Marian Lambert
enyi

enyi

-

My Role: Technical Co-Founder

Technologies

AWS Step FunctionsAWS DynamoDBAWS S3AWS LambdaAWS API Gateway

Project Overview

enyi was a startup that aimed to simplify and automate B2C communication for businesses through popular messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram. The platform allowed companies to design and execute interactive customer communication flows using a drag-and-drop interface. These automated workflows enabled businesses to handle tasks like customer support, marketing campaigns, and lead generation.

The platform was designed to support a wide range of interactions, including:

  • Sending and receiving text messages, images, videos, and voice messages.
  • Handling dynamic content and decision-based workflows.
  • Providing exception handling for more advanced automation.

My Role

As Technical Co-Founder, I was responsible for all technical decisions and implementations, from the architecture to the development and deployment of the platform. My responsibilities included:

  • Designing the serverless architecture based on AWS.
  • Developing the workflow automation engine.
  • Implementing the drag-and-drop workflow editor.
  • Ensuring scalability and efficiency through AWS Step Functions.
  • Managing third-party integrations (Twilio, 360 Dialog for WhatsApp API access).
  • Deploying the infrastructure using Terraform for reproducibility and scalability.

Technical Project Description

The enyi platform was built on a serverless AWS architecture to handle message automation at scale. The key components included:

Infrastructure & Backend

  • AWS Step Functions: Used to orchestrate complex workflows and ensure seamless execution of automated communication processes.
  • AWS Lambda: Served as the processing backbone, executing specific workflow steps dynamically.
  • AWS DynamoDB: Stored customer interactions and workflow configurations efficiently.
  • AWS API Gateway: Acted as the communication layer between the frontend and backend services.
  • AWS S3: Used for storing multimedia content such as images and videos shared in conversations.
  • Terraform: Managed the infrastructure as code, ensuring a reproducible and scalable setup.

Frontend & Workflow Editor

  • Drag-and-Drop Workflow Builder: Allowed businesses to design communication flows visually.
  • React.js: Used for the frontend, providing an intuitive and responsive user experience.
  • Tailwind CSS: Ensured modern and scalable UI components.
  • WebSockets: Enabled real-time feedback and live updates in the workflow editor.

Messaging Integration

  • Twilio & 360 Dialog: Provided WhatsApp and Telegram API access for sending and receiving messages.
  • Webhook System: Allowed for real-time updates when users interacted with automated flows.

Challenges

  • Scalability: The system needed to handle thousands of concurrent customer interactions without performance degradation.
  • Workflow Complexity: Enabling non-technical users to create sophisticated communication workflows required an intuitive but powerful UI.
  • API Rate Limits: Overcoming restrictions imposed by WhatsApp and Telegram APIs required careful rate limiting and queueing mechanisms.
  • Customer Adoption: Convincing businesses to transition from traditional customer support to an automated messenger-based model.
  • Third-Party Integrations: Ensuring smooth interoperability with messaging services, which required dealing with API changes and limitations.

Achievements

  • Successfully launched an MVP within months, attracting early adopters.
  • Implemented a scalable, serverless workflow engine, reducing operational costs while enabling high availability.
  • Showcased enyi at Slush 2021, one of the world’s largest startup events, networking with potential investors and partners.
  • Adoption by small businesses and influencers, including a marketing campaign for Felix Thönnessen’s book promotion.
  • Developed a fully functional drag-and-drop editor, allowing businesses to create complex automation workflows without technical expertise.

Current Status

Despite early successes and positive user feedback, enyi was ultimately discontinued in 2022 due to a lack of sufficient traction in the market. The experience, however, provided valuable insights into messenger-based automation, serverless architectures, and product-market fit challenges. The lessons learned from enyi continue to inform my approach to building scalable, efficient, and user-centric software solutions.

Testimonials

From Felix Thönnessen’s book review on Amazon: Testimonial 1 Testimonial 2 Testimonial 3 Testimonial 4 Testimonial 5 Testimonial 6 Testimonial 7 Testimonial 8

© 2025 Marian Lambert