Rifa AI

Growth

topmate.io

Head of Growth

Impact Consulting

Consultant

Growth @Rifa AI | Making AI work like your most reliable teammate | Previously @ Topmate | 30u30 IQ

AI isn’t replacing people. It’s replacing processes that slow them down.

At Rifa AI, we’re building intelligent agents that automate back-office conversations across chat, voice, email, and support without breaking ops.

The goal isn’t to sound human.
The goal is to get work done, with AI that can reason, act, and complete entire workflows across tools.

Our best users don’t even realize they’re talking to a bot.
That’s the point.

Before this, I led growth at Topmate and picked up a few hard truths:
 → Shiny doesn’t scale
 → Funnels lie
 → Speed breaks things, but it also builds them

Rifa is a tougher game. The stakes are higher.
You’re shipping into systems where mistakes cost trust, not just clicks.

That’s why I care about:
 → AI that’s functional, not performative
 → Growth that’s compound, not chaotic
 → Shipping like it’s a reflex, not an event

If you’re building at the intersection of AI, ops, and velocity, let’s chat.

3 years at topmate.io taught me more than any MBA,
enough for me to skip my IIM-C admit and keep building

I was among the first few hires, and the journey was up close and personal.

Every day felt like a new exam: figuring out the audience, talking to them in my DMs, then building campaigns to reach a wider one. It was one hell of a ride.

It was my first full-time role at a startup, and it left me with lessons I still carry into Rifa AI:
𝟭/ 𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱. In the middle of all the chaos, that’s the only thing people can rely on. If you say you’ll do something, do it.

𝟮/ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗺. I’ve sat in rooms where fundraising was shaky, regulations blindsided us, or global expansion felt like it was slipping. The only thing that helped was composure.

𝟯/ 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁. The best breakthroughs at Topmate came from messy experiments. Build → test → learn beat perfection every single time.

𝟰/ 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. It’s like an airbag; it cushions the blow, but it won’t stop you from crashing. Customers are the real validation.

𝟱/ 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 “𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿.”Chasing that image only makes you rigid. Be you - Be it unstructured or Impulsive

Every day in a startup feels like survival, a new challenge waiting to surprise you. But through the chaos, don’t forget to live life. 

Your startup is a part of you, not the whole of you. And when you look at life from that POV, it always feels lighter.

What’s one lesson you’ve carried from your journey?

Shubham Khoker

Building in India vs the US feels like playing the same game with two different rulebooks.

Most people think the biggest difference between building in India and the US is the culture.
But it’s not.

It’s how the work actually gets done.

In India, we usually sell the dream, we talk about money, scale, and what this could become one day.

In the US, they want to see the experience: the actual product, the vision already working.

But the biggest difference working through these time zones is how they value time.

In India, work never really ends. 
You’ll receive calls at 9 PM and Slack messages at midnight, and it’s normal to stay available all the time.

In the US, it’s different. Work usually stops after 6 PM. People log off, and life takes over. 

Living in both worlds, I've realized you don't have to pick a side.

At Rifa AI, we're learning to speak both languages: the Indian hustle when speed matters, and the American precision when quality can't be compromised.

And somewhere in between the two is a system that actually lasts.

P.S. Which style of work do you vibe with more: India or the US?

Everyone says “just keep trying” after a rejection. But that’s the half-truth.
The other half is: keep iterating.

When I first applied for Foundation Capital's IIT Build cohort, it felt like a perfect fit.
But we got a polite rejection in return. 

Second attempt? Rejection again.
That’s when it hit me: if the same people are saying no twice, it’s not bad luck. It’s a signal.

So I asked a harder question: "If I were them, why would I reject us?"
I had the vision for Rifa crystal clear in my head, but it wasn’t landing on paper.

It led me to rework our entire narrative for the third attempt. This time, we were finally called for an interview.

After an incredible conversation with Alyssa, we are in.
We’re joining Foundation Capital’s IIT Build cohort in Palo Alto in the coming month,

Sometimes a ‘no’ doesn’t mean stop. It means refine until your story is undeniable.

P.S. To all the fellow founders joining the IIT Build cohort, let’s connect and build together.

You don’t need a San Francisco address to build for the world. 
For years, the line was: ‘If you are not in San Francisco, you are an outsider’ 

In 2025? That’s just lazy thinking.
The strongest network isn’t a city anymore. It’s the internet.

Today, founders can pull talent, ideas, and customers from anywhere.
And when you build this way, you’re not just asking “what does my neighbour want?” 

You’re forced to ask, “What does the market expect?”

The old playbook: open a store on the busiest street.
The new one: build the best online store in the world, and let the internet be the street that goes everywhere.

The most valuable asset: talent, ideas, and customers, are already distributed.
The founders who get that will be the ones building the next generation of global companies.

So, where are you building from?

Most founders I know build only for today. But the outliers I’ve studied? They build for today and tomorrow at the same time.

I used to fall in the same trap, fixing what was right in front of me.
Until I started building in the US.

What I realized here is that you need to see things through two lenses at once: the company you have now, and the company you want to build.

And the tricky part is that you can’t choose one over the other. You have to work on both simultaneously.

On one side, you’re consolidating, making sure what you have right now actually works.
On the other hand, you’re already laying the bricks for what comes next.

At first, it feels unnatural.
Your instinct as a founder is to fix today’s problems.
But if you only look down at your feet, you forget where the road is going.

That’s what building in the US forced me to do: zoom out.

Not just “How do I survive this quarter?”
But “What foundation am I building so I don’t hit the same wall again next year?”

Though rewiring my instinct hasn’t been easy, once you learn to balance the now and the next, things start to change. 

You stop reacting to the same problems and start figuring out how to build it in the long term.

What about you?

In 2023, I landed in the US for the first time as an employee.
And walking through the cafés in San Francisco, I remember feeling completely out of place. 

Everywhere I looked, founders were talking about raising millions, building products, and solving problems at a scale I hadn’t even imagined.

It was intimidating.

But it was also the first time the thought hit me: What if I take up this challenge? What if I try to build here?

That thought led me to Rifa AI.
Today, we’ve raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding to push that vision forward.

For me, this milestone isn’t about the number.
It’s about a simple belief that voice AI automation will save businesses millions while sounding as natural as the humans it works alongside.

The ride so far hasn’t been smooth,
budget crunches, tough calls, and long nights...
But every messy chapter made us sharper. 

The next one looks the same, but with more clarity, more scale, and more conviction in what we’re building.

This round helps us expand in North America, bring on the best talent, and keep proving that voice AI is an edge.

And more than anything, it’s a reminder that intimidating idea I once overheard in a Valley café is now real and just getting started.

Grateful to the team, our partners, and everyone who’s believed in this crazy bet so far.

Sharing a significant milestone with you.
We have raised $1.1M, led by Seaborne Capital.

The past few weeks have been surreal. 

Seeing our story picked up by The Economic Times, VCCircle, Business World, and so many others has been a reminder of how far we’ve come and how much further we need to go.

This round gives us the push to:
 - Go deeper into regulated industries like healthcare, insurance, and collections and build out our presence in the US market.
 - Double down on solving the real challenges of enterprise voice automation, compliance, integrations, and trust.

Grateful to our team, our investors, and the early customers who believed in us before the headlines.

This is just the beginning.

Rifa AI in the news: our next chapter begins

I’ve never said this publicly, but failing my UPSC exams twice changed the direction of my life.

I always had a knack for solving problems at scale, and in India, the easiest way to do that meant clearing the UPSC civil services exam. 

So, I went all in. Two years, countless hours, and two very dedicated attempts with a strong, clear purpose in mind. 

But every time I sat there, something felt... off. 
The purpose was right, I wanted to make an impact. But the path, the 'how,' just didn't feel like mine.

After the second attempt, I had the most brutal conversation with myself and realized I was chasing the right destination on the wrong train.

My passion was in building — creating a product, shipping it, and watching a user's problem disappear in real-time.

That clarity led me to startups, to Topmate, and eventually to building Rifa; same purpose, but a different path.

So, don't just ask if you have the right purpose, ask if you're on the right path to express it. A misaligned passion will burn you out, no matter how noble the goal is.

P.S. Have you ever had to switch paths because the work just didn’t feel like yours?

Do you know that the same fix that makes one customer happy can make another lose trust?

Yes, you read that right!

Not every customer wants the same thing. 
A fix that wins you praise in India might lose you trust in the US.

Working with teams and customers across India and the US, I noticed a sharp difference in how problems are approached.

In India, the first instinct is often jugaad—a quick fix to keep things moving. Customers are happy if you patch it up and make it work for now.

In the US, “just fixing it” is the first step. The next question is always: how do we make this solution better, faster, more reliable?

It’s not that one is smarter than the other. It’s just two different cultures of problem-solving.

↳ India values speed, flexibility, and solving problems
↳ The US values optimization, process, and long-term reliability.

As a founder, this means you can’t assume one mindset will work everywhere. The same solution is judged through different lenses depending on where your customer sits.

Sometimes a jugaad earns trust, and sometimes it can cost you more than you bargained for.

What do your customers trust more, speed or polish?

The best startup lesson I learned wasn’t in a business book.
It was in Paul Graham’s essay: Do Things That Don’t Scale.

One line I keep coming back to:
The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to recruit users manually. Nearly all startups have to. You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them.

With AI moving this fast, this essay feels even more relevant.

While the temptation is to automate everything from day one.
The real charm of automation only shows up after you’ve done the messy manual work.

At Rifa, our sharpest insights didn’t come from dashboards.
They came from unscalable work: sitting on customer calls, writing out transcripts by hand, fixing issues case by case.

That’s the part most people want to skip. But it’s also the part that teaches you what’s actually worth automating.

So I keep re-reading it, as a reminder to slow down, get my hands dirty, and not skip the work that compounds.

What’s one piece you always re-read when you feel stuck?
Share your ‘must-read’, I’m always looking for new ones.

I built our website without the ‘founder brain’ in motion, and here’s the wild part…

It worked and led to 37% increase in demo bookings. 

I’ve seen founders and teams obsessing over fonts, copy, layout, and spending months deciding what actually feels right.

But they miss the real thing; nobody is coming to your website to admire your design skills.

They just want to know if you can solve their problem.

Here’s what actually made the difference for us:
1/ Think as a customer. If you were buying the same product, what would you want to see first? That’s what goes up top.

2/ Don’t over-engineer it. Ship the first version, and make it live. You can redesign in 6 months when real data tells you what’s working.

3/ Show proof up front, whether it is compliance logos, customer brands, or KPIs you’ve moved. One glance should say: “Okay, this works.”

And the last step before going live is to see the website as your ideal client would. Give feedback to yourself and be brutally honest.

That’s it.
Don’t obsess over “perfection,” but give customers a reason to stay and take the next step.

P.S. If you’re building your site right now, are you keeping it simple or trying to make it “perfect”?

Don’t let AI automate everything.
You don’t have to agree on this, but you should hear it.

In 2025, if there’s one thing every industry needs to adapt to, it’s building with AI. And while automating everything sounds like the quick, efficient dream everyone talks about… 

It’s the fastest way to waste your time. 

When I started building in AI, my instinct was the same:
“How do I automate every single task on my plate?”

But in reality, most tasks aren’t worth automating. And trying to force-fit AI everywhere only slows you down.

Some things should stay human.
Some parts still need your judgment, creativity, empathy: things AI can’t replace.

For me, that meant:
→ Automating repetitive outreach, but still analysing what is working well
→ Letting AI handle reminders, so I could think about strategy instead of logistics.
→ Let the AI agent answer common support questions, but personally step in to solve a complex problem for a frustrated user.

Instead of looking for total automation, think about where AI actually amplifies what you do best.

So, automation works best when it's reducing cost and increasing pace or efficiency. And it’s a bad idea to automate just for the sake of automation.

P.S. What’s one thing you still wouldn’t hand over to AI?

I used to think firefighting was part of the founder's job description.
Wake up → chase urgent tasks → push the rest to tomorrow → repeat.

But after enough mornings of the same chaos,
I knew I wasn’t just completing tasks, but running from fires.

That’s when I shifted from managing my time to managing my focus.

That’s where the Eisenhower Matrix came in.
Simple, almost boring:
→ Urgent vs. not urgent
→ Important vs. not important

It followed me from Topmate to Rifa and even into my personal life.
I don't use it only for the tasks; I’ve used it for big decisions too

-What’s worth my personal time?
-What can I delegate?
-What can I ignore entirely?

At Topmate, it stopped me from chasing vanity tasks when we were scaling fast.

And at Rifa, it keeps me focused on what compounds long-term.

Because being a founder isn’t about fighting every fire, it’s about knowing which ones to let fizzle out.

Where are you spending more time on urgent, or on important?

People don’t want to hear this, but it’s true: Your ChatGPT is not your Google

You can’t drop a question and expect it to spit out wisdom. That’s not “using AI,” but just replacing your search bar.

I’ve seen founders type in one vague line,
“Give me a growth strategy.”
“Write a sales email” —then complain that the output feels generic.

Of course it does. That’s not how you use it.
That’s like asking an intern for “a company strategy by EOD” without giving them context.

As someone building in the AI space, here’s exactly what can change the game for you:

1/ Have a conversation, not a search - Instead of asking a direct question, build on your idea. You don’t need the perfect prompt to start talking, share context, ask better questions, and build your reasoning. ChatGPT will know you better once you start sharing what’s exactly on your mind.

2/ Make it your number one employee - Let ChatGPT ask you questions. You can literally say: “Ask me one question at a time to help figure this out.”

3/ Use past convos, screenshots, and PDFs - Most people still don’t know you can ask GPT to remember an old conversation from a thread and start talking more about it. Google cannot tell you where you left off, but this one can. 

If you ask ‘share a perfect morning routine’, it will give what seems fit. 
But if you ask, ‘Being a founder, running a business, what can be a perfect morning routine that helps me focus?’ the answer will definitely change.

Try it for yourself.
What’s the smartest way you’ve used ChatGPT so far?

You can have the best GTM strategy in the world.
And still watch it flop 

Because most of it is still a matter of guesswork. 

I have seen it happen: teams spend weeks on slides, fancy frameworks, and statements that sound great in a boardroom, but mean nothing in the real world.

The real strategies are built from conversations. 
From talking about your product to 10 users, and then another 10.

It offers insights you learn by actually sitting down and listening to someone. 

You hear the exact words they use, see their eyes light up when they talk about a problem, or the frustration in their voice.

A spreadsheet will never tell you that.
It's the difference between theory and reality.

Theory sounds like this:
"We'll position ourselves as the premium solution for enterprise customers who value reliability over cost."

Reality sounds like this:
"Dave from TechCorp said our biggest advantage is that we work with their existing CRM without any setup."

Most teams skip this part because it feels slow, unscalable, and even boring. But that’s exactly why their GTM looks great in a deck and fails in the market.

So, when was the last time you spoke directly to a customer?

80% of customers switch brands because of bad service.
And most of the time, “bad service” is a feeling of being ignored when they need help.

I’ve seen good products lose customers because no one picked up the phone when it mattered, and getting help felt impossible.

Here’s the simple, broken math behind that feeling: 
A live call today often costs a business ~$20. So companies ration conversations. They put you in menus, in queues, or behind self-serve pages. 

The result? Your customers feel ghosted.

This is where AI voice agents change the game. They drop the cost of a conversation to about $1-$2. Suddenly, talking to your customers becomes a competitive advantage.

And these conversations lead to sharper signals on what’s broken. 
Proactive check-ins build trust, and it directly compounds into LTV. You stop just plugging churn and start building loyalty.

If you're a founder, here's a simple way to start without overhauling everything:

1.⁠ ⁠Pick one moment of friction. Don’t boil the ocean. Start with a common pain point like a failed payment or a drop-off during onboarding.

2.⁠ ⁠Let an AI agent be your first responder. It can handle the initial outreach and scripted troubleshooting, 24/7, ensuring every customer gets an instant response.

3.⁠ ⁠Always have a human in the loop. This is your most important guardrail. The goal isn't to replace people; it's to free them up for high-value problems. When the AI hits a wall or senses frustration, it should immediately escalate to a human who can build the relationship.

This saves money on support and also makes proactivity affordable, ensuring no customer ever feels invisible again.

P.S. How often do you talk to your customer?

Taplio

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