The Growth That Was Eating Your Best Product

TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:

00:00 Jared Shepard’s Unconventional CEO Journey
01:22 From Homelessness to Military Service
06:49 Building Intelligent Waves in Iraq
11:19 Redefining the Ultimate Sacrifice
15:08 Creating Warriors Ethos
20:19 The Mission Behind Hypori
24:27 Products and Services Cannot Coexist
27:34 Swimming With Silicon Valley Sharks
32:05 Disrupting Secure Mobile Computing
38:25 Why No-Brainers Become Hard
45:13 Hire Diamonds, Not Shiny Rocks
50:12 Learn From Everyone Around You

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Jared Shepard (00:00)

It sucks being in a field of want. The minute you take somebody else's money, it's not yours anymore. But I'm more like Tesla selling against Ford and Shedding. You know, know what your strengths are, know how to use those strengths.

Jeff Holman (00:12)

Welcome back everybody to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman, and I am here today with Jared Shepherd. Jared's with Hypori and a few other companies and initiatives. We'll get into all that stuff today. Jared, welcome to the show.

Jared Shepard (00:26)

Hey, thanks for I appreciate you guys having me.

Jeff Holman (00:28)

Yeah, I was so glad to have you. you you're you're gonna I think you're gonna make this a really interesting show. It's you've got so much going on and you've got some engineering stuff going on, you got some some charitable stuff going on, you got the military background. You mentioned in in our when we're doing our icebreaker segment, you know, you've been jumping off anything and everything, you know, throughout your life. So I'm sure we'll I'm sure we'll hear a little of all of that as we go. As as we get into this though,

I want to make sure because your companies are a bit more technical than the than some of the other guests that we have. So I want to make sure our guests just have a little bit of background about what your companies do. And so we've got Intelligent Waves that you've been doing for 20 years. We've got Hypori that you spun out. and then we've maybe less technical. We've got Warriors Ethos that that you're doing on the side. Can just give us a little bit of context for each of those.

Jared Shepard (01:22)

Sure. So I mean, as I as I told you, you know, before when we talked I'm kind of I'm I'm a the anti CEO in many ways. I was a high school dropout homeless kid that that joined the army. I was originally in the infantry, got a chance to do some cool stuff, got to go to sniper school, do that kind of thing. but you know, ultimately re enlisted and became an IT guy and that created the basis for me to learn technology. And and then then I got selected to work for a three star general on September eleventh of two thousand and one. And

And and all of a sudden I found myself as a a strap hanger in the corner when people like, you know, Condelisa Rice are in the room or Nuke Gingrich is in the room. We're talking about how the country is going to respond to something like that. And, you know, being a kid that came from where I came from and all of a sudden I'm realizing the world is so much bigger than I ever dreamed of. you know, I made the decision that that I I was going to get out of the military and try to go do something more impactful, which which is a recurring theme for me.

Jeff Holman (02:16)

What what was the decision going into the merit military? Was it also impact or was it escape? Like like what pushed you to do that? Because it sounds like you you maybe had an unconventional compared to a lot of people, unconventional upbringing. But but it also sounds from what you're saying, like you you impressed people as you got into the military pretty quickly and you were brought into rooms that a lot of people don't get into. So I'm I'm curious about that evolution.

Jared Shepard (02:42)

Sure. It's it was, you know, it's it the idea of evolution is this turn and it continues to happen over time. Yeah. the and it's it always has been for me and it it hopefully it always will be for me. the when I was young, I was I was a knucklehead and and I I joke, I say, you know, I I've always I've always been good at anything I really put my mind to. And when I was young, I put my mind to being an asshole.

And and I was good at it and and I got kicked out of my house and I I jeopardized my family and I did dumb things, you know. And there are I there are excuses as to why I did those things, but but they're excuses, right? Yeah, take responsibility. the the military I think was something I always wanted to do. My mom tells me that when I was in elementary school, the very first book I ever brought back from elementary school was a Jane's handbook on small arms.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which which is is funny. Both that an elementary school had James Hambook on smaller. I remember the books. Colorado,

Jeff Holman (03:40)

Yeah, I was wondering that little Where did you grow up?

Jared Shepard (03:44)

in Denver. In Denver, Colorado. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. And I I but I remember the books. They like these books that were like this big and you could go through and you could see tanks and airplanes and and I love that kind of stuff. And and so part of me I think was always destined. Yeah. And then the other part of me, which was in which was a a professional hole digger, and it was the hole I was putting myself into.

you know, getting into dumb, dumb problems. I found myself at a point where I was I was in front of a judge for for having stolen and and he kind of said that I'd I had seen him enough times that it was probably time for me to go spend a little time in jail and and I I I panicked 'cause I had considered joining the military at that point, but I kinda panicked and I said, Well, but if you send me to jail, I can't join the army. Yeah. And and he he pauses for a good, you know, 10, 15 seconds, and I could tell he was kind of chewing on that a little bit, and he said,

I'll give you 30 days to show me a contract. And if you show me a contract joining the military, I'll drop the charges. And well. So that kind of put the the impetus or the the emphasis on timing for me to do that. Yeah. and and there was a ton of reasons why it was the right decision for me to do, anyways. I I just wasn't mature enough to make the right decision for myself at the time. So it was kind of made for me. Yeah. And and that opened the doors for for a lot of growth and leadership for me over time.

Jeff Holman (05:02)

Okay. Were you were you one of those kids that was a very bright kid but maybe bored and got into trouble just but because you later I think we're gonna hear that you've gone on to accomplish some really cool stuff and be as we said, in some rooms that people don't get into. So there's it's not just knucklehead in there, right? There's there's more to it than that.

Jared Shepard (05:23)

There's value in knuckleheads, right? I mean, it's it's you know it if you think about, you know, when I say knucklehead, like, you know, the the average knucklehead is somebody who doesn't want to listen to to somebody who simply says this is the easy way to do it. They instead want to do it themselves. And sometimes they do it against the grain. And and my life has been, you know, multiple companies, all kinds of things that I've been able to do has been a lot of it has been against the grain. but i am I intelligent?

probably better than than the average, but but I don't know how intelligent. better than that is I'm really good at finding really smart people and surrounding myself with them. And and and being able to learn from them and hopefully being able to be humble enough to know that even if I'm the guy with the title, you know, CEO title or whatever title it happens to be, recognizing that I I never want to be the smartest guy in the room. because

'Cause if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're the only one who gets nothing out of the conversation.

Jeff Holman (06:24)

We talked about that a little bit in the icebreaker segment before that hopefully some of our audiences listened to. That you know, you're it sounds like you're looking for bigger ponds, bigger bigger waters to swim in all the time. So

Jared Shepard (06:34)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's I mean it's again it comes back to that evolution, right? Don't don't don't get to one place and stop and think you made it 'cause 'cause that's that's not a good way to go.

Jeff Holman (06:43)

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. I I I sidetracked us. Let's get back into into i building your businesses.

Jared Shepard (06:49)

So so I got out of the military, became a contractor and and was asked to come in with the same military organization actually and and help plan the invasion of Iraq and and at the beginning of the of the Iraq what became the beginning of the Iraq war. I deployed as a contractor, technical advisor to the third armored corps at the beginning of the war, and and was lucky to be in the room when we got to essentially design from a technical standpoint all of Iraq. So, you know, networks, transport, all that other stuff that had to be done.

you know, we got to design that from scratch because we had blown up most everything that was already there. so you know, building a country from scratch is a hell of an experience. And then, you know, fast forward I had a new boss, a guy named General Ray O'Irna, who was just an outstanding mentor leader. And he asked me to go and find what's called a Pimeses based predictive mining and modeling capability. Which which I of course astutely responded, a what?

and and you know he was like, look, here smart guy, go figure it out. And and Pimes is a doctrinal term, it means political, military, economic, infrastructure, security. and predictive mining and modeling, this was twenty plus years ago. Back then we called it that. Today you call it AIML, right? You know, it's so it it's it's artificial intelligence or machine learning, right? And it was really how can you use large sets of data to to put against models that can get to some nature predictive.

And again, that's how AI survives, right? Is is is essentially doing, you know, prediction. and I was asked to step in and help build an organization called JIDO, which was the joint IED defeat organization, which was a essentially a counter IED organization. IEDs were the bombs that were blowing up almost all of our guys

Jeff Holman (08:31)

Improvised

explosive devices that get put in the roads or whatever, right?

Jared Shepard (08:35)

Yeah, so we wanted to use technology to go after the people that were making them, the people that were financing them, the people that were moving them, the the people that were putting them in place. And effectively we wanted to disrupt that, whether it was by, you know, financially disrupting it or by killing them. you know, the the and in doing so, I started my first company, which was Intelligent Waves. And so I went back downrange again into Iraq, starting my first company as as as as a technical advisor and really a technical enablement for Jido downrange.

and and that was it.

Jeff Holman (09:06)

Downrange means you were like you were boots on the ground in the area. You were you were there.

Trying to figure out how to find the bomb makers and

Jared Shepard (09:21)

And I was in Yemen when Yemen fell, Somalia, I've been in all the garden places that you want to go for vacation.

Jeff Holman (09:27)

Garden. that's gotta have a different word in front of it instead of d garden, I think. But yeah. Okay.

Jared Shepard (09:34)

So but but the you know, all about trying to leverage and learn how to use technology to enable an outcome, right? You know, and in this case it was a war fighting outcome. and and we built a great company with intelligent waves in doing that.

Jeff Holman (09:49)

Just a quick note about our guests. I host the Breakout CEO podcast to share behind-the-scenes insights from scaling businesses. As an attorney, I see the real challenges leaders face long before success becomes public. But clients' stories have to stay confidential. So we invite guest CEOs to share their own moments of struggle and success. I'm so grateful to our guests and my team at Intellectual Strategies for making this show possible.

Let's get back to the show. w what are some of the products or services that you did with Intelligent Waves? Are there

Jared Shepard (10:24)

Yeah, so I it's intelligent waves is is IW as I call it is is is primarily a professional services company, right? So it's an it is that enablement organization that you bring really smart people with a really hard mission set and then really cool technology and try to combine those three things together and help a customer, you know, succeed at a mission.

Jeff Holman (10:45)

Sounds like consulting plus engineering plus application like

Jared Shepard (10:49)

It's it's kind of what the big integrators say they do now, right? You know, so like the the the booze allen Hamiltons of the world, that's what they say they do now, is that full scope integration, you know, not just not just butts and seats professional service, but look at a problem, help you solve the problem with the combination of expertise, technology, equipment, whatever is necessary to help, you know, the provide you the outcome that's necessary for whatever that customer is trying to accomplish.

Jeff Holman (11:12)

Okay. And so you're getting contracts with maybe the US government or large defense, you know, contractors, other yep, things like that.

Jared Shepard (11:19)

Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So so we we're doing we did lot of a lot of prime work with the Air Force, with with Special Forces, with the VA, with, you know, you know, other companies like you know, other organizations like that. And and along the way, well, I guess if I'm gonna stay chronologically in order, when I first built the company in Baghdad, my boss, General O'Dierno, gave a speech to all the senior leaders about the impact of IEDs and what what IEDs were doing to our troops. And

His son had been hit by an RPG and he had lost his left arm. And we talked about what the idea of the ultimate sacrifice was. And I had an epiphany. And the epiphany for me was the ultimate sacrifice, you know, that we learned in high school, you know, or in elementary school, really, you know, the idea of dying for your country is the ultimate sacrifice. And what I realized is that that's a little bit of bullshit. And I don't mean it as in that dying for your country isn't the ultimate sacrifice. It absolutely unequivocally is. Yeah. But it's also bigger than that.

losing a limb, being permanently disabled for the rest of your life for something greater than you, your nation, freedom, other people's freedom, that's a form of the the ultimate sacrifice. watching a friend die is a form of the ultimate sacrifice. hell, just being away from your children in their formative years for 12 to 18 months while you're in a war zone is a form of the ultimate sacrifice. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And

And so when I when I had that epiphany, I realized that I was like, shit, and this is when I had like one employee, two employees. I'm like, man, if this thing ever becomes real, I have to find a way to give back. And I started giving back the way everybody gave back back then, which was I I wrote my first hundred and thirty four thousand dollar donation to the Wounded Warrior project. And General O'Dierno, who was a great mentor and friend of mine, you know, like he he flew in and presented it to them on my behalf, which was which was just an opp awesome experience. Cool.

And and I did that for a couple of years and and then I found myself no longer really aligned with with what they were trying to accomplish versus what became my narrative in talking with all these wounded soldiers and and all these wounded families and and my narrative really became what's next? Like I get it, yeah, you were injured, it sucks. But what's next? Like your life isn't over, you're still here. What's next?

Jeff Holman (13:41)

Were you talking were you talking to these these people, these injured soldiers and families, because it it fell within the scope of the work you were doing at IW?

Jared Shepard (13:50)

No. It are you kidding me? It fell within the scope of what I what I do as an American. I was

Jeff Holman (13:54)

Just a person, a human being.

Jared Shepard (13:56)

a high school dropout homeless kid and all of a sudden I'm a I'm the CEO of a company that's getting multi-million dollar cut you know contracts. I had no right to be there. The only thing I really needed to do was ensure that other guys like me and other gals like me had an opportunity for them to go be successful after they served their countries. Okay. so so

It was it's a passion. It still is a passion to this day if if you can't tell. Yeah, there was no I wish I mean but it would have been cool if there was a financial benefit.

Jeff Holman (14:24)

It wasn't the overlap though necessarily. It was j it was it it it was it it was tangential or related to what you were doing, but this is the personal pathway.

Jared Shepard (14:33)

I was the the J six for Jido for the Jido Coek, you know, downrange for years. And one of the things that I unfortunately had to witness and see you repeatedly was the effects of IEDs. Yeah. What it what it did to our folks. And I I wanted to do something that made a difference, right? And gave back in some way, shape, or form. Because we who the hell am I to be successful on the back of our soldiers if I don't find a way to get back to

Jeff Holman (14:58)

Yeah. So there was continual continual exposure to this. Not that you didn't have the passion for it also. It wasn't wasn't a purely business, you know, transactional thing by any means. yeah, that that makes sense.

Jared Shepard (15:08)

I

mean, within a within a couple of years I had, I don't know, ten plus significantly wounded guys interning in my company. but and that's kind of what happened was after I left Wounded Warrior Project, I I was I was I met a young man in a wheelchair who was wearing signal flags at a special operations event. And I was like, Wait, what are you doing here? And he was like, Well, I was the SOCOM, the US US Army Special Operations Command Commander's RTO, his comms guy, IT guy. He got blown up and paralyzed. And I was like, Well, of course I asked him.

know, what's my narrative, right? What's next? Okay, cool. What's next? And he's he kinda gets teary-eyed and says, I I don't know. The army's kicking me out. I'm a single father. My wife left me. I don't have anything I can do. And I was Bullshit, you can come work for me. I'm not I have an IT company. Like, like, you know, let's let's teach you that. And and it led to me having a great conversation with General McChrystal, who then introduced me to Admiral McCraven, who, you know, Admiral McCraven and I talked about the value of transition and he gave me carte blanche and said, Go forth and conquer. And

And I did. I went to Walter Reed and started recruiting wounded kids and had wounded guys, you know, you know, coming into my office, one of which became a Medal of Honor recipient a couple of years later. Wow. the, you know, and a really good friend of mine. but the, you know, I had these wounded guys that are coming in and they're trying to figure out what their what next is. And each one of them's a different what next. And I get a call from the lawyers out of out of US Special Operations Command, and they're like, hey.

How are you not spending more than, you know, whatever it is, 38 bucks a year on each one of these guys? And I'm like, what do you mean? And they said, Well, they're still active duty soldiers. They're government officials. You can't spend money on a government official. okay. I'm like, yeah, that was pretty much my answer too. yeah. And I was like, Well, fuck you for calling me. Like, you know, like I didn't know. And he was like, no, no, like I get it. You're doing good stuff. But you got to give the boss some kind of top cover. And I said, Well, how do I do that?

He said, I don't know, man, like start your own nonprofit or something. that became the birth of Warriors Ethos. Okay, okay.

Jeff Holman (17:10)

You should have yeah the right have the right governance in place to to check off the compliance

Jared Shepard (17:14)

Organization, governance, oversight, auditing, like all you know, and and it it was the right question to ask. And I'm glad he did. You know, I just I was operating again, come back to that knucklehead statement, right? I was going against the grain because I didn't like the way the grain went. And but but then eventually you have to figure out how to how to do it the right way, right?

Jeff Holman (17:35)

Yeah, to scale to s to really scale you. Yeah, feel you you were just see a need, feel a need, move forward. Yeah. That makes sense.

Jared Shepard (17:42)

Especially you i i if you believe that you're morally right, ethically right, then then

Jeff Holman (17:48)

Doing good.

Jared Shepard (17:49)

yeah, then then execute, right? And like who's gonna hold who's gonna hold you accountable if you're wrong? You know, I mean, so and and it's you know, and that that was that was the way it came to be, and that's the way War's Ethos came to be, which was awesome. Okay.

That Worrizitos is almost twelve years old now. So that was twelve years ago. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (18:07)

Fantastic.

Jared Shepard (18:08)

Yeah.

Jeff Holman (18:09)

how many people have you have you helped through that organization, do you think?

Jared Shepard (18:14)

This will I I don't mean this to sound calloused, but I don't know. because I don't keep track. It's over a thousand, it's somewhere under five thousand.

Jeff Holman (18:22)

Direct direct engagements that you've had?

Jared Shepard (18:25)

Yeah, yeah, that that my or that my organization has. I mean, really I I don't I don't run it. I have a I have a retired Air Force command chief who runs it for me now. I have multiple transition counselors who who take take these intakes with these troops all the time and are helping them. We have volunteers who are mentors and coaches who once my transition counselor vets someone, one of my transition counselors vets someone, they actually introduce them to a mentor or coach who's actually been through the transition process and then helps them create their own process. We have

resume writers, we have LinkedIn writers, we have like all those things that come in and help these people prepare for what's next. And and we're not like it we're not a job placement organization. I don't want to go fish for you. I want you to be prepared to fish and have all the equipment necessary to go fish and then go forth and fish.

Jeff Holman (19:12)

So is it is it is it fair to say then that the I mean the impact when you start looking at the direct individuals, you look at the kids and spouses and families that are impacted like like this is way beyond five thousand people. You this the this extends. Yeah. Well

Jared Shepard (19:26)

I hope so. I hope so.

Jeff Holman (19:28)

that's impressive. That's very impressive. Kudos to you for for being the spark that created that. So

Jared Shepard (19:34)

Yeah,

and and the Spark is a good way to say it 'cause 'cause it's been done by others, right? The amount of volunteers that we have, you know, the the folks that I have that run it, that they you know, their work and commitment to it, it it exists because of them. so it's it's awesome.

Jeff Holman (19:51)

That that is awesome. And and it's it it's great that it you know, it it ties into kind of the work that the business that you're doing and I mean not that they're the same thing, but but it's all it's under the same cover, right?

Jared Shepard (20:03)

It's all relative. Mission, right? You know, w we yeah, and and the people that do it, right, which are the most important thing.

Jeff Holman (20:09)

How did

you get from intelligent waves and warriors ethos and now you're doing h hypori. T tell me where that's spun out of.

Jared Shepard (20:19)

Yeah, so I mean actually it's it's it's a good good it's along the theme of breakout, right? You know, so I'm running intelligent waves, it's growing, and and we're doing, I don't know, forty, fifty million dollars a year at the time. And and I get approached by a three star who I knew, special operations general, who says, Hey, Jared, like you know, you do cool wartime IT stuff,

I have a hard problem for you. What I really need is I need the ability to send a group of guys or gals into a country they're not supposed to be in with nothing. Okay. But they still have to communicate.

Jeff Holman (20:53)

Meaning you can't send the full the full IT infrastructure in and

Jared Shepard (20:57)

Meaning as in, they're going in there wearing plain clothes with beards and and it can't look like military operatives. They're not going in there with a bunch of kit. They have to be able to operate inside of the country in a clandestine way. and he was like, I I I need these guys to be able to go there and communicate, but not in a way in which he flags them or gets them shot, killed, or dragged into the street.

Jeff Holman (21:18)

Not not just the normal infrastructure because that's gonna th they're gonna be detected.

Jared Shepard (21:22)

Yeah, I mean I mean l I mean look throughout history, especially in the last forty years, fifty years, communications devices, specifically cell phones, are the number one way in which every nation out there targets and collects on people.

Jeff Holman (21:36)

Because they're monitoring or whatever.

Jared Shepard (21:40)

Usually, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. so so we were looking into how to solve this problem. One of my my architects finds this little company called Hypori that we believed we broke this problem fundamentally down into three areas. We said data in transit, data at rest, and network obfuscation are the three problem areas that we have to solve for to get to this. Okay. And and he says, Hey, I I found this little company called Hypori that that does this really kind of cool virtualized

mobile device and we think maybe it solves two of those three problems. And so I I reached out and talked to the CEO and said, Hey, I'm interested in in trying your tech and licensing it. And he kind of says, Hey, I'm the the second CEO in, the board brought me in. He's like, Look, to be honest, my job here is to shut everything down. The board's pulling funding. so, you know, we we I got like ten days left of money and then we turn the lights off.

Jeff Holman (22:34)

What had they been designed to do that they kind of the what was the objective they were trying to do when they started the company that they d weren't able to do?

Jared Shepard (22:40)

When they originally started the company, it was off of an idea of a guy named General Alexander who was who was the director of the NSA at the time. And what General Alexander simply wanted to do was I want to use my iPad in a SCIF, you know, in in a secure collaborative environment. Okay. And and for any number of reasons why he couldn't do that. And the biggest part is because, you know, mobile devices are dirty little things that talk a lot. And so

A group of guys got together and said, Hey, I think we can get to this problem and solve this problem and they went out and raised some money and they were just never really ever to able to get it to take get traction. Okay. in you know, in the time before they ran out of money. Yeah. And

Jeff Holman (23:20)

Typ typical V C problems. Either either grow fast enough or or shut down and we'll put our focus somewhere else. Yeah. Yep.

Jared Shepard (23:27)

Yep, yeah. And so, you know, I I'm talking to the CEO who's essentially the the cleanup CEO and and and he's like look give me X amount of dollars and I was like, Well, I I don't have that much money. And he said, Well, come to Austin, look at it, tell me what you can afford. And so I jumped we jumped on a plane and and went to Austin, Texas and and I met the original developers, the founding CTO, looked at their IEP. I think they had like eleven or twelve patents, you know, both either granted or in progress at that time.

Okay. and I made him an offer and hired six of the original developers and brought all into intelligent waves and we started to build out what was known as Hypori.

Jeff Holman (24:06)

What was the what was the what was the time frame for this?

Jared Shepard (24:10)

This would have been twenty eighteen. Okay.

Jeff Holman (24:12)

So about eight years ago.

Jared Shepard (24:13)

Yep. Okay. And so we get to that problem, right? We solved this problem where, you know, I and and and this is where my first epiphany comes from is, you know, this was still kind of a secondary thing that we were doing, you know, as a part of intelligent

Jeff Holman (24:26)

With within IW.

Jared Shepard (24:27)

Yeah, within within intelligent waves. And a couple of the things I had to learn there was one is is a product company tries to eat a services company alive. huh. the two things have a really hard time coexisting.

if you think about it, you know, a services company l lives off of low overhead and and essentially as cheap as labor as you can get to with the best people available to deliver to a customer, right? And that's that's how a services company lives. A a product company lives on all overhead and will eat every dime of available overhead possible so that it can build a better product. Right. And these two things are contrary to each other. And and so then we solve this problem for for for this this customer.

And I realized like, wait a second. So we just took a known compromised phone on a known compromised network and made it so that you could communicate securely with an enterprise with no risk to the to the data from the compromised phone or the compromised network. And inversely, interestingly, you know, because I wish we designed it this way initially, but we defend it now as if we did. because I assume your phone is already compromised, which

It probably is if you have social media on it or anything else on it, right? Right. Because I assume your phone is already compromised. If you look at the zero trust paradigm now, we were zero trust before zero trust was really a thing. The very first thing in zero trust is visibility. I don't I don't want visibility. I don't want to know what's on this thing because I assume it's all compromised anyways. So to it to have visibility into the phone means that I trust what it's going to tell me. So I don't trust what it's going to tell me. So I don't even want to know. So the side effect of that is.

You get to keep your privacy. So I can let you use your phone that's probably already compromised on a network I don't control, have access to a secure enterprise environment, interact with that secure enterprise environment as if you were in possession of the data, but you're not. You only get to interact with the data, and you get to keep all your privacy. And I was like, crap, this is way bigger than this little bespoke use case.

Jeff Holman (26:37)

Yeah.

Jared Shepard (26:38)

This is massive. This is BYOD. This is I could use my personal phone and get access to a government network.

Jeff Holman (26:44)

And have secure communications while maintaining my privacy because the government doesn't need to know, doesn't care, like their

Jared Shepard (26:51)

The government doesn't want to know what Sergeant Snuffy's doing at midnight. Like, I mean, that's that's that that's that's his business. Yeah. Yeah. and I realized like this is way bigger. So I made the decision ultimately to go and spin it out of intelligent wave. And I hired a CEO to run intelligent waves for me. and I went and raised money and and started Hypori two point essentially.

Jeff Holman (27:13)

Was intelligent waves a V C funded or had you bootstrapped that? Yeah.

Jared Shepard (27:16)

It's bootstrap.

Jeff Holman (27:18)

Okay. So you're so you're right. So you really are. You're you're looking to solve a problem that other people are talking about, but but it's a totally different business, different business model, different funding, financing model. Like you're you're you've now entered an an entirely different realm.

Jared Shepard (27:34)

I I might as well have been a high school varsity football quarterback when I was running intelligent waves. Cause I thought I was pretty damn good. Like we were we were doing good stuff, doing good things. I was known in the industry. I I was like I was the big fish in the pond. Yeah. Yeah. And then when I decided to spin Hyporia out and I had to go take Silicon Valley money to build a product company from a venture capital.

You know, I it was like I remember the shadow of the first shark that passed me when I was just a big frickin' goldfish. And and I realized that all the stuff I thought I knew wasn't crap. And I got so much more to know and learn. And and that became, you know, that was my my breakout moment of like, good, like, okay, yes, I was financially doing well and I was building a cool services company, but in the grand scheme of things.

I wasn't doing really anything special. And and you know, I mean I was doing in something impactful, but I wasn't doing something unique. And Hyporia is something that could be unique, but I gotta navigate the sharks in the water.

Jeff Holman (28:43)

It sounds like you guys maybe tackled the technical design that Hypori had started but maybe wasn't able to accomplish. Is that is that correct?

Jared Shepard (28:53)

Well, yeah. So I mean, I mean, Hyperi started, like I said, I think both an in progress and granted I think they had like seven granted patents and they they ultimately had in progress up to twelve. I I have forty-one now. we've re-engineered the entire tech stack stack from a monolithic platform into a cloud-based platform. We've redone the entire I mean, like there was probably not a lot you would recognize from the original product to what is today. But the idea, the concept, the mechanism is still all there.

Jeff Holman (29:21)

I I'm really curious, how were you able to take the story of Hypori, you know, that hey, it was created and they were doing this stuff and then we bought it. Ha what what did you tell Silicon Valley that was different when, you know, when you were doing it than it had been when Hypori, the, you know, one point team was doing it?

Jared Shepard (29:40)

The Hyperi 1.0 was trying to solve a different problem, right? They were trying to solve a problem for a very specific use case for you know using mobile devices inside of a secure, it's a secure SCIF. Yeah. Very small, very bespoke, this big. Okay. But I what I realized in what we had with the IP that we built out and what we were building out was it was a way bigger thing. And so, so think about this. Like, okay, yeah, I can do BYOD in the military. I can do cool, bespoke James Bondi stuff downrange. Okay, that's cool. But

Let's let's take it farther than that. I could enable you as a bank to allow your employees to have access to transaction sensitive information sets from their personal phone. You don't have to have give them a dedicated second device. Yeah. In a way in which you can audit everything that they do inside of your enterprise environment, but with no need to actually control their device. And I could even empower you to do something that nobody else in the industry can do today, like something like I can let you still use Signal or WhatsApp.

From inside of a Hypoori environment. And even though those apps are by design built to not be enterprise audited, I can audit them because they're in my environment. And so now from a banking standpoint, that means you can allow your customers to talk to you from their preferred communications mechanism mechanism and still not get fine the billions of dollars at SEC find the banks for using non-auditable platforms.

Jeff Holman (31:04)

So the the entire market just became l the entire world of confidential communications became your market.

Jared Shepard (31:11)

Well, yeah. So like it started out with like, okay, regulated industry, banking, healthcare, government, you know, those all made a lot of sense, right? And and then, you know, when I started talking, like, so UBS Credit Suisse, for instance, invested in us. And when we talked to them, they're like, Yeah, we think this thing is gonna be huge. And I'm like, Great, why? I was like, is it because of how secure we are? And they said, No, like security's that's table stakes. We wouldn't have talked to you if we didn't think you were secure. Right. You solve data sovereignty in Europe for us.

Because you don't actually move data anywhere. You only allow people to view and interact with data. You don't actually move data anywhere. So now if you think a way GDPR works in Europe, all the privacy restrictions around the movement of sovereign data s you know, sovereign data, right? We don't we we we don't cause that to trigger. Right.

Jeff Holman (32:02)

'Cause

the data stays where it's at, you don't you're not worried about

Jared Shepard (32:05)

I just allow you to interact with it wherever it was generated from. I don't have to move it anywhere. Yeah. Now, now take it another step. Like another great epiphany I had, which was like what I've said is, you know, what I told my first investor, you know, was the first guy I talked to about money, is a is an amazing legendary guy named Ray Lane. Ray Lane and Larry Ellison started Oracle. Right. Ray was the first COO and then president of Oracle. And the the first time I talked to Ray, at the end of the conversation, he's like, I'm in. How big of a check do you want?

That would that was my round A was like that I talked to one guy on on what was supposed to be the beginning of me learning how to raise money and he was already like I'm in and he and and and Great Point Ventures they wrote their largest a round A check they've ever written to us. Wow. and it wasn't because just what I do in the military, it's because what I think Hypori, how Hypori's gonna disrupt the entire world. So think about this. If I show you Hypori, so we haven't even talked about it yet for your customers. Like, what is Hypori? Yeah.

Okay, Hypori is essentially a secure operating system that runs inside of cloud. And all it does with an edge device is like think of the old days of mainframes and dumb terminals. It functionally turns any edge device into a dumb terminal that you can interact with. So like think of like virtual desktop environment or like a Citrix solution, et cetera. But designed for mobile, so which by the way is the most dominant interaction platform in the world right now, it's the number one growing platform in the world.

And and when you think about we when people who just want to callously compare us to VDI or something like that, well, yeah, except for VDI was built for fixed infrastructure in known specific environments, you know, with controlled and trusted endpoints. I'm none of those things. But I can show you a demonstration of Hyporia where I log into Hyporia and do a bandwidth test when I'm on two bars of 4G and I'll go, How much bandwidth do you think I'm gonna get? People go, I don't know, like thirty megs, forty megs, fifty megs. And I pull six gigabits of throughput.

Because it's running in a data center. Only the pixels are coming here. The actual operating system runs in a data center at the speed of a data center. Okay. So now, what if I could give you that kind of compute, but from an app on your 72-inch TV on a wall, and all you need is a keyboard and a mouse? What if I could give you a better PC than you could buy from Best Buy, all for $15 a month off of any monitor you want to use?

Jeff Holman (34:24)

Because because the processing is happening at the data at the central the data center.

Jared Shepard (34:30)

Yep, which means I can put more processing power, RAM, and storage into my virtual managed mobile environment than you will ever be able to put into this form factor.

Jeff Holman (34:41)

And that's all well i if if i if I've brought my own device, you know, and I'm using my device, I can use my device, but when I'm in your Hypori portal or or app or whatever you know, your Hypori environment on my phone, yep, that's that stuff's my personal sits outside of

Jared Shepard (34:58)

Separate. Our application can't see anything that's on your phone. The only thing your phone is doing is acting fundamentally as a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Right? It's rendering an image. It's allowing you to touch, type, and swipe, and that's it. It doesn't store anything. It doesn't possess anything. It never, it never, it doesn't cache anything. All that stays in the enterprise.

Jeff Holman (35:18)

It's all virtu it's all virtual interface tied back to this to s the central processing units.

Jared Shepard (35:25)

And then my next epiphany came, ironically, from my wife, who my wife comes to me and she was like, Hey, when can I have Hypori? And I was like,

Jeff Holman (35:33)

You're like, why do you need that?

Jared Shepard (35:34)

Why would you want Hypori, right? Right. And and she was like, Well, it's a virtual phone, right? I'm like, Well, kinda. You know, it's a virtual operating system, you know, that is really endpoint isolation, et cetera. And she's Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what you're saying is if I lose this, I don't lose anything. I'm like, Yes. So, okay, cool. So then

Why can't I take the big one with the cameras to the kids events and take pictures? And why can't I take a little flippy one with me when I go out with my girlfriends to dinner? Like why can't I change out my phone the way I change out my purse?

Jeff Holman (36:04)

So that you're just loading the environment onto whichever phone you're in you're in.

Jared Shepard (36:08)

Because this is all this ultimately is is a console. Yeah. The environment, I'm not loading the environment into here. I'm using this to get to the environment.

Jeff Holman (36:15)

It it's a c yeah, you're connecting back into the central central unit where everything happens.

Jared Shepard (36:20)

Right, whether I'm launching to it from my phone, from my iPad, from my TV on the wall, it's all going to the same place.

Jeff Holman (36:27)

Does that mean that your wife's per w would be w in her situation that she's describing, she would say, Well, maybe I want to put some of my personal information into into the hypourie environment. Is that what that is?

Jared Shepard (36:39)

Like we haven't gotten there yet, but in that environment, it would be a a B to C type sale where a a consumer grade version of Hypourri that, you know, you, Jeff, could come and spend fifteen bucks a month and you get a version of Hypouria that is now, no matter what happens to your phone, it's there. Yeah. And like what we found now, we have a whole bunch of interest, corporate wise and and government wise, in people who travel, especially the people who travel to Europe and Asia. So now what they're doing is is they leave their phone at home.

Jeff Holman (37:03)

Right.

Jared Shepard (37:03)

They set up their HypoI environment to have all their stuff in it, their banking info, their their their their their airline info, their Facebook, their WhatsApp, everything else like that. They set all that up inside of a hypori environment and then they buy a burner from whatever country they go into and use that to access all their personal stuff with no worries about if they get pickpocketed, no worries if the cop phone gets compromised, no worries about having their airline information hacked or stolen. And at the end of the trip, if they want, they can just throw the phone away.

Jeff Holman (37:33)

Because some people now they'll send they'll send their teams to to let's just say China and they say, Hey, you can't go to China with your normal equipment. You gotta t you we gotta clean everything, we gotta isolate it, we gotta send you with

Jared Shepard (37:45)

Look, if you're any any organization, government or corporate, if you're sending your people into China, you should never let your infrastructure touch those networks because China has repeatedly demonstrated through Volt Typhoon, Sol Typhoon, multiple other efforts out there, their economic priority is to gain IP and information sets so that they can become the dominant country in the world. And they will do so through big borrow and stealing as much as possible.

Jeff Holman (38:12)

It sounds like this has been easy then. You just go get your your A round, you you, you know, have this epiphany that this is gonna be a huge business. Has how's it how's it w been working out?

Jared Shepard (38:25)

Yeah, yeah. What any anything that everybody ever anybody ever tells you is a no brainer means it's gonna be really frickin' hard to do.

Jeff Holman (38:33)

Means means you don't know what the problems are yet, right?

Jared Shepard (38:36)

Well, it it so so think about it. Like we I'm not Ford selling against Chevy, right? It that would make a lot of sense. So if I can come and tell you why my pickup truck is better than your pickup truck, simply because I have better interior or a stronger motor or better gas mileage or whatever it happens to be, it'd be a really easy easy conversation for us to have. But

Jeff Holman (38:54)

'Cause you have reference point. Yeah.

Jared Shepard (38:56)

I'm more like Tesla selling against Ford and Chevy. I'm more like, hey, yeah, I have four wheels and four doors, but that's about where the similarities stop.

Yeah. And and and now I'm trying to convince you why you never have to put diesel in your car again. Right. And and by the way, you've been putting diesel in your car for twenty years now. It's a hard sell to convince you that that you don't need to do that anymore.

Jeff Holman (39:19)

So so give me a a little bit of an overview from that first check that you took to to where you're at today.

Jared Shepard (39:25)

First check that I took, I think we were at three hundred and eighty thousand in revenue or something like that. maybe a little over a million, you know, I

Jeff Holman (39:32)

Is that

mostly government type contracts and things like that?

Jared Shepard (39:34)

Government, government special operations stuff, et cetera. we're we're floating around thirty-five million of revenue now. the and with the ability to to to s absolutely significantly grow. I mean, the good thing is is is like you know when you have a product company, you'll hear people talk about PMF all the time, product market fit, right? And and and you have to do a lot of work on PMF. Like we know we have in the military and and in regulated government industry, we have PMF there.

Banking and healthcare? We think we do. And we believe we have market indications that we do based upon people buying and deploying it. Right. But I I I I I don't know that we can bet the farm on that yet. Yeah. and and it's always this balance of do I take more money, dilute myself out of the company so that I can spend more money so that I can grow more? Do I use the money that I have today to to spend that money to grow, but then potentially dig a hole that I have to dig my way out of? Like these are all the the

challenges of running a business that, you know, like to be frank, like I I say it's mine all the time, but it's really not. It I'm a shareholder. I have a board that I answer to with to include investors. Yeah. and and I have to meet goals and responsibilities. And even if I'm the largest shareholder in the company, which I am, I I can still be fired. Yeah. and that, you know, that's okay. Because to be honest, if my whole board decides that I need to go, I probably do.

Jeff Holman (40:56)

Well what have been some what have been some of the maybe milestones that you've hit along the way where you've said, Hey, we just we just kinda got to the next level. We unlocked a new market or we we hit new technological readiness or or what are those milestones that you've seen?

Jared Shepard (41:14)

We

we definitely have some some very significant technical ones, you know, whether it's certifications, whether it's, you know, classified deployments or you know, IO5, FedRampi, you know, stuff that's in the government space. those those are all big milestones that were important. I I think our our largest single technological milestone was getting off of a monolithic server based platform and getting into a Kubernetes backed cloud based environment. That was

Absolutely massive when it comes to cost mitigation and cost management, like being able to fractionally apply processing storage and et cetera, to somebody who uses a phone. I mean, because look, they look, you don't turn on your phone at at nine in the morning and then leave it on for eight hours until you're done working for the day. You turn your phone on and off and on and off and on and off, and you check things, then you get off of it, and you check something else, you get off it. You do a call, you get off. What's the best environment in the world for incremental compute? Cloud. Right. So so us getting there.

made all the sense in the world and made us way more efficient and effective. now what our constant stride to do is what we call near native, which is, you know, sitting next to an actual cell phone, how close can I get to this actual thing? Right? Behavior, user experience, features, technology sets, et cetera. Because the closer and closer I can get to this, is the more and more this becomes less relevant.

Jeff Holman (42:37)

Me meaning functional feature sets that you wanna that you wanna be able to implement. Are are you do you run into do you run into issues when you're doing that with with the comp the I mean, I would guess that some of these companies that are very protective of their market, what like are you having conversations around those types of issues?

Jared Shepard (42:57)

I it it is an interesting environment because when you are disruptive, when you're like so Gardner told us early on, Gardner was like, hey, congratulations. You guys actually are your own product category. Yeah, by the way, we're we're really sorry to tell you, you're actually your own product category. And I didn't understand the sense of humor of that at time. I definitely know it now, right? It sucks being in a in a in a field of want.

Jeff Holman (43:23)

Because you have to educate the entire market around why why why it makes sense to transition from the the normal conventional tools and

Jared Shepard (43:33)

Every other platform out there looks at you as a risk. Yeah. Like yeah. Whether it's whether it's the phone manufacturers who look at me as a risk because I actually reduce the need for you to manufacture more phones, to the telcos who look at me as a risk for their their footprints and their controls, to the the Microsofts of the world who who have sold their entire E five license to you on the premise that they need to control the endpoint, manage the endpoint, and defend the endpoint. Well

What if I can prove you don't need to? Yeah.

Jeff Holman (44:05)

Yeah,

so y y y your Porter Five Forces diagrams are gonna be pretty pretty chaotic and and cluttered, aren't they?

Jared Shepard (44:14)

Spicy.

Yeah, they are spicy.

Jeff Holman (44:16)

Well, I'm curious, Jared, as a as a CEO doing this, like what are some of the lessons that you've I mean, in addition to the business lessons, right? What are some of the CEO moments, if I can put it that way, that you've run into building the team or or interacting with your you know, your your board and your investors, where are some of those growth moments that you've seen maybe on a more individual CEO level?

Jared Shepard (44:42)

hard one. 'cause there's just so many.

Jeff Holman (44:46)

'Cause you were the 'cause you were the the the the varsity high school quarterback coming into play in the big leagues.

Jared Shepard (44:52)

Into the NFL. Yeah, that walked into the NFL thinking I knew what I was doing. Yeah. and I was woefully wrong, right? And I learned the hard

Jeff Holman (45:00)

Doing

well. I mean, by a lot of standards, going from, you know, three hundred thousand or a million dollars early on to thirty five million. It's not unicorn status yet, maybe, but it's but it's it's admirable and you're making progress. So

Jared Shepard (45:13)

Yeah,

we'll get there. It it's it's so I I guess the advice I'd have to other CEOs is like, you know, it remember the basics, don't depart from them. Right. You know, the the the basics of accountability, of management, of leadership. those apply no matter how big you are or how small you are. you know, you yeah, and you have to you have to be disciplined on them because otherwise they get out of control on you and and they will bite you. the

You know, it it comes back at least my methodologies, you know, go and always seek the the the best players that you can afford to bring onto the team. Right. You know, look for the A plus player every chance you get. And and one of the things I tell my leaders is is like, look, we we are in the business of looking for diamonds, right? And along the way you find other precious stones, you know, rubies and emeralds and zasphires, right? And it's okay to hold on to them, but don't be dumb enough to hold on to just a shiny rock.

Yeah. Because it can be catastrophic. It can be catastrophic for the team. It can be catastrophic for the company. you you have to make the hard decisions and do them with violence and precision. Make sure that they happen quickly. Don't dwell I mean, I and by the way, I'm not saying this from a place in which I've done this correctly all the time. Like it it's I'm I'm telling you from my own mistakes that I've made repeatedly. These are the important things that you have to do, right?

And, you know, know what your strengths are, know how to use those strengths, and sure the hell learn how to hire into your weaknesses and get people who can come and do the things that maybe aren't the things you do well.

Jeff Holman (46:53)

What is the what is w an example of one of the strengths that that you've been able to bring to the table with what you do and and maybe a weakness that you've either developed stronger or hired out?

Jared Shepard (47:05)

My superpower is my passion and my my understanding of the mission or my understanding of the problem and how to use technology to that. Right. I I'm I'm very good at that. I'm very good at, you know, using the the fundamentals that I learned as a young infantry NCO from a leadership standpoint. Leaders eat last. We're the first in the door. We're the last out at the end of the night. You know, doing those in those those basic things I think are are really important. where where am I not good at?

Well, you know, I didn't know crap about raising money. and like if you're thinking about raising money, go out and read founder versus investor. Right. Go it's a it's a great book that'll give you some some some basic perspective on that. And and know the enemy. And the enemy is not just the investor, it's you. Right. And and know that the minute you take somebody else's money, it's not yours anymore. At best, it's ours. Yeah. Right. and and

You know, you have to understand that there's accountability that comes with that. That that regardless of what your role says, you are not above. And the minute you think you are, you'll be held to account to it. So, so, you know, it it's a something you have to be careful with.

Jeff Holman (48:15)

And the model is different, right? Like you're you're now run I like to think of it as running two businesses now. You've got the business that caters to the investors and you've got the operating business and sometimes running the operating business and building that one is sits secondary to the to the business of the investors.

Jared Shepard (48:33)

I

hope you don't have a board that that that makes it that way. But if you do, you gotta fix it because your first priority should always be the success of the business. And that should be your board's priority too. Right. That should be your board's priority too. That doesn't mean you it you you don't you don't have to fight with that.

Jeff Holman (48:47)

I think those you those stay more aligned when a company is in is is in positive growth, right? When when a company s stops experiencing positive growth, those become less aligned and I think that's where you see some of these things become different.

Jared Shepard (49:03)

conversation.

Trust me, I've had my we we don't hit our numbers and and I have board members end up in very uncomfortable places in my body that I don't want them. Right. And and and so I, you know, it and it it's we always joke about it. You know, the number one thing that solves all problems in business is sales. Right. So if if you can grow and sell you can grow and generate revenue, you can get yourself out of damn near any problem. Yeah. if you're not doing that, then every problem becomes by order of magnitude worse.

Jeff Holman (49:31)

Well what would somebody what would somebody do who has a I mean, as you've talked, you've clearly demonstrated that you've you've got you're you're very intelligent. You've got a lot of experience that you're drawing from and a lot of rooms that you've been in that you're able to may maybe pull the experience and expertise and lean on people that what would you say to somebody who hasn't been through that same experience as you? And I'll just put it really, you know, generically, who hasn't, you know, kind of been brought up through the military.

lifestyle and and learned a lot of the really positive types of leadership skills and and attributes that somebody like you has gained.

Jared Shepard (50:12)

For me personally, and and I think this applies to everybody, but it may be me being naive.

R sit down and write a list of the people that you think can mentor you and teach you. And if that list says anything other than everybody, then you're wrong. I I get people all the time who when they say, congratulations on your success. And I've I've talked about it before publicly about how I hate that that term because I'm thinking I'm I haven't succeeded. I'm still grinding. Yeah right. And and the day you start to think that you did is the day you take your foot off the pedal and that becomes problematic, right? That becomes hard.

I I get I tell people like, look, I'm you know, I don't know that I'm successful and and what I really am is lucky. And everybody always goes, you're not lucky. You worked hard for this. A janitor works hard. That doesn't make him successful. But I promise you you could learn from that guy if you're willing to sit down and actually listen. 'Cause I guarantee over twenty or thirty years of his career, he's learned things about the way that he does business that you could apply to the way that you do yours.

And so us getting over ourselves to a way in which we can be receptive to mentorship, I think is a a critical skill to be successful. Because like I I just talked to one of my investors the other day who's a very expensive or very successful billionaire. Right. And and I was like, and I'll and I asked him for some additional mentorship and and time, and he was kind of resistant to it. And come to find out, one of my other mentors goes, Yeah, he's always going to push back on that. I said, Well, why? And he said,

Because he's tired of people saying that they want to be mentored, but they never listen. yeah.

Jeff Holman (51:51)

Uncoachable.

Jared Shepard (51:52)

And and so and I think we're all susceptible to that. I I can catch myself talking to somebody who knows obviously by both by demonstrating success and just age and wisdom, they know more than me. And there's I I can catch myself going, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I get it, I get it. You know, and and that means I'm not listening, right? It means I'm I'm just trying to move on to the next part of the subject that I want rather than what they want to tell me.

And it's it's it's not there's never a perfect outcome or a perfect answer. But I would say that I think, at least for me, that is one of the most important things that I'll ever do is shut up and listen to people who who know things that I don't.

Jeff Holman (52:30)

You know, it reminds me last week I was I was out of a lake with some friends and one of the people there said well an another friend of a friend came over and he runs his whole business of taking people out on the lake and you know, taking boating and teaching them stuff and and he he knows how to teach people, anybody, to do three sixties on your surfboard, right? And and one of the people on our boat said, Well, hey, t tell me what I'm doing wrong. Here's a video of what I've been doing. Here she explained how she's doing it.

And I hope she doesn't listen to this because she might get mad at me for sharing it. But but I was sitting there and I was kind of, you know, poking fun at at different moments and giving her a hard time just because we're we're friends. But but you know, Jonathan would say, Well, here's what you're doing and here's what you should be doing. And her response would be, Well, yeah, but I'm doing it, I'm doing it this way because da-da-da-da. And I and I finally said, Hey, he's trying to tell you you've asked him to tell you how to do it.

But you keep explaining why you're doing it the way you're doing it. It doesn't sound to me like you like you want to know how to do it. And you know, we we had fun about it. I think she took it more seriously than I meant it, but you know, it was all a good fun.

Jared Shepard (53:39)

But I mean, but you meant it seriously. You just didn't mean it to offend her.

Jeff Holman (53:42)

I didn't mean to offend her. I said it in a in a lighthearted way, but it it it it it was an accurate perception of what I saw happening right in front of me between the two of them. So

Jared Shepard (53:50)

Yeah.

Jeff Holman (53:51)

I th I you know, I think I think I think I see that happen in in a lot of different settings as as you're describing. So well, Jared, I I really appreciate you taking the time to come on, share your experience, share your technology, explain what you're doing, share some of your passion even around w warriors, the warrior's ethos. Yeah. So I wanted to get that right.

i you got a lot going on, so I know it's it's been a sacrifice to come onto the show and and share these things, but I think I I really have enjoyed this. I think the lessons that you're sharing are things that a lot of our audience members who are building companies at at whatever stage can take away and and start to implement in their businesses. So so really appreciate having you come out here today.

Jared Shepard (54:33)

appreciate it. best of luck to all your viewers and and I appreciate you you doing this 'cause again, counter to what anybody thinks, nobody ever does this by themselves. So so I appreciate you creating a venue in which people can learn.

Jeff Holman (54:46)

I appreciate that. Well, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you or reach out to you or or hear more about what you're doing, what where would be the right places for them to look?

Jared Shepard (54:54)

Fastest, easiest would probably be just LinkedIn. I'm I'm very active on LinkedIn, so you can hunt me down there. but outside of that, you know, it it's you can find me at at Hypori, you can find me at Warriors Ethos. I'm I I'm not a hard bike hard guy to find. So so reach out if you need some information, be happy to share.

Jeff Holman (55:13)

Awesome. Well I appreciate that, Jared. And thanks again for coming on the show. And to our audience members who joined us, thanks again for listening to another episode of the Breakout CEO. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives.

Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.

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