Engineer-turned-founder Sriharsha “Sai” Guduguntla, CEO of Hyperbound, joins the SaaS Sales Performance Podcast to unpack how voice AI roleplay is reshaping sales enablement. We cover de-risking AI initiatives, why practice beats pipeline obsession, and why the top reps are the hungriest users of coaching tech. Plus: the wild go-to-market behind Hyperbound’s viral launch and what the future holds for enablement teams.
In this episode, Matt sits down with Sai Guduguntla, co-founder & CEO at Hyperbound, an AI platform that lets enterprise sales teams practise real conversations through intelligent voice roleplay and coaching. Sai shares the founder journey from YC acceptance to a hard pivot, why “inbox-only selling” is fading, and how reinforcement—not one-off training—wins.
You’ll learn:
The research sprint behind Hyperbound: 25k LinkedIn messages, 10k cold emails, 2k user interviews
Why Hyperbound pivoted from AI SDR to AI coaching—and why realism is everything
How to de-risk AI in GTM (start with the problem, not the tool)
The enablement reboot: reinforcement, measurement, and coordination at scale
Why top reps adopt practice tools fastest—and how laggards get found out
00:00 — Intro: Welcome & guest setup (Sai, CEO & co-founder, Hyperbound)
01:20 — Founder Journey: Engineer → Salesforce → 20-month build; YC entry; 17+ ideas
07:00 — The Pivot: CROs react to AI roleplay; moving from AI SDR to enablement
10:30 — Viral Traction: Launch (22 Jan 2024), influencer wave, fully inbound growth
13:00 — YC & Conviction: Why YC backed the team over any single idea
14:30 — AI in GTM: Signal orchestration, account research, AI coaching at scale
17:00 — De-risking AI: Start with the business problem, not the shiny tool
20:00 — Change Management: Why enterprise; accelerating rollouts with AI
22:00 — Sellers & Tech: Curiosity vs ROI; looking beyond “more pipeline”
25:00 — Practice Works: A-players use it most; turning Cs into As with reinforcement
28:00 — Enablement 2.0: From events to ongoing reinforcement & measurement
31:00 — Mediums & UX: Voice AI today; avatars/AR/VR when realism arrives
33:30 — Latency Leap: 15s → ~0.8s responses; what the next year could bring
36:00 — Closer: Are great sellers made or born? (Made.)
