No Co-Founder, No Degree, $41.5M to Fix AI Data Centers | Zach Laberge, Omen

30:08So next day, I think we got back from we were in North Carolina with this customer next day, we're like, Alright, we're full sending on on fluid monitoring for hydraulic systems. So it's really interesting, because you wouldn't have necessarily come up with the insight for fluid monitoring, had you not been out there doing something. At what point did it, it sounds like you came back from that. And you said, Okay, we're going to go in this direction. What was the thing that caused you to say, we're going full send, because you had something that was kind of working um because clearly you had customers you had people that you were actually flying out to meet with um but you also were getting some signals that hey this is something that that doesn't break that often but the hydraulics are actually much more important what was the thing that actually got you like from that conversation to say oh wow this kind of violated what we originally thought but like let's go after it yeah i think um what you kind of realize is like a lot of customers especially some of these industrial customers they are very they're just good people like it's so it's a really cool space where they'll give you a lot of feedback but sometimes the problem is is like they'll give you feedback up to the point where like you can go on site you can test you can deploy but if you don't have real like we were selling the full vision of like hey well what if a system could like uh scan vibration and predict when it's going to fail and it's kind of the same thing as like selling hey we have a cancer monitor but we can also we're also making one that cures cancer obviously you want the curing cancer and the cancer monitor system.

31:33And that's kind of what we were selling a little bit of like the full vision. And I think a lot of people bought into that, but what we didn't, what we kind of had no idea when I was getting started was like, what the best method of getting to that full vision is? Like, how do you get to these smarter machines that, you know, better predict their failures, order their own parts, that kind of thing. And so it was just kind of like, after talking to like five different customers and they said, yeah, all of us, we do testing, all of us, like our hydraulic systems are kind of the bigger issue and then we're like hey well why did you know why did you kind of point us towards engines and I think the reality was well that's kind of what we came to them with and so they weren't going to like most of these customers don't want to take you and like point you in a different direction because you know that's not really their business in some ways or like hey we're happy to support you but the reality was a lot of these folks when we kind of went and cycled through everyone they're like yeah this is a bigger issue so okay so you started with the engine you moved to the hydraulics and the liquid and the liquid testing which is fascinating i didn't until until i started reading about your company and learning about it i didn't even realize that there was this thing where you would essentially send liquids to a lab similar to the way you do lab work like for humans um it's fascinating um you started to essentially do like at-home lab testing um is kind of a shorthand for it when did the data centers come into this is you You had this learning and it started and it seems like once you had the learning about the hydraulics and the liquid there, the diagnostic, that that was a big sort of moment for the company.

33:00What happened next? Yeah. So that was probably early 25, maybe Feb, March 25. And the funny thing is, like, we just we just put our heads down. Like we focused really hard on getting this construction business to work. And then, you know, we did a couple more customers. were getting really solid customer momentum, like signing, you know, a bunch of other large dealerships and large, like, kind of shipping companies, a bunch of people that own big fleets of machines. And then raised a little bit more money after that, like, kind of did our seed round. And then I think it was probably soon after that that we were taking a real hard look and saying, hey, like, what's, what are other use cases for our product?

33:40Like, as we kind of look into these other markets, and where else is, like, fluid testing used? Because, you know, when we were thinking about how do we get from you know call it like seven figures in contracts and like maybe a dozen or so customers to like how do you you know build up 50 60 100 million dollar business um and we kind of looked at like we looked at shipping we looked at uh large uh like manufacturing so like started to work with folks like Bridgestone and like doing like factory monitoring and that kind of stuff and then we looked at this kind of data center liquid cooling thing was starting to pick up a little bit so we said hey like the coolant these guys are using is not so dissimilar for months in cap machines.

34:17We already monitor it. And so we just started talking to folks and like, similar to how I've done almost everything is like guerrilla warfare tactics. I'm just going to reach out to all of these people. I don't care who like, if he's a CEO of like Core Weave, you know, I'm going to cold email him and reach out to him. And, you know, kind of did that with anyone you can think of. And that gave us a lot of information, like really quick. And a lot of people told us like, Hey, this is not an issue. Nobody cares. Like, I've never heard to this issue before like you know we were probably maybe six months early on it because then all of a sudden there's some massive liquid failures that started to happen but um yeah it was just like right timing of like hey we already know this space pretty well we've been doing it for a little while like what if we started talking to some other uh for to data center customers so and when you say you're six months early that can be tough right because sometimes you see something or you think about something and then a bunch of people start to invalidate it because they don't even realize it's necessarily a problem yet.

35:11At what point did you realize that, okay, despite a bunch of people saying, no, not a problem, that this was still something, and then also on top of that, I'm curious when you're messaging people, you're working on something that was adjacent to the data center stuff, but when you're messaging people trying to learn, I'm thinking about this more in the abstract versus just your case, maybe there's actually a bigger opportunity in this other area that's like complimentary to what I'm working on now. What was that actually like? Like, what would you say to people to get them to respond and be interested?

35:44Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's funny. Like, I think that that's a problem. If like, you have to be sure enough in your thesis that like, you don't let a handful of conversations totally dissuade you. Cause I, I specifically remember this one and like, you know, we'll, we'll see who is maybe he's right. I mean, we were like still very early in our direction, but I remember I met with this like Bitcoin mining guy and like had a conversation like dude like totally laughed at me it was like you're like a fucking idiot like this is not this is not I've never heard of this problem I've been in this space for like 12 years whatever it is you know never heard of this this issue and I was like oh man like leaving that like dude is this really not an issue that these guys deal with um and then you know we heard wind of NVIDIA and you know this came out maybe a month or two ago but like back then we heard when the hey NVIDIA is going to start deploying on Verirubens uh they're gonna be running at like 34 c 43 to 43 c so much hotter temperatures and so anyone who's like knows a little bit about water is like man the reason we don't drink like a pond that's been sitting there is because obviously like 34 to like 38 c is like the perfect breeding ground for bacteria that you know gets you sick i wonder if data centers are going to kind of have the same thing and so that was like probably an early inclination that hey i think the world's moving towards more democratized liquid cooling versus away from it and then it was just when you're kind of going through this process like I was able to use and I and I still use like a lot of we had some really strong validation in the industrial world where like Caterpillar was working with us we had a handful of other large like Fortune 500s that were working with us and like whether it was like partnerships or you know direct like customers we just had a lot of good supporters involved and so my pitch was like look I'm I was 19 at the time like I'm 19 year old we have you know support in the XYZ industry raised about it was like 13 million or something like that at the time and we are looking like i'm just really interested in data centers can i like pick your brain on stuff and you know a lot of people are like no a lot of people didn't respond but like a handful of folks were like hey that's kind of an interesting story i don't get that all the time and so i'm happy to meet um and it was funny like i remember uh peter tomasik who's a investor of ours now and he's a ceo of a large uh company called tensorwave like he i reached out to him and like i remember that it was so funny that like i i was like 20 and because i i asked him to meet in like a bar And so I wasn't allowed to like sit at the spot and he thought that was hilarious.

37:59And so that was kind of a memorable story on like he became an investor and advisor after that. But like, again, some of those early things are just, you know, reaching out to folks, building the relationship. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think we'll transition maybe to talking about your experience as a solo founder. One thing that sort of resonated with me about what you're just saying is, you know, sometimes you talk to people and you're early and maybe they're like the Bitcoin mining guy sort of wrote you off. I remember talking to a friend who is like a really successful investor.

38:26They've been VC, I think for like 20 years. And I told them about the idea of solo founders and they kind of, and I really respect their opinion on a lot of things. So maybe less than the Bitcoin or more than the Bitcoin mining guy. But I told them about it. They paused for a second and they said, you know, I haven't really had much success or like enthusiasm for solo founders in the past. And I I was like, should I like let this bother me? And, you know, the good news is that there were enough people who were saying positive things that I didn't. Right. And I because I believed I had some like insight into it.

39:02And I think that ultimately you have to have that balance. Right. Where you can't let like somebody, even somebody who's like got influence or who's got some real like intelligence and data to back sort of their own personal experience. Let it sort of like steer you entirely. and then they've since invested in a bunch of solo founders and they're a big fan of solo founders. So it's cool to see the transition happen. Maybe the Bitcoin guy will come around too. But I'm curious to hear about your experience as a solo founder. Like maybe we just start off by sort of talking about what it was like with Omen and sort of was there an explicit decision to be a solo founder to just happen so quickly that you didn't think about a co-founder?

39:44Yeah, I'm curious to hear. Everybody's story is slightly different. yeah I mean I think um I try not to I think that you can create something and it doesn't mean like being a solo founder doesn't mean that you can't like have really early founding team members doesn't mean you can't have like people that are really bought in so I've always had that you know like in front or I had that with my kind of COO who worked with me for that whole journey from when I was like 14 to 18 and kind of was with me through the whole process how old were they by the way they were 32 yeah so like yeah so now he it's funny I caught up with him like last week and he's like 40 now and he has a kid and stuff and it's like so much has changed for him too in that time um and like similarly like I had a CTO when I started Omen and like he was um like my kind of founding team member like my right-hand guy um that we'd work with and obviously like from a you know like from an equity perspective that kind of stuff is different but I think it just really comes to like who um if you're if you're co-founding a company with someone or if you're doing it solo like it's really the people who are gonna live and die by this business and I think sometimes like you can have really good early partners but like you have to understand that hey like those partners you know they're either not as bought in for economical reasons life reasons whatever it is maybe they have a family and kids and stuff or they're you know they're just they're not gonna be the ones like die on this hill like your your kind of vision and then so I think it was kind of just hey I you know I I didn't know anyone who I thought was awesome enough or the awesome people weren't willing to join me when I was just kind of getting started.

41:15Um, and so it kind of was just like, Hey, I'm going to go find people and, you know, you know, talented folks to come work with me, um, and, you know, get them bought into the vision. But knowing that, Hey, I, uh, I know what I want to build and I don't like, I, I definitely want people's advice, but like, I don't necessarily think I need to like to go split C's on a, on a business. Cause I kind of already had a perception and some capital and that kind of thing. So maybe if I was starting from zero next time, I, I might have a different perception on it, but from my perspective is like, hey, I had a couple million bucks.

41:45I had a good idea. Let me go find some partners to work with. It also feels like in some ways, especially if you have funding already, you can attract different types of people with different types of risk profiles. And, you know, I think that it's easy to say, oh, well, startups are risky or startups, you know, have a high failure rate or something like that. But at the same time, it's like, you know, somebody who has like a family and things that they have to consider, like you could still potentially bring on great people who have that background like early on but maybe they don't want to join pre-funding you know um and pre and post funding is a big difference i think there's this weird dynamic where sometimes people think about solo founders and for some odd reason they assume that they're never going to have teammates or something or they're not going to have like close founding teammates and i think it's just maybe it should be a solo founding is still sort of a new concept for a lot of folks but i'd actually be really curious to hear about how you thought about the founding team because one thing that uh that my friend eugenia who's the founder of replica and wabi uh says she says that she really likes this sort of connection between the founding team and the and the founder um she thinks that it's a lot closer than if you have co-founders as sort of this middle layer because she's like if you have the ceo co-founder then you've got like the co-founders and then you've got the founding team there's three layers and she says she really likes the the closeness that you have of just like like the founder CEO and then the founding team, because you don't have that sort of like intermediate layer.

43:13I'm curious sort of what your experience has been like building a founding team, like what you've learned around that and what people might be able to take away from it from themselves when they're thinking about building out their initial team. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest learning is one, what changes so much in everybody's life is like, unless you're from here and then you have a really unique opportunity, but almost everywhere else in the world like your perception of what good talent is and like what good you know good culture is changes so much and so you know I thought at one point you know I thought my first business like man this is this is the best that it gets and like and you realize like no you're not even close you still have you know tons of work to do both in how you lead who you bring on and like also just like fundamentally like the people you hire or just when you are in a really limited circle like unfortunately Halifax Nova Scotia is has a handful of stellar people but most of the people leave and a lot of them like what's left is like they're good but like they're they're never going to be as good as like someone who is in an environment where they have to be the best like it's kind of an sf or new york or mostly sf um and so that was one thing the second thing was like it just i realized how much the team has to change like you know i had you know basically it was the two of us for the first year ish of the business and then when we did our seed round And I remember having a pretty frank conversation with my kind of partner there and Caitlin at CRV.

44:33And I was like, hey, look, like, I think I got a, it's a different team that's required now to like, go from a handful of sensors that we're building ourselves to like actually scaling and build a real business here. And so I need a different caliber of folks. And, you know, we have more money now so we can go get them. And so Reset basically went back to like just me and then went out and like, you know, got my kind of CTO and got, you know, an R &D engineer that ended up becoming kind of our head of research and got like our kind of all these people that they have co-titles now. They were just engineers or like members of technical staff back then.

45:06But like all just maybe four or five people that would become kind of the founding team. And all of it was really network driven and really people that I kind of met along the way that it was a, hey, not right now, but like maybe later kind of thing. And so again, same, I'll say this like 20 times, but like life's a very long game. And so even the hires that rejected me, I was like, cool, you know what? That's totally fine. You know, why don't we just catch up every couple of months and we'll figure it out? And yeah, long-winded answer of saying, you know, I think that your friend is right. I think that there is like really awesomeness that happens when they feel like, hey, we're joining something and we have like direct line to like the founder and like we're familial in that way of like we can tell them how we feel and what we want and like it's going right to the decision maker.

45:48And I think there is like an issue sometimes where there's always ego because there is a fundamental difference between the CEO co-founder and all the other co-founders. And I think that that can like spark some weirdness where, you know, and cause barriers to hire good people sometimes or friction in the company. Now, you've raised a whole bunch of money over a couple of rounds now. You have sort of strategic investors. You have more traditional sort of VC investors like CRV. um i'd love it if you could just share a little bit about sort of uh one how you've thought about fundraising um sort of i know that things have changed pretty significantly in terms of how people fundraise over the last couple of years um you know going and raising you know every couple of months is actually much more common now it used to be like what 12 to 18 months um so like you've had there was like i think it was like eight months between your like the seed and the the most recent round, something like that.

46:44So I'd love to hear sort of what you've learned about that and what you've seen, because I think a lot of people watching this maybe aren't quite as like familiar with what's happening on the ground right now. And then also how you think about working with sort of great generalist investors and great sort of specialist investors, because I imagine they could really provide different types of value. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, um, we are probably in the greatest fundraising market in human history right now. And like both in obviously capital deployed, I think it was like more capital was deployed in the last six months and all of 26 or all of 25.

47:18And so that's a pretty good sign of like more money's out there. It is a half of that, I think went to like 20 companies or like 10 companies. So like there is a signal of like the best companies or whatever perceived to be the best companies get all the money. And then, you know, there's lots of capital being invested, but I think even, I bet, I don't even know, but I would, my gut would tell me like less startups were invested in 26 than, you know, in the first half of 25. And that's probably just because like, it is just getting more concentrated. I think that, so that's important when you're thinking about raising for multiple reasons.

47:49I think one, you're seeing that if you go and when VCs have all these other options to deploy capital in, like you really have to think about like, how do I sell the opportunity to like build, not, not like a 2 billion or$3 billion business anymore, but like, how do I build? And like, what's my roadmap towards creating this, you know, now it's like a hundred billion dollar company, trillion dollar company is like kind of what people sell off. Um, I also think that my view on it has changed so much. Like I, you know, I used to think I used to do it very differently. Like our rounds are pretty aggressive.

48:23They're generally like structured in, uh, they're almost all of them been preempted. And so there's like less of a maybe formal process that I have to run. But I think my general view is like, build a kick ass company, get some investors in really hot markets. You can kind of pick who you want to work with. But either way, if you build a kick ass company, there's always folks that want to fund you. And the best round is generally when you're not raising. So but like, that's like a multi hour conversation on like fundraising strategy. But that's generally what I go off. Got it. And in terms of in terms of kind of like thinking about advisors.

48:56Because you mentioned, I forget who you mentioned, but you mentioned one person is an advisor. Oftentimes, I think that like the conventional wisdom is that like advisors, you have to be really wary of. And I'm sure that there are like plenty of scenarios where people have useless advisors and they give them like tons of equity. But I think also, especially if you're a solo founder, when you're getting started, it might actually be incredibly useful to have certain advisors. so what what have you learned about working with advisors maybe you also had some at Frenter I'd just be curious to hear about what that experience has been like and how you would think about it if you were uh doing it again today yeah um I for sure did have advisors at at Frenter um funny thing is like some of them you don't remember and then some of them you remember and it's like you know in hindsight maybe I shouldn't have given that person equity um I think I've similar like how capital is deployed I think it's worthwhile being exceptionally generous when you have exceptional people.

49:54And so, you know, I have, I'm very fortunate to have a lot of C-suite level folks from almost every, every like major NeoCloud as an advisor. And I have an advisory board that has, I guess, kind of a lot of my investors on it. So like Mike, Mike Matacola is like the former CEO of Lambda. After that, he was the chief business officer of CoreWeave. He's an investor and he's on kind of my advisory board. I have folks from like Johnson Controls. It's all to say like these are people where I'm like man they're awesome and I want to be generous with them and at the same time like you also put up a higher barrier of like a lot of people reach out and they're like hey like can you throw me a couple advisory shares?

50:33My view is like if I don't if I'm not excited if I'm like holy shit I want to give this person like how do I get this person on board? Like it's probably not worth giving them any is kind of my view and same thing with hiring a little bit but specifically for advisors it's like dream up your list of people. I promise you you're probably only one or two connections away from these people like these people are not like living in some fancy like different dimension like they're probably an sf and they're probably one or two connections away and then you know be generous and and aggressive with getting these folks and and sell them on the story and uh half of this game is about selling yourself so and the advisory board um it's it's you know and there's various versions of it informal formal like how have you seen people do advisory boards well how have you seen people if you've talked to people who've done advisory boards?

51:18Have you seen them not go as well as they could? What have you learned on that side? I think the best people are like, I go into all of my eyes. So most of my advisors I have weekly meetings with every week, I'm gonna meet them for 30 minutes. Maybe if they're some of these really busy guys, maybe every two weeks, but still it's like a cadence. It's always set. I think if you have to schedule manually every week, that's one thing. Like it works for the first couple of weeks, maybe the first month, but like almost every advisor I was like manually scheduling stuff with from every business like eventually falls off because these people get busy and you know they're it gets hard and like you just want you just want something that's like kind of standardized it also makes life easier for them so that's the cadence I don't like the big hey let me get in the room and like get all these guys to tell me how smart I am some people like that like I don't think I think it's kind of like a board meeting a little bit if you do that and then either people are maybe shy and don't want to share their opinions people are handful of people are very aggressive and like tell the room and also not really getting your money's worth because you've kind of taken five hours of collective time put into one so maybe we'll do like an advisory dinner at some point but like all of these folks I've although I have like a advisory board with set amounts of equity that I've dedicated towards it I haven't like done a formal like dinner or get together it's all kind of one-on-one and in terms of and in terms of actually doing that when you talk to people about being advisors sometimes maybe they offer it sometimes you ask about it do you sort of how do you sort of like set expectations so that is I think like the biggest failure mode for advisors is that you have, there's misaligned expectations on one side or the other, similar to co-founders, similar to maybe employees.

52:49But I think especially with co-founders and advisors, there's that misalignment of expectations where things can go wrong. How do you do that? Like, what do you, what do you do there? And then also, um, do you have any sort of model to think about like advisor compensation? Yeah. So, um, Peter is the man and he's my, one of my advisors. He gave me, he sent me this template. Um, and I'm sure like I could send it to y 'all if you guys can link it or something the podcast it's like but it's basically just an advisory template that has different levels of advisory so it's like there's like expert intermediate and something and it basically breaks down like hey if you're my expert in this industry you're going to meet with me a couple times a month uh you're going to meet with me and you're going to give x amount of introductions and you're kind of just papering like you know this is some of it's binding some of it's not like obviously introductions are more like a goodwill thing but um it also has like suggested share amounts for each or like percentages amounts and percentages by stage.

53:39And so I've kind of just used that. Like I, you know, it's not one of those things I'm going to go sit and make a new rubric for advisor equity, but this one was just a good template of like, shit. Okay. So, you know, we're kind of a growth stage company and I want to hire this expert who is a, you know, very focused on a specific type of science that I think would be useful. Okay. You're going to give that person 0.1 % and you're going to invest it over two years and you're going to have like a six month club or something like kind of that type of thing. I never do like cash. Maybe like if they're a very specific expert, I'll like, if I want like an hour or two of their time, okay, maybe I'll throw like, hey, 500 bucks an hour, but I only need you for two hours.

54:17And you just kind of like, try to get them in the door. I've done that a couple of times. But for the most part, it's all like long term relationships and, you know, set template equity. That's awesome. I mean, we've covered a lot of ground. I would love to maybe just close on the sort of customary questions that we ask, which is the first one is sort of like sort of the bull case for, or the bear case, I should say, for solo founding. Like the reasons that you would suggest somebody don't solo found a company. And then we'll talk about that a little bit. And then afterwards, we'll talk about sort of the case for solo founding.

54:51It can be lonely. Not in the sense of, I mean, you always have people around, especially as you get bigger. But I think a lot of these people will disconnect sometimes. the like pressures of investors and customers and all of this stuff that you want to do and that you've committed to. And it's on generally on your shoulders. I think that look, the best founding teams feel that with you. And that's when I'm fortunate where I have like a lot of my founding team members are like, they'll be the ones that work with me side by side. But at the end of the day, someone's name is on the, you know, on the, on the loan agreement or on, you know, on the credit card or whatever, like whatever you've had to kind of sacrifice or make that commitment for that, Hey, if it doesn't work out, this is what I lose.

55:29So, you know, I think, I think that's like the biggest piece, especially for some of these decisions where, you know, I have never thought about like the law of decisions that, and you know, we have capital that we can make investments in or bets. And like, I think when the founder has this really cool superpower of like, I've never, you know, whether it's 40 million in the bank or 10 million in the bank or $10 in the bank, it's just kind of money. It's a tool. And I think sometimes when that's the kind a loneliness piece of like, you're one of the only people that think that most people think that think it as like, shit, it's a big piggy bank.

55:59And like, how do I get a piece of that? And that you get out with contractors or, you know, the wrong types of hires. And I think that's what the founder has to like deal with is all the different interests that aren't aligned with like, how do we build a kick ass business? You had a twin brother, you have a twin brother, and like you work together on sort of these smaller business ideas. So you had sort of like this kind of co-founder of these original things. And then, you know, for your venture skill startups, you've kind of been more of a solo founder with like founding team. Is there something you've learned about yourself through that process of going solo or something that maybe that you've found has been helpful for you to deal with, you know, some of the limits?

56:40Maybe part of the answer is just have a really amazing founding team, but is there something else that you've learned sort of in all of this because it's I spend like what six years that you've been building companies sort of as a solo founder so many like little tidbits but like I don't I think I've just realized how much I uh like but I've always kind of been about like what is my my big goal that I want to get to and like my it's funny like in some ways like sometimes my my goal has been like hey I want to you know I've always had this goal since I was a little kid of like I want to buy the Toronto maple leaves that's what like I want to get to and so obviously that requires money and so that's kind of you know a little part of the motivation on why like I want to build businesses like one day I'm gonna buy the leaves with all my my money um and it's funny like you get to different points in life and you're like okay when I'm like when Frenter is like going really well it's like oh I feel like I'm on track for that and then when it's not going well like I feel like I'm not so much on track for that and then oh shit like Omen you know now we're doing okay and like you know I think that it's just you realize like how you regulate yourself as a person and like the things you really care about and like I've also come to realize like how important it is to have you know I'm at the office 12 hours a day um and I say that by like you know you don't think oh you don't have a lot of time for the other piece in life but I think I've also come to realize like how important it is to those core pieces whether it's like fitness or health or relationships like that stuff never gets easier to fix especially to get busier like normally getting more money and more success means you're more busy and it's harder to fix those things in retrospect so I think I've realized like how important some of that stuff is to figure out now in your life, whether it's mental health or whatever it is, like you just got to fix yourself, um, because it gets harder and harder to do that.

58:22Um, and I used to have a totally opposite perception. I was like, man, when I have 10 million bucks, it's like, life is like so easy. It's like, you know, but it's never how it works. And it's, uh, it's certainly not the case. So, so really, really quick, uh, follow-up question on that before we talk about the case for solo founding, um, spending a lot of time at the office, most people do if they're building great companies or they're trying to build great companies. How do you think about like when you were getting your office and choosing where to live? Like, are you really close to the office where you live?

58:52Like, how have you thought about that from like a strategic or tactical thing? And how do you think that like, what have you seen other people do? Yeah, I mean, I used to, my office used to be in my house. So that was a super close commute, obviously. And I would say that's, I'm a person who can, I need a separate space. like I I envy people who can work in their room like have a desk and like get out of bed and go to their desk like that's cool I need like at least a separate room that I'm locking in and like okay this is my room um I you know I think with the office it's like almost even more of a physical space difference which I think has helped um but I'm close I mean I'm like a block away right uh I think it's really important I've always been like space has nothing to do with like funding rounds it's kind of my view on things it has way more to do with what what does the team need and like always plan to win and so hey if I'm gonna win and by the end of this year I'm gonna be you know 10 people it's like okay I probably need more than to be in my bedroom so it's like cool that's kind of when I moved to my first spot and then hey like we're winning I need like I'm gonna hire like 30 people now like uh shit I probably need a bigger space and like most of the time I bet on kind of the company trajectory and like momentum and like that kind of thing I've been right on like the space piece which I do think is important that you shouldn't buy like 100 ,000 square feet when you're like two people like a base because you just raised like 20 million bucks or whatever right like it has to be correlated to something and normally that is like requirements in space power whatever it is but that's kind of how i've made those decisions and you try to keep it in this place it's close to your house because it is it is a pain it will kill you like an hour long commute every day like i don't care what you say it'll mess up yeah i think it's also true for teammates too yeah um i i know a bunch of people who actually encourage the teams to live closer by giving them some sort of stipend or something like that so that they're within like a mile of the office or something.

1:00:38Bay Area, it's easier. That would be as SF is relatively small. New York, it's crazy. Some people have an hour-long commute each way on the subway. It's hard, right, to actually have somebody feel like the energy is the energy that they need for the day if they're traveling that far. Okay, last question. The case for solo founding. Why should somebody consider being a solo founder? You have this really unique opportunity where like, okay, everything we just mentioned, like it's not easy, but you both get to be your own, uh, like your greatest advocate and your greatest, like, you know, motivator.

1:01:11And you also like the reality is like, you do get this unique opportunity where like, just as everything bad is on you, everything good is on you too. And I think you get a lot of, um, I think there's a force multiplier and like the sense of, because you have to do everything, well then I have to get better at hiring. I've had to get better technically or, you know, I knew nothing about plasma physics or, you know spectroscopy or any of these kind of you know things that we do now that I've had to learn because I couldn't hire someone if I if I you know I know co-founder that was technical and so I had to kind of figure it out um and so I just think you get like just a hundred times better because you kind of have to do everything in the beginning and then because almost everything ends up reporting to you in some way even if you get other more senior team members like you just get smarter it becomes a massive force multiplier for like life.

1:02:03And yeah, I mean, that's probably the biggest thing. I mean, and then obviously there's some economic motivation of like owning your own piece, but that's, I mean, it doesn't matter. You got to win to get all that. So I think it helps you win because you just get 10 times smarter than the guy who says, you know what, I'm not going to learn anything technically because I have a co-founder to do that. And like what happens is if you don't have the perfect co-founder, like that's when your business falls apart because you basically just you're only 50 % as good as you could be so that's amazing thank you so much for this is amazing this is so fun to me and so great to have you here yeah of course yeah thanks for having me it's awesome if you enjoyed this conversation we would love it if you could share solo founders with everyone you know particularly people who are considering starting companies solo or who are already doing it you know the entire goal of what we do is to normalize solo founding encourage more people to solo found instead of end up with co-founders of convenience.

1:02:52If you'd like, and we'd really appreciate it, you can go leave a review on Apple. You can go give us a thumbs up. You can subscribe on the YouTube channel. Anything helps. And of course, if you are starting a company or considering starting a company, you should go look at the Solo Founders Program. We work together with you in San Francisco alongside of a bunch of other solo founders. The idea is it's much better to be solo together than to be solo alone. I'll spend a lot of time helping you. And we also invest$100 ,000 in your company. So if you're excited to learn more about that, go check out solofounders.com slash program.