation, and leadership.
We're still early. But what we're aiming for is clear: a scalable wedge. Something repeatable. Not just custom tools, but infrastructure that training providers can build on.
Right now we're focused on:
This isn't a "we made it" post. Just a checkpoint.
We're lucky to have a smart, kind, and weirdly determined team.
If you're a training provider, coach, or assessment designer exploring how AI could level up your programs, we'd love to talk.
Excited to see where this goes.