Adam

Designer and Manager. Formerly @SlackHQ, @palantirtech, and @citrix. Interested in all things web and mobile. University of Michigan and Boise State alum.

[Podium @PodiumHQ]

Podium increased our overall engineering output by 10x over the last two years.

To get there, we completely rebuilt our SDLC to be AI-native while supporting hundreds of millions in revenue.

A few questions we had to answer to get here:
- If code is no longer the constraint to development, what is?
- What has to change when your entire SDLC was built around a bottleneck that no longer exists?
- What does it take to increase engineering output by 10x?

This is our first post in a four-part series showing what an AI-native SDLC actually looks like in practice, not in theory:

→ https://t.co/w04xOz4c13

#SoftwareEngineering #AIEngineering #Podium #SDLC

[Eric Rea @ericwilliamrea]

We just crossed $100M in AI agent ARR in under 24 months.

Not because of a viral launch or AI hype.
But because of a crazy bet we made in 2023.

At the end of 2023, over 60k local businesses were using @PodiumHQ to centralize their leads and customer communication into one platform.

It’s a great product. Customers convert more leads and make more money with it.

But one reality became impossible to ignore:

Our customers’ biggest constraint isn’t software. It’s staffing.

→ 75% annual turnover
→ 30% of leads come after hours
→ Every missed call can be $20,000+ in lost revenue

Business owners don’t care about software.
They care about making money.

And the best software in the world doesn’t matter if there aren’t enough people to run it.

So we built Jerry, the perfect user of our own platform.

Not a chatbot. An AI employee that uses Podium to:
- Qualify and schedule every lead
- Handle objections and follow up
- Learn through natural-language coaching
- Work 24/7

Demos are easy.
Real AI employees are not.

To work in the real world, AI has to think, act, understand context, and use tools.
It has to handle thousands of edge cases every day.
It has to be coachable. Like a human.

That leap is enormous.

Agents aren’t a feature. They’re the foundation.

That’s why we rebuilt Podium as an AI-first system of agents.

Today:
- 10,000+ AI agents live in production
- AI now outperforms humans in many jobs
- $100M+ in AI agent ARR, and accelerating

This is still day one.

The future isn’t software. It's AI employees that do the work and unlock growth for businesses.

We’re early in building what we believe will become the most impactful AI employee ecosystem for the $3T SMB market.

We’ve seen 300% year-over-year AI revenue growth and we’re just getting started.

[Eric Rea @ericwilliamrea]

Big news at @PodiumHQ today — we just launched a major upgrade to our AI employee: Jerry 2.0.

This is the most capable and customizable AI on the market, built to do one thing: make our customers more money.

Across the businesses we work with, we’ve learned the biggest constraint isn’t software. It’s people. Labor is expensive and inconsistent. Most teams can’t respond to every lead, call, or message 24/7, let alone follow up proactively. Missed opportunities are costly.

More than 10,000 rooftops already use our AI employees to capture leads, book jobs, close sales, and handle complex customer scenarios around the clock. The impact is massive: customers see 30% revenue uplift.

With Jerry 2.0, we’re raising the bar again, helping businesses scale and remove constraints that were previously impossible.

We built the best off-the-shelf AI employee for every industry we serve, optimized for lead conversion. But every business is different, so we also built the ability for owners to fully customize their AI using plain English. You can coach it to communicate like you and perform like your best rep. You stay in complete control and get more done.

Here’s what’s new:
• Out of the box expertise trained on your industry from day one
• Trainable in plain English. Adjust tone and playbooks just like you would a human employee
• Versatile enough to handle every scenario your business encounters
• AI Studio makes Jerry’s reasoning transparent and gives owners full control to steer him toward the right responses

If your business depends on speed, consistency, and converting every opportunity, this is the best possible agent for you.

We’re just getting started. Check out all of Jerry's new capabilities today.

https://t.co/lRoCCipf4Y

[Adam @aatorres]

@ptr I am so profoundly happy for you, Tess! ❤️ Miss you my friend.

[Adam @aatorres]

@stoolpresidente @Gametime U of M grad. First ever game in the big house was the 2007 season opener against appalachian st. I want this natty so bad.

[Eric Rea @ericwilliamrea]

SMS marketing is by far the highest ROI marketing tool for local businesses. Our customers are driving upwards of $100k in revenue from a single campaign.🤯 The key is sending helpful messages that consumers actually want to receive.

[Adam @aatorres]

@gmh @wwayneee Those are some of my favorite pins. 😍😍😍

[Adam @aatorres]

@wwayneee @gmh 🙄

[Adam @aatorres]

@elonmusk Me pls!!!! Would love to test!

[Blake Simkins @blakesimkins]

We're looking for a Senior Product Designer to join our Messenger team @PodiumHQ. Come join our amazing team and drive impact across our product, team, and customers. #ux #productdesign #hiring

https://t.co/9jPwbm9wP8

[Adam @aatorres]

@zdfs Yes. Definitely yes.

[Adam @aatorres]

@JRReading @movito Hahaha! Pretty much looks the same. Also, I can’t see this without also hearing the windows xp start up sound.

[TechCrunch @TechCrunch]

Utah’s Podium raises $125M Series C led by YC after reaching $100M ARR https://t.co/eliO2ltMwg by @alex

[Stewart Butterfield @stewart]

My day job (also: night job) is CEO of Slack, a publicly traded company with investors to whom I am a fiduciary, 110k+ paying customers of all sizes, and thousands of employees I care about very, very much. The last few weeks have been 🤯😳😢 Here’s what it's been like. [Thread]

[Adam @aatorres]

@jiovan @NicoDato @ericwilliamrea @tomloverro @peterjhebert @wolfejosh @jasonzweigwsj @daniel_egan @EconomPic @jvogs02 @RPSeawright @brianportnoy @Jonathan_Novy @danielcrosby @ReformedBroker @MebFaber @RyanPKirlin @lhamtil @GaryAntonacci @nikir1 @movement_cap @ROIChristie @dougboneparth @jonstein @awesomeboris @CliffordAsness @dggoldst @Jesse_Livermore @LaurenceBSiegel @DaveNadig @AnnieDuke @bznotes @eldsjal @patrick_oshag @mjmauboussin @mdlevinson @danprimack @ManuKumar @Farshchi @StanfordCISAC @ewiesen @gasca @dhaliwas @HeritagePointe_ @FountainTire 🍧 made snow cones at the fair
⛳️ cart boy and range picker
💰 sold sports gear and memorabilia
👖 sold jeans at Gap
🧒 college prep mentor to HS kids from underrepresented groups

-

@JRReading
@blakesimkins
@amishrobot
@mattbango
@AdamStorr

[Adam @aatorres]

@jiovan Hahaha! Same.

[Adam @aatorres]

@zdfs Hahah, if I did, I wouldn’t be the one taking the picture, I’d be the one crying.

[Adam @aatorres]

@stewartsc @al3xestrada @yocline Thanks @stewartsc! I’m realizing just how many great folks live out here! I got a lot of folks to meet 😳

[Adam @aatorres]

Moving to Salt Lake City in just over 3 weeks! Any suggestions on who to meet up with in the SLC product design scene? This is about as networky as I get 😳

[Adam @aatorres]

@JRReading @jacobtgraf @kaelaworthen @jiovan @dwinspear @jeffcarterux @dwntwnLbrown @JustinMezzell @yocline Guess we gotta go back sooner rather than later 😏

[Adam @aatorres]

@JRReading @kaelaworthen @jacobtgraf @jiovan @dwinspear @jeffcarterux @dwntwnLbrown @JustinMezzell @yocline I hope so, otherwise I’ll be all alone.