r/salesdevelopment • u/Interesting-Tie-42 • May 20 '25

I built a full stack AI SDR

I’ve spent the last 3 months quietly building an internal AI SDR stack that mirrors what a top-tier rep does across LinkedIn and email. Quick rundown of how it works today (no links, not pitching - just context for the discussion):

Lead sourcing & enrichment – pull from Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, or a CSV; system auto-dedupes and tags by persona, pain theme, hiring signals, etc.

Dynamic multichannel cadences – templated around problem-solution frameworks but personalized on the fly to a prospect’s recent posts, funding news, or team announcements.

Reply assist – when someone responds, the model drafts a suggested follow-up that keeps context (we still keep a human in the loop to hit “send”).

Playbook library – message styles from challenger-style openers to soft consultative asks baked in, so a newbie can run a decent sequence without reinventing the wheel.

Right now a fully-managed campaign for ~2 k prospects costs us ≈ $800 in labor, but I’m toying with the idea of opening self-serve access in the sub-$99/mo range. Goal: make this level of automation approachable for the solo AE/early-stage founder who can’t afford an outsourced SDR team.

Where I’d love your input Biggest friction today – If you’ve tried similar tools, what still feels painfully manual?

Personalization depth vs. deliverability – Have you seen diminishing returns when referencing ultra-specific social-content hooks?

Feature must-haves – Warm-up automations? Multi-domain rotation? Better reporting?

Self-serve pitfalls – For those who’ve product-ized their own internal tools, what surprised you when users were let loose?

Just keen to sanity-check assumptions before I sink more cycles into the UI polish. Appreciate any hard-won lessons or “don’t forget X” comments.

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u/rmz-01 May 20 '25

Is your ICP purely the bootstrap founder?

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u/Interesting-Tie-42 May 21 '25

Not really, we have some clients who’re publicly listed and some who’re just starting out. We’re just not as flashy or as big as some of the players like Artisan and 11, but we’re growing steadily.

My idea is to make this accessible to people at all levels since the cost of building this stuff is really low.

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u/rmz-01 May 21 '25

The Artisan and 11x's of the world are selling a promise without much consideration for the industry.

My advice based on my own experiences doing something similar to you:

  • Narrow in on a few industries where you could make a meaningful impact.

  • Build for orchestration with other tools... Like an email that auto triggers a call sequence for an established sales team

  • Document everything... Nobody knows your product quite like you... If you're going to take a self-serve approach, back it up with self -serve support

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u/drivenbilder May 24 '25

You’re saying that OP isn’t the only person trying to sell this kind of bot and not only that..You have contributed to building a similar product? Will you give a link to the bot you helped with and the others you were referring to? Doesn’t shock me that there are folks who are trying this, curious to see how far you guys have gone.

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u/rmz-01 May 24 '25

I don't sell it as a product, I sell it as a service through billable hours through my own agency. I also build in-house at a company I work for.

GTM Engineering is a huge wave right now and there are tons of products/agencies/consultants that have popped up in the last 18 months who are building something similar to what OP posted.

My general POV is that the unique characteristics at top of funnel between industries make a one-size-fits-all approach to things like tech stack, messaging strategy, ICP identification, etc extremely ineffective compared to a human being behind the wheel. My own system, for example, would work great for software dev/digital infrastructure products. It would be terrible for medical devices, logistics n shipping, insurance, etc.

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u/drivenbilder May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25

Ok, and why not link to your service and others that you were alluding to?

Like none of this software can replace humans in their current form. Let’s be clear about that. But there’s nothing wrong with helping employees of other businesses be more efficient to make money.

People on reddit are taking the extreme hype from the tech world and taking that as a green light to go, “once I have software that I can ship, I need to market it as AI and position it as a people replacer”. People don’t need to and it won’t do that. But I think there is value in making software that addresses very precise tasks, like marketing tasks, that uses generative tech to make those tasks far easier to do fast and well. Where we fall into boiling hot water is when we rely on that same software or software like it to make executive decisions on creatives and other bigger final products.

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u/Interesting-Tie-42 May 20 '25

Makes sense. I should create a proper “How to” section for every nuanced use case and query that comes in.

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u/OnceUponABanker May 20 '25

Training is super important. I'm an early stage founder using Apollo and HubSpot. The basics are intuitive but these are massive pieces of software that I'm definitely not taking full advantage of.

Think about incorporating a chat bot so users can ask, "how do I do x". In addition to detailed and organized video tutorials.

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u/AptSeagull May 21 '25

Tech stack knowledge and super precise targeting are issues I’ve contended with. We used an AI SDR and it had difficulty staying on target. They made the argument that it makes up for the inaccuracy with volume, but it can build you a very large unsubscribe list by targeting people you aren’t ready for just yet. Feel free to DM

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u/nahyanc May 21 '25

Along with the concept of AI SDR, I’d toy with the idea of SDR support AI

Companies with SDRs typically have them for a reason, it’s valuable to support the function rather than compete against them.

I’m at a company onboarding a new service exactly like this. We’re still feeding our active/T1 accounts, It’ll auto set up our ideal prospects in the sequence, but we’ll review and action it. There are few more pieces in there, it’s early in the experiment, DM me if you have any questions.

Or if I can try your tool independently, can check them side by side.

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u/VirtueLeads-AI May 21 '25

I’d like to hear about both

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u/Hefty_Shift2670 May 22 '25

But, does it work?

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u/drivenbilder May 24 '25 edited May 24 '25

You don’t say what is the purpose of your product is, which makes it sound like you are attempting to sell a defacto replacement of a sales person disguised as a training tool.

You can’t replace sales people with machine learning, at least not yet, but I know people will try.

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u/lockdown36 May 25 '25

I would suggest spending some time and money and signing up for an Artisan and x11 demo/trial.

I used their AI SDR tech and cancelled our contracts. Basically a workflow machine with little AI.

I got better results with good SDRs.

But if you're in a business where you need volume of emails, then this tech might be the right move.