
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Jake Stauch is the co-founder and CEO of Serval, an AI-native platform that automates the work of corporate IT teams, recently valued at $1 billion after a $75M Series B led by Sequoia.
In this conversation, the co-founder and CEO of Serval breaks down how to tell real product market fit from the delusion that fools most founders, why he never runs formal customer interviews, and the contrarian AI bet behind one of Silicon Valley's fastest-rising enterprise startups.
*Key Takeaways*
1. Rabid fans are not proof of product market fit. Jake mistook a small, passionate market for PMF for seven years at his last startup.
2. Real PMF feels like pull, not push: customers stop saying "keep me posted" and start asking "how much does it cost?"
3. Don't trust a single customer call. One good or bad conversation makes you a pendulum — judge PMF only after you deeply understand the problem.
4. Skip formal customer interviews. Get embedded in your customers' daily work and Slack channels instead — relationships beat point-in-time interviews.
5. Bet on where AI models are going, not just where they are today, but know the difference between a smart bet and a convenient delusion.
*Timecode*
00:00 Intro
01:09 Why Fake Product-Market Fit Feels Exactly Like Real
05:33 The Signal That Tells You It's Working
07:28 The Failure That Built a $1B Company
*About the guest*
Jake Stauch — Co-Founder & CEO, Serval
Serval: https://www.serval.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestauch/
EO stands for Entrepreneur& Opportunities. As we're looking to feature more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
LinkedIn | @EO STUDIO
X | @eostudi0
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Best Leadership Advice from a CEO at a $1B Company | Sift, Kris Nagel (2/2)
EO stands for Entrepreneurship & Opportunities. We're looking for more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, so don't hesitate to contact us! :)
Subscribe EO Channel
Feature Inquiry
EO Podcast 🎧
Spotify: https://bit.ly/442cRa1
Subtitles for this video were created using [XL8.ai](http://xl8.ai/) machine translation.
-------
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Best startup lessons from Y CombinatorㅣMichael Seibel
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ken Ono, mathematician at Axiom Math and the University of Virginia, on why 2026 shouldn't be the race for more compute. It should be the race for more truth.
He watched AI solve problems that were on his own research program. He calls it devastating, and he works at an AI company anyway.
In this conversation Ken hands over a working map of where AI actually leaves human work: the three distinct forms of AI most people confuse for one thing, why "formalization" is where the next generation of jobs (and safety) will come from, what separates a good question from a hollow one, and why benchmarks like IQ, school rankings, and LLM leaderboards are a toxic way to measure a person. It ends where his career started: a fifth-grade math plaque he misread as failure for 50 years.
What you'll learn:
- The three forms of AI (chatbots, superhuman search, formalization) and which one is hiring
- Why students who want to be mathematicians should start 'formalizing' now
- The test for a good question vs. a hollow one, and how to tell who you're really asking it for
- How he spots outlier talent that a box-checking admissions system throws away
- Why comparing yourself to LeBron or a Nobel laureate guarantees you lose
00:00 Intro
02:13 Q1) Have you ever felt obsolete because of AI?
09:33 Q2) What makes a good question?
11:35 Q3) What does 'Superintelligence' mean?
14:04 Q4) What's the biggest AI misconception?
19:34 Q5) What judgement can't AI replace?
21:13 Q6) How do I get past AI filters?
27:45 Q7) Is it bad that I prefer talking to AI over humans?
29:30 Q8) AI is smarter than most of us. What should we do?
31:46 Q9) As a junior, how can I catch up with seniors in the AI era?
EO stands for Entrepreneur& Opportunities. As we're looking to feature more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
LinkedIn | @EO STUDIO
X | @eostudi0
instagram | @eostudio.official
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What I Learned From In Hypergrowing Startups | Troy Malone
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Still The Coolest Smartphone Startup in Tech Scene 2025 | Nothing, Carl Pei
More About Nothing | https://nothing.tech/
This interview series is sponsored by .tech Domainsthe very domain the startups featured in the series build their websites on. Building on a .tech is a strategic choice for many tech startups building innovationsas it crisply communicates the company’s techdriven nature.
If you’re an early stage founder building on a .tech domain (or plan to), apply by Nov. 20 for a chance to fly to San Francisco to pitch in front of leading VC’s in Silicon Valley.
More info | https://pitch.tech/VI
00:00 Intro
EO stands for Entrepreneurship & Opportunities. As we're looking to feature more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
Twitter | @EO__Global
Subtitles for this video were created using [XL8.ai](http://xl8.ai/) machine translation.
-----
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Start With the Hardest Part #Shorts #Advice
------------------
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
He didn't make money for 8 years | Saeju Jeong (1/2)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tom Yeh, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder & creator of AI by Hand, breaks down why he teaches AI by hand at human speed, and how focusing on mathematical foundations rather than the latest tools builds a skill that survives every hype cycle.
00:00 Intro
00:46 Why I Teach AI by Hand- The Power of Learning "Slow"
04:07 The Foundation That Doesn't Burn
09:32 The 'AI-Native' Trap - AI can't change people, but people can change AI
More on AI by Hand: https://www.byhand.ai/
EO stands for Entrepreneur& Opportunities. As we're looking to feature more inspiring stories of entrepreneurs all over the world, don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
LinkedIn | @EO STUDIO
X | @eostudi0
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From the publisher's feed