Sam Blond launches Monaco from stealth: AI-native sales platform that sued the government of Monaco for its domain

then the next

optimism. There we go.

Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.

Have a great rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon.

And uh without further ado, we have Sam Blonde coming in to the TVP Ultra Dome. Sam, good to see you. How you doing?

I'm awesome. Thank you for having me, guys. Here, let's start off with a little bit of fun. And I think the squad is ready for a big show and we're going to dong it right back at you.

Let's go.

Wow, look at that team. Here we go.

Amazing. Amazing. Hey team.

Wow. So coming out of stealth today, it seems like you hired half of half half of San Francisco already. How big is the team? How long have you actually been working on this? cuz we worked together what 2 years ago and then uh you called me and you were ready to launch.

That's right. Uh so we we really started working on this September of 24. Okay.

Uh Kugan, awesome to see you again. Jordy, great to great to see you. Hopefully the first of many. Uh and started September of 24. Squad's about uh going on 40. Wow. So

yeah, going on 40. Um a lot of EPD and we're starting to build out go to market too. So having a lot of fun. re uh introduce the full the full product the company since no one's heard about it yet but

people have heard of Monaco they've heard of Monaco

but now they've heard of the real Monaco

real Monaco

uh uh there's a maybe fun story with Monaco we've already been in a a bit of a lawsuit so we can uh if entertaining for the viewers absolutely okay so uh more importantly uh we're an AI sales uh platform uh and I I think like you know two-minute version or one minute version is on the tool tools side or a replacement for legacy CRM. Most commonly, this is going to be like your HubSpot, your AIO, your Salesforce. We also replace all of the point solutions that integrate to those uh tools. So, this is going to be data provider like an Apollo or a Zoom info. We provide all of your signals like a Clay. We do your call recording like a Otter or Fireflies. We do all your sequences like a number of different companies that do outbound in a deeply integrated platform. And for us, that's really a means to an end, which is we're replacing full sales workflows with agents. Yeah.

And so we have agents who identify the right company to target, the right person to target, the right message to send. We leverage s signals to incorporate into that message. When you get a response, we schedule a meeting. We record that meeting. We update your pipeline. And we're really architected in a way that is um not to be reactive to user input. If you've ever worked in a a sales tool, you sort of get a a database that's largely empty that you need to tell it what to do. Day one, when you log into Monaco, everything is already done for you. You're just sort of a beneficiary and recipient of things like meetings, feedback on things you can be doing better and more.

Yeah. Is is is launching with a platform like this only possible because of AI and and the advancements in coding agents and coding tools? Because it seems like you're b you're sort of rebundling. Yeah,

you listed off maybe like 10 different point solutions that are now coming together.

Uh, and it's it's notable that that you guys didn't come out of stealth like maybe 6 months ago when you maybe had five of those things operational, but you you you clearly decided to launch with a with a full suite.

I I think a few things come to mind. One is uh we are able to build software faster because of uh the coding co-pilots that you just alluded to. Um and so I don't know that we would have been able to build a Monaco like PLA like platform in the amount of time that we've been able to pre AI. Um we're also building for a segment of the market were purposebuilt for earlier stage startups. So this is series A seedstage companies. The needs of these businesses are relatively unsophisticated compared to much larger companies. And so because we're purpose-built for a type of company that doesn't need super deep functionality unlike the database side, in fact when you have super deep functionality, it makes it more difficult to interact with. Uh and so you bundle all these tools together if you're a series A startup it actually works against you because the tools are so complicated to integrate, customize, work with. Uh and again, we're purpose-built for that company. And then um the last thing that comes to mind is wouldn't be possible to build Monaco without AI because we're AI native. So like everything that we do is sort of oriented in the decisions that we make are around how can we program the platform to have an agent doing this rather than a user and and so very different user experience than if you're used to logging into these sort of reactive databases. I listed a few of them. HubSpot Adio Salesforce. Um totally different user experience. Yeah. Talk about the domain. You got monaco.com. Talk about the lawsuit. Talk about how you picked Monaco to begin with. Uh I want the full story.

Okay. So, uh naming was hard. It took us uh a couple months and like tried a bunch of different names. And you can't just like pick a name that you like. We couldn't have just called ourselves like sales.com. uh because the like one we wanted the to be available and two you like can't name it if something already has that name. So I was trying to associate the brand with um like luxury premium was thinking through like what are some names that uh are typically associated with that and I came up with Monaco.

My older brother who is a co-founder when I told him I really like the name Monaco his response was that's the stupidest name ever. what are we going to just call it like New York? Uh and so uh he wasn't a fan but I think like o over time um started socializing it with some other people and started picking up some traction. There are a few things that we really like about it. Um it's a cool sounding word like Monaco is just like a nice word itself. Uh the place is associated with I don't know um wealth and success.

Yachts

yachts um a big one is Formula 1. A lot of really cool things that we can do there with the brand. Our our logo is actually like a checkered flag that's going up and to the right.

Uh and um let's see. So the domain dispute, we we ended up calling it Monaco. Really liked the the domain. Uh

was the domain just available or did you have to go to a broker and get pay?

A domain like that doesn't just sit for $12 on GoDaddy.

Go.

We we had monaco.co and that was a couple thousand dollars. Okay,

I think all is said and done, both the domain cost and the broker's fees, we spent like I don't know another$8 or $900,000 to add the M. So, we got monaco.co evolved to monaco.com. Uh, we did use a broker. Shout out to Lumis. Uh, if they're watching

I love Lumis. I've used I've worked with them on a bunch of domains.

Awesome. Shout out Lumis. Cool.

Um, how what what the dispute?

Yeah. Yeah, the dispute. What actually happened? So, um, shortly after we acquired the domain, I think it had sort of been parked for a little while, uh, and we get this like hate mail from the escrow company that was holding the domain

that the government of Monaco had filed what's called a UDRP dispute against us. We had never heard that this was a thing. I didn't know there was like a regulatory body for domains. Anyway, they made like, you know, all sorts of uh what turned out to be unsubstantiated like trademark claims. We we I tried to get legal representation. This was like a couple monthsl long process that required all sorts of evidence and more and we ended up uh winning the case. So uh all the ends well we are Monaco. It's official monaco.com

just coming went to war with a country before you even launched. Not not many

wartime CEO. There we go.

Uh what uh what are you learn we we've been covering the SAS apocalypse. You guys have the benefit of kind of understanding the world in its current form and building from the ground up. Uh but but a lot of questions around seatbased pricing. Do companies need to evolve to more valuebased pricing? What are you learning about kind of the broader concerns around uh enterprise software? And how are you kind of applying it?

Well, I can tell you what we're doing right now. Um we're we're um in public beta. So, uh, yesterday we were in private beta. Today we're in public beta. We'll eventually get to general availability. Right now, we're pricing around simplicity. So, we charge a platform fee that includes all of the compute that you need. Relative to these other companies that I've referenced, we have very high compute costs because of all of the agents that are doing the work. We also have really high servicing costs. We pair what we call forward deployed AES with every customer that signs up. Um, so we charge a platform fee. those things are included. Uh right now we're charging annual platform fee of $25,000. That's discounted to what it will be as we go into GA. Uh and we will I I suspect when somebody who is at the company that is much smarter than me on the finance side, I think we will be in the sort of like you pay a minimum minimum amount for the initial compute and then it's pay as you go. It just makes far more sense with the value that we're adding to do this usage based sort of compute predicated pricing. But right now we're solving for simplicity and eliminating friction from onboarding customers and this has been a price point that has been met with very little resistance. How do you think sales is evolving

if you compare you know code uh any any software engineer says oh I don't write any code I just review code now what what's the equivalent experience uh in sales how where do you think it goes

yeah it's it's a thoughtful question um you know look my answer may change 6 to 12 months ago from now so let me give you the like today answer um

I it doesn't seem that uh the sort of customerf facing relationship building aspect of sales is going anywhere. In fact, that that seems today to be the highest ROI activity that sales people in in some of our customers cases, founders are doing trying to replace the founder for many of the startups that are selling our product with, you know, some sort of like agent that is pretending to be a salesperson or or whatever it might be. People want to talk to someone in sales oftentimes. And so what we're doing is we're actually optimizing around that. It's the sort of non-c customerf facing activities that we believe agents are far better at. So I'll give some examples building and scoring your addressable market. So what we're effectively doing is we are telling you um without being customerf facing who are the best companies for you to target and why. Here's your prioritized list. We've added buyers to that prioritized list. We've added sequences based off of signals to that prioritize list. We are going to automate those sequences with no human involvement. And you as the beneficiary, whether you're a sales rep or a founder, you will spend your time customerf facing the way that I'm speaking with you guys right now. And we're going to optimize everything in the platform around that experience, including the postf follow-up. So you get off the call, we have the call transcript, we've written an email for you to follow up with that person. and it's very opinionated and trained on the way that we think about sales and go to market. You can review that email and click send. It's time for the next call. And so that's the sort of optimization that we believe AI is uh influencing the function of sales right now around. It's getting more qualified demos, helping you close more of those customers and actually emphasizing the relationship building that happens uh that is sort of customerf facing. What's the best way to get a job as a salesperson in 2026? Advice for young people, maybe mid-career people, somebody who wants to sort of be on I mean, you you worked in sales, had a great career. What does it take to be the next Sam Blonde?

Oh, well, that's um that my my answer might come off as too arrogant. Why don't I just come why don't I come up with like uh what what what would I do if I wanted a uh job in Monaco? I I think um uh I I think there are um a couple things that stand out right now. We we've come out of this like and I think we're long out of the the sort of like COVID time period. We are five days a week at least in San Francisco. Uh and so anybody that is sort of looking for this like I I I expect to be able to you know potentially work from home one or two days that that like sort of co hangover that's a a thing of the past. So I I think um from a a quality standpoint, people that are just looking to win um understand that it it's like hard work to to work and win at a company like Monaco. Um I do think that like track record of performance is an important thing. And so if you are uh you know a little bit later in your career or have several years of experience leveraging the relationships and the network that you've developed through that process, I think for us it's going to be hard to hire someone that sort of comes to the website and fills out a like I want to be a senior AE at this company uh like job application w without a close connection in

send you a bottle of champagne, right? That's the secret. Look, um I won't say I can't be bought a case of champagne. Yeah, if you're looking for a job, send a case of champagne. You'll get the interview, maybe. Who knows? You got to have the resume, too, and the skills to back it up. Jordan, anything else?

No, this is great. The whole team on all the progress. Uh I'm Yeah, I'm excited to uh watch more companies pick this up and

and uh start to grow their revenue faster hopefully. So,

this is awesome. Thanks so much. Come back on soon. We'll talk to you soon.

Congrats on bump to success. We'll talk soon. Take care. Have a good one.

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