The Hard Tech Hustle: Building and Selling Industrial AI

Author: Walter Thompson
Published: Tue 01 Apr 2025
Episode Link: https://fundbuildscale.podbean.com/e/the-hard-tech-hustle-building-and-selling-industrial-ai/

Sahitya Senapathy, founder and CEO of Endeavor AI, joins Fund/Build/Scale to talk about launching a solo-founded startup at the intersection of AI and heavy industry.

From building FEMA apps at age 11 to raising $7M before finishing college, Sahitya shares the hard lessons behind the headline.

We dig into:

– Selling AI solutions to manufacturers with no network and no co-founder

– What enterprise customers actually care about in early-stage tech

– Navigating credibility as a first-time founder in hard tech

– Building while still learning — on the floor, in the pitch, as a leader

This is a candid look at what it means to hustle in deep tech without shortcuts or safety nets.

RUNTIME 46:18
EPISODE BREAKDOWN

(2:25) How Sahitya’s parents gave him early exposure to manufacturing logistics and culture

(5:42) How working on resilience tech during natural disasters sparked his focus on real-world impact

(8:16) Lessons from Palantir and how the forward-deployed model shaped his customer-first mindset

(9:46) His two-month immersion on the shop floor of a steel factory

(12:05) Why forward deployment contradicts traditional product development models

(15:44) Building a network in legacy industries through conferences, mentorship, and cold outreach

(18:03) How strong references and early pilots drove initial traction

(21:34) “ Starting a company is an extremely hard leap for many people to make. And it just so happened that I almost accumulated all these skills over my life.”

(22:48) Hiring philosophy: high-agency, under-the-radar talent and long-term team-building

(24:39) How he de-risks himself for both investors and potential hires

(28:55) Learning to hire and manage people with more experience than you

(30:20) Why a rejected engineering candidate became Endeavor’s first full-time sales hire

(32:06) The toughest sales objection he’s had to overcome

(34:02) “ You cannot do the forward deploy model without personas.”

(36:11) “ I believe truly at the core that I have unlimited potential, and to that end, there's no point in ever believing that I could be limited by something.”

(38:23) “ The biggest risk you can take is not taking a risk, especially in this day and age.”

(40:43) How to validate your idea before leaving your job or taking a major leap

(44:42) One question he’d ask a CEO before joining an early-stage AI startup

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