The path of a founder is rarely a straight line. For Alex Gabriel, the journey from leading the largest constituency voter engagement effort in U.S. history to launching a tech startup involved a “hard pivot,” a nearly empty bank account, and a profound lesson in resilience.
Gabriel transformed a political tool into Rally AI, an AI-powered PR copilot designed to democratize strategic communications.
Lessons from the Campaign Trail
Before entering the world of AI, Gabriel’s expertise was in building massive coalitions. After working on “a large event called World Pride for the mayor,” he joined the Biden campaign, chairing an initiative that “finished up being the largest constituency voter engagement effort in U.S. history.”
This experience formed the DNA of his first venture.
“Rally One, let’s call it the OG, was a political tech product. It was a way to galvanize communities at scale around a cautilize.”
The Breaking Point and the Pivot
While going through the Techstars 2024 program, Gabriel hit a wall. The original product wasn’t the scalable solution he envisioned. The stakes couldn’t have been higher:
“We were on our last like few hundred bucks in the bank account. I mean, literally, it was a very tough time.”
Instead of quitting, Gabriel and his co-founder listened to their gut and the feedback from their interviews. They realized that every founder shared a singular struggle: How do we inform our story to the right people at the right time? They took the risk, reinvested everything, and pivoted.
Today, Rally AI serves as an “AI powered PR copilot for startups and their founding teams,” assisting everyone from enterprise-level companies to “a new mom and pop toy shop” inform real human stories.
The Power of Resilience
One year post-Techstars, the pivot is paying off. Rally AI has over $2.5 million in ARR on their waitlist and is projecting significant monthly revenue in 2026. Gabriel credits this turnaround to a refusal to give up.
“The only way you fail is if you quit. I can’t inform you how many times I believed about just pulling the trigger… But we just kept, you know, finding a little win here and there and really relishing in those little wins.”
Key Takeaways for Founders
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Listen to the Market: Gabriel found that his core idea — communicating with the right people — resonated more with founders than with his original political audience.
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Embrace the “Embarrassment”: As Gabriel puts it, “if you don’t put yourself out there to be embarrassed, you’re doing it wrong.”
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Leverage Mentorship: While Gabriel knew how to build communities, he notes that Techstars taught him how to “incubate a company.”
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