The Exchanges

Q I'm curious, because you have such a wide set of customers, what exactly is your go-to-market strategy across them? And are you your dual use or?

A Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely, we're definitely dual use. Um, yeah, it's on that point, uh, in the dual use nature, like, I think, um, we've been really excited, like this, the exact same product serves commercial and federal customers. So there's like zero differentiation with other core connect there. It's been a big like North star of like, how do you not drive yourself crazy from a resourcing perspective? So like the same product works there. The go to markets are totally different, obviously. And we, I think have been fortunate to invest in just like a killer, Federal BD team. Um, folks that are very experienced, like that's an area that I'm super passionate about and, and have a good, good depth of experience. And then on the commercial side, um, yeah, I think just getting folks that, um, span the, you know, span the gamut of like very technical sales. Um, and so we have folks that, you know, have sold, you know, databasing technologies and, and like they, they love, The technical cell, and honestly, a lot of it we see is, like, if you read about the challenger cell, like a lot of it is sort of, um, hey, why, like, hey, you know, company that's doing this, like, why can't, why can't you do this better? Why can't you do this faster? Um, but done not in an antagonistic way, but done in a, like, collaborative way. Like, there is a better way. Like, let's show you, and let's w…

AI assessment note: “We're definitely, we're definitely dual use... The go to markets are totally different, obviously.”

Q There's certainly a ton of market shifts and trends that are helping companies like yours and others in the industry. Things like re, um, reshoring manufacturing, re-industrialization, a trillion dollar defense budget, hardware, hardware, hardware, humanoid robotics, drones, all of these things. Uh, what are you bullish on?

A Yeah, no, I can start there and then you should jump into Steven. I think in like, You know, macro trends that get us really excited. Uh, I, I think the test world, um, the test community, if you will, testers, it's like, we love testers. Like, um, those are our people. Their job is getting like harder and harder and harder. So like, that's just like a trend that we see. It's just like, so, you know, these systems are more and more software defined. Um, they're just generating more data than they ever have. And that's not, it's not happening overnight, but it's been a steady rise over the last You know, decade of just like software defined hardware. So there's more data that's being generated. And then I think talk about the DoD context, you know, the, the DoD is like shifting the way that it's thinking about a lot of these larger programs, trying to get away from 10, 12, 20 year program development life cycles. Like let's build the next exquisite, you know, bomber or exquisite plane or submarine. Right. Um, those things are massive capital investments. They take a ton of time and we're trying to much more get to You know, distributed systems, smaller, autonomous, attributable, like all these words that you, that you hear. But what that fundamentally means from a development perspective is, Hey, we wanted things that used to take a decade. We want to do in 24 months. Um, but we…

AI assessment note: “macro trends that get us really excited. Uh, I, I think the test world”

Q Super cool. Well, Cameron and Steven, you both have pretty big names in the hard tech community. Cameron, you specifically, you worked at Andrel. You were in the U S Navy, which we'll get to later. And, uh, Applied Intuition, Sail Drone, and Lux Capital, and various other government agencies. So how, what brought you to this problem, and how did you gain conviction?

A Yeah, really? Um, well, thank you, Molly, for instance, very kind. But, um, no, I mean, nominal, for me, is really a, like, a, um, a converging of, like, a lot of, like, seeing this problem from a ton of different angles. And what really made it come to life, it was the time that I did at, at Anderil. Um, you know, I guess going back, like started off my career as a submarine officer. So spent eight years, uh, on a submarine, which I know you wanna, you wanna talk about, we'll talk about that. Um, it could be the whole podcast, but it won't be. Don't worry. Uh, started off as a submarine officer. So just basically, you know, eight years of operating with the best technology that the U S Navy and the department of defense has to offer. Um, straight out of, you know, 1980. Um, and so just like a lot of empathy, frankly, for what the warfighter, uh, you know, goes through when they're trying to do their job. Uh, I left that world. I was very fortunate. I had met, um, some of that early, you know, the Android team. I had met, you know, Trey and Brian Schimpf, um, through some mutual connections and so ended up at Android relatively early on and was really fortunate to end up on this. The Anderil, like, counter UAS team, which is a team that will, uh, I'm sure it will, like, go down in history as, like, a ragtag group of, of folks, but, um, you know, Gokul, who's now functionally, l…

AI assessment note: “nominal, for me, is really a... converging of... seeing this problem from a ton of different angles.”

Q That's great. Was it a long process? How did you guys meet?

A Yeah, we, uh, it was a very short process, which is great. Uh, it honestly, from, from starting the, uh, yeah, from starting sort of formal, you know, pitches and conversations to signing a term, she was about 10 days. Uh, yeah, which was, which is awesome. Um, and It was not a lackadaisical 10 days. It was a very intense 10 days. Um, I think the Sequoia team in particular did an insane amount of diligence in that time period, which got us excited, like when investors really digging in, um, and sort of seeing the world the same way you do as you're going through that, that process. Uh, it was amazing. I, it's been a very, uh, exciting, you know, period for, for me. I, On the personal front, got married.

AI assessment note: “it was a very short process, which is great”

Q You're in the Mediterranean. There's a severe storm. You're trapped on a very large yacht, ok? Maybe a rogue wave comes by. What do you do? Do you take a helicopter, or do you take a submarine?

A When you said the Mediterranean peace side, now I have this like, is it Wolf of Wall Street? Is that the, when the, yeah, I'm thinking of like Wolf of Wall Street. I feel like you like got into it. Um, would I take a helicopter or a submarine? Uh, I've been, I'd say I've been on a submarine a lot. So my inclination would be to take a helicopter, but you said it's stormy. And so Submarine fun fact included. Uh, when you're on a submarine very deep underwater, you generally have no idea that it is stormy. Uh, and so it's very calm with the exception. This is a double fun fact. Um, because I've done this and submarine people have as well. But, uh, if you are in a submarine underneath like a hurricane, uh, you can actually feel the swells down to like Hundreds of feet deep.

AI assessment note: “when you're on a submarine very deep underwater, you generally have no idea”

Q How much time and cost do you think you save your customers?

A Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. We, you know, as the company has gotten more mature over the last three years, like I kind of think about, um, I'd say like there's like three value, you know, conversations that we get to have. One is often the easiest, which is, uh, you know, a quote I'll often hear is like, oh yeah, we, we hired a really good software engineer to build, you know, our internal version of nominal. And then like, whoa, I didn't realize like two years passed and there's now like 15 people on that team. And so, um, we hear that time and time again as companies, you know, scale. Um, and it just like, there's a lot of overhead that goes into maintaining a productionized quality version of, of something like nominal. Um, I say like nominal cause they won't, won't be as good. Um, but, uh, but it's costly nonetheless. And so I think like we can often have a conversation there, which is just like, how valuable is it for you to not have the staff up to four or five, six people?

AI assessment note: “how valuable is it for you to not have the staff up to four or five”