Operating Partner

Operating Partner Department: Gitwit Employment Type: Full Time Location: Bentonville, AR Compensation: $160,000 - $185,000 / year Description 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. 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. What You’ll Do You will be the local operating partner for Bentonville, deeply embedded with the Tulsa studio. You will lead work locally while drawing on the full Gitwit team: bringing Tulsa partners into the right conversations, translating local discovery into studio-ready product direction, helping active ventures plug into Bentonville, and making sure the Bentonville Studio develops as an authentic extension of Gitwit rather than a disconnected outpost. You will have meaningful local ownership, while major venture, investment, and hiring decisions stay integrated with Gitwit’s Tulsa studio leadership. Gitwit has a full recruiting team. You are not being hired to run recruiting. Your role is different: make the work visible, credible, and useful in Bentonville; help builders understand how they can plug in; notice strong product, founder, and builder signal when you see it; and help the recruiting team and studio leadership understand where that talent could fit. You will: Lead hands-on 0-to-1 discovery with customers, users, buyers, operators, and design partners. Turn raw field signal into insight, product strategy, and venture direction. Shape product concepts that create a meaningful delta between the old way and the new way. Define the wedge, the magic moment, the riskiest assumptions, and the first MVP tests. Help shape the Builder-in-Residence experience with Gitwit’s studio leadership, venture teams, and recruiting team. Help Builders in Residence learn by participating in discovery, product strategy, prototyping, validation, and venture-building work. Create operating rhythms that connect Bentonville tightly with Gitwit’s Tulsa studio leadership and full venture team. Pull the right Tulsa expertise into the right moments: product strategy, design, engineering, brand, recruiting, operations, or venture leadership. Create repeatable artifacts: insight briefs, product concept decks, hypothesis maps, experiment plans, prototype briefs, and handoff materials. Coach emerging builders on how Gitwit works: curiosity, low ego, sharp synthesis, fast learning, and evidence over opinion. At Gitwit, discovery is not a research phase that ends in a report. Discovery is how we decide what should exist. That means getting close enough to customers, users, workflows, and business goals to understand where the real pain is, then turning that understanding into product strategy. You will help move ideas through the chain: customer signal → business pain → AI opportunity → product concept → 4-delta experience → MVP test → venture decision The best opportunities do not move forward because they sound interesting. They move forward because they create a clear delta between the old way and the new way. A 4-delta experience is not a modest improvement. It is the moment a customer feels the new way is obviously better than the old way. The old way should start to feel unnecessarily hard. This role needs someone who can help find that delta, sharpen it, and translate it into the next product test. That is the heart of product strategy at Gitwit: not managing a roadmap, but discovering what should exist, and proving whether it deserves to move forward. The Talent Mission The Bentonville Studio exists to develop more product-minded builders for the age of AI. But talent development here will not look like a class or classroom-style training program. It will look like the work. A Builder-in-Residence sits in on customer discovery and learns how to listen for signal. A product thinker helps turn messy field notes into a sharper concept. An engineer understands the customer pain before writing code. A future founder sees how an idea earns its way forward or gets stopped. A local operator learns what it takes to move from insight to venture momentum. The goal is not simply to fill roles. The goal is to create a working environment where serious local builders can see the work, join the work, learn the work, and eventually found, grow, and lead companies in Northwest Arkansas. In your first six months, you will help turn the Bentonville Studio from an idea into a working extension of Gitwit’s venture studio. You will: Establish a tight working rhythm between Bentonville and the Tulsa studio team. Support live venture work already located in Bentonville. Help launch and shape the Builder-in-Residence program as a real learning-by-doing environment. Lead discovery and product strategy efforts tied to customer and business problems. Create repeatable artifacts that help builders learn how Gitwit works: insight briefs, product concepts, prototype plans, and experiment summaries. Build trusted relationships with local builders, operators, product thinkers, engineers, founders, and design partners. Help Gitwit’s recruiting team and studio leadership recognize strong local talent and understand how they could plug into the work. Make the Bentonville Studio feel active, useful, rigorous, connected, and worth joining. Who You Are You may be a product strategist, discovery leader, ex-founder, early-stage operator, venture studio builder, or hands‑on innovation consultant. Your background matters less than your reps. You have personally led ambiguous 0-to-1 work where there was no obvious answer yet. You have talked to customers, found signal in messy conversations, shaped product direction, tested assumptions, and helped teams decide what to build next. You understand customers and business goals. You can see where a workflow is broken, where the economics matter, where AI changes what is possible, and where the first product wedge should be. You are credible because you can do the work. You are also the kind of person who makes the work more compelling to others. When you explain what you found, people lean in. Builders want to help. Engineers understand why the problem matters. Partners see the opportunity. You are not just polished. You have substance. Proven experience leading 0-to-1 discovery, product strategy, venture exploration, or early-stage product development. A strong ability to synthesize raw research into clear product direction. The judgment to distinguish interesting insights from venture-worthy opportunities. The ability to concept products that create a step-change experience for customers. Comfort working with engineers, designers, founders, operators, business stakeholders, and customers. Strong storytelling skills grounded in evidence, not hype. The ability to build trust with people quickly. A low-ego, high-curiosity working style. Strong operating discipline: you create rhythm, clarity, artifacts, and follow-through. Comfort with ambiguity, fast learning, and changing course when reality teaches you something. Interest in developing local builders through real work, not abstract instruction. Willingness to be deeply present in Bentonville and tightly connected to the Tulsa studio team. What This Is Not This is not an events role, a recruiter role, a startup-program administration role, or a local-booster job. It is also not a pure research role where insights get handed off to someone else. We need an operator who can lead through the work: discovery, product strategy, storytelling, builder development, and venture momentum. Compensation & Benefits This is a senior, full-time role with competitive compensation, meaningful long-term upside, and the support of a full venture studio team. Benefits include: Competitive base salary, targeted around $160,000–$185,000, depending on experience and fit Meaningful long-term upside/equity Relocation support as needed 8 weeks off per year: 5 weeks vacation + 3 weeks paid holidays Excellent health, vision, and dental insurance, with 99% of employee premiums paid by Gitwit 401k with 4% match Life insurance Paid parental leave Cell phone reimbursement Weekly team lunches Flexible, high-trust work environment Casual work attire Close collaboration with experienced entrepreneurs, researchers, product strategists, designers, engineers, and venture builders The chance to help launch a new Bentonville presence while being backed by Gitwit’s full Tulsa-based venture studio This is a full-time, Bentonville-based role. You will work closely with Gitwit’s Tulsa studio leadership and should expect meaningful time in Tulsa during onboarding, plus regular ongoing collaboration between Bentonville and Tulsa. No generic cover letter. Show us how you think. Tell us about one 0-to-1 product, venture, or discovery effort you personally helped shape. We want to know: What was the customer or business problem? How did you find the signal? What product direction came out of it? What did you test or build next? What changed because of your work? What was the old way, what was the new way, and what made the new way meaningfully better? Make us believe you can turn messy reality into product momentum. #J-18808-Ljbffr Gitwit Creative