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Change is happening exponentially around us, and the successful companies and leaders of today and tomorrow must embrace open innovation to help shape our future. Reinventing the Future by HP Tech Ventures talks to start-up founders and entrepreneurs defining tomorrow’s world and experiences to inspire you to tap into your inner innovator.
About HP Tech Ventures
As the venture capital arm of HP Inc., HP Tech Ventures fosters an ecosystem of innovation and reinvention by pursuing strategic investments and partnerships with innovative start-ups in disruptive technology areas. Learn more at hptechventures.com.
Bonnie Day (00:13.208)
Reinventing the Future by HP Tech Ventures. I'm your host, Bonnie Day. Joining us today are Colton Malkerson and Tyler Saltsman. They are the co-founders of EdgeRunner Here's what they had to say. I first want to say, Tyler and Colton, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited to talk to you. And I wanted to begin by having both of you introduce yourselves, tell us who you are.
Tell us a little bit about your company.
Colton Malkerson (00:46.776)
Yeah, great to be with you. My name is Colton Malkerson I'm the co-founder and COO of EdgeRunner started my career in Washington, DC, actually worked on Capitol Hill for several years. First speaker, John Boehner and speaker, Paul Ryan. So bring a lot of the DC experience and understanding how Capitol Hill works to the company. After working on Capitol Hill, then I worked at Amazon for several years, and then went to Stability AI, which is actually where I met Tyler. I was one of the first business hires at Stability and Tyler and I were kind of in the trenches together at Stability.
And that's where we sort of formed our friendship and also came up with the idea for EdgeRunner
Bonnie Day
Tyler, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Tyler Saltsman
Yeah, so Tyler Saltsman, CEO of EdgeRunner. I started my career in the military. So I was a 90 alpha logistician in the army and I ran missions overseas in 2017 for Operation Atlantic Resolve to run Russian deterrence missions. As a logistician, my mission was to help architect the combat supply trains for the forward line of troops. That means bringing ammo, ordinance, medical stuff, food, water, you name it, everything that the war fighters need. So I was in a support role.
I learned a lot and I also saw the need for technology like what we're building. It seemed like the military is really kind of in the not in the stone ages, but you know, like not as advanced as we would think they would be. After I got back, you know, of course I learned a lot, but I got back and then I joined AWS during COVID. And this is during peak COVID supply chain crunches when you couldn't get a single GPU. My job was to find the next big hyperscalers like the Ubers and the Airbnbs.
Tyler Saltsman (02:19.714)
And I was paid when we won those workloads on AWS. What happened was before general day, was even a buzzword. came across a startup called stability and they're known for famously unleashing stable diffusion into the wild, which is one of the most popular downloaded models of all time. And I met, I met the founder, heard him out, architected a top five global supercomputer at the time. was 4,000, a 100s all, all on the same spine. And that was something that I'm proud of what actually.
We had to do is build a custom architecture to enable hot swapping of GPUs in case a training run or to enable a training run in case a GPU went down. And that actually became a new product called SageWriter HyperPOD, which is one of the fastest selling solutions. From there, after we are there that that's that super cluster for stability and we unleashed able diffusion into the wild. then joined as the head of super compute. And that's where I met Colton. was on the super commute team working with the scientists to train the different modalities.
Whether it's stable diffusion, stable audio, stable video, stable language models, you name it. And then from there, actually what happened was the CTO Palantir reached out, Sham, wanting to work with us. And that's sort of when Cole and I decided let's go do this, carry that vision forward and build EdgeRunner for the war fighters.
Bonnie Day
Great. So I have to just take a little side route here because this is really fascinating to me that you have a background in politics and you have a background in military and you guys meet at a tech company. Does that feel a little bit like divine intervention to you?
Serendipitous for sure.
Colton Malkerson (03:56.274)
Yeah, it's funny, like Tyler and I both also came from AWS before Stability, but we didn't know each other there, right? So we met at Stability and I think, you know, there were a lot of challenges at that company, of course. And, you know, Tyler and I worked very closely together there. And I think it was, you know, a really good learning experience for us where we learned to respect each other and trust each other. And I think, you know, sometimes when you start a company with your, with your co-founder,
You haven't necessarily worked with them before, right? So you don't, you haven't seen them through difficult situations. You haven't seen how they react to certain situations, but we had. So I think when we started EdgeRunner, we were very comfortable together. And we had that sort of proving ground and sort of practice together almost at stability.
Yeah, and I think that's a good point. You know, you guys are in an unusual situation because you did come together and start this together. And, you know, it wasn't like it was one person's event or one person's, you know, moonshot, if you will. But when you collaborate like that, you're always taking a little bit of a leap of faith, aren't you?
I mean, even no matter what's come before, it's like any relationship. The world is going to toss you surprises and you don't know exactly how everybody's going to react. there is some sort of, like you said, faith and trust, I think that has to come along with it.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the numbers, it's like what? Instead of nine to 10 startups fail, then you the AI startups failing and then getting into defense tech even harder. You know, we're sort of at the precipice of all of it. So I guess it is a little crazy what we're trying to do and, you know, we're fully prepared to swing for defenses, but hopefully it all works out.
Bonnie Day (05:31.576)
So when you say it's a little crazy what we do, is that something that has marked your life all along? Have you always just sort of been risk taking people?
I have a little bit about my background. was actually in the system. So I was a ward of the state until I was 12 and I was adopted. And coming in that, growing up with that environment, it puts you in the pressure cooker. It either makes or breaks you. And it helped me just become immune to stress and to take big risks, which is why I became a good wrestler. I did some cage fighting and then of course the military. I've always been in.
high octane environments and I actually enjoy the stress and the fast pace of a startup and operating in ambiguity and not knowing what's going to happen next. And I can imagine, same thing for Colton, I don't want to speak for him, but working for Paul Ryan and John Boehner, that's no easy feat.
Yeah, I mean, Tyler's background obviously is exceptional and perfect for what we're doing and really impressive. I would say on the political side, know, startups are like campaigns in many respects, right? Like you have to convince other people to buy into your idea. You have to convince other people to support your idea. You have to organize people behind you. You have to figure out how to message an idea very, very well. And there's a ton of uncertainty, right? And it just takes a lot of kind of repeat.
hits at bat where you got to go out and try and try again. And you might fail and you might lose, you know, whether it's a pitch to a VC, you might get rejected or you might lose an election, but it's about trying and trying again and not giving up, right?
Bonnie Day (07:04.682)
That's great. Yeah, I would agree with you. think starting a company is definitely not for everyone, but there is a breed and you guys are obviously part of that breed where disruption, risk, uncertainty is somehow inspiring. Can you talk a little bit about going from a job where you have a paycheck to this, what that leap is like?
You know, I think you have to be really comfortable with being uncomfortable and you have to just have unwavering confidence in yourself and conviction in what you're trying to do. Cause as you go to raise money, you get gaslit by VCs, you you might have some friends that tell you that it's not going to work. You have, you just have all this noise and in the, in the hardest thing to do is to not listen to it and to trust your gut, go with your instincts and march forward. Just without letting it get to your head in terms of the demons of doubt.
Bonnie Day
So Colton, tell me a little bit about EdgeRunner AI.
Colton Malkerson
When we were at Stability, we just kept seeing demand signal. So we kept hearing over and over again from different partners that they wanted to have AI running locally. They wanted to have AI running securely at the edge because they were worried about data privacy and data security. Then we also kept hearing that these models were going to get smaller. You're going to pretty soon have a GPT-4 level model that could run on your phone or on a small device.
And then with Tyler's military experience and my government experience, I think we just saw this opportunity for bringing LLMs and these capabilities to the edge away from the cloud and making it vertical specific for both the military, but also regulated industries. So I think we saw this really interesting opportunity probably about two years before when AI at the edge and AI on device started to become really hot and really popular.
Bonnie Day
When you discovered that you two were aligned in your vision, what did you do to make your company stand out right away?
Tyler Saltsman
You know, think Colton had a really nice background from Stanford with his MBA at GSB and he had a really good sense of, you know, how do we brand ourselves? How do we build a good pitch deck? How do we get in front of these VCs? And then also I think where we stand apart really nicely is our founder market fit.
It's military, politics, GSB background, my background in the system. It's a combination of it all. think that really stands out. And I think our partners in venture capital has bet on us as people to be a strong founding team because of that founder market fit. And Colton did a really nice job of helping us bring that to life.
Bonnie Day
Yeah, you have an interesting set of skills, the two of you. You know, it's an interesting combo. And I think, you know, it's important, like you said, to have bring different things to the table. And I think, yeah, obviously Stanford Business School, great. But I think also you're bringing Tyler some kind of street smart edge, right? That maybe a lot of people that are at startups haven't haven't brought to the table.
Tyler Saltsman (10:12.556)
Yeah, I like to think I've got a super power for people. I know when a bet on people and what are startups were just the, were the, were a sum of everyone working together, whether or not it's synergistic, hopefully it is. And I'm good at like just with Colt, I knew he'd be great. And our team of 21 full time, they're, they're all amazing. And again, we wouldn't be here without them. And so we've done a good job of like knowing, knowing how to pick the right people and then knowing how to just hire fast and execute quickly.
One other thing I would just add that Tyler does really well, and I think is extremely important in a company leader and a CEO is just this unwavering strength to keep pushing ahead. I think there's no wall that Tyler won't run through, that there's no obstacle or no barrier that he's not going to knock down if it's in front of us. And you have to have that. If your CEO and your leader at the company is not absolutely dedicated, unwavering to the mission and to the idea of the company.
and is willing to push through any obstacle that gets in his or her way. Then the employees and the team are going to lose faith. Right. And I think, you one thing that Tyler does really well is he absolutely leads the team through whatever obstacle we have. And I think everybody rallies behind that, you know, like it really keeps the troops as kind of how we refer to them as, you know, our, team, our employees really motivated behind the idea of the company and the mission.
Bonnie Day
Yeah, I mean, it makes perfect sense that military mindset, right? I can see where it would be a winning factor for you. You've talked about your background and you know, what led to you being here, but I'd like to know if there was a moment where you just kind of looked at each other and said, you know what, we need to start a company together. Was there some moment that was the spark of inspiration? Tyler's laughing, so probably yes.
Colton Malkerson
Yeah, I mean, there were probably a few sparks, some of which, you we can speak to publicly and some of which we can't. But I think there was definitely a moment when we were both, you know, still at our previous company. We were thinking about making the leap to leave and go do something new. And, you know, Tyler would call me every other day and say, hey, we got to go, we got to go do this on our own, right? Because, you we, I think we've got the capability, the opportunity.
To really go do something special here, right? And like, we got to go do this. And I think as we just saw sort of maybe two factors, one was the previous company is sort of, I think we became frustrated there, just to be totally honest. And as that sort of grew, the opportunity that we saw for models to be run at the edge, on device, air gapped, and the opportunity to support the military, I think it was just becoming clearer and clearer that there was a
that there was a need for this technology. And I think I don't remember the exact day or the exact moment. We probably jumped on the phone together, but there was a moment where we both said, we have to do this. Like, this is our chance, this is our opportunity. If we don't do it now, we're gonna look back and completely regret it. So then we took the plunge.
Bonnie Day
And if you had to just sum it up in a few words, Colton, what would you say about Tyler made you go, this is partner material.
Colton Malkerson (13:24.494)
I mean, I would say, well, if I had to sum it up in a few words, I would say like unwavering grit and unwavering determination. I mean, if you're gonna follow somebody and partner with somebody and work with somebody and keep in mind like startups can be 10 plus year long, you know, endeavors. Like if things go well, maybe we're doing this for the rest of our lives. So you gotta find someone that you get along with and someone that you respect and someone you can work with a long time, but then someone who also is gonna work as hard, if not harder than you, you know, and.
And I saw that in Tyler.
Bonnie Day
Tyler, same question. Partner material because...
Tyler Saltsman
You know, when I first, I think also what's cool about our founding story is we weren't friends. I a lot of times founders, they'll found it coming together and they're friends and that's problematic. So we weren't friends. I remember when I first met him, I was like, who's this guy? Like I'm the AWS guy, but they're bringing in this Stanford guy who's also AWS. So I'm like, all right. And I'm kind of you know, sizing him up a little bit, but I'm like, man, this guy can work as hard as me, if not harder, but he had skillsets I didn't have. Like he's, Colton's very polished.
I'm more raw. I've been told I'm like a bull in a china shop. He's more, you know, he's very steady. He's the straight line of my zigzag. And he's the calm when I'm being crazy. Because, you know, every now and then you need to have like those crazy moments of like, you know, what big thing are we going to do? And Colton's very good at, you know, being that steady hand. And I saw that. And as we built things together, so we did a lot of work together and I just saw a lot of talent and skillsets I didn't have. And so there's the saying, game recognizes game, and now here we are today.
Bonnie Day
Game recognizes game. if you were, let's say you were walking into your first VC pitch, what were you saying your company was? Like describe what you were telling them.
Tyler Saltsman (15:22.815)
You want to take that?
Colton Malkerson
Well, you know, I think it's just something interesting about the pitch process as you're fundraising from VCs, right? Like we probably did 60 pitches, right? When we raised our seed round, right? And you get, you know, up to 30, 40 rejections in a row from different VCs who, you know, don't want to, you know, aren't picking up what you're putting down, right? And that's very normal. Like that is a completely normal process.
I think it's both, it's a very humbling process, right? As you go through these things, but you also have to be very thoughtful about, Hey, what parts of our idea do we need to change? Because maybe something doesn't make sense or the question that we just got is a good question and it, and it opens up a gap in our thinking. So maybe we need to adjust our strategy or adjust our plan, or we need to stick true to ourselves and stay the course. And we can't let, you know, some investor who didn't actually spend that much time learning about our industry impact and the trajectory of our company based off of a 30 minute call. So I think when we initially pitched the company, I mean, we were very much focused on LLMs at the edge on device, you know, bringing models away from the cloud, which is still what we're very much doing today. I think over the past year and Tyler, I think we've actually seen a really big opportunity, even bigger than we thought within defense. So we were probably initially focused more generally on like enterprise and government. But I think we've seen just such a sharp need for this technology for the warfighter, that we've really oriented the company more towards the DOD and more towards military than I think we did initially.
Tyler Saltsman (17:02.67)
Yeah, and to add a little more context, our original idea was to put agents or small LLMs like right on chip in the bios layer, but that's too much of a firmware play. And again, I think it was falling on deaf ears. But what we did was we evolved with different runners based on what custom silicon you're running. So if you're Intel, you need OpenVINO. If you're AMD, Onyx, NVIDIA, CUDA, if you're just a discrete GPU, you can use Vulkan.
So different runners based on your custom silicon, and then of course the bespoke agent on top of it. But then to Colton's point, we saw so much traction in the military also given our backgrounds. So we were really leaning that way, but actually our first deal that we won is with a major movie studio. can't say the name, but we're being used to retrofit a mission planning agent to write beautiful scripts. And I thought that was, that's a really good signal that look, there's a demand for this. People want to get off the cloud and these agents can do many different things but now it's back to business within the DoD and of course supporting the war fighters. We've been approached by a handful of different Fortune 100 companies to work with them. We've actually had to tell them no, like let us fortify our product with the DoD first, let us win this vertical and then we can branch out. I don't think there's a startup that's failed from being too focused. think startups fail from trying to do too much at once.
Bonnie Day
Well, and you're definitely making an argument for being flexible, right? You go in with one idea and you go pitch it to a bunch of people and then you start realizing that it does need tweaking and it does need a different focus, perhaps, at least to begin with. And I think your ability to pivot is part of success, right?
Tyler Saltsman
That's right.
And I would go ahead. was just going to say, and I think that's why, like, historically, the DOD has worked with, you know, what are called the primes, right? Like the largest companies that are building really large integrated systems and they don't move quickly, right? Like they it takes them 18 months to several years to build out a program to even meet a basic requirement. Right. And this technology, AI in general, but also the needs of the military are moving a lot faster than that. Right. So.
You have to be nimble. have to be sort of quick. You have to be able to maybe not pivot, but change your strategy based off of the technology and the needs on the battlefield. Right.
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the business specifically. If you are introducing yourself in your company, what do you say about EdgeRunner AI? What makes it different? What makes it stand out? What is it you guys do?
Yeah, I'd say we're a chat GBT like solution, but that doesn't require the internet. That's specific to the military and can run on various, various devices and hardware.
Tyler Saltsman
Colton, anything?
Colton Malkerson (19:58.498)
We envision ourselves to be a multi-product company, you long-term, but the first product that we have is exactly that. It is a, you know, a chat GPT-like product, but it runs completely air-gapped on device, never needs the internet, and it's military specific, meaning it is specific to the different occupations and roles within the military. So if you're a logistics officer, it is an expert on all things logistics, the doctrine, the history, the acronyms, the meanings. If you're a combat medic.
You know, it's going to be an expert in all things combat medicine, right? So you have the power and the capabilities of a chat GPT like tool at your fingertips in a denied or disconnected environment. But it's also specific to your role and understands your unique acronyms, doctrine, and terminology, which is something that the large general purpose models don't have. Right. If you ask a specific military question of chat GPT or Gemini, it's not going to give you a usable answer but our product will.
Bonnie Day
So, obviously building a company is challenging and you guys are doing it together, which is, I'm sure in some ways more challenging, but ultimately I think it has to be nice to be able to share the load. Is that correct?
Tyler Saltsman (21:42.619)
It is, you know, I mean, I couldn't do this without Colton. So he's, he's amazing at helping me and augmenting me. And then between us, we're great at disseminating information and delegating, you know, to, to, whom it makes sense. I'd say, I'd say our culture is we like to say execute with violence. We move quickly. We do things right away and we're very direct and we support open debate. So I love, I love to say, if you can out debate me, let's do it your way. but if it's a two way door, like let's just move quick and let's pivot. And I think we've had that culture for a while and it works well, but I'll give the floor to Colt.
Colton Malkerson
Yeah, no, I mean, and I think that what Tyler just mentioned is extremely important for a startup, right? Like, because we are still very much, we like to say we're in survival mode, right? Like, yes, you know, we've got a great team in place. Yes, we have a lot of commercial traction and success. Yes, we've raised our series A round, but, you know, we consider ourselves still in survival mode, right? Like, so we can't afford to be slow. We can't afford to wait until tomorrow to reply to the email, right? Like, we got to be on it now, because if we're not, someone else will be.
So think that just that mentality is really, really important. And again, not everyone has it, right? Like when we hire people and when we bring people into the company, you we really try to make sure that they, you know, are of that same mindset, I would say. Because if you start hiring people and scaling with people who don't have that mindset, it's gonna kill your company.
Bonnie Day
And do feel like when you are delegating, when you are sharing workload, do you feel like it's really intuitive or do you feel like someone has to take the lead and say, hey, you do this and you do this, or do you guys just kind of have a flow?
Tyler Saltsman (23:18.892)
You know, I think it's a combination of both. I'm pretty good at asking Colton or Dave for help. But what we're good at too, and I actually didn't realize how unique this was, we actually have lots of open meetings with engineering product and the business team and the research team. So they can all see like, what are the founders doing? Well, everyone knows that Colton and I are doing. And they see us grinding and traveling and finding deals and all that good stuff. So they're seeing what we're doing.
So everyone kind of has viz into what everyone else is doing. So as things need to get done, people step up, hey, I can handle it. Hey, I've got bandwidth. And I think that open, again, that we're solid, but we also maintain open communications. I think that's super helpful.
Bonnie Day
Let's talk a little bit about Big Picture, the future. I you guys obviously had a big vision when you started. I think you've tinkered with it a bit. But I want to know for you, I mean here you are, you're sitting in a very exciting industry. By definition, AI is exciting. What excites you the most right now about this industry, this technology, where we're going?
Tyler Saltsman
What excites me is what the future could look like. And so I'm a fan of science fiction has an uncanny ability to predict the future, whether that can be horrifying or super exciting. For me, like the bigger vision is Jarvis in Iron Man. I think Jarvis is really cool because he's personalized to Tony. Jarvis knows everything about the Iron Man suit and everything about Tony's personal life. Jarvis is in Tony's smartphone. He's in his smart home, he's in his smart car, he's everywhere. And now Tony never needs advertising. He never needs assistance. He never really needs anything because Jarvis can do everything. And I think the future could be something like that. Now, I don't think it'll be fully baked out like a full on Jarvis, but I think we'll get close to that. And so the bigger vision, like imagine
Imagine if your washing machine's making a funny noise, you don't want to go on YouTube and watch it for 20 minutes because now YouTubers are optimized for longer videos or they're encouraged for that. You could just now ask your washing machine, hey, why are you making that noise? What do need to do? It could respond back, hey, try these three different things. And this is probably what's going on.
Colton Malkerson (25:05.986)
Tyler has a great vision and I completely agree with that. I would say too, like, I just think this technology in general is going to elevate everyone, right? Like everyone is going to be able to be more efficient, more intelligent, have more time to do other things that they enjoy because maybe their day-to-day work is streamlined and made more efficient. So I know there's a lot of doom and gloom about, Hey, this is going to cost a lot of jobs or what's going to happen with people. But I think generally the net net of how this will shake out is that it'll actually create more jobs and more opportunity and it'll elevate everyone across the board for the most part.
Bonnie Day
I like the idea of Jarvis too, because you know, as you said, there's a lot of chatter about the threat of AI, right? And I think the idea of Jarvis makes me feel like, it could also be a level of security. Isn't that what it's all about? Getting to the point where you don't have to worry about exterior threats, because as you said, he's watching everything.
Tyler Saltsman
That's right. Yeah, you know, what I'm really excited to like, let's bring it back to the war fighters in our mission. We can bring men and women home, increase our probability with them having less scars. But then more importantly, too, we can make weapons smarter so there's less collateral damage. So, for example, with a drone, we're working on a one way drone. Think of it as like a suicide drone that can carry a block of C4 neutralize a target. And now as drones get jammed, well, it won't matter now because the drone can see.
And so now imagine that drone is walking onto a target, but then it sees women and children around it, it'll divert away. And unlike missiles that just use radar and radar data, it can't see the women and children. And so we can get a lot more precise with our attacks. And again, you know, mitigate that collateral damage, not create more bad guys that hate us.
Bonnie Day (26:47.502)
Great point. Okay, let's talk a little bit about your lessons learned. I'm sure you have a long list of lessons learned, but I'd like to hear in particular, have there been any huge surprises? Have there been moments where you're just like, whoa, didn't see that coming?
Tyler Saltsman
I would say I have been surprised by how quickly the government and the DOD has moved on kind of in this space, right? Like, historically, people think, selling to the government is, you know, this takes years and they're so slow. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of room for improvement still. But I think we've been surprised by how quickly the DOD is pushing to adopt these capabilities and how frankly, their willingness to engage with early stage companies like us.
That's actually a nice surprise, You said not I wouldn't have expected that.
Yeah, a pleasant surprise.
Tyler Saltsman (27:40.798)
One of the biggest things I learned was getting the company started how broken the VC system is. A VC can be wrong nine out of 10 times, but make lots of money. And what I saw was a lot of folks are in these gatekeeping roles that are completely unqualified whether or not they should be investing in a company. I learned a lot there. These VCs, yeah, they're great. They want to meet with us, but there's a lot that goes on if they're willing to even bet on you.
And so I would give advice to founders that are looking to raise money and work with VCs, pick a few that you just really like as people and that you trust and don't fall in love with like the tier ones.
Bonnie Day
I think you make a really good point. The people you're going to for money don't necessarily have any expertise in your field. They are experts at making money, but it doesn't mean that they know anything about your niche product. It sounds to me like you would want to look for people who did have a little bit of understanding and insight into exactly what you're doing.
Tyler Saltsman
That's right. And with AI being so new, like you really, I think it's just a kind of like a gut check. then if they decline you, they'll give you reasons. And that's what we call like that noise or the gaslighting. I even had a VC once tell me you couldn't do natural language processing on a drone or a camera because they require machine vision. And like I was like, I almost believe them for a second because of, wait a second, of course you can do NLP on a device. Like things like that where they don't even understand the technology. It was just eye opening to me. I think there's still there's a lot of great vendor capitalists. think I think it's the new it's the new way the new wave, you know, the ones fresh out of MBA school, the ones that haven't really built anything before. And it's like this new fresh blood coming in. I'm concerned about those ones, not the folks, you know, that have been around the block for a while. It's unfair to criticize them when they don't really have the experience.
Tyler Saltsman (29:43.256)
But it's like, let's get more people involved before we hear a company out and not move forward.
Bonnie Day
Well, and it's a good red flag for other startups to know. So speaking of investors, I'd like to hear how HP has sort of helped you shape your vision. How has it helped you look into the future and see where you're going and what you're doing?
Colton Malkerson
Yeah, well, it's interesting. relationship with HP actually started, it started before we tried to fundraise, right? Which I think is sometimes the case with, with good investors. Either you have a relationship with them from the past or they're a partner to yourself. And we'd actually been working with the HP team, you know, even early last year on potential partnerships, because again, what we're building is an air gapped fully on device, LLM based assistant for increased privacy and productivity.
And that really aligns very nicely with HP's vision for bringing the AI PC forward and bringing all these capabilities onto the AI PC. So we'd actually been discussing with their business team ways that we could partner and collaborate. So when we went to raise our series a, you know, it was sort of a, almost a side matter of like, Hey, we're aligned on kind of the business end. Maybe there's also a discussion to be had on the fundraising end. And so it was a really, it really was a very, very good matchup. would say not just from a kind of investing standpoint, but it's also a business standpoint. So I think that that's really important to mention. And then secondly, I would say we're also working very closely with HP on some of our go-to-market efforts, right? Like HP has a huge federal practice and a huge business with the DOD and the federal government. And we see a lot of synergistic ways where our team and HP's team can work together to bring these capabilities to the DoD together where our solution with HP's products can make a better overall solution for the warfighter. And so we're really excited about working with them on that as well. I don't know, Tyler, if you have something else.
Tyler Saltsman
Yeah. So plus one, all of that. I'd also say what I really like about HP is that they, they want the vertical focus, like what we have. So HP wants to tackle DoD, healthcare and retail with us. And I think that's a great, that's a great way to look at it because with AI being too horizontal and too generalized, you need to go vertical. So HP's aligned there. But what I like to your question about advancing the product, and, Tuan the president, we met with him and he was sort of like, what can we build together?
That is only unique to HP. And I like that thinking. you know, selfishly, I'd love to build like an HP agent that knows everything about the computer, whether it's a desktop or a laptop, whatever it is, but it will know everything about it. So for example, if I don't know how to do something, I can just ask it and it'll do it. Or it'll tell me what I need to do. And then I'll actually carry out the task. And now this would help war fighters because they would need less. Like I spent so much time in the IT shop.
When I was in the army, it was horrible. For little mundane things that could have easily been trouble shot by an agent, for example. So like, that's a really cool idea that maybe we could bring to life. But that gets us thinking about how do we tell that better together story? And I think that could be like the next iteration of an agent or product, if you will.
Bonnie Day
It seems like a really ideal partnership and it, you know, I love the picture you paint of such a hyper efficient world. Like, I would love to tell my computer to fix itself.
Tyler Saltsman (33:09.006)
Yeah, like why are you moving so slowly? What's going on? You've got a million browsers open and Google Chrome takes up a bunch of space and hey, let me do it for you. Yeah, like that right there. I want to save me some time.
Bonnie Day
So I want to wrap it up now with a couple of questions about what you can give back to other early stage founders, right? You guys have been there and done that.
Colton Malkerson (34:09.422)
I'd say you need to be customer obsessed and you got to work backwards from that customer and you have to pick one problem and try to solve for it. And I think a lot of pitfalls that sort of founders fall into is they want to build really cool things and solve a problem the market isn't ready for yet or just build something really cool and expect it to sell. And that's not how the world works. And I'd say keep focusing on what is the one problem you want to solve for and stick with that.
Yeah, I would say specific to the sort of the fundraising process, which is kind of the first hurdle, I would say, or one of the first hurdles. You can't give up, right? Like, again, I said this earlier, you know, we did 60 plus pitches, we had 40 plus, you know, kind of rejections before we got our first term sheet during our seed round. And like a lot of people would probably throw in the towel by, you know, the 10th or 12th or 20th rejection. And I think that's almost an experience you just have to go through. It's almost like a rite of passage to go through that process. And my recommendation would be to stick at it. If you really believe in your idea, keep pushing ahead and don't get discouraged.
And lastly, I'd say why you? Like you can solve this problem, but why you? And I, and I've told lots of, lots of college kids this, cause they asked me for like, Hey, how do you do this? And I'm like, really they're betting on you as people first and then your technology second. You need to clearly explain why are you the right person to solve this problem? Going back to founder market fit. Like at one point I was the customer in the army that wants this. So I know, I know what they want because it's what I want it.
And I couldn't be wrong, of course, but that's sort of like the hill I'll die on. And I think these early stage founders, they need to think that way.
Bonnie Day (35:59.598)
Yeah, I love those pieces of advice. So I think you guys are such an interesting blend, right? Because one of you is, you know, tough for one reason and one is tough for another, and it comes together beautifully. Really, really exceptional. So just to wrap it up, I'm going to ask you just a few rapid questions. So the idea is to answer quickly and right off the top of your head.
So I want Colton to describe Tyler in one word. What's the one word?
Colton Malkerson
Determined.
Bonnie Day
Tyler.
Tyler Saltsman
Calm
Bonnie Day (36:12.27)
What are you really good at, Colton, that nobody knows?
Colton Malkerson
Nobody knows. I'm pretty artistic, actually.
Interesting. What do you do with that?
Like drawing, painting, I don't do it anymore, I have time because I've got a company to help run. earlier in my life, I was more artistic.
Tyler, what are you really good at that we don't know? We know a lot of things that you are good at, but what are we don't know?
Tyler Saltsman (36:45.282)
I'm really good at building Legos.
Like the really complicated ones?
When I was little, was in Lego contests and won them and I still dabble and enjoy Legos. I'm good at them. Of like building your own freestyle kind of thing that doesn't exist.
so you're not buying a package to be something in particular, you're building freestyle.
Yeah, you combine different things and then build your own thing. And I was really good at that.
Bonnie Day (37:16.684)
All right, do you have a nickname, Colton?
Colton Malkerson
Do I have a nickname, Tyler? What's my nickname? School 45. that's my nickname.
Bonnie Day
Nice, like it. Tyler, I'm sure you have five.
Tyler Saltsman
My nickname's Salty Snipes. Salty for Saltsman and then Army, that was a good shot. my call sign was Salty Snipes.
Bonnie Day (37:42.156)
I was going to say that sounded like a very military nickname. right. If you guys had a theme song for the company, theme song for this whole experience that you've had together, what would it be?
All that Tyler, he loves picking out songs for our marketing videos and things.
Tyler Saltsman
part of the AIM song, I'd go with Gangster's Paradise by Coolio. Think Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer.
I know exactly. love that song. Okay, awesome. I can see it. You guys should have some kind of branding with that song. All right, Colton, what are you absolutely not good at?
What am I absolutely not good at?
Bonnie Day (38:23.906)
love that you have to think about it. See, I would just immediately say dancing.and sing.
Colton Malkerson
Singing would be one. Singing and dancing I need a lot of help with. Okay.
Tyler Saltsman
I'm not musically talented at all. I'm horrible. I can't even hear pitches.
Bonnie Day (38:42.606)
Okay, so we do not want to go to karaoke with you guys.
Colton Malkerson
No, avoid at all costs.
Bonnie Day
Alright, what is the question that people ask you that you hate?
Tyler Saltsman
I hate it when people ask me, what's my biggest weakness? I hate that question.
Because you don't have it?
Tyler Saltsman (39:02.208)
No, I'd say it's just such a gotcha question that like, have a lot of weaknesses and it just would depend in what situation I'm in, you know? Like I'd rather answer what's my biggest superpower, not my biggest weakness, you know?
Bonnie Day
Well, I know we've got a list of superpowers. What would you say the biggest one is?
Tyler Saltsman
I'd say my superpower is I'm good. You know, I'd say I work hard and I've got a lot of energy. So I've got a relentless motor.
I I agree with that one.
Energizer Bunny. All Colton, do you have a question you hate?
Tyler Saltsman (39:36.52)
Yeah, don't need to sleep.
Colton Malkerson (39:46.606)
Question I hate
Colton Malkerson (39:52.14)
I would say...
I mean, like, what do you do for fun? Sometimes people ask you, like, I think that's so, such a silly, hopefully that's not your next in the queue. Otherwise I'm outing myself here, but I think it's, you know, silly.
Bonnie Day (40:09.848)
What is the craziest thing you do? Do you have some crazy like...
Colton Malkerson
Sadly, I don't have time for it as much anymore given work, but mountain biking, and I've gotten injured a couple of times mountain biking. So I'd like to be doing that more.
We probably need you in one piece though. What's the worst broken bone?
Yeah, exactly.
Never broke a bone, have scratched up, kind of ripped up my hand a number of times.
Bonnie Day (40:35.246)
All right, Tyler's broken a bone.
Tyler Saltsman
For my crazy hobbies, I still fight MMA. I box, we tie, wrestle, black guy sometimes. And then love to shoot guns. So I'm an avid gun shooter.
Bonnie Day (40:50.018)
Okay, what would you Colton say is the quirkiest thing about Tyler? Like what is the thing that you go, man, nobody else does that, it's so quirky.
Hmm. I mean, there's a list, some of which I can share, some of which I can't. Quirkiest.
Colton Malkerson (41:34.734)
I would say Tyler's quirkiest. Man, what is I'm trying to think of?
Tyler is a great poker player and sometimes when you're playing poker, he can really give you a hard time, as I've seen.
Is it because of his poker face?
Sort of his whole demeanor, he can really get in your head. He knows how to rattle you up and to win.
I that about you, Tyler. I believe you use psychological warfare at the poker table. I have to. All what's Colton's quirk? We know there's gotta be one.
Tyler Saltsman
Yeah, Colton has an interesting quirk where he never gets super excited and he never gets super disappointed. He's just like even-killed to the point where I'm like, what rattles you and what makes you over the moon? And he'll be like, I know my girlfriend tells me this. And for me, I think that's quirky because I get really excited or I'll get really angry. you know, I don't know. He's very just, and you need that in a founder, steady hand.
Bonnie Day
Now you guys have found your yin and yang for sure. All right, well, I want to thank you so much for taking this time. I think it's so interesting what you're doing. And I think your chemistry, the two of you, what you've built together and how you've built it has been fascinating. So I really appreciate it. And I wish you, of course, all the best.
Thank you.
Bonnie Day (42:43.8)
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Reinventing the Future by HP Tech Ventures. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.