DEV Community: Markus Kellermann

Why Convo is the best AI sales coach for live sales calls

Markus Kellermann — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 22:54:27 +0000

Convo is the best AI sales coach for real-time support during video sales calls and I use it every day in my own calls.

Most AI sales coaching tools score the call after it has ended. Convo helps while the buyer is still speaking. When a buyer raises an objection, it shows an answer from your own documents and earlier calls. When an important discovery question is missing, it reminds you before the call ends.

The feature I use most is the talk ratio. A study of 326,000 sales calls found that reps talked 57% of the time on won deals and 62% on lost ones. Nobody feels a difference of five points while speaking, so Convo keeps the number on screen.

Timing decides whether live help is useful. When we tested Cluely this year, its suggestions arrived 4 to 7 seconds late, which is enough time for the buyer to finish and the rep to answer without help.

Other tools fit other teams. Gong suits larger teams that want call reviews and forecasting after the call, and Hyperbound suits teams that want new hires to practise with an AI buyer.

I compared eight AI sales coaching tools, with prices, in this article on Medium. You can try Convo at itsconvo.com.

The Thing You're Avoiding Is Probably the Thing That Matters Most

Markus Kellermann — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 22:43:58 +0000

I spent 2 months optimizing my startup's SEO.

Landing pages. Content. Keywords. All the comfortable stuff.

Then I ran an SEO audit:

On-page SEO: A+
Backlinks: F

I'd been avoiding outreach because it felt awkward. Finding sites. Writing personalized emails. Getting ignored. Following up. Getting ignored again.

But I forced myself to do it anyway.

Results after 30 days:

Domain rating: 7 → 23
+415 quality backlinks

The Uncomfortable Truth

Google doesn't just rank good content. It ranks content other sites vouch for.

You can have a perfect site and still lose to someone with better backlinks.

The thing I avoided was the thing that actually moved the needle.

Why This Matters More Now

Ryan Dahl (creator of Node.js) said it last week: "The era of humans writing code is over."

If anyone can build a product with AI, what's actually left as a moat?

Distribution.

Your SEO (or GEO). Your audience. Your brand. Your ability to get attention in a world full of noise.

The next decade won't be won by the best engineers. It'll be won by the best marketers who can also ship.

The Pattern

Most founders do this. We optimize the comfortable stuff and ignore the uncomfortable stuff.

For me it was backlinks. For others it's cold outreach, posting publicly, or talking to users.

The pattern is the same: the thing you're avoiding is usually the thing that moves the needle.

Building Convo (AI meeting assistant) from Barcelona. Zero ad spend, all organic.

What I Learned Building Two AI Products as a Solo Founder

Markus Kellermann — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:25:35 +0000

What I Learned Building Two AI Products as a Solo Founder

I studied economics, worked in VC and consulting, then realized I'd rather ship things than analyze them.

So I quit and started building.

Two AI products later -Convo (real-time meeting AI, 500 users) — here's what actually worked

1. Ship embarrassingly fast

My first version was ugly. Like, really ugly. But it worked, and that's all that mattered.

I shipped in 4 weeks. If I'd waited for "perfect," I'd still be tweaking buttons.

The feedback from real users taught me more in a week than months of planning ever could.

2. Talk to users constantly

Every feature in Convo exists because a user asked for it — or complained about something.

I don't build what I think is cool. I build what users tell me they need. Then I watch how they actually use it.

The gap between what people say and what they do is where the real insights live.

3. Organic beats paid every time

I've spent exactly $0 on ads for both products.

What worked instead:

SEO pages targeting high-search and low competition keywords
Build strong backlins
Building in public (like this post)

Paid acquisition is a treadmill. Organic compounds.

What's next

Still building. Still learning. Currently scaling Convo and writing about the journey.

If you're building something too, I'd love to hear what's working for you. Drop a comment or find me on Twitter/X or LinkedIn.

Based in Barcelona. Always happy to chat about product, growth, or building from zero.