The Peel with Turner Novak

• The $750 Billion AI Opportunity in Customer Service | Mike Murchison, Co-founder and CEO of Ada

  Mike Murchison is the Co-founder and CEO of Ada, the AI-powered customer service automation platform.Ada’s product and scale puts Mike at the forefront at how AI is changing software and labor markets, and this conversation felt like both a glimpse into the future, and a look into the past, at a story of pure grit and determination, working seven customer service jobs at once.We talk about why management capabilities becomes even more important in AI-native companies, how customer service is changing from a cost center to a revenue driver, and how to talk to customers more as you scale.We also get into why AI is still underhyped, what truly AI native software looks like, the realities of selling enterprise AI software today, and advice for anyone building an AI agent from scratch.Thanks to Boris Wertz and Fahd Ananta for their help brainstorming topics for Mike!Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(03:49) Making customer service extraordinary for everyone(05:44) Management becomes more important in AI-first companies(12:13) From customer inquiry to solution in production, fully autonomously(16:01) Why companies talk to customers less as they grow(20:36) Creating new products from customer service data(22:45) Broken incentives in customer service(26:10) Working 7 customer service agent jobs at once for a year(37:19) Why pivoting to Ada felt like failure(46:11) How Mike would build an AI agent from scratch today(49:15) Ways AI will change how we build and manage companies(56:44) Why the best managers are great users of AI(1:00:27) How the top 1% of people are using LLMs(1:06:22) Realities of selling enterprise AI software today(1:11:02) Building a sales team from scratch(1:15:21) Reflecting on Ada’s scale + doubling the last six months(1:16:41) Biggest software category of all-time ($750B)(1:19:51) Why AI is still under hyped(1:21:01) Ego is the biggest inhibitor to AI adoption(1:23:33) How AI will fuel explosion of creativity and productivity(1:25:20) Large companies will benefit the most from AI(1:27:41) Multi-modal language models and autonomous (computersReferencedTry Ada: https://www.ada.cx/Follow MikeTwitter: https://twitter.com/mimurchisonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemurchisonFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Why Founders are Moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee to Lock-in | Cam Doody at Brickyard

  Cam Doody is the Co-founder and General Partner of Brickyard, the venture capital firm moving founders to Chattanooga, Tennessee to lock-in with no distractions until they find product market fit.Brickyard is one of the most unique venture firms you’ll ever come across, and we get into how it how it was inspired by a 16x fund based in Chattanooga, why Cam and his co-founders started it during ZIRP, and why they hope everyone copies their model.We also get into Cam’s startup Bellhops, which he started in 2011 and has since grown into the third largest moving company in the US. We talk running a local services business, why 5-star review systems don’t work, and how U-Haul almost killed Bellhops overnight back in 2016.Thanks to Nader Khalil, Matt Harb, Austin Beveridge, and Spencer Levitt for their help brainstorming topics for Cam!Timestamps:(0:00) Intro(03:33) Chattanooga: Dirty manufacturing city to high tech(05:23) Brickyard’s precursor, the Lamp Post Group (a 16x fund)(09:46) How ZIRP screwed up early stage investing(13:49) What is Brickayrd?(21:14) Getting Brickyard off the ground in 2021(26:25) 100+ year old rug warehouse + maintenance nightmares(33:13) Cam wants everyone to copy Brickyard(36:31) Why economic development startup programs don’t work(38:59) YC teams doing Brickyard to escape the Trough of Sorrow(44:07) How Brickyard companies raise Series As(46:10) Nvidia acquiring Brev(52:18) How to deal with a co-founder breakup(55:45) Starting Bellhop to build a better moving company(1:02:27) How U-Haul almost killed them overnight(1:06:54) Marketing tactics for a local services business(1:12:05) Why 5-star review systems don’t work(1:18:16) How Cam’s view of VC’s changed after becoming one(1:20:37) Ways VC’s actually add value(1:25:05) The thesis for Bitcoin(1:39:21) Cam’s annual remote desert island vacationReferencedCheck out Brickyard: https://www.justlaybrick.com/The Trough of Sorrow: https://andrewchen.com/after-the-techcrunch-bump-life-in-the-trough-of-sorrow/Bellhops: https://www.getbellhops.com/Follow CamTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/camdoodyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cam-doody-b489a124Follow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Zero to $20m ARR in Two Months: Inside Bolt’s 7-Year Journey to Overnight Success | Eric Simons, Co-founder & CEO

  Eric Simons is the Co-founder and CEO of StackBlitz, best known for its breakout product Bolt, letting anyone build full stack apps from text, in the browser.Bolt launched in October of 2024, quickly growing from zero to a $20 million revenue run rate in two months, making it one of the fastest growing products ever. But Eric will be the first to tell you it wasn’t an overnight success - the product didn’t even work the first time they tried building it.We go behind the scenes of the seven year journey building the tech that eventually led to Bolt, how to avoid distractions, being capital efficient, living in a frat house for $100/month, and squatting in AOL’s headquarters for $1/day when he was 19.Eric also takes us inside the weeks after Bolt’s viral launch, figuring out a new business model on the fly, his strategy for fundraising and PR, why you should open source your code, Bolt’s playbook for building a community around the product that enabled their viral launch, and how AI is changing software forever.Timestamps:(0:00) Intro(2:24) Building full stack apps from text, in your browser(4:19) Running an operating system in the browser(11:48) Why Bolt failed the first time, almost shutting down the company last summer(20:18) How Bolt went viral from one tweet(28:33) Differences between ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor(39:38) Why AI code gen changes the software world order(42:01) What happened inside Bolt going from zero to $20m ARR in two months(47:32) Not sharing fundraises publicly + his PR strategy(58:57) Why the team never gave up for seven years(1:01:07) Living in a frat house for $100/month(1:04:07) How to be capital efficient(1:09:00) Living on $1/day in AOL’s HQ when he was 19(1:14:01) Inside Bolt’s Series B(1:21:03) Bolt’s hiring and product roadmap(1:32:58) Creating a new inference-based AI business model(1:38:07) Eric's playbook for building a community of users(1:44:05) Why you should open source your codeReferencedTry Bolt: https://bolt.new/Bolt on X: https://x.com/boltdotnewCheck out Webcontainers: https://webcontainers.io/$0 to $4m ARR case study with Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/customers/stackblitzBolt’s open source code: https://www.bolt.diy/Bolt / StackBlitz is hiring! https://stackblitz.com/careersEric’s favorite cafe, The Lighthouse SF: https://thelighthousessf.com/Lady Gaga’s “one person” montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRxsX_30tjsLiving inside AOL HQ at 19 years old: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/meet-the-tireless-entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/Bloomberg coverage of StackBlitz Series B: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-21/ai-speech-to-code-startup-stackblitz-is-in-talks-for-a-700-million-valuation?embedded-checkout=trueJoel Spolsky’s blog: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/Follow EricTwitter: https://x.com/ericsimons40LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-simons-a464a664/Follow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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• Rick Zullo on Building Equal Ventures, Why Traction is Overrated, Advice for Emerging Managers

  Rick Zullo is the Founder of Equal Ventures. Our conversation gets into Equal’s unique approach to venture capital, thinking more like public market and private equity investors, and why they also think traction is overrated at Seed.We talk through Equal’s thesis-driven model, employing a team of product owners, only investing in only 3 to 5 themes at once, and Rick’s admiration of Charlie Munger.We also talk AI - who will benefit the most, what he does and doesn’t like in terms of investing in the space, why venture capital is not really venture capital anymore, and why it sucks to be a Seed investor right now.Rick also runs the Emerging Manager Circle, a group for emerging fund managers. We get into the origin story of the group, his own struggles raising his first fund, and why talent is leaving the mega funds.Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(03:38) Why venture capital isn’t venture capital anymore(11:33) How founders should approach raising a Seed round(14:13) The realities of downrounds(15:55) Rick’s favorite founders that raised little capital(18:54) Biggest fundraising mistake founders make(21:21) Why we need to stop funding AI companies(28:34) How AI will benefit private equity the most(33:30) Three levels of opportunity in AI right now(38:36) Why traction is overrated at Seed(41:38) Investing in businesses with compounding returns on capital(52:07) VC lessons from PE firms(56:24) Why Seed investing sucks right now(1:04:15) The beauty of small exits(1:12:52) How failing to start a fund in college led to Equal Ventures(1:20:06) The struggle raising Equal’s $55m Fund 1(1:23:23) Why the best talent is leaving mega VC firms(1:30:16) The Emerging Managers CircleReferenced* Equal Ventures: https://www.equal.vc/* EMC Summit: https://www.emcsummit.com/Follow RickTwitter: https://x.com/Rick_ZulloLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickzullo/Follow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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  1:39:31
• Illegal Immigrant to $160m Fund 1: Inside Villi Iltchev’s Journey Building Category Ventures

  Villi Iltchev is the founder of Category Ventures, where he invests early in enterprise software startups. And he’s done it longer than almost anyone, building Salesforce’s corporate venture arm and investing early in companies like Airtable, Zapier, GitLab, Remote, Hubspot, Gusto, and Box. Fresh off raising his $160m Fund 1, we get into the opportunity he saw to start Category, and how San Francisco and Silicon Valley have changed over the past 30 years. He also shares his story growing up as an illegal immigrant in Greece, moving to the US by himself in high school, the biggest mistake of his career, advice for founders selling their company, why unit economics and profitability always matters, how developer tools went from terrible to amazing businesses, the mistake that almost killed GitLab after he invested, and why you should raise your seed round from a seed fund. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (03:22) Illegally immigrating from Bulgaria to Greece (05:14) Moving to the US by himself in high school (13:15) Moving to SF in the Dot Com Bubble (15:49) How SF changed over the last 25 years (22:27) Why HP fell from the top of Silicon Valley (25:36) Building Salesforce’s corporate VC arm (30:29) Why SaaS was so transformative (34:35) Angel investing in Airtable (39:52) The biggest mistake of his career (42:13) Why unit economics always matter (47:20) Biggest mistake when selling a tech company (49:00) Almost starting a software PE firm and landing in VC (55:45) Lessons from August Capital + Evolution of venture (59:22) Early days of dev tools + Investing in GitLab (1:09:50) Why being contrarian is dumb (1:11:45) How GitLab almost died and emerged stronger (1:16:48) Villi’s journey to starting Category (1:25:22) Category’s thesis (1:30:48) Why startups always come in batches (1:31:57) The importance of track record in venture (1:35:32) Deciding a $160m fund size (1:39:26) Why you should raise seed rounds from seed firms (1:43:40) What Villi looks for in a startup Referenced Category VC: https://www.categoryvc.com/ Category’s $160m Fund 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2024/12/17/villi-iltchev-raises-160-million-debut-fund-category/ Aaron Levie (Box) on The Peel: https://youtu.be/cLn_tqPvNf4 GitLab’s Recovery Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0TRHLvYGE0 Guy Podjarny (Snyk) on The Peel: https://youtu.be/BzKlZ_v4uCw Why SaaS won’t consolidate: https://medium.com/@villispeaks/why-saas-consolidation-is-not-happening-2b9b722e0250 Follow Villi Twitter: https://x.com/villi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/villi04/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

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  1:49:19

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