Andrew D'Souza is the founder and CEO of Boardy AI, an AI "super connector" that helps founders, investors, and operators make high-value introductions through voice conversations. Previously, Andrew co-founded and scaled Clearco (formerly ClearBank) from a YC Fellowship company to over $100M in revenue and 600 employees across 11 countries before stepping down as CEO to pursue AI innovation.What you'll learn:How Andrew pivoted Clearco through three different markets before finding product-market fit with e-commerce financingWhy customers who "want to be found" create fundamentally easier go-to-market strategiesThe psychology behind why financial incentives destroy natural networking behaviors and trustHow the best companies now generate inbound investor demand instead of running traditional fundraising processesWhy Andrew learned to trust founder intuition even when he couldn't articulate it to stakeholdersThe technical and business model evolution from merchant cash advances to AI-powered networkingHow Boardy uses voice AI to create more human-like relationship building at scaleStrategic insights on building in regulated industries like financial servicesThe transition from scaling a fintech business to creating AI characters with their own objectivesWhy VCs don't actually remember your previous pitches and how to leverage that realityIn this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction and Andrew's journey from Waterloo to YC(02:32) Clearco's evolution from Uber driver financing to e-commerce(04:27) The pivotal board meeting and Series A pivot decision(05:25) Finding product-market fit with customers who "want to be found"(09:35) Scaling Clearco to $100M+ revenue and 600 employees(11:08) The COVID boom and building Clear Angel with GPT-3(13:31) Andrew's decision to step down as CEO(15:58) Introduction to Boardy AI and the AI super connector concept(18:43) Live demonstration of Boardy's voice capabilities(26:33) Business model and the "economy of Boardy" vision(29:09) Why financial incentives destroy network effects(33:36) Fundraising evolution from process-driven to inbound demand(37:13) The reality of investor relationships and memory(43:00) Rapid fire: biggest mistakes, inspiration, and founder psychology(47:29) The creative expression of building AI characters

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