For proof that AI is enabling a new generation of founders, look no further than Mana Jampara.
Janpala, who lives in British Columbia, is the 12-year-old founder of Voxa, an AI-powered receptionist. She launched the product in November 2025 to help small businesses make field calls and avoid losing potential customers.
Jampala told Business Insider that he came up with the idea after spending time at his father’s workplace.
“When I was 11 years old, I noticed that when I went to my father’s office, he often didn’t answer the phone,” Jampala said. “They’re a very small team, so they’re going to be very busy. They either ignore it or don’t notice it at all.”
A few missed calls may not seem like a big deal, but eventually the lost revenue adds up.
This is Voxa’s homepage. Voxa
That’s where Voxa comes in, she says. A 24/7 voice assistant can answer phone calls, book staff, record restaurant orders, manage missed calls, and create summaries after each call. Voxa is less than a year old, but its young founders say it’s already handling hundreds of calls. She said she is working on securing her first paying customers.
Jampala has also launched a platform called Voxa Agents that allows users to create AI agents via prompts. Customers can use plain language to get the results they want.
“Ideally, the trajectory would be bootstrapping for a year or two and then moving to an accelerator like Y Combinator or A16z,” Jampala said. “Once we get through the accelerator part, it’s just a matter of continuing to maintain steady growth. Once we get to the right stage, we’ll look to venture capital to continue scaling.”
AI native
Jampara is a member of Generation Alpha, a generation that is growing up with ready access to AI and other advanced technologies.
Jampala said he first became interested in AI when he was nine years old. Since then, he has attended a scratch coding camp, learned Python, won a special award in a university-level science competition during a visit to India, and won a 1517 Medici Project grant. The 1517 Fund provides grants to high school, college, and dropout students who are building startups.
“I’ve always been interested in starting a business in the technology field,” Jampala said.
Although Jampala has friends and is an active athlete, she said working on a startup is largely a solitary endeavor.
“I love this job, but it can feel lonely sometimes. I don’t know anyone else my age doing this job in my area,” she said.
Jampala was able to connect with other like-minded kids in online spaces like Discord.
“I’ve met a lot of great people, 13-year-olds who know how to code and are running startups,” Jampala said. “I encourage other young founders looking for community to do the same.”
To create Voxa, Jampala first used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to iterate on small parts of the basic code and verify it before moving on. She then switched to Anthropic’s Claude coding system because she felt it was more helpful.
“Rather than having me write the entire codebase in one try, I like to have them run small snippets of code. That way I can look at it and if something breaks, I can test it, find out why and fix it,” Jampala said. “Now I have this large codebase, and I tested every little piece of it, so I know it works.”
Jampala initially used third-party systems to build agents, but now uses its own custom-built backend.
“The basic system took two weeks, but I’m constantly adding code, fixing bugs, and adding features. It’s a never-ending process,” she said.
Mana Jampala has created two platforms: Voxa and Voxa Agents. Mana Jampara
Of course, starting a company at the age of 12 is not without its hurdles. Jampala initially pitched Voxa directly to local businesses, but found that her age was frequently brought up.
“The response I got was, ‘Wait a minute, how old are you?’ And I also got a lot of questions, ‘Can my parents help me with this?’ Are you alone? ” she said.
So in addition to marketing to people in person, she tried to reach potential customers online.
“Their response didn’t really focus on age,” Jampala said. “Maybe it was the face-to-face effect, but these guys are a little more product-focused.”
So far, she has tried making phone calls and tapping into her network to meet potential clients. For example, Janpala spoke on the phone with the CEO of her city’s chamber of commerce.
“My strategy now is to use my connections and ask for warm introductions because they convert better than cold advertising,” Jampala said.
Jampala said convincing some companies to implement AI into their workflows may also be difficult, but he is hopeful.
“I think they’re worried that customers will feel ignored, but I personally think people will get very used to this in a few months to a year because a lot of companies have already implemented this,” Jampala said.