Inside Pochteca
How a superintelligence for sales is put together, told without code. The vision and the scope, the words we use, how the parts fit, and the rules we never bend.
Vision and scope
Pochteca sells physical products for the people who make them. The product is physical. Almost everything around selling it is digital: finding the right businesses, the first message, the sample, the follow-up, the order and the reorder.
We focus on producers whose main customer is another business: a restaurant, a shop, a bar, a pharmacy, a vet. That business sells to the final customer. Inside that scope the same system serves very different products. A brewery and a candy maker differ in configuration, not in code.
What we leave out
Software sales, services, pure online retail, and any setup where the customer picks the model. Narrow on purpose.
From stranger to regular
Every outlet walks the same road: found, contacted, convinced, first order, regular orders. Some need a call, some a tasting, some only a price. Pochteca walks each one at its own pace, and hands it to a person when a person helps more.
Ten rules we build by
Counted the way the codices count: a dot is one, a bar is five.
- Rules are code. Prices, limits, routing and every action that changes something behave the same way on every run.
- The model acts only through tools. A language model can't do anything directly. It asks for a named action, and the system checks it and carries it out.
- Everything is recorded. Every call to a model is stored with what it saw and what it said, so any day can be replayed exactly.
- Clear contracts between parts. Each part talks to the others through defined messages, never by reaching inside.
- One way to do each thing. One idea of a channel, one idea of a representative, one path for actions, one log.
- Configuration over code. A brewery and a pet food maker differ in their product profile and their outlets, not in the software.
- Plain, proven technology. Typed, explicit, boring. Surprises belong in sales, not in software.
- A person behind every representative. Either the seller it was modeled on, or a supervisor. Full autonomy with nobody responsible is not an option.
- One hand on each business. Only one run can act on a given business at a time. No double messages, no order entered twice.
- Opinionated. Narrow scope, strong defaults, models we certify. One problem solved well beats every problem solved badly.
The words we use
Pochteca speaks the language of your business. These are the words you'll meet in the product, grouped by what they describe.
- Producer
- You. The maker of the product.
- Digital sales representative
- A named identity that sells for you: a voice, working hours, its own WhatsApp and email, its own list of businesses. Inside the product we call it a persona.
- Principal
- The real seller a digital representative is modeled on. Gives consent, and can pause or withdraw it at any time.
- Supervisor
- The person responsible for one or more digital representatives. Approves exceptions, sets limits, can pause anything.
- Field agent
- The person who does what software can't: visits, tastings, handovers.
- Team
- Several digital representatives under one supervisor, sharing the same rules.
- Product profile
- Your product plus its approved facts: sizes, minimum order, sample rules, what may and may not be claimed.
- Outlet
- A business that buys and resells: restaurant, shop, bar, pharmacy, vet.
- Account
- A relationship that can hold several outlets, like a chain with five branches.
- Segment
- A group of outlets chosen by rules, like specialty cafés in one city.
- Offer and order
- Proposed terms, and a validated purchase. Both come from your rules.
- Channel
- WhatsApp, email, phone, social messages. One idea, many pipes.
- Thread
- One conversation with one outlet, even when it moves from email to WhatsApp to a call.
- Touchpoint
- A single message, in or out.
- Review queue
- Where anything uncertain waits for a person.
- Sample request
- The request to ship a free sample. Every channel ends in the same request.
- Physical task
- Anything with legs: a shipment, a delivery, a visit, a call made by a person.
- Reorder signal
- The sign that an outlet is about to run out.
How the parts fit
A message comes in or goes out on a channel. It joins a thread. A digital representative reads the thread, decides what to do next and asks for an action. The action passes the rules and is written to the log. Around that loop runs the road of every outlet.
- 1FindLists, directories, maps, forms.
- 2RecognizeIs this a business we already know?
- 3LearnWhat it sells, how big, who it serves.
- 4QualifyDoes it fit, and who should handle it?
- 5First contactOne message, the right channel.
- 6ConversationQuestions, doubts, answers.
- 7Try itA sample or a tasting, when it helps.
- 8Offer and orderFrom your price list.
- 9DeliveryShipments and visits, tracked.
- 10ReorderBefore they run out.
Underneath everything
- Rules engine
- Event log
- Review queue
- Language model gateway
- Action catalog
- Product knowledge
- Audit and replay
- Cost records
The model chooses. The system decides.
Language models are good at reading and writing. They are not good at arithmetic or at keeping promises. So they get the first job and never the second.
| The model chooses | The system decides |
|---|---|
| Which action, when, with which products and quantities | Prices, discounts and terms |
| How the message is worded | Whether the wording passes the rules for claims and honesty |
| Whether to offer a sample | Whether this business may get one, inside your limits |
| What the customer ordered, read from the chat | Whether the order is valid: catalog, address, minimum, stock |
Every action walks the same five checks
- Is the request well formed?
- Is this business on this representative's list?
- Do the rules allow it: limits, budget, hours, honesty?
- Do it once, even if asked twice.
- Write it down and report back.
How much freedom, action by action
The representative confirms any order that fits your catalog, minimums and stock.
It confirms on its own up to an amount you set. Above that, it asks.
Every order waits in the review queue until your supervisor says yes.
Changing the freedom of an action is a setting, not new software.
People stay in charge
Two kinds of digital representative share one engine. The difference is who stands behind them.
Modeled on a seller
A digital twin of one of your sellers, built from their own messages with their consent. They still do the visits and the key accounts.
Watched by a supervisor
A representative with no single seller behind it, for a region, a product line or a language. One supervisor can watch six or seven at once.
Honest by rule. A digital representative never claims to be human. It introduces itself as the digital assistant of its seller or company, and answers truthfully when asked.
Day and night
Models don't get tired. Phone numbers and inboxes do. So contact happens inside each outlet's working hours, and the heavy reading happens at night, in bulk, at half the cost.
02:00 Research runs in bulk: new businesses, menus, websites, who fits.
05:30 Scores are ready. Today's short list is set.
09:00 The contact window opens for each outlet, in its own local time.
09:10 Replies from the night are answered first.
11:00 A quote for three cases goes out, straight from your price list.
14:00 A bar that orders every three weeks hasn't in five. It gets a message.
16:30 An order outside the limits waits for a supervisor.
19:00 The window closes. Nothing goes out until morning.
One thing at a time
Each business has one hand on it at a time. Two runs can never act on the same outlet at once, so nobody gets the same message twice and no order is entered twice.
Speed comes from working many businesses side by side, never from rushing one.
Models we certify, not models you pick
Each task in Pochteca runs on a model profile: a specific model, version and set of instructions that passed our tests. You can't change it. We can, once a new profile proves itself.
- 1CandidateRuns in the shadow on recorded conversations. Touches nothing.
- 2CertifiedPassed our tests for tool accuracy, consistency, honesty and cost.
- 3RetiredReplaced by something better. Can come back if needed.
Decisions with consequences, like an offer, a discount or an order, go to a strong model. Small jobs, like reading a menu or sorting a reply, go to smaller ones. We judge by the cost of each finished task, not by the price per word.
The two editions
| In our cloud | In your building | |
|---|---|---|
| Models | Hosted models we choose and pin, task by task | Open models we tune ourselves |
| Your data | Processed by the provider we certify | Never leaves your building |
| You get | The service, ready to use | The whole system: software, models, machine, installation |
| Model choice | Ours | Ours |
Where others fail, and what we do
Most automated sales projects are switched off within a year. The reasons repeat.
| What goes wrong | What Pochteca does |
|---|---|
| Volume instead of relevance | Qualify first, few messages per identity, success counted in orders and reorders |
| Burned numbers and domains | Rate limits, warm-up, opt-out lists, automatic pause on complaints |
| Bad data | Every fact has a source and a confidence. Doubtful ones go to a person |
| Meetings instead of results | We follow every outlet to its first order and every reorder |
| Full autonomy, nobody responsible | A person behind every digital representative |
| Made-up prices and claims | Prices only from your list, claims only from approved facts |
| Orders lost in chat | An order on any channel becomes a validated record |
| Sample abuse | One sample per business, caps, address checks, alerts |
| Nobody can explain what happened | Every decision logged, every day replayable |
What we measure
Messages sent and meetings booked are only diagnostics. These are the numbers that matter.
- New outlets that placed a first order
- Days from first message to first order
- Orders taken without anyone retyping them
- Reorder rate, outlet by outlet
- Quiet accounts that came back
- Cost per first order
Try it with your numbers
Share of their week spent writing, chasing and typing orders
Hours back for your team every month: 218
A quick sum: a 45-hour week, and Pochteca taking 70% of that work. A goal, not a promise.
The reorder rhythm
Gold weeks: when a typical outlet reorders, about every four. Red: this week.