You’ve probably heard the buzz about "Answer Engine Optimization" lately. It's the new SEO, or so they say. At the center of this shift is a company called Profound, and if you look at the leadership roster, one name pops up in every operational discussion: Joseph Turtel.
He isn't the CEO. He isn't the CTO. But as the Chief of Staff, he’s basically the glue holding together a startup that went from zero to a $35M Series B in less than a year. That kind of trajectory doesn't happen by accident. It happens because someone is in the basement—metaphorically—making sure the pipes don't burst while the sales team is upstairs selling the dream.
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Who Exactly is Joseph Turtel?
Let’s be honest, the title "Chief of Staff" is often a polite way of saying "person who does everything the founders don't want to do." In the case of Joseph Turtel startup operations, it’s a bit more specialized than that. Turtel’s background isn't just corporate fluff; he’s a product of the Microsoft Garage ecosystem.
Remember the "Smart Tagger" project? It was a Microsoft Garage initiative designed to fix the nightmare of document discoverability using intelligent tagging. Turtel was a Program Manager Intern on that team. It might sound like a small detail, but it’s where he cut his teeth on the intersection of AI and user experience. He learned early on that it’s not just about what the AI can do, but how humans (and other machines) interact with that data.
Fast forward to 2026, and he’s applying those same "discoverability" principles to how entire brands appear in AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
The Profound Engine: What’s Under the Hood?
Most people think startup operations are just about hiring and Slack channels. Wrong. At a high-growth AI firm like Profound, operations is the product.
When Profound raised its $20M Series A from Kleiner Perkins in June 2025, followed by a massive $35M Series B from Sequoia just two months later, the pressure was on. You don't just "scale" that. You build an engine. Turtel’s role involves managing the "VIP support" and operational workflows that allow Fortune 100 brands to trust an AI startup with their reputation.
How the Operational Strategy Works
- Data Graph Integrity: Every integration (Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe) is treated as a "first-order object." If the data is messy, the AI insights are garbage.
- The "Monk" Connection: Profound uses Monk for its accounts receivable. Turtel has been vocal about how this automated invoicing and cash-on-hand tracking saved their team 18+ hours a week.
- Bot Tracking: They don't just guess how AI sees a brand. They track how AI bots crawl websites in real-time. This requires a technical-operational hybrid mindset.
Why Startup Operations is the New Competitive Moat
The "growth at all costs" era is dead. Investors now look for operational efficiency. Turtel is kinda the poster child for this new wave of "ops-first" leadership.
Think about it. Profound grew from 0 to 33 employees in a year. That’s a new person every 11 days. If your onboarding, your tech stack, and your internal communication aren't airtight, the whole thing collapses by month six. Turtel has focused on "VIP support" as a core operational metric—not just a customer service one. It’s about building a strategic partnership with clients like Ramp, MongoDB, and Indeed.
The AEO Shift: Why Turtel’s Focus Matters
If you're still just worrying about Google’s blue links, you’re behind. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is about ensuring your brand is the "answer" provided by an LLM.
Turtel’s work at Profound involves making the "black box" of AI answers transparent. Marketers use their platform to see exactly how AI describes them. It’s a mix of keyword volume analysis and conversation exploration. Basically, they're reverse-engineering the logic of AI engines.
It’s messy work. It’s technical. And it’s exactly where Joseph Turtel startup operations shines. He manages the gap between the high-level vision of CEO James Cadwallader and the technical execution of CTO Dylan Babbs.
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Actionable Insights for Modern Ops Leaders
If you’re trying to replicate this kind of operational success in your own startup, keep these points in mind. No fluff, just what actually works in the 2026 market:
- Automate the "Death by a Thousand Cuts": Don't let your finance or ops team get bogged down in manual invoicing. Use AI-driven AR tools like Monk to keep cash flow predictable.
- Treat Integrations as Products: Your CRM and your ERP shouldn't just "talk" to each other. They should have 2-way validation syncs that prevent data drift.
- Hire for the "Chief of Staff" Mindset Early: You need someone who can jump from a Series B funding meeting to a Slack bot troubleshooting session without losing their mind.
- AEO is Not Optional: Start tracking how your brand appears in AI search tools today. If you wait until it’s standard practice, your competitors will have already claimed the "top answer" spot in the LLM's training data.
The reality is that Joseph Turtel startup operations isn't about some secret formula. It’s about obsessive attention to the infrastructure that allows a company to move fast without breaking. It’s about making sure that when a Fortune 100 brand asks "How does ChatGPT see us?", the answer is backed by clean, operationalized data, not just a gut feeling.