5 pieces of advice from a billion dollar AI startup founder

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In this episode of Superhuman AI: Decoding the Future, Zain and Hassan sit down with Elias Torres, co-founder and CEO of Agency AI, to learn about his remarkable career and vision for AI’s transformative role in customer success.

Elias discusses the motivations behind his entrepreneurial endeavors (founding Performable and co-founding Drift) and the challenges he faced while building innovative companies. He explains why recruiting top talent, fostering strong company culture, and maintaining a customer-centric approach are so important when it comes to scaling, and he explores the potential of AI and large language models (LLMs) in revolutionizing customer success. 

Plus, Elias offers his insights on private equity and M&A and gives us his practical advice for founders, stressing the value of transparency, decisiveness, and direct customer interaction. We’ll also hear about Elias’ podcast The American Dream and he shares his aspirations for Agency AI to redefine customer engagement with small, agile teams. 

What we talk about:
2:24 – Why is Elias creating another company?
3:52 – What was Elias’ dream before becoming an entrepreneur?
5:30 – What were some of the key moments on Elias’ journey to becoming an entrepreneur?
8:05 – What is it about “The Valley” that lends itself to startup success?
8:48 – What was it that drove Elias to keep pushing after selling Performable?
10:16 – What are the top three lessons learned from HubSpot?
12:01 – What makes software suck?
12:56 – What makes a company special?
15:27 – Lessons learned from M&A.
19:10 – How hard is it to build a big company?
21:53 – What problems does Agency AI aim to solve?
24:14 – How does the AI wave differ from the other technology waves from the last 20 years?
26:44 – Where would Elias be today if Drift had failed?
30:51 – What does Agency AI mean for businesses?