Across the Funnel

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.