Neil Tewari

I’m excited to share that @conversionai has raised a $28M Series A led by @AbstractVC to build the modern marketing automation platform. Four years ago, @james__jiao and I started Conversion out of our UC Berkeley dorm room. Since then, we’ve launched, pivoted, and rebuilt the product more times than we can count. Every pivot was a lesson. We changed the product, changed the audience, changed the pitch. But every time we tried to grow, we got stuck fighting the same outdated software. For two decades, marketers have been stuck using software invented in 2006: Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce Pardot, Adobe Marketo, and HubSpot Marketing Hub. These tools were built before LinkedIn ads existed, let alone AI-driven campaigns. In an era obsessed with “move fast and break things,” we chose a different path. We spent years working with top design partners to build a MAP that feels like Figma, enriches like Clay, and scales like HubSpot — but built from the ground up for modern marketing teams. Today, Conversion is trusted by over 4,000 growing companies, including OpenAI, Abacum, Paraform, Warmly, Motion, and HockeyStack. In under two years, we’ve grown to nearly 8-figures in revenue, making us one of the fastest-growing marketing startups in the world. Our gratitude to our investors, customers, founding team members, friends, and family cannot be overstated. This is a special team on a bold mission to displace massive, legacy incumbents. A mission to make marketing software feel like magic. --- This $28M round was led by Abstract Ventures, with participation from @HOFCapital, @trueventures, @AntlerGlobal, and top angels from @OpenAI. A few special thank-yous: 1/ Our incredible investor group led by @dkwon98, Puneet Agarwal, @VictorWangJC , and Chris Millisits, for believing in our vision. 2/ Our amazing design partners: @BeauroyreMax , Stephanie Bian, Joseph Wang, @pranavmitl, Ethan Yu, Veronica Dominicis, and @fin465 for helping us build something complex, elegant, and powerful. 3/ And most importantly, our team: @charlie_he_ , @KyleWonzen, @levibkline , @matt_rowl_dev , Tayler Dunn, @SammyBoch, Naasir Farooqi, Swamik Lamichhane, @_varunnair, and @jimfutsu . Founders are only as strong as their team, and James and I feel incredibly lucky to work with such an amazing team everyday. We’re hiring across GTM, marketing, engineering, and design. If this mission speaks to you, our careers page is in the comments. If you’re tired of broken workflows and generic emails, comment “Conversion” and we’ll send you 100 high-performing templates from the best companies in the world. PS: two years ago, we were nearly out of cash, surviving on Chipotle rewards points in Berkeley and deep into our second pivot. To every builder out there: stay scrappy, inquisitive, and grateful. Building a startup is a privilege. Keep going.

@levibkline 👀🔥 (white)

Light or dark? Playing around with shadows in Figma

@conversionai @benln @nextplayso nextplayso.substack.com/p/how-a-big-pi…

We've hired 19-year olds, people who learned English at age 12, artists, magicians, and stand-up comedians. We're all about taking bets on raw talent here @conversionai @benln @nextplayso thanks so much for the feature!

Excited to share that Shreya Mantha has joined the Conversion team! When I first met Shreya, it wasn’t as a candidate. It was two years ago when we lived in the same building in North Beach as neighbors. She was working crazy hours cutting her teeth at J.P. Morgan, but somehow always found time to hang out, bring people together, and lift everyone around her. Over time, she became one of my closest friends in SF. We had a monthly catchup where we'd exchange stories over a pizza. When she told me she was considering the next step in her career, I knew we needed to have her on our team. Shreya went to Stanford, spent two years in investment banking, and has one of the sharpest minds of anyone I know. She embodies everything we look for on our GTM team: wicked smart, an incredible work ethic, and an infectious personality that resonates with coworkers and prospects. She also brings an elite snack rotation to the office, which the team has quickly learned to appreciate. It’s rare that you get to work with one of your closest friends, and I couldn’t be happier that we get to do that now. If you want to work with Shreya on our growth and GTM team, we're hiring! Our careers page is in the comments. Welcome to the team, Shreya!

The hottest role in AI startups right now isn’t Forward Deployed Engineers. It isn't GTM Engineers. It’s Deployment Strategists. Decagon calls it an “Agent Product Manager.” Harvey calls it a “Solutions Architect.” Palantir Technologies has had versions of this role for years. And the salaries are climbing fast: - Decagon: $200k–$285k - Palantir Technologies: $120k–$200k - Figma: $150k–$260k - Ramp: $100k–$180k - Harvey: $190k–$260k So who are these people? They are usually pseudo-technical -- CS or engineering majors, or folks with technical work experience. Many come from 2 years in consulting, IB, or PE, then jump into startups to get their hands dirty. They are young, hungry, polished, and comfortable being in front of customers. What do they actually do? They make sure enterprise AI deployments succeed. A $100k+ deal does not survive on a nice pitch or a self-serve onboarding flow. It survives if the customer sees value in the pilot. That means: - Embedding directly with the customer - Designing prompt logic for specific workflows - Working with engineering to align integrations and data flow - Helping exec teams define their AI roadmap - Running feedback loops into product and GTM Why does this role matter so much? Because enterprise AI is messy. Integrations, data transfer, and adoption make or break a deal. Most buyers are using AI for the first time, and each has unique workflows. Deployment Strategists bridge that gap. They own the outcome. They are accountable for making pilots successful, which often means millions in revenue down the line. At Conversion, Sam Bochner has been leading this work for us. We are now thinking about scaling it into a full team. Because a few successful pilots can fund an entire department, and the cost of failed deployments is too high to ignore. Is this just a rebrand of customer success? Not really. Success is about answering tickets and renewals. Deployment Strategy is about going deep with a few enterprise accounts, extracting maximum value, and ensuring the pilot closes into a multi-year contract. Call it Agent PM, Solutions Architect, or Deployment Strategist. Whatever the title, this is becoming one of the most important roles in AI SaaS.

When we raised our $28M Series A a few months ago, our final deck was 6 slides. Our first draft was 24. Your slide walkthrough should be about 5 minutes total. The more pitches we did, the more obvious it became: clarity is the most valuable thing you can provide during fundraising. Here’s what made the cut: 1. Market and mission 2. The key numbers that matter (ARR, customers, burn, NDR) 3. Product today 4. Product roadmap 5. Unit economics 6. Team Everything else lived in a written memo and our data room. Competitor analysis, market sizing, and differentiators were all there. Don't waste pitch time on it. We also sent a full product walkthrough video so investors could see exactly what we’ve built, no bells and whistles. The result? Our meetings with top investors weren’t spent clicking through slides. They had already read the memo, skimmed the data room, and watched the demo. The conversations were deeper, sharper, and more honest. They were 80% questions. If you’re a founder raising, remember: the best VCs don’t need a flashy competitor grid or some over-intellectualized “state of AI” slide. They already know the market better than most. What they want is simple: a clear story, the real numbers, and your conviction.

We get about 500 job applications for engineering roles every single day. At 30 seconds per application, that is 4+ hours of our team’s time just skimming resumes every single day. And that’s before interviews. Before engineering challenges. Before anything deeper. Inbound applications are only about 20% of our total recruiting effort. In this market, the numbers are not on your side. I really feel for candidates, because I know we are likely skipping talent. I want to pull back the curtain on what our hiring process looks like. But, here’s the brutal truth of the funnel: - The top ~2% of applicants get a 15–30 minute interview. We simply cannot handle more due to bandwidth - About 10% of those move on - The rest? Passed on in under 15 seconds Even at @conversionai, where we manually review every application (most companies auto-screen with AI), the process is unforgiving. If you do not stand out on paper with a top 10 CS undergrad program or experience at a breakout startup, you are not getting through. I wish it were different, but this is reality. We have to act efficiently, even if it means great talent slips through. Unfortunately, top backgrounds correlate with a higher probability of being a good fit here. If you do not have that kind of background, you need to stand out in this market. Here are three ways that actually work: 1. Use the “additional info” section to link to projects. We open all links. A live demo or portfolio beats a generic “dear hiring manager” every time. (For the record, a GPT-written “dear hiring manager” opener usually gets screened out faster.) 2. Polish your LinkedIn. We look there more than resumes. A clean iPhone photo, clear job history, and proof of output matter. Ask yourself honestly: “Would I interview me?” And yes, it is very easy to spot AI-generated headshots. 3. Reach out directly. Not every message gets a reply, but a thoughtful note always gets more than 30 seconds of attention. The sad truth is that most cold applications go straight into the abyss. The job market is brutal right now, and I want to give people a real look at what happens on the recruiting side.

Forget the myth that leaders should stay detached. Friendship with your employees is your biggest retention hack. If your team doesn’t want to hang out with you outside of work, you don’t have a strong culture. The best teams actually like each other. They grab dinner together after work. They stick around the office late, not because they have to, but because it’s fun. They care more about the work, and about each other, which makes it harder to leave when things inevitably get tough. Culture is not free snacks or ping pong tables. It’s wanting to spend time with the people around you. Picture shown: the team surprising me with an escape room for my birthday!

90% of “AI agents” are not actually agents. They are fancier GPT prompts and API calls scoped to very specific tasks. And that’s fine. The truth: no real enterprise agents actually work today. At @conversionai, we never claim to have fully agentic AI. The best AI augments human intelligence, not replaces it. So what actually defines an AI agent? 1. Continuous reasoning loop: not just answering a single query, but actively deciding what to do next 2. Tool use: the ability to call external systems or APIs to get things done 3. Adaptation: learning from outcomes and adjusting behavior over time 4. Autonomy: operating independently with minimal human oversight to complete tasks That is the bar. When most AI SaaS companies pitch you “agents,” what they are really selling is pre-defined workflows that don’t need human intervention. Things like: - auto-scheduling meetings with pre-written email templates - generating a sequence of LinkedIn messages to prospects - automatically enriching CRM records with scraped data Useful? Absolutely. Agents? Not quite. So can we please be done with the “AI agent” buzzword? Not all AI needs to be agentic. The best AI makes people better, not irrelevant.

Every Thursday, the Conversion team does one of the most intense Navy SEAL workouts: The Murph. 1 mile run 100 pull-ups 200 push-ups 300 air squats 1 mile run We love pushing each other to be the best versions of ourselves at Conversion. and nothing bonds a team like suffering and motivating each other side-by-side. By the end, everyone is drenched, exhausted, and smiling because we pushed through something together. That's exactly what building a category-defining company feels like. The miles feel long and the reps feel endless. Some days feel like an uphill battle and you're suddenly questioning all your life choices. But then, you look around and see your team grinding it out with you and it's one of the best feelings in the world. If you're in SF, come join us for Murph Thursdays at the Beale St Equinox!

Everyone in SF keeps talking about "996." Work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. It sounds intense. It also misses the point. If you have to mandate 996, you’ve already lost. 996 is just another fancy way of saying “work hard.” Of course you need to work hard to win. But if you have to mandate 996 at your office, you’re doing it wrong. You’re signaling that your team doesn’t want to push, so you need to force them. That is not how you build a winning culture. We don’t work 996 at @conversionai. We work 10am to 1am some days (sales and myself start earlier). Some weeks we work Saturdays. Other weeks we do not. Some teammates wake up early on Sunday to take candidate interviews. Others take the weekend to reset. When someone has plans with a friend on Saturday, we tell our team: please go! Because startups are a marathon, not a sprint. The best teams build a culture where everyone wants to win. They know when to put in the crazy hours and when to ease off the gas. They know their own priorities, and they want the company to succeed as badly as the founders do. This doesn't require mandated in-office time. And fun is part of it too. We do retreats yearly. We go out together and have group activities. Some people like a drink or two to keep the office lively. We celebrate wins as hard as we work for them. The companies that think they need to enforce 996 as policy will burn out their people and build resentment. The ones that build a culture of trust, ambition, and winning will last.

@james__jiao im so locked in on the corner there

engineers should sit in on sales calls every once in a while, we gather all engineers in a conference room and have them sit in on a virtual sales call. it allows them to witness firsthand the common objections, pain points, and the look of amazement on prospects’ faces as they see the product for the first time another added benefit: engineers can stare down the AE to make sure they're not overselling

Reimagine reality. reve.com

@nikunj @NotionHQ @FPVventures @EragonAI @nozomioai @dedaluslabs @agentmail @joshua_sirota @OverlayyAI @mrsnhl @TryArcade @shubcodes @emergentlabs @madhavjha @conversionai looking sharp!

@NotionHQ @FPVventures @EragonAI @nozomioai @dedaluslabs @agentmail @joshua_sirota @OverlayyAI @mrsnhl @TryArcade @shubcodes @emergentlabs @madhavjha Day 10: @conversionai - AI-native Marketing Automation Platform built for high-growth B2B businesses. Activate customer data, build custom journeys, and send beautiful emails to every single customer. Also the nicest Quince sweatshirt ever 👏

Swag Series begins.. Day 1: @WorkOS - get your company enterprise ready. All the best startups in the world are already using them - what are you waiting for? They also throw fun MCP nights so sign up for those events! (PS: mute this post if you rather NOT see this 😅)

@james__jiao my sales playbook is top tier

for months our team didn’t write any documentation. last week we wrote 87 pages it got to a point where what we've built became so vast, that we spent most of last week re-discussing topics we already agreed on. still, i think it was the right call to focus first on building, then on documenting. processes can slow down an org just as much as help, and they should only be added with the utmost intention.

Whoops. On the flip, if you love selling, come have fun with me 🙈 DM's open

@james__jiao +1

we put all engineers in every customer slack channel. they’re the ones responding to questions, fixing bugs, and building feature requests. IMO the best way for engineering to be close with customers and understand their pain

@james__jiao let the record be known

apparently our degrees weren’t enough. we had to prove ourselves with toys. last friday at our “are you a 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲 engineer” event, swe’s competed in the other three pillars of engineering: 1. mechanical - build a LEGO TECHNIC set 2. structural - construct a mini wooden house 3. electrical - complete a breadboard challenge fierce competition ensued. trash talking about who skipped instruction steps filled the air. thanks everyone for a goofy night of relieving our childhood :)

Link to our careers page: conversion.ai/careers

We are officially running out of hiring ideas. Our latest attempt? Wearing a t-shirt to the gym where our ICP hangs out. Why the gym? Because anecdotally, salespeople tend to stay in shape and be at the gym late, and if you’re looking for AEs in SF, Equinox Beale Street is basically a live talent pool. The good news: we are growing like crazy after our Series A and need the best talent in the Bay Area across engineering, product, sales, and marketing. The better news: $10k referral bonus if you intro me to the right hire. Link in the comments!