Across the Funnel

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Elise Miller, VP of Customer Experience at Daloopa, to explore how customer success changes when the product is a financial data layer feeding AI agents. Elise explains why hyperlinking every data point to its source document builds trust with skeptical analysts. She also covers why CS must act as consultants for users at very different AI maturity levels, and why product usage alone no longer proves ROI across a multi-product suite.She describes the transition account that keeps users engaged between jobs, and the "no BS" and "disagree and commit" habits that run the team. She closes with her view on AI-written work and what stands out in a CS candidate.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Emeric Ernoult, Founder of Agorapulse, to explore why social media remains the hardest channel to win but the only one where an audience compounds. Emeric traces the shift from broadcast media to hyper-targeted social platforms and argues visibility plus engagement are the only two numbers worth tracking. He unpacks Archie, Agorapulse's new AI product that turns a single conversation into a month of platform-ready content, and explains why AI video avatars still fall short on energy and rhythm. The conversation closes on two operating lessons from Agorapulse's own growth: cutting headcount 30% without slowing down, and doubling paid conversion overnight by replacing custom pricing with three simple flat plans.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Mackenzie Smith, SVP of Customer Value at Backstory (formerly People.ai), to explore how AI is reshaping the post-sales operating model inside enterprise revenue teams.Mackenzie breaks down Backstory's shift from a license-based tool to a consumption-based platform, and how her team uses their own product internally to stay close to what customers experience day to day. She walks through the "magic moment" framework her team uses to compress time to value, citing a customer example where engagement signal health showed a 75% correlation with deal outcomes. The conversation covers the build-versus-buy tension enterprises face with AI orchestration, why Backstory staffed its forward-deployed "Studio" team internally instead of outsourcing to professional services, and why she believes the traditional linear onboarding-to-support handoff model needs to be unlearned in favor of a drop-in, drop-out engagement structure.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with David Karp, SVP of Customer Success at Billtrust, to explore how customer success teams can use better customer context, structured data, and AI to operate across larger books of business. David explains why measurable customer value starts with understanding the specific problems of each segment, and why Billtrust keeps renewals within the customer success organization. He breaks down how structured customer data can tell teams whether an account is on or off track without forcing CSMs to piece together information across multiple systems. The conversation also covers customer education beyond product navigation, build-versus-buy decisions, AI's role alongside people, and why CS leaders need to make AI adoption a team capability rather than an individual exercise.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Mathias Biilmann, CEO and co-founder of Netlify, to explore why domain experts, not professional developers, are on track to build most of the software that matters over the next few years. He traces Netlify's addressable market shift from 17 million professional front-end developers to a base measured in the billions, and explains why that changes who the platform needs to serve first. Mathias walks through a real internal example: an HR business partner who replaced Culture Amp with her own sentiment-survey app, built alongside a single part-time developer, cutting out the product-manager-to-engineer translation loop entirely. He also unpacks Netlify's shift from buying point solutions to building homegrown go-to-market agents that watch signals like seat additions and trigger customer success outreach. The conversation closes on the three-part product philosophy guiding how Netlify builds in a world where AI agents keep getting more capable than the humans directing them.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Andrew Loomis, VP of Customer Success at Sisense, to explore how customer success leaders can rethink post-sales execution in an AI-shaped market. Andrew shares why CS teams need to move beyond cadence-based motions and focus more sharply on customer outcomes, predictive health scoring, onboarding risk, and multi-stakeholder alignment. He also breaks down how Sisense is using AI internally, why product expertise is becoming non-negotiable for CSMs, and how disciplined contracts can protect expansion while reducing churn risk.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Fahad Aziz, Founder & CEO of PuppyDog, to explore why product marketing is becoming one of the most important functions in SaaS growth. Fahad shares lessons from building and exiting Caremerge, explains why customer discovery still matters even in the AI era, and breaks down how faster product releases are forcing teams to rethink onboarding, adoption, customer education, and expansion. The conversation also covers why post-sale customer journeys deserve the same rigor as buyer journeys, how relevant content can reduce churn and increase usage, and why investors now care more about distribution speed than product ideas alone.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Jeppe Schytte-Hansen, CEO and Co-founder of Omnidocs, to explore how enterprise documet automation is changing in the AI era, why complex industries like legal, recruitment, financial services, and public sector need deep workflow context, and how teams should think about AI pricing, customer success, implementation, and adoption when value is tied to usage, saved time, and business-critical output. They also discuss why customer success should sit across the whole company, how agent-to-agent workflows may reshape recruiting, why AI should help GTM teams identify the right accounts instead of flooding buyers with generic outreach, and why human connection, culture, curiosity, and physical events still matter more as automation becomes more common.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Sara Wyman, Founder & CEO at Stackpack, to explore how vendor management is changing as companies deal with AI spend, tool sprawl, renewal pressure, and the need for clearer ROI. Sara explains why finance teams are often the first wedge into an account, how Stackpack helps customers get fast visibility into contracts and spend, and why usage, engagement, and data under management are the clearest signs that a customer is getting value. The conversation also covers trial-to-paid conversion, close velocity, pricing shifts toward usage-based models, the growing messiness of the AI vendor market, and why human judgment still matters even as teams use AI to move faster. It is a practical episode on post-sale value, retention, expansion, and how modern B2B teams should think about software buying and customer adoption in an increasingly noisy market.

In this episode of Across The Funnel, Adil Saleh sits down with Paige Tyrrell, Chief Growth Officer at Prefixbox, to explore how AI is reshaping e-commerce product discovery, why AI is not a substitute for broken go-to-market fundamentals, and what it really takes to make AI useful in sales and post-sales. They unpack the flood of AI tools hitting the market, the pressure on SaaS teams to drive efficiency instead of growth at any cost, and why strong positioning, messaging, ICP clarity, and focused workflows still matter more than any new agent. Paige also explains how Prefixbox is blending search, recommendations, and agentic experiences into a more conversational shopping journey, how customer education in e-commerce has changed over the last decade, and how her team thinks about land-and-expand growth, customer success ownership, experimentation, upsell signals, revenue impact, and long-term product stickiness in a noisy market.