Serval

I held a spotted wildcat in Silicon Valley. 🐆

Okay, it was a stuffed animal. But what happened inside that room was anything but child's play.

On Day 2 of our NC State Innovation & Entrepreneurship Silicon Valley trip, we walked into Serval, and walked out with a completely different understanding of what it means to build.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about startups:

Building fast with AI is no longer the hard part.

Talking to customers IS.


Our organiser, Becky Holmes, welcomed our NC State cohort with incredible warmth and generosity, thank you for opening your doors to us. 🙏

And Jake Stauch, the way you broke down the journey from idea to product-market fit was something I'll carry into every project I touch.

A special shoutout to Kaz Hishida, founding engineer at Serval, who personally showed us around the company. Your story from 0 → founding engineer is the kind of energy that makes Silicon Valley what it is.

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📓 Here's what I wrote down (straight from my notebook, March 17th, 9:32 AM):

→ Scaling the product comes AFTER you build it — not during.
→ Market fit? It comes from customers. Always.
→ A product built with AI can move faster than actual people — but that means your customer conversations need to be SHARPER.
→ Get good at talking to "customers" — actually figuring out their problems through active listening and real user stories.
→ Your life becomes your resume — tell them the most interesting thing about your life.

That last one hit differently.

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💡 My Key Takeaways & Recommendations:

1. Stop hiding behind your product. Go talk to 10 customers this week. Not surveys. Real conversations.

2. Active listening is a skill. Practice it like you practice coding or pitching.

3. User stories aren't just a dev tool, they're how you understand what people ACTUALLY mean vs. what they say.

4. AI accelerates building, but human insight is still the moat. Don't skip the messy customer discovery phase.

5. Your personal story IS your brand. The most interesting thing about your life will open more doors than your GPA ever will.