Opinion.
I want to tell you something that I’ve realized after working with founders over the last few years.
Initially, I had this assumption that the founders didn’t want to sell. And that’s the precursor for me to start Elephant Edge. Greatly underestimated is what I realized as working with more companies. Founders are actually selling every day. But I also noticed that they have lost being a founder and become the Sales Manager over time. And I didn’t like that at all.
Because, most of the companies I work with already have a sales team. Maybe two or four salespeople. Sometimes a marketing person, and an SDR. On paper, they have a commercial team. But in reality, the founder is still running sales.
The founder is reviewing pipelines every week. Helping salespeople prepare for meetings, approving proposals, training them, deciding which accounts to pursue, stepping into important customer calls, sometimes even writing messagings.
Sales has always been dependent on the founder. And that becomes the bottleneck.
This is where Elephant Edge comes in. I work as a Fractional VP Sales. My first job is simple. Build a sales system that doesn’t depend on the founder every day.
I define the right ICP. Build the sales process. Set up weekly operating rhythms. Create sales assets. Help the team improve. Create accountability.
Founders are happy. And I deliver a fully operational sales system for them to run on their own without founders in the loop.
Once that’s running, something interesting happened recently.
Time! The amount of time it takes for the SDR to finish the research and collect data to begin his day.
I started seeing it as a bottleneck but it isn’t a strategy. It’s execution.
Basically every sales team spends hours every day researching companies, finding contacts, writing emails, updating CRMs, preparing follow-ups, and doing work that doesn’t actually create relationships. But when it comes to the teams I have installed doing the same, I felt I missed something that is so crucial.
And that’s what pushed me to think “what if there is an intelligent layer that could make a huge difference in how a SDR begins his day
Then I started building what I call an AI operating layer for sales.
Imagine your sales team has a group of AI teammates working behind the scenes.
- One identifies companies that match your ICP.
- Another research buying signals.
- Another decides whether the account is worth your time.
- Another finds the right stakeholders.
- Another prepares personalized outreach.
- Another manages follow-ups.
- Another keeps your CRM updated.
Your salespeople don’t disappear. They spend more time talking to customers and less time doing repetitive work. And once we’ve done that for sales, we can apply the same thinking to marketing, content, operations, customer success, etc…
Basically, every department has repetitive work that can be handled by intelligent agents.
I don’t see AI as another tool. I see it as another layer inside the business. That’s where I believe companies are heading. Rather replacing people, building teams where humans and AI work together.
That’s what we’re building at Elephant Edge.
We start with sales because that’s where I have spent years building systems. Then we help companies build the AI operating layer that allows those systems to run faster, better, and with far less founder dependency.
If that sounds like the stage your company is in, I’d love to have a conversation.