Ibby Syed spent 18 months building a customer analytics product that hit $150K ARR—only to realize he'd accidentally built a consulting business, not a software company. Then his co-founder wrote 100 lines of code using the OpenAI API, and everything changed.

In this episode, Ibby shares how he and his co-founder pivoted from a struggling analytics tool to building Kotera, an AI agent platform that crossed 7-figures in ARR. He explains why most vertical AI startups will grow fast and die, and how teaching customers to build their own agents created a more scalable business.

You'll learn:

• How to use LinkedIn outbound with an 8-10% response rate to book 25+ customer interviews per week
• Why early revenue can trap you in a "local maxima" and make pivoting harder
• How 100 lines of API code outperformed a bloated data science solution and triggered a pivot
• Why sending prospects actual value (like leads) beats generic pitches in today's saturated market
• Why building horizontal tools may be more defensible than vertical AI solutions

Full show notes → saasclub.io/463

This episode is brought to you by:

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