In this discussion, Elias Torres, co-founder and CEO of Agency AI, shares his journey from founding Performable to leading Drift, a billion-dollar company. He emphasizes the significance of building a strong company culture and recruiting talent for success in Silicon Valley. Elias reveals how AI can transform customer engagement, highlighting its potential to enhance understanding of the customer journey. He also provides practical advice for aspiring founders, focusing on transparency and adaptability in business. Plus, he teases his latest initiative aiming to redefine customer service.
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Elias's Entrepreneurial Journey
Elias Torres has founded multiple successful companies, including Performable and Drift.
He's now focusing on Agency AI, an AI-powered customer success platform.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Early Influences
Elias's early childhood in Nicaragua did not involve any dreams about building a software company.
Early experiences with the contrast between Nicaragua and the U.S. fueled his ambition.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Path to Entrepreneurship
Key moments for Elias include working at IBM, where he learned from visionaries like Tim Berners-Lee.
This experience fueled his desire to become an entrepreneur.
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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, 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 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 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 mean for businesses?
Superhuman AI: Decoding the Future