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How to Build $1.5B AI Startup in Just 3 Years | fal's co-founders

This episode features co-founders of fal, Burkay Gur and Gorkem Yurtseven. fal is a generative media platform. They just raised their Series C round of $125M, which values them at a $1.5B valuation. In 2020, during the COVID bubble in Palm Springs, two Turkish engineers – one from Amazon, one from Coinbase – started exploring startup ideas together. Starting with just image models when everyone said the market was too small, they stuck to their vision while competitors chased LLMs. They foresaw the video revolution coming. They obsessed over speed, becoming #1 on every benchmark. From two Turkish immigrants to a billion-dollar AI unicorn – this is their story. 00:00 From Zero to $1.5B: fal's Milestones 02:18 How Two Immigrants Without Connections Built a $1.5B Startup 05:14 Why We Bet on Gen AI Video Instead 08:32 Kill Your AI Product If It Doesn't Sell on Day1 10:37 Stay Small to Grow Big 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 partner@eoeoeo.net LinkedIn | @EO STUDIO X | @eostudi0 Instagram | @eostudio.official Substack | @eostudio

Burkay GurguestGorkem Yurtsevenguest
Jul 31, 202512mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

fal’s founders on speed, focus, and scaling generative media infrastructure

  1. fal positions itself as an infrastructure layer for generative media, offering APIs and an in-house inference engine optimized for diffusion models to reduce latency and improve developer iteration speed.
  2. The founders attribute their breakout to spotting an inflection point: once foundation models became “off-the-shelf,” adoption of image/video generation exploded and demanded scalable inference systems.
  3. They deliberately avoided spreading into LLM inference early, arguing that staying specific (image/video) created technical advantage, tighter user feedback loops, and clearer differentiation.
  4. They emphasize monetization from day zero in AI products, claiming AI users will pay immediately and revenue is the fastest signal for product validity.
  5. fal scaled with an unusually small team pre–product-market fit, prioritizing speed of execution, mission alignment, and rigorous evaluation of model quality versus cherry-picked demos.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Pick a niche that’s small but on the edge of explosive growth.

They argue startup success comes from niche markets that don’t stay niche; image/video generation shifted when models became usable without training, driving massive adoption and infrastructure demand.

Differentiation often requires saying no to adjacent big markets.

When growth plateaued briefly, they considered LLM inference but stayed focused on image/video because going “general” early would dilute advantage and make it harder to be best-in-class.

Treat speed as a core product feature, not just execution style.

fal aims for “day zero” model releases and extreme iteration velocity; in their view, the ecosystem moves so fast that shipping lag becomes a competitive liability.

Latency kills both creativity and productivity in generative tooling.

They optimize model serving so developers don’t wait minutes for outputs; the stated endgame is seconds or real-time generation/editing, which they see as unlocking new workflows.

Monetize from day one—AI makes it unusually feasible.

They claim users are willing to pay immediately for AI value (especially generative media), so revenue movement is an early, reliable signal to keep or kill an MVP.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Think of moving fast, take that and multiply with like 100, and move that fast.

— Burkay Gur

I think latency kills creativity. Latency kills productivity.

— Burkay Gur

I think finding a niche market that is fast-growing is the key to startup success.

— Gorkem Yurtseven

Now that these models are gonna be used by millions of people, we have to build systems that are ready for this change.

— Gorkem Yurtseven

Now, monetization should be something a priority from day zero, and it's actually easier for the founder to see if this is a good idea or if this is a good product by the revenue they are making from, from the first day.

— Gorkem Yurtseven

Generative media APIs for developersInference platform optimized for diffusion modelsLatency and creative iteration loopsNiche selection and differentiation strategyImmigrant founder journey and career constraintsDay-zero monetization in AI productsSmall-team scaling and execution speed

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