Firefly, which took funding from First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, is partnering with YC-backed Olark to give customer support specialists the ability to co-browse the web with clients that might be having trouble.
Firefly has built a way for any website to insert a snippet of JavaScript so that it can be “co-browsed” with someone else. “Co-browsing” is kind of like screen-sharing, except it’s limited to the browser and doesn’t include surrounding applications that might be running in the background.
The startup is laser-focused on co-browsing for customer support, in case a person is having trouble with a website or signing up for a service. A Firefly user might be able to help a lost customer by highlighting where to go in the browser, or even by taking control of the browser to help them fill out forms.
Olark is a natural fit since it’s also a customer-support-focused startup: They build live chat widgets so specialists can talk to customers in real time. Now Olark users will be able to see what their customers are seeing, too.
Firefly, which was founded by a group of current students and recent grads from the University of Pennsylvania, built their co-browsing product so that it doesn’t need any kind of application download. Already, the startup is on track to make in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue this year, and Firefly is deployed with about 6,000 different businesses, according to co-founder Dan Shipper. The Olark partnership brings Firefly 5,000 customers.