After selling Drift, ex-HubSpot exec launches AI for customer success managers
Elias Torres has achieved a lot for somebody who immigrated to the US from Nicaragua at 17 without knowing any English.
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Elias Torres has achieved a lot for somebody who immigrated to the US from Nicaragua at 17 without knowing any English.
Elias Torres, a Nicaraguan immigrant who arrived in the United States at the age of 17 without speaking a word of English, has defied the odds to achieve remarkable success in the tech industry. As a Vice President of Engineering at HubSpot and co-founder of Drift, a company that was acquired by Vista equity for $1.2 billion in 2021, Torres has proven himself to be a visionary entrepreneur. now, he is taking on a new challenge with Agency, an AI-powered startup that aims to revolutionize the customer success management space.
The journey of Agency began when Torres started consulting for OpenAi in early 2023. While working on AI solutions for OpenAI's enterprise customers, including the NBA and LiveNation, Torres realized that companies could greatly benefit from AI-powered customer success managers. This epiphany was reinforced when he met with Brian Halligan, co-founder and executive chairman of HubSpot, who encouraged him to build a startup around this concept.
With Halligan's support, Torres reached out to Sequoia partner Pat Grady, who had previously invested in Drift. Grady was immediately sold on the idea, recognizing the challenges of hiring and scaling great customer success managers. "It's hard to hire great CSMs. It's hard to scale great CSMs," Grady said. "If you have a product that can do a lot of the work on their behalf, and you can scale your company without having to hire an army of CSMs. That's pretty useful."
Agency's AI-powered solution frees up time in the customer success manager's workday by handling tasks such as scheduling, follow-ups, note-taking, customer onboarding, and meeting preparation. The AI gains a deep understanding of each customer from emails, CRM data, chat messages, and phone conversations, allowing it to anticipate customer needs at any point. This technology has been a long-term goal for Torres, who helped build Salesforce at HubSpot and Drift.
The market opportunity for Agency is vast, with the sales and marketing organization facing disruption from dozens of AI-powered solutions targeting sales development representatives. However, Sequoia's Grady believes that Agency has a unique opportunity to establish itself in this market. "I don't know anybody else going after this market," Grady said. "Hopefully people won't discover that for a while, and they'll have a little bit of room to run."
With a $12 million seed round led by Sequoia and HubSpot Ventures, Agency is poised to make a significant impact in the customer success management space. As Torres said, "I'm not done" – and with Agency, he's just Getting Started. The company's product is currently being tested with companies, including HeyGen, and is available in an invite-only beta for customer success professionals. With its innovative AI-powered solution, Agency is well-positioned to revolutionize the way companies approach customer success management.
In conclusion, Elias Torres' journey from immigrant to entrepreneur is a testament to his determination and vision. With Agency, he is taking on a new challenge that has the potential to disrupt the customer success management space. With its AI-powered solution and strong backing from Sequoia and HubSpot Ventures, Agency is poised to make a significant impact in the industry.
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