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Cactus

All-In-One AI Growth Partner. Built for Trades.

HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical companies spend $3K–$25K every month making the phone ring - then lose 10–20% of those leads to slow response times, missed calls, and zero follow-up. The revenue was already there. It just walked out the back door. Cactus closes that gap on both sides. Inbound: Every call answered in under 60 seconds, 24/7 qualified and booked directly into Housecall Pro, Jobber, FieldEdge, or ServiceTitan. No voicemails. No missed jobs. Outbound: Warm leads, dormant customers, and unworked estimates get proactively contacted - driving repeat jobs, cross-sells, upsells, and referrals without adding headcount. The result: 20–30% more jobs from the ad budget you're already spending. What that looks like in practice: → Roofing company, NC | $299K collected in 10 weeks. $1.41M pipeline created. 199× ROI. $48K of that revenue came in after hours — while the office was closed. → Plumbing & HVAC company, UT | $180K confirmed revenue in 4 months. 90× ROI. 58% of captured leads came after hours — jobs that would have gone to voicemail now go straight into the CRM. → General contracting company | Grew from 11 jobs/month to 72 in a single month — 555% growth. $2.09M invoiced. $1.82M collected. Zero new hires. → Roofing & siding company | $228K pipeline in 75 days. 92% of calls converted to hot leads. $804K in net sales during the Cactus period. 49 spam calls filtered automatically — hours of staff time saved. → Commercial signage company | $398K pipeline generated in 10 weeks. 111× ROI on $3,597 invested. Grew from 0% to 30% share of total company pipeline in a single month. If we don't add revenue, we don't stay. That's the only way this works. The $150B home services industry is still running on voicemail and spreadsheets. We're building the system that changes that - one answered call at a time.
Active Founders
Ajith Govind
Ajith Govind
Co-Founder & CEO
2x YC Founder. Entrepreneur at heart with computer science background. Building Cactus to empower every home service business in the world to succeed. Previously built Turing Labs W20, Series A raising over $20M. I collaborated closely with most of the Top 20 CPGs, including P&G, Unilever, Nestle, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Mars, and many others, delivering over $65M in impact. Personal motto: Never give up!
Avinash Joshi
Avinash Joshi
Co-founder & CTO
I'm a Rails programmer, a builder and love coding. I fell in love with computers at a very young age. Over the years I've shipped products across various programming languages and frameworks, including HTML+CSS, PHP, Python, Django, React, Angular, and Rails. From right-click save as HTML to left-click vibecoding, I've built it all! I have a simple mantra - "It’s Possible."
Company Launches
Cactus - AI copilot for solopreneurs 🚀
See original launch post

❌ Admin is killing solopreneurs

Every solopreneur starts their business because they love their work. Solopreneurs like private chefs, caterers, photographers, and personal trainers receive hundreds of inquiries weekly. They’re busy working, miss out on great opportunities, and can’t scale their business.

💡 What we do

Cactus (https://oncactus.com) answers the phone, qualifies leads, and handles bookings so the business owner has a full schedule of work. It is the AI Business Assistant that manages the admin so the owner can focus on what they love!

Cactus has empowered 100+ chefs and is growing rapidly! Next, we’ll expand to photographers and personal trainers.

Check out our launch video

1️⃣ We provide every solopreneur with a website

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2️⃣ Our AI answers the phone and qualifies customers.

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3️⃣ And help solopreneurs manage bookings

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🎯 The Team

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Avinash (left) and Ajith (right) are batchmates from college. Avinash joined Ajith's previous YC startup, where they spent three years working side by side to build the product from scratch.

They became dads and started hiring personal chefs and started as a marketplace to onboard and match chefs with busy families. During the process, we realized private chefs struggle with operations and admin work. We started building AI tools for them and made some of them wildly successful.

🙏 Our ask

If you know any solopreneur or small business that could use Cactus, connect them to us at founders@oncactus.com or send them directly to my cell +1 (415) 747-2607.

Examples of businesses that can use Cactus include private chefs, caterers, photographers, personal trainers, business consultants, coaching agencies, or any entrepreneur managing a high volume of inquiries or calls.

We are entrepreneurs and our mission is to make every solopreneur successful. Cactus will empower the first billionaire solopreneur.

👉 Try us out at https://oncactus.com & Spiky will thank you!

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YC Photos
Hear from the founders

How did your company get started? (i.e., How did the founders meet? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to be a founder?)

Cactus was founded by two-time Y Combinator founders Ajith Govind and Avinash Joshi, who have spent their careers building technology to eliminate everyday operational bottlenecks. After working with hundreds of small business owners, they saw a common problem: time spent on administrative tasks was keeping great service providers from growing their businesses.

They created Cactus to change that. Designed as an AI copilot for home service businesses, Cactus expands a company’s capacity without increasing headcount — helping owners scale faster, serve more customers, and operate with the efficiency of a much larger team.

Founded by entrepreneurs, the mission is simple: to help home service businesses succeed and thrive, no matter their size. Cactus brings clarity, automation, and peace of mind to busy teams, removing daily bottlenecks so owners can focus on growth.

From first call to booked job, Cactus delivers consistent, reliable experiences so businesses can win more work and build stronger customer relationships.

Cactus
Founded:2024
Batch:Spring 2025
Team Size:2
Status:
Active
Location:San Francisco
Primary Partner:Tom Blomfield