About Start AI Challenge

Practical Guidance Built from Real Customer Work

Hi, I’m Athanasios Priftis, although most people call me Thanos.

And yes, that really is my name. It comes from the Greek name Athanasios, which means “immortal.”

I’m based in Athens, Greece, where I studied Economics and Management. My career, however, has taken me through many different parts of the digital-business world.

Before joining Viral Loops, I spent two years working in quality assurance for a mobile application and another two years at a growth-marketing company. Those roles taught me how digital products are built, tested and improved, but most importantly, how real people experience them.

For nearly 12 years, most of my professional life has been connected to Viral Loops, a referral-marketing platform used by businesses around the world. From Accounting to Marketing and Customer Success

I did not begin my career there as a marketer.

I originally joined as an accounting assistant, working on invoices, customer payments, emails, partnerships and everyday administrative tasks.

Over time, I began learning HTML and CSS because I wanted to build and improve things myself. That led me into marketing work, where I created landing pages, newsletter forms, ebooks, website content and social-media campaigns.

Because I had developed a strong understanding of the Viral Loops platform, I also began spending a few extra hours each evening helping customers with technical questions and campaign setup.

Eventually, customer support and customer success became the main focus of my work.

Since then, I have worked with hundreds of customers across many different industries, including ecommerce stores, SaaS companies and businesses selling both physical and digital products.

I have helped people:

  • Set up and launch campaigns

  • Understand how the platform works

  • Solve technical problems

  • Improve campaign structure

  • Connect forms, pages and marketing tools

  • Work through questions during quick technical calls

  • Make their campaigns easier for customers to understand and use

Some customers needed help with a small technical detail. Others needed someone to look at the full campaign, understand what they were trying to achieve and help them find a practical way forward.

What Working with Customers Taught Me:

After hundreds of support conversations, customer-success calls and campaign reviews, I began noticing the same pattern.

Most business owners do not need another complicated marketing framework.

They usually need someone to help them answer a few important questions:

  • Who are we trying to reach?

  • What does that customer actually care about?

  • Is the offer clear?

  • What should we say in our emails and pages?

  • What is the next practical step?

  • The tools are rarely the hardest part.

  • The harder part is knowing what to do with them.

One of the parts of my work that I value most is seeing customers mention my support in public reviews on platforms such as Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra.

Those comments matter to me because they reflect what I have always tried to do: make complicated things feel more manageable and help people move forward without making them feel lost or overwhelmed.

Why I Created Start AI Challenge:

As artificial intelligence became part of everyday marketing, I saw the same problem appear again.

Business owners suddenly had access to hundreds of tools, thousands of prompts and more information than they could realistically use.

But having more tools did not automatically make the work easier.

People still needed to understand their customers, communicate their offer clearly, write useful content, follow up with leads and decide what to focus on next.

That is why I created Start AI Challenge.

I wanted to take the practical lessons I had collected through years of working with customers and turn them into something that could help people without requiring advanced marketing knowledge or technical experience.

The goal is not to convince you that AI can run your business for you.

It cannot.

The goal is to help you use AI as a practical assistant while keeping your own judgment, knowledge and understanding of your customers at the centre of the work.

Get More Customers with AI

The first guide available through Start AI Challenge is Get More Customers with AI, a practical 7-day digital guide for business owners.

During the challenge, you will work through one focused business task each day.

You will:

  • Build a clearer picture of your ideal customer

  • Understand what makes people take action

  • Create more relevant marketing ideas

  • Improve the way you explain your offer

  • Write clearer emails and follow-ups

  • Choose a realistic way to generate leads

  • Build a simple weekly workflow you can continue using

This is not a guide designed to be downloaded, read once and forgotten. It is designed to help you produce real work for your own business.

Start with One Practical Step!

You do not need to master every AI tool.

You do not need to rebuild your entire marketing strategy in one week.

You need a clear starting point, useful context and one practical task at a time.

That is what Start AI Challenge is here to provide.

*Start AI Challenge is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viral Loops.