Today on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Elias Torres, CEO and founder of Agency, an AI agent for customer success teams. Elias shares his journey from growing up in Nicaragua to founding several companies, leading engineering at HubSpot, and selling Drift for $1B. He also discusses his work consulting with OpenAI in 2022, which deepened his understanding of the business opportunity LLMs presented and inspired him to start Agency. In this episode, Elias offers a unique perspective on the future of AI and customer success, explaining how current software has fallen short and his vision for a new generation where customers have direct relationships, spend less time on tasks, and have software working invisibly on their behalf. They also discuss the evolving landscape of hiring as teams shrink, and Elias reveals his ambitious plan to reach $1B in revenue with fewer than 100 employees.

Show notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:34 Elias’ journey to entrepreneurship

2:36 Growing HubSpot to IPO and founding Drift

6:19 Consulting with OpenAI, learning about LLMs, and diving into AI

9:35 Founding Agency to focus on customer success and AI-driven solutions

11:40 What will a customer experience look like in 5 years?

15:48 Company building in an era of AI, as a 5th time founder

18:32 Reducing headcount while raising the bar on hiring

20:35 Key challenges in building Agency and crafting a standout product

23:06 Addressing software flaws and transitioning to an era of intuitive, self-operating solutions

26:27 Timeline for the next-gen software revolution + the power of building from first principles