Building the AI Partner Every D2C Founder Needs: The Story of Yuvraj & Clevrr AI
Yuvraj Dagur is the co-founder of Clevrr AI, after founding LocalEyes and freelancing his way through the world of D2C data. Read his founder story below.
Yuvraj Dagur is a first-generation, self-taught entrepreneur who started building companies in his second year of college- long before he had a name for what he was doing. He previously co-founded LocalEyes, a community-led app connecting locals to their city, and is now the co-founder of Clevrr AI, helping D2C brands make more money with the same Ad spend. This is his story, in his own words.
I started my first startup in my second year of college, and I have never worked a job in my life. That sentence alone says a lot about my family- we come from a line of job-doers, and I was the first one who didn’t want to be.
It began earlier than that, really. My childhood friend and I used to build science projects together. By the time we got to college, we’d decided we were done building for competitions. We wanted to build something of our own instead. That something became LocalEyes- a community-led platform where people could ask questions, discover local events and connect with others in their city.
For the next two and a half years, we lived and breathed that product. We grew to over 2.5 lakh users across five states, became part of Google’s startup initiatives and eventually exited after the company was acquired by a competitor.
Finding the Right Problem
After the acquisition, I didn’t rush into another startup. Instead, I started freelancing for dropshippers and early-stage D2C brands, building custom technology solutions for their businesses.
Working closely with different founders exposed me to a pattern I couldn’t ignore. Every business generated massive amounts of data through Shopify, Google Ads and Meta, yet most of it eventually ended up sitting inside spreadsheets that nobody looked at again. It bothered me because that sheet had everything sitting inside it- inventory planning, marketing decisions, COGS, costing- completely unused.
Around the same time, Generative AI was beginning to reshape how software could be built. That’s when I realised the real opportunity was making data understandable for non-technical founders, and it led me to start Clevrr AI.
The Pivot: From a Suite of Tools to an AI Co-Founder
Clevrr AI began as a mission to build B2B SaaS, gen-AI-enabled products for non-technical founders. The first product was Clevrr Sheets- a tool that turned a spreadsheet into a dashboard in under 30 seconds, without needing to know Excel, SQL, or anything close to it.
Convinced that I had found the right opportunity, I packed my bags and moved to Bangalore with a one-way ticket.
The product worked, but the positioning didn’t.
I learned a lesson every founder eventually encounters: if you’re building for everyone, you’re building for no one. That’s when I stepped back and went back to my own data. Almost 90% of my retaining customers were D2C founders- non-technical, e-commerce operators. The gap was obvious once I actually looked for it.
As we narrowed our focus to D2C, we stopped relying on spreadsheets altogether. Instead, we connected directly to first-party data from Shopify, Meta and Google. That pivot transformed Clevrr AI from a suite of products into a standalone AI operating system for D2C brands- bringing sales, marketing, inventory, shipping and payments into one place, with intelligence and action built on top.
Building for the Future of D2C
Around this time, I was joined by my co-founder, Raghav, who was previously a VC at Dallas Venture Capital. Together, we started spending real time understanding just how serious the problem was before building more product.
Performance marketing is where we chose to go deepest. It drives about 70% of revenue for most D2C brands- cut it, and most of them simply don’t survive. Meta and Google are genuinely excellent at audience discovery, and there’s no better tool for finding your buyer than Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook.
Today we’re building a reasoning layer that walks through everything from metrics to creatives, explaining what’s working, what isn’t, what can be done about it, how, and for whom.
What the Journey Has Taught Me
Some of the hardest decisions had nothing to do with technology. Choosing the right co-founder, learning when to say no to customers, investors or opportunities, and staying focused have been far more difficult than building products.
We’ve now completed two years as a company, built a team that truly believes in the vision and earned the opportunity to learn from founders and investors I once only admired from afar. A year ago, some of the people I’m now in conversation with wouldn’t have accepted my LinkedIn request. That transition is its own kind of milestone.
The Good Days & The Bad Days
I’m still figuring this one out. I don’t celebrate the small wins as much as I probably should. The one moment that truly felt surreal was signing the lease for our first office. Beyond that, we usually celebrate milestones with the team over small get-togethers or dinners.
Personally, I tend to process both the highs and the lows on my own. And whenever I feel stuck, I head to the mountains.
However, I genuinely believe that if you love what you do, every day feels a little like a vacation. A big part of my identity is tied to what I’m building, and I’m perfectly happy with that. I’m naturally extroverted, so I enjoy meeting new people and having conversations, and entrepreneurship gives me plenty of opportunities to do both.
That said, building an early-stage startup comes with sacrifices. The biggest one, at least for me, has been my social life. It’s a trade-off that’s rarely talked about, but it’s very real.
What’s Next for Clevrr AI?
The next chapter looks a lot like the previous one- a one-way ticket, this time to the US, and another chance to build something from the ground up.
The challenges will be different, the market will be different, and the learning curve will probably be steeper. But the vision remains the same: To take Clevrr AI to a global stage and build something that helps D2C founders around the world make better decisions with the power of AI.
What we love about Yuvraj's story at Razorpay Rize is how human it feels. There's no perfect plan here, no straight line- just a guy who built science projects with his best friend, took a leap in college, freelanced his way into a real problem, and kept packing his bags whenever the next chapter demanded it.
That honesty is what makes his journey easy to root for, and exactly why we wanted to share it!
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