The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

SaaStr 849: How We Built Our AI VP of Customer Success with SaaStr's CEO and CAIO

·1 hr 6 min·5 clips

SaaStr's CEO reveals how they can build and ship customer requests in a day without engineers, unlike any off-the-shelf software.

The episode features SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and CAIO Amelia Sordell discussing the development and impact of their AI VP of Customer Success, Kiwi. They begin by contrasting off-the-shelf software limitations with the ability to quickly build custom solutions using no-code platforms. Kiwi started as a basic project management tool to replace a paid SaaS portal for SaaStr Annual sponsors but evolved into an agentic system after deployment. Amelia shares how Kiwi automates tasks like sending personalized emails, tracking sponsor progress, and managing deliverables, which previously required significant human effort. Jason highlights quantitative results: a 70% decrease in human hours and tens of thousands in cost savings over three months, with AI token costs capped at $200 monthly. The hosts provide a practical guide on building similar agents, emphasizing writing detailed specs in Claude, testing thoroughly, and deploying incrementally. They discuss security best practices like agent hopping to avoid storing sensitive data directly in the AI and using tools like Salesforce for integration. Maintenance is stressed as daily work to prevent regressions. The episode also touches on SaaStr Annual 2026, where they plan to showcase these tools. Throughout, they advocate for custom AI solutions to address gaps in customer success, onboarding, and retention, positioning it as a low-hanging fruit for B2B companies.

As heard by us

A grounded case for using adaptable software to turn customer friction into faster, more fitting workflows.

The episode frames adaptable AI-built software as a practical response to a familiar SaaS bind: customers ask for a change, and the default answer is often no, a distant roadmap, or a workaround. It works best when it stays concrete.

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Why you'd press play

You want the moment where a post-sales team stops saying, "roadmap someday" and starts shipping small customer fixes today.

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