today i am thrilled to welcome @afoxjohnston to @blockitAI as our first chief revenue officer. most executive hires start with a search. this one started with a customer… about a year ago, andrew, bremner, and patrick at second rodeo found blockit on their own, quickly became power users, and then bluntly told us why the agent fell short of its potential. i loved it. this turned into a partnership; along the way we saw what andrew is like in the trenches: hyper-competitive, uniquely product-centric, and deeply human. andrew has led sales at companies like superhuman, scale AI, and twilio -- and thus is something of an ‘AI email god’. blockit today is a scheduling agent that spreads virally on email threads and now powers some of the most demanding organizations in the world. when it came time to bring on a CRO, there wasn’t really a decision to make. welcome aboard, andrew. let's go connect the world’s time.

Just had a pretty shocking @openclaw experience. I was emailed by (what I thought was) an executive assistant who said her boss wanted to meet with me to chat about the AI industry and that he respected my work - she gave me a little bit of information about her boss and was asking to set up 30 minutes just to chat. I researched the person a little and he seemed interesting, so I replied and copied in my AI assistant @blockitAI to setup a 30min call. The meeting got set up, and then when I hopped on the call, I had a delightful time talking shop and discussing everything going on in AI. I then learned that the EA that reached out to me was OpenClaw - I was genuinely shocked. It really seemed human and acted like a very good EA, so I was laughing at myself that I didn't pick that up. We're definitely entering a new age. I do think that asking your OpenClaw to go out and set up meetings with interesting people, if you're genuine and you're not trying to sell something, is a great networking play. If you use it to secretly sell, though, you'll get blocked super fast, and it will do more harm than good. Interesting times we live in.

Having an AI that schedules meetings and coordinates my calendar has been a massive unlock for me. Currently using and paying for @blockitAI I've had lovely human EAs in the past and I have to say that an AI just works better. Instant replies. Never forgets. Always working. Hard to compete. This makes me both happy and sad.

big calendar guy

there are only 24 hours in a day... are you making the most of them? @kaiskhimji and the team at @blockitAI will make sure that you do! sequoiacap.com/article/the-m…

In 2019, we invested in @KaisKhimji as a partner. Today he's a founder building @blockitAI, an AI calendar optimizing the world's most precious resource: time. Excited to partner with Kais and the Blockitons on this journey.

The Story Behind Haystack's Investment in Blockit Today, the team at @blockitAI launches publicly and announces their $5M seed financing, led by Pat Grady at Sequoia. They are building the world’s first calendar network – an always on, AI time assistant that actually works. Try it for yourself here, it’s easy to get started - blockit.com/. @haystackvc has been a proud investor in the company since inception. In some ways, this is a business story; but in many ways, it’s a more personal one for myself and Haystack. I first met the co-founder & CEO of Blockit, @kaiskhimji, over a decade ago as a freshman in college. From the beginning, I always admired his doggedness, independent conviction in his own beliefs, and unique ability to bring people together. Our paths intersected again in 2019 when he moved out to the Bay to join Sequoia as an investor, and I was starting at Haystack. We were at a similar place in our venture careers and acted as thought partners across our respective firms. I continued to learn from him – he was always in front of the most interesting growth companies. One could always expect a clever take or market framework. During his time at Sequoia, I had a feeling he would eventually want to do something of his own. He even forced me to schedule with an original Blockit prototype in 2020, which I had *lots* of feedback on. Kais always pushed back in a way that I appreciated. Persistent, not stubborn. A little while back, I received a call from him. “I’m getting engaged, I gave in my notice at Sequoia, and I’m starting a company.” I committed to invest on the spot. The early stage venture job works best when you get to follow your nose on the most talented people, and those people, the entrepreneurs, create the opportunities for you as the investor. Kais created the opportunity for Haystack to invest, and we thank him for it. Fast forward to early 2026, and Blockit is a thriving, fast growing company. Kais teamed up with his co-founder @yhan819, built a team from backgrounds at Retool, Waymo, and Notion; and Blockit now serves hundreds of customers from companies like Together.ai, Rogo, and Brex. Their end-to-end agent product *actually* works without human intervention. It might sound straightforward at first blush, but smoothing out all the data and UX papercuts for an intelligent scheduling assistant is no joke. As a small aside, Kais and the Blockit team have provided an excellent vantage point into the world of building useful agents. The frameworks from the team are bountiful and rich – everything from “come for the agent, stay for the network” to AI’s impact on product ceilings and floors. Blockit has already scheduled hundreds of thousands of meetings, and there are millions more coming. Haystack is proud to support Kais and the Blockit team as they enter the next chapter of scaling. This story has been a long time in the making.