Customer Success in the AI Era
About this event
Customer Success (CS) is often undervalued — but with the right focus and strategies, even a small startup can grow revenue and win new customers.
Following our recent sessions on AI-era go-to-market and funding, this gathering turns to a discipline most founders underinvest in until it's too late: what happens to a customer after they sign. An industry veteran masterclass, a live "how I actually do it" demo from a CS leader running AI agents on the ground, and two panels of CS executives tackling the questions every founder is quietly asking about AI and customer success.
This isn't a one-off event. It's an ecosystem.
THE FRAMEWORK
The 4Cs of the Founder Ecosystem
Enduring companies are built where four forces intersect: Capital, Competencies, Customers, and Cities.
East Bay Founders exists to bring these forces together — creating the conditions for companies to start, scale, and succeed. This event focuses on the third C: Customers.
THE AGENDA
4:30 – 5:00 PM — Registration & Networking Doors open. Meet founders, operators, and CS leaders from across the East Bay startup ecosystem.
5:00 – 5:10 PM — Welcome from East Bay Founders: Opening remarks and framing for the evening.
5:10 – 5:30 PM — Masterclass: Customer Lifecycle Management in the AI Era Emilia D'Anzica — Fractional MBA, PMP, Chief Revenue Officer & Instructor, Customer Lifecycle Management (Booth Executive Education) · CS Strategy
Most founders know their acquisition funnel cold — and have no idea what happens to a customer between signature and renewal. That's where deals quietly die, and that's where AI is changing the math fastest.
Drawing on the curriculum she teaches at Booth, Emilia walks through the four stages every customer moves through — acquisition, onboarding, growth, loyalty — and where AI is producing real, measured shifts today: predictive health scoring, faster time-to-value, support deflection, smarter win-back. No hype, no enterprise-only tooling — just what's usable at Series A.
You'll walk away with:
The four-stage CLM framework, and where early-stage companies leak customers without knowing it
Four AI-driven shifts in post-sale operations that are real today, not roadmap promises
A one-week exercise to map your customer journey and find your first fix
5:30 – 5:50 PM — Live Build: From a 20-Person CS Team to a Team of One (Plus AI Agents) Melissa McMillan — Customer Success Leader · AI-Native CS Operations
Most hypergrowth startups solve "too many customers, not enough CS" by hiring. As a non-technical CS leader inside a rocketship startup exploding with new customers, she built her org around AI agents instead of headcount.
In her previous roles she had 10–20 people working for her. She will show how she runs a fleet of AI agents with no headcount while managing her KPIs.
This is a show-and-tell, not a slide deck. Melissa will walk through how she has configured and runs her agents day-to-day — the tools, the workflows, the judgment calls on what to automate and what not to — live, in real time.
5:50 – 6:50 PM — Panel One: The New Age of CS — How AI Is Transforming Customer Success
Panelists:
Moderated by Vishnu Raju Datla — Founder & CEO, SimpleTest.ai
A conversation with CS executives on where AI is genuinely moving the needle in customer success today, and where founders are wasting time chasing hype.
Discussion topics:
How AI has transformed CS teams
Are QBRs dead? How are they evolving
The human touch in CS: preserving empathy in the AI era
How CS metrics like NPS and retention are changing
6:50 – 7:00 PM — User Groups Update The six East Bay Founders User Groups — how they run and how to join.
7:00 – 7:30 PM — Panel Two: Scaling CS As You Grow
Panelists:
Moderated by Sugata Sanyal — Founder & CEO, ZINFI
7:30 – 7:35 PM — Closing Remarks Wrap-up, what's next, and how to plug in.
7:35 – 8:30 PM — Dinner & Networking Light dinner and refreshments provided.
THE ROOM
Who Should Attend
Founders building CS motions at any stage — pre-revenue through Series B+
Customer Success, Support, and Ops leaders
Sales and RevOps leaders thinking about the post-sale handoff
Product leaders building for retention and expansion
Ecosystem builders and operators
THE COMMUNITY
About East Bay Founders
East Bay Founders is a community connecting capital, competencies, customers, and cities to help entrepreneurs learn faster, build smarter, and scale companies that last.
Where Founders Grow. www.eastbayfounders.net