Yasser Elsaid

Founder of Chatbase

Claims

As speaker

Mentioned in

Key positions and views

The 'harness' (RAG, prompting, agentic scaffolding) around an LLM is responsible for 95% of performance limitations in customer service AI, making it more important than the core model intelligence (claims 2, 8).

To build a 'generational company,' a bootstrapped business must eventually abandon the mindset of pure capital efficiency and adopt an aggressive, venture-backed-style growth strategy (claims 10, 11, 12).

The future of AI agents in business is to evolve from single-purpose tools like support into holistic 'brand ambassadors' that manage the entire customer lifecycle, including sales and onboarding (claim 26).

Employee Generated Content (EGC) has replaced traditional influencer marketing as a more effective and underrated growth strategy for modern companies (claims 3, 9).

Equity in a profitable, bootstrapped company is 'more real' and a more powerful recruiting tool than potentially worthless options in a high-valuation, venture-backed startup (claims 14, 38).

Timeline

Pre-Chatbase

Elsaid developed over 20 side projects, with three becoming revenue-generating, indicating a history of serial entrepreneurship (claim 6).

Late 2022 (approx.)

Chatbase was initially built using OpenAI's DaVinci 002 model, prior to the public launch of ChatGPT (claim 43).

Early 2023 (approx.)

Following its launch, Chatbase experienced explosive growth, reaching $1 million in ARR in just 117 days, heavily leveraging LinkedIn during the initial AI hype cycle (claims 16, 41).

Late 2023

The company achieved significant scale, having processed over 10 billion tokens through the OpenAI API alone (claims 18, 28).

Present

Elsaid is shifting Chatbase's strategy from its bootstrapped roots towards aggressive growth, planning to increase spending, move upmarket to enterprise clients, and operate more like a venture-backed company (claims 4, 12, 30).

Podcast consensus on Elsaid

Points of consensus

▶Yasser Elsaid consistently argues that for customer service AI, the surrounding infrastructure or "harness" (e.g., RAG, prompting) is far more critical to performance than the underlying intelligence of the foundation model, attributing 95% of limitations to this harness (claims 2, 8).May 2026

▶He reports significant and growing scale for his company, Chatbase, estimating it has processed over 50 billion tokens in total and reached $1 million in ARR within 117 days of launch (claims 1, 7, 16).May 2026

▶Elsaid observes a clear trend in the LLM market where usage of Anthropic's models is growing significantly on the Chatbase platform, though OpenAI still accounts for about 50% of usage (claims 24, 29, 37, 47).May 2026

▶He believes traditional influencer marketing is no longer effective and has been supplanted by Employee Generated Content (EGC), which he considers a highly underrated growth strategy (claims 3, 9).May 2026

Points of debate

▶Elsaid's company philosophy appears to be in transition. While he touts the advantages of being bootstrapped, such as forcing a strong self-serve motion and offering 'more real' equity (claims 14, 45), he also criticizes the traditional bootstrapped mindset for slowing growth and states Chatbase now functions like a venture-backed company with an aggressive spending strategy (claims 4, 11, 12).May 2026

▶There is a nuanced conflict in his competitive positioning against Zendesk. He makes the direct claim that Chatbase is 'actively replacing Zendesk' for some customers (claim 5), but also describes an enterprise go-to-market strategy that involves positioning Chatbase as an 'agentic layer on top of existing helpdesks like Zendesk' (claim 35).May 2026

▶His perspective on LinkedIn as a growth channel has evolved. He notes that during the initial AI wave, it was a highly effective channel that could generate thousands in MRR from a single post (claims 17, 32, 39, 41), but now believes it is much harder to gain traction on the platform.May 2026

▶There is a strategic tension between Chatbase's foundational product-led growth (PLG) model, which remains its largest channel (claims 23, 40, 45), and its new strategic focus on moving upmarket to capture mid-market and enterprise segments, which requires a different sales motion (claims 30, 35).

Key themes

▶The 'Harness' ThesisMay 2026

Elsaid's core technical belief is that the application layer—the 'harness' of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), prompting, and agentic scaffolding—is responsible for 95% of an AI's performance in customer service. He argues that with a well-engineered harness, current models can already achieve 80-90% resolution rates, making the choice of foundation model less critical than the implementation.

This thesis positions the primary value and defensibility in the AI stack at the application layer, suggesting that companies like Chatbase can build a durable business by mastering this harness, even as foundation models become commoditized.

▶Evolving from Bootstrapper to Aggressive GrowerMay 2026

Elsaid details a philosophical shift from a traditional, capital-efficient bootstrapped mindset to an aggressive growth strategy akin to a venture-backed company. While acknowledging the benefits of bootstrapping (like forcing a strong self-serve motion), he now believes that mindset can stifle growth and plans to increase spending on hiring and expansion significantly.

This evolution reflects a recognition that in the hyper-competitive AI landscape, speed and market capture may be more critical for long-term success than near-term profitability, even for a bootstrapped entity.

▶The AI 'Brand Ambassador' Vision

Elsaid's long-term vision for Chatbase extends far beyond its current customer support function. He aims to evolve the AI agent into a comprehensive 'brand ambassador' that manages the entire customer experience, including sales and onboarding, and proactively provides business owners with strategic insights gleaned from customer conversations.

This ambition signals a strategy to dramatically expand Chatbase's Total Addressable Market (TAM), moving it from a cost-saving utility to a revenue-generating and strategic intelligence platform integral to a client's core business operations.

▶Pragmatism in a Multi-Model WorldMay 2026

Elsaid provides a practical view of the LLM market, noting that while open-source models see initial spikes in interest, usage consistently reverts to proprietary models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. He also emphasizes that switching between model providers is non-trivial due to the need to re-optimize the 'harness,' creating a form of lock-in.

This indicates that for business applications, the performance and reliability of major proprietary models currently outweigh the appeal of open-source alternatives, and the costs of integration create stickiness for the application-layer platforms that manage them.

Source episodes

Suggested prompts

How does Yasser Elsaid's 'harness' thesis create a defensible moat for Chatbase against foundation model providers who may build competing applications? &nearr;What are the primary risks associated with Chatbase's strategic shift from a product-led, bootstrapped model to an aggressive, upmarket sales motion? &nearr;How does Elsaid's view on the tangible value of bootstrapped equity (Claim 14) influence his ability to compete for talent against heavily-funded startups in Toronto? &nearr;Given the stated vision for Chatbase to become a 'brand ambassador,' what new product capabilities and go-to-market strategies will be required to move beyond customer support? &nearr;

Key concepts

Growth & Marketing Strategy 1 ep AI Performance & The Harness Thesis 1 ep LLM Market Landscape 1 ep Bootstrapping Philosophy 1 ep Product Vision 1 ep Company Metrics 1 ep Competitive Landscape 1 ep Pricing Strategy 1 ep Future of Development 1 ep

Notable quotes

“What I think is very interesting in a use case like customer service is that I would say like 95 of the limitation is not from the model it from the harness”

Yasser Elsaid · ⚡️ Competing with ChatGPT and Sierra, building a $10M ARR company — Yasser Elsaid, Founder, Chatbase

“Chatbase's product vision is to evolve its AI agent from a customer support tool into a 'brand ambassador' that handles the entire customer experience, including sales and onboarding.”

Yasser Elsaid · ⚡️ Competing with ChatGPT and Sierra, building a $10M ARR company — Yasser Elsaid, Founder, Chatbase

“I think, yeah, we are replacing Zendesk.”

Yasser Elsaid · ⚡️ Competing with ChatGPT and Sierra, building a $10M ARR company — Yasser Elsaid, Founder, Chatbase

“[0:05:55 -> 0:06:02] 1 million aor in 117 days is also very under told”

Yasser Elsaid · ⚡️ Competing with ChatGPT and Sierra, building a $10M ARR company — Yasser Elsaid, Founder, Chatbase

Report last updated: May 5, 2026

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