Selling, Coding, and Training for Ironman
How T.B. Turned Missed WhatsApp Messages Into an AI Business
When you think “AI startup,” you don’t usually picture a father-son duo solving customer support in the UAE.
But that’s exactly what T.B. and his dad are doing with SlashPulse.
After years bouncing between crypto gigs, freelance contracts, and startup experiments across Europe and Latin America, T.B. landed in Dubai. What he found was a region where everything runs on WhatsApp. But no one was replying.
“We were trying to rent a flat at 6 a.m. Everyone was on WhatsApp. No one replied. Eight hours later, they said ‘sorry, it’s gone.’ That’s when I knew we could build something better.”
Building bots in the DMs
SlashPulse helps small businesses automate customer support inside WhatsApp, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
Think: Intercom, but native to the platform. No plugins. No code. No friction.
The result is simple.
Customers get replies faster
Agents don’t have to reveal their personal number
Business owners stop losing money while they sleep
About 40 percent of support is handled automatically. The rest is handed off to a human. Seamlessly.
“We’re all back-office for the customer, but they never see the chaos.”
A startup built with code and trust
The team? Just two co-founders. T.B. and his dad.
T.B. writes the code. His dad brings experience in economics and software. They’re bootstrapped. Lean. Scrappy. And they still do support themselves.
“I had no choice. He said: doctor or programmer. I chose programmer.” (It’s a joke)
They’ve grown into Meta partners and built a real product that businesses rely on. But they’re hiring carefully. Contractors for now. Full team later.
Sales are harder than code
T.B. doesn’t hide it. Selling to small businesses is brutal.
Everyone wants customization
No one wants to pay upfront
Margins are small
Cycles are long
He gets daily LinkedIn DMs from “sales pros” promising the world, but most ask for $10K upfront before showing results.
“I can test a developer. I can’t test a salesperson until they sell.”
So he’s doing it himself. Calls, demos, follow-ups. It’s messy. But it’s working.
Training for more than product-market fit
What keeps him grounded? Ironman training.
He’s preparing for a 70.3 in Nottingham. I might join him.
We talked about Zwift bikes, injuries, cold mornings, and that moment when you finally hit flow mid-run.
“When I stop training, I feel worse. It’s like a loop. More movement means more energy. Less movement means I crash.”
Same here.
The AI engine underneath
Their stack is custom-built. NestJS backend. React frontend. Tailwind for UI. AWS and Python infra. LangChain for orchestration.
Clients can plug in their own model (OpenAI or Gemini) and choose bot “personalities” like receptionist, hotel clerk, or virtual assistant.
They run context windows through checkpoints. Summarization happens on the fly. Memory is layered. Fast, light, and functional.
“It’s like binary search for chat history. The LLM only sees what it needs to.”
But T.B. isn’t naive about the AI race.
“Everyone’s building wrappers. What happens when models can handle 100,000 tokens? All those layers disappear.”
We both agreed. Owning the customer relationship is what lasts.
Redefining success
T.B. used to think success meant money.
“You think once the money hits, you’ll feel something. But you don’t. You just start chasing the next thing.”
Now his north star is helping people. And finding balance.
If he could talk to his younger self?
“Don’t sell your crypto.”
Then he laughs.
“Actually, I’d say take care of your health. The workaholic mode catches up with you.”
My takeaway
Most founder stories skip this part.
The loneliness. The manual outreach. The strain on your sleep and body. The late-night doubts. The silent pride of building something real, with someone you trust.
T.B.’s story isn’t about AI. It’s about craft. About grit. About learning how to work and live in sync with someone who raised you.
A startup is already hard
Building it with your dad? That takes something special
🏃 And maybe, just maybe, I’ll see him at the Ironman finish line in May