Why Deep Tech Is Where the Next Wave of Innovation Begins and How Engineering Thinking Drives Venture Impact with Jamie Gull

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down why deep tech is where the next wave of innovation begins and how engineering thinking drives venture impact. To drive these vibe bombs, I brought to Jamie Gull and EO Fire Studios. Jamie is an engineering and deep tech thought leader focused on venture building, innovation, and translating aerospace-driven thinking into scalable technologies that shape the next wave of industrial and scientific advancement.

0:34John Lee Dumas:And today we talk about going from aerospace to deep tech. Well, what exactly is deep tech? Engineering meets business, myths about deep tech, playing the long game, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jamie and our sponsors. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.

1:10John Lee Dumas:Highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, if you have a high-ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you. We'll book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you. Jamie, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, all. I want to talk a little bit of like holding some tension with that, which is there's a lot of advice around keeping your luck surface area large, not getting locked into something like a five-year, 10-year plan, especially when you're young, which I agree with.

1:56Like you should go say a lot of yes to a lot of things, meet a lot of people, network, try a lot of things. But what I would counter with is I see too much of people bouncing around for six months, one year, two years at different roles where you actually can't truly learn how to dig in with something and become an expert if you're bouncing around that much and it looks like resume building. So I want you to hold that tension with keep your luck surface area open, do a lot of different things, but dedicate yourself something seriously to something because if you're going to be a serious person, you have to do that.

2:30John Lee Dumas:In Fire Nation, that's why we're talking about why deep tech is where the next wave of innovation begins. And I want to talk about going from aerospace to deep tech. I mean, take us back, Jamie. How did your early interest in aerospace lead you into deep tech and venture thinking? It started with me all the way back when I was a child. I got to go flying with my grandfather. He was a pilot, got cool pictures of me as a tiny little kid that I don't even remember. But then when I went to college at Stanford, I studied aerospace engineering, became an engineer. I spent a couple of years at Scaled Composites, which is an aircraft design company in the Mojave Desert that's really famous for prototype aircraft.

3:15Most people would know them for Spaceship One and Two, which turned into Virgin Galactic. But outside of that, very famous spot for prototype aircraft within the industry. And I started there when I was 24 years old and got to design a third of an airplane that we designed, built, and flew in under a year, which is very hard to do anywhere else. So it was a very exciting way to cut my teeth and get a ton of responsibility early on. and then from there i jumped to spacex for six years i don't know when this goes live but it's exciting week for spacex with the ipo tomorrow on friday um i was i spent a lot of time on falcon nine design as an engineer falcon nine re-entry which was especially exciting since it had not been done before enables the rocket to re-enter land and then be reused which was the key unlock to turn SpaceX from just a slightly cheaper provider into a massively cheaper provider and begin the flywheel that gets us to where we are today.

4:18Post that, I jumped into being a founder twice, co-founded a deployable satellite antenna company in Denver that's still operating in flying antennas in space, and then started an electric aircraft company with a SpaceX buddy. We did Y Combinator, won some Air Force contracts, built an airframe and then got acquired in 2023, which then led me to where I am now, which is investing in deep tech, invest in hardware, early stage companies based on my experience as an engineer and a founder.

4:49John Lee Dumas:I want to take a step back, Jamie, and I want to talk exactly about what is deep tech. I mean, break it down for us. How do you personally define deep tech and why would you say it's gaining so much momentum right now? So I define deep tech as doing anything that's hard and maybe somewhat cynically anything that vcs until five years ago would not fund so it's usually got a hardware component or a bio component it takes longer to develop it's harder to develop i specifically focus on aerospace defense energy robotics industrials and it has to have hardware in it. It can't just do software for hardware to be deep tech.

5:34And the reason it's gaining so much momentum right now is we spent basically 20 years where Silicon Valley was focused on social media, B2B SaaS, essentially software that's got zero marginal cost of replication, which turns out to be able to be drive some pretty large returns without a ton of capital, which is great. But over time, as that became more and more popular, capital became more popular. And then now with the rise of AI and the software world, having a long and durable business that doesn't require significant capital throughout its life cycle to stay alive, to retain customers, to get new customers, to keep innovating, to protect your position.

6:25Um, what we're seeing now is that in SpaceX is leading the way here, when you can build a hardware company at scale, you need actually less capital in the back half of the company building than is required in software. And it's much more durable, but it's harder to replicate. And so you build out these natural moats where the business can keep getting bigger and bigger without requiring more and more capital, which kind of flips the narrative on the head. There's a lot of geopolitical considerations too of why it's so much popular. I'm happy to get into that if it's helpful.

7:00John Lee Dumas:Yeah, maybe we will in a little bit, but I want to kind of shift to talk about where engineering meets business. So how do engineering principles, how do they translate into better decision-making when it comes to both business and innovation? The best founders, in my opinion, especially in deep tech, are engineers. And that's like, that's not a super uncommon opinion. And that opinion has been held in the software world also. But what it means is how do you translate into the business world is an engineer breaks down the process, breaks down the requirements, and then goes and builds something and executes against it.

7:39You take that same mindset into business. It's a little bit less driven by certainty in that regard. but it has the same process that you should be putting in place where it's very rigorous and you can go execute against it, which makes engineers, I think, great founders and business people, even if it's not something they set out to do in that regard originally.

8:01John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about when it comes to both business and innovation and maybe focus a little bit more on the innovation side of things. How do these engineering principles translate into better decision-making on that innovation specifically? Maybe you have like an easy little case study or example. That'd be pretty cool. Breaking down the requirements of what something actually needs to do to accomplish a goal and figuring out which requirements traditionally are actually dumb and or because of a technological change are no longer needed or can be adjusted. So I'll use Boom Supersonic as an example because I'm an early angel investor in that and Blake, the CEO, is a friend and advisor.

8:46You know, their thesis from early on was supersonic flight has been done. Like we did the Concorde, right? The problem with the Concorde was it was old technology. Technology has changed. So now we have much better computer design tools. We can do it with composites with very swoopy shapes that are lighter. And engine technology has gotten much better. That is just, hey, what has changed? What can we do better here? And what does that get us? It lets us drive down the price. And then that's coupled with the other insight that I mentioned around requirements, the engineering mindset around requirements.

9:23The Concorde was built way too large because it was a national pride project, not somebody sitting down from first principles and walking through it. So what Blake realizes, if you could make a smaller supersonic jet that takes over the seats from a normal jet that's in first class, which is the major profit center for an airline, but offer them a faster flight at the same price, they're going to take that. And so you combine that technical insight along with the business insight, which requirements and which business thinking was done or has changed due to these reasons. I think that's a pretty good example of how you can combine the engineering principles with innovation insight.

10:06John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we're going to talk about myths about deep tech, playing the long game, future opportunities, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you have a high ticket offer, but you are not getting enough quality sales calls on the calendar, Nexus Install is exactly what you need. This is a custom LinkedIn client acquisition system built to help you connect with the right prospects, start real conversations, and turn those conversations into booked calls. Here is what makes it different. We do not just hand you a bunch of theory and tell you, good luck. We build the system with you.

10:41John Lee Dumas:Dial in your audience, sharpen the messaging, run the outreach, and aim to book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month. Then, once the system is proven and installed, we train you on how to run it yourself so you are not dependent on another agency forever. If you have a strong offer, a clear result, and are ready for more quality conversations with real prospects, email my team at john at eofire.com, and then we'll set up a call to see if Nexus Install is the right fit for you. Simple, focused, and built for predictable, long-term, quality lead flow. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure.

11:20John Lee Dumas:That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to uncommon success, my 50 days to something execution roadmap, and more.

12:03John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Jamie, we're back. And as I mentioned before the break, I want to dive into myths about deep tech. What would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions that founders have about building deep tech companies? Well, founders and then also capital providers in the general world think that deep tech is inherently extremely capital intensive. And there's definitely some truth there. Hardware is more expensive to build than software up front. But like I mentioned earlier, as you grow, there's other forms of capital available to you that are not available to a software business.

12:50So like asset-backed lending, different types of debt, things that traditional asset-heavy companies have used to grow more organically. So when you lay that out over the lifecycle of a company, the upfront part is generally more capital-intensive than a software business, but the backside is not. And so when you hit a success, that's where you start to see these really big, durable wins. I think that is the biggest misconception that's been turned on its head currently. The other thing is that it's still incredibly hard to iterate with hardware. The best founders, the best innovators have realized that rapid iteration of hardware is possible and the best way to do it just like software.

13:41So if you can do 10 much less well-designed iterations in six months, you're way better off than doing one or two what you might consider nearly perfect designs. So that mindset shift is very hard for some founders to make, and they definitely should make that shift.

14:02John Lee Dumas:We need to play the long game. So many people are playing the short game with what's happening tomorrow, like what's going to happen in the next one, two, three weeks or months. why do you think long-term thinking isn't just important, but it's critical when it comes to breakthrough technologies and ventures? Yeah, you've got to play the long game, especially in hardware for the reasons that one reason I just mentioned, which is the capital structure changes over time and you've got to get to that change for it to work well. The other reason is you're basically living in the future by designing some new tech, But you've got to hold that intention with that you need to get sales and a real product out in the world pretty quickly with the hardware world that's two or three years is ideal rather than five or more.

14:53So you've got to live in the future and you've got to think long term. And then you've got to counter that with how do I get sales now on something that's essentially a wedge product or wedge market that can let me grow into that really big back end where I'm really living in the future.

15:11John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about future opportunities because listen, our listeners, Fire Nation, one of the reasons why they tune in to this show is because they love to stay ahead of the curve. They love to know what people like yourself are thinking is coming next. So when you, Jamie, look ahead 10 years, where do you personally see the biggest opportunities for innovation? Well, the sectors that I mentioned that I focus on, like those are the ones for me. And there's a reason I'm there. And part of it's my expertise, but part of it, that's where the changes are coming. So what we see happening with space and with SpaceX and the IPO right now and the shift to data centers, along with a lunar presence, will change the way space looks significantly over the next decade.

15:52And until literally about a year ago, I was not super bullish on space outside of SpaceX. It was very hard for me to invest there. I think there's going to be a huge shift here. That's one. The next is energy. Like our GDP is essentially proportional to our energy consumption. It's been extremely stagnant for the last 20 years. We're way behind China on that. The grid demand is insane and we cannot deliver. So anybody who can generate electricity and deliver it, which is hard, distribution is hard, is going to see massive market opportunity over the next decade. On maybe some of the edgy things, like industrials have stalled out for a long time.

16:40These could be different processes on how you make ammonia. Like, this is a hot topic right now due to the Iran conflict. so those have actually seen very little innovation over the last you know long period of time and are ripe for innovation and actually having founders step into those spaces and bring a new mindset in so you know those three those three things jump immediately to mind a little bit on the edgier side would be whether or not quantum technologies can come to useful fruition that's a big question mark for me but if they do it'll be very interesting to see how they mesh with ai because there's a potential there to really supercharge ai with with quantum compute but that that is a big open question mark for me and then you know everybody's talking about ai right now to me the most interesting part of ai is going to be when and people have started doing this and the results are already very, very impactful is applying that to the physical world.

17:47So how do you unlock new biological tools? How do you unlock new materials that we haven't found that then can go change everything else in the hardware world? There's a lot of opportunity there that to me is much more impactful than a chatbot.

18:03John Lee Dumas:Let's end with this. What would you say is one mindset shift that our listeners, that Fire Nation, that just overall entrepreneurs in general need to make if they want to build something truly innovative and of course, future proof. Well, I guess with the future proof comment, my, my, uh, my piece of advice is nothing is future proof and your mindset shift has to be, I'm going to build this that's coming in the next five to 10 years, knowing that I'm going to have to then cannibalize that in another five to 10 years to the next thing. And that's where we see a lot of folks, even startups get stuck where this is our product.

18:45This is what we do. This is where we're good at, but it's also, you know, the classic innovators dilemma. So I think my advice there would be nothing is future proof, go build something now. And so you've got to take your vision should not be a specific solution. It should be a problem set or sector that you want to go solve, knowing that that will change over time.

19:08John Lee Dumas:So Jamie, of everything we talked about here today, what is one takeaway that you would like the listeners to really make sure they get from our entire conversation today? And what's the best way to connect with you if they wanted to reach out and potentially learn more? Yeah, I'd say the one takeaway is think bigger. There's so much opportunity right now in the physical world that is being unlocked for a ton of reasons. Capital, talent, AI tools, new techs. So think bigger around that. Make a big vision. You can get a hold of me. The easiest is probably Twitter or X. Username's Jamie Gull. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

19:54John Lee Dumas:You've been hanging out with JG and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Jamie, J-A-M-I-E in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Jamie, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thanks for having me. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Jamie for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation. Are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire.

20:30John Lee Dumas:So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest, and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, if you have a high-ticket offer and need more quality leads, Nexus Install is designed for you.

21:06John Lee Dumas:We'll book you 8 to 20 qualified calls each month, then train you to run the system yourself. Email my team at john at eofire.com to learn more and see if Nexus is the right fit for you.

21:21Thank you.