The Power of Building Hard Things
For Ideators and Aspiring Founders
In the span of a week, I was invited to speak at three incredibly different conferences: the Prairie Capital Summit in Fargo, ND, the Military Satellite Symposium in Silicon Valley, and a dual-use defense hackathon in Kaunus, Lithuania. Each attracts its own distinct crowd, but oddly, I couldn’t ignore the consistency of curiosity and topics discussed around entrepreneurship and building businesses, be it in agriculture or electronic warfare.
It’s been over a year since I separated from my previous venture to focus on building a new type of investment firm. I can’t wait to share our progress with you and the overwhelming support we’ve had amid the challenging economic climate.
In the meantime, people seem to enjoy my anecdotes and lessons from my personal journey and the incredible leaders I’ve worked with over the years, especially the allocators we’ve invested a lot of time building trust with. One was bold enough to ask me to share my thoughts on the ‘Power of Building Hard Things’ to an audience of aspiring problem-solvers and builders, so I thought why not!
Turns out, this was no simple task. My first draft read like a sermon or a pathetic attempt at a commencement speech. So rather than generalize on the topic of entrepreneurial motivation, I found it more authentic to emphasize key lessons from each chapter of my career that I can share with the founders I cross paths with.
These days just about everyone is a founder inspired by Elon or Mark Cuban, where even our children pitch their startups to classmates. The era of ‘dropping out of school’ to start a business has evolved into boycotting elite universities, nudging us into an endless spiral of ideation, hunting for the next big problem to solve in pursuit of achieving self-worth and purpose. All this on top of a tenuous political climate and increasing global conflicts that have reignited a sense of patriotism to put money to work, backing startups in the name of national security and defense.
I’ve had the privilege of working at the intersection of international defense contracting and technology investing from IRAD to venture capital for twenty years now. I’ve worked inside the Government as well as industry and even started my own company. Mindful of the current hype in “defense-tech” and “deep-tech”, I think it would be fun to share my journey in the ‘Power of Building Hard Things’ and the unusual observations in my line of work, mostly in pursuit of altruism and empowering those willing to serve the needs of our humanity, so I hope it broadens your perspective while strengthening your conviction to build. Please keep in mind I was directionless for most of my career, unable to answer the common question, “what do you want to do?”, only to realize that most interesting careers tend to have a bit of randomness.
Altruism & Motivations
My career was catapulted by 9/11, working for government bodies like our US Congress, alongside our warfighters in the Air and Space Forces, with leading scientists at NASA, but especially in working with and investing in Founders and Entrepreneurs like you.
There is enough content on the fundamentals of starting up and valuable advice on the nuances of being a deep-tech operator. The following will instead examine the softer attributes of building a resilient business.
Entrepreneurs and operators share common goals:
● to be great
● to make a difference
● to serve the needs and improve the lives of those around us
● and a will to persevere when problem-solving gets hard.
Each of you is hungry to disrupt a big industry, put your crisis management skills to the test, and is willing to play the long game!
City of Dreams
There are two places I cannot stand for their publicity, spin, and fluff — they are Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Coincidentally, there are also two places I call home — Los Angeles and Washington, DC, but let’s focus on the west coast to start.
Los Angeles is home to celebrities and successful startup exits like Snapchat and Honey. Old Hollywood studios have been taken over by Big Tech with sexy new offices by Apple, Google, Amazon, and Netflix increasing the value of dilapidated properties surrounded by homelessness; however, there’s another side to LA that gets lost in the noise.
My parents, scholars in the creative sector, hammered home the uncertainty of what life can bring. Growing up in the epicenter of fast money and facade one gains the confidence that anything is possible. By the age of nine, I was convinced I’d be a space explorer after my first Smithsonian visit. Revealing a Southern California I came to love as the cradle of our greatest aviators and astrophysicists, producing incredible products like the SR71 Blackbird and the F18 Hornet, still capturing our imaginations today with autonomous systems like the MQ9 and X47, and greatest of all, technological marvels like the James Webb Space Telescope, which took 30 years and $10bn to build, flying a million miles from us today, unlocking the mysteries of our universe.
Call me gullible, but after 9/11, with the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq, and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, it was a crazy time and I was motivated to do my part.
I moved to Washington and landed a congressional internship in the Leader’s Office on Capitol Hill. Soon I was staffing committees that oversaw the funds equipping our allies with the technology and means to join the American response abroad. I thought I was making a difference in serving the needs of the public, but let’s call it what it is, the most action I saw was the Capitol Cafeteria menu renaming its fries to ‘Freedom Fries’. The mountain of bureaucracy alongside the endless publicity, spin and fluff in public service is astonishing, and it left me dejected.
“Building hard things can involve chasing great idealistic endeavors that will turn out to be small potatoes.”
Defense Industry & Saving Lives
Determined to find another way to serve the public, I looked towards the private sector and landed a gig at Raytheon, a prolific supplier of defense technology in the service of American lives — including the microwave oven!
I spent the next four years traveling abroad investigating middlemen brokering arms deals. This experience taught me the value of defense budgets in our economy back home, fueling job creation and advancing technology development to serve a safe and secure way of life. When we fund the race to the moon, re-shore critical supply chains for semiconductors, unlock the power of the internet, and more, they all fall under the banner of national security, and I was proudly at the forefront of funding the next frontier in tech.
I was involved in numerous contracts to equip allies with arms that shaped our foreign policy, as well as the technology to rebuild economies post-conflict. This was a startling realization that ‘my hands were in both cookie jars’ or ‘double-dipping’ as some like to quip, profiting shareholders from rising stocks caused by both destruction and reconstruction of the same target. My moral compass was spinning, testing my patriotism and ethics from war profiteering.
While I joined Raytheon as an exciting opportunity, I soon came to realize the inner workings of defense deals are based on relationships, not policy, and maybe not even technology, but that networks are what make deals happen.
“Building hard things can test your moral limitations and reveal a network of influencers shaping deals.”
Soon after, a mentor approached me with a unique opportunity to join him in a spinout of the UK Government called NATS. I thought this was a unique opportunity to channel my desire to serve the public with real impact, not just small potatoes or war profiteering, so I packed my bags for London!
Safety For-Profit
Most of the modern world has unleashed the power of public-private partnerships (PPP), an economic framework aimed at efficiencies in public infrastructure, but none as prolific as the British Crown and its Commonwealth of nations. In this instance, imagine if Lockheed Martin merged with NASA’s aeronautics branch. The model struck a powerful chord for me, combining the altruism of my youth with the enterprising culture of my West Coast roots. The uniqueness of the PPP aims to invest in efficiencies from advanced tech in modernizing our infrastructure. Similar examples include toll roads, airport terminals, the electric grid, rail, meteorological weather services, and more.
Sadly, the model brought its own baggage of both public bureaucracy and private inertia. While I treasured my experience in pursuit of “the long game” and took away the most tactical lessons in customer discovery, I could no longer stomach the pace of large organizations taking one step forward and two steps back.
“Building hard things can feel like a waste of time, but you’re actually discovering problems while gaining the passion to solve them.”
Silicon Valley & The Disruptors
After years of providing ‘safety for-profit,’ I learned our biggest product breakthroughs were in partnership with entrepreneurs and startups. I was in awe of these true changemakers, operating at speed, with determination to overcome any challenge regulators and competitors threw at them. My witness to these pioneering personalities veered towards the ‘disruptive’ Silicon Valley of the 2010's, championed by Uber, Theranos, and WeWork — each with their own TV drama today. I observed a culture that defied collaboration, treating safety and security as secondary.
One startup, however, secretly stood out operating differently, building the software used to allegedly capture Osama Bin Laden — Palantir. Their approach and success broke the oligopoly of the defense industry, shook my professional paradigm, and inspired my foray into entrepreneurship.
Key to their success was the eminent shift in building software products using ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ processes. Together with SpaceX and now Anduril, a collective of Silicon Valley pioneers with little track record or sway in Washington, armed only with the conviction for solving big defense challenges (…and a common investor), had convinced their customers to consider dramatically affordable options, better and more efficient tools with untold benefits to contracting with outsiders. Their success motivated me to quit my job and to empower more startups like them.
“Building hard things can quietly impact the lives of those around us, while simultaneously generating billions in successful exits.”
Fifteen years into my career I finally built conviction around the hard problem I wanted to tackle — a perceived hole in the market that the broader aerospace industry was ripe for disruption by Silicon Valley tech but needed collaboration — not disruption from shiny objects.
I dedicated myself to lighting a fire under the seats of all the traditional players who claimed to serve the needs of the public. The only way to get started was to get going, taking my conviction on the road, resulting in endless travel, conference panels, customer meetings, and overwhelming publicity.
Starburst was the world’s first startup accelerator dedicated to the aerospace and defense sector, offering a sandbox for stakeholders from all sides to come together and collaborate on product risk in a ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ way, just like Palantir, SpaceX, and Anduril. Our accelerator model was specialized, dubbed as the ‘aerospace shark tank’, offering a network of subject matter experts (old engineer and executive peers of mine) that loved judging, mentoring, and exploring deals in pursuit of addressing their own hard problems!
Before we knew it, we were asked to facilitate these collaborations for leaders in government, learning the challenges they face, increasing opportunities between the investment community and product builders like you, which ultimately unlocked a powerful thesis for what to invest in.
We built incredible memories, a lucrative business with colleagues in 10 countries which continues today, forging trusted networks with the most advanced (even classified) institutions. So what hard lesson did I take away here?
Reportedly, the life of a business partnership has surpassed the average marriage — but I want to highlight the overlapping similarities between business partners and life partners, especially when small cracks can turn into big cracks.
In my previous firm, my founder partnership was based on the alignment of interests, to forge a business that seemed equal at the start, only to realize the imbalance when insights and vision began to diverge.
Through the trials of that partnership, I’ve come to learn the insight for selecting the right business partner is the same when choosing your life partner, and in the words of TD Jakes, which of the following three categories a partner can fall into: a Constituent, a Comrade, or a Confidante:
● a Constituent — is for what you are for; is important for advancing your vision, they will gladly walk with you, work with you, and problem solve with you, but they will not stay with you forever;
● a Comrade — is against what you are against; stands against the same opposition as you and will overcome differences to fight the status quo. They will only be with you until the victory is won. They are very close to you and come into your life to fulfill a purpose until it is completed;
● a Confidente — is people in your life who truly believe in you! They are so special that no matter what, whether you show frailty or strength, they treat you with an expectation of greatness!
Similar to a spouse or life partner, your business partner should elevate you to a level of excellence, complement, and make you a better person.
“Building hard things can test your will to persevere by testing the strength of your partnership. Honest partnerships will achieve more than ideas or markets.”
Thanks to our industry sponsors we helped legitimize a crucial pathway for founders to collaborate on the riskiest problems. We worked with thousands of startups, with many getting acquired and some going public; placing billions in capital behind new market contenders, fueling competition and innovation into the market.
In aerospace and defense alone, new players today are valued higher in aggregate than Airbus and Boeing’s market cap combined. Venture capital and talent spinout have reignited an industrial renaissance bringing a wave of automation tools across manufacturing jobs and critical infrastructure.
“Building hard things begins with small steps and a network of people that support you and your vision.”
This leads us to what comes next, learning to look ahead, march forward, and build again!
Starting Again
The reach of my scientific network, defense procurement officers, corporate executives, peer investors and founders, has helped us to unlock a revived thesis, to confront hype, events and propagandized marketing, and to focus instead on first principles and what I’ve always known in the span of my career, that shiny objects don’t win, authentic collaborators do.
The highest-impact projects don’t come from flashy marketing or grandiose moonshots, they come from hardworking problem solvers like you. By seeking customer trust in new technologies, and by managing risk with operators and end-users, hard problems can be solved/augmented with new tools in safe and secure ways.
With a focus on tackling hard problems, we find purpose in empowering founders like Josh Riedy, CEO of Thread.one, with the network and resources to bring hard solutions to those who need it most — in his case, our power grid. This is why we are building a new generational investment firm that leverages my network from government, industry, and as an operator, to back founders in overlooked parts of our economy, those in proximity to the operators and users who understand the hard problems worth investing your career into.
“Not being in Silicon Valley or other tech-hype clusters is a clear advantage for hard-problem owners hungry to work with you and your agile approach.”
Recap
For that reason and more, I’m building again. Taking our investment firm on a new journey working with founders operating in proximity to their customers in the real world — not marketing canned water or influencing buzz in social media, offering a specialized network to convert pilot contracts into repeatable business in hard-to-crack industries. Even my partner is loving the grind, captured here in a Spirit terminal!
In summary, the power of building hard things can result in sobering conclusions:
● Your great endeavors might just be small potatoes;
● Your attempt at making a difference can test your morals while creating a network of deal-makers;
● Your serving the needs of those around you can feel like a waste of time but can expose you to hard problems hidden deep within industries;
● Your will to persevere can be tested by the value of your partnership;
● Your journey begins quietly with small steps and introductions; and
● Your proximity to hard-problem owners in remote industrial clusters can be an advantage.
Spend the time and get a job in a field you’re curious about. Use your skills to create new networks that can eventually introduce you to problems that pique your curiosity. If your circumstances and employer don’t share in your vision and urgency to prioritize or invest in a solution, while willing customers show interest in paying for it, then you’re better off surrounding yourself with people whose skills complement yours, and together with Confidentes, you may just build a great enterprise. It all begins with networking and asking someone if they know someone.
I hope to meet many more incredible founders like you and encourage you to think about “what hard problem is worth investing years of your life into”?
-VE
