“Currently, best-in-class technology can tell you the names of the companies that view your site. But what are you supposed to do with that?”
This week, I talked to Zayd Syed Ali—founder of Valley, an AI-powered SDR business that has raised over $3M in funding and is currently revolutionizing sales teams across the world—who sold his first business for seven figures at just 18.
We chat about how to craft the perfect AI-generated messaging, his market fit and the challenges he faces, and how he handles the stress of being a multi-millionaire.
You don’t want to miss this one…
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🔓 The key parts
🎬 Getting 98% of website visitors to take action
🖍️ Crafting effective AI-generated messaging
🚀 Market fit, challenges, and scaling the business
🪞 The future and personal reflections
Read Time: 5 minutes
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ZAYD SYED ALI
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🎬 Getting 98% of website visitors to take action
Liam: "I took this from your website... ‘98% of your website visitors never take a step but know about you. Valley covers them and enables end-to-end outbound automation to those people. This has never been possible before.’ Tell me more."
Zayd: "We found that only around 2% of the people who view your site will actually submit a demo request. But what happens to the other 98% that don’t? You've paid for all of those people in some form—whether it’s time for writing content or publishing for SEO or ads—but you can't identify them."
Zayd: “Currently, the best-in-class technology can maybe tell you the names of the companies that view your site. But what are you supposed to do with that? So we decided to figure out who the individual person is: their name, their profile, their email, who is the specific individual who’s showing intent, that's actually on your website, who's aware of you. Who are they?”
Liam: "How exactly are you extracting that information to understand who the f** they are?"
Zayd: "I’m not sure what I can and can’t say, but this tech has existed in e-commerce for nearly a decade. We said, okay, let's go and work with some of these data providers to figure out how to build an enrichment flow that can go from personal email to business email and then business email to LinkedIn profile. Then, once you have their LinkedIn profile, you know who the person is, where they're from, and the companies they've worked for, and you can then further enrich it with data from other places like People Data Labs and gather mounds of data on them.”
CONNECT WITH ZAYD SYED ALI HERE.
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🖍️ Crafting effective AI-generated messaging
Liam: "How exactly do you ensure someone's tone of voice is kept the same? How do you influence that in the messaging?"
Zayd: "We take two inputs: First, we ask users to upload content—LinkedIn posts, emails, newsletters, anything that reflects how they write. Second, we use custom instructions—like 'use casual language' or 'never use sales jargon'—to refine the output."
Liam: "What were the first versions like, and how did you get to where it currently is?"
Zayd: "It was very bad. It was basically Google Sheets, a single AI prompt, and humans reviewing outputs before approving them. We knew AI wasn’t good enough yet, so we iterated until humans were no longer needed in the process."
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🚀 Market fit, challenges, and scaling the business
Liam: "Who's a terrible fit for your company? Who would you turn away at the door?”
Zayd: "There are three: B2C companies or anyone who is woefully pre-product market ready and hasn't really talked any customers or had any sales calls will just burn money with us. And then companies that are selling into the Fortune 100, because at that point the additional cost that they’re gonna spend on a human to build a relationship is totally worth it—invest in humans for relationship-building—it’s worth it."
Liam: "How did it feel to raise over $3M at such a young age?"
Zayd: "It was an amazing feeling...for like two days. Then it was, ‘Oh my God, I have this shot, and I can’t screw it up.’ You feel the weight of responsibility, the investors believing in you, the people counting on you."
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🪞 The future and personal reflections
Liam: "Where do you see this going? Is the goal an exit?"
Zayd: "I want Valley to be the outbound operating system for all modern sales teams. The ultimate vision is ‘revenue in a box’—an intelligent system that sets itself up and just works."
Liam: "How has the pressure you’ve faced changed you?"
Zayd: "Growing up, I wasn’t stressed about things. I was always comfortable with turbulence. But now, the amplitude of emotions is way higher. Some days are euphoric, others are brutal. You just have to zoom out and focus on the long-term trajectory."
Liam: "On a practical level, how do you deal with stress? Meditation? Nootropics? Supplements?"
Zayd: "All of the above. I meditate, I work out every day, and I take a bunch of nootropics and supplements. Whether it’s placebo or not, the morning routine helps put me in the right headspace."
➡️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
✔️ AI is revolutionizing outbound sales – Valley bridges inbound and outbound by leveraging AI for targeted, intent-based outreach, making sales more efficient.
✔️ AI-generated messages must mimic human behavior by incorporating natural writing styles, tone of voice, and deep research.
✔️ Entrepreneurship is a pressure cooker – Raising millions at 22 brought excitement but also immense responsibility, requiring discipline and mental resilience.
✔️ Valley’s future is ambitious – The vision is to create a "revenue in a box" system that autonomously identifies, engages, and converts prospects.
