I spent 26 years in enterprise sales. Every one of them prepared me for what comes next.

By Shane Heddy, Cofounder, CRO, Nth AI. Published 2026-09-01.

After 26 years in enterprise sales, selling professional services to Fortune 500 buyers, Shane Heddy explains why he left to build Nth AI with Connie Yang and Leon Papkoff.

I'm building Nth AI with Connie Yang and Leon Papkoff, as co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer. This is the first thing I'll write here, so I want to start with why I made the move.

Connie took the picture above. Leon is in the middle. I'm on the left. Three founders, three laptops, a concrete wall, and a two-hour debate about whether the thing we were building even had a name yet.

For most of my career, delivering real innovation meant putting exceptional people in a room and giving them time to solve hard problems. I worked alongside teams I'd follow anywhere, built relationships that outlasted the projects, and saw what we could accomplish for customers when we got it right.

I also saw the work start over. Every new client meant rebuilding much of the same foundation by hand. Customers asked why it took so long. Talented people spent months recreating things they already knew how to build. That was the model for a long time. The work depended on judgment and context that software simply couldn’t capture.

AI changed that. Each of us came to the problem from a different direction.

Connie had spent years building enterprise data and AI systems. She knew exactly why these projects turn complex, and she could see the technology had finally reached the point where a different approach was possible.

Leon had already taken complex enterprise work, turned it into a product, and built a company around it. He understood what it took to move from a promising idea to something customers actually rely on.

I brought 26 years in enterprise sales, selling professional services to Fortune 500 buyers and seeing what happened when technology met the real world. I knew where the old model worked, where it broke, and how much opportunity we left behind every time we started from scratch.

We had each come to the problem differently, but we saw the same opportunity: bring those perspectives together and build a better way.

We named the product Nexus, and the name came to represent more than the software. A nexus is where different things come together. For us, it was where technology, product, and customer reality met. It was the place where we could challenge one another, combine what we had learned, and see possibilities that none of us would have seen alone.

That is what the company means to me. It is the result of three different experiences converging around one problem, and the conviction that together we could build an answer none of us could have built on our own.

AI is what makes services as software possible. But choosing to build it together is what gave me the conviction to leave 26 years behind and build Nth AI.

I want to be honest about where we are. We are early, just a few months in, and the beginning has already been unlike anything I’ve experienced in 26 years in this industry. When the work arrives as software instead of a staffing plan, customers respond differently. They move faster. There is less hesitation. Decisions that once took weeks can happen in days.

I believed the idea would work. What I didn't fully expect was how quickly we are able to move. I still find myself surprised by the pace of change and I’m excited to see where we end up.

I’m grateful to the people who helped me get here. They know who they are.

Once a month, I’ll share what we’re building at Nth AI and what we’re learning along the way: the wins, the setbacks, and the lessons that come with building a company from the ground up.

It's going to be a wild ride. I'm glad to have you come along with us on the journey.