🎤 Full Interview: Anubhav Pradhan, Co-Founder @ ShiftMate
"We fundamentally see growth as a unified problem—not just marketing. That’s why we’re building an AI co-pilot for every employee in a financial institution."
Founder Story & Vision
Who they are & what they’re building
Anubhav Pradhan is the co-founder of ShiftMate, an AI-first customer growth platform built specifically for community banks. After half a decade building software in the space, Anubhav saw how fragmented tools failed smaller institutions. These banks often lack deep tech capabilities but have strong relationships—and need unified platforms that support organic growth.
ShiftMate’s Big Bet
Community banks don’t need more tools—they need fewer, smarter ones.
Growth isn’t a marketing funnel—it’s operational, relational, and AI-powered.
Co-creation with customers → traction, trust, and even funding.
🧩 Real-World Use Cases
How ShiftMate works in the wild:
AI-Powered Employee Assistants: Helps employees proactively detect negative experiences—like repeated ATM fees—and suggest ways to reduce them.
Unifying Growth Levers: Covers three key growth paths: operational efficiency, uncovering unmet customer needs, and acquisition—all within a single platform.
Future Roadmap - Customer-Facing MVPs: ShiftMate plans to integrate with major players to eventually surface intelligence directly to customers in a “composable” way.
What you’ll learn:
How Anubhav navigated fragmented customer data in community banking
Framework for unifying marketing, data, and operations in one product
Real tactics for building with a small team (4 co-founders, AI-first stack)
Lessons on customer co-creation, advisory boards, and product-market fit
How ShiftMate turns rejected loans into relationship-building moments
Some Takeaways:
Tactic: Use LLMs to automate integration mapping and field matching
Mindset: Treat unmet customer needs—not product pitches—as growth opportunities
Milestone: Early customers also became investors through credit union partnerships
Workflow: Tools used include ChatGPT Pro, Gemini Ultra, Beautiful.AI, Gamma, Notebooks
Next Step: Founders should validate pain points by co-creating with users and advisors
In this episode, we cover:
00:00 – Welcome & What Shiftmate Does
01:05 – Why Community Banks Need a Unified Copilot
03:15 – The Founders’ Origin Story
05:00 – Growth Framework: Efficiency, Needs & Acquisition
06:45 – Deep Dive: Data Integrations & CDP
09:10 – Predictive Analytics in Action
12:30 – Agentic Workflows & Copilot UI
16:20 – Building an “AI-First” Culture
18:50 – Team Structure & Hiring Priorities
22:40 – Credit Union–Backed Funding Model
25:15 – Key Technical Challenges
28:05 – Customer Advisory Board Approach
32:10 – Market Positioning vs. Point Solutions
35:50 – Roadmap: Customer-Facing MVP
38:30 – Final Thoughts & How to Learn More
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Referenced in the Episode:
🔧 AI Tools & Platforms:
ChatGPT Pro – Used for ideation, code mapping, and integrations
Gemini Ultra – For slide prep, advanced prompting, and analytics
Beautiful.ai – Presentation building for investor & internal decks
Gamma.app – For structured document drafting
NotebookLM – For long-form thinking and context preservation
🧠 Concepts & Frameworks:
AI-First Product Strategy – Building native, not layered AI infrastructure
Growth as a Unified Problem – Combining marketing, data, service, and operations
Human-in-the-Loop Design – AI augments, not replaces, frontline bank staff
Co-Pilot Model – AI helps employees surface unmet needs, not just upsell
📊 Industry Challenges:
Data Fragmentation in Community Banking
Customer Data Platforms (CDP) in Fintech
AI Adoption in Credit Unions
🏢 Related Companies & Players:
ShiftMate – AI-powered growth platform for credit unions and community banks
CUSO Model (Credit Union Service Organization) – Used as both funding and GTM strategy
Zeta, Alkami, and Nymbus – Legacy banking tech stacks ShiftMate differentiates from
📚 Further Reading:
"Why Banks Need to Rethink Growth Post-AI" – Harvard Business Review
"AI is Eating the Stack" by a16z
"Community Banking in the Age of Automation"
Find Case Studies of all other episodes here.