Trevor James
GTM operator · AI builder · Chicago

Trevor James

I've sold AI and I've built it. Now I'm moving into product.

Ten years of selling taught me what makes a buyer say no. Then I started building AI tools myself.

I'm the AI builder for a venture firm. So far: a sourcing classifier, a weekly traction monitor, meeting tear sheets, and Q&A over the partners' own notes. Before that, ten years in go-to-market.

Ten years carrying a number: enterprise accounts at Zillow, then a sales org I rebuilt while ARR grew 76%. Now I build AI too, so I know which parts of the pitch the product can back up.

Sold itHelped launch an AI product to $45K MRR and closed its first ten customers myself.
Built itFour AI systems a venture firm's partners use every day. I'm the only builder.
See the work →Connect
Right nowNovember 2026

I want to be a PM on an AI product people rely on at work.

AI contractor
A confidential VC firm engagement
GTM Advisor
Lithex
AI evals
On contract through Huzzle. I write the tasks and rubrics that test AI models on real sales work.
Mentor and judge
KDPMA AI Product Innovation Challenge
MBA candidate
Kelley School of Business, Class of 2027
What I'm up to this month →
The workWhat I built, and what happened
Fund Intelligence
Four AI systems for a VC firm I can't name. The managing partners were using them daily within 90 days, and the engagement renewed at double the scope. Tear sheets pull from 4,400+ partner notes, and every quote gets checked against its source before a partner sees it.
AI product · In production
OPAL
A strategy analysis product I built and run by myself. Every financial figure traces to an SEC filing, and a report costs about $0.50 to generate.
Founder · Live
Fulcrum GT
A stealth product inside Fulcrum's startup lab last summer. I built the business case, helped build the frontend, and took the product to an investment committee.
Product + business case · Jun–Aug 2026
Listing Optimizer
A two-week scoping sprint for a short-term rental company. The spec covers weekly listing audits, with an analyst approving every change before it goes live.
AI product · Client sprint
My Legal Academy
Where the GTM side comes from. I helped launch an AI product to $45K MRR and rebuilt the sales operation while ARR grew 76%, from $680K to $1.2M, in the same 90 days.
GTM · AI product launch
All the work, including Zillow and the GTM years →

How I set a quality bar

Before I built the classifier, the firm's partners set the bar: it had to match their own tagging 80% of the time, at the most detailed level of their taxonomy. I don't get to move that number. Every new model runs on a small test batch first. And if the system can't trace a quote back to a source note, the quote gets blocked.

Read the Fund Intelligence case study →

If we talk, ask me to open the eval set or the code.

Or check my work without me: run a report on OPAL and follow the citations.

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