A 12-year-old entrepreneur from Canada is proving that age is no barrier to building an AI startup. Mana Jampala, a tech founder based in British Columbia, has developed an artificial intelligence-powered receptionist called Voxa, designed to help small businesses answer calls, book appointments, and reduce lost sales.
Jampala launched the platform in November 2025 after noticing a common problem while spending time at her father’s workplace: busy employees frequently missed incoming calls, potentially losing valuable customers.
Less than a year later, she says her AI system is already handling hundreds of calls and is preparing to land its first paying customer.
Who is Mana Jampala?
Mana Jampala is a 12-year-old founder from British Columbia, Canada, and part of Generation Alpha, the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence as a mainstream technology.
She became interested in programming at age nine and has since
- Learned Python programming.
- Attended coding camps focused on Scratch and software development.
- Won a special award at a collegiate-level science competition in India.
- Received a grant from the 1517 Medici Project, which supports young entrepreneurs building startups.
Jampala says she has always wanted to start a technology company and views AI as the ideal tool to solve real-world business problems.
What is Voxa?
Voxa is an AI-powered virtual receptionist built for small businesses that cannot always answer incoming phone calls.
According to Jampala, the platform can:
- Answer customer calls around the clock.
- Schedule appointments automatically.
- Take restaurant orders.
- Handle missed calls.
- Generate summaries after every conversation.
The goal is to help businesses capture potential customers instead of losing them when staff members are busy.
How did she come up with the idea?
The idea originated while visiting her father’s workplace.
Jampala noticed employees regularly missed phone calls because they were occupied with customers or other tasks.
While an occasional missed call may not seem significant, she realized repeated missed opportunities could translate into lost revenue over time.
She built Voxa to ensure businesses remain reachable even when employees cannot answer the phone.
She also built a platform for creating AI agents
Beyond Voxa, Jampala has developed a second product called Voxa Agents.
The platform allows users to create custom AI agents using natural-language prompts rather than writing code.
Instead of programming each workflow manually, users describe what they want, and the system generates an AI agent capable of performing the task.
How she used AI to build her startup
Like many modern software developers, Jampala relied on generative AI during development.
She initially used ChatGPT to generate and refine small sections of code before later switching to Anthropic’s Claude, which she found more effective for coding assistance.
Rather than asking AI to generate an entire application at once, she broke development into small, testable pieces.
Her approach involved:
- Requesting small code snippets.
- Testing each section individually.
- Fixing bugs before moving forward.
- Gradually assembling the complete application.
She says this method helped her better understand every part of the codebase instead of relying entirely on AI-generated software.
Building a startup at age 12 comes with challenges
Despite her technical skills, Jampala says winning customers hasn’t always been easy.
When pitching businesses in person, many conversations focused on her age rather than the product.
Prospective clients often asked:
- “How old are you?”
- “Do your parents help you?”
- “Did you build this yourself?”
She found online meetings were more productive because potential customers tended to evaluate the product instead of the founder’s age.
How is she finding customers
Jampala has experimented with several sales strategies, including:
- Cold calling businesses.
- Networking through professional contacts.
- Seeking warm introductions from existing connections.
She believes referrals produce significantly better results than unsolicited outreach.
She has also spoken with leaders in her local business community, including her city’s Chamber of Commerce, as she works toward acquiring long-term customers.
Her long-term vision
Jampala hopes to grow Voxa without outside investment during its early stages before eventually joining a startup accelerator.
Her roadmap includes:
- Bootstrapping the business for one to two years.
- Applying to startup accelerators such as Y Combinator or Andreessen Horowitz’s programs.
- Raising venture capital once the company reaches a larger scale.
She says the ultimate goal is to steadily expand the business rather than pursue rapid growth too early.
A growing generation of AI-native entrepreneurs
Jampala represents a broader shift in entrepreneurship as younger founders increasingly use AI tools to build products that once required large engineering teams.
While she says building a startup can sometimes feel isolating, she’s found community through online platforms such as Discord, where she connects with other teenage programmers and founders working on their own companies.
As AI lowers technical barriers, stories like Jampala’s highlight how young entrepreneurs are beginning to solve business problems with software they can build themselves.
FAQs
Who is Mana Jampala?
Mana Jampala is a 12-year-old entrepreneur from British Columbia, Canada, who founded the AI startup Voxa.
What is Voxa?
Voxa is an AI-powered receptionist that answers calls, schedules appointments, records orders, manages missed calls and creates call summaries for small businesses.
Why did Mana Jampala create Voxa?
She noticed her father’s workplace frequently missed customer calls because staff members were busy, leading to potential lost business.
What AI tools did she use?
Jampala initially used ChatGPT for coding assistance before switching to Anthropic’s Claude. She now develops much of the platform using her own backend.
What are her future plans?
She plans to bootstrap Voxa, join a startup accelerator, and eventually raise venture capital to scale the business.
