Michael Fester

.@14__ai is building the world’s first AI-native customer service agency for brands. Congrats on the launch, @marieschneegans and @michaelfester! techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/a-m… ycombinator.com/launches/PaA-1…

@Eduardopto @TechCrunch exactly, and that’s why we don’t stop at automation. that hard 5% is where our team steps in. we don’t just route the ticket, we own it end-to-end. as an agency, we handle the judgment calls.

@TechCrunch Replacing tier-1 support is the easy part. The hard part is the 5% of tickets that need judgment across 3 prior conversations and someone willing to own the outcome. That is still a human problem.

A married founder duo’s company, 14.ai, is replacing customer support teams at startups techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/a-m…

Our story started in Paris over a game of Monopoly. Ten years later, @michaelfester and I are in San Francisco building 14.ai together. We always knew we wanted to build something in the US but we didn't know what that would look like. Everyone is building AI software for customer support. We decided not to. Instead we take over the entire operation; the ticketing system, the agents, the humans, everything. One line item instead of three. When a D2C brand joins us, we tell them stop answering tickets that same day. Thank you @t_blom for your support from day 0. 🧡 Grateful to be featured in TechCrunch today. This is just the beginning

We spent 1 year trying to figure this out the hard way then wrote a book about it. A practical guide to TikTok Shop, from posting content to driving commerce. We work with eight-figure brands on this stuff daily. This is everything we know. Limited early copies, comment or DM if you want a free one.

When you're building a company, you sacrifice almost everything. You're obsessed. For many founders, personal relationships will suffer. And fair enough. You don't give as much time to hanging out with friends because you'd genuinely rather spend your time working. The same goes for romantic relationships. If your partner is disconnected from your work, they can start to feel like they're competing for your attention. Sometimes Marie and I get weird comments about being married cofounders, but I will say, we feel like we haven't had to make any sacrifices. We spend literally all our time together. We're both obsessed with the same thing. Stressful moments and weeks are shared between us and we both totally understand. Similarly, wins equally celebrated. Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston figured this out 20 years ago. They started YC while dating, ran it together for years, and are still married with kids. PG wrote: "Before we had kids, YC was more or less our life. There was no real distinction between working hours and not. We talked about YC all the time. And we liked it." That's exactly how it feels for us. There's no tension between "work time" and "relationship time." Not saying everyone should start a company with their spouse. But for us it means we never have to choose between the company and each other. Happy almost Valentines.

Every week, we handle 1000s of "where's my package" tickets. Here's what USPS doesn't want you to know: You get a tracking update that says "In Transit, Arriving Late." Then nothing. For days. Sometimes weeks. You call USPS. 129 minute wait time. They tell you to file a Missing Mail Search. You file it, get a confirmation email and a "Search ID," then nothing again. You give them the Search ID and they say "We've received your request and are currently searching for your mail." They can see exactly where your package is. Which truck it was on and which facility it's sitting in. But that information is "Not available to the public." So you wait. And the system auto-generates fake updates like "still moving through the network" even when it's not moving at all. Meanwhile, the seller has to decide: refund now and eat the cost? Wait and hope? Ship a replacement? We run customer support for e-commerce brands. Last week one of our clients had a package vanish. "Male Health Supplements" heading to Fort Worth. Our protocol: 1. Filed the Missing Mail Search through our USPS business account (not the customer's problem to figure out) 2. Asked the customer if they want a refund or replacement? Their choice. 3. Added the customer's address to the search so if USPS finds it, it goes straight to them as a nice surprise 4. Kept the brand informed without making them chase USPS 5. Total time for the customer: one message. One trick if you're working with USPS: You can file Missing Mail searches as the shipper through a USPS business account. You get more visibility, faster responses, and you can manage it on behalf of your customers. We onboard every client into ours so when packages vanish, we handle it. Not your customer.

So glad we can finally share this now that things have settled. Joshua showed up on Saturday night, Dec 20 at 7pm, right as the great SF power outage hit. For his work trial. This was our first in-person interaction. There was no wifi so we couldn't do any work. Ok, let's grab dinner instead. But every restaurant was closed. No power. No Toast iPads. No food. We wandered until we found a neighborhood with wifi just so we could call an Uber. Ubered to a hotel downtown that actually had power. (Shoutout CitizenM.) Ate sushi. Worked in the hotel until 10pm when the power came back. Then back to the crib. Definitely not a traditional work trial. But the most eventful moments in life usually mean something bigger. I don't believe in coincidences. Josh rolled with every curveball that night. No complaints and great vibes. That told us everything we needed to know. Josh killed the trial and officially started with us last week. Welcome aboard, Joshua. We're so happy to have you.

The @ycombinator hiring board might be the most underrated part of the entire program. We posted a role and had 200+ applicants in under 48 hours. And the quality is insane compared to every other job board we've used. People who apply through YC are already plugged into the startup world. Step one is knowing what "Y Combinator" is. They're not looking for corporate hours, they're hungry to build something. LinkedIn is 80% spam and 15% agencies. This might be worth the application alone.

We hire AI engineers to answer our customers' support tickets until they automate them. Most companies hire the cheapest labor possible to answer support tickets forever. Brilliant engineers hate repetitive work, and have agency to do something about it. They'll answer "where is my order" maybe 5 times before they can't stand it anymore and automate it. The people improving the AI are the same people who live in the trenches answering tickets. Hire people too restless to answer the same ticket twice.

When I moved to the U.S., I quickly noticed a difference between American and European founders (don’t cancel me). American founders sell the dream. European founders show the honest reality (or under-reality). In the US, pitch decks are full of hockey sticks and ambitious projections. Confidence is the currency. Sometimes overconfidence. That confidence is what gets investors excited, gets customers to believe, and gets the best talent to join. In Europe, we're trained to be humble. To show what's working AND what's broken. To undersell and over-deliver. Neither is wrong. American founders often treat building a startup like destiny. The expectation is set early, and the work becomes about living up to it. Ambition is assumed. European founders often take a more measured approach. We choose this path because we want to build something meaningful, often with global impact, but without pretending it’s inevitable. Life in Europe is very different. More space for life outside work. Less pressure to constantly optimize for scale. The U.S. flips that equation. The ambition is enormous, but relationships can feel more transactional. People engage based on trajectory, leverage, or proximity to opportunity. I believe there is a sweet spot somewhere in between. European groundedness paired with American spirit that everything is possible. Picture in Nashville, USA with our founding engineer Ugo.

.@bryan_johnson ruined our Friday nights. Our team had a ritual. Every Friday, we'd order Shake Shack to celebrate making it through the week. Then Marie sent a 10-minute Bryan Johnson documentary about McDonald's. Not just "fast food is unhealthy." Really bad. Like really bad. We couldn't unwatch it. The next Friday came around. Someone suggested Shake Shack. We all just looked at each other. Now every Friday night, we have burger night in the office. Homemade. All organic ingredients. Grass-fed beef. Fresh vegetables. Homemade secret sauce. And honestly? They taste better. Thanks Bryan. I think.

We delivered fortune cookies to company offices, but the fortunes inside were their own one-star customer support reviews

I scheduled the demo. I’m not risking it.

One of the best parts of being a founder is doing grunt work at the ground level. When we onboard a new customer, I become their chatbot support agent for a few days. I'm in there answering tickets manually, learning their business, understanding how their customers actually ask questions. We do this to train our model, but I'm always surprised at how many high-level takeaways I end up with after being boots on the ground. So if you see my face around on the chatbot, don't ask anything weird 😉

Is my head really this shiny? Will Phillips came through HQ to document a day in the life. He did a beautiful job and made us look really cool. Check it out. youtube.com/watch?v=FedPUt…

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of customer service. We onboarded a new consumer brand during it. Behind the scenes in Nashville.

@kitlangton 😅

@michaelfester I may have thought of the name before making it…

Features aside, that is a banger name 🤩

Most common Thanksgiving support tickets we saw this year: "Someone brought store-bought rolls acting like they cooked" “Why does every dish have raisins in it?" “This turkey is dry.” “Cousin walk group is giggling at the Jell-O.” "Football volume too loud" / "Football volume too quiet" “Who put me next to the cousin who breathes like a leaf blower?” "Mother-in-law asked when we're having kids again" - Recurring issue. "Someone's kid is showing me YouTube videos" "Dad asleep on couch by 4pm" Closing all tickets. See everyone in 364 days