Andrew Sternthal

Twenty-five years building revenue. Now helping teams put AI to work.

I work with companies on revenue strategy, partnerships, go-to-market execution, and practical AI workflows, combining operator experience with hands-on product building.

Open to full-time and fractional roles
01 / About

Founding teams. Acquired exits. Repeat.

I started in 1995 on the founding team at CDNOW, one of the first companies to sell physical product on the open web. Since then I've been the first commercial hire or BD lead at a string of companies that got bought, including Backstory (acq. Jirafe), ShopRunner (acq. FedEx), and ActionX, where I led BD through its 2015 acquisition by Xaxis (WPP).

Today I run two related projects. Star Valley Labs is where I build and ship practical AI and SMS workflow products for overlooked operator problems. Star Valley Group is the advisory practice for founders and local operators who need first customers, partnerships, and a commercial motion, without learning it all from scratch.

Founding team
CDNOWIPO 1998, acq. Bertelsmann
VP, Business Development
ShopRunnerAcquired by FedEx
Co-Founder
BackstoryAcquired by Jirafe
SVP Sales & BD
ActionXAcquired by Xaxis (WPP)
Star Valley Labs
02 / Products

Star Valley Labs builds practical AI workflow products.

Shift Teams · Scheduling & Comms · Flagship
HeardUp
Your team already lives in texts.
Scheduling, communication, and time tracking for hourly teams, all over SMS. No app to install or ignore. Open shifts fill in minutes. Built for the Gen Z workforce that won't download a 48th app for their shift manager.
72
People on platform
1,146
Shifts
5,196
Texts
625
Clock-ins
240K+
Minutes tracked
Live tryheardup.com →
Home Services · Voice AI
AfterHoursAgent
A receptionist for the calls you can't answer.
AI voice agent that picks up after hours for home-service businesses. Takes a real message and texts a structured summary in under a minute. Escalates emergencies (flooding, no heat, active leaks) directly to your cell.
Live tryafterhoursagent.com →
Education · SMS Dispatch
SubFinder
Last-minute subs, in minutes. Over text.
Fills substitute teacher slots via SMS for daycares, preschools, and K-12 schools. One text blast to your sub pool, and the first reply fills the room. No apps, no voicemail roulette. Average fill time: four minutes.
Live subfinder.dev →
Food & Travel · Discovery
Vialicious
Follow the journey your favorite shows started.
Discover restaurants featured in acclaimed food and travel TV shows. Pick a show (Chef's Table, Parts Unknown, Somebody Feed Phil) and find every restaurant from every episode, mapped and ready to visit. AI-powered search included.
Live vialicious.com →
CPG · Relationship Management
Hot Soup
Stay visible among 1,000s of vendors.
CPG relationship management that keeps you top-of-mind with retail buyers, automatically. Voice AI calls, texts, and emails run in the background so you're never the brand that went cold. In CPG, cold means dead. The first sale is just the beginning.
Coming Soon hotsoup.ai →
Commerce · SMS
RevText
Buy and re-order in the same text thread.
SMS-first commerce for businesses with active customer relationships. Browse, ask, buy, and re-order over text. Built for operators whose customers won't open another app to do what a thumb can do faster.
Coming Soon In development
Star Valley Group
03 / Advisory

Star Valley Group works with operators on what's next.

Selective fractional and project work, in two shapes depending on where you sit. Both are scoped, time-boxed, and tied to a specific outcome rather than a retainer.

Traction Sprint Funded founders
A 90-day engagement to get pre-seed through Series B companies to commercial traction: first paying customers, anchor partnerships, and a sales motion your team can run without me. A senior deal-maker embedded in your company until real commercial things happen, not an outbound agency or a strategy deck.
Main Street Sprint Local operators
Two weeks, in person, installing the working systems that answer your phone, fill your schedule, and catch what's leaking, so you compete with bigger players without hiring like them. I come to your business across the Philadelphia metro and Delaware Valley, find the two or three places AI and automation actually help, and turn them on.
  • Anchor-client deal-making
  • BD & partnerships
  • First-revenue & sales motion
  • AI in revenue workflows
  • Sales hiring & ramp
  • Pipeline diagnostics
Selected clients and engagements
DreamIt Ventures (Vizy) · Without A Box · Music Choice · Phenom People · Eating Europe · Fairing
04 / Currently

Open to the right thing.

  • Full-time Senior GTM, BD, or revenue leadership at a company building something worth building.
  • Fractional Project or part-time engagements with founders and operators who need first customers, partnerships, and a commercial motion.
  • Open call Always happy to talk to people building interesting things, even if there's no role in it.
hello@starvalleylabs.com LinkedIn Resume (PDF)