Turn A Wild Idea Into A Very Real Business

0:00When someone comes to my door, I know, because I'm using SimpliSafe. I get an alert straight to my phone and I can see, is this someone I should unlock the door for because I know them? Or is it someone I need to tell to get lost? But here's the thing I love most about SimpliSafe. It works when I am not looking at my phone too, because when I'm not keeping an eye out, SimpliSafe is. SimpliSafe is proactive with a double layer of defense that stops crimes before they start. First, AI-powered cameras spot potential threats outside, and then live agents step in, talking to the person through the camera and letting them know they're on video and police will be dispatched if they don't leave.

0:44They can even trigger a loud siren or spotlight. That's how you help stop a crime before it starts. And SimpliSafe makes it easy to use. There are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees. You can cancel at any time. It was named Best Home Security Systems by U.S. News and World Report for five years running. It offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it and see the difference for yourself. This month only, take 50 % off any new system. This is one of the best prices you will ever see for SimpliSafe, so don't miss it. Just go to simplisafe.com slash problem solvers. Again, that is SimpliSafe, S-I-M-P-L-I, S-A-F-E, simplisafe.com slash Problem Solvers and lock in your discount.

1:33There's no safe like SimpliSafe. From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

1:59A few years ago, I met a founder named Holden who wanted to show me a video, a video that would explain his very interesting company. So I said, sure, let's watch it. And the first 40 seconds or whatever, I don't remember, talked about the problem. The problem is wildfires that destroy homes, which is a very real problem. California, Colorado, There are a lot of places that suffer from wildfires that destroy people's homes and businesses. And then it gets to the solution. And the solution, you're going to laugh when I tell it to you. The solution is that you press a button and the house literally lowers itself into the ground.

2:46Like for real, that's the solution. You press a button and the house goes underground. And I mean, I saw this and I said, that is the craziest idea I've ever heard. But Holden is not a crazy man. He is a very accomplished man who had spent a lot of time and money developing technology to actually do this. And the more we started talking and the more I learned about what he was doing with a company that's called Hypertech, the more I thought, this is a moonshot that I just find really compelling. It's a big idea. It's a bold idea. People might say it's a crazy idea. But it's also a real thing that he is building.

3:39that when he asked if I wanted to serve as an advisor for his company, I had to say yes, because I had to see where this journey would go. And like I said, it's been a few years. I advise a whole bunch of companies. I don't usually put them on my podcast or in Entrepreneur in some way. They're separate. But Hypertech has reached an interesting new moment here, a fundraising moment that I thought you, listening here might want to be a part of. Or you just want to hear from a founder who has devoted himself to a really fascinating moonshot. Because I mean, come on, don't you want to know who comes up with a crazy idea like this?

4:25My name is Holden Forth. I'm the founder and CEO of Hypertech Homes. And you know, you've heard me explain what Hypertech does, but let's just hear from Holden, because maybe you thought, I must have heard him wrong. He can't mean what I think he means. So? IverTech Homes is a completely groundbreaking innovation in home building technology where we are focused on saving homes and lives in wildfires in a completely unique way. What that means is we magically have created a way to put our homes underground when wildfire threats arise to raise back up to ground level when the threats pass. I know it sounds crazy, but that's what we've done.

5:08But today I am not here just so Holden can tell you about HyberTech. Really what I wanted Holden to do was talk to you, talk to me, about how to turn a giant idea into reality. Because the thing is, entrepreneurs are big thinkers and big dreamers. And I know there are a lot of people out there, perhaps you listening to this right now, you're sitting on a big idea and you're not sure if you can bring it into reality. Maybe you don't come from that industry. Maybe you don't have that specific expertise, whatever it is. Holden doesn't either. He does have some construction background. He'll explain that in a little bit.

5:57But building this kind of thing, there's no reason that Holden is specifically the person built to do it. It's just that he had the idea and he had the devotion to it. And he had the courage to not just say, this is a cool idea, but to say, this is something that I'm going to do. How do you do that? As it turns out, Holden is very, very thoughtful on this subject. We had never actually talked about it until we just hit record for this podcast, but he's pretty inspirational. And now I should tell you, everything that you just heard was originally recorded and released in 2023, along with the conversation that is to come in the rest of this episode, though I am talking to you right now in 2025.

6:42It's the magic of podcast production. And the reason that I am bringing this episode back, updating it just a bit, is, well, probably pretty obvious. After the tremendous devastation of wildfires in Los Angeles, so many people losing their homes, including close friends of mine and Holden's, well, we just felt like it was time to revisit this conversation for two reasons. Number one, because Holden is working on a solution for exactly this problem, and perhaps you would like to learn more about that, but also because these are the kinds of problems, wildfires, that are just so enormous that they require the biggest possible thinking.

7:24And I think hearing Holden articulate what it takes to take a really wild big idea and turn it into a real company is really important. It's important at any time, but feels especially important right now. So coming up today on Problem Solvers, I am going to re-air this conversation that I had with Holden in 2023, which is just as relevant today as it was back then about how to turn a wild idea into a real company and hopefully address a gigantic, gigantic problem. All coming up after the break. All right, we are back. I'm talking with Holden Forrest of Hybertech, a startup that I am an advisor to.

8:08And we're talking about how to turn a big, big, big, big, big, big, possibly crazy idea into reality. And at the start, I asked Holden to explain a little bit of his background. So let's begin there. Well, I do have some background in construction because I built a large biofuel company in a downtown location in the United States, which would never have been done before. That took five years, and that was a lot of engineering, a lot of thinking, outside-the-box thinking. But first, let me just celebrate all of the big thinkers out there that are high-concept people that have this amazing idea, and they're just completely daunted by the journey.

8:46and what it's going to take. And if I can help explain how it works and to give you enthusiasm and support, I want to do that because I celebrate you. I think that's what makes America great. So yes, keep thinking, keep dreaming, and I'll do the best I can to encourage you along by my own experiences, good, bad, and ugly. So yeah, I came up with this idea and the idea was very simple. I was very frustrated watching California burn in wildfires, especially in 2018 and 2017. when we had three massive fires that just annihilated the state. And I was with my little girl doing homework, and I was watching the news, and I just said to her, I said, I can't believe nobody's ever come up with a solution, a real solution, because right now people are sitting ducks, and there's nothing they can do.

9:34I don't want to give you this super long answer, but it was just as simple as sketching a picture on the back of her math homework of a house that went underground and came back up. I said, hey, you can't burn what you can't find, right? You can't devastate what you can't see. And I was laughing with my daughter and she said, you know, Papa, it's a magic house. I said, yeah, it's a magic house. And that's a crazy idea, Jason. It's so bat crazy to think this made any sense. But the more I thought about it, it was vexing me. And with a little bit of engineering background and having built some things before, but you're right, nothing like this.

10:09Nobody's ever done anything like this. I started to ask engineering friends of mine and then an architect that I'd worked with before that's a very, you know, Harvard top of the line architect expecting these guys to tell me I was insane. I had come completely out of my mind and I was prepared for it. I had no, nothing vested, but crazed away, they drank the same kind of Kool-Aid. I don't know. They said, well, this is so interesting. Oh, it can't possibly make sense. It never was feasible or possible. But the more we got into it and the more we started studying the math and the calculations and load.

10:45And when the architect actually designed a home that could fit upon a platform that would be weighted and balanced in such a way that it could retract and back up. And when we started looking at hydraulics and different pneumatic and different systems to get the house up and down economically, it all started to come together. And then we started to apply for patents. And then after years of work, remember, Jason, this was four years from, let me tell everybody out there, You have a big idea. And sometimes those big ideas will explode like Vesuvius. It'll be a lava flow and it'll happen quickly.

11:21More often than not, the big idea is fantastic and it's captivating and it takes years of work to make happen. I know that's what you want me to talk about too, but we'll get to that. But I just want to say it's been a four-year journey. I just went live two months ago. We had to get all of our ducks in a row, all of our engineering, our patents, our detective, them, our IP, and now we're ready to tell the world. And that's a long answer. And I'm sorry. No, that's a great answer. How long was it before you considered this a real business? What you described there is a journey that starts with just asking some people, which is a very reasonable thing to do.

11:58And then when those people don't think that you're crazy, you start taking the idea seriously, but you're still kind of in idea phase. How did you decide this is a business and a thing that I'm going to commit my time and energy and money into. Right. The first thing you do, and I'll say this again to future entrepreneurs out there, again, the big thinkers that have the renegade idea, is you get a little bit of support first from other than your friends and family, because they will always tell you you're a genius. So you need people from the outside that have no vested interest, like the engineer down the street I was talking about or the architect that I'd worked with before.

12:37This actually is going to give me the straight scoop. You need the straight story to make sure that what you've got isn't just an illusion that you have of greatness or something. So that's the first thing. And we passed that. The next thing is, will anybody invest in it? So I wrote a business plan. It was exactly two paragraphs long. I had to come up with an arbitrary value for my company in just the idea stage. No patents, nothing pending, just the idea of how it could work out with a little bit of calculations from an engineer that believed or two, the architect saying, hey, I can put a house on this.

13:12It's just the support of these people that were outside. I had to go get a little bit of money. I didn't, I could have used my own money, but a lot of the entrepreneurs out there are not independently wealthy. They have a great idea and they know they need a little bit of capital to get started. So how do you do that? Well, the first thing you do is you have to come up with a value. And how do you do that? Because you've got no revenue coming in. There's no way to definitively quantify how much your idea is worth at this very, very early stage. So the answer, my friends, is you come up with a value that resonates with the people that are writing the check.

13:43That's how it works. And so you may think you've got a billion dollar idea. But if an investor says, you know what, I'll give you$60 ,000 for 10%, which makes it a$600 ,000 idea, then maybe that's what you go with if that's what you're willing to do give up 10 for that first pre-seed money and that's exactly what i did i came up with a pre-seed value it was negotiated and my guy came in and said i love it i'm in and that's when i start taking it seriously because somebody else has not just said it's feasible or plausible somebody's put some money of their own in and i knew i was going to put a lot of my own in also but i wanted to do the journey by more than just me believing.

14:24I wanted an army of believers. And soon I had another couple of investors. And then I had a lot of people waiting to invest and I didn't need that. Then I started self-funding and doing those things because I already had the pre-seed money. Anyway, the pre-seed money allows you to go get a law firm that you might need to protect your idea. If your big thinking idea is unique, you must protect it because people will steal it. So you must take some of that early funding and make sure that you're buttoned down on your IP and coverage. You know, as you say this, I'm thinking back to some of the phases that I've watched you go through.

15:00And one thing that I've been really struck by is how good you are at collecting people. You're really good at collecting people, right? You always have some new advocate or, you know, somebody who can make an introduction that's really valuable or somebody who knows something about an area that you need to figure out. And that's a real skill all by itself. And it's interesting to hear how much you indexed on that at the very beginning, that from the very start, you're looking to validate this through other people, real experts in their fields. You're looking to make the next step in this business based on whether others will invest in you.

15:45What's your advice to people about how to find those people, how to sell those people on your vision, how to bring them on your team? You know, what a great question. And actually a topic that people really don't talk about. They talk about, you know, being persuasive and selling and they talk about being, you know, tenacious in your commitment and your drive and your focus. But you touched on something really important, and that is determining the targeting. I'm sorry, but targeting the best personalities and individuals that can help get you through the journey smoother and in a more compelling way.

16:25So using hybrid tech as an example, bringing you in was fantastic. I mean, And I initially, if it's okay to share this, booked a time with you because I'd heard through the grapevine. I actually, I don't know if you know this, I know several people that have written for Entrepreneur Magazine and were impressed with you. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, and that's why I booked the time. I booked the time for your guidance on branding and networking and the things that you are, one of many things that you're really well versed in. And then when I told you the idea, And you got it. And I hadn't shared it with hardly anybody yet because my attorneys were saying, be very, very careful what you say.

17:10We're going to do this under the cone of silence as we're developing and getting the patents. That's right. You had me sign an NDA just to have the conversation. NDA, I know. And to share our idea, you know, because we were very protective of it, but you got it. So you were a key, but I didn't even know you were a key. You kind of came along by, I would say by faith or destiny. and thank God you did. So thank you for your belief at the beginning and being able to see outside the box like the rest of us. No, thank you. Thank you. But let me give you an example, getting back to your question. How do you find strategic people that will help you push the needle?

17:46What do you do? Well, you got to think about whatever your idea happens to be of who those dream characters could be that would really get you charging forward. And I thought, well, wait a minute. I'll tell you, I'm going to shoot for the moon. We just had this Woolsey wildfire, which was absolutely devastating. 1 ,600 homes were obliterated to the ground, completely scorched earth all throughout Malibu and Calabasas and Hidden Hills. These are Southern California locations where a lot of affluent people live, a lot of celebrities and a lot of estate homes, but they were absolutely wiped off the earth.

18:27And I thought, well, you know who I need is somebody that has seen this firsthand, has dealt with it in an incredibly personal way. Who better than the mayor of Malibu to get on board, who has seen the devastation, who has been there, who has hailed as a hero because he put his old life at risk, saving dozens of people, you know, shepherding him out of the burning hills. You know, that guy would be amazing. And that guy, I called on the phone, cold called, and I said, look, you're going to think this is nuts but this is what i'm doing and it was inspired a lot by what what happened and what you did and and what you experienced in the wolsey fire because i was there i saw it firsthand because i live here in southern california uh unless you don't know so i was there and i saw it and he heard the idea and like jason like you he got it he goes well this is nuts isn't it i mean are you are you for real and i showed him by engineering and i showed him our designs and i I showed them the people we had on board and the caliber of my team.

19:31You know, I've got a PhD in thermal engineering from Penn State. I've got engineers that have worked in subterranean ways for cities and water and sewer. And so we had all the things about geology, cupboard and electric. And so anyway, he saw it all and he said, this is amazing. I want to know more. I didn't pretty soon. He's on board as a shareholder also. So, you know, that was big. that thing that you're describing there, I can't emphasize enough how important it is, which is the practical steps that have been taken to turn a big idea into a real thing. That was what sold me on this. I've had a lot of people reach out to me with big, crazy ideas.

20:18But the problem is that they're all just big, crazy ideas. They're all just at the idea stage. And as far as I'm concerned, a big idea with no execution is nothing. It's a completely worthless exercise. So what you just described with the mayor of Malibu is what I experienced too, which is when you showed this to me and I said, well, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen. But then you proceeded to show me all these ways in which it has been, it has been like, it's in the process of being realized in very real ways. The deep talent pool that you have brought to this, the amount of like real investment that has taken place.

20:58You hadn't, you hadn't like protected the ideas yet, but you were on your way there. And that I think, and like, I just, that's the thing I want to stress. and maybe you have some additional advice for folks here. You can't just run around saying, I have a genius idea. Everyone's got a genius idea. Everyone's got a genius idea for some random thing. What comes down to it is, are you the person who can execute this crazy idea and turn it into reality? Because most ideas just stop at the idea phase. But when I met you, Holden, and what I think probably a lot of other people see when they meet you is like, you're not just a crazy idea guy.

21:39I mean, you are a crazy idea guy, but you're a crazy idea guy who also is incredibly diligent and organized and relentless. And you are committed not to just big ideas, but to execution, to big execution. And that is what draws me to founders is not big ideas, but is big idea married with very realistic execution. And if you don't have that, I would strongly suggest if you're at the big idea stage, if you're listening to this, do something, do a lot to get this on the road towards execution so that when you go out and you try to find partners, you can show them that you're not just an idea person, you're an executioner.

22:30execution person. What do you think, Holden? Well, I think that's well said and completely accurate. I also think that if your big idea is about making money and that is your goal is I got this big idea that's going to make us billions of dollars, that's one incentive. And you can create some drive, I guess, and some momentum behind that. That's never been what I'm about. I like to, like my biofuel company or the other things that I've done, that I really want to do something that helps mankind. So when you talk about that tenacity and drive, it's not about being profit motivated. It really is about saving homes and lives and wildfires that have never been done before.

23:13Yes, there's a historic element to it that draws me because it's so unique and never been done. So I like that idea from a legacy point of view. I think that's really cool. But it's not about money or profits. It's about knowing every day and having the focus that it has to get done. This is the answer. I mean, I totally believe it. And my people believe it. This is a hundred percent answer for homes and businesses and other structures and wildfire in the areas. We believe in it because we believe in the mission behind it. And that is motivating that if it was just money, you could have given up a long time ago because you run out of money and there's money challenges and you think, oh gosh, I'm a real estate broker, right?

23:58What am I doing, giving up all of that income for this crazy idea. No, you have to believe in the idea. The idea has to be first and foremost, and you have to be so bought into it and understand the greater good that will happen because of it. And that's what happens for us anyway. Not all big ideas have a humanity angle to it. And so then you have to just rely on your tenacity drive and all the things we're talking about here and sacrifice. But in our case, it was a little bit easier and has been because we know we're doing something for the greater good. That allows you to sacrifice maybe a little bit more.

24:36But remember, we're doing homes and businesses and wildfires also and wind. And we're playing for a lot of marbles here. And we want to deliver. We have to deliver. This will happen. And that's all there is to it. How do you handle, I'm sure, all the people across these four years who have heard this and said to you, this is just a, this is crazy. Like, this is crazy and not in a good way. It's just crazy. This doesn't work. Or this is not something people want. You know, that you're going to, if you're a big idea person, you're going to run into a lot of that. And sometimes it's worth listening to, right?

25:17Like sometimes people who are going to doubt the thing you're doing have very valid points. How have you navigated that yourself? Okay. Another great question. First of all, two things. One is the things that you said people say, you voiced way kinder than the kinds of negativity you get from people. People that simply tell you to your face, you are an idiot. you are delusional and an idiot and a fool and get out of my face i mean they will be completely brutal uh that's that's the first thing um the uh the main point is this um it's easy to counter these people as you make progress in your in your mission And when we have patents pending, anybody can get a patent pending.

26:12You put the money in, you send your stuff to the USPTO, the patent office, and it sits there and then you can say, hey, I'm patent pending. And that doesn't mean squat. They can deny you and they often will. And it's very, very difficult, especially something so high concept as hypertech with all the mechanisms and inventions and innovations and operations never been seen before. We had 75, 80 pages of CAD drawings and everything to go with our inventions and how it all works. So to answer your question, the progress that you make helps validate the idea that you have. So when people are saying you're an idiot and a fool, you just take your patent, your first one, you put it in front of your face and go, really?

26:55Anybody who puts a house underground and comes back up to avoid any threat or wildfire or natural disaster that we can handle. I have right in my hand, this is concrete. This exists and I did it and we did it and hybrid tech is real. And that shuts people up. And when you have three of those patents, then all of a sudden you become very, very real. So yeah, I could take anybody giving me anything right now negative. I'm doing a webinar that's an open question and answer from Facebook people that have been crucifying me over the last week. Like, they don't get it. Oh, people are going to die underground.

27:34They're going to suffocate. Well, nobody rides our houses underground, but they don't read it. They don't know. So I'm going to have a chance to go against all my naysayers. Of course, we give a lot of love too. But to answer your question, results trump criticism every time. And so you have to, with your idea, continue to make progress, whatever it takes. Find a way to keep pushing the needle forward so it's undeniable. So anybody can say, when you're not just talking, you've got something concrete behind you. And that's totally imperative. You seem to have a really good idea of what you know and who you need help from.