Operating Partner

StartupNWA; Bentonville, Northern (AR, KY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Gitwit seeks to launch its Bentonville Studio to grow the next generation of product-minded builders for AI-native companies. The program centers on discovery, product strategy, prototyping, validation, and close collaboration with engineers, designers, and venture leadership across Tulsa and Bentonville.

Six full-time Builders in Residence will work inside live ventures over the next 18 months, learning by doing and shaping product strategy within an integrated studio system established to

Job description

Help launch Gitwit’s Bentonville Studio by turning discovery, product strategy, and live venture work into a talent engine for AI company creation.

Gitwit is launching its Bentonville Studio to help develop the next generation of product-minded builders for AI-native companies.

AI is changing what small teams can build, how quickly they can build it, and which kinds of work can become software for the first time. Capital, ideas, and engineering talent matter. But they are not enough. The scarce skill now is knowing which problems are worth building around and how to turn messy customer reality into a product people actually want.

That kind of builder is hard to find. And it cannot be developed from the sidelines.

You do not become this kind of builder by studying startup theory, attending panels, or watching companies get built from a distance. You become this kind of builder by being inside the work: sitting with customers, seeing the mess of real workflows, finding the signal, shaping product strategy, testing assumptions, working with engineers, and watching an idea either earn its way forward or die.

The work is the program.

Gitwit’s Tulsa-based venture studio already does this every day: discovery, product strategy, design, engineering, brand, go-to-market, customer validation, and company formation, working together inside one studio system. We start with customer pain, pressure-test ideas with users and buyers, build prototypes, stop work on ideas that do not show enough signal, and concentrate energy around the opportunities that show demand, technical possibility, and the potential to become durable companies.

Now we are extending that model into Bentonville.

This is not a satellite office someone has to figure out alone. Bentonville will be tightly connected to Gitwit’s Tulsa studio and supported by the full team: discovery, product strategy, design, engineering, brand, recruiting, operations, and venture leadership.

And it starts with live venture work from day one. With a Gitwit venture already locating in Bentonville, local builders will not be learning from theory. They will be learning inside product work, operating needs, and company-building momentum.

At the center of the Bentonville Studio will be a Builder-in-Residence program: roughly six full-time Builders in Residence developing inside live venture work over the next 18 months.

These are high-potential product, technical, and operator builders who will learn by participating in discovery, product strategy, prototyping, validation, venture support, and the day-to-day craft of building AI-native companies.

As Operating Partner, Bentonville Studio, you will help turn this model into a working Bentonville presence: running discovery, shaping product strategy, helping Builders in Residence learn through the work, connecting closely with the Tulsa studio, and helping builders, operators, engineers, founders, and design partners understand where they can plug in.

Why Bentonville, Why Now

Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas sit inside a rare concentration of business complexity, operational expertise, customer access, and ambitious people.

That matters because the next generation of AI-native companies will not come from generic software ideas. They will come from a deep understanding of workflows: the messy, expensive, repetitive, high-friction work inside industries where AI can create a step-change improvement.

The Bentonville Studio is designed to turn that regional potential into a working path into AI venture creation backed by Gitwit’s experienced venture studio team in Tulsa.