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August 14, 2025 64 mins
Mike McMahan shares insights from his journey in starting new ventures, highlighting the importance of local resources and incubators for business growth. He delves into the challenges of veteran suicide and mental health, discussing technology's role in supporting veterans. Mike reflects on his military experiences and personal story with Gulf War syndrome, emphasizing suicide prevention and proactive mental health support. The conversation explores AI and edge devices in mental health initiatives, including revenue models and clinical integration. Personal anecdotes about scuba diving, spearfishing, and lazy river adventures add a unique touch, while the episode concludes with Mike's upcoming pitch event and local favorites.
 
(0:00) Introduction and live events, including World Cup promotion
(2:56) Guest introduction: Mike McMahan's background and meeting at Launchpad
(6:20) SDV Solutions and private equity insights
(10:28) Starting a new venture and comparing ecosystems
(13:39) Local resources and cost of living in business
(18:08) The role of incubators in business growth
(20:14) Mike McMahan on learning from mistakes and AI interests
(23:24) Addressing veteran suicide and mental health challenges
(27:10) Technology's role in aiding veteran mental health
(31:40) Personal military experiences and background
(35:45) Resistance and broader applications of mental health tech
(40:12) AI, edge devices, and mental health initiative goals
(49:39) Revenue model and clinical integration of the mental health app
(52:28) Mike's personal story with Gulf War syndrome
(54:05) Suicide prevention and proactive mental health support
(56:38) Mike's upcoming pitch event and local favorites
(58:16) Scuba diving adventures and underwater experiences
(1:03:04) Spearfishing, lionfish hunting, and lazy river enjoyment
(1:03:59) Closing remarks and thanks
 
- Identify and leverage available resources and ecosystems to accelerate business growth and avoid the pitfalls of isolation.
- Utilize AI and edge technology to create proactive mental health solutions that operate passively and protect user privacy.
- Focus on solving significant, impactful problems that resonate personally, such as veteran suicide, to drive meaningful change and innovation.
 
 
 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In We

(00:01):
are live.
We are live. Seven days away.
Seven days away. Been a lot of live stuff going on lately that
You're so famous, mister Ryan, or as some call you Rim.
Some call me Rim.
Tim and Rim together Tim and Ryan together.
I think it's because they're next to each other on the keyboard. I don't know. It it makes no difference. But yeah. Lotta this is day three of live live events.
What day today is Thursday, so today is the show. Wednesday, that was yesterday. We're on wavy ten promoting the World Cup.
I saw you
on that. Day. We're on WTKR promoting the World Cup. Last month or the month before, we're on 13.
Oh, that QR code right there. Let's hope it goes. Let's see. If you're interested in going to the biggest business bash of the summer, start broke up. Just click that link.
Put your phone out. Do it. It's gonna be a wild ride.
It's gonna be big. It's gonna be this will be one of the events that people talk about for a long time. Guaranteed.
For it either flopping or for being amazing. Right?
It's not there's no flop. I mean, we are have put in the work. We have put in the work. It's going to be next level
monstrous
Zach, you want to give any secrets?
Yeah,
so just give us give us two secrets.
Okay, so the first thing I would And then the second thing would be So I'm just really excited as to
That second thing, the everyone is gonna lose their mind.

(00:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's gonna be great.
Yeah. I'm excited. This will be fun. It's I think you said this a couple weeks ago. It's spicy.
Let's go. Here we question I'm getting a lot of it, like, is what am I going to wear? That I probably am getting that. People aren't asking about the event. They're asking about, like, what are you wearing this time?
It's a business event. It's a startup business event.
So I said, I don't know. Maybe a banana hammock? Maybe a banana hammock with a jean jacket?
I we do have to we do have to discuss.
Tim, you know, we've already discussed this. Don't act like we haven't done it. Alright. So you know today's guest way better than me. You guys go somewhat way back, excited for this conversation.
Yeah.
He is It was of the finalists that'll be on stage next week. Mike McMahon. How are you?
Good. How are you guys doing?
You know, as a I'm I'm great. Never actually No. You had you
had me at, Banana Hammock, so I'm in.
You wouldn't be the only one. So as a big wrestling fan, which you probably don't know about, like, is there any relation, McMahon to the McMahon family, WWE, or no?
No. We get that. We get Jim McMahon as well, you know, football.
Oh, the old QB?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Super Bowl shuffle?
Yep. Yep. But here here's the little known thing. You know, their their last name is spelled Owen and I'm a AN. So.
Oh, you're right?
Oh. No, I see it. God. Journalism integrity is already gone. It's lost.

(00:43):
It's out in the building. Every, like, sorry. That was a Zach's
Thanks for noticing that. You know, it's usually it's usually pronounced McMahon, but that's Really? With it. Yeah. Mahan?
Mahan. We hear all kinds of things. Wow.
Wait a wait. Like, Tim, like, why didn't you tell me about that? Like
I didn't know. I didn't know. You know? And it's
saying his name is wrong.
Of those things. Do you see stuff like, you know, a meme of some kind and be like, what is this feature on the $5 bill? You probably looked at a $5 bill a million times, you know, but not close enough to know, like, a certain detail that is hidden in plain sight.
I just can't even read emojis. I don't even like, whenever someone sends me one, I'm like, I don't know what that means. Please see me in English.
The one that everyone uses that I get hung up on is, like, the the one with the the crown and thorns, the godlike. I I I'm not really sure what what that emoji signifies. I don't know.
What?
I don't know. We'll let Mike, once I'll send it over your way.
Please do. But
Okay. So you guys met at the Launchpad way back when?
Back in the day.
Back in the day. New Williamsburg, Bob Pauls Deli.
How much weight did you gain when we were there?
Well, between the beer and the beer and the sandwiches, probably about 30 pounds.
So Yeah. I mean, that was that was it was a great place to have a space. Food was great.
You guys literally hit her own, basically, entrance to the back of the restaurant.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, I definitely know that I put on a couple pounds because, yeah, know, whenever you just portion size, weight too big. The funny
thing is I never saw you eat any salads, which

(01:04):
is kinda odd. No. Oh. You know, I get I'm a super taster, Mike. I'm a super taster.
Because we're an elite elite group of people. That's what I heard. One of two, maybe confirmed.
What were y'all working on then, Mike?
Had my other company down the street on Discovery Park, and I was opened up a second company with a different business partner. So I set it up in Launchpad to, kinda separate the two entities since we were doing federal government contracting. So that's why we launched, that second venture in Launchpad. My main company, SDB Solutions, which I ran for twenty one years, was right down the street.
Which, and which which company did you have the exit re
SDB Solutions. Yeah.
How does one go about deciding to make that transition out of the company?
Well, it's kinda interesting. There was private equity was buying up a lot of commercial companies. There's two large private equities that are building up platform companies, and we saw them picking off different, competitors. But they never approached us because we did a 100% federal data center maintenance. And right before COVID, one of them approached us and said, oh, hey.
We'll give you this great deal. And we said, oh, yeah. Great. Hey, money. And what a blessing that COVID happened for us.
It put a pause on that acquisition discussion because we weren't ready for the acquisition. And what ended up happening is I brought in some advisers, business advisers, and we kind of really prepared the company. And then when COVID kinda came back around or went away in 02/2023, we reengaged those two companies and went through a process due diligence, got the letter of intent, and, sold our letter of intent January 2024 to funding March 24. I quit.
Wow. So what's the adage? Companies are bought, not sold?
Yeah.
You know, and what was great is my wife and I owned a 100% of the equity, so we got a 100% of the money.
Nothing wrong with that. Nope. Yeah. That was one of the things, you know, during the whole process of because we had hundred hundred and some people that applied for the World Cup, and that was one of the things that stood out to, at least from your standpoint to me was, you know, you're a multiple founder, and a multiple founder with a successful exit, adds a lot of credibility.
Yeah.
So you just you're bored? That's when you decide to start another business?
Or No. It wasn't necessarily boredom. You know, once we sold the company, I had a little bit of time at spend with the buying company, so which is about sixty, ninety days. And then after that, I was free to do whatever I wanted as long as it wasn't exactly what I just sold them. And the first thing I did is I went up to MIT and just did a deep dive into artificial intelligence and spent about six months doing that and really thought about what I wanted to do now that I have time and money and freedom to do.
So I know federal government contracting, so I knew I wanted to be back in that space. I understand contracting rules process and looked at what where the need was. And being a veteran and having spent time in VA hospitals, both in Richmond and Hampton, I said, let's see what we could do in the VA medical space and DOD space with AI and see if we can make some improvement. So that's where we landed, brought in some advisors and looked at some of the largest problems that exist for veterans and see where we can move the needle. So it's more of a passion as opposed to, I won't say necessarily just chasing money.
It's it's it's something that means something to me.
And that's super important. And I and I and I tell founders right off the bat. It's like if you're chasing money, you're you're you're not in it for the right reasons and your first difficult day. First time you get punched in the face, you're it's not gonna get you up the next morning to to start to to go back to solving that problem.
Right. Because you don't care as much. Because it's like, alright. Well, I'm not trying to change the world. Just trying to make a buck.

(01:25):
That's right. What, what's your thoughts? Like, so you spent six months in, Cambridge area, in in Boston. What what's your thoughts on that ecosystem there? I mean, is it clearly night and day different, but there's also some benefits that I feel that we have on ours, here locally.
But what what are your thoughts on the ecosystem? So
the ecosystem up there is, electric. There's so much going on between, you know, academia with, Harvard, with MIT. There's so much venture capital money up there, you know, not compared to San Francisco or Silicon Valley, but there's a lot of energy up there. There's a thousand events, up there. So there's a lot to do.
There's a lot of money. There's a lot of, smart people up there. So it's wonderful to be up there. And I shared and I had shared some stuff with you, and I actually briefly had worked with, an accelerator up there and advised some companies that were looking at the federal space, and so gave them some of my expertise. But coming back down to Hampton Roads and being part of this ecosystem, the benefit of this ecosystem is you get some of the same exact stuff.
As you guys know, I'm building this company right here at William and Mary and her entrepreneur lab. And so I'm quickly tied with academia, some research, some data science. We're gonna bring some data science resources to bear on our projects. But the biggest thing that is beneficial to this area is you're not one of a thousand. You're one of, like, you know, hundreds and you know, there there's everybody knows everybody here.
In the Boston ecosystem, it can you can get quickly lost if especially if you're starting out a company. Is there and then also from event standpoint, you wanna have events, but sometimes there's, like, too many events. You're trying to pick and choose which events to go to up there. And sometimes there's multiple events each day. So it's it's it's a wonderful area.
There's a lot going on around startups, around bringing academia and businesses and venture capital together. But we got something special here as well in Hampton Roads.
Yeah. Small fish, big big pool type of thing, big pond.
Yeah. I mean, I can't remember the first place because I went, there recently, on a trip. And the first place that we went to, I can't remember which one it was, but they said they had 850 startups just in their one building. And it's just like, man. Probably CIC was probably It was.
It was CIC.
Yep. Mhmm. All stages
or, like Yeah.
No. All stages. They they have the, you know, the incubator process. They have all the way up to, you know, series d companies that are, you know, headquartered, you know, in there. They have two different buildings, and it's just stacked.
And we have actually our Boston address, if you look at our website, is in that CIC Building.
Oh, is it really? Yep.
Yeah. And I I I still made Yeah. The 100 I guess technically. Yeah.
There you go.
What was your question, Zach?
Are you one of the 800 then?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and the thing, guess to Mike's point, it's just like, man, you know, as someone as my cohost likes to stand out from the crowd, you know, it makes it a lot more difficult to be the anomaly if you will. Correct.
Oh, me. Yeah. Got it. It. Got it.

(01:46):
Got it.
Yeah, I I tell everyone that this is the the biggest small town you're ever gonna be part of. I mean, you can get a
But isn't that a good thing?
It's a great thing.
Like, I mean, like, I'm going to knock both of us at this point. But, like, we were just like donkeys, you know, two decades ago, didn't know anything, and they were able to make it. Like, I mean that, like, nicely, but it's just like
Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Us in other cities, us in like bigger cities, that's way harder, but you can make way more impact here too, to Mike's point about there being so much. So I think that's a huge asset that is underutilized, under marketed.
Well, and then when you combine that with the fact of, like, Mike, you're still plugged into the resources up there, but, you know, not not knowing what the the future plans are of your business. But if you were to raise capital, man, the capital that you can raise and use down here versus the cost of rent up there, I mean, you can stretch your dollars out so much further down here than if you were in a Kendall Square or in a, Austin, San Francisco. I mean, those prices are crazy.
I remember when Glenn Moriarty of seven cups, this is what, 2013 time frame. So, Tim, you and I knew each other at this point. He went through YC twelve years ago, thirteen years ago. They gave him a $120. He said he blew through that in, like, two months, and a lot of it was just living out there because the the rent was so obnoxious, and then they obviously threw some ads in there and stuff like that.
But, like, that's crazy. Like, to go through that amount of money when it was just him, maybe one other person, I can't recall, on living expenses in a certain area. Like, that's crazy.
Well and then if, yeah, if you're paying for employees, yeah, like living expenses, that's just one part of what the the salary is covering. It's a super,
super expensive to hire Not only salary. You know, one of the things that we have here in Hampton Roads is the universities, the academia, and tap it into that as Yeah. It wouldn't vary.
They just started their, data science program. Right?
Yep. Correct. Doctor. Doug Schmidt, he actually came from the Pentagon recently to start up that college data science.
I don't know if the exact number is today, but in 2015, there was 112,500 students in this region, which is a lot. And then you pair that with the Jefferson Labs, the NASA, and so many other pretty pretty cool spectacularly smart individuals. They have a lot of talent here.
Yep. Good. So much. I
I did go to ODU too. So, took me nine years, but I got a degree.
I'm laughing with you, Mike. I I totally am laughing. I'm a monologue.
So, I didn't know we were interviewing Van today. Van Walder. It's hilarious. You know what this region also has? It's Apollo's chariot.
That's right. We did talk about that. You know? Flavia was the original VC of Williamsburg.

(02:07):
The OG. So what what what what excites you or what like, you you talk about being involved in all these different places, whether it being the Launchpad back in the day, now at William and Mary, going up to Boston and associating yourselves with these places, these spaces. Not everyone is into that. Like what is it for you that really makes that impact, or why do you wanna be involved in in places like that? Not necessarily the city, but the actual physical location.
So I can't mention cities, but physical location.
No. No. No. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, like, not everyone wants to go to an incubator.
Not everyone wants to go to a resource center or or a place like you're in, you know, at William and Mary or up Boston. Yeah. Why why are those important to you, and what do you what do you seek when you're on this?
Because I did it the stupid way the first time. You know, I started SDV Solutions in, 02/2003. Had no idea what I was doing. And just grounded just grinded and grinded. Didn't didn't get involved in any ecosystem.
I bankrupted the company two times up and down, up and down different contracts, not literally. But so I never reached out and actually leveraged any peer support, anything, and just grinded it out until I finally exited. Didn't even know how to do that properly, but it it worked. So the first thing I thought about as soon as I decided to start this venture was I'm gonna do something different because that sucked. So instead of being mister ego that I know everything, I'm gonna, you know, embrace different ecosystems, different places, different institutions.
A little bit smarter, a little bit grayer that I I know enough now that I don't know everything, so let's let's get some resources around us, resources around myself to grow fast. And some of the problems that we're working on around VA health, they're they're very dire. They need they need solutions now. So I don't have twenty years to try to figure this out again. So I wanna be able to, bring to bear as much resources as possible, as quick as possible to make as much, human impact as possible.
It's well said. I mean, it's just it's an uphill battle trying to do it on your own. And, man, you can learn figure things out exponentially faster Yeah. From those that have, failed many, many times before. That's for sure.
Or one.
I try to only fail once. But
So what made you and the kid excited?
No. Go ahead, Zach. I I was gonna go into more of, what NGZ is about because I really I I think that's an awesome awesome start in terms of where you're targeting.
Yep. So is that your question, or am I waiting for Zach to
come in? Ask more about, like, the six months and the the six months and the robots up in in Boston. Like, why that, like, what what piqued your interest into that? Because you said you loved you wanted to learn about that. You enjoy it.
So, like, what, like, what is it about the robots that
Well, when I immediately decided that I wanna know about artificial intelligence, I said, well, where where is that biggest source of knowledge? And that's, MIT. So we I went up there. They have a lot of, both virtual and also in person, courses. So we took some deep dive courses in AI and health care, AI and for senior executives, and that introduced me.
I I wanna know what was possible other than what, you know, the crappy read on news that everybody's gonna think that it's gonna take her job. So that gave me the knowledge deep enough to see where I could apply in a problem area that it was passionate about veteran health. So we're actually part of the CSAIL Alliance, which is computer science artificial intelligence lab up at MIT. So that also gives us another body of research, body of knowledge, and and resources that we're we're tapping into to, bring to bear.
Yeah. And and so jump into NGZ. What is the first problem set that you're, that you're tackling and, where you're starting with that? Yeah.
So, again, veteran health and DOD health, if you look at those, those are the two largest health systems in the world. And a lot of times, in my own experience, you you might see commercial health care systems come in and try to apply commercial health solutions to veteran health, to DOD health. And it's sometimes apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and but a lot of times, it it it doesn't fit. So that's why we wanted to build out solutions that look at the veteran patient or the active duty soldier patient first as opposed to taking commercial solutions and try to fit into that round peg and square hole. So that was the first item that we we laid out our cornerstone on our building on our company.
Then we said, okay. Well, what are the problems that exist? We mean, there's so many, you know, pains that we're we could definitely move the needle. And the one that just kept on coming up top was veteran suicide. It's still a significant issue.
It's gone down just a tad, but it's still double the national average. And then we so that was the problem that we're tackling first is looking at how we could reduce the numbers of veterans who say

(02:28):
Yeah. It's a heavy topic. It is. You know, me being I I prior reports on my end and certainly several people, that I was service members with, you know, ended their life, in that manner. And, I mean, there was a stretch that I mean, my heart just went out to my commander.
I mean, it was just multiple suicides over a short period of time where I was like, man, I don't know how he's just rough, rough having to present that flag to the parents. I mean, it's just it's it's really difficult.
Yeah. And on the active duties active duty side and the reserve side, suicides is a mission readiness issue as well. So we're addressing that at the same time.
Is there I don't I don't know what, like, the the correct way to say this. There like usually a reason why that veteran suicide is higher than that standard rate that you were talking about? Like, it the condition? Like, what like what is there a reason behind that?
Yeah. There's a lot. And again, I don't wanna come across. I'm not a clinician, so this is Mike's knowledge that loan. We do have clinicians we brought in.
We've hired a bunch of former VA actually, the the head of the VA suicide prevention for five years, doctor Caitlin Thompson, she works for us now. So in discussion, there's a there's a lot of different things, but some of the things that are unique to veterans is typically a loss of identity. So once they separate from the service, you know, there's that structure. They lose identity. That that is a huge factor.
Even the way people are discharged and and the labeling that is put on individuals, you know, because we still use the word honorable discharge. You know, there's a lot of veterans that don't get that label, and that doesn't mean they necessarily were dishonorable. But, other than honorable discharge, puts a label on an individual that, could have some significant impact. So those those type of identity related things, the separation the and then, of course, the typical the not typical. The PTSD that veterans, you know, see that's similar to first responders.
That that PTSD lingers for years and years and prior to the rest of their lifetime.
And the crazy thing is is that the amount of training that we would go through to identify signs, or just if you were feeling a certain way and still didn't solve the the root cause of the problem. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it just can you get into some of the methods that you have in terms of what you're doing?
Yeah. What we did yeah. First thing was we we looked at what's currently being used by the VA or DOD from a from a app. We started looking at technology, obviously. And they use apps today.
DOD and the VA use apps, but they require a lot of user engagement. You know, chatbots, hey. How are you doing today? And it requires a lot of input from the user. A lot of data leaves the phone to get passed over to a clinician or to maybe AI model to do some scoring.
So we looked at that and said, well, can we use technology to actually flip it on its head and and have it more passive to the user and have all the data stay on the phone and still score some and get some measurable results on scoring and building our algorithms on the phone. So therefore, data is not leaving the phone, and more importantly, the the the user's not having to constantly engage the phone in order for the application to work. So that's the the path we took. We worked with a nonprofit out there called Stop Soldier Suicide. They're out of Raleigh, very excellent, nonprofit, and and that's that's their main mission is stop soldier suicide.
And they they received a grant a couple years back from the VA to actually look at devices post event. So they got all these devices from family members that couldn't get into them, then they were able to see what that digital signal was presenting. And we're using a lot of their research and data to kind of train our models around those events. And what was to summarize their information and data is we saw they saw that about a week and a half or two weeks prior to event that their actual activity changes on their phone. Isolation happens.
They start searching up SGLI. There's a lot of others visual crumbs that are there on the device that we're trying to pick up those signals and actually notify with a risk based score out to a clinician.
SGLI stands for?
Group
life insurance. So
if I understand what you just said, by having this app, it can go through and track what soldiers or veterans are going through. That notifies you, and you know that from this data point, sounds like one to two weeks in that period is where it could go the wrong way and build off of that data point. Is that because that's where it can take that turn?
Yeah. You simplified it, but it's about 68 accurate. So we're looking at time series of data that's on the phone. As we all know, these phones are have so much data on them now. There's, you know, sleep data.
There's steps, the typical heart rate data that we would see for wearables. We look at that data over time, but then we also layer on top of that maybe indicators around community. So are they isolating? And some of those things could be how many Bluetooth devices is that phone seeing because you could determine community based upon number of Bluetooth devices. You could look at GPS.
You could look at a lot of different things. The response rate on text, measuring that. So if someone normally responds to text messages at this amount of time, and if that time starts to increase, that's another indicator. You know? So it's taken all of these indicators together and applying an algorithm, AI algorithm to determine a risk score.

(02:49):
Simple from zero to ten, ten being the worst. And over time, what we're seeing is we could see the subtle changes, you know, because everybody has up days and down days. All of us do. And and you could start seeing those. It's just when that down days start happening at a higher velocity that we're gonna signal.
And, again, provide a Amber type Amber Alert type notice to a clinician or a family member to say, hey. You might wanna check-in. Because we do know we do know there's research out there that if someone just had checked in, had just reached out, put their arm around that individual, it could save lives.
Yeah. I mean, this stuff is just it's flooding back memories just in terms of, like, from when I was because, like, one of the things, Zach, is, like, being in in uniform, you're around sense a lot of sensitive information, or sensitive situations. And, so even if you do something as small, if you say something to somebody, then you can't, at least in my career field, you couldn't do your regular day to day duty. You were you were you were you couldn't do that, and then you would, like, you put on weeds and seeds or holes in walls. So you couldn't do what your normal day to day job is.
You're out there picking up trash or mopping floors or something, and then that, like, just further escalates the problem because now you're signaled out. You can't be part of the team. You can't be doing what you're supposed to be doing, and then that just it's, boy, I haven't thought about this stuff in a long time.
So Tim, what's important about that and what we're trying to achieve is the user knows that none their data leaves the phone. So there's no knowledge of what is happening. Yes. It stays on the phone. So therefore, somebody with a TS clearance or or other clearances could feel safe that they're not disclosing to the government other activities.
And a lot of times, you won't if you're going through something, you don't say anything because you don't wanna be categorized into being able to do what you know are do on a day to day basis normally.
Or pride. Right? Embarrassed. I'm sure those aspects of their are
are there too. Also, there's a lot of people that suffer, depression or other issues of mental illness indicators that they don't even realize that they're they're suffering. So they do the slow spiral, and they don't realize how, dangerous it is, to them as they spiral down. And I speak from experience on that. So
Has there been any
Which one is it gonna be? Go ahead, Zach.
Did you serve, Mike?
Yeah.
And what Of course, read my bio,
so therefore, you would have.
I'm looking. I don't see it.
It's there. So I joined the air force three weeks out of high school in 1989 and because I just wanted to serve. And but I wanted to serve in the air force, because I had the long tech had the longest technical school. Got trained up on f 15 fighter jets and got stationed at Langley Air Force Base. That's what brought me out here.
Got it. So when you flew the f 15 fighter for about four minutes, that was a joke? No. Got only I wasn't
a pilot, but but there's more story to that. But, you know, I ended up I don't know if they still do it, but, they did incentive flights back in the day. And, Langley had a couple b models, which was two seaters. And then I made air miner of the year nineteen ninety, ninety one, and I got to go up in a 15 in the back seat. Nice.
Never had a chance to do that. I always joke with everyone that that I flew m sixteens cause I was in security forces.
Yeah. No. I I it was it was other than watching the birth of my three daughters is probably one of the best experiences.
Are these the planes that they fly around, at Oceana? F fifteens?

(03:10):
Oceana is navy. Yeah. That's F fifteens.
Got it.
They got rid of the fifteens. They have 20 twos over at Langley now.
Got it. What's that one that you always talk about, Tim, that you really like?
I like I I like the the b two just because it looks pretty it's pretty tough. But I also enjoy watching the f twenty twos out there. I especially like watching the demo team outside of a in my backyard whenever they're Yeah. Training and practicing. It's pretty impressive stuff that they're able to do.
So is there I I'm curious. Is there any pushback or, like, are are airmen and soldiers or sailors or or, you know, do you do you anticipate there being any resistance to opening them opening up their phone to to measure this stuff, or is this gonna be something that would be directed or or opt in? How how is that how do how would that work?
Well, we anticipate resistance. I mean, Americans are
pretty pretty
you know, any American's gonna go, what? You're gonna download this thing, and now you're I'm not really doing anything, but it's gonna be looking and listening and and see what I'm doing. Like, so we're building out, ways to share with the airmen and the soldiers, how to trust. And we're gonna use, some some key members. I can't disclose who we're gonna use because they're not on board yet, but some people that are well known, nationally, around, this topic, and they're going to be, saying that this is safe.
And we're gonna have it we're literally gonna have it tested and, you know, are benchmarked out showing that none of the data leaves the phone. You know, it's no different than, like, today. I my wife and I, we we this happened a couple months ago, talking about buying a car at CarMax. And next thing you know, I opened up Facebook, and all of Oh, yeah. These cars are that we were just talking about are are ads in Facebook.
So, you know, as society, we kind of kinda realize that, you know, there's a lot of data, that we let, go on this phone.
Yeah. Well, especially when it comes to something like that. I mean, I think that's super, super important. But, like, even, like, the the Oura Ring, I mean, like, it will tell me days ahead of time, hey, man. Slow down.
Mhmm. Things are you know, your heart rate's elevated. Your body temperature's elevated. You know, just take it easy for the next couple days because you're we sense you're about to get sick, you know, get a cold or something.
K. Maybe maybe you should eat more salad.
Can't guarantee that.
I saw him literally remove lettuce from sandwich.
It was a wilted nasty looking piece of lettuce, man. It's like, come on.
He had to open said sandwich to inspect
Thanks.
To find. Just saying.
I have video. What the real question is, will there be salad at the Startup World Cup?

(03:31):
There
will be a vegetarian option 100%.
But my guess is there will not be salad. This is a this is a heavy topic, and it's a topic that, you know, I think is incredibly important to address. I I'm interested just like I'm gonna use the business word like it's a niche, but it also it doesn't just have to be the military aspect of that. Is it try to figure out the military the, you know, the the veteran suicide first and then move over? Or like like, how does how do you think through that?
Because the the bigger market is is not just the veterans. So, like, how do you how do you think through that?
Correct. Yeah. I don't wanna I guess I'll share one slide of my pitch next week, but our go to market strategy is, again, like I said, buy or get develop solutions that are veteran soldier first. But we know this has commercial crossover to first responders, to students, the student populations, different student populations, to a society as a whole. So what we're able to do when we're building our models, if we take the veteran first model, we'll pretrain models that will identify suicide risk in students because they have a different structure, different model that would, be indicative of risk for them.
So the IP that we're building out is not just a very narrow niche and and to veterans. It's it's the whole gamut of mental health disorders and the population that it affects.
Well, one thing that's really interesting was listening to a podcast last week. They're just talking about now, like, the amount of information that people are sharing with a chat GPT or, with Croc. I mean, they're they're using them as therapists and the you know, and they're they're confiding in them. So it's with that from that standpoint, it's super interesting. And then, therefore, would, you know, OpenAI, if if they were subpoenaed to to share that information, you know, are they going to have to or are they gonna encrypt it and that they're not gonna have access to it?
But it is really it's interesting how AI is being leveraged, the direction that it is going, and, just the amount of information that people are sharing with
Yeah. One of the things, if you look at what the recent release with ChatGPT five, they also released some information about what they call their small models. So these small models actually run on the edge devices like a cell phone. And what that does, if you build and train a specific model for a specific task, you're not trying to do everything. You're trying to look for certain things.
And therefore, you don't need to run it in the cloud. You can use the data that's on that edge device and actually produce the results that you are looking for. So we're leveraging so this wasn't even possible. What we're talking about wasn't even possible two years ago, three years ago. So you had a convergence of smartphones that are now more robust than most computers that we have for processing power, from compute power, from data storage power.
And now you have these models, with ChatGPT, and there's another model that came out of MIT called Liquid AI. And they have some very small models, which basically, again, will run on they'll run on a Raspberry, which not technical. It's basically a small little box that has not as much compute power as a Timex and Clair.
Yeah. It's So
it's bringing those those new models and training them for a very specific task and keeping it on the device so therefore you don't have to move the data.
Yeah. It's super cool. I mean, mean, what a what a noble noble noble mission this is. I mean, and so applicable, yeah, across. I I man, I really hope that this is this is the thing.
The thing that can solve it, like you to your point, this hasn't been able this hasn't been possible until now. And, and if you just really if you can just save one life Yeah. It's it's it's worth it.
Yeah. Also, on our vision board, we have we literally have ROI of one. That's our motto is we're gonna get a return on investment when we save one life. And then we've pretty much if we could save one life, we know we could save 10. We could save 10.
We could save a 100. Is it gonna solve it? Is it gonna move it to the needle to zero? No. It's absolutely not.
But it's gonna move the needle, and people are gonna be alive because of what we're doing.
It's it's wild because this thing shares so much more information, and we could see so much more. And so there's there's so many positives from that, but then there's so many negatives from it too. And it's so Like, I did not grow up with a cell phone. My guess is neither of you guys grew up with cell phones, right? Like, I might have had a beeper in like eleventh grade and I wasn't a doctor, You know?
Wasn't just Drug being a dealer. Yes. Never been a drug dealer.
I had a beeper as well. But

(03:52):
But so so so, like, you know, I had, gosh, I didn't even have Internet until like ninth grade maybe.
Yeah.
And so just to see the kids now that are going through this and even and even actually as full grown adults, we are now consuming so much information. Like, we don't process we like, we process so differently than we would have before where we were kids just growing up getting outside. We it it's like, I love it and I hate it at the same time. Right? It's like, thank you for providing us all this information so that we can figure out anything and dissect it, whatever.
But also, like, how are we gonna get back to that getting outside and playing like kids and doing all those things? Because I think a lot of that stuff is grown from that. And you see, like, parents just handing a phone to a kid and then it's like, I don't know where I'm going with this. Just saying
that there's just so much Yeah.
Especially and there's so much technology. At the end of the day, I feel like what made us so great was at 03:00, we went outside, and we didn't come home till eight. Playing all the time. We were having real Come on. Were Come
home and street lights come on.
Street lights.
It is wild. I mean, when when Steve Jobs was, like, 10,000 songs in your pocket and where we are now, I mean, what a crazy evolution that the phone has made. And did I see something? Maybe it was your pitch deck or whatever. As part of what you're doing, that they take a selfie every day as well?
Yeah. So the only touch point that the user, the patient, the, soldier would do is, a check-in, and that check-in would be a low touch three clicks. So that could be basically one of three reasons. One, we wanna validate, you know, if something's starting to, somebody's starting to go spiral down, we're gonna validate and have them just check-in. And it's a selfie because facial expressions can get scored as well even if you force a smile.
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, you could determine mood based upon facial expression.
Especially once you have the baseline.
Correct. So then you have a data point there. And then there's just as simple as a one to five stars, you know, how's your day going? And submit. So that could also initiate activation from a clinician to check-in with you based upon that data alone.
But we're also validating that the model is doing what we think it's doing because we're also gonna not just queue up a check-in on a low point. We're gonna also queue a check-in when we think you're having a good day or or it's things are going well because we also wanna validate a high part of our data spectrum. So but but it's click, check, and then it's not every day. It's it's infrequent. And then the clinician could also initiate a check-in as well.
Then again, the response rate of that check-in is another data point in itself.
One of my favorite quotes is from this, I think I've shared this with you, Tim. It's from this Olympian. I can't think of her name, but she used to run, I think, the 10,000 meters, something like that, and her coach provided this information to her. And she was, like, in training, I guess, and it was a third of the days are, like, the worst training days, third of the days are amazing days, and then the other third are somewhere in betweens. I sat there and I was like, that's really interesting because it that's probably life.
Some days are good, some days are incredible, and some days are somewhere in between. And it was just like, it's okay. Like and so, like, just articulating that and saying that out loud, even though I had never heard it before, three, four years ago, was like, wow. Like, that's that's pretty profound. And so a lot of this stuff, maybe it's just about education too.
It's like, hey, like, we need to get this stuff out there. Like, hey, like, not every like, it doesn't rain every day. You know, it's gonna be sunny some days, and some days it might be a little overcast.
Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking through, like, gosh. Like, what are the the different things that that you're if you're if or when you're able to integrate that into your model, I mean, super exciting. Just in terms of, like, when I get my push notifications with from Apple Health, you know, that, hey. Your resting heart rate has changed.
You know, there's a new trend in this or there's a new trend in that. You know? I mean, like, when you're if you're able to correlate all that stuff together, I mean, it's it's it's super big fan of what you got going on and what you're what you're trying to accomplish.
Well, thanks.

(04:13):
And even even if you wanted to look at it from a cynical standpoint, I would think that insurance companies would be about this as well. You know? I mean, like, certainly, they wanna save life or whatever, but when it comes down to it, they're just they're in it for dollars and cents. And, you know, there's there will almost be a thing that if you opted in with something like that that you can get a lower policy perhaps. I don't even know.
But
Yeah. The the the from a business standpoint, the revenue model is all around remote patient monitoring. Is it gonna be a software as a medical device? So we're gonna go through and get FDA approval around that. So it's gonna be integrated into the health care system.
So this is not gonna be like some novel app that you and I would download. It would be something because we wanna make sure that it strengthens the relationship with the clinician. That doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's, like, in for suicide watch, and they're gonna get this app and that those are the only people. There's a lot of people that go to see a provider. You know?
And the whole idea is when we talk to the clinicians, they they they shared with us one thing that kinda sticks out and resonates with us. You know? Patient will come in. They'll talk to them. They'll get some baseline idea of how they're doing in the forty five minutes they get to talk to them.
You know, they go, yeah, everything's great. You know? Yeah. Patient walks out the door. They have no idea what happens next, the next sixty days till the next appointment.
You know, there's financial issues that happen. Somebody can be served divorce papers the next day. You know, there's all kinds of stuff that happens that we think that we'll be able to pick up digitally and score effectively and provide the patient, the person using this application. And and then the clinicians say, hey. You might wanna check-in with Mike.
Things have changed. And it gives that touch point. It gives the the clinician or family members, you know, another point of information. Again, not knowing what's going on. They have no idea what's going on, but they were picking on up something digitally that something is affecting the individual negatively.
Super smart.
Yeah. And I you know what? Yeah. As I'm listening to you talk, Mike, one of the things that again, you being in the military, you being a a a multiple time founder. I mean, there's you've picked up a lot of wisdom along the way that enables you to think about things in a different way to provide the best product and business possible.
If this is someone's first business out of the gate, I don't think that they would have as put as much thought into it as you have.
By the way, this is not very this is not easy to do at all. This is particularly hard. You know, when I go in here and talk to the data science, you know, here at William and Mary, they're like, you wanna do what? And it's like, yeah, this is what we're do this is not what we're gonna do this. Figure out a way.
Let's figure out a way. It's possible. I know it's possible. You know? And from a personal I'll share this personally.
Going back to my military, days, I was medically retired with Gulf War syndrome, in 1993 at the age of 23, and I was pushed out of the military, and I wanted to make air force my career. So I suffered from suicidal ideation. I had some very low points throughout twenty years, and I didn't realize that that that point of inflection back to when I was summarily discharged from the military, honorably discharged, that that had profound lifelong impact on me. So so this is personal personal, if you know what I mean.
So Yeah. And it's I'm super, super thankful and grateful that that you're taking taking on this mission for sure. Just demand the possibilities. I don't know. I I think yeah.
Like, to your point earlier, a lot of people, like, would make you the naysay about AI, but, man, talk about it now. This is an opportunity of AI being used for the good. I mean, it's just man, super, super cool.
Sir, is there anything you wanna talk about that we haven't talked about?
Let's see. We we covered salads. We covered military. Covered the fact yeah. We covered the fact that you don't know anything about the military, Zach.
No. You know, the one thing I'll say because we're on the topic of suicide, you know, if someone's watching and somebody's struggling, you know, there is help out there. There's a veteran crisis line. Use it. It's 988.
Press +1 247. So there there is help that is out there for people that exist today that you don't need to struggle with issues. So anybody could DM me. They could they could reach out to me. I'll I could share my experience, strength, and hope of and if that helps, then I'm willing to do that as well.
So

(04:34):
Well, I, yeah. This is You tough
know what's interesting? Like, I feel like what what NGZ is trying to do is be more proactive on that, though. As I heard you say that, and I've seen that, you know, call this this hotline all the time. And it's waiting for someone to declare that they need that, right?
Right.
And this literally just came to me. And so let me spitball it out. But like, you're being proactive on that by taking all this data point that they are providing you and saying, hey, like this this is showing something, this is showing a sign that maybe this is it. And maybe like, it just seems like a completely different thing. Right?
If you think about, I don't know what they are, but like the 12 steps, if you will, right? You have to declare that you have a problem, right? In any kind of addiction, I believe it was like the first thing.
It is the very first step actually.
Right. So my guess is that's the hardest step of all of those things, right? Because people don't want to declare that. But if Or
nor do they know that they need to declare it, that it's not Absolutely. Necessarily They don't want to, they just don't know it.
Absolutely. And so by you giving them a notification just like they receive every day, it will it's gonna be a it's it's gonna be a very interesting ride to see how that how that notification if that hopefully is the thing that helps
Yeah. Or even if, like, when in the setup, you know, if you hit a certain trigger, you know, send a notification to whoever you self select, the person that's close to you to say, hey. Check-in on this person because, I don't know, man. I just it's it's Yeah. I appreciate it.
Stuff. Heavy stuff. Appreciate you doing this.
So if everybody can come out next week support, my pitch, I'd appreciate that. So, need free tickets? Contact me. Send you the link. I don't know if that link you guys sent me was, good for, you know, a thousand free tickets, but I'm gonna use the box tops.
If you do would be a good problem to have. If if anyone wanted to come to support you, we will we will give you more tickets.
Okay.
When you wanna lighten things up Yeah. Where's the where where's the place where's the place you like to go? We we talked about Paul's Deli, staple in the Williamsburg area, but is there a restaurant or the region? Is there a food of the region? What
Well, we live Downtown Williamsburg now, within walking distance of Merchant Square. So we usually you usually find me on the bench in front of Aromas four days out of the week.
Oh, really?
With my with my dog. Yeah. My Labradoodle. And so the other place we like, our wife likes a lot is Aromas, not Aromas, Amberox. So from a foodie standpoint, that's it.
Aromas is a coffee shop, I'm assuming?
Aroma coffee, yes. Yep. And travel, we travel a lot. Personal passion of mine is scuba diving. I'm a dive master, so I love scuba dive.
Don't do much of it around here because scuba diving in the James River would be probably pretty disgusting.

(04:55):
So Where's your favorite place to scuba dive?
Grand Cayman. Yep. We lived there for, like, a year and a half. Oh. Very cool.
Yeah. So anywhere where there's Caribbean blue waters, how's that?
How in shape do you have to be to do scuba?
Basically, I have to float and breathe. So I think you can do it.
Do you do you have to do you have to clean shave, before you go to ensure the seal?
You you could put, wax. There's other stuff to put around there that'll that'll seal it. Yeah. Around the mask and stuff. So
Was Martin Dorm non, bearded when we had him on the show?
Tim? I don't know. I have to check the tape, but I know that, like
Yeah. Do Chesapeake Bay diving, Mike, and they, like, repair.
All the underwater welding stuff. Yeah.
Really cool stuff.
Yeah. I got I got into photography underwater, which is pretty fun, but pretty expensive for the camera and the housing that goes around it. That was some fun times. But yeah, diving is as I tell my wife, I said, it's a sport. She's like, it's not a sport.
You just float. It's like, no, you you get a workout. So sure beats the Peloton.
That is true. It's, yeah. That is something learning how to get comfortable underwater. But, you know, it's it's because I feel like I'm a fairly strong swimmer, not as strong as Zach, but there is still something about, yeah, just, I guess, mentally allowing yourself to breathe underwater that Well,
I think there's a difference between pool and other water source. Right? And so it's a completely different world. That current is a completely different world. And you
Well yeah. And, like, I think the I think the best experience I had was went to Cancun right around this time of year, do, swim with the whale sharks as they were migrating. And, yeah, you're just out of this boat for forever going wide open until they spot them, and then next thing you know, they're jumping out. You're jumping out in pairs to go see them, and it's just like, man, it was super cool experience. But, if I was comfortable, it would have taken that super cool experience to the next level.
I I really really I don't have I ever told you my Atlanta story, Tim? I'm a very good swimmer. I got rescued in a lazy river at Atlantis. I did not need to be rescued, but they have like, that is not a lazy river by the way. It is a vicious river.
Like, and so there's this part where like, I guess I fell out of the float because it takes you down this waterfall and the guy thought I needed to be rescued. I didn't. I was fine, but it was just kind of funny that like, yo, like, why did you rescue me not the other people? Like, because I'm the one who fell out. Like, this is ridiculous.
But now it's on Did you get, like, mouth to mouth or AED paddles on you or something like that? There's little a little
no. I can't tell you actually what happened. It yeah. No. He just picked me up off the water because it was three feet of water.

(05:16):
Like, it's like, yeah, dude. Like, why did you just rescue me? And I'm pretty sure my wife was like, really? Like but it happened.
Why do look forward to cave diving?
Say that again?
I said let's take a cave diving then. Get you over that pier.
Okay. Well, I've seen these people that go, like, I don't know if it is spelunking or whatever, like, into these little holes. Absolutely.
Free free diving stuff or whatever? Oh, oh, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Like they go into these holes? Yeah. Nope.
You do that 60 feet underwater now.
Nope. Dive that deep?
No, I never, you can actually free dive a lot deeper than that. I think they go like 300 feet. Really? Oh, yeah. You gotta look it up.
It's crazy. They, like, just shut their entire body system down. They're just going down. They don't do that. No.
No. Just diving in a cave. So a cave underwater with scuba gear. It's fun. At night, fantastic time.
Water at night's a different animal as well.
It is. There's different creatures too that come out.
See that then that's that's that's where it's I'll put that almost in the same category as a sale at Mike. You know? No.
No. Shut it down. I have.
Craziest thing you saw in the water?
Probably a green moray eel chased my daughter underwater. It came out of the rocks and was chasing her, which is unusual for them.
How big of an eel?
Green. It's about nine feet long. Freaked her out. She was two of my daughters scuba dive, so she she freaked out. I was laughing, but
that was I'm I'm assuming you carry a a knife of some kind to just in case?

(05:37):
No. Well, we were spearfishing. We're hunting lionfish at the time. So Wow. Yeah.
Fun times. Still lazy river, but, you know, can't knock that either. Sounds dangerous.
There is something about a lazy river that I enjoy. Yeah.
Mike, we appreciate your time. Looking forward to your pitch next week at Start World Cup. And, yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks for being here.
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, guys. Bye.
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