Sriharsha Guduguntla

CEO at Hyperbound (YC S23) | Helping marketing leaders build pipeline with AI at scale

Call me Sai! I'm the Co-Founder & CEO of Hyperbound. I'm a YCombinator Founder (S23) who's interested in startups and the intersection of AI and sales and marketing. Currently building next-generation GTM tools at https://hyperbound.ai. 🚀 

I'm a self-learned full-stack engineer and designer with experience building software for 12+ years.

http://sriharshaguduguntla.com

Member

🚀 Thrilled to welcome Ece Uyanik to Hyperbound as our Founding Mid-Market Account Executive.

It's only been a week, and she's absolutely crushing it.

She ran her first discovery call on her own just 3 DAYS in to the job!

A few fun facts about her:
- Ex-pro equestrian + show jumper (for 12 years) 🐎
- Amateur chef who's convinced she can cook pretty much anything at this point 👩‍🍳
- Proud rescue-pet parent to 2 cats and a border collie 🐱🐱🐶
- Moved from Istanbul to the U.S. at 18 🇹🇷

From Day 1, Ece impressed us with how quickly she understood both the product and the problems we’re solving for customers.

One week in:
- 3 new inbound deals already in her pipeline
- Running her first discovery call all on her own 3 days in
- Shadowed over 20 sales calls throughout the week
- Strategizing with our Account Managers on the sales to post-sales hand-off
- Getting ready to travel a ton with the team this year

This is exactly what founding AE energy looks like.

Can't wait to watch her continue to thrive and help shape how we sell and scale at Hyperbound.

👉🏽 Want to join the team? We're hiring for 2 Enterprise AEs to join us in our SF office right now! Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gEfuMHeh

CEO at Hyperbound (YC S23) | Building AI Sales Roleplay Simulations to upskill GTM teams

Last week, I made one of the most courageous marketing budget decisions in Hyperbound history: deploying the largest single marketing expense in 1 day, $280,000, as we double down on serving Enterprise and moving up-market. 

And this is just the beginning of a massive year ahead.

A year ago, spending this much on marketing in a single day would have been unthinkable. 

We were still earning trust, proving fundamentals, and making sure the product truly delivered. 

This year feels different. We're not afraid to make real bets.

We invested it into what will become the backbone of our 2026 marketing strategy.

Last year was about proving Hyperbound works in the real world. 

This year is about putting our customers at the center and letting outcomes speak because the outcomes are real.

Here are some of our top customer wins in the past year:

- Reduced ramp times by ~30–50%
- Increased meetings booked by nearly 300% for two customers within just 2 months of implementing Hyperbound
- Certified 2,500 reps on 27 new products across 5 different languages in a single month (vs ~6 months previously)
- Increased average win rates by ~7% across multiple customers
- Helped a Fortune 500 launched their biggest product in over a decade across 3,000 reps successfully
- Saved 10+ hours per month per manager for one of our earliest customers
- Cut sales hiring evaluation time by ~33% for a rapidly growing customer

These aren't vanity metrics. They're execution improvements that compound.

In 2026, it's all about how real teams, real operators, and how real results actually get built.

This investment isn't about being louder.

It's about being more confident in what our customers are accomplishing with us.

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👉🏽 If you're curious about how enterprise teams are deploying Hyperbound at scale, DM me or book time with our team at https://lnkd.in/gGP-wTnW

Had a chance to speak at my alma mater yesterday, University of California, Berkeley at the quarterly UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) BMOE Bootcamp led by Gigi Wang!

4.5 years ago, I was sitting in those same seats, hoping to become an entrepreneur one day, trying to absorb as much as I could from others that were years ahead of me. 

It was surreal being back telling my story over the last 2.5 years building Hyperbound with my co-founder, Atul Raghunathan, and the roller coaster ride that it's been. 

Hearing how students are thinking about their future and the evolution of entrepreneurship in the world of AI was also very eye opening.

The theme of the talk was around the importance of motivation behind entrepreneurship.

The #1 reason why startups die is lack of motivation, the founders lose conviction and it falls apart.

If there's one thing I've learned since starting this company, your resilience during the lowest moments is what sets you apart. 

And we're just getting started, we have big dreams we're chasing here!

#GoBears #Cal #UCBerkeley #SCET

🚨 We’re kicking off the new year on the lookout for 2 Enterprise Account Executives in San Francisco: $300K OTE + quarterly accelerators + real upside at Hyperbound (not remote)

Our AEs, ☠️ Belal Batrawy and Isaac Hong, were already over quota this year with a quarter still to go. Both have put up $1M+ months, are closing the largest Fortune 100 logos of their careers, hitting accelerators, and taking home 6-figure bonus checks along the way.

Since launching Hyperbound 23 months ago, we’ve:

- Grown almost entirely through inbound + word of mouth
- Raised a $15M Series A
- Posted back-to-back $1M months last quarter
- Closed Fortune 10 and Fortune 100 customers on 1,000+ seat enterprise rollouts
- Gone from $0 → 7-figure ARR in 11 months (founder-led sales, team of 4)
- Won 90%+ of competitive head-to-head deals
- Built a brand-new category of sales tech that didn’t exist pre-2024
- Scaled from 9 people at the start of the year to 20+ today, with 30 in sight

Who we’re looking for:
- 5+ years of closing experience, with a proven enterprise track record (and strong mid-market wins)
- Someone hungry to land Fortune 1000 accounts
- A strategic seller who wants to help shape the sales motion directly with the founders (Atul and me)
- Someone excited to help define the next major category in sales tech
- Willing to relocate to San Francisco if not already in the Bay Area

⚠️ This is an in-office role: 5 days/week in our SF office. Not remote.

We plan to fill both seats by the end of this month. DM me and apply here → https://lnkd.in/gEfuMHeh

Excited to welcome Luke Quesnell to Hyperbound as a Founding Mid-Market Account Executive, and he’s already off to an incredible start!

He'll be helping us build strong relationships with customers, traveling a lot with the team this year, and playing a key role in shaping how we sell as we scale.

When I first met Luke, he was willing to go to lengths to work hard, and he had a strong track record at Edpuzzle as one of their Founding AEs there. 

What stood out immediately was how quickly he grasped our product and how driven he was to jump in, even with all the unknowns that come with an early-stage company.

He took his very first inbound discovery call on day 1 completely solo and crushed it.

Just days in, he already has 2 qualified deals in his pipeline that he's running end to end.

A few fun facts about Luke:
- First thing he did as a legal adult: went skydiving
- Backpacked the Wonderland Trail in one continuous trek
- Collects and shoots with film cameras 📸

Can't wait to watch Luke grow into an elite seller here!

When Atul and I started Hyperbound, we were just entering the ocean, learning and adapting as quickly as we could in an unknown environment. 

Josh Norris 🐦‍🔥 was the first person who showed up early—before there was a playbook, before there was momentum. He was one of the first people willing to get his hands on the product, give real feedback, and help us wire together early systems. He helped stitch together a top tier lead enrichment workflow that has driven nearly every inbound lead for us till date. And he was also pivotal in iterating the ICP for the product, especially when it was so nascent in the market.

At the time, “marketing” was more of a question than a function. Over a few months, Josh turned that ambiguity into structure: getting the fundamentals in place across SEO, ads, attribution, messaging, and experimentation, and building the internal workflows that still power how we operate.

He took on a messy, undefined problem and gave it shape. That work created leverage for the entire team, and we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in today without it. Although his project has wrapped, we’re incredibly appreciative of the foundation he set for Hyperbound as we move into this next phase of the journey. 

Looking forward to seeing where he takes all of this next!

It's Jianna Ursitti appreciation day! It's been just over a quarter since she joined as a Founding BDR here at Hyperbound and in just the last month alone, she crushed it with booking 15 meetings in 1 month!! 

When I met Jianna, what stood out more than anything was her humble, but confident attitude. 

She was just a year into her BDR career, and she was eager to make the move out from SoCal to the San Francisco to be in the heart of the startup world. 

She wanted to be part of a rocketship where she could learn a ton and grow as quickly as possible, and she made the move out to SF within a week of getting the job!

That was all I need to know how committed she was. 

Out of the 45 BDRs I interviewed, she had by far the best take-home assessment, hitting every point and delivering her thoughts confidently. 

I listened to her mock AI roleplay that she did as a part of her interview as well, and it was well executed and I could tell she was not afraid of the phones even when the bot through objection after objection at her. 

Her calm demeanor even in tough situations sets her apart.

It makes me so happy to see her crush it out of the gate! 

Can't wait to see what she does in the coming months. 

------
👉🏽 If you're interested in joining the BDR team here, we are hiring right now! DM me and I'd love to see if there's a good fit!

Today was a nailbiting end to our fiscal year (in a good way), more details to come soon 👀, but everything is officially in, and it's the best feeling in the world when you exceed the insane goals you set for yourself!

All I can say is the team we've built here at Hyperbound is phenomenal 🎤🫳🏽 

Watch out 2026, here we come!

We're intentionally building a company that a vast majority of people would *not* enjoy working at.

Why Hyperbound isn't for everyone:
- 5 days a week, in office, in San Francisco --> We believe speed, trust, and craft are built in person
- High-intensity, high ownership --> If you see a problem, it’s already yours. There's nowhere to hide behind a role
- Real responsibility early --> You'll own things that matter and feel the weight of them
- Strong opinions, low ego --> Debate is encouraged. Truth beats comfort
- High standards, constant feedback --> "Good enough" doesn't last long here

Some people will read this and think, "No thanks." That’s the point.

In fact, we turn down great resumes every day because of culture.

Last couple months, the team spent real time asking:
- If Hyperbound grew 10x overnight, what cultural behaviors MUST be present?
- What behaviors would destroy Hyperbound if present?
- What cultural behaviors frustrate us or slow us down?
- What trait(s) do each of us bring to the team that we want Hyperbound to amplify?
- What kinds of disagreements make teams better?

What came out was a shared standard, shaped by the people building with us every single day:

1) No Passenger Mentality
===================

See a gap? Own it and drive outcomes. We bias toward action.

"Proactively solve problems you find and share feedback even if it’s not your task." - Thiago Costa

2) Low Ego = Truth Seeking
====================

We prioritize getting to the truth over protecting ego or opinions.

"Love the no-ego, high-standards culture. Disagreeing helps us cover the gaps." - Isaac Hong

3) Know When Details Are Important
===========================
 
Details aren't cosmetic — they're leverage, and knowing when the details are important is what sets us apart.

"Attention to detail, high ownership, and the courage to speak up define Hyperbound." - Saswat Mishra

4) Do Right By Everyone Around You
===========================
 
We optimize for collective impact, not individual wins.

"We can see our work directly influence deals, users, and growth." - Eugene Reuka

5) Problem Obsessed
================
 
The problem is always the source of truth. No clarity on the problem means the feature doesn't matter.

"Ability to push back and ask why — multiple times." - Keshav Balachandar

6) Extra-Mile Mindset
================

We take pride in the unglamorous work. Doing things that don't scale matters.

"Understanding what customers are actually dealing with is where real impact comes from." - ☠️ Belal Batrawy

These values weren't written in a vacuum. They were debated, refined, and lived by the team.

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If you want comfort and predictability, this probably isn't the place.

If you want real ownership, high standards, new challenges, and a team that actually lives its values—we're hiring for more than 9 open roles right now!

👉🏽 Build with us and apply here: https://lnkd.in/g9tCwh85

Hyperbound Cultural Values

Founder and CRO at Hyperbound (YC S23) | AI Sales Roleplay

CTO and CRO here @ Hyperbound. We're a YCombinator startup building the next generation of AI GTM.

Atul Raghunathan

We’re excited to welcome Sanjev Vishnu Thulasiraman as our Founding Solutions Engineer / Product Analyst at Hyperbound.

One of the best parts of building Hyperbound has been getting to work alongside people who genuinely raise the bar. Sanjev is exactly that kind of hire.

We interviewed several dozen candidates for this role, Sanjev stood out. 

Not because he talked about systems, but because he built one. He came into interviews having already **built a basic version of Hyperbound on his own**. 

Why this role matters and why Sanjev is a big deal for us:
- He can resolve customer issues end to end, from spotting a problem in the field to digging through logs and screen captures and pushing code to fix it.
- He proactively queries customer usage logs and recordings to flag issues before customers ever report them. This is a game changer when you sell to enterprise.

A few fun facts about Sanjev:
- Built 20 plus different products for fun in 2025 alone
- Obsessed with AI since he was 16 and has been building ever since
- Produces music and plays the keyboard

We are assembling a seriously cracked team, and I feel incredibly lucky to get to work alongside people like this every day. Founding hires shape the trajectory of the company, and Sanjev has all the signs of someone who will be a force multiplier here.

Welcome to Hyperbound Sanjev, More to come.

CTO/CRO Hyperbound (YC S23) - Hiring Engineers for the next 3 weeks!

We started 2025 with 6 people.
We onboarded 6 people yesterday.

Our once huge office is now feeling small! Excited to shout these folks out soon.

Just gave everyone $150 to decorate our South Park office.

Our office manager Raquel is worried. 

Let's see what happens next Thursday 😂

This one took time.

We rejected 90+ candidates for this role before we met Hyunsoo Park (Andrew).
Not because they weren’t good, but because we were looking for someone exceptional.

Andrew is joining Hyperbound as our second Founding Designer, in person in San Francisco.

He was a founding designer at another sales tech startup, has formal training in Human–Computer Interaction, and shares an alma mater with me in Carnegie Mellon University. More importantly, he operates like a owner. 

A few facts that say a lot about how he approaches things:
- Volunteered to serve in the Republic of Korea Army
- Lived in five countries: US, South Korea, Thailand, Peru, Paraguay
- New dad, discovering that “iteration” applies to parenting too 👶 

We’ve 5×’d Hyperbound in the past year. We’re doing it again.
As we enter this next phase, design is no longer a supporting function. It’s core to how we build, ship, and scale.

If you’re an engineer who wants to work alongside people who move quickly, think in systems, and raise the bar for everyone around them, this is the kind of teammate you want.

More to come.

Another foundational hire for Hyperbound.

Aaron Smilovitz is joining us as our Founding Senior Account Manager, in person in San Francisco.

He stood out over 30+ candidates and blew us away in the interview process. 

Not just on experience, but on charisma, presence, judgment, and how he thinks about ownership. Aaron has operated across a wide range of roles, both inside and outside of B2B SaaS, and it shows in how he approaches customers.

A few fun facts:
- Professional MC (Master of Ceremonies) — a hype man for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and nightclubs
- Personal coach at F45, helping people push past their limits
- In 2025, took a big life step and bought an engagement ring 💍

It’s day 3 and Aaron is already on customer check-ins and actively re-architecting our onboarding flow alongside his fellow new AM, Samuel R. 

As we expand upmarket, Account Management becomes the most important role on our journey from Series A to B. 

Net Revenue Retention is what compounds the business. We already have exceptional NRR, and the bar now is to protect it and keep pushing it higher.

That’s exactly why Aaron is here.

Founding AMs define how customers experience the company. They turn trust into expansion, surface risk early, and close the loop between customers, product, and leadership.

More to come.

Excited to officially welcome Albert Yan to Hyperbound as a Software Engineer.

Albert previously served as a founding engineer at another YC startup, and that experience and drive show up every day here. He joined quietly and immediately went to work on what is currently our most important project of the quarter (can’t wait to share more on this soon). He’s also been the fastest engineer to ramp since we started the company.

He’s often the last one in the office, learning fast while raising the bar for the people around him. That combination of velocity, ownership, and humility is rare, I keep asking our recruiters for more Albert's!

A few fun facts about Albert:

- He’s journaled every single day since June 2017
- He attended four different elementary schools growing up
- He’s been part of Toastmasters and practicing public speaking for 8+ years, despite not being much of a talker by default

Very glad to be building alongside Albert. Can’t wait to add six more engineers to join him and the rest of our SF team soon.

We’re hiring.

I was just reviewing a set of 350,000+ real sales calls analyzed by Hyperbound.

One pattern is extremely consistent:
“Let’s circle back” *without saying with whom* shows up ~3× more in deals that have already lost momentum.

Important nuance:
When a next stakeholder is explicitly named, momentum usually does not drop.

(Subtle perk of being an ML engineer who runs a sales tech company: you get to see patterns most people only feel.)

These sound similar, but behave very differently:
❌ “Let’s circle back.”
❌ “We’ll regroup internally and get back to you.”
❌ “Let me check with the team.”
vs.
✅ “Let's circle back after I pull in Sarah from security.”
✅ “Can you resend this so I can forward it to Mike by Thursday?”
✅ “Let’s reconnect after legal reviews it next week.”

Curious: if you hear “let’s circle back” with no owner, what do you do to save the deal?

Welcoming Samuel R. to Hyperbound as our Strategic Account Manager.

Sam is taking ownership of a subset of our most important relationships, including several Fortune 100 customers and a Fortune 10. At our stage, this role is about stewardship and judgment. These accounts shape our product direction, our execution bar, and how Hyperbound is experienced in the market.

Notably, Sam previously worked inside one of our customers. He understands firsthand what great partnership looks like from the other side of the table, and the standards enterprise teams expect.

A few quick facts that reflect his range:
- Solves a Rubik’s Cube in under a minute
- Has traveled to 48 countries
- Is a 5th-generation San Franciscan

It’s day 5 and Sam is already deep in customer conversations, operating with the context of someone who’s been on the other side of the table. 

We're already planning his flights to get him some face time with clients! AM's are the face of your brand to your customers, we're very happy to have Sam on the team.

More to come!

We’ve been incredibly efficient at Hyperbound, largely because post-sales was never an afterthought. Our land-and-expand strategy has produced expansion rates and NRR that fundamentally changed how fast we could grow.

For context, the SaaS Magic Number measures how much new ARR you generate for every dollar spent on sales and marketing. A “good” business might sit around 0.75–1.0. 

Hyperbound has operated at a Magic Number of 8. 

A meaningful portion of our growth has come inbound, including millions in ARR directly from LinkedIn. That engine continues to compound. But efficiency alone isn’t the goal anymore.

We’ve been disciplined enough to be profitable at multiple stages of our journey. That mindset doesn’t disappear. What’s changing is the ambition.

After finishing budget planning, it’s clear that 2026 looks radically different across marketing, pre-sales, and post-sales. We’re already growing new logos and expanding existing customers faster than any other point in our history, and now we’re intentionally planning to more than double that pace.

This is the moment where a company with real pull builds the org to match it.

That’s why we’re hiring another hunter Mid-Market Account Manager to join a post-sales team that treats expansion (not just retention) as a core responsibility.

What matters more than the setting is the standard behind it: high trust, high output, and a shared understanding that post-sales is where growth compounds.

Hyperbound is entering a much more aggressive chapter.

If you want to join a company where momentum is already real and about to accelerate hard, now is the window.

Check out our post-sales team smashing the record at an escape room last week!

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The Battle

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