The AI Agents Helping Home Services Book More Jobs

Avoca (YC W23) is building what it calls the AI workforce for the physical economy, starting with home services. In just a few years, the company has grown to eight figures in revenue and recently raised over $125 million at a $1 billion valuation. In this fireside, Avoca co-founders Apurva Shrivastava and Tyson Chen sit down with YC's Garry Tan to talk about how they found product-market fit by helping businesses turn missed calls into revenue. They explain why AI is expanding what software can do, pushing past the 1% of wallet that traditional software captures, and why they see it as one of the biggest opportunities for founders. https://www.avoca.ai Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs 00:00 - The AI Workforce for the Physical Economy 01:28 - Finding the Right Market 03:25 - Why AI Is Bigger Than SaaS 06:59 - The AI Job Story Nobody Talks About 11:53 - How the Founders Met 16:59 - The Pivot 21:47 - Customer Love Beats Market Size 25:31 - Building an AI Workforce 29:35 - Why Customer Obsession Wins 34:12 - Growing to Eight Figures 37:22 - The Vision Beyond Home Services 38:54 - Building a Generational Company

Garry TanhostTyson ChenguestApurva Shrivastavaguest

Jun 29, 202639mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: June 29, 2026
Duration: 39m
Channel: YC Root Access
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Avoca (YC W23) is building what it calls the AI workforce for the physical economy, starting with home services. In just a few years, the company has grown to eight figures in revenue and recently raised over $125 million at a $1 billion valuation. In this fireside, Avoca co-founders Apurva Shrivastava and Tyson Chen sit down with YC's Garry Tan to talk about how they found product-market fit by helping businesses turn missed calls into revenue. They explain why AI is expanding what software can do, pushing past the 1% of wallet that traditional software captures, and why they see it as one of the biggest opportunities for founders. https://www.avoca.ai Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs 00:00 - The AI Workforce for the Physical Economy 01:28 - Finding the Right Market 03:25 - Why AI Is Bigger Than SaaS 06:59 - The AI Job Story Nobody Talks About 11:53 - How the Founders Met 16:59 - The Pivot 21:47 - Customer Love Beats Market Size 25:31 - Building an AI Workforce 29:35 - Why Customer Obsession Wins 34:12 - Growing to Eight Figures 37:22 - The Vision Beyond Home Services 38:54 - Building a Generational Company

SPEAKERS

Garry Tan
host
CEO of Y Combinator and the episode host/interviewer.
Tyson Chen
guest
Co-founder of Avoca, building AI agents that handle inbound calls for home services businesses.
Apurva Shrivastava
guest
Co-founder of Avoca, focused on AI agent software for home services customer support and booking.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of YC Root Access, featuring Garry Tan and Tyson Chen, The AI Agents Helping Home Services Book More Jobs explores avoca builds AI agents to capture missed home-services revenue calls Avoca started with an AI phone-answering agent for home services because missed or mishandled calls directly translate into lost high-value jobs.

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