This veteran Microsoft engineer is building Cursor for sales teams

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A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas.

If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.

Good morning. I love stories of founders striking out on their own, after years in Silicon Valley. These founders have insights on how the biggest companies in tech operate and can creatively disrupt the scene. 

This week’s story is the perfect example. From Microsoft/Open AI engineer to AI startup founder, this one’s full of insights and inspiration.

Founded: May 2024 

Team size: 10 

Funding to date: $0. The two co-founders have had successful exits and are well-resourced.

Hari Srinivasan spent over a decade at Microsoft, in the golden days of big tech. As Director of OpenAI at Microsoft, he led the team that built out the first version of GitHub Copilot. This was back in the day where he asked the LLM for healthy meal options for his kids, and the model replied: “Please don’t eat your kids.” 

Srinivasan did a stint at Adobe as Principal Scientist, was the Founding Architect at Typeface AI, which achieved unicorn status in 2023, and co-founded a couple start-ups throughout his career. 

Then “this whole ChatGPT thing happened.” Right around the time Srinivasan had an epiphany: Productivity gains need not be limited to developers or marketers. 

And what does every business, unicorn or novice need? Sales. 

His idea: To bring the same productivity gains that Lovable brought to builders, but for sales teams – by turning manual work into a set of AI agents and an autonomous CRM to help sales teams scale their revenue pipeline. 

Srinivasan’s time in big tech and start-up land gave him a unique worldview. Microsoft was a big enabler in helping to understand how these LLMs work. Then, as a founder, bridge the gap between what the technology can do and what customers actually need. 

He believes developers still need to know system design, even with all the no-code tooling that he had a hand in building. “There are so many security issues these tools end up creating. The systems can be much more risky to put in production if you don’t have the understanding of how systems work,” Srinivasan said. 

“These are good tools to showcase your ideas, but not an end product that’s immediately usable,” he suggests. The entire online landscape is changing and in the next 5-10 years, we’ll see a new breed of apps, with “agents talking to each other, put up by vendors.” 

Srinivasan knew he wanted to operate a lean, AI-enabled company. With both co-founders having had successful exits, the goal was to build a cash-flowing company, not go down the VC path. When Dhisana launched, they focused on very small SMBs, who they thought needed the most help with automation. 

But scaling was hard with SMBs, so they moved onto Series A/Series B B2B and mid-market customers. “We should have started here and then served SMBs.” 

Dhisana’s customers are CROs and RevOps – enabling teams to run their sales operation at scale, with a smaller headcount. 

Dhisana launched with a #3 position on Product of the Day, securing some early customers from LinkedIn. As of now, Dhisana has about 100 paying customers to date, and is growing. Their plan is to turn the thousands of sign-ups into paying customers. 

“There’s a lot of hype in the market, so we need to be very careful about what we promise to our customers,” he said. There are other AI products that “guarantee” customers with AI, but Srinivasan said no one can make that claim. Watch for those selling snake oil.

Having worked in big companies, Srinivasan knows the advantage AI-native startups have. 

“We can provide value and outcomes much faster, compared to the legacy stacks that were available. It’s going to be much harder for them to change or throw out what they currently have. AI startups have the advantage of being able to reimagine how the workflow works.” 

Dhisana can automate any part of the sales funnel reliably, simply by describing what you need. 

Srinivasan said traditional channels are getting very crowded. It’s harder to get cut through sending cold emails or LinkedIn messages. “Our plan is to scale through our partner channels and events.” 

They’re working on enterprise channels that he’s yet to discuss publicly but watch this space. Srinivasan’s experience building enterprise-grade AI and data platforms at some of the biggest brands in the world will be part of the growth plan. 

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