Spend enough at a luxury house and someone actually calls to ask how the bag is working out. Ilya Valmianski brought that up on the show as the piece of retail everyone else quietly gave up on, less because it stopped working than because people are expensive and most brands can't put a store associate on every order.
Signals makes that level of attention cheap enough to give every customer one.
Today it looks like an AI store associate that reaches customers over iMessage after they buy. It answers sizing questions, recommends exchanges when something doesn't fit, flags when a sold-out item is back, remembers preferences, and works out what someone might want next. It's aimed at the relationship rather than the single sale. Their A/B tests against a holdout put it at roughly $30 of incremental repeat revenue per conversation.
The problem underneath started with a number Ilya dropped early in the episode. Every year roughly $1.2 trillion of apparel and fashion sells online, and about $300 billion of it comes back. His argument is that most of those returns aren't buyer's remorse. People bought because they wanted the product. Then the sizing was off, nobody told them what to do about it, and the only obvious path on the screen said Return.
Signals tries to get there first. Rather than processing refunds more efficiently, it opens a conversation that can turn a would-be refund into an exchange, and increasingly into a customer who keeps coming back.
The bigger idea reaches well past ecommerce. Ilya calls it super-staffing: one customer support rep at a $20 million company spends the day putting out fires, but give that same company a thousand AI associates and the job stops resembling support. Everybody gets someone paying attention to them.
He pointed at healthcare, where he worked before this. In nursing, he argues, the ideal staffing level is closer to 100× the current one.
Brands have never lacked the data to treat you like a regular, only the staff to act on it.
"The AI store associate that turns buyers into regulars"
🎙️ Ilya Valmianski, CEO & Co-Founder, Signals, on Fondo START
01:25 The $300B ecommerce returns problem
02:23 Bringing luxury concierge service to every customer
02:55 Why AI enables personalized support at scale
03:39 Early traction and YC growth ambitions
04:18 Turning refunds into exchanges
04:42 The economics of revenue retention
05:31 Why proactive support beats return portals
06:47 The concept of "super-staffing"
07:08 Reimagining customer support with AI
08:23 The real secret behind startup success
Check out returnsignals.com
