Topo (YC W24)

Revenue milestones deserve more than a Slack message. At Aircall, it was a tradition: Sign a champagne bottle after every major win. (Little shoutout to Jonathan on the left - the good old days.) We hadn’t done it yet at Topo (YC W24). We said we’d wait for a big one. March delivered. 💰 So we kept our word. First signed bottle at Topo. Definitely not the last.

Our client booked 32 meetings in under 2 months. All through cold outbound. After only two campaigns with their Topo AI SDR. No spam. No volume play. Just tight execution. Here’s why it worked: → They know their ICP cold → Their offer is dialed in → They’d already done the work manually, Topo (YC W24) just made it 10x faster We built them a dedicated AI SDR: Pre-trained on their industry. Fine-tuned to their company. Trained to follow their outbound playbook. They ran two focused campaigns, not ten. But they went deep. Fast feedback loops. Real involvement. All meetings came from email. (Not LinkedIn, because their buyers don’t respond there.) And on top of those 32 meetings, more were booked via warm follow-up calls. Because the agent didn’t just stop at email. It delivered enriched phone numbers and context for each lead: → Why the prospect was picked → What signals triggered outreach → Full message history to warm up the call The rep just had to call. The agent had already done 95% of the work. They are scaling the machine now. And we’re super proud to assist them. 👉 Cold outbound still works. But only when it’s strategic, signal-driven, and executed by a trained system (and if the agent is trained by real outbound strategists).

I don’t just build Topo. I run my outbound with it. This (blurred) screenshot is my control center. Where I watch my AI SDR identify, qualify, and contact prospects. Better than most reps I’ve ever worked with. For every lead, I see: → What the prospect does → Why the agent picked them → What signals triggered the outreach → Every message exchanged until the meeting is booked No scraping. No guessing. No fluff. Just precise targeting, full transparency, and results. And here’s the best part: I’m not technical. I’m a sales guy, not an engineer. But I run a full-scale outbound machine, every day. Because our tech team built it *for* people like me. We’re not building another tool. We’re building the product of our dreams. This is what modern outbound looks like. Stop relying on list uploads and generic sequences. Outbound doesn’t have to feel like a grind. When you combine the right strategy with the right tech: You don’t hustle harder. You scale smarter.

We’re not hiring fast. We’re hiring right. Today, Filippo joins Topo as an Account Strategist. An Italian guy 🇮🇹 with a solid lead gen’ expertise and a strong track record (Qonto, Shield…) He’s one of those rare profiles: ✅ Deep outbound know-how ✅ Strategic clarity ✅ And the pace we love: fast, but focused At Topo (YC W24), we’re not scaling a team. We’re building a strike force. Everyone here: → Elevates the product → Challenges the process → Makes the team sharper Most importantly: They know AI isn’t magic. It’s a multiplier, when you know what you’re doing. The best of both worlds: AI for the execution. Humans for the strategy. PS: If you're aligned with our culture: sharp, fast, and allergic to fluff → We want to meet you. Welcome, Filippo. Let’s build.

It’s been a year since we wrapped up YC. Here are 7 things we’ve learned since: 1. We went deep into a problem we knew inside out. Built fast. Shipped early. Stayed close to real users. 2. Starting with a problem you’ve lived gives you speed. We knew exactly what pain we were solving, no time wasted guessing. 3. Early churn was a gift. It helped us find our ideal customers and build something that actually sticks. 4. The results followed: - Strong retention and expansion within customer orgs - Consistent positive feedback - Revenue milestones hit faster than expected - Topo chosen in every head-to-head POC → 100+ companies now using Topo (YC W24) to power outbound, globally 5. A small team did all this. A-Players only. No layers. → Everyone hands-on, focused on impact. 6. We don’t chase trends. Most of the noise out there is just that: noise. We listen to customers and build accordingly. 7. We’re playing the long game. This isn’t about quick wins. It’s about building something durable and loved. We’re just getting started. The opportunity ahead is massive.

It’s been a year since we wrapped up YC. Here are 7 things we’ve learned since: 1. We went deep into a problem we knew inside out. Built fast. Shipped early. Stayed close to real users. 2. Starting with a problem you’ve lived gives you speed. We knew exactly what pain we were solving, no time wasted guessing. 3. Early churn was a gift. It helped us find our ideal customers and build something that actually sticks. 4. The results followed: - Strong retention and expansion within customer orgs - Consistent positive feedback - Revenue milestones hit faster than expected - Topo chosen in every head-to-head POC → 100+ companies now using Topo (YC W24) to power outbound, globally 5. A small team did all this. A-Players only. No layers. → Everyone hands-on, focused on impact. 6. We don’t chase trends. Most of the noise out there is just that: noise. We listen to customers and build accordingly. 7. We’re playing the long game. This isn’t about quick wins. It’s about building something durable and loved. We’re just getting started. The opportunity ahead is massive.

You don’t have a reply rate problem. You have a positioning problem. Most teams think AI will fix their outbound. It won’t. If the offer doesn’t land, AI just spreads the silence faster. Before you automate anything, get clear on: – The pain you solve – Who you solve it for – Why they should pick you AI doesn’t fix the message. It multiplies it. Stop talking about deliverability, signals, icebreakers. Put yourself in your ICP’s shoes. Focus on what actually matters. Too many people answer these two questions completely wrong: What’s a top lead for you? → They give me Sales Nav filters. What’s working in your outbound? → They list tools. That’s not a strategy. That’s noise. If your message doesn’t get replies manually, It won’t work with automation either. Fix the offer first. Then scale.

Most AI companies today won’t last. They chase hype. They ship fast. They grow fast. And in a few years, they’ll be gone. You’ve probably seen it: new AI companies popping up every day. Most of them are just thin layers over OpenAI or another model. Easily replaceable. Easily forgotten. Because AI moves fast. Because distribution is expensive. Because not all products are built to last. We’re not in that race. At Topo (YC W24), we’re not surfing the AI wave. We’re building something real. We would’ve built a sales tool anyway. AI just made it 10x better. We’re going 5x faster than a traditional SaaS. Could we go even faster? Sure. But that would come at a cost: churn, shallow impact, and short-term thinking. Instead, we’ve found the sweet spot: Faster than most, but with deep adoption and long-term value. Most client who implements Topo sticks (and scales). We’re not engineers guessing their way into a market they don’t understand. We come from this industry. We know its pains. And we’re here to reshape it, with real expertise, not just code. We don’t compete on noise. We compete on staying power. Surfers chase trends. Builders create things that last.

There are no phone booths in our new office. Not one. Everyone takes their calls out loud. Right there at their desk. With 5 people listening, headphones off. Why? Part of it is culture. A few of us come from Aircall, where that was the norm. But more than that… It just works. It’s raw at first. Scary for new hires. You walk in and hear someone mid-pitch, closing, handling objections, all out in the open. But give it a week. And something flips. You hear how others sell. You get sharper by osmosis. And slowly, you stop hiding behind your screen. Sales becomes a shared rhythm. Not a solo sport. It’s a small detail. But it shapes everything. PS: Boogie (🐶) gets a salary too, we’re against animal labor.

We moved offices last week. Not because we’re 50 people. Not because we needed a big logo on the wall. But because the space we were in… didn’t match the way we work anymore. We’re building fast. Running experiments. Tight feedback loops. Lots of noise. Lots of iteration. This one’s different. We’ve got room to think. We moved to bigger offices because we’re an office-first company. We are actual hustlers, that’s why we make sure the team have a space that feels just right for them. To build without bumping into each other. To stay sharp, but relaxed. Not a fancy HQ. Just a place that fits who we are, right now. And that’s good enough for v2.