The Exchanges

Q sense. And, you know, when I think about it with my CFO hat on, I start to think about how do I allocate budget between product development and sales and marketing? Um, you know, appreciating that you're, you're hitting a new, um, growth milestone. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you think about, um, organic growth because of the product versus getting the word out that you exist.

A Uh, yeah, I mean, we're lucky that we, we kind of walk the line a little bit between traditional sales and marketing, uh, outreach and product-led growth, because everybody who signs up in our app, I know who they are. We do the thirty-day free trial, and so product-led growth is I, I get new people joining a project, and I can see, well, that organization is new. We should go call them. Um, at the same time, I think it's 92% of our roads are asphalt, and almost every state has a asphalt paving association that all of the big players are members of, so I know who my ICPs are, and I can reach them through traditional marketing and sales outreach, and we kind of do that dance back and forth of how much do we put in the app to get more exposure versus How much do we work from a traditional sales standpoint? I liken it kind of as a tumbler. We go after the ICPs in a state, and we get them using it. That bleeds us into the DOTs, project engineers, who are interested because they're better with it. You get in with the DOT district, they add more projects, it tumbles back over, and they say, well, these are all of our contractors that are using it, you know, or that are building roads in our state. Go talk to them. So it's, it's a back and forth, and we've, we've made a lot of mistakes on it, and we keep learning.

AI assessment note: “we kind of walk the line a little bit between traditional sales and marketing”

Q So In the beginning of any early stage company, there's a need to validate product market fit. What was OnStation's experience like?

A It was very personal because these are, these are typical construction workers on the field in active job sites. If you've ever been on the road and trucks are going by at 70 miles an hour, it's pretty scary. I would call these people. There was a time when I called everybody who downloaded On Station. I personally called them, and hearing their voice, like, I'm lost out here until I got your product. I'm, I'm scared to be in traffic until I got your product. It helps me do my job better. It keeps me safer, um, and hearing that story was like, okay, great. We have something here that's solving a real problem. Our challenge was then taking that And convincing the bosses who haven't been out of the job site in maybe 1015 years, and they remember it differently. But that real need, ah, was legitimate, and it's daily, and so tapping into that feeling is really what kind of motivates our team, because when you talk to somebody out there that says our app makes them better and safer, you're just, you're just motivated to be like, great, how do I get this in more hands?

AI assessment note: “I personally called them, and hearing their voice... We have something here that's solving a real problem.”

Q And so with that, let's talk about adoption, um, no shortage of opinions, um, or approaches that a company should take in order to, um, facilitate uptake. Is, is your, is your experience more started with boots on the ground and then make your way to the contract, the leadership within a contractor to get them to be on board with on station?

A So yeah, when, right now we're in a kind of a transition phase, but to get to where we've been today, It was get it on a project, uh, get folks using it, and then help them sell up, because you needed that validation of actually on the job. Um, and that works, it's still working now, and there's a lot of technology in our space, there's a lot of junk technology, and what we learned from the decision makers were, what separates the noise is that my guys are coming to me saying, we like OnStation. And so, when they get calls from 20 software providers, and one of them, their guys are telling them about, and it's our product, that's what separates it. And that was a grind, but that was, you know, one-to-one calls. Call everybody, see what they're doing. Um, now that we have that validation, we have enough customers We are hiring folks and working both channels where we can go to the leadership team and say, we have these companies that look like you and these are the benefits they're experiencing. If you deployed on station across your organization, this is what's going to happen to you. And we have enough validation and we're on enough projects to, for them to believe that.

AI assessment note: “It was get it on a project, uh, get folks using it, and then help them sell up”

Q And then, so then how did your, um, personal background and experience, uh, shape the way that you approach building on station?

A So my personal background, I grew up in a family business. Uh, we had, uh, my family had grocery stores, and so we kind of lived in that entrepreneurship, just, uh, get it done type atmosphere. Uh, we sold those stores my senior year of college, and I was on one path for 20 years, and I completely went on another path. And in general, my background has been somebody who I asked a lot of questions, and I try to figure out what the actual problem is, which usually is not the problem that most people are trying to solve for, and I've had a handful of companies I've started or been a part of. Some have had a lot of success, and some have had none, which is kind of pretty typical. Uh, this one I got introduced to through a mentor here in Cleveland, and My general philosophy is set the course, give your team members the tools to do their job, and get out of the way, uh, and just solve problems day after day, take inefficiencies out, take roadblocks out, and make a mistake, find what you did right, do it again. Find what you did right, and that's how we iterate.

AI assessment note: “I grew up in a family business... lived in that entrepreneurship, just, get it done”