Gorkem Yurtseven is the co-founder and CTO of generative media platform fal. He discusses investor skepticism regarding fal's specialization in image inference during their Series A fundraise.
“And we tried to explain this to people because it was so new, like no one got it. Everyone thought, An inference platform is an inference platform. Doesn't matter what kind of model it is. There are other people who are more qualified or more prepared to do this than us. And we were trying to explain them how our focus on, at the time there were no video models, our focus on image models is going to actually make a difference. And people thought the market was smaller as well. So all these things on top of each other, we actually, you know, had a hard time raising our Series A.”
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More from Gorkem Yurtseven
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Major film studios actively seek generative AI video tools from fal
“Something changed this summer and we are getting a ton of interest from basically all the studios in LA or elsewhere. Everyone is really interested to at least do something about it because now they understand this is good enough and they can actually save mon…”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 25:43The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
Insight
Frontier AI model advantages last only three to four months
“In the whole AI market, it looks like it's very hard to differentiate with models. If you have a good model, you maybe have a three month lead, maybe four months people catch up.”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 29:06The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Model commoditization will drive fragmentation, favoring multi-model platforms like fal
“So it looks like it's going to be really hard for someone to differentiate with the quality of the model. And we believe this is going to lead to even, even more fragmentation. So a company like Fall where you get to access many different models at the same ti…”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 29:48The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
fal employs over 30 engineers with zero dedicated engineering managers
“Yeah, we don't have engineering managers. We have around like. 30 to 34 engineers. We do have leads. Obviously we have leaders in the In the team, but you know, we don't have this engineering manager role. Everyone is always, like, contributing, writing code. …”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 54:33The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
Insight
Optimizing common AI workflows creates more value than arbitrary custom deployments
“Everyone wants to do the same thing over and over again. And therefore we thought there is value in actually optimizing the most common workflow.”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 16:26The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
fal surpassed $100M ARR, scaling from $2M the previous summer
“Now it's over a hundred.”
Gorkem YurtsevenOct 22, 2025▶ 38:40The pivot that paid off: How fal found explosive growth | Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder and CTO)
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