Dan Lee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nooks, an AI Gross sales Assistant Platform (ASAP) that automates busywork so reps can give attention to the human a part of promoting. Previous to founding Nooks, Dan held machine studying roles at firms like Scale AI and Cerebras Techniques and studied AI at Stanford.
Are you able to stroll us by the journey of founding Nooks? What impressed you to begin the corporate, and the way did the thought evolve over time?
My cofounders, Rohan Suri, Nikhil Cheerla, and I have been shut associates from Stanford. All of us studied AI and did analysis collectively. Throughout the pandemic, we began hacking round with “digital workplace” concepts. It appeared like the proper time—everybody was distant, and collaboration instruments have been turning into important. We have been significantly excited concerning the thought of constructing the digital workplace “good”. At all times-on collaboration generates a lot knowledge and engagement, and we noticed a possibility to leverage that to automate work and assist folks get higher at their jobs.
We seen that gross sales groups, significantly SDR groups, have been our most engaged customers. They’re inherently social, and being early of their careers, they benefited so much from the tighter collaboration these instruments enabled. Spending extra time with them, we noticed how a lot of their time was spent on duties that AI may simply deal with—writing emails, researching prospects, updating CRMs. It made us surprise: would AI ultimately change these roles?
However the deeper we received, the extra we realized how human the SDR job is. It’s not nearly duties; it’s about understanding folks, constructing relationships, and adapting in real-time. That’s when it clicked. AI wasn’t right here to exchange them—it may empower them.
For me personally, I’ve all the time been fascinated by human-AI interactions. Constructing a product that enhances what folks do, slightly than changing them, felt fulfilling. Gross sales grew to become this pure extension of our digital workplace thought, and with the market alternative aligned completely with our pursuits, Nooks was born.
The pivot from a distant collaboration platform to an AI-driven gross sales assistant was a daring transfer. What have been the important thing indicators that satisfied you it was the suitable choice?
Not solely was there big demand for Nooks from gross sales groups, however there was additionally an infinite market alternative, affect, and actually fascinating human-centered AI issues to unravel.
Over the previous few years, basis mannequin firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have competed to push the boundaries of intelligence with LLMs. However the sensible purposes to unravel actual enterprise issues stay under-developed.
Gross sales is likely one of the largest alternatives for AI to rework hundreds of thousands of jobs. Within the U.S. alone, there are ~3 million inside gross sales reps, spending a lot of their time on repetitive duties. These actions are time-consuming and distract from higher-leverage actions. Now that AI can automate a lot of this busywork, it’s grow to be clear that AI will rework the position of the gross sales rep. AI-powered groups will have the ability to promote orders of magnitude extra successfully than conventional groups. Main firms know that this type of funding in gross sales is most firms’ key lever for progress.
We not solely constructed conviction available in the market, however we additionally discovered the utilized AI issues in gross sales significantly fascinating. Not like domains like assist or compliance, the place duties are extra deterministic, gross sales is about dynamic, high-stakes human interactions. Success depends on nuanced engagement: figuring out the suitable stakeholders, incomes belief, and persuading consumers of a product’s worth. This complexity makes AI “assistants” the perfect software for gross sales, amplifying human efforts slightly than making an attempt to exchange them.
Nooks has remodeled gross sales processes with instruments like AI Dialing Assistants and Prospecting Assistants. What makes your expertise stand out within the crowded AI gross sales assistant market?
The gross sales AI house is tremendous crowded with new entrants day by day. And gross sales reps already use dozens of gross sales instruments of their every day workflows—CRMs, e mail platforms, LinkedIn, prospecting databases, enablement instruments, and extra. No one needs simply one other AI gross sales device so it’s actually vital we’re intentional about standing above the noise.
- Quick, tangible ROI. Most AI gross sales instruments don’t work or don’t ship clear outcomes. In a two-week trial of Nooks, we’ll double your conferences booked per rep. Demonstrating our worth up-front has helped us stand out towards different instruments which are little greater than a cool demo. We energy 70%+ of gross sales pipeline for a few of the world’s fastest-growing firms like Deel, Webflow, Verkada and Fivetran.
- Gross sales reps love Nooks. Traditionally SDRs & BDRs haven’t gotten a lot love from software program instruments and infrequently don’t command the funds. However issues are altering, and end-users are empowered to assist form shopping for selections. We’ve been very intentional about constructing for the rep, our end-user. Nooks offers reps superpowers whereas different instruments can really feel like a chore to make use of. The typical rep spends 3hrs/day utilizing Nooks. And we’re on the prime of the leaderboard in evaluate websites like G2.
- Human-first. We’ve began with human-centered duties like calling as a result of it’s vital that, as expertise progresses, clients use your product increasingly. Different firms that begin with issues like e mail or analysis will discover that gross sales reps use these merchandise much less and fewer over time as a result of these gross sales duties might be principally automated with AI. We’re excited to construct human-AI hybrids that may out-pace the most effective human reps and out-smart the most effective pure AI gross sales brokers.
May you share extra concerning the position AI performs in optimizing gross sales groups’ effectivity? For instance, how does your AI Parallel Dialer skip frequent ache factors like answering machines or spam?
Gross sales is each an artwork and a science. With Nooks, human reps grasp the artwork—constructing relationships, empathizing with buyer challenges, and crafting artistic options—whereas AI helps with the science. Nooks assistants analyze each entry within the CRM, scour the online for related insights, and deal with repetitive duties like putting calls, writing emails, and updating data.
For instance, take into consideration the standard course of for making a name: trying up a prospect’s quantity, doing a little pre-call analysis, dialing, and infrequently reaching voicemail or no reply. Multiply that by dozens of calls every day, and it rapidly turns into a serious time sink.
AI transforms this course of by automating the tedious elements. It may well dial a number of strains directly, go away voicemails robotically, and join reps immediately when a reside prospect solutions. This lets sellers focus their vitality on conversations, not guide duties.
When a prospect does reply, AI goes a step additional by offering related analysis and context, enabling reps to have extra impactful discussions. The end result? Extra significant conversations that drive pipeline progress.
Coaching bots and name scoring are intriguing. How does Nooks guarantee these instruments are correct and actually helpful for gross sales reps and managers?
Name scoring and coaching bots are shaping how gross sales groups reinforce and scale greatest practices. Historically, managers needed to sift by name recordings, selectively scoring and figuring out areas for enchancment—a time-consuming course of that left reps with restricted suggestions and progress alternatives.
AI adjustments the sport by analyzing each name and correlating efficiency with success metrics. It gives scalable, complete suggestions for all reps, making certain constant enchancment throughout the staff. Managers can customise scoring standards, specializing in key levels or objections within the gross sales course of to align with their technique.
Coaching bots take this additional through the use of real-world name knowledge to simulate conversations with prospects. These bots determine successful behaviors and challenges, permitting reps to apply limitless position performs primarily based on actual eventualities. Managers can fine-tune these simulations so as to add complexity or goal particular objections, creating tailor-made coaching experiences.
Nooks permits managers to audit and optimize each coaching bots and name scoring to make sure accuracy. Combining AI’s scalability with manager-driven customization, gross sales groups can elevate their teaching and coaching packages to drive higher outcomes at scale.
What developments in AI and machine studying do you foresee enjoying an important position in Nooks’ future growth?
Developments in AI like enhancements in reasoning, speech fashions, and shopping fashions akin to Anthropic’s computer-use and OpenAI’s upcoming “Operator” mannequin are an enormous profit to Nooks since we’ve the richest knowledge and highest person engagement on the top-of-funnel. Improved intelligence means we are able to lower out extra busywork extra rapidly and our assistants are in a position to develop a deeper understanding of shoppers’ gross sales processes.
However it’s actually outstanding what AI fashions can already do right now. And the sensible purposes of this intelligence to unravel actual enterprise issues are nonetheless catching up. Now we have loads of thrilling product updates deliberate that can really feel futuristic to reps, however don’t actually require mannequin intelligence past what we have already got right now.
We’re significantly excited to construct AI workflows that span throughout our AI assistants, serving to them work collectively seamlessly and get rid of the necessity for reps to behave as “human glue” manually connecting disparate instruments. This may assist bridge intelligence and workflow gaps throughout right now’s fragmented device stacks.
The gross sales business is valued at $3 trillion, and legacy gamers like Salesforce dominate the house. How does Nooks plan to carve out a bigger share of this market?
Now we have tight integrations with platforms like Salesforce. They’re unimaginable for CRM and managing deal pipelines, however they don’t resolve the day-to-day challenges reps face within the trenches of promoting. That’s the place we are available. On this new world of AI, changing legacy instruments just isn’t very thrilling. The actual alternative lies in redefining folks’s jobs.
AI-driven instruments usually face skepticism about changing human roles. How do you deal with considerations about automation changing jobs versus enhancing human productiveness?
Gross sales is essentially a human-centered problem. Not like different domains starting to leverage pure AI brokers—akin to assist, coding, or authorized—the output of a gross sales rep just isn’t a simple, deterministic job. Moderately, it’s a fancy, dynamic human interplay.
In lots of different AI domains, the “shopper” is actively searching for the outcomes. For instance, a buyer asking for assist or an engineer is producing code. In gross sales, nevertheless, the customer is the patron. They’re most likely not actively trying to be offered to and their inboxes are already flooded with AI-generated outreach. Because of this, being human stands out.
Gross sales AI should give attention to amplifying human creativity and belief. Thus, the perfect AI purposes for gross sales are “assistants” that empower people slightly than AI “brokers” making an attempt to exchange them. AI-assisted reps will out-pace the most effective human reps and can out-smart the most effective pure AI gross sales brokers.
Wanting forward, the place do you see Nooks in 5 years? What bigger affect do you hope it is going to have on the gross sales business?
There are hundreds of thousands of gross sales reps within the US and their jobs are about to evolve. Nooks is poised to steer this transformation. Automating the “busywork” and enabling reps to give attention to what they do greatest—constructing relationships and driving top-line progress—we envision leaner, AI-powered groups reaching orders of magnitude extra effectiveness than conventional groups. AI assistants will grow to be indispensable, similar to prime gross sales reps, as a result of they gained’t simply assist the gross sales course of—they’ll be executing it.
On this future, AI-powered gross sales groups is not going to solely ship unprecedented progress for his or her firms but additionally set the next bar for what gross sales can obtain as a self-discipline. Past productiveness positive aspects, we hope to empower gross sales reps to ship extra worth to their clients.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Nooks.