In this episode, we delve into the cutting-edge world of DefenseTech startups and their mission to combat drone threats. Hear from two visionary leaders shaping the future of defense technology: Matt McCrann, the US CEO of DroneShield, and Dan Kultran, the CTO at Epirus.
Join us as Matt and Dan share firsthand accounts of their companies’ innovative technologies designed to counter drones, spanning applications in both military and public sector domains. Discover how these startups have joined forces to form a strategic partnership, unlocking synergies that drive innovation and growth.
If you’re a technical professional seeking a deep dive into the DefenseTech sector or intrigued by the potential of strategic partnerships in startup growth, this episode is a must-listen.
About the Guests:
Matt McCrann is the US CEO of DroneShield, a defense tech company developing Counter-UAS solutions for military and public safety users worldwide. As an industry executive and US Navy veteran, Matt has built and led successful cross-functional teams in engineering, operations, and business development responsible for solving some of the toughest problems involving emerging technologies across the DoD, IC, and federal law enforcement community.
Dan Kultran is the CTO at Epirus, a startup on a mission to create innovative power solutions that solve complex national security problems. Prior to this role, he has worked at multiple defense and commercial companies, including Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.
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Transcript
Welcome to The Pair Program from hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of hatchpad.
Mike Gruen:And I'm your other host, Mike
Tim Winkler:Gruen. Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups, and career growth. Hi everyone, welcome back to The Pair Program. I'm Tim Winkler, I've got Mike Gruen with me as always. Um, Mike, something I heard this morning, uh, I need to, to get your, uh, two cents on, are you believer in the Loch Ness Monster? No. Not at all? That's a
Mike Gruen:quick answer. I mean, when I, when I was six or seven, yeah, sure.
Tim Winkler:But we're, we're missing out on a, an opportunity because there is a, uh, uh, there's a monster hunt taking place this weekend out in Scotland. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a group of folks, uh, heading out to basically study, uh, to try to find, uh, find Loch Ness, uh, again. So. Um, if you're not, not interested in that, I, just a good reason to get to the UK. Um, just, just say that you're a believer, right? I
Mike Gruen:mean, I'm interested. I'm always fascinated by that stuff and all of the different, like, you know, this folklore around it and not just Nessie, but whether it's the, you know, uh, or Sasquatch, any number of them. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting and fun and fun to think about. But, uh, yeah, so maybe I'll, uh, pull that up and see if, uh, see if anybody finds anything interesting
Tim Winkler:out there. Yeah. They do these every 50 years, apparently. So, um, anyways, I got caught on some research and, uh, likeness is a very large lake, uh, by volume in great Britain. It's the second largest lake. Um, it's 22 square miles. So. I was thinking if we were gonna go for a hunt out there, I would be bringing this little, uh, Diddy with me right here. This is, this is, uh, do you have a drone?
Mike Gruen:I do,
Matt McCrann:actually.
Tim Winkler:I think I have the same one. Do you DGI mini two? Yep. Yep, yep.
Matt McCrann:It's in the closet right over
Tim Winkler:there. Yes. My wife and I, you know, I, I take it traveling with me. Um, love, love, uh, you know, using it as a way of like, you know, catching some interesting aerials for photos, videos, or just kind of like, like surveying the area. Um, but I'll segue that into today's episode because the two guests that we have joining us today are both, um, leaders from startups that. They play with drones, but they do it in a little bit of a different way. Um, they're both building technologies to combat drones, um, which referred to as unmanned aerial systems or UAS, uh, and scenarios when drones are being used as. Maybe a threat to people, uh, militaries or places. Um, and so for our listeners, a preview of today's episode, we're going to be discussing the topic of startups forming strategic partnerships to facilitate growth. Uh, and there's a lot of different, you know, motivators out there as to why startups and companies will partner. Um, I did some, some digging online on some of the bigger like tech partnerships over the last 10 to 20 years. I'm going to rattle a few, a few of those off for us here. So there was a big partnership between Spotify and Uber, uh, in 2014, which allowed for Uber riders to connect their Spotify with their driver's cars to enjoy a better rider experience. Um, a partnership between Square and Starbucks, uh, enabled customers to make payments using Square mobile app, uh, which obviously offers more of a convenient payment option. NASA and SpaceX partnered, uh, NASA provided funding and contracts to SpaceX to develop space cargo transportation to the International Space Station, um, and IBM and Twitter, uh, and IBM partnered with Twitter to incorporate Twitter's data into IBM's analytics services, Watson, their cloud based apps, uh, and this combined real time data with Powerful analytics capabilities. Um, so lastly, uh, we had the partnership of drone shield and Everest, uh, which I'm now, I'm sure many of our listeners have not heard the names of these two tech companies, uh, or have any idea of what kind of the partnership consisted of, uh, but you'll learn about it today. Um, it's a fascinating partnership between two companies. That are building technologies that are driving innovations on the front lines of safety for, you know, warfighters and our militaries, um, as well as safety and other commercial applications like in public arenas, stadiums, airports, and, and a lot more. Uh, and so with all of that, I'd like to introduce our two guests joining us today. We've got Matt McCran, uh, the U. S. based CEO of Drone Shield. Uh, he previously served as its VP of sales, uh, has held leadership roles at. CAMV Technologies, which is an AI startup, served as an intelligence analyst for the U. S. Navy for a number of years and is a member of NSA's cryptologic direct support element. And we have Daniel Coltrane, the CTO of Epirus. He has a background in RF and mixed signal electronics design, previously held roles at Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Broadcom. Uh, holds a master's from the university of Southern California and also has 12 patents. Uh, guys, thank you both for joining us today on the pair program. Thanks for having me. All right. Good stuff. So I know that intro leaves a lot of intrigue. Everybody's on a cliffhanger right now, wanting to learn more, but before we jump into the heavy stuff, let's kick things off with our favorite bit. Uh, pair me up, Mike. This is where you kind of tee us up and, uh, lead us off with, uh, uh, your, your parent.
Matt McCrann:Yeah, uh,
Mike Gruen:today, uh, I'm, my pairing, uh, I was just recently on vacation, uh, so it's new places and new people, um, went out, uh, visited a friend out in Montana, um, he had rented a pavilion, uh, and had a bunch of people in the tech community out there, come out and just had a good time just meeting a lot of people and, and just, yeah. Getting a feel for all these different walks of life and different, you know, it wasn't just the tech community that was there. He also invited friends and other people
Matt McCrann:and it was in a big park and other people stopped by and we just sort of
Mike Gruen:chatted. It was, it was great. Um, and also just being out in a totally different part of the country is always fun. New places, new people.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, a lot of these conferences too, they, they take place in these remote destinations of these national parks, like, uh, like snowbird and Utah's another big one, um, like that's actually where like agile was, was formed or the development philosophy of agile was, was formed out in snowbird, but. Definitely a big fan of Montana. It sounds like a good time. Cool. All right. I'm going to jump in. Um, so, you know, kind of repping the shirt here. Um, um, we're going to go with girl dads and hair bows. Um, so as a girl, dad got a, uh, eight month old daughter. Um, she's blessed with a good head of hair. Um, and I quickly learned that I can't dress her, uh, in an outfit without pairing it with a fresh hair bow. Um, that either compliments the color. I brought a few here for, for those on the YouTube channel to check. Here, but it's either the color or the pattern kind of become a hair bow connoisseur, a baby fashionista. Uh, if any of our listeners are, are interested in advice on how to best accessorize your daughter's outfit, DM me. I'm happy to share my knowledge with you. Um, I've been training for this for years now. So, uh, that is my pairing. I'm going with girl dads and hair bows are. Any of you guys, uh, girl dads, by chance right here, how's your, how's your accessory game, uh, when, when, when outfitting them.
Matt McCrann:Yeah, I definitely understand the, uh, the pain of, uh, doing the hair. Um, my, my youngest daughter keeps her hair about waist, uh, length. So, so it's a project.
Dan Kultran:Yeah. You know, mine is 15 now, so I think my fashion is a little out of style.
Tim Winkler:Well, good stuff. Um, I'm going to, I'm going to kick it your all's way. Uh, and, uh, I'll start with you, Matt. Why don't you give us a quick intro and tell us your pairing?
Matt McCrann:Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, uh, Matt McCran, I'm the U S CEO of drone shield. Um, been in the role for about four years with the company. Now, uh, we'll get into some of the cool things that we're doing and some of the partnership act, uh, activities with, with companies like Everest here. Um, but my pairing today, uh, is actually inspired, um, by my, my youngest daughter. Um, so I'm going to go with peanut butter and gummy worms. Um, Which was news to me. I never heard of this pairing before a couple of days ago. Um, I was thinking about, you know, coming on the podcast here and this, this question, um, and kind of taking it in a personal way where it's, you know, early mornings and reading, which I like to do, or in a technology way where it's like kinetic and non kinetic defense systems, which we might talk about later today. Uh, until, uh, my daughter threw me a curve ball and asked me the question of which would you rather eat? And she said, a peanut butter and gummy worm sandwich, which I stopped right there. Not, not a big, uh, gummy worm or gummy bear guy. Um. But she said, you have to pick one, so peanut butter and gummy worms or a tuna fish sandwich with marshmallows and barbecue sauce. So, the other option, I, you know, uh, conceded and took the peanut butter and gummy worms. And, uh, I guess, uh, the main takeaway there is, you know, a good pairing is very, uh, relative to what your options are. So
Tim Winkler:Love it. Yeah.
Dan Kultran:good takeaway.
Tim Winkler:She's got a, a, a hell of a creative mind on her.
Matt McCrann:Yeah, she does a lot of reading, so I think she pulls. Ideas from here and here put together and that's how you end up with a gummy worm and a peanut butter sandwich.
Tim Winkler:I'm pretty sure I might be dabbling in that after this. My mind's spinning. I'm fairly intrigued. Um, I remember as a kid, the, um. Was it like the dirt dessert that had like the gummy worms in there and it was like Oreos and pudding? Yeah, that's a dessert. I guess that's a little different, but at least, at least the peanut butter is a little sweeter versus like tuna fish. You kind of lost me immediately when you, when you threw in marshmallows. Good, good, good pairing. I dig that. Dan, how about yourself? A quick intro in your pairing. Yeah,
Dan Kultran:sure. Dan Coltrane, CTO of Epirus. Um, I've been with the company for about 4 years now. Um, and as you said, I've been at multiple defense and commercial companies here, and we'll get into the kind of things that we do here at Epirus. But for my pairing today. Um, kind of what you let in with the nature thing and then a little bit of a family thing like Matt is mountains and fresh air. Okay. Um, it's something I really miss this year because typically every year we would go camping, um, either at the beach or in the mountains, Yosemite and so on and so forth. Sequoia, but, um, this year, you know, with all the things that are happening with the company, we're so busy with work. So on and so forth. And my kids are a little more grown. So they're teenagers now, um, they're play a lot of sports, volleyball, baseball, you name it, right? It was just so busy. So many tournaments that you go to, we didn't get a chance to unwind together as a family, you know? Um, and I really miss that. Uh, not only that we're busy when we go to the mountains, for example, we get to disconnect, you know, with our devices, because oftentimes you kind of force, you know, if I have my phone there, there's no signal up in the mountains. So it's kind of nice to be able to disconnect and and reflect on all the things that. You've been working on for the first half of the year and then really come back to the second half of the year, really renewed and have a sense of, you know, kind of organization in your mind. Because I know my mind is kind of like going everywhere, you know, all the time, right? With all the things that are going on. So, and, uh, yeah, that's something I really missed this year. And I, I hope we make a really concerted effort next year to go. To the mountains and disconnect a little bit.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, that's a great pairing. Um, yeah, I, I'm pulling a couple of things from that. Like, uh, just getting away and kind of like pressing the reset button as well. Like I'm the same way. Like I, I feel like sometimes I get caught in this hamster wheel where if I don't step away and, and you know, unplug and. Um, getting into nature and just kind of like isolating, uh, it's tough to come back with like a creative mind or yeah,
Dan Kultran:yeah, absolutely get into what we call it. Do you just do just do like thinking strategically and be able to like parse things out and maybe not do certain
Tim Winkler:things, you know, right? So, so, so what was the, um, One of your favorite parks that you mentioned that you go hiking to was at Sequoia.
Dan Kultran:We go to Yosemite National Park a lot. We used to go maybe almost every year, but somewhere around right in that area, central California. Yeah, this year
Tim Winkler:we didn't get a chance to go. Yeah. The fresh air is another, another one too. It's been tough to, uh, you know, with a lot of the wildfires that, that, that have been hitting as well. It's, it's been, uh, it's pretty kind of eyeopening on the East coast anyways. Maybe a little bit more common on the west Coast. But with the, the wildfires in Canada, like you, you really appreciate having some, some fresh, clean air, uh, getting out about Yeah, for sure.
Dan Kultran:Around the world, right around the world, like East and Italy and all those places all have wildfires this year. Yeah.
Tim Winkler:Well, good stuff. Well, I, I dig the, uh, dig the pairings all around. Um, let's, uh, let's transition into the, the heart of the discussion here. So, as I mentioned, we're going to be talking about a broader topic of forming strategic partnerships as a means to. Drive innovation and fuel growth for, for startups, um, specifically kind of hearing about some use cases for interesting technologies that combine like hardware and software. Um, quite frankly, though, half of the intrigue, uh, in this episode, for me at least, is, um, just learning about some really interesting technology that's being built, uh, by both of our guests and their, and their companies. Um, I'll tease it with a brief descriptor from one of the products from Epirus called the Leonidas Directed Energy System, which I was sharing with, with Mike, uh, this morning and he, he said, it sounds like a euphemism for Star Wars blasters. Uh, so, um, it is seriously some fascinating tech that we're going to learn about. So let's, let's jump into it. Um, why don't we start the conversation by having both of you all provide us with. Just more of a, an overview of your company and the problems that you're solving. And then we can jump into more specifics on how the partnership came about. But Matt, why don't we kick off with you and start with telling us a little bit more about DroneShield. Yeah, so
Matt McCrann:DroneShield is a counter UAS company. Um, we are basically responsible or the technology we developed is geared towards detecting, identifying, Tracking and then when necessary defeating adversarial drones. So drones like what we see on the battlefields over in Ukraine, drones that we see domestically here, too, that are involved in smuggling operations or pose a threat to critical infrastructure. Um, there's really without having a counter UAS and a multi layered counter UAS solution in place. Um, people, critical infrastructure assets, um, are really soft targets. There's no means to defend the air over their, their space or their, their area of operation. Um, so that's where we step in. We provide situational awareness, so tools that can tell them what's in their airspace. And then can also help or accelerate the threat assessment. Do you have to be concerned about what's in your airspace? And then this way they can move to a response posture if there is indeed a real threat. Yeah, it's a
Tim Winkler:fascinating space. It sounds like it's moving very quickly. Uh, a lot of developments happening, you know, drones, anybody can purchase a drone, right? And so when you think about that, it does spark a little fear. Uh, when you think about, you know, somebody has some twisted idea, you know, and, and, uh, what, what it could. Harm it could, it could cause and then thinking about how to take one down. Um, I was, I was watching one of your all's explainer videos and I think it was from, from you all, but there's, there's options out there that, you know, people are just still experimenting with, but one of them being birds of prey, which was wild, which is like sending. Hawks or eagles out to legit take these, take these things down. But, um, obviously that's a
Matt McCrann:comment on that. I mean, it's, it's effective, but it doesn't scale, right? Yeah. So we're trying to apply technology so we can scale a solution because like you said, drones are so accessible now for good and bad purposes. So we focus on countering the bad.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, I, I, I can't wait to, to peel that back a little bit more. But, uh, Dan, why don't we, uh, pass it to you and, and give us a little bit more context on Epes. Yeah, sure.
Dan Kultran:Thanks. Um, well, Epes is a high growth technology company. Uh, we develop cutting edge dual use technology for both defense and commercial applications. And as you already said, our flagship product, Leitis. Uh, we believe it is the most effective and the most efficient high power microwave system in the world today. And what we focus on is counter swarm mission. Right? So when you're talking about, um, many, many drones coming at you. That's what we focus on, you know, and, and you can see today is very readily available. Um, 4th of July just passed. Um, and I was at, uh, you know, my house is near the beach and redondo beach has a drone show. Hundreds of drones, creating a flag, all kinds of show that you can do and we envision that as that is the way of the future where, you know, many, many drones are coming at you. So, really simply put, we're at Everest, we're turning science fiction into fact, into reality. Right. Um, I always liken our system to, um, if you have a USS Enterprise and Star Trek, right? You got the kinetics people shooting photon torpedoes at things, and you got the laser people have the phaser, right? That shoots a beam at a target for us with this shield that, um, not to steal Matt's thunder here, because he's a drone shield, invisible shield around the enterprise. That, you know, if you come from multiple angles, you cannot penetrate our wall. So that's kind of like what we do here, um, at Epirus. We do a lot of other things too. We do, um, you know, research projects for advanced technologies for DARPA and things like that. But today are, we focus a lot on our effector, Leonites.
Tim Winkler:What's the, uh, distance that, you know, this shield kind of can like reach to?
Dan Kultran:Um, I can tell you, um, or I'll have to kill you kind of deal, but it is enough
Mike Gruen:to say that's the, I think the answer is it's enough
Tim Winkler:that might not be the last time we hear. I can't tell you I'm or I'd have to kill you on this
Dan Kultran:episode. Uh, so it's kind of like the unfortunate, unfortunate thing about a little success that we have. Right. For sure. We have, um, government customers now, certain things we
Tim Winkler:just can't say. Yeah. Well, some of the stuff that's public knowledge, right. Uh, what, what's the, uh, size from a headcount and I guess funding to kind of give, give our listeners a little bit of a context on the scope and size of you all. Uh, Matthew,
Dan Kultran:you want to go, you want me to go first? No, you can go Dan. Yeah, sure. Um, EPRS, uh, raised quite a bit of funding. North of 300Million dollars in 3 rounds up to series C. And we're at about 200 people, um, grown from, you know, I was number 17 at the company and now over 200 growth in the last few years that we've been here.
Tim Winkler:That's really neat. Uh, Matt, how about DroneShield? Yeah.
Matt McCrann:So DroneShield is, um, a little smaller. So we're at about a head count of 85 globally now. Um, and. We, uh, we, we've taken in multiple rounds of investment. Our, uh, parent company, DroneShield Limited, is actually publicly traded, um, on the Australian Stock Exchange. Um, and we had the, uh, pleasure of having Epes join our investment, uh, team, um, towards the, uh, tail end of last year. Making a initial investment in us, which is really sparked the collaborative efforts of our 2 teams. So that would be a probably the origin point of, you know, some of the partnership discussion that we'll have today.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, it's a good tee up. Um, let's, let's kind of start there. So, uh, curious to hear about, you know, this partnership that, that formed, uh, you know, Dan, we're fortunate to have you being, being such an early settler at, at Everest, right? So you've seen a lot of things, uh, you know, uh, grow and change over the years. But, um, you know, how did this partnership form with drone shield? I'm always curious in terms of, you know, You know, was there multiple vendors you were looking into and was it a strategic investment because you, you knew it was going to have an impact on your own technology. Talk us through a little bit more of how that all got scouted and kicked off.
Dan Kultran:Yeah, sure. I can comment a little bit on that. So 1 of the things that we looked at was, you know, we cannot do everything well, but we can do 1 thing really well. And as we analyze the landscape of counter swarms. We see that the gap is in the effector to begin with, right? So we, knowing that, remember, we never had 300 million dollars to begin with. We had million, you know, single digit million and then 2 digit million and then 3 digit millions. Right? So we look at it with the limited time and resources that we had. We focus on the effector 1st. Okay, making sure that she's, you know, it's already a hard problem trying to do high power microwave, but little did we know how hard it is, right? We're talking about tools that cannot really predict plasma breakdown of our system. We have to learn all those things. So it was wise for us to focus on the effector first. Okay. So, um, knowing that we really focus on one thing and be the best at that one thing. So then as the landscape grew, you know, counter UAS became a thing. You know, there's problems in Ukraine and whatnot. There's already a lot of really good companies out there, like DroneShields and the likes that are providing the eyes and the sensors and the software system that point Leonidas in the right direction and shoot something down. So, um, I think it was a wise decision for us to focus on that and then partner with new startups like DroneShield to really bring forth. The full solution for our warframes,
Mike Gruen:I think it's interesting the, um, on that partnership side, because I've been at any number of startups and there's always this, like, well, but we might not want, we might want to get into that business at some point. So we don't really want, like, there's this, like, front of me type thing. And so it can be really difficult to get those partnerships going because people feel like, well, if we, if we partner with them, then that precludes us from maybe doing something in the future. And I think that's just like. Such a terrible.
Dan Kultran:Yeah, it's an old mindset. Yeah, exactly. Right? Like I think, I think our mission, the intersection of our mission and technology today is really at play. It's like, how can we bring forth the disruption in our defense industry to feel something to our warfighters faster, not how much more money can we make in the future if we keep this all as a vertical.
Matt McCrann:Exactly. Yep, there's a, there's a saying in our space where there is no silver bullet type solution and there's a huge focus on interoperability and that's something that both Everest and drone shield do really well. And that's why it was a natural partnership. It's. You're best in breed here. We are best in breed here. Our customer, our mutual customer needs the end to end solution. So let's, let's paint what it could look like for them. And in fact, take it a step further and show them. And, and that's, I think the most, um, that's a fruitful way to start a partnership when you're trying to, uh, co develop or solve a problem together. With a mutual customer in the mix and in the room as well. Yeah. And I think what's interesting,
Mike Gruen:it's interesting because you guys are working on like physical security OT, you know, operational technology and kinetic and stuff that's happening in the real world. Um, in cybersecurity, I see that same, it's that defense in depth mentality. And it does create, I think there's much more partnership in
Matt McCrann:certain
Mike Gruen:industries than in others. And I feel like security in general, everybody agrees, like in order to really Do this, right. We have to partner. We have to have this interoperability. As you said, there's not one single solution. It's going to be all of these things working together and the more we can have them working together, sort of the better off we all are. So, um, it's cool to see, you know, that's still still the case
Matt McCrann:and happening.
Tim Winkler:Did the partnership, uh, open up new markets for either side, uh, or was it more around, you know, uh, a mutual customer and, you know, let's start there and then maybe explore. You know, mutually how we can impact other markets, but I'm always curious because for one, you know, seems like both of these are dual use technologies. Um, I'm always curious on what came first, a commercial customer or a government customer. Um, but then also, you know, that mutual customer. Did it open up doors to new markets or did you already see, you know, multiple outlets here that made sense beyond just one, one mutual customer?
Matt McCrann:Yeah, I mean, I can comment from the drone shield side and then Dan, if you, if you want to add to it from your perspective, um, yeah, so for us. Military first, um, they have the most mature requirements, uh, and the most pressing need, uh, other markets, other, other verticals, uh, calling, um, uh, are figuring it out now. Right? Um, they're seeing and putting together all the information that they might have a problem. And here's what it might look like. Whereas the military, um, U. S. D. O. D. has been at this, um, you know, since 2014, 2015, they were starting to look at this problem. Yeah. Um, so a little further along the path there. Um, so that's DroneShield specifically focuses on, um, military, federal agencies, federal law enforcement. Uh, we do have commercial customers worldwide and critical infrastructure, uh, that, that are growing, uh, but it started with our military customer base. And, um, through the partnership with, um, uh, Everest, even though it's still it's still on the younger side or early stage. Um, we focus there on on some of the military, but also we're starting to see other things open up on the homeland security side. Which would probably be the natural, um, next market, uh, so to speak, for a joint, joint solution of, uh, from, from both of us. But Dan might have other, other viewpoints on that and other, you know, uh, strategic, uh, lines of effort. Yeah. Thanks
Dan Kultran:Matt. I, I think, um, we're very much aligned there. Our first customers will be the DOD, right, in the different services today. We really focus a lot on the army. He's where, you know, they want to do, uh, for base protection and so on and so forth. Um, but we envision through that partnership with drone shield, there's international opportunities that we can have as well. Right? So strategic partnership. On the, um, continental U. S. and also outside of U. S. A. Makes a lot of sense with drone shield where they're from Australia. Um, now, in terms of having partnership where we don't just partner with drone shield, right? If you look at online, we have lots of PR about partnering with other, um, similar. Uh, companies like grown shield, um, that opens up more opportunities, more inroads into other services as well. Um, and HPM, we feel is going to be 1 of the layer. Um, mechanism in our protection of our service people, right? The Navy, the Air Force, the Army's so calm and so forth. So, absolutely. I think, um, you know, having partnership opens up the world, um, not just the, the US based customers.
Mike Gruen:I'm curious, Dan, did, which sort of came first, the mutual customer and that's what led you to DroneShield or did you see DroneShield and like, you guys just created this partnership and, and you then are like, Oh, we have these mutual customers. I'm like, was it a customer that brought you guys together? I guess that's my question. I
Dan Kultran:think it's the need of the customers that brought us together. Like Matt said, customers are looking for a solution, right? They're not looking for a gadget, like the army, when they buy Leonidas. They, if they don't have a solution in front of them, they have to go find the solution, work with other sensors, provider, other radar provider. What we do is by giving them an easy button that said, Hey, here's your solution. There you go. You know, here's a capability. Here's a solution, and they can digest that much easier than having this long process. Of the, um, customer being the integrator of all these systems, right? So that, that speeds up the acquisition process.
Mike Gruen:That's awesome. I, yeah, I think that that's a great way to do it. Cause I, having been at so many places where it's the customer that's trying to force these two things together and it's like, okay, now I guess we'll, we will create a partnership, but it's all through this third party. It gets more difficult and more challenging and also building something that's really a solution for multiple customers, not just. Uh, a spot, you know, this one thing that solves this one customer's problems. So that's awesome.
Tim Winkler:I'm always curious to just, uh, you know, from, you know, selecting a partner, um, other things that go into this, excuse me, other things that go into this in terms of like. Alignment of values or goals and vision. Um, did, did that come into play when, when forming and, and making a final decision, uh, on this was the right partner for us. Yeah. Matt, do you want
Matt McCrann:to, Um, that, that's a huge part of it. Um, Tim, um, you know, when you, when you come across a partner that has, um, you know, complimentary technology and the approach. The, the, uh, company's philosophy is a match as well. I mean, that's how you can accelerate things. Otherwise, you're just basically postponing the inevitable, uh, problem or bottleneck where the two companies are not aligned, like, like you mentioned earlier, um. And the, uh, it, it is about alignment and I like to look at it, um, because I'll, I'll put on my sales or BD hat, uh, 'cause I come from that world. Uh, you start with the who, you start with the customer and work backwards, right? If you're, if you don't have common customer or common, um, uh, projected or perspective customers, uh, you're going to have that misalignment down the line too. Because customer requirements, everyone has a little different flavor, and if someone's building something and their core customer base is over here, and you serve this customer here, eventually, it's going to get hard to get everyone on the same on the same path to solve this problem when this problem becomes a priority. So I think that alignment too, it's a lot easier when you start with the customer and the who. And then, you know, your why is, uh, who was baked into a Y and then the how comes when you understand the problem.
Dan Kultran:Yeah. Excellent. Matt. Um, yeah, if I may comment here, I think Matt already touched on the fact that we do serve the same, um, sort of customers right in the D. O. D. military space. Um, but more than that, I think we serve the same similar mission. And we have the same corporate culture of agility, rapid delivery of cutting edge technologies for future defense technology. Right? And we're both working to disrupt the status quo of technology capability development for applications today is we're like the disruptor. Of the disruptor, right? People want to brand themselves, you know, primes or disruptor primes were like the disruptor of the disruptor. They were the new gen new defense, uh, strategy, you know, um, and, and we're just. Creating things that can fit in multiple scenarios. Having architectures, because we're not encumbered by. What we already made, we came to this company with nothing. We have to build everything from the ground up and therefore we can think a little bit differently than trying to fit a product that was already, um, have a big R and D budget behind it into other things, right? So from the ground up, we design our technology to have an architecture that can fit on a boat, fit on an airplane, fit on a Humvee, fix on, uh, you know, a J. uh, LV, whatever it is. So that's kind of like where we see, you know, how our corporate structure and our line of thinking really aligned with drone shield.
Tim Winkler:Yeah. I think it's fascinating just thinking through, um, you know, a lot of the. Difficulties of tapping into a space like defense tech, right? Because, um, for one, there's a lot of red tape, a lot of bureaucracy, right? Um, and how do you kind of cut through that and, and maybe navigate one of a, a little bit of a shortcut. I think partnerships is a really creative outlet for that, right? Because the reality is. Once you get a past performance under your belt, it becomes a lot easier. So if you can attach yourself to a project or a technology or product that's being built, that's kind of like a plug and play, uh, without having to start from scratch, you know, you save yourself a lot, a lot of time from a BD perspective. And I think, um, you know, that's one way of You know, even though you're both startups, but, you know, maybe Epirus is a little bit more at a, you know, a little bit, a little bit further along in the process. It's, it's really a way of helping out, you know, somebody like a drone shield that's trying to tap in and scale it a little bit quicker. Um, I'm just using that as a hypothetical. I'm not saying that's how it went, but I'm just playing that out. It's like, I talked to a lot of founders that are trying to build dual use technologies. And if they started commercial and they have no idea on how to really like transition this into. A government customer, a partnership is a really nice advantage to figure out a way of, you know, hitch onto that wagon and get that past performance under your belt.
Dan Kultran:Yeah, Tim, I think you really touched on a point here I want to comment on is this pull through, right? So if we're successful as Epirus. We can also pull DroneShield into our success because we're already a partner. So, if DroneShield is successful in something else, DroneShield can say, Hey, look at the technology. We're already fully integrated with Epirus. You have a problem. Pull our technology through. So, either way, so, you know, bi directional road that we all win, right? And ultimately our customers win because. Um, the time and the value of time and the money, they don't have to spend on all of that really, um, makes a huge benefit for our customers.
Matt McCrann:Yeah, that's a great point, Dan. And then also, I'd add to that, that, um, you know, we were talking and focused on startups. Um, our company in this, in the last 12 months, drone shield has, has really focused on the transition from startup to scale up. You need partnerships to hit that scale up stride. Uh, from a business perspective, we're a small team, you know, a 200 on the EST side, 85 or so on the drone shield side. We can't be in every conversation that we need to be. We can't be in front of every customer 5 days a week that we need to be or would benefit from. So it's the partnerships and having that alignment with the partnerships is like a force multiplier. And that's, uh, so the last 12 months, that's what we've really focused on. Is building partnerships with companies like Epirus ones that like to work like we do disrupt like we do as well. Um, I like the disruptors disruptor, uh, uh, slogan there and the tagline there, Dan, I think we're going to have to do something like
Mike Gruen:that.
Dan Kultran:We're
Tim Winkler:building swag as we speak. What I'm curious about the role of, of say, like a strategic partnerships, right within the org, um, you know, I, I, earlier stages, uh, Matt, maybe you can touch on this. Is that really, you know, your job, uh, in the BDC to, uh, you know, identify, you know, who's, who's going to be a good partner for us, what opportunities coincide. And then when does that role become something that you're like, okay, like I need to hire somebody that's going to be focused as a, you know, head of strategic partnerships or something along those lines. Like what, when does that, when did it happen in your own evolution? And, uh, what does that? That department almost as a, if it is a department, how does that look like as the company grows? It's
Matt McCrann:a department when all of us put on that hat for the day, and then that department goes away when we put on a different hat. No, so you're, you're, you're pulling on a lot of accurate things there, Tim. So it starts with the vision, right? Um, and I alluded to that earlier. We made a conscious effort saying this is how we're going to build out our sales, our business development efforts. Uh, we have a strong core team, uh, within DroneShield, but we can't reach everywhere. So how are we going to build that again? It starts with the customer. Who does the customer? What problems do they have? What other partners or technology providers are they looking at? And what are they? How do they use our stuff in their mission? What when they purchase a drone shield product or solution? What effector? A kinetic effect, or does that touch a high power microwave? Is that the vision they have? So, okay, let's start building that partnership, that team of partners to solve problems based on the problems that they're trying to solve or scratching their heads around. Um, so that's the vision part internally. Then it's formalizing a relationship, working with a company like Everest, identifying what makes sense. Where, where, what's your footprint? What's our footprint? Where are we trying to go? Maybe there's a, a, a merging of requirement capabilities on both sides. And customer need, um, and budget always helps too, right? You don't want to shape everything. It'd be nice if they were also working to shape some, uh, budget allocation to solve this problem. Um, but that's so once that is understood and there's a mutual agreement, like, yes, we can do this together. Uh, then it's. Engineering team engineering team linking up understanding the lower level technical of what this needs to look like. What could it look like? And then the BD teams as well working in unison on specific opportunities. Uh, and that's where it kind of flows down or flows through, uh, the organization from, uh, from, from our perspective, perspective there. A really helpful
Tim Winkler:picture that you just painted there. Um, I think, uh, you know, I think about it in the seat of a, you know, running a small services company here and, um, the idea of, you know, taking a lead on, uh, just, you know, almost like hand selecting, you know, what really makes sense, dissecting the customer. Uh, that we're working with and seeing, you know, what are those other pain points that we could help scratch that itch by use of somebody's other, you know, service or product. Um, it's a, it's a really simplistic way of painting it, but it's easier said than done. But, uh, it sounds like you all have. Made a lot of, uh, success. Uh, and, and I think it, it only builds from that, right? Once you see it, it working and, uh, in a current scenario. And then it's start to pull, pull apart other areas that you could be affected.
Dan Kultran:Yeah, for sure. And if I was to give advice to a startup who's trying to do partnerships, I would say it isn't easy, right? What you see today are, um, culmination of a lot of effort. From the beginning stages, like Matt said, who do we partner with? Does it have strategic alignment? So on and so forth. You know, early on, when we looked at drone shield, it goes across the entire organization, right? Um, strategic team brings forth. Hey, you know, what do you think about drone shield and whatnot? That goes to everyone in the organization, including me looking at technology piece like. Does DroneShield have the right technology to be our partner, right? And all of that, as we conclude and we have our partners with DroneShield today, it's not, doesn't even end there. It takes a lot of nurture, a lot of efforts in between to get to where we are today. Because there's a lot of resources and time. You know, there's going to be a lot of calls that we've got to make. Hey, these are the things that we've got to do. When do we do it? Who do we assign to it, right? DroneShield assigns a whole team coming here to Everest. Efforts assign a whole team of engineers integrate drone shields technology into, um, you know, our, our whole suite of tools here. So, and we need to make APIs and don't you need to expose their APIs. All of those things take a lot of time and effort. So choose your partner carefully. That would be my advice to, you know, startup wants to get into this game.
Mike Gruen:Yeah. I mean, I think you're a spot on with the engineering side and all of the, those conversations of who's going to own what part of the integration and how that's all going to come. And having been in those conversations, it's a lot of fun. Like if it's a good partner, those are, can be fun conversations, um, about all the different things you can do and all the problems you can solve. Um, but also on the sales marketing, all the different other aspects, like making sure that you understand, like. Who's going to own the, like on the go to market strategy and how we're going to advertise, you know, how, who's going to say what and how we're going to coordinate on
Matt McCrann:all of that, I think are things that,
Mike Gruen:um, especially engineers don't really think about, right. We think about it at this technical level. Um, how can we integrate? And they don't necessarily think about like. All right. So then how do we communicate this and how does it actually look from a business perspective?
Matt McCrann:Absolutely. It's got to be holistic like that, Mike, because, um, you know, there's a full disclaimer, not all partnerships work, but you don't know until you, you know, go through the vetting stages, like, like you're saying, where, uh, Dan's evaluating potential tech partners while the BD team is also evaluating, is there, is there a market for a joint offering? Um, the, uh, the one thing, um, to be aware of, uh, from my perspective is, uh, shiny object syndrome where, you know, there's a lot of cool tech out there. And, oh, you, you're doing something cool. We're doing something cool. We, we should put it together. Who's the customer. What are you solving? You can integrate a bunch of things, but what is. The end result. What are you trying to get to? Uh, so it's a very holistic approach across an organization with the business team with the engineering team and then also with the overall strategy at a corporate level.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, we, we, we had a, an episode about like, um, post acquisition expectations and kind of think a little bit about that in terms of. You know, how will these teams merge together? You know, how is it built up that, you know, we're bringing these folks in or we're acquiring this company, um, that it's, uh, it's something that translates to across the entire org. It's not just like usually one department that's impacted it, it, it, it impacts. Everybody that's a part of it. So it's just a fascinating, uh, a fascinating topic. Um, well, I, I, I want to save some time here for, for our final segment, but, uh, just a general takeaway is just really, really fascinated with, with what you guys are building and. Um, you know, the use cases that you all are doing, I think, is, uh, you know, just a, a, a ton of, um, a ton of positives that, that we'll learn from. And, you know, I think, you know, when we see, you know, some of the stuff that, that's happened with the, the war in Ukraine, um, I think these are things that people. Can start to, you know, puts them in a seat of like, you know, there's scary shit that's going on out there that, you know, we want to start to, you know, create tools to, to help solve some of these, some of these problems that are happening. Um, so we're, uh, uh, cheering you all on from the sidelines and, um, encouraged by, you know, the, uh, the work that y'all are doing. Um, well, let's, let's jump into the, uh, the final segment here, uh, the, the five second scramble. So we're, we're gonna, you know, talk, uh, you know, kind of quick rapid fire, you know, Q and a, try to try to keep your answers under five seconds. Um, uh, some, some business, some personal, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with you, Dan, and then, and then I'll jump to you, uh, Matt. So Dan, are you ready? Okay. Okay. Yeah, as ready as I can be. Okay. Um, explain Epirus to me as if I were a five year old. Ooh, um,
Dan Kultran:that's a tough one, but imagine a bunch of really crazy people getting together with adult supervision trying to accomplish a task. And with a singular mind of solving that problem, that's who we are, no matter how hard it is, we will solve that problem. And that's the kind of the growth mindset that we have here at Epirus. Nice. I come on the technology that I explained to you earlier,
Tim Winkler:that might be over their heads and we'll, we'll keep it at that for now. Uh, how would you describe the culture at Epirus?
Dan Kultran:Oh. Uh, at the essence of who we are, we're always having this convergence of technology, the mission, and what I call the growth mindset, right? We really don't mind failure at Epes. Mm-Hmm. you know, if we think about it, um, you know, the things that we're trying to do is really hard. And if we are constantly, we're constantly reminded that we fail. That's the, that's the key here, but it's okay. We march on and we keep, um, you know, going to 1st principle, understanding the physics, understanding the fundamentals, and we solve those problems. And, you know, there are so many that we solve here at Everest on high power, microwave, waveforms, and so on and so forth. Um, it's a hard problem we're, we're working on,
Mike Gruen:I would say, sorry, usually I don't interject. I'd say failure is not learning from your mistakes. That's when you failed. Mistakes are fine. It's not learning from them. That's failure.
Dan Kultran:Anyway, go on, right on.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, I'm reading a book called the mindset right now. It's all about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. And it's, uh, yeah, it's fascinating. So I like that answer. I love that. Um, what kind of technologist, uh, thrives at Everest? Oh, um,
Dan Kultran:someone that, uh, I would say are not emotional about things, um, because I think we thrive a lot on praises, right? Um, and someone with patience, someone with, um, acumen to say, uh, and analyze. The failures, like what Mike said, you know, um, and why, and are we breaking physics or not? You know, we always ask that. Is it, are we making, um, a mistake by not ignoring the physics, right? Is it possible, first of all, and if it is, we'll find a way to save to, to make sure that we solve that problem. That would be the kind of people that, uh, we hire here, not just for engineering, right? But for a supply chain, that thing outside the box that can say, Hey, you know, it took a long time if I was at another company, but how can I make that better here at Epirus? Very cool.
Tim Winkler:What can folks be most excited about for Epirus heading into 2024 or what you, what you can tell us anyways? Um,
Dan Kultran:yeah, no, I have a lot here. I'm a CTO, right? My mind is always dreaming. But we're entering a phase of another cycle of innovation here at Evers, right? We're going to continue on advancing and building our HPM portfolio, but now we have the opportunity as we mature our technology to some degree, to have a new wave of innovation. I can't tell you all the little things that we're working on at Epirus, but there's a ton of innovation that we're working on from, you know, our ideas with DARPA, from our ideas on even including different things into Leonidas. Very
Tim Winkler:cool. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Oh,
Dan Kultran:maybe ability to clone, not myself, but clone my engineers. They're hard to come by, you know,
Tim Winkler:um, so sounds like Everest is hiring. It sounds like as well. Um, if you could, uh, if you could pick one fast food joint to establish as the first restaurant on Mars, what would it be? Oh, it's an easy
Dan Kultran:one. I'm in here in the southwest. It would be an in and out. Ah, that's,
Tim Winkler:that's the most common answer out there in California. I can tell you a lot of folks would argue five guys on you on that one, but we'll, we'll let you, we'll let you have the in and out. All right. This is good. Um, what's something that you like to do, but you're not very good at? Um, software
Dan Kultran:programming. I love to, um, do software, you know, cause I'm a hardware guy, right? Um, I feel like there's so much more stress in, in software. Cause at least in the hardware, you kind of know you measure it fails and it has. Few, I would say few relative to software software, it's like, yeah, it works, you can recompile and all that. But then there's like, different modes that you never thought of that will make you fail and you just can't wrap your head around it. So I wish I was better at software program.
Tim Winkler:Mike, what do you think in a team, up an episode here soon sounds like a good future
Mike Gruen:because it's funny because I think the same thing about hardware that it seems much more complicated than software, but anyway, we'll get, we'll move on after you
Dan Kultran:do another
Tim Winkler:podcast, let's get a couple of, uh, embedded software engineers on here, have them tell us what they think. Uh, all right. What, uh, what is a charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you? Ooh,
Dan Kultran:um, Man, this one's a tough one. Can I take a pass? But we donate a lot as a family. Um, and I'll put a stake in the ground. I guess, you know, this could be controversial, but, um, 1 of the things that we do is 40 day for life. Um, we not only donate our money, but we donate a lot of our time. Um, and I don't want to explain to you what they do, but basically, um, we do a lot of educational and, um, uh, kind of. letting people know what's going on with Planned Parenthood and things like that.
Tim Winkler:Yeah, we'll, we'll plug the, um, the website in the, in the show notes when we push it live. Um, what's something that you're very afraid of? I'm afraid of the dark. Oh, it's a common, that's a common one. Um, I
Dan Kultran:mean, like really, really afraid of the dark.
Tim Winkler:We'll keep, keep the lights on here for you.
Dan Kultran:I I was little. Oh, wow.
Tim Winkler:Awesome. All right. Uh, last one. Uh, do you have a favorite superhero of all time? Oh,
Dan Kultran:man, I, I love Avengers. My superhero would be, uh, it's hard, it's hard. This is a hard one. I don't have, like, that's my favorite. If I have to pick one, Wonder Woman, um, I think, cause, uh, easy on the eyes. Um, you know, she has a lot of superpowers and she's more powerful than most of the other Avengers. Good
Tim Winkler:stuff. I like that answer. All right. That that's it. Um, you pass the flying colors there, Dan. I appreciate that. Uh, Matt, we're, we're gonna kick it over to you now. Okay. We're close with you. All right. All right. Um, some of these will, will be, uh, fairly similar. So explain drone shield to me as if I were a five year old.
Matt McCrann:Yeah. So drone shield, um, provides technology that helps protect people, uh, from bad guys.
Tim Winkler:Got it. What, what would you say is your favorite part about the culture at
Matt McCrann:DroneShield? Oh, there's a lot. Um, just recently, um, like I mentioned, we were going through that transition phase and the culture is, um, I'm noticing a change in That it's, um, more organic and it's taking on a life of its own and it's, it's, um, it's really cool to see. Um, you know, when, when you're there from the early stages where it's really dependent on 1 or 2 people that are driving it and kind of the, the, um, the brand to see how it morphs and evolves, uh, with more people coming on board. Um, so that's that's pretty cool. Um, a core element is that we're all mission focused. It's all about the mission. Uh, we move fast. Um, and we, we speak directly to, um, so there's not, you know, and it comes from a good place. So you can do a lot with that. Um, when you have that kind of candid, uh, candid culture.
Tim Winkler:What kind of technologist thrives at DroneShield?
Matt McCrann:Uh, one that's proactive, uh, one that's curious and one that's resilient. Uh, you know, things are not gonna go the way you want. Um, those requirements that you think you're coming in to work on, yep, throw them out the window. Here's new ones, uh, because something just changed. Um, so someone who can roll with the punches, um, and continue to understand the why behind what they're doing. Um, so that resilience aspect, uh, goes a long way with us.
Tim Winkler:Nice. Uh, looking forward into 2024, what are some things that you're really excited about, uh, with, with some of this growth at DroneShield?
Matt McCrann:Yeah. So, um, we have a lot of momentum right now. Um, and it's been a lot of, uh, groundwork laid. Uh, we've grown, uh, two and three times over, uh, year over year for the last four years, um, and now we're taking a huge leap this year in 2023 with that growth. And, uh, we have a lot of, um, cool technology in the works that is coming from, say like the TRL seven, which is a technology readiness level, um, where it can go out there and be initially tested with end users. We have a lot of cool projects at that level that we're pushing out now, and we'll see those mature very quickly here, um, towards, uh, towards the first quarter of 2024. So we're excited about a lot of things. That's
Tim Winkler:awesome. What was, uh, your favorite cereal as a kid?
Matt McCrann:As a kid, Oh, whatever was colorful and sweet right now, you know, frosted mini wheats or something, something a little, uh, more, uh, nutritious, but yeah. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast
Tim Winkler:Crunch. CTC. That's the number one answer right there.
Matt McCrann:That's good. Well, it should be.
Tim Winkler:Exactly. Are your kids allowed to have this cereal?
Matt McCrann:Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a staple in the house still today. That's why I still get to try it every once in a while. It's right next to the Frosted Mini Wheats.
Tim Winkler:Strategic play. What is a charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you?
Matt McCrann:Yeah, so, um, good question. Um, there's one that comes to mind, a non profit, uh, called Task Force Antal. Um, they do a lot of humanitarian work, um, in war torn countries. Uh, so there are two initiatives right now, uh, they do work in Ukraine providing, um, basically medical training and first aid, uh, training to civilians who, you know, um, have their lives turned upside down and need to be self sufficient on the ground. Um, and then they do a lot of work with, um, uh, the fallout of, uh, folks from the pullout of Afghanistan. So those are their two core missions and they do a lot of good work. Very small team. Um, yeah, definitely, definitely worth checking out.
Tim Winkler:How do you spell Antal? Was it
Matt McCrann:A N T A L? So it should be taskforce Antal, uh, dot org if you're looking for the website. Cool.
Tim Winkler:Yeah. Yeah. We'll, we'll post that in the show notes as well. Uh, if you could live in a fictional world from a book or movie, which one would you choose?
Matt McCrann:Um, uh, that's, yeah, that's, uh, more of a nonfiction guy and real world guy. Um, but so the family is reading, um, uh, all the Harry Potter books right now with my youngest. So, um, they, they kind of play in our world, but yeah, I think it'd be cool to live in that, in that, um, fictional, uh, setting.
Tim Winkler:Nice. Mike, did you watch Harry Potter? Uh, yeah. What's, what's the name of the, what's the name of the little area that, that we're referring to here? What do you mean the name of the area? Is it like, uh, what's the name of his, uh, isn't the, uh, You mean the
Matt McCrann:Hogwarts? The school, the name
Mike Gruen:of the school is Hogwarts. But there's other schools, but there's multiple schools. It's a whole
Tim Winkler:thing. Clearly I, I have some catching up to do. It's a real world,
Matt McCrann:so it's like a layer on top of the real world. Okay.
Tim Winkler:Yeah. That's why it resonates with you. I got it.
Matt McCrann:Yeah, yeah. It's still, it's still a little grounded.
Tim Winkler:What's the worst fashion trend that you've ever followed?
Matt McCrann:Oh, man. Um, yeah, so I grew up in the early 90s, so probably the baggy everything.
Tim Winkler:Janko jeans? Yeah,
Matt McCrann:where the jeans hang off the waist pretty significantly. Yeah, probably the worst fashion trend.
Tim Winkler:Janko jeans and a pager. That's kind of what I'm envisioning.
Matt McCrann:Yeah. Yeah. And the, uh, and the air walks too. Yeah.
Tim Winkler:Good, good visual. Uh, all right. Last one. What was your dream job as a kid?
Matt McCrann:A football player. That one's easy. I was so going to play football and then, uh, that didn't happen. So,
Tim Winkler:well, football season's upon us. What's who's your, your team college or
Matt McCrann:Miami dolphins. So, uh, we've had about 25 rough years and last two have been okay. So yeah, cool.
Tim Winkler:All right. That's a wrap. Uh, I want to thank you guys both so much for joining us. Um, both have been great guests and we're excited to keep tracking the fascinating work that both of y'all's companies are doing. So, uh, thank you again for joining us. Appreciate y'all's time. Join us on, on the pod. Yeah.
Matt McCrann:Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks for having
Tim Winkler:us.