How to qualify leads 24/7 on WhatsApp with AI

In this episode, our founders, David Grandes and Mariano Rey, tell the complete story of why we created Patagon AI. We dive deep into the number one pain point we discovered in LatAm: the broken process between marketing investment and sales execution , and why "serious AI" is the only way to solve lead qualification on WhatsApp.

What we cover in this conversation

• The "Aha!" moment: The client call that revealed marketing's biggest bottleneck ("Marketing is stuck").

• Why we pivoted from being an AI consultancy to a focused product.

• The hard lesson from our failed outbound experiment and our total pivot to 100% inbound.

• The complexity of "serious AI": Why it's not an "agent in a minute" (Observability, Security).

• Our strategic shift to outcome-based pricing (paying only for qualified leads).

• Why LatAm has a historic opportunity to lead in the AI application layer.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Introduction: Serious AI, not "agents in a minute"
• 00:36 Why every company must adopt AI in Marketing and Sales
• 01:06 Meet the Founders: David & Mariano's Backgrounds
• 04:19 The Bot That Sold Pens in Guarani (The Power of AI)
• 04:50 A LinkedIn Coffee: The Origin of Patagon AI
• 05:53 Patagon's First Life: AI Consulting
• 06:44 The Biggest Pain Point: Unattended WhatsApp Leads
• 07:52 The Call with Paz: "Marketing is Stuck"
• 09:38 The Nightmare of Idle Leads and Wasted Ad Spend
• 12:06 AI Monitoring Lead Quality 24/7
• 14:05 From Copilot Idea to a Full WhatsApp Agent
• 15:37 Our 7-Dimension Scoring and CRM Integration
• 17:08 Renato Joins: Real-time Qualification at Scale
• 19:51 Marketing & Sales, Finally Aligned with AI
• 24:35 Goodbye Forms: WhatsApp-First Doubles Conversion
• 26:15 AI Never Sleeps: 54% of Leads Arrive After Hours
• 29:59 91% Response Rate: Speed Beats Humans
• 32:59 Why We Abandoned "All-in-One" to Focus Only on Sales
• 34:49 Outbound Fails → Our Total Pivot to Inbound
• 37:33 Why Mass Outbound Will Die (And Inbound Will Win)
• 40:40 The Hard Truth: Building Real AI is Not Easy
• 43:28 Observability & Security: The Reliability of an Agent
• 47:36 The OpenAI API: A Level Playing Field for the World
• 49:30 Our "Mind-Blowing" Demo at Web Summit Brazil
• 54:30 The Viral LinkedIn Hack: Pat Handled 1000+ Messages
• 59:31 Why LatAm Can Win the AI Application Layer
• 1:05:11 The Urgency: Adopt AI Fast or Get Left Behind
• 1:14:08 Our Big Shift: Outcome-Based Pricing (Pay-Per-Qualified-Lead)
• 1:26:08 Our "Pack" Culture: Why We Stay Small and Remote
• 1:30:37 Curiosity and Tenacity: Our Core Cultural Pillars
• 1:37:42 Our Monday "War Room" and Radical Transparency
• 1:45:00 Message to My Past Self: Serve the Customer, Not the Investor
• 1:54:57 Our Mission: Become the Mandatory AI Stack for Marketers
• 2:02:49 Why the CEO Handles Onboarding: Obsession with Client Success
• 2:08:33 Final Thoughts and Wrap-up