START pod: Manav Modi, CEO & Cofounder, AgentPhone “Phone numbers for AI Agents”

START pod: Manav Modi, CEO & Cofounder, AgentPhone “Phone numbers for AI Agents”

Author: Fondo June 2, 2026 Duration: 12:35

AI agents can write code, analyze data, and pass the bar exam


They can't order you a pizza because they don't have a phone number


Think about how much of the real world still runs on phone numbers


SMS verification

Delivery coordination

Account creation

Calling a business...


Without one, an agent is stuck behind glass


Manav Modi & cofounder Meet Modi built AgentPhone to fix that


Give your agent a phone number and it can suddenly act


He told his agent to order DoorDash


It created an account, talked to the delivery driver, made the payment


Pizza showed up at his door. 


Y Combinator is a customer. After An engineer tried Twilio and got buried in compliance, AgentPhone had him live in a day


Every person will soon have hundreds, maybe thousands of agents working for them


The hard part isn't making them smart


It's giving them the tools to touch the real world 

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🎙️ Manav Modi, CEO & Co-Founder, AgentPhone on Fondo START pod

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00:57 Why AI agents need phone numbers to interact with the real world

01:24 The tools that move agents closer to human-level autonomy

01:50 The emerging infrastructure stack powering AI agents

02:18 Why payments may become a critical layer for autonomous agents

02:42 An AI agent ordering DoorDash end-to-end without human involvement

03:08 What happened when 100+ developers built on AgentPhone

03:26 Processing 4,000+ calls and 5,000+ messages in a single day

03:43 Unexpected real-world use cases discovered during the hackathon

04:24 How phone numbers unlock authentication and action

05:37 The vision of every person having hundreds or thousands of agents

06:16 Building identity and authentication systems for AI agents

07:31 The startup pivot that led to AgentPhone and ultimately YC

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Check out agentphone.ai


Behind every startup's big idea is the less glamorous, but utterly essential, work of building a real business. The Startup Growth Podcast, from the team at Fondo, digs into that reality. Fondo itself is an all-in-one accounting platform designed for startups, handling everything from closing the books to filing taxes and even helping secure cash back from the IRS. This practical experience informs every conversation. You’ll hear founders and operators talk not just about vision, but about the tangible systems, financial decisions, and marketing pivots that actually fuel growth. Episodes move beyond theory to explore the operational choices that separate promising companies from sustainable ones. It’s a resource for entrepreneurs who understand that strategy is meaningless without execution, and that a healthy bottom line is the truest measure of progress. Tune in for honest discussions that bridge the gap between entrepreneurial ambition and the business fundamentals required to make it last.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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