Jake founded Serval in April 2024— by Dec 2025 he'd raised a $75M Series B from Sequoia at a $1B valuation.

He didn't look for a "wedge" or a "niche." He looked at ServiceNow—a $160B, 20+ year-old incumbent that everyone IT team relies on—and rebuilt it from the ground up in a YEAR.

In this episode, Jake reveals the audacity behind building a full-platform replacement from Day 1, why he spent months building in the dark with zero revenue, and how he achieved a 50% demo-to-close rate on six-figure enterprise deals.

Why You Should Listen

• How to go from incorporation to a $1B valuation in just 18 months.
• The psychological shift in sales calls that proves PMF.
• How to build a demo so compelling that 50% buy on the spot.
• Why you no longer need to find a small wedge to win post Gen AI.
• The specific question that stops customers from giving you generic feedback.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, hypergrowth, zero to one, unicorn startup, Sequoia Capital, replacing legacy software, enterprise sales strategy, ServiceNow competitor, Jake Stauch

00:00:00 Intro
00:03:25 Why "Hair on Fire" Problems Matter
00:06:58 Learning What Winning Feels Like at Verkada
00:14:05 100+ Customer Discovery Calls
00:18:12 The One Question That Unlocks Real Pain
00:23:48 Why No-Code Workflows Fail
00:28:45 Taking Risks on AI Model Improvements
00:35:49 From $0 to Six-Figure ACVs in 6 Months
00:39:00 The Strategy to Rip and Replace ServiceNow
00:47:30 The "Rounding Up" Signal of PMF

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Siqi was the CEO of a hot startup doing $20M a year. Then COVID hit. Overnight, revenue went to zero. He had to lay off 95% of his staff. In the chaos of trying to save the company using broken spreadsheets, he found his next big idea: Runway.

But the path wasn't a straight line. Siqi spent four years building the product before fully launching.

In this episode, he breaks down why product taste matters more than A/B testing, and the insane viral launch strategy that overwhelmed his sales team and generated $1M ARR in a single month.

Why You Should Listen

• How a viral marketing campaign added $1M ARR in just 30 days.
• Why "user love" is a trap.
• Why it took 4 years of building in the dark to create the "Figma for Finance."
• How to mentally survive losing 95% of your revenue and staff overnight.
• Why startups are a test of stamina, not intelligence.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, viral marketing, fintech, financial modeling, finding pmf, startup growth, founder stories, Siqi Chen

00:00:00 Intro
00:04:09 The COVID Crash: From $20M to $0 ARR
00:20:36 The V1 Trap: Great UI, Zero Willingness to Pay
00:36:25 The 4 Year Build: Comparing to Figma and Notion
00:46:53 The Viral Time Locked Jacket Launch
00:53:04 Adding 1M ARR in 30 Days
00:53:45 The PMF Moment

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The startup game has completely changed. If you are still building with the 2018-2022 B2B SaaS playbook, you are already behind.

In this episode, we break down exactly how the GenAI shift has altered value creation, competition, and business models forever. This isn’t just about adding AI to your product—it’s about rethinking your entire reason to exist.

If you want to know where the massive, uncrowded opportunities are right now (and why Service-as-Software is the next gold rush), this is your blueprint.

Why You Should Listen

• Why "incremental value" startups are no longer fundable.
• The 3 new threats killing your "time-to-market" moat.
• Why the B2B SaaS playbook is dead and what’s replacing it.
• The massive "Service-as-Software" opportunity most founders are missing.
• Moving beyond "per seat" pricing: The new revenue models winning today.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, GenAI startups, product market fit, service as software, B2B SaaS, AI business models, startup competition, seed stage, founder advice

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:57 Pre-Gen AI vs Post-Gen AI Eras

00:03:23 The Trap of Incremental Value Props

00:06:58 Gen AI Unlocks Undeniable Value

00:08:50 The New Triple Threat Competition

00:11:50 Why Time in Market Is Dead

00:13:14 Cycle Speed Is the Only Moat Left

00:15:00 Rethinking B2B SaaS Business Models

00:16:45 The Service as Software Opportunity

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For the holiday break we are resurfacing some of our best episodes so far. Here is the best episode of season 3.

Kyle left his job as a hacker at the NSA to launch Huntress. He bootstrapped for 3 years and burned all his savings. One of his co-founders quit. He got into an accelerator program, but had to sleep in his car for 16 weeks because he couldn't afford a hotel.

Finally, 3 years in he'd hit $1.5M ARR. So he pitched 60 VCs for a Series A—and got 60 'no's. He was forced to raise a small, $1M inside round.

But then things changed:

2018: $1.5M ARR
2019: $5M ARR
2020: $10M ARR
2021: $20M ARR
2022: $40M ARR
2023: $70M ARR
2024: $100M+ ARR

Huntress is valued at $2B.

The investors who backed his $1M bridge are up 140x.

Now every VC wants to invest—and Kyle's the one saying 'no'.

Why you should listen:

How to know whether you should keep going or quit.
What it takes to get through the first few years at a bootstrapped startup.
Why revenue expansion is a huge lever for fast-growth (Huntress has 140% net revenue retention).
How starting a startup can impact your personal life and relationships.
How to work with partners to sell to long tail SMB customers.
Keywords
entrepreneurship, cybersecurity, product market fit, startup journey, military experience, SMB market, funding challenges, automation, human expertise, business growth

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:2:01) Working at the NSA
(00:6:14) A big win in counter cyber terrorism
(00:10:00) What gave way to Huntress
(00:14:22) Pitching to a startup accelerator
(00:16:29) Adopting curiosity
(00:21:04) Getting ahead of cyber criminals
(00:26:00) Starting to grow
(00:32:50) Cult or conviction
(00:35:00) It takes grit
(00:39:50) Learning from people's lessons
(00:42:20) Cockroaches and underdogs
(00:46:10) Three strikes, I'm out
(00:52:56) Having a military background
(00:56:17) One piece of advice

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They were building a Segment competitor. It was working—customers were paying. But every sales call, prospects kept asking about the backend tech instead of the product.

So they killed the roadmap and pivoted. It took them 18 months to hit $1M ARR. Then they started growing. And so far, they've raised $350M.

Viraj walks through exactly how he validated the pivot, landed the first 10 customers, and why being outside Silicon Valley forced him to show more traction than everyone else.

Why You Should Listen

• How to know when your side feature is actually your real product
• The exact question to ask prospects to validate willingness to pay
• Why getting to $1M ARR slowly can set you up to scale faster
• How to compete when you're not based in Silicon Valley
• What talking to your first customer 4x a day for 2 months teaches you

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, open source startup, B2B SaaS growth, pivot strategy, developer tools startup, finding product market fit, early stage fundraising, design partners, commercial open source

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:46 Getting caught at the Coldplay concert

00:14:29 Deciding to Pivot From a Working Product to Something New

00:17:27 Building a Business Around Open Source Technology

00:19:38 Selling Before You Build

00:27:37 Talking to the First Customer Four Times a Day

00:30:51 Landing the First Ten Customers

00:35:10 Fundraising Without Silicon Valley Pedigree

00:38:48 When He Knew He Had Product Market Fit

Retry

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For the holiday break we are resurfacing some of our best episodes so far. Here is the best episode of season 2.

Here are the key lessons from the past 60 episodes that we've released to date. Each of the 5 steps to Product Market Fit is based on actual case studies with real examples you can use. It's a recap of everything I've learned over the last two years- you don't want to miss it.


Chapters:
(00:00:45) Mistakes Are Unavoidable But Avoidable Mistakes Are Unaffordable
(00:04:41) 1. Before Startup Mode, There's Research Mode
(00:07:16) 2. Only The Insanely Focused Survive
(00:10:49) 3. You Have to be IN the Market to WIN the Market
(00:14:08) 4. Forget Growth. Find Value.
(00:18:05) 5. Pivot Harder & Faster
(00:23:50) Recap

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David had a consumer app with 50,000 users and viral traction—and he shut it down. The retention metrics weren't as good as what he'd seen at Snapchat.

That difficult decision cleared the path for Juicebox, AI for recruiting that grew to $10M ARR in 2 years.

In this episode, David reveals how he pivoted to AI recruiting, generated millions of views with a simple LinkedIn demo, and ground through months of brutal churn to unlock 10x growth. If you want to know how to execute a flawless PLG strategy, run a hyper-lean team, and secure a $30M Series A from Sequoia, this is the blueprint.

Why You Should Listen

• Why you should kill some products even if they're going viral.
• How to launch a B2B product with zero budget.
• The "manual" playbook for fixing high churn.
• Why you should keep your team under 25 people even after raising millions.
• How to land an inbound term sheet from Sequoia.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, finding pmf, PLG strategy, viral marketing, pivoting, AI recruiting, Series A fundraising, Sequoia Capital

00:00:00 Intro
00:03:15 Learning Growth at Snap
00:13:01 Killing a Viral App with 50k Users
00:20:34 The 90 Second LinkedIn Video That Launched Juicebox
00:26:21 Fixing High Churn with Manual Work
00:33:04 Why B2B Products Only Need to be Marginally Better
00:42:27 Scaling to $10M ARR with Founder Led Sales
00:47:40 Raising a $30M Series A from Sequoia
00:50:12 The Moment of True Product Market Fit

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Jennifer went from VC to founder and immediately broke every rule in the book. When she pivoted Scribe from an automation tool to a documentation platform, her investors told her she had just killed the company. She ignored them.

Instead of polishing her product, she launched a "janky" offline MVP on Product Hunt to test for real market pull. Scribe is now used by 95% of the Fortune 500.

In this episode, Jennifer reveals the brutal truth about ignoring "smart" money, why you should run PLG and Enterprise sales simultaneously from Day 1, and how to tell the difference between pushing a boulder up a hill and chasing one down it.

Why You Should Listen

• Why you sometimes need to ignore your investors to save your startup.
• The "Boulder Test": The definitive gut check for knowing if you have true Product-Market Fit.
• How to validate a massive opportunity with zero marketing budget.
• Why the conventional wisdom about choosing between PLG and Enterprise Sales is wrong.
• How to turn executive hiring interviews into free mentorship sessions.

Keywords

startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, product market fit, PLG strategies, MVP testing, enterprise sales, go to market strategy, early stage growth, finding pmf, founder stories

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:21 1,200 Customer Interviews as a VC

00:22:07 How to Hire for Excellence

00:30:18 The Pivot from Automation to Documentation

00:39:17 Launching a "Janky" MVP on Product Hunt

00:49:09 The Boulder Test for Product-Market Fit

00:52:50 Doing PLG and Enterprise Sales Simultaneously

01:03:12 Ignoring Investors to Save the Company

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