From Idea to $650M Exit: Lessons in Building AI Startups

Description

Jake Heller is the co-founder & CEO of Casetext, the AI legal startup behind CoCounsel, which was acquired by Thomson Reuters for $650 million. In his talk at AI Startup School on June 17th, 2025, he shared how his team did it—from picking the right idea to building AI products that actually work—and how founders can turn a cool demo into a reliable tool used by real customers. Chapters: 00:00 — How We Built a $650M AI Company 01:00 — Picking the Right Idea in the AI Era 04:45 — Three Types of AI Startups: Assist, Replace, or Do the Unthinkable 09:25 — How to Build Reliable AI Products (Not Just Demos) 16:30 — The Importance of Evals and Testing 24:20 — Why Product Quality Beats Marketing and Hype 26:00 — How to Price and Sell AI Products 27:45 — Building Trust with Customers 29:30 — Product Isn’t Just Pixels, It’s Everything Around It 33:00 — What Founders Should Really Focus On 36:00 — Q&A: Picking Markets, Focus, and Defensibility