Wing Assistant is a managed B2B marketplace that connects small and medium-sized businesses with vetted, AI-enhanced remote talent for administrative and operational tasks. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Wing Assistant co-founder and CMO Roland Polzin to learn more.
Roland Polzin’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Polzin said:
“As a former German Army officer with 12 years of service and several overseas missions, I made the unusual decision to become a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. My background provides me with a unique perspective on leadership, decision-making, and change management. When I studied for my MBA at UC Irvine, I founded Wing Assistant with my co-founders on campus. “
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Polzin shared:
“Back in the early days of Wing Assistant, we developed an AI-powered concierge app that would complete odd everyday tasks for busy professionals. Following a highly successful launch on Product Hunt in early 2020, the COVID-19 lockdowns halted our growth, and we had to pivot. That’s when we discovered the outsourcing market as the B2B version of our concierge app. While lockdowns were a death sentence to our initial business model, they accelerated the demand for remote work, and we took this opportunity to build the most successful tech-enabled outsourcing company for SMBs.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Polzin reflected:
“Building Wing has often been a struggle. Challenges such as finding initial traction, pivoting during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising venture capital money when few investors believed in our vision, and solving operational problems while navigating low cash during the SVB crisis are just some of the rough patches we went through as a team. However, always mastering these challenges and coming out stronger in the end feels incredibly rewarding and is a memory I carry forward on a daily basis.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Polzin explained:
“We just released a new brand, Central, with its core products, Receptionist and Chat. Central Receptionist automatically answers incoming calls to address questions, schedule appointments, and escalates important calls to a live representative. Central Chat handles any incoming chats on our clients’ websites, assisting with questions, scheduling appointments, or escalating conversations to a live representative. Whenever Central Chat or Receptionist has such an interaction, a record is kept, and a new lead is created in the Central CRM. This CRM currently stores only basic information but will soon function as a comprehensive relationship management tool to engage with our clients’ customer bases and leads, driving more business. We will consistently add features and products to help companies run all of their core functions within their Central business operating system.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Polzin acknowledged:
“Our aggressive past growth is a double-edged sword. While it made our company profitable and put us in the position to be the market leader for high-quality outsourced talent for SMBs, now multiplying this growth requires us to rethink our approach to marketing, branding, and service delivery. Customer acquisition is challenging when there are many competitors in the space who claim to offer similar services, and breaking through the noise in such fierce competition while upping growth won’t be easy. However, I believe that spearheading agentic AI in this space while merging it with human intelligence will do precisely that. It’s now our challenge to communicate this effectively to our potential customers, but I am confident that if we succeed in doing so, our growth can’t be stopped.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Polzin noted:
“We started with a simple mobile application when Wing was still a personal concierge app. To pivot into the outsourcing industry, we created a task delegation app – initially with basic functionalities, but later adding more features that improved task delegation efficiency for our clients. We also developed a sentiment analysis algorithm that helped us flag potentially problematic Assistant-client conversations, allowing us to intervene proactively with our quality management team before a client would need to reach out to customer support. We now have a fully-fledged online portal and mobile apps that enable our clients not only to delegate tasks efficiently but also to upskill their assistants and expand their teams globally to support business growth. Central’s ‘business operating system’ complements this software suite by adding AI automation capabilities while maintaining a human touch and offering capabilities no AI possesses. “
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Polzin cited:
- Launch of the OG concierge app in early 2020 on Product Hunt, securing the #1 Product Of The Day Award
- Acceptance into the UC Berkeley SKyDeck accelerator program in Spring 2020
- Venture Capital seed funding in the Summer of 2021
- Crossing $10M in GSV in 2022
- Crossing $25M in GSV in 2024
- Launching Central AI in 2025
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Polzin highlighted:
“We have 12 fully-fledged case studies that highlight success stories of clients in several industries: https://wingassistant.com/case-studies/ “
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Polzin assessed:
“The TAM for global outsourcing services is more than $7 trillion in 2030.
On top of that, we are looking at a $60 billion+ TAM for our business operating system.
- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/customer-relationship-management-crm-market
- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/chatbot-market
- https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/contact-center-as-a-service-ccaas-market-104160
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Polzin affirmed:
“We are unique in our approach to serving businesses with merged human and artificial intelligence, offering a blend of execution power that provides the best of both worlds and is superior to any solution that only encompasses one or the other.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Polzin concluded:
“We’re building Central to become the default operating system for how small and midsize businesses get work done: AI instantly handles the routine, and humans step in exactly where judgment, creativity, and empathy matter.”
“With the ‘AI first, human-perfected’ model, we will evolve Central CRM into a growth engine with automated pipelines, smart outreach, and closed-loop attribution so every customer interaction can result in revenue. An AI SDR agent will then help proactively bring in additional sales.”
“We are making high-quality help accessible to every business owner on earth, whether they’re a solo dentist or a 250-person e-commerce brand. Central will be the place where intelligent software and talented people meet to create unfair advantages for our customers.”
