The Latina CEO Building the “WhatsApp Layer” Inside GoHighLevel: Vittoria Melloni’s Applevel Story

Vittoria Melloni didn’t come from a startup family. She didn’t have a blueprint, a “founder circle,” or a predictable path. What she had was a problem she lived every day—and the determination to fix it in a way that helped others, too.

In 2020, Vittoria and co-founder Joaquín were running a marketing agency. Their client acquisition depended heavily on WhatsApp, where new leads asked questions, requested details, and booked calls. The only issue: everything was manual. They were spending hours sending personalized WhatsApp messages to each new prospect. The process was repetitive, inefficient, and constrained to business hours, meaning messages arriving at night, on weekends, or during holidays often went cold.

One day, Joaquín asked a question that sparked a new business: “What can we do to improve this process?” Vittoria’s answer was immediate—build software that syncs WhatsApp directly into their CRM on GoHighLevel (HighLevel CRM), so teams could automate responses and free up hours of manual work.

They quickly realized the deeper truth: they were closing more deals inside WhatsApp than inside their CRM. WhatsApp wasn’t just messaging—it was where the critical conversations happened: sales, follow-ups, closes, and customer support. When other GoHighLevel users began asking for access to the tool, it confirmed what Vittoria already suspected: the problem wasn’t niche. It was universal. The demand was so strong that within months, Applevel had surpassed 1,000 users. Since then, the company says it has doubled the number of businesses using its software each year, and now reports more than 4000 users.

Why WhatsApp? Vittoria frames it as an operational reality. WhatsApp is the most widely used communication app globally, and in many markets—especially across Latin America and parts of Europe—it’s a primary channel for revenue and customer retention. Yet many CRMs were built in the United States, where WhatsApp historically wasn’t popular due to free SMS. The result: most CRMs lack native WhatsApp integration.

Applevel’s value proposition is intentionally simple. If you’re not technical, Vittoria explains it like this: Applevel makes your WhatsApp conversations appear directly inside your GoHighLevel CRM, so you can handle them efficiently—or create automatic AI responses by voice or text.

The company also differentiates itself from complex software integrations. Applevel connects to WhatsApp through a QR code scan on a phone to send messages, enabling more flexible workflows.

Then comes the layer that feels like the future: AI inside the WhatsApp workflow. Applevel says it was the first WhatsApp integration to incorporate applied AI inside GoHighLevel in a way that lets teams choose manual replies, automatic replies, or AI agents. Through its OpenAI integration, businesses can build agents that answer questions about products and services, schedule calls, coordinate appointments—virtual or in-person—and follow up with leads 24/7 without human intervention. These agents can be trained using business-specific information and can respond through text messages and voice notes. The promised impact is practical: faster responses, improved conversions, higher customer satisfaction, and lower operational costs.

But for Vittoria, “building the future” has never been about chasing shiny technology. It’s been about discipline—both as a founder and as a leader.

One of her biggest challenges, she says, was starting the company while holding two other jobs in parallel. For a long period, she had three jobs at the same time, requiring intense effort and sacrifice. She also had to learn entrepreneurship without entrepreneurs in her immediate environment—teaching herself through YouTube videos, online courses, and the founders she admired. Over time, she developed her own judgment, risk tolerance, and growth mindset—skills traditional education rarely trains.

Her leadership is also shaped by family history. Vittoria shares that her grandfather emigrated from Italy to Uruguay at 18, in the post-war era, starting from scratch while keeping strong ties to family that endure today. Watching what it means to begin again, work hard, and create real opportunity became part of how she sees responsibility. That mindset is visible in how Applevel treats customers and teammates.

Inside the company, culture has a name: “The Castle.” New hires are welcomed to the Castle—because everyone builds it together, stone by stone. The values are explicit: helping people matters more than money; improving service constantly; staying close to the team and customers; building through commitment, loyalty, and collaboration. It’s a culture that rejects micromanagement but requires high standards of ownership and delivery.

That people-first philosophy also shows up in a rare commitment to SaaS: real customer support 24/7, even on holidays, with the company stating an average response time of about seven minutes.

Looking forward, Vittoria’s view is grounded: communication will become more automated, but also more personalized—instant, yet intentional. Customers will increasingly expect AI by default, while others will still want the option of a human. That’s why Applevel supports both.

And WhatsApp’s role? “WhatsApp isn’t the future,” Vittoria says. “It’s the present.”

Learn more at https://applevel.com or request a demo to connect WhatsApp to GoHighLevel with AI-assisted workflows.