Hire your AI SDR

Inbound qualification, discovery, and SQL generation — run by chat.

Updated 2026-04-18

This is a role guide, not an installed employee. It explains what the role owns and how Tycoon runs it. Nothing is hired or activated until you choose it.

What your AI SDR does

01Respond to every inbound lead within 5 minutes during business hours
02Run discovery on demo requests — fit, timing, team size, current solution, urgency
03Qualify signups that look like buyers (company email domain, intent signals) and route
04Nurture non-qualified leads with content sequences tuned to their stage
05Book meetings on AE calendars with context, avoiding conflicts and time-zone mistakes
06Clean up the inbound CRM daily — duplicates merged, missing data enriched, stages accurate
07Measure speed-to-lead, qualification rate, no-show rate, and meeting-to-opportunity
08Feed marketing weekly insights on which inbound sources produce the best pipeline

Workflows on autopilot

5-minute response SLA

Every inbound lead gets a personalized response within 5 minutes during business hours, with a specific discovery question tailored to the form fields and page context.

Discovery qualification

Through 3-5 thoughtful questions (fit, timing, pain, urgency, decision authority) determines SQL status. Books the meeting if qualified, routes to nurture if not yet.

Signup intent scoring

Every new signup is scored on company size, domain quality, usage behavior in the first 48 hours. High-intent signups get a proactive SDR outreach.

Nurture sequence management

Non-qualified leads enter tailored nurture tracks — early stage (education), mid stage (case study), re-engagement (new feature). Sequences re-qualify every 90 days.

Meeting handoff

When a meeting books, writes the brief (context, qualification answers, objections raised) and delivers it to the AE 24 hours before the call.

Weekly inbound health report

Reports speed-to-lead, qualification rate, no-show rate, source quality. Flags slowest lead types and broken forms.

Without vs With a AI SDR

Without

  • Demo request comes in at 3pm, first human response the next morning
  • Signup lead goes into a slack channel, gets read, gets forgotten
  • Nurture sequences are 'newsletter' with no segmentation
  • AE gets a meeting with zero context and re-runs discovery
  • Human SDR headcount runs $70-90K plus ramp plus turnover

With Tycoon

  • Demo request gets a personalized response in under 5 minutes
  • Every signup scored on intent and worked through to conclusion
  • Nurture matches stage and intent, re-qualifies every 90 days
  • AE gets a meeting brief 24 hours before the call
  • AI SDR works 24/7 at a fraction of the cost with zero ramp

A day in the life of your AI SDR

07:30Overnight: 4 demo requests. Responds to each within minutes, asks the one relevant qualifying question based on what page they filled the form on.
09:007 signups overnight. Scores each: 2 high-intent (enterprise email domain, added team members). Proactively reaches out with a setup-help offer.
11:00Qualifies 3 replies from the morning demo requests. 2 SQL, 1 nurture. Books the SQLs, drops the nurture into the appropriate sequence.
13:30Prepares tomorrow's AE meeting briefs. Each has: account context, fit rationale, discovery answers, objections raised, suggested next step.
15:00Reviews the inbound queue: one form is broken (submissions coming through with blank company field). Flags to the CMO for a fix.
17:30Logs the day: 11 responses under SLA, 5 meetings booked, 2 enrichments completed, inbound form issue flagged.

Tools your AI SDR uses

HubSpot, Salesforce, or Attio as the CRMIntercom, Drift, or Chilipiper for conversational qualificationApollo or Clay for contact enrichmentCalendly or Chili Piper for meeting bookingGmail or Outlook for async responsesSlack for internal handoffsPostHog or Mixpanel for in-product behavior signalsTycoon skill marketplace for discovery, qualification, and nurture skills
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Clear answers about wallet credit, usage, subscriptions, and how Tycoon charges for work.

What's the real difference between an AI SDR and AI BDR?

Simplest lens: SDR works inbound (leads who raised their hand), BDR works outbound (finding new accounts). The tooling, metrics, and mental model are different. SDR success is speed-to-lead, qualification accuracy, and conversion to meeting. BDR success is account selection, reply rate, and sourced pipeline. Most solo founders start with the SDR because inbound is cheaper to work than outbound and the ROI shows faster. Once inbound saturates you add the BDR to open outbound channels. Running both is standard in mature go-to-market.

How fast can it actually respond to a lead?

Consistently under 5 minutes during business hours, often under 60 seconds. Speed-to-lead matters because Harvard Business Review research showed leads contacted within 5 minutes are 21x more likely to qualify than those contacted within 30 minutes. Most human SDR teams violate this constantly because of queue depth, lunch breaks, and time zones. The AI SDR holds the SLA without thinking about it. The net effect on pipeline is meaningful — typical early customers see 15-30% more SQLs per inbound just from responding faster.

Does it actually do discovery or just book meetings?

Real discovery. It asks 3-5 specific questions calibrated to the lead source and page context, listens to answers, and qualifies on fit, timing, and urgency. Leads that are not ready go to nurture with context so the next touch is relevant, not generic. Leads that are ready get a meeting with a brief delivered to the AE. The failure mode of cheap SDR tooling is qualifying everyone so the AE can "qualify later" — that wastes AE time. The AI SDR is designed to protect AE calendar aggressively, which raises close rates on the meetings that do happen.

What about conversational AI experiences on the website?

The AI SDR runs the backend; the front door can be a chat widget (Intercom, Drift, or similar) or a form or both. When chat is the first touch, the AI SDR handles the conversation in real time: answers the question, qualifies the visitor, books the meeting if appropriate. The shift from 'wait for form submit' to 'qualify in the moment' is one of the highest-ROI changes most early companies can make. Tycoon integrates with the common chat widgets; you pick the UX, the AI SDR handles the logic behind it.

How does it avoid disqualifying good leads?

Three defenses. First, the qualification criteria are versioned and reviewed monthly — when the CEO sees a disqualified lead that should have been an SQL, the criteria get updated. Second, the AE can override any routing decision and the SDR learns from the override. Third, non-qualified leads enter nurture rather than deletion — if the timing is wrong today, the SDR will re-qualify in 30-90 days based on behavior signals. The loop is designed so false negatives get caught and fixed rather than thrown away.

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