The Third Wave
An interview with Andre Yee, the founder/CEO of Tiga AI.
Andre Yee has spent nearly two decades building tools for go-to-market teams, from his early days at Eloqua to founding Triblio and now leading Tiga AI. He recently sat down with ASV venture partner Michael Kopelman to talk about the unraveling of the old outbound playbook, the rise of full-cycle sellers, and why the best sales teams are starting to operationalize custom buying signals that were once impossible to track. They also dig into the limits of AI automation in B2B sales, the qualities of exceptional salespeople, and the nuances of selling to sellers.
Michael Kopelman: To start, we'd love to hear about the original inspiration behind Tiga. What led you to this opportunity?
Andre Yee: I've been in revenue tech for a long time. I started out at Eloqua, which I think of as the grandfather of marketing automation. Later, I founded a company called Triblio in the account-based marketing space, which was acquired by IDG. I stayed on for a couple of years to help build out a business unit there.
Toward the end of my time at IDG, I started having conversations with go-to-market leaders in my network, people I’ve known for years. One thing I kept hearing over and over again was frustration with outbound prospecting. Everyone felt like the traditional playbook, with big SDR teams blasting out thousands of emails and cold calls, just wasn’t working anymore. That brute-force approach had its moment, but it had clearly lost its effectiveness. So the idea for Tiga really came out of this collective sense that we’re at an inflection point in how outbound should work.
MK: Tiga is far from being the first startup to apply AI to outbound sales. When you look at the landscape, what do you think others are missing?
AY: I wouldn’t necessarily say others are getting it wrong—everyone’s trying to figure out what the new playbook looks like. But a few things set our approach apart.
First, there are many ways to apply AI to sales. Some companies focus on coaching, analyzing sales calls, helping reps improve their pitch. That’s valuable, but we’re tackling what I think is the hardest and fastest-changing part of sales: outbound prospecting. It's volatile. It’s where we’ve seen the most change in the past five years, and where I think we’ll continue to see the most change in the next five.
Second, there’s a clear trend toward moving away from large SDR teams and toward full-cycle sellers. That doesn’t mean SDRs are going away entirely, but I think any sales leader looking five years ahead will tell you the mix is changing. We’re designing for that world.
Third, we don’t believe in fully automating outbound via AI that impersonates a human. B2B sales is still human-to-human. Engaging the prospect with a bot impersonating a human is disingenuous and undermines trust. We’re not trying to mimic humans. We’re trying to amplify them. That’s a core philosophical difference.
MK: There are people who argue that the outbound itself should go extinct, replaced by content-driven inbound, or self-serve SaaS models. What’s your take on that?
AY: I’ve heard that argument before. In fact, it’s been around a long time. Remember when HubSpot came out saying, “Outbound is dead”? That was their rallying cry in the early days. But guess what? They ended up building a big outbound motion themselves.
Most B2B companies, especially as they scale, just don’t generate enough inbound to live on that alone. Outbound has to be part of the mix. It may look different (more targeted, more personalized, more timing-sensitive) but it’s not going away.
I do think fully automated digital SDRs might have a place in high-velocity, transactional sales. But that’s a narrow slice of the market. And even there, we’re seeing a lot of that shift to product-led growth and self-serve flows. The idea that AI will replace humans across all of B2B sales just isn’t realistic.
MK: Do you think the broader go-to-market mix will shift more toward content and demand gen, especially as SDR teams shrink?
AY: Definitely. Content will always play a big role. It’s already become central over the past decade. But I’d clarify: it’s not that SDRs are becoming less effective per se, it’s that they’ll be used less often. The model that required massive SDR teams is becoming less sustainable.
What we need is not just automation of old tactics, but rather a fundamentally new prospecting approach. Content will be part of that. You’ll see more video, richer media, more embedded context even in outbound. Buyers today have grown up on YouTube and TikTok. They don’t want to read ten paragraphs of plain text. They want content that meets them where they are.
MK: So let’s dig into the solution. You emphasize “custom buying signals” as part of your modern prospecting model. Can you unpack that?
AY: Absolutely. Before we built anything, I interviewed over fifty go-to-market leaders. Almost everyone agreed that the old approach was broken, and they were looking for something better.
So I started asking: what do your best sellers do? Three things came up again and again. One, they sell based on what they know—they research their accounts. Two, they’re great at creating and sustaining relationships. And three, they act based on buyer behavior, reaching out at the right moment, when the timing is right.
That last one is key. Everyone’s familiar with generic signals, like funding announcements, promotions, and job changes. But what the best sellers do is look for custom signals. Signals that are specific to their industry, their buyer, their motion.
For example, one of our customers, Endear, sells CRM software to retailers. Their VP of Sales told me, “I need to know when our target retailers open new stores.” That’s their signal. But they couldn’t operationalize it. There were just too many accounts, too little time. We’re helping them do that automatically.
Another customer, Liberty Systems, sells RFID integrations for warehouses. They want to know when a company is about to open a new distribution center. Again, they used to dig through SEC filings manually. Now Tiga does that for them, and they’re getting 50%+ increases in qualified meetings from that signal alone.
MK: Do these insights shape your own approach to hiring sales people?
AY: Definitely. We're committed to full-cycle sellers. I think in three to five years, the most efficient sales orgs will have full-cycle reps powered by AI. The tech handles the research and signal detection, but the human still builds the relationship.
When I hire, I look for two kinds of people: AEs who actually enjoy prospecting, and high-performing SDRs who are ready to step up. A lot of AEs from the last decade never had to hunt. They had BDRs feeding them leads. That mindset shift is important. You need reps who are willing to go out and find their own opportunities, and who are excited about using tools like Tiga to make that easier.
MK: You’re selling to sales leaders. They know all the tricks. How does that shape your GTM approach?
AY: Honestly, good sales leaders love to be sold to, at least when it’s done well. They respect the craft. What they don’t have time for is generic, cookie-cutter outreach.
The same things we build for (research, timing, relevance) are exactly what resonate with our buyers. They want to feel seen and understood. If you can reach out and say, “Hey, I saw you just opened a new region” or “Congrats on the funding round. Here’s what we’ve done for others in your shoes,” they’ll take the meeting.
MK: Are there any companies in the sales tech space you look to for inspiration?
AY: Gong.io comes to mind. I don’t know anyone there personally, but I’ve used their product and followed their journey. They built something that clearly met a need, and they executed really well. They were into AI before it was trendy. Technically, they’re quite sophisticated, and that shows. There were others going after the same space, but Gong pulled ahead because their tech was strong, and they knew how to position it. That combination of real technical depth and strong go-to-market is something I definitely admire.
MK: What kind of companies are you targeting initially? Is there a pattern to where this works best?
AY: Good question. We’ve seen strong traction with companies that have clear, high-impact signals to act on, especially ones they can’t currently operationalize.
We talked about Endear and Liberty Systems. Another sector where this works well is staffing and recruiting. One of our customers, Vaco, had someone on their team waking up early three times a week just to scour the web for job postings and opportunities. We automated that process for them, freeing up hours a week and giving them faster time-to-lead.
Other common signals include executive hires and buyer job changes. These aren’t new, but most teams aren’t tracking them consistently. We make that easy, and it leads to real lift, often 50% or more in qualified meetings for those motions.
MK: Last question—where did the name Tiga come from?
AY: I'm originally from Malaysia. "Tiga" means "three" in Malay. There are three founders, so it fits in that sense.
But there’s a deeper meaning too. I see this as the third big wave in tech, at least in my lifetime. First was the PC era, when computers went from backroom machines to something people had at home. Second was the internet, which changed communication and commerce forever. And now, AI, especially generative AI, is the third wave. It’s the first time we’re seeing machines start to replicate core human functions, especially around communication. That’s a big deal.