# 127 - In This Episode

Steve and Sam are joined by One Chowdhury, founder of the AI-native CRM, Octolane. One shares his incredible journey from a Duke University student who didn’t know what a CRM was to a Y Combinator-backed founder aiming to take down Salesforce.

He discusses why legacy CRMs are “trapped with their own success” and struggle to adapt to AI, while Octolane is built from the ground up to eliminate manual data entry and give sales reps their time back. Learn how Octolane’s ‘Action Mode’ proactively suggests follow-ups and meeting prep, aiming to turn every user into a ‘superhuman seller’. This conversation covers the future of CRM, go-to-market strategy, and building a product that solves the core pains of sales professionals.
Published on: October 21, 2025 Posted in:
AI and Machine Learning
,
CRM

About the Hosts

Sam Biardo

Sam founded Technology Advisors in 1991 to help businesses improve sales, marketing and customer service performance. Representing some of the top CRM products in the world, Technology Advisors has since grown to include the full range of CRM services--business advisory, implementation, customization, training and support. Sam’s 35 years of experience in both the business and technical sides of Customer Relationship Management make him a proven expert in this field. Sam the co-author of “Getting Started with SugarCRM”. He is on the partner advisory board of a half-dozen CRM companies. 

Steve Chipman

Steve has been working with CRM technologies since 1999. He and the team at his previous company helped hundreds of companies across a wide range of industries find success with a number of CRM applications, including SalesLogix, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sage CRM, and Salesforce. In 2013, Steve shifted his focus, co-founding a vendor neutral consulting practice called CRM Switch. CRM Switch helps companies become more successful with sales, marketing, and customer service technologies, no matter which vendor they ultimately select. Steve is the primary author of the blog at CRMSwitch.com, which was rated a “Top 20 CRM Blog for 2015” by CRM Buyer.