S1, E46: CEO, Strider Technologies - Greg Levesque

What if family dynamics could make or break a startup? Join us as we uncover the compelling journey of Greg Levesque, CEO of Strider Technologies, who turned the skepticism around family-run businesses on its head. Greg, alongside his brother Eric, has built a company that not only addresses the complex issue of intellectual property theft by foreign nation-states but also contributes significantly to national security. Learn how Greg's background in international relations and his adventurous spirit led him from rural Maine to Utah's vibrant tech scene.

Economic growth and national security are two sides of the same coin, and Greg Levesque exemplifies this in his strategic decision-making. From relocating Strider Technologies' headquarters to Utah’s thriving Silicon Slopes to navigating the intricate landscape of U.S.-China relations, Greg's story is a masterclass in balancing professional ambition with personal fulfillment. We discuss the catalytic effect of Utah's defense tech sector on local economic rejuvenation, and how community and mentorship play crucial roles in fostering innovation.

Ever wondered what it’s like to juggle a high-stakes career while embracing life’s adventures? Greg shares his personal experiences—from teaching his six-year-old to ride a bike to exploring Utah’s natural beauty—highlighting the importance of work-life balance. This episode not only provides invaluable insights into the intersection of strategic intelligence and business growth but also celebrates the spirit of entrepreneurship and community in Utah. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that underscores the importance of resilience, adaptability, and meaningful work that aligns with one's core values.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Entrepreneur Twins Found Strider Technologies
• 9:01 Family Dynamics and Entrepreneurship
• 19:43 Economic Growth and National Security
• 25:03 College Experiences and Career Paths
• 30:40 National Security and Economic Strategy
• 41:09 Building Strider Technologies
• 54:08 Adaptability and Growth in Entrepreneurship
• 1:03:37 Strategic Intelligence and Business Growth
• 1:09:52 Embracing Adventure and Challenges
• 1:13:31 Entrepreneurship and Community Growth

Transcript

Greg Levesque: 0:51

My parents started a company together. What's the cost of just China's theft of IP to the US economy on an annualized basis? 250 to 600 billion per year. Dream come true for me. I mean, this is like what I feel is my mission. You know, Eric and I relocated to Utah about three years ago and this is now like Strider's headquarters. When I was living in DC, a lot of the people I met were from Utah, so he was in Oman in the Middle East. This is not a normal startup story at all. That was when we said let's just do this. Three weeks later we had a term sheet for $2 million on the idea and that was the frustration I had in some of these interactions when I was supporting the government. That first $2 million seed check bought us one year of time. Having the plan is what saved us. The startup scene here and the talent base, I think, is tremendous. Kind of like the what if? Conversation. I have a lot more of those in Utah. It is different than the rest of the country.

Erik Nilsson: 1:50

What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, eric Nielsen, and today we have the CEO of Strider Technologies, greg Levesque, to talk about his story of growing up in rural Maine and then moving west when his family wanted to start a company and following his dad to chase that dream, to attending Utah State and then eventually moving to DC, learning a ton about the international conflict between China and the US, which led him to found the company to help companies better combat those risks. We talk a lot about international relations, what's going on right now and what his company is doing to combat it, as well as why he decided, with his twin brother, who also helped founded the company, to move headquarters to Utah and in Salt Lake and why they're excited to do so. So great conversation between the two of us, excited for you all to listen and enjoy.

Erik Nilsson: 2:39

Reading's my favorite part. Editing is a grab bag Usually not, because I'm usually stressed to try to get it done, because I usually do it like Friday afternoons to have it ready by Saturday, and usually it's like okay, just kidding, we're doing it on Saturday. Sorry, everybody, and there's only been one time someone's texting me or messaging me and been like it's not live Right.

Erik Nilsson: 2:58

Every week Every week. Yeah, yeah, first start off is bi-weekly. And then I like the problem was I recorded the first episode July 26th last year and I launched the first one, launched that episode, on October 20th, and so I mean like four-ish months and I was like, wait a minute, there's an issue of like if these things get stale. And so all of a sudden I'm like, all right, so we're going to release every week now. And then, once I got in like kind of like the cadence of it, I was like, yeah, this is fine, like I can keep. I'm like I'm a good, I'm really good about consistency. Like I've gone to the gym five, six days a week for the past 10 years. So as soon as I get in the rhythm, I can just keep on doing it. So it just keeps going.

Greg Levesque: 3:39

You have discipline, which is a lost art.

Erik Nilsson: 3:42

It depends on the topic. You put me in a 7-Eleven candy aisle and that discipline goes out the window. And then I'm like the snack king. I always tell people yeah, my biggest vice is sugar and I don't know how to get rid of it. People, yeah, my biggest vice is sugar and I don't know how to get rid of it. But if that's the worst thing that happens, then we'll just take being pre-diabetic for a little bit.

Greg Levesque: 3:59

That's the worst that can happen. Yeah, I know right.

Erik Nilsson: 4:03

Yeah, I mean, Greg, I'm stoked to be here. I kind of love, hey. I mean it's always funny because, like when I reach out to a lot of people, they'll always come back with this quick apology and be like hey, my schedule is crazy, we'll try to get something scheduled. I don't know when we can like listen, I've dealt with so many schedules, like if we just need to keep perpetually kicking it down the field, that's fine. As long as you do want to be on it and we can make this happen, then that's fine. I mean schedules come up, especially in, I mean a role like yours, and I mean working in tech and such high growth and being the captain of at the helm. There's a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things that come up, so I'm glad that that we could finally make it work. Yeah.

Greg Levesque: 4:37

I am too, and, uh, you know it was supposed to be me and Eric, but you, you have a hedge right, Like uh, with the schedule. So, Eric, Eric did get you know, called off to San Francisco he had to go, but I'm here, so, uh, half of the twin duo, right?

Erik Nilsson: 4:50

It's okay. There's only room in this room for one, eric.

Greg Levesque: 4:54

And.

Erik Nilsson: 4:56

I'll take the high land on it. But yeah, I mean, like I was saying when we were walking in, is like I wanted to have more people, I mean Silicon Slopes, because there's a lot of great entrepreneurs, a lot of great stories that I wanted to highlight and so naturally I go to as Scott Paul has coined him and I've since adopted reached out to the mod father, blake Motorzycki, and I was like Blake, who, who do I need to have on the podcast? Whose story do I have? And it was funny because, like I mean, as I mean, blake's a very busy person, and it was funny because, like he responded pretty quickly and it was very like oh, greg and Eric for Strider, like that's the one I'm like, okay, Like would you mind?

Erik Nilsson: 5:37

like an intro email. He's like, yeah, again five minutes later. Hey, here you guys are, take it from here. Yeah, and like in very typical blake email fashion, like all right, like thank, like thank you, like on it and um, and so it's like, if you have his stamp of approval, that alone made me excited to sit down and record and obviously, like eric can't be here, but you know, maybe there's going to be some of the twin ESP telepathy. It'll come out Exactly, he'll be in a meeting in San Francisco. Be like, why do I feel like I need to think about my origin story and growing up?

Greg Levesque: 6:03

I mean, this is the odd thing Like so we we took totally different career paths. Eric went to Wall Street, did finance, I went to DC, got sucked into that vortex, yeah. And you know, for 10 years we were on our own paths. Obviously we always kept in touch, would talk about things, but it wasn't until we started Strider that we kind of came back together and realized, yeah, we are not that unique, we are people, we are the same person. So you know, back to like comments about you know having the same thoughts and things like that Like it's. There's been some, some fun times in the startup journey where that's like that twin dynamic.

Erik Nilsson: 6:42

I love my family, my sisters, one of my best friends, but the thought of being like hey, I have this idea for this opportunity in the marketplace. It really hasn't been addressed and I think we should do this together.

Greg Levesque: 7:04

Yeah, I mean, that's that kind of comes um with like my own immediate family's uh like background, my, my parents, started a company together.

Erik Nilsson: 7:13

Um, my company was it.

Greg Levesque: 7:14

So they did Medicaid billing for school districts. They built a software and then a consultancy around that, of course, and then my two older brothers started a legal tech company together, what it's called Lolly Law, okay, and that was acquired by Francisco Partners a couple of years ago. And then Eric and I did this.

Erik Nilsson: 7:35

So it was almost expected.

Greg Levesque: 7:37

Well, I think we just have a very maybe. We just can't work in a normal corporate environment.

Erik Nilsson: 7:43

How dare you be so sane? I've yet to meet someone who's like. You know, I really found myself in this corporate rat race and this climb to the top. It really resonated with who I am as a person and if I did hear someone say that I would probably run as fast as I could Not to say, like I mean, jobs are great, there's a lot of fulfillment, a lot of community that can come from work, but at the end of the day, I think it is these like projects that you get to build on your own.

Erik Nilsson: 8:07

You get to have your own experience and learn so much along the way, and it's so, I mean, so remarkable to have a brother and a twin who's like hey, I'm in it too, and I think it's interesting to think about your guys' diversities, yet similarities that come together, because I was talking to someone yesterday about it at this event I was at for 801 Day and that CityCast Salt Lake was hosting with their partnership with Second Summit Cider. Shout out to them and all that they've done. But it's funny because, like, some people will come together and try to start a business, project, organization, whatever it might be, but they're all the same people and so, as you're thinking like, hey, different things have to get done, and if we're all the same person, we all want to do the same thing, but we all have to do different things. And if we do different things, it's either this learning process or really not as successful as you like it to be.

Greg Levesque: 8:54

Look, I mean, I think this is why you get some of those familial dynamics at play and why it sometimes doesn't work out, especially in venture. Like, if you're going to do a venture-backed tech company, which Strider is right, you're going to get asked you know, should I invest in this family out of the gate? Right, and we got that. I mean, I remember when we were raising for our series a, we had investors say, look, we don't really like investing in in sibling businesses or or husband wife businesses. They, you know, tend to go sideways, etc. And he's like you know, can you give me some examples of ones that have worked? And I, I looked at him, I said, well, have you heard? Like rothschilds or or the cokes or? Um, I mean, you just go down the list and there's all of these very institutionalized family businesses and there is something unique about them.

Greg Levesque: 9:41

Yeah Right, like that's not to say that they're all going to work, but there is some uniqueness to if you can get it right, and Eric and I call it like the Bob. So if there's somebody who, when you start a business, shares a lot of those skills with some of the other founders over time, if that business succeeds and it scales. You know that person's kind of left standing there going like what's my role, where do I fit in this organization? And, uh, we would joke that's. You know, that's the Bob and you. You know that's where a lot of the family dynamics will then kind of rear their heads, because it becomes emotional, rather than just saying what are the skill sets we need to operate this business, scale it and get it to where, where we want it to be. Um, so we, we thought a lot about that, that's. I think that's why this works for me and Eric is because we don't. We don't kind of fill the same Venn diagram. So he covers and has expertise and skills, um, that I didn't develop.

Erik Nilsson: 10:34

Good old, actually exclusive, collectively, exhaustive at play. There you go, exactly.

Greg Levesque: 10:38

So it's a nice, well-rounded dynamic.

Erik Nilsson: 10:41

No, I love that, and I guess maybe, before we kind of jump into the beginning and starting of it all, I mean maybe give a quick introduction to Strider, I mean what it does, and a little bit more with the products, and then we can kind of come back to kind of what you're up to and more of the future a little later. Yeah.

Greg Levesque: 10:56

So Strider we're five years, a little over five years old started the business back in 2019. And originally, you know, we were really focused on solving a pretty sticky problem, which was foreign nation states stealing IP from, you know, specifically US companies. It's a that was an area of work that I had spent quite a bit of time on in DC. I'm a Mandarin linguist and realized, look, our system here in the United States just is not responding effectively to countering that threat. And the real kind of like you know aha moment was I was part of the US trade rep 301 investigation back in 2016, 17. This was basically like the legal foundation for tariffs and and implementing some new policies around US China trade dynamic, and there are some economists on that team. Their job was to peg like, what's the cost of just China's theft of IP to the US economy on an annualized basis, and they came up with $250 to $600 billion per year.

Erik Nilsson: 12:04

And there's my TAM.

Greg Levesque: 12:07

I kind of sat there and I was like and this is happening every year. And then somebody raised their hand in the room and this was that moment right For me. I was like we have to go figure this out. Because somebody asked well, that is so much. How did they do it? And it was crickets. We just kind of looked at each other and that's when I had this thought like we know how they do it, this is a system. We can actually model this out, we can identify it, we can begin to implement new policies and we can collect data to actually flag this for companies so they can protect themselves. And that's, that was the genesis for Strider and that's what we've, we've built today.

Erik Nilsson: 12:55

Jump into and start a business that deals with the government and some sort of government contracting.

Erik Nilsson: 12:57

That B is going to say, hey, I'm going to put myself in the middle of the US and China, like that alone is deserves kudos and applause. And I mean especially, I mean going on five years now. I mean chipping away at that, tam, and I mean obviously it's I mean we kind of touched on this when we were walking around but I mean something that really does cause fulfillment, because there's so many people that work at companies. It's like, oh, like I don't really care about, like auto insurance, or I mean I mean the list can go on and on and on about the company you do and like what it actually does and how it actually improves lives or your own life. But to say, hey, listen, I'm, I'm trying to make this a better place for the US, the US economy, to help entrepreneurs try to keep the bad guys out, keep the good guys in and really help make that succeed. I mean that's gotta be a great place to find in that intersectionality of it all. It's a dream come true for me.

Greg Levesque: 13:43

I mean, this is like what I feel is my mission right and what I'm, like you know, oriented to do right now. I mean, the journey here was like not a linear progression. Uh, I didn't go to school for this right.

Erik Nilsson: 13:58

I mean it's never, it's not a linear progression.

Greg Levesque: 14:00

I'm going to tell everybody it's nonlinear chakra. But, uh, you know, to your earlier point, like we, myself I think, I was always looking for, um, not just a job but like an adventure. And I got, I got a lot of that in DC. Um, I met some amazing people. They brought me into different uh projects and uh career opportunities that really helped to like, fulfill that, that desire to be part of something meaningful and not just to do a job.

Greg Levesque: 14:34

Um, the same time, you know it was a struggle to get there and, uh, I think, took a lot of different twists and turns, but ultimately, uh, I came to the realization that that idea I had in my head of what I wanted my career to be, what I and blend it with my life purpose as well I had to create, had to create it. It wasn't going to be created for me and, um, I was just on the hunt for that moment and that opportunity. And then it kind of crystallized, came together and we jumped in with both feet and burned the boat, so to speak, and look, we'll get into this, maybe in a little bit, but it was not a foregone conclusion. This was going to work.

Erik Nilsson: 15:13

Never is. There's never a hundred percent certainty anything's going to work.

Greg Levesque: 15:16

And you know, like many other entrepreneurs, like most people said it wouldn't, and so you kind of have to get through that. I also had a four month old um. I had another business we were, we had, we had launched, had to, um, you know, extract myself from that. So there was all of these kinds of impediments there. But ultimately, you know, when you saw the opportunity, when the pieces came together, and then to do this with my twin brother, um, you know that's, that's a moment in your life where you go. I'm going to give this, I'm going to give these dice a roll and let's just jump in and see what happens.

Erik Nilsson: 15:48

Yeah, because again, you're like you could talk yourself out of it so quickly, like I'm the I'm an overthinker, and so if there's something to do, I'm like, oh, you know, paul, if this happens, this happens kind of going to ask like catastrophe chain, and that goes with anything. I mean it could be the best idea, but you'd be like, well, I don't know if I have the time or this could be hard. I've never done this, but it really is the people that go, yeah, and then I mean, as you can probably attest, you start to get like work down that field or like just keep moving the ball down and you're like, oh, this only feels better, it doesn't feel worse, and start to go from there. But yeah, I mean, let's go to the beginning. I mean I'm curious about, uh, cause, obviously your family. I mean parents that were entrepreneurs, especially in, like, the tech space. I mean what was I mean family dynamics, life growing up? Where were we growing up?

Greg Levesque: 16:37

I mean especially your twin brother so we're not from utah um we.

Greg Levesque: 16:41

I grew up in augusta maine okay so my, my grandfather on my, on my father's side's, from canada, from quebec, um, we have a pretty, uh, you know, traditional like quebecois moved to Maine, worked in the lumber mill family story. Yeah, uh, my parents um raised five boys in uh on 11 acres in Maine. My, my mom was a nurse, my father was a school administrator and really, just, you know, created, I think, a pretty idyllic life. Um, now that I have my own children, I realized, you know, they moved us to the middle of the woods because, you know, having five boys uh in in society was probably too much.

Erik Nilsson: 17:22

So let's just take these wild things into the go out and get it all out, come back whenever, as long as you're not hungry or starve or get eaten by wildlife.

Greg Levesque: 17:30

But you know when I when, uh, I was a sophomore in high school Our father came home one day and said I've quit my job, I want to start a business and we're going to move to Idaho.

Erik Nilsson: 17:44

What was your thought when you said that? I mean, was it the teenage like? You can't take me from my friends. I'm not doing this.

Greg Levesque: 17:52

Or I mean, were you excited? What were those initial emotions? Like I think it was back to like that whole adventure, like I think we just viewed it as a grand adventure, obviously like missed friends and family that had still lived there. But, we, I think as a family, we came together and said, look, we want to support our father in this endeavor and kind of make the most of it. And so it was definitely a culture shock moving from Maine to Idaho yeah, a little different.

Erik Nilsson: 18:16

Yeah, but and so it was definitely a culture shock. Moving from Maine to Idaho.

Greg Levesque: 18:17

Yeah, a little different, yeah, but it was. It was it worked out, and, uh, it got us out West, which I fell in love with, uh, the mountain West in particular, and and uh, and then we, um, yeah, we, we've loved it out here ever since.

Erik Nilsson: 18:33

I mean in your childhood. I mean, obviously you have this vast expanse to go, do and play and explore, and like I had a taste of that from where I grew up in Salt Lake. But I mean, during this time, what was your relationship with your brother? I mean, was it like this twins attached to the hip, or was it get away from me? And I don't want to spend too much time with my twin brother. We've always been best friends.

Greg Levesque: 18:54

Okay, yeah, so uh, if you know, maybe you have some of those twin dynamics where it's like you know, friend and foe, but for us we've always just been very tight knit and uh, um, until, like I mentioned, until we went on LDS missions, I mean, our paths were in lockstep.

Erik Nilsson: 19:11

Yeah, Okay, so you. So you moved to. What part of Idaho did you guys move to?

Greg Levesque: 19:15

So we moved to CUNA, idaho. Oh wow, farm country, yeah. And yeah, I was like I went to the high school and orientation and they said you know, would you like to take welding courses or animal husbandry? And I said what the hell is that? Do you have economics or anything Like what are?

Erik Nilsson: 19:31

the normal topics. Can I do math? Yeah. So he told me we still get gym.

Greg Levesque: 19:34

You're like no, no, we actually have rodeo practice but what a wonderful community, yeah and uh they just we. We fell in love with it and jumped in with both feet. My parents now live in uh boise, um, and it's just been a great transition for the family because, look, maine's a wonderful place. But the running joke there, when I was growing up even was Maine's biggest export is its youth. You know, like we, there's there's just not a lot happening on the economy front and you know my dad would always make these, these comments. Like you know, we're driving around and on the license plate you know the motto is vacation land, but what about all the people who have to live here?

Erik Nilsson: 20:10

Yeah, vacation here too, unless you're unemployed, then it's always vacation land. But I mean that's one thing that I truly do, um, appreciate about salt lake specifically. So, um, I mean, as you may have heard in episodes like, I spent six months traveling around the country and like part of the impetus was that like I'm gonna find the place I want to be, I'm gonna fall in love with it, buy a house set up like shop and that and ride off into the sunset. But what I found is a lot of exactly like what you said. I mean there's a lot of places I mean parts of Pennsylvania, I mean Maine, I mean every state has a part of it. I mean even Ohio and a lot of the Midwest, where there's really not a lot going on on the economic front and you see a lot of unemployment. You see a lot of like rundown buildings and not a lot of optimism, and I mean even in places as beautiful and amazing as Maine, there's still not that much going on. I mean you can love Acadia National Park and go to as many weddings at Kennebunkport as you want to, but if there isn't jobs, if there isn't a lot of growth, it really isn't too much opportunity for I mean kids next generation, I mean especially thinking about your dad's situation. He's like, yeah, like let's go try something new and let's go out here and do that.

Erik Nilsson: 21:13

And that's one thing that I truly do love about Salt Lake and what's been going on, because I mean there's always the sentiment of I mean just taking everything for granted if you're from here, from nature to the people, to the cleanliness of the city, but also, like the economic growth, because it didn't always used to be this way in like the 80s and early 90s until really, like, larry H Miller came in and really had this drive to create this economic engine.

Erik Nilsson: 21:34

And then now we've seen so many versions of this, I mean in Silicon Slopes and everything that's going on in Lehigh and around. There has really been this new kind of foundation to fuel a lot of this growth, and I mean it led to a lot of other companies. I mean, like Golden has set up a pretty meaningful shop. We see these bigger and bigger companies be like, oh, like, yeah, we'll put a small office here, medium office, big office, and then, um, yeah, it's, it's hard not to align with, especially as we look at this work from remote culture that's, that's shaped, I mean it's. It's hard not to look at a lot of these key areas, especially on the West coast, or I mean, uh, rocky mountain area and not want to be a part of it.

Greg Levesque: 22:09

I couldn't agree more. Like you know, that was the drive for us to get out here about three years ago. So, you know, eric and I relocated to utah about three years ago and this is now like strider's headquarter. Yeah, um, but up until then I mean it was in. It was in virginia, right outside of dc.

Greg Levesque: 22:26

And you know our thinking was where can we create a hub for the business that um allows our employees to have a bit of a, you know, a western presence, a work-life balance, tap into a different engineering and talent base.

Greg Levesque: 22:40

But also, when I was living in DC, a lot of the people I met were from Utah Shocking, right.

Greg Levesque: 22:48

But, like you know, within the intelligence community, within the government, there's a lot of folks who served on missions, speak multiple languages, and all of us had this desire to come back at some point.

Greg Levesque: 23:00

But it was pretty hard to find something that was a parallel on the career path from an intelligence community or national security perspective until now. Yeah, now, like the defense tech hub here is growing rapidly, governor Cox and the state are backing 47G, which is a new consortium that's being built around the defense tech ecosystem and helping to just kind of drive that forward in a more coordinated way, which is great for the state, it's great for the employees here, it's going to attract a lot of talent, but, more importantly, what I love about it is it's going to be good for our country and actually contribute to a grander mission, because we are in a geopolitical flux right now. That's just a fact, given what's going on in the world, and I fundamentally believe national security is not just a government problem. It's a collective issue problem. It's a collective issue and we need to engage all pieces of our society, across academia, business, to really tackle these problems that we're confronting, because those geopolitical confrontations are happening across the spectrum.

Erik Nilsson: 24:09

Yeah, I mean, and it's so many issues that we've never faced before. I mean, especially when we look at how sometimes a lot of the government, especially Congress, like looks at tech and there's definitely this disconnect between understanding fundamentally how it works and how to use it as a tool to really solve a lot of our issues. And I mean, yeah, I mean like, even like thinking about the economics of Utah. I mean, the more that we can diversify that, the more strength that we can have moving forward, because if we put all of our bets in tech, then we have economic downturn, rates increase and then all of a sudden it's like ooh, sorry about that, maybe back to the drawing board and I do want to come back to DC because that's an interesting one, but I want to go back to so you and your brother, tasha the Hip, and you guys go on missions. Where did you go?

Greg Levesque: 24:53

So I went to Taipei, Taiwan.

Erik Nilsson: 25:02

That missions, where did you go? So I went to taipei, taiwan, that makes sense. On the mandarin side, mandarin eric went to um, the ural mountain region of russia. You guys just get the perfect like, yeah, you go learn russian, I'll go learn mandarin and that'll. That'll come back to the narrative eventually.

Greg Levesque: 25:08

Yeah who would have thought, yeah, um, I certainly didn't see it at the time, but uh, it's, it's worked out in a really unique way.

Erik Nilsson: 25:17

Totally. And then you come back and you went to Utah State, correct?

Greg Levesque: 25:22

So we got back from our missions and you're in that kind of mission mindset. So we got home my mother said, hey, I applied to two colleges for you guys. And you got into both. Congratulations. And we're like, well, which ones, what are for you guys? And you got into both. Congratulations. And we're like, well, which ones? What are you talking?

Erik Nilsson: 25:38

about.

Greg Levesque: 25:38

She doesn't even say it and she said you can go to Boise State or Utah State. And I kind of looked around and I said, well, utah State I guess sounds better. By the way, I had gone to Boise State for one year prior to my shot up.

Greg Levesque: 25:56

So also, it was just like I wanted to, you know, go live away, not be a commuter, uh, from my home and my parents' home in Idaho. And so we, we went to Utah state and, uh, uh, got into the Huntsman school and had just a wonderful experience and loved it, and that that was our first time living in Utah. Um, so spent three years at Utah state, um, met my wife, uh, and then we moved to DC.

Erik Nilsson: 26:17

Yeah, my. So my sister went to Utah state. I went to the? U, uh, but she and she played soccer up there. But and I never like cause at first I would go to her games I'd be like, oh this is stupid. You know a farm country, logan, utah. But then, as I've I mean, had my college experience, compared to other people's like I always get envious of, like the college town college experience, where everything that's going on in this town happens to be around it. Most people are students and there's such a fun community around it. Cause when I went to the? U, it was, I mean, it was a great experience.

Erik Nilsson: 26:43

I love my time I joined. I was there kind of right after they joined the PAC 12. So there's a lot of people from out of state coming in. I joined a fraternity because when you go to the? U and you're from Salt Lake and you don't do anything different, it kind of tends to be this continuation of high school. It's like same friends, same, just same everything. And I knew I didn't want to do that and so I, I mean, took that decision in my own hand, joined a fraternity, made amazing friends there that are still some of my best friends today, but I also. There's part of me that's still envious of like oh cool, we're all in this new place, no one's really from here, we all want to make friends and it creates this kind of I mean ecosystem of just like social adventure and getting to know so many people in such a unique way.

Greg Levesque: 27:24

So I'm envious of that experience and glad that it was a positive one, because I've only heard I mean like the opportunities now for the students there too are like way beyond anything I had, which is just testament to the leadership at the at the university, the investments that they're making and helping to put Utah state on the map for, um, you know, financial services opportunities in New York.

Greg Levesque: 27:44

I mean Eric literally hopped on a plane, flew to New York himself and just like hustled to get his first job there. Um, and now I mean I I'm getting hit up by uh students who want to be mentored and I'm looking at their internships and I was like I don't even know how you got into these. This is amazing, like kudos to you guys, right, like have these ambitions, but you need kind of a foundation and some of this support network to help get you launched, especially when you're looking for your first job. And that network for Utah State for me was just a massive support, and it still is to this day. I mean we've hired a number of folks that I met from undergrad at Strider who are now in leadership roles and just crushing it and, to your point, it's just building up that community and team and then taking them with you in your journey over time.

Erik Nilsson: 28:45

Yeah, it's funny how that's actually happened because I remember, because I studied finance at the U, and it's funny now because I graduated seven years ago and it's fun to see.

Erik Nilsson: 28:54

I mean I'll see LinkedIn updates, whatever, and I'll be like, oh, like everyone's doing like cool things and like some people have come back and I mean there's network opportunities, job interviews, whatever.

Erik Nilsson: 29:03

I've worked with some others but it is fun no-transcript around everybody and everybody kind of has this goal to do as well as possible in this like small ecosystem. But one thing that's really hard for people is to connect that to the next step, and that's one thing I didn't appreciate as much at the time. But now, in hindsight, I can see that because there's so many opportunities and resources to be like, oh, like, here's what you're studying, here's some opportunities for this, here's how we can connect you with that, and you kind of think of it's like just part of like their jobs and what they can do. But then when you compare that to what other schools can do and connecting that, I mean it's priceless and you can be like your brother and go fly to New York every week, have 30-minute meetings every 30 minutes trying to just get that interview and that's great. But if you don't have a little bit of help like that, little bit of help can go so far Makes all the difference.

Greg Levesque: 30:08

Yeah, yeah, I think it makes all the differences. Uh is is having that like team mentality.

Erik Nilsson: 30:12

Definitely so. So you meet your wife at Utah state and you guys take off to DC and I mean, at this point in your life I mean where did you see your life going? I mean, did you just want to be one of those DC suits walking around? I mean, cause I. So I interned in DC for a summer. I was at the treasury. It was one of the most boring internships of my life. I did nothing.

Erik Nilsson: 30:33

They always said if you're not doing anything by three, you can go home. I went home at three every day except for one, and but it was fun because I got to see so much of DC. Cause you like there's definitely like this energy and there's always just kind of like this pace that's always moving and very different than kind of like a New York finance pace, but there is a lot going on and it's fun to be part of that energy. So I assume I mean you go there and it it means becomes addictive not addictive, but you kind of feel that and want to be a part of it. I call it the vortex.

Greg Levesque: 30:58

Well, you just kind of get ducked in and you know there's um what Harry Truman called it Potomac fever right.

Greg Levesque: 31:05

Like, yeah, dc is a happening place. There's a, there's a lot going on. It's the, it's, it's uh, it's exciting. If you like that intellectual, you know engagement, um, and obviously you know, if you want to nerd out on policy, national security, if you want to attend, attend a bunch of like think tank events, that's the hub to do it, yeah. And so I mean, look, the, the original plan was go to grad school, so that's what we went there for, um, and and then ended up sticking around for 10 years, right, which was not the plan, but it just it just kind of continued to happen.

Greg Levesque: 31:41

My wife worked, um, uh, for the executive branch, and I always wanted to work in national security or around a national security nexus, but I didn't necessarily want to go into government. So that was a bit of a straddling place I found myself and what ended up happening was just, through some of the work I was doing on the commercial side, caught the attention of some folks in DoD and then began collaborating with them to better understand what was happening in the economy from a national security perspective. And so at that time it was a, you know, if you can recall, like there was a big shift in China policy. Yeah, and that was actually, you know, really architected by a guy named Matt Pottinger, who lives here in Utah now and was on the National Security Council, and really, you know, I think it's been an important shift, but what a core part of that that was missing from the discussion was well, what is what is their strategy for undermining the United States acquiring technologies to um, rapidly advance their military capabilities and shocker?

Greg Levesque: 32:55

I mean, the U S economy is the engine for innovation and what we were seeing is just a massive movement to target industry and non-traditional sectors, um, as a way to gain a geopolitical advantage. This is something like nation states used to do, right, I mean, you can think of the East India Company as a good example of that. In history. We've kind of lost the art. If you look back at Eisenhower administration, truman administration, national Security Council memos, I mean they talk about this how do we use our economy to achieve objective A? What industries do we need to invest in and ramp up so that we can better engage with third countries in Latin America or Africa? Right, like there was always this kind of lens that we had when we looked at our comprehensive national strategy. That does not really exist anymore.

Greg Levesque: 33:48

I think we're seeing embers of it reemerge out of necessity. So semiconductors is a good one, right Chips act, and now we're pumping billions of dollars into that industry. That's a reflection of the stresses of that competition.

Erik Nilsson: 34:02

Yeah, I think it's become a lot more of a reactive motion than it has been a proactive motion. Because again, I mean we look at, I mean, those former administrations and kind of like these hallmark events. I mean it was top of mind, I mean even like thinking about the Cold War and JFK, and so much sentiment around it, so much worry. I mean it was palpable around the entire country. And then now I mean call it, I mean everyone's so caught up in the humdrum of life and there's so many things that we're distracted by that it kind of gets lost in it. But at the end of the day, like that overarching theme is still there. Just the tactics employed and the logistics of executing it have changed so much. And I mean again, it's just like the world today I mean technology keeps growing at a faster and faster rate that we have to be able to be prepared at a more and more fast rate in order to be there and we are caught on our heels Right.

Greg Levesque: 34:53

No, I think you're spot on. Like we are, we are in a reactive posture and this is one of the frustrating things that I look out across um, not just the United States, I think. I think this is emblematic across the West and is likely due to probably some of the lingering of these institutions that were really created post-World War II and don't quite have the fit and finish of the modern era we live in. Yes, so speed is not a strong strength that those institutions have, outlining and executing a vision, not necessarily in the wheelhouse. Right now, it's very much just like managing the status quo, addressing emergencies or crises as they emerge, and fundamentally like we need to begin to change that, and I think it's going to be industry that changes that, that drives that shift.

Erik Nilsson: 35:42

Well, I mean, I think that's, I think you hit it on the head especially think about, I mean, the slow cruise ship that is the government and being able to execute on so many things. But to that point that dovetails so well with, like, the private sector and what we're able to do as a country, because that is where we can move fast because of our innovation, because of our growth, because of, I mean, the capitalistic engine that drives it. I mean, if there is opportunity, someone can take advantage of that, someone can take advantage of that. And then, next thing, you know you're a government contractor and doing so much of the lifting and obviously that's just so much of what your impetus for starting Strider and getting there. But then I know there's so you're, you're in DC, you go to Georgetown and get your master's. You get kind of caught into this vortex that is DC. And I know, before Strider there was, I mean, some other steps started a company. Uh, I mean, what was that company and what got you to start that?

Greg Levesque: 36:29

So that was just part of um developing a way to to better um uh, engage with some of the government customers we had and what we were trying to do with industry to help folks better understand, uh, the dynamics at play when they were engaged in business relationships with foreign companies Cool, and so it was a boutique research shop. Most of what we did was manual in nature a lot of open source research and would then deliver those in reports and things like that to the government or to corporate customers. Geopolitical advisory and research. That's what we were doing and um, loved it, had a blast, got, got I would call that like a bit of training ground right Front row seat into into that China policy shift that I had mentioned and, um, and it was a wonderful experience, got to meet some amazing people, uh, that don't really get a lot of attention, that are protecting our country and doing that day in and day out, which was a world that I had not been introduced to previously.

Erik Nilsson: 37:35

And I think that's an interesting thing that people need to understand is like there's so much of the government, politics, dc, that is a face of everything.

Erik Nilsson: 37:43

It's a lot of elected officials, a lot of media training, a lot of diverging, but, like even in my experience at the treasury because there was so the person I worked on there was the deputy CFO of risk and manage I can't remember Anyway blah, blah, blah, and she was not an elected official. She got her position, she does so, she did everything behind the scenes and never got that face. But then there is like the elected position that I think it was just like the CFO, and then they're the ones on camera, they're the ones in all like the, the sexy meetings and yada, yada, yada. And and I think it's interesting to see those people behind the scenes, cause you could go meet the face of it and be like, oh, like, I think you're actually just a face, like elegant speaker, and be able to do it, but there's this engine behind them of supporting them, getting things done. It's almost like a Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain.

Greg Levesque: 38:32

I mean, look, we have an elite national security apparatus in our country and I think that's, you know, for a whole host of reasons, not necessarily discussed publicly, but the people that I've met are what make that elite and their, their sense of mission, their love for country, um, and the sacrifices they make, um, I wish, I wish they got more like airtime.

Greg Levesque: 38:57

I wish that more people knew about it, because I think it would change our perspective.

Greg Levesque: 39:00

I think it would fundamentally change, uh, a, how we view parts of government.

Greg Levesque: 39:05

There's certainly, there's certainly areas that need changing right, but as far as that national security group is concerned, I think they are as proactive as they can be. They do a lot of things under the radar that help protect us every single day, both domestically and internationally, and that's going to be critical to our long-term competitiveness and really for us to continue to realize the dreams and visions that we have, whether that's gonna be critical to our long-term competitiveness, and really for us to continue to realize the dreams and visions that we have, whether that's around building a technology or business or being able to say in worship how you see fit, I really fundamentally believe we are beginning to confront an ideological battle, right, and China is kind of the main competitor in that arena. But you're seeing now coordination and collaboration with Russia, with Iran and their proxies, and now North Korea is in that mix as well. So look, I don't get too hyperbolic or fear--mongering I'm. That's not my, my kind of style that's as good as it seems.

Greg Levesque: 40:10

Nothing's as bad as it's right, but it's a challenge, and it's one that we have not really confronted, uh, for a very long time yeah and so the question becomes well, how do? How do you confront it? What is the role of industry? What should the government be doing? Should it be reacting? Should it be more proactive? Um, that's and that's that's. I think those are. Those are questions we're all going to need to struggle with, because the effect it's going to have, um, especially if things ramp up, uh, I think could be profound.

Erik Nilsson: 40:37

Yeah, got to be, got to be ready, for there's a quote from I think it was one of the last diehard movies, but it's, I mean, I guess, like the world's going to shit and bruce will, or the guy who's bruce willis's boss. He's like hope for the best, plan for the worst. Yeah, and because, again, like we don't want to be too hyperbolic and thinking everything's gonna hit, go wrong and the sky's falling, but at the same time it's like, but if that happens, we gotta have something in our back pocket ready to go because we don't be caught on our heels even more yeah, I like, I like, I like listening to a billy joel's song we didn't start the fire like.

Greg Levesque: 41:09

I'm listening to that a lot now.

Erik Nilsson: 41:10

It's just it's just on loop every day it seems like, okay, that's uh.

Greg Levesque: 41:14

Yeah, that's happening now actually. Yeah, you can feel like it's heating up. Yeah, right, and then where that goes, uh, time will tell, but I think we can all see like it's getting hot yeah, we're all strapped, keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times.

Erik Nilsson: 41:28

Cool, so you're doing I mean essentially like I think you hit it on the head like you're collecting so much information, you're having conversations with the right people, you have these right mentors to really have, I mean, a front row seat of what's going on and be part of these think tanks to really understand, have a seat at the table. Until there's a conversation at the seat of the table of like, yeah, we really don't know how to think about I mean all of this, manage this risk, and you're like, oh, here's this opportunity. I mean, at what point did I mean you call Eric? You're like, hey, I got this idea, are you interested? I'd love to hear kind of more about, I mean, those first steps to actually get it off the ground.

Greg Levesque: 42:04

So Eric and I had been chatting for years Um and was he still in in wall street doing finance? He was actually so. He was in Oman, in the middle East, so he was working for, uh, the sovereign wealth fund, you know, and was actually seeing in practice some of the stuff that I was working on. Um, just given. I mean, look at the time, oman is a strategically located country in the Middle East.

Erik Nilsson: 42:29

Access to the don't ask me to point it on a map. I could not.

Greg Levesque: 42:32

But it's. I mean, look, there's not a lot going on there, but it's very strategic. And from a geographical perspective, they there's a lot of Russian and delegations from China coming through to strike G to G, government to government, like business deals. So think building massive oil refineries, ports, things like that. And you know, at that time I was, I was actually digging into this and looking at how, you know, china was building out this massive infrastructure program globally. They call it the One Belt, one Road program and this was part of it. So what he was seeing tactically on the ground and in having conversations with I was actually trying to understand it, map it out. It was just this Normal family dinner conversations, totally. And that was when we said, hey look, if this is happening in Oman, this is happening everywhere. There's a problem here. And the problem was information asymmetry. The counterparty really was viewing that as a commercial transaction, whereas on the China side, the Russia side, it was strategic of this port within that broader effort and that's what I was building up.

Greg Levesque: 43:50

So that was when we decided like, okay, we think there's an opportunity here and this is not a normal startup story at all. I mean, we he Eric was in DC garage involved no garage but. But we did have a really bad office with bugs flying around at one point. But that was when, you know, we said let's just do this. And we actually were at the Silicon Slopes event the annual event and we just kind of looked at each other and said it's time to move out. Let's figure it out and put a plan together. Eric then went and met with a guy named Mike Jenke. So Mike is a former Navy SEAL, seal Team 6, multi-time founder and CEO, and then had started his own startup fund called Data Tribe and Eric just kind of in passing said hey, my brother and I are thinking of this idea. Here's kind of like the nuts and bolts of what it would be, and it was an immediate mind meld With three weeks later we had a term sheet for $2 million on the idea. It was one of those things where I mean, you don't get funded on ideas anymore. That was one example where we did and then we had to go prove it out and figure out how to make it work. But I think we had a lot of pieces going for us.

Greg Levesque: 45:06

So there's a number of of um developments that have happened that have made Strider viable today? I, if we had tried to do this 10 years ago, it would not have worked. One of them is data. The amount of publicly available data is is growing at a parabolic rate, and that is that was turbocharged during COVID, yeah. So when everybody went remote, the amount of information pushed online just went. I mean, it was exponential.

Greg Levesque: 45:33

That has not slowed down at all, and so when you think about what we're doing and the opportunity, you have a convergence of factors here. You have a geopolitical moment and a problem that requires a massive trove of data to begin to unpack. You have this data revolution, you could argue, happening in open source, and then you have AI to begin to process all of that at scale and extract high value insights. So, combining those things together, we've developed a very unique capability that rapidly reduces the analytical processing time of that data, which I used to do manually For 10 years. We did this manually.

Greg Levesque: 46:15

I mean it was like combing through reams of data and trying to figure out like okay, is that name the same person that I saw in these other five documents? And then trying to link them all up and while it's intellectually stimulating, right, like at some point in time you got to say well, what's the point of this and what are we going to do with it? And that was the frustration I had in some of these interactions when I was supporting the government was a lot of time and effort went into building these capabilities and identifying what was going on, and then it was difficult to get action from it. And that's that's, I think, where you know when we're doing that strider. The whole point is about being proactive. It's about understanding the threat and then moving out on it, not just waiting for something bad to happen and then figuring it out.

Erik Nilsson: 47:02

Yeah, cause I mean it's so interesting to hear of because again, like you have someone like what Mike Jenke was saying.

Greg Levesque: 47:09

Yeah, Mike.

Erik Nilsson: 47:09

Jenke Someone who gets it because he's so involved with it be like yep, I'm in, here's your check, here's your term sheet, excited to work with you, which, again, like I mean so much of this was a hypothesis that you had in conversations to call your brother and do this. But there's so many points along the way that you get this validation and it's usually nice, okay. So I'm not the only one, because sometimes, if you're like doing this all in a silo, you're like am I crazy or is this working?

Greg Levesque: 47:35

oh yeah, there are many nights of just you know, staring up at the ceiling.

Erik Nilsson: 47:40

I was like hey, uh, listen, uh, so is the money coming in yet? No great, uh any idea to your point.

Greg Levesque: 47:46

I mean like, look, look, you need people to believe in you, but most, I mean it is powerful if you just have a small crew that believes. Oh yeah, I mean you're not going to ever get a majority out of the gate Never. But we did. We had a small, tight-knit team that believed it and we believed that we could do it together. Yeah, and then set about working as hard as we could to prove it, and I even joke with Eric. Now we all have a bit of a chip on our shoulders still, and I think that's healthy, it's motivating, but it's what got us to where we are, because I think to create something net new like this, it takes a lot of convincing. It also takes a lot of getting folks aligned on what's the end objective and sometimes, when it's something that's net new, you don't have a playbook to follow. You don't have another model to look at and say, well, we could do it like that. So we did. We tried to find other startups to look at and say how did they do it? How did they think about it? What did they do it? How did they think about it? What did they do right, what did they do wrong.

Greg Levesque: 48:49

We spent a lot of time just doing discovery and trying to get a handle on like, what's our path to success and not try to go for the moon right out of the gate. It was, you know, that first $2 million seed check bought us one year of time, and that's how we viewed it. We said this money buys time and that's how we viewed it. We said this money buys time and during that time we want to accomplish this right and here are our milestones for achieving that. And we actually we developed an entire planning process we call it milestone driven planning, which was what's our end objective within that period of time and then work backwards across every function of the business to develop that plan for those milestones over the calendar year.

Greg Levesque: 49:27

And then it was like, okay, we're not going to hire anybody until we hit that milestone. So I never wanted to do layoffs. I didn't want to come out of the gate. I'd be worried if you did. But I think sometimes people get overly optimistic and they begin to plan a bit over their skis, especially in the early start of the phase, and then you run into this. You know you have to do layoffs or other things like that. So we decided, we would just suffer.

Erik Nilsson: 49:55

We'll suffer now instead of potentially suffering later. Because I mean, I think that's exactly it. I mean, especially when you look at I mean seed, series A, series B, there's so much of. I mean, especially once you get, I mean, a check, there is an expectation of, well, we do need to grow it. I mean triple digits, or I mean four or five X over X amount of time in order to get that, so then we can get that next term sheet to get that next branch of investors there.

Erik Nilsson: 50:18

And I mean alluding to what you said earlier about. I mean in a day then where term sheets were given with based on and that's I mean not the way it is now where you saw these people. Oh, yeah, yeah, we can always get money. There's always going to be this. We can do whatever we need to. And then I mean in theory, like yeah, you could be doing everything right, but over planning a little bit. But then I mean again like an external event, like interest rates changing and venture capital money drying up, and now, all of a sudden, cash matters. You don't have any and good luck.

Greg Levesque: 50:47

There you go. Yeah, I mean, you always have to have a gunpowder right. That's kind of my mentality, and so, um, look, I always also too, thought this is too important to mess up because you didn't get the business fundamentals right. Yeah, so you know, I would rather just take the role model brick by brick right, Put the foundation together and delay some of that gratification.

Greg Levesque: 51:10

It's easy to get caught up in that venture startup like mindset of success. Is the next funding round right? And I think that's a, that's a um, uh, that's not the best way to look at it. It's a means to an end and especially in those early days, the funding rounds are a means to buy more time. It's buy time to figure out your product, buy time to figure out product market fit, hone your messaging, build relationships. The tech can be amazing, but if you don't have the trust and relationships of real people on your customer side, your business is not going to scale.

Greg Levesque: 51:47

Yeah, and I think that was that's an important lesson that we learned out of the gate was we just spent the first year building out the tool, building out the network of people, finding folks who had a like-mindedness. Uh, that said, look we, you know your product's not quite there yet, but we believe in where you're going and this is a problem that we have, so you know you're going and this is a problem that we have, so you know we're gonna, we're gonna purchase it and work with you guys to refine it, and that that, uh was critical to our early successes and building out what we have now, um achieved today especially of customers that believe in the vision.

Erik Nilsson: 52:18

Because if they're, if you have a customer who believes in product in current state and what the value can drive, as soon as they don't find value in that anymore, don't believe in you. And all of a sudden they're not getting what they want to like, okay, we're out, we're going to do something else or we don't need this anymore. But to have people that catch that vision, like, hey, we're in for the longterm, we trust what you're going to do, like we're, we're, we're here and it's nice to have them in partners, be like hey, like what do you need? What do you want? And I mean obviously you're never going to listen to him completely, cause I always usually take the Steve jobs approach of like customers don't actually know what they want, or like know what they need, um, and go that way compared to like more of the um Bill Gates perspective.

Erik Nilsson: 53:00

But, um, and it's interesting too, I like what you said about the milestone planning because it reminds me of, I mean, atomic habits, where if there's a goal that you want to accomplish, let's say, if you want to lose 100 pounds by the end of the year, that's great, but until you have tactical plans of how to get it and how to actually be consistent on it and be I mean, diligent about it. It doesn't matter. And so if you do have all right, okay, listen, here's our North Star that we're going to circle around, put our hands in, we're going to do it. We've come up with a plan to get there. Again, we've all put our hands in and worked around to it. Now there's no confusion, because again you can always go back to be like oh well, remember when we had this and did this, like that's what we're doing, like that's right.

Greg Levesque: 53:43

We're aligned, let's go yeah. And we weren't so obsessed with the plan that we wouldn't adapt or change right, but to your point it was okay, we're all on the same sheet of music. You know your instrument, what you need to play and when you need to come in and what notes you need to hit now. So we shouldn't have to all have these conversations over and over again. When COVID hit and we all had to go remote, that saved us. Having the plan is what saved us. And so I mean, if we had all gone remote at that point in time and we were a 10-month-old startup with no customers, okay, running out of cash, and then now we're all on Teams and Zoom, that plan was what allowed everybody to go. Okay, I know you're going to go remote and I'll see you when I see you, but you have your to-dos, you have your action items, and now you know it's about staying accountable and having fun, obviously, as we're doing all of it. But that was, and that's just stayed now, part of our culture to this very day.

Erik Nilsson: 54:38

Yeah, and it reminds me of a quote. I can't remember the title of the book or the guy's name, but founder of Netflix. He has these 10 principles that he ends his book with that he lives by professionally and one of them that's always stuck with me is strong opinions, loosely held, and so again, like if you have this goal, and again, like the tactics could change. It's never going to be linear, there's going to be ups and downs, backs and forths, but if you're strongly, if you know what you're talking about, but things can change of how to get there, you need to be flexible Because, again, if there's someone's going to be that rigid, like no, no, no, this is how we're going to do it, be like well, we can't do it like that anymore and something's changed. So we got to like pivot and adapt, not not pivoting, adapting the long-term goal, but how we get there.

Erik Nilsson: 55:20

I think that's where a lot of people in general, whether it's professionally, other, can get kind of stuck.

Erik Nilsson: 55:26

Yeah, because there's like this rigidness and plan.

Erik Nilsson: 55:28

I mean my brain uh goes straight to like professional plans and development and growth, and so many people get so stuck on of like, oh well, I want to be an accountant. So I'm gonna go get my undergrad in accounting, I'm gonna go get my mac, I'm gonna go pass the test and then I'm gonna go work for a big four accounting firm and then I'm like yada, yada, yada, yada, and it gets so structured it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, like don't miss the forest for the trees, because, like, even in what I do for work, I mean like rev ops that's a very new topic Like I couldn't have gone to school and be like I want to do rev ops. Like what do you mean rev ops? Like what are you talking about? Like what are you okay? And so I think it's interesting to, as long as you can, again keep an eye forward and be strategically focused on what you need to accomplish, but again be flexible on how you get there. I mean that's where I mean some of the best companies succeed and then thrive.

Greg Levesque: 56:16

Yeah, adaptability Number one. Yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 56:19

So I imagine so, pre-covid, you guys are headquartered in Virginia. I mean because, again close to DC. I mean walk again close to DC. Uh, I mean walk me through this process of being like all right, I think Utah is where we want to go. I mean, how did that conversation go and how to get started?

Greg Levesque: 56:34

So we, we looked at a number of places.

Greg Levesque: 56:36

Uh, you know, we looked at Seattle, austin, denver, salt Lake. Ultimately, you know, the decision for Salt Lake was both personal and, um, in the best interest of the company. The startup scene here and the talent base, I think, is tremendous and the support from you know you mentioned Blake and Pellion at the start of the call the, the VCs that are here are very, uh, founder friendly, supportive of the, of the state and what's what the state is trying to accomplish, um, the talent here, uh, is very well developed and world-class. I think there is, uh, originally there was that thinking that like this would also be like some cost savings, which is not the case, um, and I think that's testament to the, to the talent and the fact that Utah is on the map from a tech perspective. The other thing was we had this idea that, um, we could probably pull a number of people out of out of DC and bring them back, some really talented folks working in the national security space, and that proved to be true very fast.

Erik Nilsson: 57:43

And was that mostly because, again, we alluded to it and we don't have to get into the details of why there's so many people from Utah in DC? But were these people who were also looking for a route back to Utah or these people who had no idea and were willing to take a risk on it?

Greg Levesque: 57:56

It was more the you know the former, like they they were. They were working on some really exciting things in DC that you just can't really do anywhere else. And, um, when we relocated out here and set up the operation and I flagged to some of the folks in the network that we had this operation going and, uh, we were building it out, uh, they jumped at it and said, hey look, I'm going to leave the government after 15 years and jump into this with both feet and then move the family out here and get that itch on the career side but now also have a bit more of a work-life balance and something that works for their family, which that's true for me as well. I have two small children now, which that's true for me as well. You know, I have two small children now. My in-laws are here, my family's up in Idaho. It's wonderful when you can put those pieces of the puzzle together and you know, for most of my career I did not have that balance.

Erik Nilsson: 58:51

And I think that's one thing that gets lost in translation a lot. With Utah I mean Silicon Slopes, I mean just like Utah culture in general, cause I remember when I was in Seattle working in finance, there was a lot of I mean just grind, grind, grind, do what you need to. And I remember one of my bosses. He was like I know I'm a bad dad, but I know what I'm doing now is more important for them than being there right now. And I was. I remember hearing that.

Greg Levesque: 59:12

I was like I'm not sure that that, uh, that that's correct, yeah, and I was like and again I was like, yeah, I agree with you.

Erik Nilsson: 59:20

Yeah, and again, like cause, like when you work in an organization, especially like in some sort of professional services, you realize your growth is to get to where they are. And if you look at them and you hear things like that, you're like that's not right. Yeah, and I mean especially comparing people that had, I mean, worked in New York and San Francisco and all of like the major hubs. There is that culture. I mean just grind, do what you need to do everything else. I mean there isn't this social value in saying, oh, I went home and like played a board game with my family and then put the kids to bed and then me and my wife sat on the couch, on the bed while I tinkered at emails, while we joked about stuff.

Erik Nilsson: 59:53

Like that isn't part of the culture. And then I moved here and it was so interesting to see such a strong juxtaposition to it all where I'm like, oh, like here. This leadership talking about their great relationships with their wife and their family, how they do want to go, spend time with them and when it's time to go, it's time to go, and they prioritize their time effectively instead of everything is the highest of priorities, and I think there's a big breath and fresh air for people that do move here for professional reasons to be like oh, you don't need me to be available all the time, you don't need me to always have my green slack light on or feel like, if I'm not responding in five seconds or present at the office, that I'm not a valuable employee. And I think that's something that has been harder with remote culture, because you can be sucked into the computer all day if you don't have a way to step away. Because you can be sucked into the computer all day if you don't have a way to step away.

Erik Nilsson: 1:00:37

And I think that's something that's going to continually resonate with people. I mean not only just because, like Utah, outdoors, quality of life, diversity of life, etc. But also just the culture that brings people together. And there's also one interesting point that's become more and more apparent in, not only in like the business, entrepreneur and tech side of things in Utah, but across everything that I've experienced in the podcast, from art and uh nightlife and everything in between, is this kind of um theme of the original thought of Salt Lake, of Deseret in this community there's so much collaboration, there's so much help, like you hear of competitors, I mean working together almost in like helping each other because they realize that they can both grow together and be successful. And there's a lot of like I mean mind melts in a lot of mind um, uh, just collaboration across the field of being able to support each other. That isn't found in a lot of places and I don't think a lot of people realize how much value that provides for for everyone.

Greg Levesque: 1:01:32

So I call it kind of like the the what if? Conversation conversation. I have a lot more of those in utah what if we could do this? What if we started that? Um, and that that's to your point about culture and that collaboration. That's something I think is just like innate in utahans and it is different than the rest of the country. I think it is unique.

Greg Levesque: 1:01:53

I don't mean to like over tout it or things like that, but I have found it to be very vibrant here and very creative right.

Greg Levesque: 1:02:02

And especially when you now have this university system, you have a state government that is managing the finances of the state very effectively and then reinvesting that into different segments of the economy, actually outlining a vision.

Greg Levesque: 1:02:18

Well, I mean, what a concept right. And then to have what's going on in Silicon Slopes and the defense tech hub. It just creates this wonderful dynamic of possibility and I think, at the end of the day, that's what people want. They want potential, they want the ability to say this is an idea I have. It may not work, but there's a network here of people who believe in me and are willing to give it a go, and I see that playing out, as you mentioned, across the board here, whether it's the tech scene, whether it's somebody who wants to write a book, start a shop, a bakery I've just found Utah to be very industrious and people who look at it as a way of like fulfillment, that process and that struggle to achieve that, that dream or that potential as part of the whole journey. Yeah, and you know, that was not quite the experience I had in DC and I'm thrilled to be a part of it now here and contributing in our own way.

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:16

Yeah, that was one thing that always bugged me about DC, cause I'd always, I mean, go out and meet people and like everybody especially in the summers or if you're interning, it is a whole social world. That's so fun. But it's always like the first question everybody asks is so what do you do? Yeah, how can you be of value to me in all of this? And if I were to say like, oh, I'm a server, they probably turn. I'll be like, oh, where are you going? You're going to get a drink, okay, it's like see ya.

Erik Nilsson: 1:03:37

And where here I don't try and I personally trying to do better about not bringing work into, like getting to know people better, because most people are more than their job but I think it's a place where cause again, like a lot of things that bring people here, is the outside, I mean the outdoors and the nature and the skiing, and I mean and it's also nice because I mean I'm sure you can attest to this for having to travel so much it's nice to have an international Delta hub right there and you can get to San Francisco, you can get to DC pretty easily, you can drive three hours in any direction and feel like you're on a different planet.

Greg Levesque: 1:04:08

Totally yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 1:04:08

And so it's nice to have, like these reminders of kind of being present and again, like those people to say, like what if let's riff on this, let's talk about this, let's chat, and because again like I mean, again you can attest to this is when you're starting a business, starting a project, organization, whatever it might be, it's never you alone, like, and if you try to do it alone you're pretty. I'm not gonna say you're destined to fail, because there's people that probably have and could but I can't think of one but you're so much more better succeed when you're using your friends, your network and collaborating, compared to just trying to do it all on your own.

Greg Levesque: 1:04:42

Couldn't agree more.

Erik Nilsson: 1:04:43

Yeah, um, so yeah, I mean so now we are here. I mean summer 2024, I mean looking forward for Strider. I mean what are you most excited for? I'm looking forward to um with everything you're doing there.

Greg Levesque: 1:04:56

I mean, there's so much going on right now. Look, the business is scaling rapidly. We're hiring quite a bit here in Utah. We just opened up an office in Tokyo. Oh wow, we have about 10 folks in London now. So we're operating in 10 countries around the world.

Greg Levesque: 1:05:15

That, for me, is to do that in under five years pretty thrilling, it's been a blitz. So we're also just kind of taking some time to look at what do we want to do over the next five years and beyond, right, and begin putting together the structure. We're in the process of closing out our Series C round to help fuel some of that expansion and growth. But ultimately, look, we've really solidified our position in the market in this new category called strategic intelligence and are now developing new tools, new solutions and capabilities to not only cover down on, like the security piece of this nation state threat, but then you use that data and technology to help our customers also better compete right, to identify talent, uh, in these emerging frontier technologies that uh that could contribute to their efforts.

Greg Levesque: 1:06:08

Um, to look at, you know, uh, different startups right that they could potentially collaborate with or or acquire to help fuel some of that expansion. So that's an exciting kind of pivot. That's an exciting enhancement to what we're doing. Um, we're also doing quite a bit more work with government. Uh, most of our customers are companies, so large fortune.

Erik Nilsson: 1:06:29

Oh interesting, I would have thought the opposite.

Greg Levesque: 1:06:31

No, I mean, it's a government, represents, you know, uh, maybe 20% of our business, uh, in terms of revenue. So our whole kind of thesis at Strider when we started, it was industry first. I mean, this is definitely a dual use technology, so there's a government application, but our view was industry was the one who needed it the most. They're on the front lines, they're the ones being targeted by these nation states. They're the ones being targeted by these nation states and in our system here in the US, the FBI and other intelligence agencies cannot provide that intelligence to companies, so there's kind of a wall there in a way and we are looking at we filled that gap right.

Greg Levesque: 1:07:13

What we're doing is we're providing that intelligence and information to companies so that they can actually now ingest it, you know, enrich it with their own internal data and get a better handle on what these nation state actors are doing to steal their IP, steal their people, undermine their supply chains right, make sure, too, that if you're a semiconductor company and you get a purchase order that you're not inadvertently selling to a front company that's controlled by the Russian military I mean, this is a massive problem.

Greg Levesque: 1:07:42

I mean, like, iranian drones are filled with Western Tech. I mean they're evading sanctions by using shell companies, uh, offshore entities, all of that right. So what we're, what we're looking at, is a situation where, like, the economy is being weaponized and uh and companies need that, those tools and visibility, so that they can navigate that more effectively, and what we're seeing is like that's not slowing down and it's not a uniquely American problem. This is happening in Japan, it's happening in across Europe, it's happening in Canada. Um, so we think we have a pretty uh, uh important mission and role to play in addressing that problem.

Erik Nilsson: 1:08:21

Yeah, and it's nice to have not only like this economic impact and monetary value that can provide to these companies and making sure that they're not the next victim, the next headline to come across the screen, but then also being able to be like I am actually making a difference, and this is aligning with my values and wanting to make the world a better place, and which sometimes can come across as like very altruistic, but at the end of the day, when you can actually like, measure and say like, yes, I am making the world a better place and here's how I'm doing it, I mean, what a what a great place to work in and and and be able to provide that um value to not only these companies but also to the people that work there, because I'm sure they love, I mean, being able to have that instead of just feeling like I'm logging into a black screen to stare at a camera with a light and then turn it off and go sit in front of a TV and make that your life.

Erik Nilsson: 1:09:10

So it's amazing to see what you've done by your own hypothesis, creating and collection of information and say, hey, I think there's an opportunity here and let's go do it and see that validated and see that growth manifested in so many different ways.

Greg Levesque: 1:09:25

Yeah, it's been a journey. Look, we have the privilege now of looking back on the last five years and it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing and, look, I'm still processing a lot of it and what it took to get here, what it's going to take to get to that next stage. But what I'm confident about is we have a dream team, and the team is really what makes the difference.

Greg Levesque: 1:09:52

That has been reiterated to me time and time again, just through my own experience in this, in building this company, uh, is that you can have a great idea, you can have a great technology, but what makes it unique is the people, and the people that we have at Strider are world-class, they're dedicated to the mission and they also just like to have a good time. Yeah, so we, you know, look, this is like we deal on a daily basis with some serious issues, and what we, what we try to, you know, tell everybody is it's good to have a dark sense of humor, it's, it's healthy, yes, and it's it's what's going to help you through all of this stuff, right, I mean, you have to kind of take it that way. Yeah, um, and and that to me, for me, is has been like, the greatest experience of all is getting to know these folks, and especially the ones who joined early on.

Greg Levesque: 1:10:41

I mean I remember there was one employee we hired on our Intel team. The guy is a world class true expert on China and economic strategy and things like that. And I said to him hey look, it's like jumping into a roller coaster that's on fire and I can't tell you if, like, we're going to make it through, it might collapse, but you're going to have a really good fun. Hell of a ride. Yeah, and he was like I'm in you know, like I didn't even finish, like I know that sounds amazing.

Greg Levesque: 1:11:14

I'm in and that was like you need to find. We needed people like that. Yeah, we needed to find people like that, who just said I'm in it because it's an adventure and I got the mission itch for it and we'll figure it out as we go.

Erik Nilsson: 1:11:26

Exactly.

Greg Levesque: 1:11:27

It's awesome.

Erik Nilsson: 1:11:28

So, greg, outside of I mean Strider and everything you're doing there, I mean what else likes to occupy your time when you close that laptop and need to decompress.

Greg Levesque: 1:11:36

You know, for me it's, I think, what all the listeners are doing as well, like keeping kids engaged. I just taught my six-year-old how to ride a bike, which was an amazing fun thing, and then traveling around Utah seeing what there is to offer in nature, heading to the mountains, going to the national parks in Southern Utah. We're also trying to do a bit more discovery of the restaurant and food scene here. So, you know, hitting ninth and ninth and different places like that. So for us it's just been a wonderful opportunity to orient around the family and build those relationships beyond family with the community as well, and figure out what's going on here in the state and ways we can contribute.

Erik Nilsson: 1:12:25

Yeah, I love that. If there's one underlying word for your entire life story, it's adventure, and you're always ready to again, whether it's a roller coaster on fire that you're laying the tracks in front of as you need to go, or wanting to explore more of Utah, or I mean your childhood in Maine and having 11 acres to go run and skid some knees and get a couple bruises is, you've never backed away from an adventure just because there's an adventure in front of you which is like something I always like. I love a good adventure and if you know, if I don't know how it ends, even better, then there's a little bit of a question mark at it.

Greg Levesque: 1:13:00

So I love that.

Erik Nilsson: 1:13:01

That's an energy that you've always chased in so many aspects of life.

Greg Levesque: 1:13:02

So I was listening to Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey and, if you remember, like when he gets that, he wrestles with this guy in Africa. I'm forgetting exactly where he was, I think it was Mali or something but afterwards I remember him saying he goes. Well, he asked did I, I win, did I win? And and the guy said, uh, it's not if you won or lose it's. Did you accept the challenge? You know it's not if you win or lose it's if. Did you accept the challenge? And I I mean, that's that res that hit me hard. Yeah, right, it's.

Greg Levesque: 1:13:31

You know, for me, a startup is is the the opportunity we have today to create and embody an idea, and that's the capitalist model. Right, you can create that into a corporate vehicle, and that's actually how I view it. I view it as the corporate vehicle is the means, to the end, of achieving this objective, of creating this capability that can then be released into the wild and into the world, and that was the model that we chose. To do it, um, but at the end of the day, it was just accepting that that was the call that you had and wanting to jump in and make it real. So, um, I couldn't be more thrilled to, as I said before, be part of the community here in utah. Um, silicon slopes has paved the way, I think, for a lot, lot of entrepreneurs to have that confidence and to see that we can do it here and not do it, you know, in a small way, do it in a big way, right?

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:27

I mean, like, some of the companies that have come out of Silicon Slopes are just tremendous, and so it's definitely like paved that path for others and we hope to continue to move that ball forward yeah, I'm excited to see what happens from here, and I mean being another one of those big companies that comes out of utah and and excited to to watch it along the way and catch up with eric at some point and then go space with him about.

Erik Nilsson: 1:14:51

Um. Well, greg, I want to end with the two questions I always ask at the end of every episode. First, if you could have someone on the small city podcast and hear more about their story and what they're up to, who would you want to hear from?

Greg Levesque: 1:15:04

I mean, I think I want to hear from and maybe you've already had them on, but um the uh. Owner of Tuli bakery. That already have a mom.

Erik Nilsson: 1:15:12

No, but I respect that you. But I respect that you cause that's my favorite bakery. Yes, like I used to live well, my parents live kind of like Yelcrest area and then I moved in with a buddy, like I mean three blocks away from them, which is on like 13th South and 15th East, and that was my like I mean on Saturdays. It was always all right. We wake up, we go get a pastry and a coffee, we see like five people we know there, we go back right. But then also like during the week, I'm like I need a little walk to just go take my mind off and I'd go to tuli. So brownie points for for shouting out tuli. So yeah, I definitely do want to have them. There's a lot of gratitude I need to give yeah, the olive oil cake there is.

Greg Levesque: 1:15:47

Uh is a slam dunk yeah, 10 out of 10 yes, so I think just having. I mean if, if whoever, uh, who overruns tuli could come on and share their recipe, I'd appreciate it.

Erik Nilsson: 1:15:58

Thanks, give back to the people. It's what we want. And then, lastly, if people want to find out more about you, about Strider and what's going on, what's the best place to find information?

Greg Levesque: 1:16:08

Yeah, so our website striderintelcom, and you know, look for folks listening that are interested in geopolitics, what's happening there? There's a lot of resources and if you just put in a Google search or ask ChatGPT, you'll get a ton of content, but that's generally where you can find us.

Erik Nilsson: 1:16:30

Yeah. So if you want to join the Army and the Vision, go check out the jobs there and hear more about it. Go do there. But I mean, greg, absolutely a pleasure sitting down and chatting and hearing more. Blake was right, great story, great people, excited to see what you have to come. And, yeah, catch up with Eric at some point. But I'm glad we could connect.

Greg Levesque: 1:16:47

Yeah, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on, absolutely.