Growth @Rifa AI | Making AI work like your most reliable teammate | Previously @ Topmate | 30u30 IQ

AI isn’t replacing people. It’s replacing processes that slow them down.

At Rifa AI, we’re building intelligent agents that automate back-office conversations across chat, voice, email, and support without breaking ops.

The goal isn’t to sound human.
The goal is to get work done, with AI that can reason, act, and complete entire workflows across tools.

Our best users don’t even realize they’re talking to a bot.
That’s the point.

Before this, I led growth at Topmate and picked up a few hard truths:
 → Shiny doesn’t scale
 → Funnels lie
 → Speed breaks things, but it also builds them

Rifa is a tougher game. The stakes are higher.
You’re shipping into systems where mistakes cost trust, not just clicks.

That’s why I care about:
 → AI that’s functional, not performative
 → Growth that’s compound, not chaotic
 → Shipping like it’s a reflex, not an event

If you’re building at the intersection of AI, ops, and velocity, let’s chat.

Shubham Khoker

I just saw Ankit's post about Topmate hitting profitability, and I couldn’t scroll past without smiling.

To the world, "profitability" is a financial metric. To me, having been in the trenches with Ankit and Dinesh, I know it’s a badge of pure grit.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: My time as Head of Growth at topmate.io was my real MBA.

It was the most intense classroom I’ve ever stepped into. Working with both of you gave me my earliest instincts for product, growth, and just... how to operate in absolute chaos without losing clarity.

A lot of the DNA I carry today as a founder comes straight from those months. The pace, the difficult decisions, and the relentless execution.

You don’t forget teams like that.

Seeing them hit profitability is a reminder of what consistent execution looks like when most people would have given up.

Huge congratulations to Ankit, Dinesh, and the entire team.

This win is well-earned. So proud to have been a small part of this journey.

Everyone’s busy calling themselves “AI-first.”
But your customers don’t care about it. 

When we first started pitching to healthcare clients, I thought leading with “AI-powered” would make their eyes light up. Instead, it usually made them lean back in their chairs, because for most healthcare stakeholders, AI-first sounds risky.

They’re not thinking about the model you used.
They’re thinking: what happens if it fails? Will it violate compliance? Leak data? Or give the wrong answer to a patient?

So now, I start those conversations differently.
About what we’ve done to make sure AI actually works when it’s supposed to.

Every voice agent we build passes through a simple checklist before going live:
→ Does it log every interaction for audit trails?
→ Does it know when to stop and escalate to a human?
→ Does it meet every compliance protocol, even if no one’s watching?

Once that foundation is clear, then the conversation about automation begins.

AI might get you in the door, but risk management keeps you in the room.
That’s what actually builds long-term trust.

I predict AI will vanish by 2030.
And I say that as someone who spends every single day building with it.

Not literally, but in how we talk about it. 
Five years ago, AI was a buzzword.
Today, it’s a feature.
Five years from now, it’ll just be invisible infrastructure.

No one will brag about “AI-first” anymore, just like no one says “internet-first” today. Because the best technology always disappears behind the experience.

When we deploy voice agents in hospitals, no patient ever says, “Wow, this AI bot is amazing.”

They just say,
“Finally… someone actually picked up.”
That’s the direction we’re headed. AI won’t live in headlines or product launches.

It’ll live inside workflows, quietly fixing things that humans don’t have the time or patience to.

So, here’s what I’m betting on:
𝟭/ 𝗔𝗜 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲.
We’ve hit peak hype, and the next winners won’t be the flashiest demos; they’ll be the ones that never break in production. 

𝟮/ 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗮𝘁.
In healthcare, reliability is the foundation. The companies that bake guardrails in from day one will outlast the ones chasing speed.

𝟯/ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿.
Typing, clicking, searching; all of it will fade into natural conversations. Your voice will become the universal remote for how you access systems.

And maybe that’s the irony:
AI will be everywhere, precisely because it will feel like it’s nowhere.
By 2030, the best AI won’t feel like AI at all, it’ll just feel human.

If that happens, what’s one part of your workflow you hope disappears first?

Building should feel hard.
But it shouldn’t feel blurry.

Most people assume burnout happens when you work too much.
In my experience, it’s when you don’t know what you’re working towards anymore.

The chaos creeps in quietly: 
→ Too many priorities
→ Too many opinions
→ Too many half-baked “let’s just test it” plans

Suddenly your calendar’s full, your brain’s fried, and you're still not moving.
And the worst part?
You start confusing activity with progress.

I’m not anti-hustle.
I’m anti-chaos.

The only thing that’s ever pulled me out of a spiral wasn’t rest—it was clarity.
Clarity of: 
→ What problem actually needs solving
→ What to drop (even if it’s shiny)
→ What not to chase this quarter

Because burnout isn’t just about energy.
It’s about direction.

And sometimes the most productive thing you can do is… stop and think.
That’s not a “growth hack.”
That’s survival.

Tag a founder who needs to hear this.

The first time I had to let someone go, I didn’t sleep that night.

I kept replaying the conversation in my head; the silence after I said their name, the way they nodded slowly, the awkward gratitude at the end.

Nothing prepares you for that moment.
When we hired our first person at Rifa AI, it felt like validation, like someone believed in what we were building.

But when it doesn’t work out, it hits differently.
You start asking yourself if you could’ve coached better, communicated sooner, or just seen it coming.

That’s when I learned something that never makes it into startup books:
Company culture isn’t defined by how you celebrate wins. It’s defined by how you handle endings.

Hiring is about hope.
Firing, when done right, is about honesty.
Both take a piece of you.

And both, in their own way, make you a better builder — and maybe, a better human.

When you’re a non-technical founder building a technical product, impostor syndrome moves in next door, rent-free.


There have been times when the team was deep in conversation about inference speeds and vector databases, and I’d be there, nodding, jotting notes, then Googling half the terms later, only to realize I still didn’t get all of it.

However, I’ve learned that it’s part of the job.
I’m lucky to have a co-founder who lives and breathes the tech side (that’s Sameer). My role has always been to connect what we’re building to what the customer actually feels.

So I stopped pretending to understand everything and started asking the simplest questions again.

Every time I asked a “dumb” question, the conversation got clearer for everyone in the room. We stopped over-explaining to each other and started building something users could actually use.

Over time, it has become my strength. I stopped trying to sound technical and focused on what I can understand and build with.

Yeah, impostor syndrome still drops by sometimes, but I’ve learned to make peace with it.

If you’re a non-technical founder quietly sitting through a technical meeting, feeling like an outsider, you’re not behind.

You’re just seeing the problem through a different lens.
And sometimes, that’s exactly what your team needs.

Everyone says “talk to your customers.”
I’m taking that advice one notch higher, and I’ll pay you for your time.
No clickbait. Stay with me till the end.

As we explore the healthcare vertical at Rifa AI, I’ve realised something important:
You can’t automate an industry you don’t understand.
You can’t sit behind dashboards and guess how frontline workflows operate.

So before we ship anything in healthcare, I want to learn from the people who actually hold the system together. The ones who deal with chaos, patient load, insurance calls, and operational bottlenecks every single day.

That’s why I want to speak with:
→ Front desk staff at hospitals/clinics
→ Patient coordinators
→ Medical receptionists
→ Nurses who work closely with ops/patient flow

I’m not looking for confidential data. I’m looking for operational reality. I want to know where the friction is, what the "unwritten rules" of your workflow are, and what tools drive you crazy.

And yes, I’m happy to compensate for your time.
It could be a paid virtual meeting or a conversation over a coffee.

If you work in US healthcare operations and are open to a 30-minute paid chat (or know someone who fits), drop me a DM, tag them below, or share this post.

If you’re planning to build a startup, here’s the part that no MBA or mentor ever tells you.

Last week, when Anisha Jain and the HIVE team at the University of Chicago asked me to speak to their students, I said yes instantly.

Because I remembered what it felt like to be in their shoes.
Hungry to build something, unsure where to start, and confused by all the startup terms around “AI,” “product-market fit,” “fundraising,” and “the right time.”

Back then, I thought progress would be about finding the perfect idea or learning the right framework. But, once you get past the excitement and the theory, you hit the part where nothing looks linear, certainty disappears, and you have to build even when your confidence doesn’t show up with you.

That’s the phase that actually teaches you what matters, and here’s what I learned during that phase:
1. Start with a problem that keeps bothering you.
You don’t need to know how to code on Day 1. What you really need is a problem you can’t ignore... something you’re willing to think about even when no one’s watching.

2. A co-founder is someone who believes in the same future you see.
Skills can be hired, but what you can’t hire is someone who shows up on hard days with the same energy as you do.

3. Investors look for clarity more than big pitches.
If you can explain what you're building, who it helps, and why now is the right moment, the conversation changes instantly.

4. Your early job will teach you more about building a company than any “startup guide.”
For me, most of my instincts came from Topmate, the messy days, the mistakes, the adrenaline, the long nights. That’s where I learned how startups actually work.

None of this shows up in the pitch decks or the headline interviews. But it’s exactly what determines whether you ship something real or just talk about it.

So, if you’re at that stage: excited, overwhelmed, curious, questioning everything, that’s exactly where most real journeys begin.

P.S. What’s one lesson your founder journey has taught you?

I thought I knew what leadership was.
Then I became a founder.

Turns out, leading one branch of the company and leading a company are two completely different things.

When I was working as a Growth Head, it was about ownership within a structure.
We had a clear direction, a set goal, and a team to rally.

Someone had already built the walls of the house; my job was to optimize the rooms, fix the wiring, and ensure growth. There was stability, even in chaos.

At Rifa, I quickly realized leadership from the ground up is a whole different game.

There is no existing structure. You are literally building the walls while simultaneously deciding what kind of house you even want to live in.

The shift is profound, and honestly, sometimes scary.
You stop being a functional head and become the emotional backbone of the entire operation. Every product pivot, every client bet, every tough hiring call has effects that you simply cannot delegate away.
 
They need someone who can admit, "Yes, this is fog," and still be the first one to take a step forward.

That's the real leadership muscle I had to build, and that’s the part most leadership books skip:

The silence that comes with being responsible for everything, and the humility it takes to show up every day, even when you don’t have all the answers.

If you've made the jump from employee to founder, what surprised you most about leadership?

People keep asking me, "When will your AI be smart enough to replace a nurse?"

I tell them that's the wrong question.

The right question is, "How can our AI be reliable enough to handle the 5 hours of administrative work that burns a nurse out every single day?"

The goal isn't to replace our heroes, it's to give them room to be human. Isn’t it?

You don’t need a dev team or a $50K budget to build a voice agent anymore.
Hard to believe, but that’s where we are now.

I’ve seen companies spend months wiring together APIs, vendors, and compliance checks just to make a phone line “talk.” By the time it goes live, the use case has already changed.

That’s the gap we’re closing with Rifa.
Building automation shouldn’t feel like building another product; it should feel like setting one up.

With our platform, you can design, test, and deploy a compliant AI voice agent in minutes. 
You don’t need to know coding. 
You can simply drag, drop, and go live on any phone number.

And it doesn’t stop when the call ends.

→ Your CRM updates automatically.
→ Follow-ups get scheduled.
→ Issues get flagged without anyone touching a dashboard.

Because real automation shouldn’t add another layer of complexity, it should remove it. That’s what we’re betting on at Rifa: making AI powerful and practical for the people who actually use it.

If building automation were this simple, what’s the first workflow you’d hand off?

We are building an AI Voice Agent to automate phone calls. But to get our first 10 customers, I had to make hundreds of phone calls myself.

That’s the irony of building in AI today. 
Everyone wants to automate everything, including product development and GTM.

But here’s the reality I’ve seen time and again, from leading growth to now building Rifa…
AI can automate workflows, but can’t automate trust.

And when you are selling into industries where a single mistake has consequences— healthcare, finance, compliance-heavy ops—that difference matters.

These buyers aren't looking for a "cool AI tool." 
They're worried because the risk surface has expanded:

_ "What if the response is wrong?"
– “Who is liable for the model’s error?”
– “How do I explain this to an auditor?”
– “What does this break in my existing workflow?”
– “What happens if the model behaves unpredictably?”

These aren’t objections you solve with a funnel, or a case study, or an automated sequence.
These are objections that need context, interpretation, and reassurance. 

And this is where old-school GTM suddenly becomes a superpower again because it helps buyers process risk at a human pace.

That’s why the AI companies that are winning right now have strong trust-building mechanisms:
• High-context conversations
• Non-scalable onboarding
• Long-form demos
• Domain fluency
• Founder-led selling in v1
• Field intelligence from real calls

Because GTM in AI is about risk translation before efficiency or growth. 

If your product is AI-first, your early GTM must be risk-first. 
And right now, risk is still interpreted by humans, not workflows.

See, AI will eventually sell AI.
We’ll get there.

But we're in the messy middle, where technology has leapfrogged, but buyer psychology hasn’t caught up.

The biggest mistake you’re making as a founder is trying to make your GTM move as fast as your tech. While in reality, it should match the pace of your buyer’s fear.

Don't let the hype trick you into hiding behind your screen.

P.S. Are you also seeing traditional channels outperform the automated ones right now?

Neel shah

TCS-Bank of America

* Utilized advanced querying, visualization and analytics tools to analyze and process complex data sets.
* Set up SQL database on cloud servers to store client data for query analysis.
* Applied statistical and algebraic techniques to interpret key points from gathered data.
* Extracted and assessed data from databases to drive improvement of product development and business strategies and processes.
* Modeled predictions with feature selection algorithms.

Senior Data Analyst-Strategy & Analytics

Board Infinity

☑️ Counselling aspirer and helping them.
☑️ Guiding data aspirants
☑️ Conducting mock interviews and make aspirants industry ready.

Mentor

topmate.io

Book a 1:1 session here -> https://topmate.io/neel_shah10

noon

Analyzed complex data and identified anomalies, trends and risks to provide useful insights to improve internal controls.
Developed, implemented, supported and maintained data analytics protocols, standards and documentation.
Monitored incoming data analytics requests, executed analytics and efficiently distributed results to support strategies.
Explained data results clearly and discussed how it can be utilized to support project objectives.
Prepared a variety of different reports to ensure smooth operations.

Data analyst -Strategy & Analytics

GlobalLogic

Applied data-driven models to achieve tangible impact on business and marketing operations.

Performed routine maintenance and calibration on testing equipment.

Analyzed data and data infrastructure to support business initiatives.

Developed body of knowledge around and identified potential revenue opportunities.

Worked on American football game for various kind of analysis.

Determined root cause of deviations and non-conforming results and implemented appropriate corrective and preventive actions throughout product development process.

Recorded and organized test data for report generation and analysis.

Associate Analyst

Confidential

Internship Trainee

For seminars/collaborations mail me at: neelshah7077@gmail.com

Mission "Conversion of data into decision"

With deep interest in machine learning and Data science aiming to provide my best skills to data driven application which have emerged as biggest need,so as to present this world and industry with technology which ensures development of smart application.

Career Coach

* Mentoring aspirants for learning data science, preparing for interviews and finding their dream job in data field .
* conducting mock interviews and 1:1 consultation.
* Support provider on how to crack the interviews for Analytics and Management Consulting firms.
* Provide materials for case studies to follow up and how to approach them correctly, how to prepare for aptitude test and technical test.
* Provide guidance for business analytics in various verticals like Retail, Health-care, Marketing and Sales.
* Successful guided many individuals in this role and working relentlessly to guide many more.
* Interact with me follow me for 1:1 consultation here.
 =>      http://www.expertrons.com/profile/neel-shah

Neel Shah

Smarter teamwork begins here  connect with ONLYOFFICE.

You have documents in one tool, chats in another, tasks scattered elsewhere — and before long, your team’s focus goes into switching between apps instead of actually creating.

It’s an all-in-one workspace that brings your team, partners, and clients together, in one secure ecosystem.

Here’s what sets it apart:

↣ Real-time collaboration : Everyone works on the same document, spreadsheet, or presentation simultaneously.

↣Complete document suite :Text docs, spreadsheets, slides, PDFs all with a clean, intuitive interface that feels familiar from day one.

↣Total control & security :Set access permissions, define roles, and even deploy on your own private cloud or on-premises.

↣Easy integrations : Integrate ONLYOFFICE with your favorite apps and platforms it fits seamlessly into your existing workflow.

↣Scales with your team : Whether you’re a small startup or a global enterprise, it seamlessly adapts to your structure and workflow without boundaries.

Together, Docs and Doc Space provide a secure, adaptable workspace that lets teams focus on ideas instead of administration.

Why it’s important :

With ONLYOFFICE, there’s no need to switch between different tools.

You can create, edit, share, organize, and collaborate  all from a single platform.

If your team’s ready to work smarter, faster, and more securely

👉 It’s time to try :https://www.onlyoffice.com

Strategy & Analytics -TCS| X-Noon | 96K+ Linkedin | Machine learning & AI Enthusiast

Farewell, game developers?

You can easily design complete interactive games through AI  using just a brief command.

Introducing Gambo AI, your very own intelligent game creator.

It designs complete games from the ground up  generating visuals, mechanics, and code in record time.

How does it works :

➤  Build full-fledged, engaging games that are simple to generate and share from a single command.

Demonstrate the process right in chat building game elements with visuals, motion, and sound all leading to a fully playable final game.

➤  Integrated advertising for revenue generation :Effortlessly include ads in your game and begin earning instantly your income grows as player engagement increases.

➤ Create & Manage :AI automatically creates every game asset from characters and maps to music, sounds, and effects neatly organized and instantly usable.

➤ Design thrilling, balanced game environments in minutes using the Map Editor.

Using the Map Editor, you can quickly assemble and customize your perfect game world with simple drag-and-drop controls.
Try it here:

https://gambo.ai

#gambo

Boost Your Online Business with High-Quality Videos

In today’s digital world, video quality = brand quality. A clear, well-produced video builds trust and drives engagement, while blurry, noisy clips can make even great products look unprofessional.

That’s where Aiarty Video Enhancer helps. Using advanced AI, it instantly upgrades your footage to professional, marketing-ready quality, no editing skills required.

What Aiarty Can Do for You

↣ Remove grains, blur & noise for clean, crisp visuals
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↣ Boost FPS for smoother playback or cinematic slow motion
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↣ Clean up audio noise for clear, professional sound

Aiarty helps creators and entrepreneurs polish their videos effortlessly, so you can focus on growing your business.

Better Videos, Stronger Online Presence

From product demos to social content, high-quality videos attract attention and inspire trust.

With Aiarty Video Enhancer, you can transform average clips into stunning visuals that elevate your brand and grow your online business.

👉 Try Aiarty Video Enhancer today and see how AI can take your content, and your business to the next level: https://lnkd.in/d49Q2SNd

Is your organization genuinely prepared for AI?

Are your teams enthusiastic about AI, or silently concerned about security, compliance, data leakage, and the risk of things going wrong?

That’s exactly where Airia - Enterprise AI Simplified steps in.

➤ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟭𝟬𝗫 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗲𝗿 : Everyone can build, test, and experiment  from business teams to engineering.

➤𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝟭00% 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 : One unified security layer that prevents data leaks, prompt injections, and misconfigurations before they cause issues.

➤𝗘𝗻𝗱-𝘁𝗼-𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 : At last, all departments operate in sync rather than separately.

➤𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲-𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹𝘀 : Robust encryption, granular access control, and certifications your compliance team will genuinely welcome.

Most AI initiatives fail not due to poor technology, but because security, governance, and experimentation operate in isolation.

𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝗔𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿?

👉 Security Teams who need real guardrails
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Try Now : https://www.airia.com/

#Airia #AgenticAI

How to land a developer role that pays twice as much

Without exhausting yourself in the process of finding it.

Most developers don’t struggle because of a lack of talent.

Here’s a 7-step strategy to apply more efficiently:


 ↣Be clear about what you want – define your experience level, tech stack, preferred company size, work style, and time zone.
↣Research your market  look up real pay ranges for your skills and region.
↣Build a reusable application foundation  create a strong master résumé and a compelling cover letter.
↣Automate and filter your job search use JobCopilot to cut out tedious, repetitive tasks.
↣Apply consistently, not desperately  targeting 20 well-matched opportunities is far better than applying to 200 at random.
↣Apply smarter, not harder  let your Copilot learn your preferences; it gets smarter with every job you apply to.

If you're tired of sending applications that go nowhere, build a process that works for you, not against you.

 Try JobCopilot here: 
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I used to joke that freelancing meant “freedom and endless panic.”

Late nights, tight deadlines, chasing clients, and constantly wondering if I was missing something. I loved creating, but hated feeling alone in the process.

Then I found Feedcoyote a platform where freelancers actually find each other, team up, and earn together.

👉 https://feedcoyote.com 

Since joining, I’ve been able to:
* Partner with other creatives on projects that once felt too big
* Share the workload and still hit deadlines without stress
* Learn new skills while collaborating
* Grow my income while building meaningful connections

Freelancing doesn’t have to feel like a solo grind.
Sometimes all it takes is the right network to change everything.

He mastered English. But bias still spoke louder.

In the Philippines, English is second nature.

Yet global professionals like Paulo still face one invisible barrier accent perception.

That’s why Krisp built Accent Conversion.
🔹Real-time Filipino-to-American accent clarity
🔹Tone and personality preserved
🔹Private, device-based technology

Now, Paulo speaks with confidence not hesitation.

Because the world should hear your message, not your accent.

🔗https://lnkd.in/dr_cDHsz

#KrispAI #FilipinoCX #GlobalConfidence #VoiceTech

taplio

The Battle

Shubham Khoker

Neel Shah

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The Battle

Shubham Khoker

Neel Shah

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Engagements

Likes

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