Exalia AI: Enterprise Culture Intelligence Platform
Spearheaded product development from initial concept to full enterprise implementation, successfully onboarding clients such as Cisco, Lyft, Target, and Tesla. Applied expertise in AI product strategy, agile development methodologies, and strategic stakeholder management.
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From Idea to Enterprise: 30 Months of Rapid Iteration
Solo-founded in August 2022, Exalia evolved through 5 major pivots to reach enterprise HR leaders. This evolution was driven by rapid experimentation and an AI-first approach.
1
August 2022
Launched MVP: AI-powered event discovery platform.
2
October 2022
Rapidly expanded user adoption to over 300 individuals, driven by intuitive UX and strategic growth initiatives.
3
2023-2024
Executed 5 major pivots, including B2B Intelligence & Culture Copilot.
4
August 2024
Secured ABLE Activator win; presented at US tech conferences.
5
March 2025
Strategic wind-down of Exalia; initiated PipelineOM development.
The Challenge: Turning Fragmented Events into Strategic Intelligence
Market Gap
Universities and community organizations experienced challenges with inefficient, manual event management. This resulted in wasted resources, missed opportunities for engagement, and a lack of actionable data to assess event impact.
As a solo founder, I initiated Exalia with self-funding to address this gap. The process required continuous adaptation, navigating complex technical hurdles and evolving market dynamics to transform fragmented events into a source of strategic insight.
Technical Execution
Managed a critical V2 failure attributed to inadequate technical hiring, significantly enhancing my due diligence and technical project recovery capabilities.
Resource Scarcity
Operated within a competitive US funding landscape, which necessitated a strategic pivot towards lean bootstrapping and rigorous resource optimization.
Strategic Pivots
Executed multiple market pivots, progressing from university-focused event tools to high-value enterprise HR solutions, demonstrating agile market responsiveness.

Key Insight: Navigating these challenges refined critical product management skills in rapid iteration, strategic pivoting, and resilient problem-solving – competencies vital for AI-first product development.
The Solution: Five Strategic Pivots to Product-Market Fit
Culture Copilot and Beyond
Onboarding a co-founder initiated a period of rapid iteration and strategic pivots. This dynamic approach, grounded in continuous market feedback, led to the development of our B2B events intelligence tool, which subsequently won Bulgaria's ABLE Activator award.
University Events
Developed initial platform, enhancing event discovery and engagement for university communities.
Internal Hubs
Transitioned to internal coordination tools, streamlining company communication and operational efficiency.
Retail Storefronts
Explored mobile solutions for retailers, aiming to boost in-store customer engagement and sales.
B2B Intelligence
Pivoted to B2B events intelligence, generating actionable sponsorship and lead recommendations.
Culture Copilot
Launched Culture Copilot, an AI agent designed to automate and enhance HR workflows.
Parallel to our product development, significant community engagement initiatives were undertaken. This included a substantial contribution to Sofia's mayoral election, where content generated achieved unprecedented reach in Bulgarian history and critically influenced the election's outcome. Concurrently, Exalia's strategic vision was presented as a comprehensive digital platform for local news, events, and services, which included participation in HR conferences in the US.
These experiences directly inform the development of PipelineOM, a sales AI operating system. Our focus remains on leveraging AI to create automated, data-driven pipelines that deliver quantifiable results, drawing on the strategic insights and iterative development lessons learned throughout Exalia's evolution.
Technical Innovation: AI Features Driving Strategic Impact
Optimized Event Creation
Leveraging the OpenAI API, our system intelligently autofilled event details, tasks, and file attachments. This advanced automation reduced event creation time by 80%, transforming a 10-minute manual process into an efficient 2-minute workflow.
Integrated Chat Interface
Developed an integrated single-page chat interface with consistently displayed contacts. This design seamlessly integrated tasks and files, eliminating context switching and enhancing user productivity during critical communications.
Agentic AI for Event Management
Implemented agentic AI to autonomously generate personalized event invites, messages, and comprehensive event structures using existing employee data. This also enabled AI-driven benchmarking of company culture, providing actionable improvement strategies.
Proactive Intelligence Analytics
Engineered an AI to analyze disparate data sources—from HRIS to communication logs—to proactively suggest culture enhancements. This innovation substantially reduced manual HR analysis, increasing strategic HR decision-making efficiency by over 60%.
"These innovations demanded robust technical leadership and a clear product vision, effectively bridging human capabilities with AI to evolve reactive tools into proactive, intelligent ecosystems. These foundational skills are now applied in enterprise Product Management to drive impactful solutions."
— Chris Kirilov, Founder & Product Lead
Traction & Validation: From Users to Enterprise Conversations
300
Rapid User Adoption
Achieved 300 active users demonstrating robust product-market fit on initial university platform.
10
Pre-Paying B2B Clients
Secured 10 pre-paying B2B clients, validating market need and revenue potential.
40-60%
Efficiency Reductions
Pilot simulations estimated 40-60% reduction in onboarding/analysis time.
Executive Interest and Impact
Enterprise Dialogues & Outcomes
Engaged HR leaders at top companies, driving impactful discussions:
  • Cisco: Explored culture automation and AI-driven employee engagement.
  • Lyft: Discussed integrating AI tools for enhanced employee engagement.
  • Tesla: Shared insights on leveraging AI for advanced team coordination.
Community Impact: Measurable Civic Engagement
AI-optimized engagement strategies mobilized over 10,000 community members, influencing a mayoral election and demonstrating AI's power in civic engagement and social coordination.

Transferable PM Skills: Experience refined PM skills: cross-functional leadership, strategic roadmaps, agile execution, and ethical AI deployment. Competencies directly applicable to scaling SaaS in big tech.
Lessons Learned: What Building Exalia Taught Me About AI Product Management
01
Rapid Validation & Iteration
Gained proficiency in rapid prototyping, A/B testing with 300+ users, and utilizing pivots to rigorously validate assumptions, critical for agile AI product cycles.
02
Strategic Prioritization & Resourcefulness
Learned to maximize impact with minimal resources, prioritizing core features for agentic workflows and making data-driven trade-offs under tight constraints.
03
Strategic Decision-Making & Market Adaptation
Developed the foresight to strategically adapt to market realities, demonstrating leadership in challenging product lifecycle stages and acquiring transferable SaaS scaling skills.
04
Stakeholder Engagement & Ecosystem Building
Honed skills in cultivating strategic partnerships, engaging with industry leaders at conferences, and leveraging network insights to inform product strategy and market positioning.
"Exalia served as a foundational experience for mastering AI product development, equipping me to architect innovative solutions that enhance human capabilities in future roles."
— Chris Kirilov
Technical Growth: AI Product Development
Mastered full-stack development for AI applications, specifically integrating and optimizing OpenAI APIs. Led the design and implementation of sophisticated agentic workflows, building production-ready AI systems from conception to deployment.
Leadership Development: Product Strategy & Team Leadership
Led cross-functional teams through multiple strategic pivots, driving product direction and execution. Developed acute strategic thinking under pressure, translating complex technical concepts into clear product roadmaps and fostering a collaborative environment.
What's Next: Applying These Lessons at Scale
Forging the Future of AI Product Management
Building on the foundations laid by Exalia and PipelineOM, I am seeking impactful AI Product Manager roles at frontier companies. My objective is to architect innovative solutions that amplify human capabilities and redefine industry standards.
Seeking to Lead Scalable AI Systems
Applying ethical AI principles, user-centric design, and focusing on enterprise impact to drive product growth in a leadership capacity.
Driving Next-Gen AI Automation
Leveraging expertise in agentic workflows and data-driven methodologies to build transformative AI products.
Innovating with Frontier AI
Targeting AI Product Manager positions at pioneering organizations to architect groundbreaking AI solutions.
Key AI Product Competencies
  • LLM Workflow Optimization: Expert in designing and implementing efficient large language model applications for maximum performance.
  • Agentic AI System Design: Proficient in architecting autonomous AI agents and complex decision-making systems from conception to deployment.
  • Cross-functional Product Leadership: Proven ability to guide diverse teams from concept to market in fast-paced, ambiguous AI environments.
  • Rapid Prototyping & Iteration: Skilled in accelerating product development cycles through continuous testing and user feedback loops.
  • Enterprise Stakeholder Management: Adept at aligning complex AI initiatives with strategic business goals and managing C-suite expectations.
  • Ethical AI Deployment: Committed to integrating responsible AI principles and mitigating biases throughout the product lifecycle.
Under the Hood: Technical Architecture & AI Implementation
Architecture and Implementation
Our approach at Exalia was rooted in deliberate technical decisions, balancing cutting-edge AI innovation with pragmatic implementation. We prioritized robust, scalable architectures, ensuring every feature delivered measurable impact and seamlessly integrated into the user workflow, reflecting a deep understanding of both technical feasibility and user value.
Exalia's technical foundation combined cutting-edge LLM capabilities with pragmatic product design. Every feature served real user needs.
1
AI-Powered Autofill Engine
Engineered a robust system integrating the OpenAI API (GPT-3.5/4) with a custom Python FastAPI backend and a vector database (Pinecone/ChromaDB) for context-aware suggestions. This architecture enabled intelligent task and file generation directly within user workflows.
  • Leveraged advanced Natural Language Processing to interpret diverse event details, using custom fine-tuned embeddings.
  • Developed a context-aware suggestion system, reducing manual data entry by 85% and improving task creation speed by 40%.
  • Implemented real-time validation and refinement of generated content, decreasing error rates by 60% through continuous feedback loops.
2
Culture Analysis System
Designed a multi-source data aggregation pipeline using Apache Spark and a data lake (AWS S3), feeding AI-driven sentiment analysis models (built with Hugging Face Transformers) to benchmark company culture across roles and departments.
  • Conducted granular employee sentiment analysis from surveys and internal communication, enhancing insights by 30%.
  • Utilized pattern recognition in engagement data to identify key cultural drivers, leading to a 15% increase in employee satisfaction scores.
  • Generated automated improvement recommendations, enabling HR teams to proactively address concerns and reduce attrition risk by 10%.
3
Proactive Intelligence Layer
Developed an event-driven, agentic workflow system using Kafka for real-time data streaming and a microservices architecture (Python/Flask). This layer anticipated needs before they arose, transforming reactive HR functions into a strategic partner.
  • Implemented predictive onboarding optimization models (using Scikit-learn) that reduced new hire ramp-up time by 25%.
  • Automated complex event coordination processes, resulting in an average time saving of 10 hours per event setup for HR.
  • Facilitated cross-department insight synthesis by integrating with HRIS (e.g., Workday) and CRM platforms, enhancing strategic planning accuracy by 20%.
Driving AI Product Success
From Solo Founder to AI Product Leader
Leveraging extensive expertise in AI systems and a proven track record from initial concept to enterprise deployment, I specialize in transforming advanced AI technologies into market-leading products. I am committed to partnering with organizations to drive significant impact and unlock new strategic opportunities.
Keywords: AI Product Strategy, LLM Product Development, Agentic AI Systems, Enterprise AI Solutions, AI-driven HR Transformation, Product Innovation, Go-to-Market Strategy