Dan Lee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nooks, an AI Gross sales Assistant Platform (ASAP) that automates busywork so reps can concentrate on the human a part of promoting. Previous to founding Nooks, Dan held machine studying roles at corporations like Scale AI and Cerebras Methods 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 had been shut pals from Stanford. All of us studied AI and did analysis collectively. In the course of the pandemic, we began hacking round with “digital workplace” concepts. It appeared like the right time—everybody was distant, and collaboration instruments had been turning into important. We had been notably excited in regards to the thought of constructing the digital workplace “sensible”. At all times-on collaboration generates a lot information and engagement, and we noticed a chance to leverage that to automate work and assist individuals get higher at their jobs.
We seen that gross sales groups, notably SDR groups, had been our most engaged customers. They’re inherently social, and being early of their careers, they benefited loads 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 marvel: would AI ultimately substitute 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 individuals, constructing relationships, and adapting in real-time. That’s when it clicked. AI wasn’t right here to switch them—it may empower them.
For me personally, I’ve at all times been fascinated by human-AI interactions. Constructing a product that enhances what individuals do, moderately 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 had been the important thing indicators that satisfied you it was the proper choice?
Not solely was there enormous demand for Nooks from gross sales groups, however there was additionally an infinite market alternative, impression, and actually attention-grabbing human-centered AI issues to unravel.
Over the previous few years, basis mannequin corporations like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have competed to push the boundaries of intelligence with LLMs. However the sensible functions to unravel actual enterprise issues stay under-developed.
Gross sales is without doubt one of the largest alternatives for AI to rework tens of millions 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 turn into clear that AI will remodel the function of the gross sales rep. AI-powered groups will be capable of promote orders of magnitude extra successfully than conventional groups. Main corporations know that this sort of funding in gross sales is most corporations’ key lever for development.
We not solely constructed conviction available in the market, however we additionally discovered the utilized AI issues in gross sales notably attention-grabbing. 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 proper stakeholders, incomes belief, and persuading patrons of a product’s worth. This complexity makes AI “assistants” the perfect software for gross sales, amplifying human efforts moderately than trying to switch them.
Nooks has reworked gross sales processes with instruments like AI Dialing Assistants and Prospecting Assistants. What makes your know-how stand out within the crowded AI gross sales assistant market?
The gross sales AI area is tremendous crowded with new entrants day-after-day. And gross sales reps already use dozens of gross sales instruments of their day by day workflows—CRMs, e mail platforms, LinkedIn, prospecting databases, enablement instruments, and extra. No person desires 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 in opposition to different instruments which might be little greater than a cool demo. We energy 70%+ of gross sales pipeline for a number of the world’s fastest-growing corporations 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 sometimes don’t command the finances. However issues are altering, and end-users are empowered to assist form shopping for choices. 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 evaluation websites like G2.
- Human-first. We’ve began with human-centered duties like calling as a result of it’s vital that, as know-how progresses, clients use your product increasingly more. Different corporations 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 perfect human reps and out-smart the perfect pure AI gross sales brokers.
May you share extra in regards to the function AI performs in optimizing gross sales groups’ effectivity? For instance, how does your AI Parallel Dialer skip widespread 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 inventive options—whereas AI helps with the science. Nooks assistants analyze each entry within the CRM, scour the net 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: wanting up a prospect’s quantity, performing some pre-call analysis, dialing, and sometimes reaching voicemail or no reply. Multiply that by dozens of calls every day, and it shortly turns into a significant time sink.
AI transforms this course of by automating the tedious elements. It could actually dial a number of traces without delay, go away voicemails mechanically, and join reps immediately when a dwell prospect solutions. This lets sellers focus their power 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 development.
Coaching bots and name scoring are intriguing. How does Nooks guarantee these instruments are correct and really useful 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 development alternatives.
AI modifications the sport by analyzing each name and correlating efficiency with success metrics. It gives scalable, complete suggestions for all reps, guaranteeing constant enchancment throughout the group. Managers can customise scoring standards, specializing in key phases 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 information to simulate conversations with prospects. These bots determine successful behaviors and challenges, permitting reps to observe limitless function performs based mostly on actual situations. Managers can fine-tune these simulations so as to add complexity or goal particular objections, creating tailor-made coaching experiences.
Nooks allows 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 applications to drive higher outcomes at scale.
What developments in AI and machine studying do you foresee enjoying a vital function in Nooks’ future improvement?
Developments in AI like enhancements in reasoning, speech fashions, and searching fashions equivalent to Anthropic’s computer-use and OpenAI’s upcoming “Operator” mannequin are an enormous profit to Nooks since we have now the richest information and highest consumer engagement on the top-of-funnel. Improved intelligence means we will minimize out extra busywork extra shortly and our assistants are in a position to develop a deeper understanding of shoppers’ gross sales processes.
But it surely’s actually outstanding what AI fashions can already do as we speak. And the sensible functions of this intelligence to unravel actual enterprise issues are nonetheless catching up. We’ve numerous thrilling product updates deliberate that can really feel futuristic to reps, however don’t actually require mannequin intelligence past what we have already got as we speak.
We’re notably excited to construct AI workflows that span throughout our AI assistants, serving to them work collectively seamlessly and eradicate the necessity for reps to behave as “human glue” manually connecting disparate instruments. It will assist bridge intelligence and workflow gaps throughout as we speak’s fragmented device stacks.
The gross sales trade is valued at $3 trillion, and legacy gamers like Salesforce dominate the area. How does Nooks plan to carve out a bigger share of this market?
We’ve tight integrations with platforms like Salesforce. They’re unbelievable for CRM and managing deal pipelines, however they don’t clear up the day-to-day challenges reps face within the trenches of promoting. That’s the place we are available in. On this new world of AI, changing legacy instruments shouldn’t be very thrilling. The actual alternative lies in redefining individuals’s jobs.
AI-driven instruments typically 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—equivalent to assist, coding, or authorized—the output of a gross sales rep shouldn’t be an easy, deterministic job. Fairly, it’s a posh, dynamic human interplay.
In lots of different AI domains, the “shopper” is actively looking for the outcomes. For instance, a buyer asking for assist or an engineer is producing code. In gross sales, nevertheless, the customer is the buyer. They’re in all probability not actively trying to be bought to and their inboxes are already flooded with AI-generated outreach. Because of this, being human stands out.
Gross sales AI should concentrate on amplifying human creativity and belief. Thus, the perfect AI functions for gross sales are “assistants” that empower people moderately than AI “brokers” trying to switch them. AI-assisted reps will out-pace the perfect human reps and can out-smart the perfect pure AI gross sales brokers.
Wanting forward, the place do you see Nooks in 5 years? What bigger impression do you hope it’ll have on the gross sales trade?
There are tens of millions of gross sales reps within the US and their jobs are about to evolve. Nooks is poised to guide this transformation. Automating the “busywork” and enabling reps to concentrate on what they do greatest—constructing relationships and driving top-line development—we envision leaner, AI-powered groups reaching orders of magnitude extra effectiveness than conventional groups. AI assistants will turn into indispensable, identical to prime gross sales reps, as a result of they received’t simply assist the gross sales course of—they’ll be executing it.
On this future, AI-powered gross sales groups won’t solely ship unprecedented development for his or her corporations but additionally set a better 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.
