Snehal Shinde

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.

647

91 Comments

YC has done a good job supporting ambitious deeptech projects. Seeds sowed over many years are starting to sprout in meaningful ways. Biggest support to founders (esp those building in the physical world) isn’t money - it’s the right advice, network, and peer support.

92

8 Comments

Ok, time for a rant. 90% of "AI Startups" aren't even AI. I've seen founders that use LLMs or have a chatbot somewhere on their site and call it an "AI startup". I've seen people who vibe code or use Cursor/Lovable and then say they have an "AI startup". I've seen people continue to build ChatGPT/Claude/Llama wrappers and call it an "AI startup". If you haven't build a custom model or used meaningful proprietary data then you aren't an AI startup, you're AI Enabled. AND THAT'S FINE. You don't have to be an AI company to solve a problem. So many companies and VCs are going to have poor performance because they have little differentiation and have claimed to build/invest in "AI Companies" and we will soon learn they are not really "AI".

128

66 Comments

10 Years In VC: What I Got Wrong at the Start "VCs are like LLMs - they feel compelled to give you an answer if you ask a question, even if they have no knowledge or experience of the topic." A founder recently said this to me, and after laughing out loud for real, it made me reflect on my own experience as a VC. After a decade in venture capital, I've learned a counterintuitive truth of this business: The best thing you can do for a founder is often nothing at all. When I started, I thought my job was to help. To have answers. Hustle like hell to find them if I didn’t have them. To share “wisdom” from other companies I’d seen. It came from a good place—wanting to add value. But it was wrong. Because most advice is context-poor. What worked in one company, in one market, in one decade…is often irrelevant, or even harmful, in another. Founders need real, relevant perspective—from people who are in the arena building right now, or customers adopting today, so they can decide for themselves. So now I spend my time helping by keeping my network more refreshed than theirs so I can get them to these people faster. Or I help by just listening when they need it. Another uncomfortable truth we don't always want to admit as VCs: exceptional founders don't need us. They will stop at nothing to achieve their mission. We might help them get a key hire or a customer faster, but they would have gotten there anyway. The reality is liberating once you accept it. Instead of trying to be indispensable, you can focus on being genuinely useful in the moments that matter. This shift has required growth on my side too. In a session with a coach, I once realized my own sense of self worth came disproportionately from feeling like I helped someone. I was optimizing for feeling useful, not founder success. The two aren't the same thing. I now think about it as finding exceptional people and enabling them to truly thrive. How you enable someone to thrive is so different and specific to that person. But largely, if it’s something I can uniquely help with, I’ll push like you wouldn’t believe - just ask my founders. If not, I leave teams alone to build and minimize annoyance, which they truly appreciate. The best investors are probably like great jazz musicians - they know when to play and when to stay quiet. My approach today: - Connect, don't correct. Prescribe almost never. Always connect founders to someone with recent, relevant experience. - Listen, don't lecture. The founder journey is isolating & hard. Sometimes the most valuable thing to offer is listening without judgement. - Enable, don't dictate. Create the conditions for amazing founders to thrive. And then… just get the fuck out of the way. Great venture capital isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about helping founders unlock their own. Founders — what’s the most useful thing a VC has ever done for you? VCs — what’s the most counterintuitive thing you've learned about venture?

178

64 Comments

I recently spoke with an early-stage AI app founder who was desperate to hire sales reps because he dreaded founder-led sales. This is one of the most common failure modes I see with technical founders—and it significantly impedes the path to product-market fit. Here's how to think about the right order of operations in early sales motions: Phase 1: Prototype & Validation In the earliest stage, the feedback loop between customer conversations and product roadmap must be extraordinarily tight—making founder-led sales absolutely non-negotiable. This phase is critical because you're identifying your true ideal customer profile (ICP) and learning how to effectively communicate your product story and address common objections. As you accumulate hundreds of demo repetitions (while refining your product based on feedback), you gradually assemble a winning process. Phase 2: Founder-led Sales Scale-Up Your mission here is to create the sales playbook that will guide future reps. You need sufficient pattern recognition to understand which messages resonate with which personas. I recall meeting Desmond Lim, CEO of Workstream, several years ago (not an Emergence portfolio company, but I deeply admire what they've built). He showed me the remarkable 60-page playbook he crafted documenting their entire sales process—before hiring a single AE. Every nuance. Every objection. Everything a new rep would need to succeed. While perhaps extreme, this perfectly illustrates the principle: scaling go-to-market requires mastering your ideal sales motion before delegating it. Phase 3: Hiring Initial Sales Reps Most founders default to sequential hiring—start with one rep, evaluate results, then proceed. However, we recommend hiring 2-3 sales reps with diverse backgrounds simultaneously, enabling you to effectively A/B test different profiles. Regardless of approach, ensure these early hires are "renaissance reps" with rapid iteration capabilities rather than purely "coin-operated" sellers. Mark Leslie has a great foundational article on the Sales Learning Curve provides excellent guidance. I'll link it below. So embrace the early sales work, even when it feels uncomfortable. It's fundamental to building a foundation for lasting success.

95

22 Comments

This is a must-read guide for early-stage founders just getting started: Our team at Unusual Ventures talked with 30+ early-stage founders on how they navigated the roller coaster of starting a company, including Sarah Leary, Michael Krakaris and Abhi Sharma. Here's what they had to say: https://bit.ly/4kE81I7

101

8 Comments