Gaurav Toshniwal

Inquirer
DISC Type : cd

Fellow - 24th Cohort at ODF

San Francisco, California, United States

Overview

Gaurav Toshniwal is the Co-founder of Sherlocks. ai, where he is building AI-powered Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teammates. His expertise lies in scaling technology for millions of users, a skill honed as CTO of Doubtnut, Indias largest EdTech platform. He holds a dual B. Tech and M. Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Beyond his primary role, Gaurav is an active angel investor, supporting early-stage startups like One World Nation and topmate. io. He is a published author and a frequent podcast guest, sharing his insights on building scalable AI products, the business value of AIOps, and the future of DevOps in the AI era.

Unique fact: While at IIT Bombay, Gaurav won the Yahoo! HackU competition by developing a ranking algorithm to intelligently filter Facebook feeds based on user interaction and friend affinity.

Personality Overview

Hard To Convince

Judgemental

Demanding

They don’t always try to control the conversation but neither do they like yielding it fully.  They can be nudged to make faster decisions by offering what they value. They focus on objectivity in a pitch and pay little attention to bells and whistles.

Topics They Care About

AI in SRE
Co-founded Sherlocks. ai to build AI agents that automate incident response, aiming to eliminate 2AM production alerts and reduce developer toil.
Scaling Infrastructure
As CTO, he scaled Doubtnut's infrastructure to support 50 million users and 2 million daily active users while simultaneously cutting costs by 50%.
Developer Experience
Believes that incident management problems are often disguised as developer experience issues, impacting focus and causing significant productivity loss.

Media Appearances

Building AI Products That Actually Work Ft. Gaurav Toshniwal (Founder, Sherlocks.ai). Featured in YouTube

See Now

Work History

2-2025 - 3-2025
Fellow - 24th Cohort at ODF
1-2025
Founder at Sherlocks.ai
3-2022 - 3-2022
Angel Investor at One World Nation
3-2022 - 3-2022
Angel Investor at topmate.io
2-2022 - 2-2022
Limited Partner at WEH Ventures

Education

2007 - 2012
Dual Degree (B Tech. and M Tech.) from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
1994 - 2005
Education details unavailable from St. Anselm's School, Jaipur

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : N/A Location : San Francisco, California, United States Job Level : N/A Designation : Fellow - 24th Cohort at ODF
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Insights For Selling To Gaurav

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Highlight the competitive differentiation of your product
  • Make sure that you you respond to any queries from them quickly
  • Be crisp while making the pitch

DONT's

  • Don't try too hard to get friendly, let it happen with time
  • Avoid repeating yourself or making generalizations
  • Do not give up if they are not convinced, try again with a different approach

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Gaurav is

  • Conviction in the product matters to them, followed by proof points and strong testimonials.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Gaurav

  • They may not be very forthcoming, but they will say no if needed.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Gaurav move?

  • They are neither the fastest decision makers nor the slowest.
  • Can Gaurav take some risk or not?

  • They can take risks but after weighing up the pros and cons.

You And Gaurav

Personality Compatibility


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