Scaling AI Automation from Startup to Acquisition

The Challenge

In 2023, Respell launched an AI automation platform designed to help businesses eliminate repetitive tasks through no-code AI workflows. The startup quickly gained traction with individual professionals and enterprise teams who needed to automate everything from email responses to complex data analysis without writing code.

Rapid growth brought new challenges. Respell needed a platform that could scale efficiently while supporting advanced features like social authentication, team collaboration, and flexible payment processing. As larger organizations showed interest, the pressure mounted to meet enterprise-grade security and reliability standards. All while maintaining the development velocity that early adopters expected.

With thousands of users creating hundreds of thousands of automations, Respell partnered with Apsis Labs to strengthen their platform’s foundation without compromising their aggressive product roadmap.

The Solution

1. Hardening the Platform for Enterprise Scale At Apsis, our first priority was reinforcing Respell’s development workflow to handle their rapid user growth. We implemented automated testing pipelines, established clear release processes, and added comprehensive monitoring tools. These improvements reduced system breakages and gave the team confidence to ship features quickly as their user base expanded from hundreds to thousands.

2. Streamlining Infrastructure and Developer Operations We completely reworked Respell’s deployment and build systems to be faster, more reliable, and more predictable. By simplifying operations and creating tighter feedback loops, we freed up engineering time previously spent on debugging and fire drills. The team could focus on building features that users needed rather than maintaining fragile infrastructure.

3. Building Enterprise-Ready Features To support Respell’s growing enterprise customer base, we developed critical platform features including social login integration, sophisticated team management capabilities, and flexible payment processing systems. These upgrades made the platform more attractive to teams evaluating it for mission-critical business automation.

4. Enabling Scalable Data Analysis As users created more complex automations, Respell needed robust analytics to understand platform usage and optimize performance. We built a scalable data infrastructure that could handle insights across hundreds of thousands of workflows while maintaining fast query performance. This analytics foundation became crucial for understanding user behavior and guiding product development decisions.

The Results

Respell evolved into a more reliable, scalable, and enterprise-ready platform without sacrificing innovation speed. The engineering team spent less time fighting infrastructure fires and more time delivering user value. New enterprise features unlocked access to larger customer segments, while improved platform resilience allowed smooth scaling alongside explosive user demand. This enhanced stability and enterprise capabilities helped position Respell as a leader in AI automation. By early 2025, Respell was serving over 10,000 users who had created more than 250,000 automations across sales, marketing, operations, and recruiting workflows.

In January 2025, Salesforce acquired the entire Respell team for their Agentforce division. The acquisition recognized the strength of Respell’s platform and technology, marking their transition from a promising startup to a core component of the world’s leading CRM company’s AI agent strategy.