Reimagining the CDP with AI: Tejas Manohar on Hightouch’s Composable Approach

In this episode, Stacey sits down with Tejas Manohar, co-founder and co-CEO of Hightouch, to talk about the evolution of customer data platforms (CDPs) and how Hightouch is changing the game. Tejas shares his journey from early engineer at Segment to building a “composable CDP” that sits directly on top of the data warehouse. They dive into real-world examples from companies like Grammarly, PetSmart, and DoorDash, and explore how AI is reshaping marketing by turning raw data into smarter, automated decisions.

Transcript

Stacey Epstein (00:34):
Today on the show, I'm excited to welcome Tejas Manohar from Hightouch. He’s the co-founder and co-CEO. Welcome, Tejas.

Tejas Manohar (00:44):
Thanks for having me, Stacey. Excited to be here.

Stacey Epstein (00:46):
Great to meet you. Actually, about five years ago I saw a presentation on Hightouch at an angel investing group I’m part of. It’s great to see how far you’ve come. I’m excited to dive into Hightouch, but let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit about your journey before founding the company.

Tejas Manohar (01:10):
Sure. I grew up in Tennessee and came out to the Bay Area almost 10 years ago. I’ve always been interested in technology—I started by coding games and websites for fun. Back then, I didn’t know much about Silicon Valley, but once I learned about it, I knew I wanted to come here.

One of my first jobs in San Francisco was at Segment, which many people know. They were acquired by Twilio for over $3 billion in 2020. I was one of the first 10 engineers there, which gave me great exposure to the marketing and customer data space. Segment’s whole mission was about customer data platforms, or CDPs—basically helping go-to-market teams get a full view of customer data from websites, Salesforce, and other systems, so they could segment, personalize, and better understand customer behavior.

After working at Segment and seeing the challenges firsthand, I realized there was room for a new kind of platform. That’s what ultimately led me to start Hightouch.

Stacey Epstein (02:29):
I remember Segment well. One of my former companies, Freshworks, was also dabbling in CDPs. What made you think you could do something different and better?

Tejas Manohar (02:52):
Two things. First, we noticed CDPs worked pretty well for smaller companies—startups without much infrastructure. They could plug Segment in and get their first data systems running. But with larger enterprises, it was a different story. Getting all customer data into a CDP was a huge effort, and often the blocker to value.

Second, we realized enterprises were already centralizing their data elsewhere—in warehouses like Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, or Google Cloud—for analytics and BI. IT and data teams were investing heavily to put data there. So instead of asking them to move data again into a CDP, we thought: why not build on top of the warehouse they already use? That’s the idea behind Hightouch—a composable CDP that sits directly on the data warehouse, giving marketing and go-to-market teams immediate access without the heavy lift.

And the timing was right—Snowflake had just IPO’d, adoption was skyrocketing, and we saw a big opportunity.

Stacey Epstein (05:43):
That makes sense. And then you layer AI on top of that data?

Tejas Manohar (05:49):
Exactly. The second realization was that just giving teams access to data doesn’t mean they know how to use it. Data helps you understand your customers, but deciding what to do with that information—what campaign to run, who to target, what offers to send—is complex.

That’s where AI comes in. We’re building intelligence on top of the warehouse so teams don’t just access data, but also get guidance on how best to use it.

Stacey Epstein (07:04):
So you’re piggybacking off the data centralization effort and making it actionable for marketing teams—first by simplifying access, and now by applying AI to help them make smarter decisions.

Tejas Manohar (07:33):
That’s exactly right. All the features you’d expect in a CDP—audience building, journey orchestration, activation across channels—we deliver directly on top of the warehouse. No data duplication required.

Stacey Epstein (07:56):
Got it. So marketers can immediately tap into all the centralized data, and AI helps them figure out how to actually use it. What are some real-world examples?

Tejas Manohar (09:09):
Sure. Companies like PetSmart, Grammarly, and DoorDash use Hightouch.

• Grammarly runs highly personalized lifecycle campaigns. Think of “Spotify Wrapped” style recaps—emails that reference how you’ve used the product, compared to peers, and what you could try next. Hightouch powers those campaigns.
• The NBA uses Hightouch in their app to show fans personalized stats—favorite players, most-watched teams, and more.
• PetSmart goes even further with our AI Decisioning product. Instead of manually segmenting, their marketers set goals, offers, and guardrails. The AI experiments, learns who responds best to what, and automatically optimizes campaigns. For example, it helped drive a 22% increase in salon sales by figuring out which customers respond to grooming offers.

The result: faster marketing velocity, fewer data team bottlenecks, and better business outcomes.

Stacey Epstein (13:27):
That’s fascinating. And DoorDash is another great example—they must have huge amounts of behavioral data to work with.

Tejas Manohar (14:41):
Exactly. With AI decisioning, the model can continuously select the right campaign from a bank of content, rather than marketers following a rigid calendar. It’s like bringing the personalization algorithms of Facebook or TikTok to everyday marketing—emails, push notifications, and ads.

Stacey Epstein (16:32):
So instead of me as a marketer looking at the data and deciding “Stacey likes sushi, therefore I’ll send this campaign,” the AI just does that reasoning and decision-making?

Tejas Manohar (17:22):
Yes—with one nuance. Companies aren’t yet spinning up fully unique campaigns per individual, but they’re letting the AI manage a large pool of content and continuously decide which campaign to send to each customer. Over time, we’ll move closer to AI even generating new campaign content, but today it’s about optimization and targeting at scale.

Stacey Epstein (18:20):
We’re still in early innings, but it’s already a huge leap forward—from just centralizing data, to applying intelligence that guides execution. What’s your target market?

Tejas Manohar (19:10):
We typically work with larger companies, up to the Fortune 500, though we also have mid-sized customers—say 50 to 100 employees—if they have at least one data team member and a warehouse in place.

Stacey Epstein (19:52):
Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing Hightouch with us today. Really powerful solution. How can listeners get in touch?

Tejas Manohar (20:03):
You can reach me directly at tejas@hightouch.com or visit hightouch.com.

Stacey Epstein (20:19):
Perfect. High touch for the customer, low touch for the marketer—that’s a tagline right there.

Tejas Manohar (20:24):
I like it! Thanks again, Stacey.

Stacey Epstein (20:30):
Thank you, Tejas. Great to have you on the show.