Gitwit Field Notes

Jacob Johnson
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  • Entrepreneurship
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From the team at Gitwit, a venture studio building AI companies rooted in deep human research. Go inside the work: the research methods we use to find venture-worthy problems, conversations with co-founders stepping into early-stage ventures, and the creative culture behind serial builders.

Episodes

  1. Sep 23

    Inside of Mechro w/ Kastle Jones

    Kastle Jones, CEO and co-founder of Mechro, joins to talk about building AI for equipment manufacturers and their service networks — and why he believes the age of digging through paper manuals and support articles is coming to an end. Kastle shares his path from Muskogee, Oklahoma to Andover, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics, through building Tulsa's entrepreneurial ecosystem, to finally taking the leap and founding Mechro. We dig into the real problem Mechro solves (a massive skilled-labor gap in field service), how AI can democratize specialized technical knowledge, what it took to build trust with a design customer from within an OEM's walls, and the philosophy behind building a team of people who are genuinely obsessed with the mission. If you're interested in becoming a founder for one of Gitwit's ventures, check out our open roles here. Chapters 0:00 – Intro: what's got Kastle so fired up0:46 – The long-held plan to eventually build something2:14 – "If you enjoy solving the problems, you can't really lose"3:24 – Overplanning vs. just jumping in sooner2:13 – Quick overview: what is Mechro?2:32 – The core problem — not enough skilled labor to fix machines in the field2:54 – How AI can democratize specialized expert knowledge3:33 – The adoption challenge across distributor and dealer networks4:23 – Why this shift is inevitable (paper manuals → AI)5:01 – The hardest part: educating a physical-industry customer base6:49 – Kastle’s background: Muskogee, Andover, and finding ambition early7:42 – The full journey: Johns Hopkins, London, Endeavor, Tulsa15:02 – Deep in the weeds: why applied AI requires being on the ground15:24 – The "forward deployed engineer" story — building Mechro inside an OEM16:11 – Deciding it was finally time to take the swing18:05 – Meeting Gitwit and finding founder-market fit20:10 – What makes this problem space defensible (the "moat")23:14 – The first year: building trust with the design customer25:16 – Building the founding team27:15 – The one non-negotiable when hiring: real passion29:57 – What makes the Mechro team so strong32:11 – The vision: where troubleshooting and service are headed34:50 – Proactive AI agents replacing reactive support37:19 – Who the ideal Mechro customer is38:58 – Why dealer/distributor networks make this harder — and more valuable40:54 – Unblocking growth through better service43:05 – Advice for founders thinking about taking the leap45:45 – The Gitwit assignment process and building a hiring philosophy47:39 – Wrap-up and what's next for Mechro

  2. Aug 31

    Gitwit's Inevitable Evolution

    In this episode, managing partner Mike Noshay sits down with co-founder and partner Jacob Johnson to trace Gitwit's 18-year journey — from innovation agency to a venture studio building AI-enabled companies. Jacob tells the origin story with co-founder Dan Fisher, what we learned scaling a services business, the leap into building our own products, and how the venture studio model works today, including our design partner program and our plans to build 15 ventures by 2030.The through-line is something Dan taught Jacob nearly two decades ago: the ultimate skill is rethinking. Every version of Gitwit has been an attempt to make that skill repeatable — a process, a culture, and a set of "plays" designed to keep us skeptical, keep us digging past the first obvious idea, and keep every decision rooted in what we've actually seen in the world. Looking back, the move from agency to studio wasn't a pivot so much as where the approach was always headed. To learn more about Gitwit's open roles visit our website here. Timestamps: 0:00 Welcome & Introduction 0:19 Gitwit's Origin Story & Fund One Success 1:04 Why Now Is the Time to Build 3:59 Meeting Dan and Founding Gitwit 5:15 The Moleskin Vision 7:17 From Branding to Product Innovation 11:34 The Challenges of Professional Services 14:14 Betting on Their Own Product 17:16 The Call That Sparked a Venture Studio 19:18 What Is a Venture Studio? 22:33 The Art of Creative Process & Validation 26:42 Lessons in Staying Skeptical 30:26 The Design Partner Program 34:08 Bringing In Simon & Building Teams 39:00 Looking Beyond 2030 40:34 Closing Thoughts

  3. Jul 20

    The Evolutionary Model of Creative Work

    You weren't born creative. Neither was anyone else. Dan Fisher spent 20 years proving creativity isn't a gift — it's a process that runs on the same engine as evolution itself. Quantity over genius. Variation over perfection. Selection over instinct. For the past decade, every new Gitwit hire has gotten one session in their first week: Dan's Creativity 101. People have asked us to record it for years. We finally did — on a walk through Turkey Mountain. Jacob Johnson sits down with Dan to trace the evolutionary model of creative work from its origins to how it runs Gitwit today. Dan's argument starts with Darwin: evolution is nature's creative process, and its ultimate weapon is sheer quantity. Mutations beat master plans. Most ideas fail — and that's not a bug, it's the mechanism. The problem is that school, business, and the "lone genius" myth have trained us to do the exact opposite: filter early, polish fast, and wait for the one great idea that never comes. From there, the conversation gets practical. Why outsiders keep finding insights that experts miss. Why creativity is antithetical to efficiency — and why that makes it so easy to kill inside a company. How AI acts as a variation machine that collapses the cost of exploring, and why that makes selection — taste, judgment, knowing which idea to bet on — the defining skill of the next decade. And why the venture studio is this whole model applied to company-building: hundreds of problems explored, more shots on goal, a team that compounds its odds with every venture. If you've ever wondered what we mean when we say Gitwit is a venture studio built on creativity — this is the episode. To learn more about Gitwit: https://www.gitwit.com/ To apply to be part of a founding team at one of Gitwit's ventures: https://www.gitwit.com/join-a-founding-team

  • 3 Episodes

About

From the team at Gitwit, a venture studio building AI companies rooted in deep human research. Go inside the work: the research methods we use to find venture-worthy problems, conversations with co-founders stepping into early-stage ventures, and the creative culture behind serial builders.

Information

  • Creator
    Jacob Johnson
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jacob Johnson
  • Show Website
    Gitwit Field Notes