When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? What was your first big entrepreneurial idea?
I’ve worked in a lot of different types and sizes of organizations from the military onward. I am not sure I ever had a specific goal of being an entrepreneur. My journey is more of one where I’ve been willing to raise my hand in various situations to tackle the key issues of the day. This has led to increasing opportunities and responsibilities, including the opportunity to lead businesses and partner with other entrepreneurs to build companies.
I have started and/or led a few companies at this point, but it is important to note that this all happens in context of teams. The lone entrepreneur changing the world from his dorm room is not my experience—team, community, and ecosystem are critical.
You began your career as an infantry officer in the United States Army. How do you think your military service has influenced or impacted your entrepreneurial journey?
I had the great privilege of serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment during Operation Iraqi Freedom, which tended to deploy in smaller groups requiring more autonomous decision-making from small-unit leaders. One of my observations during my time in the military is that a lot of what we do in the Army is build, train, and drive teams to solve problems. There is a great deal of self-development that comes from identifying a complex problem and having to figure out how to solve it.
This directly relates to business and the entrepreneurial journey. Companies are people. When we build companies, we are building, aligning, and activating teams to solve problems in industry.
You co-founded Sustainment, a software platform for manufacturers. In layman’s terms, describe how Sustainment offers solutions to supply chain challenges.
The problem we are working to solve with Sustainment is the fragmentation of the US manufacturing industrial base. Manufacturing in the US is a massive ecosystem of ~285k companies, over 98% of whom are small businesses. These companies make up the backbone of the US economy but can be hard to find. While there are tools that make it easy to work with international manufacturing suppliers, discovering companies in the US often requires direct relationships or an often-difficult slog through Google. As a result, manufacturing tends to operate in industry and regional silos, which makes it difficult for small manufacturers to grow their businesses.
At Sustainment, we have built a software platform to make it easier for enterprises to find and work with US manufacturing suppliers. Our vision is to reimagine the American manufacturing base as a hyperconnected, secure, and resilient ecosystem of local and regional suppliers who can more easily connect and interact with the government and industry organizations that rely on them.
How do you define “excellence” in business?
I continue to try to orient my life and career around the concept of service towards others. As such, I view the concept of “excellence” through the lens of service. We build high-performing teams when we serve our employees by creating a culture and opportunity set that aligns with their goals and priorities. We build high-performing business when we serve our customers by aligning our success metrics with their objectives and needs.
One of the reasons that I am so excited about Sustainment is the opportunity it provides to serve others. We established Sustainment as a Public Benefit Corporation, anchored around the mission of supporting small and medium-sized US manufacturers and the enterprises who rely upon them. We see this business as an opportunity to both help people and build something important that positively changes the way that a large part of the US economy functions.
As a business founder and owner, how has being part of the Texas entrepreneurial eco-system benefited you?
Texas has been a wonderful place for my family and has been a great enabler for my career and our business. In my experience, Texas has a powerful mix of risk capital, talented engineers, and a culture that supports veterans and values military experience. This is all wrapped in the “can-do” Texas culture, which is entrepreneurial at its core.
Organizations like the TBHF and others have been really helpful accelerators for our business, and at Sustainment we are proud to help hundreds of Texas manufacturers thrive.
To learn more about Sustainment, please visit: https://sustainment.tech