Matt Zimak For funded startups
AI for funded startups: pipeline before the next hire.
You closed a round and the plan says hire. Before you do, put AI on the work that feeds the pipeline: finding the right people, researching them, drafting the first message and following up. I run these systems in my own companies first.
Where it hurts.
Pipeline is manual.
Lists, research and first messages eat the founders' week.
Events leak.
You meet the right people at a conference, and the follow-up slips by a week.
Funding work never stops.
Grants, accelerators and investor updates compete with building the product.
Running in my own companies.
- A fundraising cockpit
- Accelerators, grants, communities and investors scanned and scored for fit, applications drafted from a brief, nothing submitted without my approval.
- An event pipeline
- For Meta Connect 2026: the people worth meeting, scored on fit, and a booth form that turns a conversation into a researched lead with a same-day follow-up drafted. Nothing sends on its own.
- A content planner
- LinkedIn and X posts scheduled from one calendar, each one approved before it goes out.
What runs first for you.
- Outreach that books meetings
- Target lists, research per account, a first message in your voice, follow-ups on time, every reply logged in your CRM.
- Research on demand
- A brief on a company, an investor or a market before the call.
- A pipeline that stays current
- CRM records kept up to date from email and meetings, so the forecast is not a guess.
A typical start.
Days 1 to 3
Interviews with the people who run the process, every input and output mapped.
Week 2
The written plan: the top three automations scoped with cost, timeline, owner and payoff. One decision meeting.
Weeks 3 to 6
The build. The top three ship, with logs, retries and a handover document.
After
Your team runs it. I stay on call monthly if you want that, or the fractional seat takes over.
How it is priced.
The audit is a fixed fee, credited to the build if you go ahead. Every build is scoped from the audit, never priced blind. A fractional seat is a monthly retainer with a three-month minimum. You hear the numbers on the intro call, before anything starts.
Who this is for.
Startups that have closed a round and want AI on pipeline and product before the next hire. Before the first round, the founder is the client as a person, and the AI concierge is the path.
Not a fit: building your product or platform (that is a dev shop's job), or any business still at the idea or MVP stage.
Questions I get before the call.
We have no ops person yet. Who runs it after the build?
You do, in the tools you already use. Everything is written down at handover, and I stay on call monthly if you want that.
Will outreach sound like a bot?
It drafts in your voice from what you have already written, and you approve before anything goes out.
How much of our time does it take?
One person who knows the process, about an hour a week during the audit and the first build. After that, the review cadence we agree on. Everything is written down, so the knowledge stays with you.
Start with a call.
Fifteen minutes, on me. Bring the one pipeline task that eats your week; you leave with a straight answer on whether AI can do it, what it would take and what it would cost.