SMV12: Ry Walker: From College Dropout to Unicorn Success in Cincinnati Ohio.

In this episode of the SmartMoney Ventures Podcast, Ry Walker tells the story of his entrepreneurial journey from college dropout to Unicorn success in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How to build Unicorn software companies in Cincinnati Ohio.
2. Why the entrepreneur’s journey is like mountain climbing, where you value the climb more than the peak itself.  
3. How Astronomer & Tembo are commercializing open source platforms and challenging software giants like Oracle and Snowflake.  
4. What NBA Legend LeBron James and startup CEOs have in common.
5. Why we learn more from failure than we do from success.
6. Advice for tech entrepreneurs:  Visit San Francisco, build confidence, pursue speed.  

Ry Walker is one of those rare entrepreneurs who sees trends before most other people do.  After dropping out of college at the University of Cincinnati, he got hired to build and deliver IBM clone computers and teach people how to use early PC software tools. 

Then he founded his first company, SharkBytes, building websites in 1995 in downtown Cincinnati.  He and his brother went to businesses, unplugged their fax machines and showed people the internet, trying to sell them websites, many times being told to plug the fax machine back in. Failure is part of the process, but getting back up is essential.  

They built SharkBytes to 30 employees and sold it to a rollup in 1999.  He was a paper millionaire at 27 years old, only to watch it go up in flames in the “dot-bomb” of 2000/2001.  

Fast forward to 2015, when he founded Astronomer, a software company that has raised over $280M of venture capital and is valued at over $1 Billion.  He describes Astronomer as a pipeline for data, built on top of Apache Airflow, a Python based open-source workflow management platform.  Ry served as CEO for 4 years, CTO for 2 more years, and left to start another company and become an investor.  

In November of 2022, he founded Tembo, a developer platform built on top of PostGres, an open-source relational database management system.  Coming strong out of the gate, he raised a $7 Million dollar seed round led by Venrock with CincyTech, Cintrifuse Capital, Fireroad, Grand Ventures and Wireframe Ventures participating.  Ry believes that commercial platforms built on top of open-source software is the future, and is a founding principle for both Astronomer and Tembo.  

Ry has been recognized as a Cincinnati “Top 40 Under 40” and is an AngelPad alum. He loves nature, science, art, sports, and indie game development.  

I know that you’ll enjoy hearing Ry share his story of entrepreneurship and all the wisdom that he’s learned along the way.  Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the Smart Money Ventures podcast, where we
highlight active leaders in theglobal ecosystem of venture
capital, entrepreneurship andinnovation.
We give you access to insightsfrom successful investors and
entrepreneurs that most peoplejust can't get access to, and
the only reason they take ourcalls is because we've been in
the trenches with them fordecades.
My name's JD Davidson and I'myour host for this episode of
the Smart Money Ventures podcast, and today we have a very

(00:32):
special guest that I have greatrespect for.
Rawakar is a software engineer,founder and an advocate for
open-source software.
He co-founded one of the firsttechnology unicorns in
Cincinnati called Astronomer,and also differential, which is
a venture studio.
His latest company is Tembo, adeveloper platform for building
data services, and they'retaking on tech giants like

(00:53):
Oracle and Snowflake.
He's currently a partner atFire Road Ventures, a holding
company that invests inearly-stage tech companies.
He previously served inexecutive roles at Recruit
Military, the Divine Group, andhe was the founder and CEO of
his first company, sharkbites.
He's been recognized as aCincinnati top 40 under 40 and
an Angel Pad alumni, and heloves nature, science, art,

(01:14):
sports and indie gamedevelopment.
Welcome, ryan.
Thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thanks for inviting me.
I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Excellent.
Let's start with the story ofhow you came to start your very
first company, sharkbites.
What was the catalyst or theidea that got it going and what
were the early days?
Like Launching a new business,particularly as a first-time
founder.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, I'm a little embarrassed about the name, but
I was in my 20s.
Whatever Sharks were cool.
Sure.
But now that one.
I dropped out of the Universityof Cincinnati after a year and
a half in computer science,mostly because it was still
stuck in mainframe land and Ihad already moved on, before

(01:58):
even starting college, to PC andsoftware development on
computers, on personal computers.
I actually dropped out ofcollege.
I did manual labor jobs for ashort period of time but then
got hired by a clone shop.

(02:19):
I don't remember when peopleused to build clones, ibm clones
, and it was a big businessmaking computers, literally
putting them together andselling to people down in.
I was out of Ohio for one year.
I was in Naples, florida.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
It kind of got me.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
It sucked me back into tech, into just paying
attention to computers.
I actually started a computertraining company.
But then 1994, the web browserthis is kind of fun I'm showing
people.
My job at this clone shop wasdeliver computers and help these

(02:54):
old people with whatever theyneed to get set up, whatever
software they're trying toinstall.
I got to see such a widevariety of software at a young
age that normally you wouldn'tsee.
Right around that time theinternet was starting.
There were bulletin boards.
If you remember that era, wewere all getting networked,
basically.

(03:14):
I just basically jumped into webdesign before style sheets
existed.
I was building websites beforestyle sheets when Mosaic was the
browser.
We had an office downtown in1995 and we just walked
literally super.
I didn't come for money oranything, so we were in this

(03:35):
little apartment just walkingaround downtown, my brother and
I unplugging people's faxmachines and showing them the
internet and asking if theywanted to buy a website and
they'd be like please plug myfax machine back in.
That was a tough sale.
We ended up growing thatcompany to 30 people, merging it
into a roll up company in 1999and watched it all go up in

(03:59):
flames in 2001.
Unfortunately, I did go outwest coast and we tried to
participate in the US web mergerbut didn't get selected in that
craziness.
I don't even know if that endedup.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
The people who sold their interactive agencies made
money on that deal, but probablynot it's funny that whole thing
is a trip in the way backmachine for me because in late
1995 I moved to San Franciscoand joined Organic Online and
definitely bumped into US weband CKS Even actually a long

(04:33):
time ago.
During that era I actually hada meeting with Mark Kwame.
He would obviously not rememberit and it was a single meeting,
but it was just fascinating.
That's the era when MarkAndreessen was coming out of
University of Illinois,champaign, urbana.
Good things come from theMidwest.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
The Netscape stuff was crazy.
Netscape server came out.
I mean we had a little servercloset at the company where we
had a T1 coming in which cost usthree grand a month to have a
T1, and we were hosting websitesfor big companies at our closet
on 7th Street downtownCincinnati.

(05:13):
It was crazy with really badsoftware too.
I don't know if you rememberInternet IIS early version.
Such a horrible web server isso hard to manage and see what's
going on, but whatever, yeah,that was a fun time.
I learned a lot.
I basically was a papermillionaire at age 27 but got

(05:35):
depapered shortly thereafter.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
As many of us did, absolutely no question that
experience.
What was the one key takeawaythat you learned that you wish
all first time CEOs knew?

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, basically the experience that I got in the
process, the thing I'm startingto learn, people are asking me
why am I doing Tembo now If Ihad a pretty good exit with
Astronomer Like a lot?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
of people, congratulations.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, so I sold shares at the top of the market
in secondary sales.
Really, I don't have to work ifI don't want to.
I've got that level of wealthnow, which is just insane,
because two or three years priorI had $50,000 in credit card
debt typical startup founderfinance.
But I started another onebecause it's really about the

(06:25):
journey of mountain climbing.
I enjoy mountain climbing interms of building companies,
trying to build products.
If you make it to the top of ahill, how long do you stay?
You take some pictures, youstay on there for a few minutes
and then you're walking backdown and it's the journey, it's

(06:47):
not the destination.
I learned so much.
I had negotiated selling acompany.
I had to hire people, I had topull together payroll $150,000
of payroll every two weeks thatwas hard Cash receive.
I just think it doesn't evenmatter how successful your first

(07:08):
business is, as long as you'relearning lessons, learning how
business works.
It's actually, again, it's niceto have money too, but the
experience is rocket fuel forfuture profits, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
I believe that every failure has a learning
opportunity in it and, at theend of the day, nothing is
actually wasted Right.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
I mean, really you learn more through failure than
success.
To be frank, I love sales callswhere someone tells me this is
a stupid idea.
That's the perspective that Iprobably need to hear, because
if I just go and come up with aproduct and, first of all, you
don't sell 100 out of 100.
Your first 100 meetings you'regoing to get a lot of rejection.

(07:53):
But that rejection is whatfeels improvement.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Absolutely Well.
Failure is a prerequisite tosuccess.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, I watch NBA.
I watch the Lakers.
I watched every Lakers gamethis season that's been on TV.
I just love watchingprofessional NBA, which almost
nobody in the world lovesanymore.
Again, it's so interesting.
You get to the pinnacle ofthose are like the best VCs or
the best founders operating.

(08:22):
They can't get any better.
They're all pretty evenlymatched and they lose half the
time approximately by rule.
It's like that's just what lifeis.
It's grind.
And why is LeBron still playing20 years in?
Because he likes playingbasketball.
I just think that's.
It's kind of fun to watch.
I watch golf too, and same dealthere.

(08:46):
Those guys that can be soamazingly good at golf and they
come in 50th Right.
It's so humbling, but I justthink that's.
We all expect the life to belike a movie or a TV show, but
it was way more grindy than that.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Absolutely.
Yeah, you're going to havesuccesses and failures, you're
going to get knocked down, butthe point is you got to get back
up.
I like your basketball analogy,because even players at the top
of their game making millionsof dollars, what is their free
throw shooting percentage?

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, I mean, they throw the ball out of bounds
with no one there sometimes,right, yeah, like that's just
true of everybody, like CEOsmake CEOs do that.
They turn and throw the ball tonobody and the coach catches it
like what the hell was that?
Right, you know, it's just likemistakes are just part for the
course and I just think it'sgreat to acknowledge that.

(09:39):
In business, I mean, I think alot of people try to act and
behave as if they're perfect,and I'm just.
I'm pretty opposite of that.
I'm very easy to change my mindon things.
If you have an argument, that'sbetter than my preconceived
notion on something.
But at the same time, I'malways pushing my team to have

(10:00):
better ideas and if my ideas arebetter than theirs, adopt it.
Right, give and take.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Well, I think that's why it's important that business
is a team sport, because if youhave one person in a company
I'm sure you've seen this rightIf you have one person in a
company that believes thatthey're the smartest person in
the room, that'll kill a company.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Oh, yeah, yeah, no one wants to be around that
person.
I literally, you know, in thisnewest company, I'm just like
telling my executive team likeyou guys better get along, you
better solve problems together.
I am not your daddy, I'm notgoing to like, I'm not going to
like, I'm not going to basicallybe the judge and jury when you
guys can't agree.
If you can't agree, like youcan't have this job.

(10:37):
You know, and that's just theway it's going to be.
And you know I have to makesure I find people who are
compatible in that regard,absolutely.
But if they're not, if they'renot doing, if they're not
getting along, if they're notexecuting, it's like, it's just,
you know, trade them out.
You know, again, like onceagain, right back to the NBA
analogy you know a player can bereally good on one team and you

(10:58):
put them on another team.
The chemistry is wrong and youknow they can't perform.
So it's nothing that they'renot a bad player, they just got.
They're just on the wrong teamat the wrong time.
You know, just trade them.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
You know Exactly.
Well, it's like puttingtogether the pieces of a puzzle.
You try a bunch of pieces.
Not all of them fit, and it'sokay.
It doesn't mean it's a badpiece, it just means it doesn't
fit for this particular place.
Yeah, that's for sure.
Yes.
Well, let's talk a little bitabout astronomer.
Everybody likes to talk aboutunicorns.
First, explain just a littlebit about Apache Airflow in
layman's term Terms and howastronomer enables that.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, when we first started it, I felt like I
couldn't explain it to anybody,and by nowadays, I think
everyone can understand data.
I would say, like datapipelines.
I like challenging people.
They say, hey, what do you do?
I mean you could just say like,oh, I'm in data, you know, and
just like avoid that.
But I'm like this is anopportunity to educate.
You know you ask the question,you're going to get an answer.

(11:53):
So I talk about, you know, oilis oil needs a pipeline to get
from, you know, like an oilfield to a refinery, and data
needs pipelines to get fromWherever it's being generated to
a place to do make some, youknow, turn it into something
more refined, information orinsights, or action.
So you know, basically, if youthought, if you think about,

(12:16):
like sources and destinations ofdata, there's little arrows.
You draw in between them, andthat's what we did.
We did the arrows, you know so,with the number of SAS
companies and databases, and youknow there's so much that we've
been abundance andembarrassment of riches.
You know, with technology rightnow, there's so many great tools
in every field, you know, andthe problem, though, is, if you

(12:41):
use lots of different pointsolutions, you have lots of
islands of data, and so air flow, which is the open-source
technology we werecommercializing, it's just a
tool that you can use to Movethat data, transform it along
the way and make sure that thedeliveries are happening, which
is really the most importantpart of it and if and if the

(13:01):
deliveries have been, you know,stopped, it actually kind of
queues up the work.
So if you, once you fix theproblem, it'll, you know,
replete, you know, continuepushing the data.
So you know old-school ideas.
You try to push the data.
If it fails, it's lost andthat's a really bad system, you
know.
If 99% of your data is makingits way through and you don't

(13:22):
have good track of what's the 1%that failed.
That's a that's a huge mess.
That's what we call.
You know that's like dirty data.
You know so and you know,basically, we're coming into a
world where clean data is moreimportant than ever with AI, and
you know opportunities to Tosyndicate data, in some cases,

(13:44):
to partners.
You know it's prettyembarrassing.
It's almost unworkable to havedirty data.
So we're just helping companieshave great data hygiene and
really put their data to work.
I always think of it about itlike Spinning lots of plates.
You know, like, yeah, you'veseen someone who, like spin like
20 plates in front of them.
That's what air flows doing,versus having the plates, you

(14:05):
know up in your cabinet, whichis what a database might do is,
like you know, store it nicelyand securely, right.
You know we basically helpedpeople put their data out to
work for them, and I think thatthat's Really important in
today's age.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
I'm glad you learned.
I'm glad that you use the termdata hygiene, because I think we
need to talk about it more andI think that most people can
understand it.
If we use the illustration of aspreadsheet, you know Garbage
in, garbage out if you have gooddata in your spreadsheet, but
in the data world it's likespreadsheet on steroids.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
I mean, they're just the same thing as a spread at
the table of table ofinformation and yeah, and you
know, if you've ever tried tolike, you know, let's say you're
trying to come up with yourmonthly budget on a spreadsheet
and you're missing rows.
It's kind of a pointlessexercise, right?

Speaker 2 (14:51):
You know, because it's not actually, it's a make.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
You got to make sure all the rows are there before
you can complete the task, andImagine if you're talking about
a million rows, you know,instead of 20.
That's exactly yeah.
So yeah, and and the otherthing that's interesting is and
this is where kind of airflowstarted picking up a ton is
there's I call it analytics as afeature.
A lot of software now hascharts and you know, like

(15:16):
Analytics inside the product,and that means you kind of have
to do this fast loop of user.
You know.
You know, let's say, it's afidelity comm like 20 years ago.
You get a financial statementin the mail or something like
that.
You would.
You didn't get like liveDashboards on how are you
performing up to that minute,and that's.
That's the kind of stuff thatjust requires a pretty nice data

(15:40):
engine to Produce that.
Again, you don't want it to bewrong.
You know you don't want it tomiss a transaction.
You're, you're gonna get fireda few if you're, if you show the
user wrong data.
So it's the pressure's gone upa bunch.
Yeah, ai hadn't really emergedtoo much.
Now, of course, airflow is.
You know this.
The role came out called a MLengineer.

(16:00):
You know, machine learningengineer and, and you know, the
AI use case Is just amping itall up even even higher.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
So AI is obviously massively shifting markets and
it used to take a long time anda lot of money to get to a
billion dollar company, buttoday you can use technology to
really leapfrog and just capturea market share in ways that it
wasn't possible ten or twentyyears ago.
Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yeah, well, I mean, everything's gonna get disrupted
, as you know.
I mean, just think about, likebrick-and-mortar to eat, to
e-commerce, like that samerevolution that was about to
happen.
Regarding AI, or, you know,mobile was another big
revolution.
You know that lots of thingsgot disrupted when mobile, you
know, became possible.
But I mean, the thing about AIis like it's still kind of raw.

(16:51):
It's a tool, you know, like theinternet is, and it's gonna
disrupt People who don't takeadvantage of it, and so it's
kind of like I do think thatthere could be a, there'll be a
bubble coming, you know, I thinkin this decade around.
AI you know, the same way therewas with the internet bubble
back in the 90s.
You know, because, oh yeah, Imean I, it's already started.

(17:14):
I mean, the VCs are, all youknow, they're investing, you
know, double triple, you know,but they're basically investing
in multiple of the samecompanies in some cases just to
make sure they win the bet, notnot lose.
But yeah, but luckily, I wouldsay, from a Hype standpoint,
there are other factors thathave made this cycle, you know,

(17:34):
tampered down a little bit,which is, I think, it's actually
really good, because if wewould have kept the same hype
that was going VC and AI hit, itwould have definitely been a
problematic bubble, you know,yeah, fun flows and there's
almost a business cycle toventure in, even, you know,
comparable to the old businesscycle that they talked About.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Vcs tend to overfund sectors, too many competitors
and then eventually valuationsget too high.
They're putting too much incompanies and a couple of them
fold and then everything rightsizes.
But, as you know, in a downmarket that's the best time to
start a company.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, it really is.
I think I mean there's there'spros and cons to it.
I think that I get like longterm, it's just it's.
It's like it's is it better to?
I don't know?
I would say like, is it betterto go Find food?
Let's say you're going to afood court.
It's better to go to a foodcourt.
It has lots of restaurants andno lines or, you know, it's just

(18:32):
like lots of workers.
That's kind of like the VC of2022 or 2021 or do you want them
to have them to be shut downand the workers are kind of cut.
It's like I still think it'slike it's easier to get food,
you know, when everything islike hypes, you know, and you
know I'm full.
But yeah, I think you knowYou're probably gonna get.
If you think about like theones that are shut down or the

(18:53):
ones that work weren't great,you know.
So it's, it's like you're, theodds of getting a good meal are
higher, I would say, and that inthat down Environment, because
only the best restaurants wouldhave survived whatever cycle
caused it to decline like that.
So, but you know, I think thatthere's pros and cons to both,
both cycles.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
It's really fun to be in the in the up, you know,
cycle to you know, especially ifyou have shares of something
that are Increasing soabsolutely, and you have to know
when to harvest, to yep.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, well, it was really easy for me.
I just, I just had basicallyhad a thought experiment of if I
was at a casino, you know, andI had this many chips on the
table, would I leave the casino?
At this moment, you know, it'slike, it's like absolutely yes,
well, what's the difference, youknow?
Yep, if you can sell yourshares, you know, and you have
almost no money, you know, andyou could sell millions of

(19:47):
dollars worth of shares, youknow, like I don't know, I just
think it's crazy, did not takethat opportunity.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
I agree, I agree.
So let's talk about investorsand raising money.
How did you first connect with?
You know some of the?
I mean your seed, roundedastronomer, was 12.7 million
dollars and you had what?
16 plus investors in that itsince he tech refinery, sierra
Bain, angel, pad, 500, global.
Then you went into, you went onto get Fenrock to lead the a,

(20:16):
sierra led the B, insidepartners and JP Morgan came in
and series C.
How did Developers inCincinnati like yourself first
get connected with those coastalinvestors?

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, it was subtle, it was Sutter Hill, by the way,
that's the B.
But yeah, I think you said yousaid Sierra on that.
But yeah, yeah, how do we get?
I mean, the thing I always tellfounders is, if you're getting
ready to do a tech startupventure, back tech startup, go
to San Francisco a couple timesfor a couple of weeks and Build
a network, meet people you know,find out if, if your idea is

(20:49):
DOA, you know dead on arrival,like it's, it probably is.
That's like like, like you knowyou're naive Midwest idea is
probably already dead.
You just don't know it yet.
Maybe you could again now.
Again is as far as a return onyour investment.
However I was, I still say likeagain, the mission is learning,

(21:11):
the journey is about learningand if you can afford to, you
know, just expect.
I mean it's kind of cool likeyou can raise a little bit of
money from Midwest VCs, payyourself enough money to survive
and and like, bang your headagainst an unsolvable problem
for a couple years, like You'regonna learn a lot.
You know you're not gonna feelvery good about yourself and
you're gonna think you didsomething wrong, but it was just

(21:33):
like you're paying again.
It's like, imagine if I go andtry to train it with the Lakers
and then I try to play a pickupcame with them.
I'm gonna get my ass kicked.
You know, like, like crazy,it's almost on.
It's almost almost the pointwhere it's unvaluable.
You know like, I'm not reallygonna learn a ton playing
against a pro basketball team,but You're gonna learn a little

(21:54):
bit, you're gonna.
You know, you're gonna behumbled for sure If that, if you
needed some of that, I guessyou get some of that.
But so that's why I say like,especially young people, if
they're 20, like I'm like, justdo any startup, doesn't matter,
because it's gonna, it's gonnafail anyway, His products not
gonna work, you know.
So, right, rather than likewait for the perfect opportunity
, just try to build something Ibuilt.
I tried to build 30 things inmy life.

(22:14):
I seriously I could probablycome down with a list of
products that I've startedwriting code for and Didn't
profit from 30 times at least.
At least you know I actuallystarted building the same game
five different times.
You know, like every two yearsI'm like, you know, I want to
start that and it's like I getto a point I quit and then two
years later I start again.
You know it's just like it'sagain, it's not really about for

(22:39):
that one.
You know I would have what Ilove to be a world-class game
designer.
In addition, everything elseI'm doing, sure, but like it's
not very practical, I don't putthe time in for that.
You know so sure.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
But it's a lot of creative experimentation and I
think that's that's what'simportant there's.
There's a real mindset you kindof touched on.
You know I'm gonna do a serieson entrepreneurial psychology.
Yeah, and to your point, whenyou're in that first startup and
everything is failing, Then itis hard to have positive
self-esteem and you and you needa sort of supportive community
of people around you To be ableto get back up when you get

(23:10):
knocked down.
Yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Like there's a lot of supportive people in the
Midwest and Cincinnati, a lot oforganizations that are gonna
hold your hand and make, try toMake you feel as good as
possible.
So I've actually taken the roleof the, of the, of the, the
opposite of that.
You know, I want to be the guywho was gonna give you the hard
truth, you know, and just bringa little Silicon Valley like
slap to you.
You know, like you know, cuz Ijust we don't have enough of it

(23:35):
here.
So, you know, I just talk.
I talked to people all the time.
I'm like I don't, it doesn't,almost doesn't matter who they
are.
They're not confident enoughand they're not moving fast
enough in the, in the Midwest,like they are not either of
those things.
It is so especially, you know,to Silicon Valley standards and
and maybe they can't get there.
But if they could, if theycould behave that way, like they

(23:58):
have a shot, you know, like atwinning actually, like actually
winning the business Competitionthat they've decided to enter,
you know, which is right, globalcompetition, you know, but yeah
, I mean it's it's hard to justtell someone that and then
they'll do it, but I mean I justsay, like Speed and confidence
are are so, so critical in thisspace.
Yeah, and I think there thereis a A start of an ecosystem in

(24:22):
Ohio.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I think you know the high third frontier program is
really well known.
You know it's, it's very rare,it's wonderful and at the same
time there's still a ton of workto be done.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, I'm again.
I think we're doing great.
But you know I also, you know,whenever I hear something like,
oh, the investors In this townsuck, you know Whatever in Ohio
the investors aren't great.
Like, how are the founders?
You know, like I just point myfinger at the Founders and like
you guys are the problem, notthe investors.
The money will come.
There's great startups here.
The money's, the money is justlike it's.

(24:56):
Those guys have their finger onthe wire button.
You know the good BC's.
They want, they want to investin good companies.
They're, you know, but you'renot it.
You haven't.
You know you got to, got to getthere.
So, Exactly Well, everybodywants to see you know, revenue
traction customer traction andthat's what's really important.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
And you know you're not going to be able to get
there.
And even in California we can'trepeat that enough To young
founders.
You know it's all aboutdemonstrating that a customer
loves your product.
It's not a matter of whetherthe investor loves the product
right.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, and there's lots of different
forms of showing that traction.
You know, for example, liketembo, or my newest company, we,
we just got to revenue two orthree weeks ago, so I only have
a handful of paying customersand that's not very impressive
and you really shouldn't leadwith that and an investor pitch.
But you know, when I show thelogos of the companies that have

(25:49):
signed up for us already, um,that we hate but that we need to
go, mine, you know, likesignups or not, um, you know,
again, it's really hard to getpeople's attention and interest
and your product.
Just because they sign updoesn't mean they're, they're on
the, they've been hooked andthey're in the boat.
You know, all it really meansis they've, they've nibbled, you
know, and like you have to gostill get them.

(26:10):
A lot, a lot of cases, um, youknow.
So I can just show a slide.
You know I've had 800 signupsfor this new product and here
are some of the logos of peoplewho've signed up and it looks
pretty damn impressive.
It'd be better if those were mycustomers, but they're at least
I have that.
You know, that level of uminterest and you know that's
it's pretty easy to.
It's a little bit of a hack youcan do to have a great logo

(26:34):
slide without it being uh, youknow, paying customers.
You got to do that kind ofstuff.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Absolutely, absolutely customer engagement,
but the quality of the customeras well.
You know, get the rightcustomers, not just any
customers.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's the worst thing in the world.
Be like, oh yeah, we, you knowCrushing it with, you know ABC
plumbing and like they're, theylove our product.
And then you know, like youknow, there's a nursing home,
that's just like totally intopostgrass.
We're rocking them like he justlost that pitch.
You know, right, exactlyexactly.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Well, that's a great pivot into the Tenbo story.
So you tell again layman'sexplanation of postgrass as a
database and a data service thatyou're yeah so.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
So, you know, in the course of doing astronomer again
, I recognize, like I call it,the modern data sprawl.
Um, you know, there's like Umdata is.
You know all you know, acompany's data is being sliced
into more and more piles.
You know, again, that volume ofdata you have is obviously
growing exponentially, but thenumber of piles that it lives in

(27:37):
is also growing, maybe notexponentially, but you know, at
least linearly.
You know.
So, um, the more, the more ofthese data islands you have, um,
I just think it's like a, it'sa, it's a kind of a, a small
negative Um, it's better to havethe data in an island than not
to have it at all.
That's for sure you know.
But, um, you know, postgrass isa really old open source

(28:01):
technology, 30 years old.
Um, it's got, you know, it'svery well established in and, uh
, I call it like transactionaluse cases.
You know, when you're just um,you know putting a database
behind an application orwhatever.
But, um, it's also veryextendable and in recent years
there have been a lots of coolnew extensions.
You can now write extensionsand rust, which is a really hot

(28:24):
new programming language, um,kind of the most beloved
programming language right now,and so it's extendable, and in
recent years it's been wellextended.
And the problem is like, ifyou're a postgres user, uh, you
kind of have this feeling likeI'm not using the whole product
now, but, um, no one has done agood job of packaging up all
those, um, extended capabilitiesinto a commercial product.

(28:48):
It's really you have to be kindof a risky nerd, you know, to
take advantage of some of thesethings and not everybody's risky
and not everybody's a nerd.
You know they can install theirown extension and defend that
decision, you know.
So we want to basically givethe postgres ecosystem um A
sales rep in the room when, whenyou're considering like

(29:08):
snowflake as a data warehouse, Iwant to have our rep in there
saying Eh postgres can actuallyprobably handle this pretty well
.
And here's the, here's thebenchmark and here's the total
cost of ownership.
If you want to put to snowflake, snowflake's gonna hate that
shit.
But you know, like.
But basically postgres in mostcases does not have Sales
representation.
And I always talk about, like,the reason why there are so many

(29:31):
I mean the reason why companieshave bought so many vendors is
because there's so many greatsales reps.
Like the sales reps are in manyways, like, greater than the
buyer.
You know, in terms of it, yeah,you can't really, you can't
really defend yourself fromsnowflake.
You know, like they were,they're going to penetrate
accounts, they're going to land,they're going to expand.
They have trained hundreds.

(29:51):
You know world class peoplethat do this, and so it's not
your fault, you have 100different data tools.
But I want to fight.
I basically want to fightagainst that, that current.
You know, and see, see whathappens.
So that's the main idea withwith tempo, and then we can also
give you kind of a, becausePostgres has this cool thing

(30:14):
called replication.
So if you have many dataislands former data islands now
they're all connected, they canbe automatically connected
because Postgres databases caneasily send data to and from
other databases, so you can kindof skip the pipeline.
At least I would say you canskip 10,.
You know, like a 90, 90% of thepain that you would have, maybe

(30:36):
even 99% of the pain that youwould have had building these
data pipelines between systemsif, if it's Postgres to Postgres
.
So I hope that makes sense, butit's amazing.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
The question I do have in both astronomers case
and tempo is that they're basedon a flat, a fundamental
platform of open source software, but yet you build a commercial
enterprise around an opensource software platform.
Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
It's the future of software.
I mean, I think that there'snot going to be any domain of
software that doesn't have opencore.
You know that it's just abetter model, for many reasons,
you know.
Think of, like video games, youknow, again, I like, I'm like
an indie game developer, butthere are these game engines

(31:21):
that give you incrediblecapabilities that didn't exist
20 years ago.
You had to write the game fromscratch, you know like.
You know like now you have aphysics engine, you have a, you
know, 3d rendering engine, youhave all this stuff that just
it's like, it's like a magiccanvas.

(31:41):
You know to build things.
It's the same thing, you know,and so it used to be.
A lot of some of these gameengines were commercial and cost
money, but that's all changedtoo, now.
Now, if you want to use unityor, or you know these, these,
these great tools, they'rebasically either open source or
completely free like.

(32:02):
Completely free is, like youknow, for low usage, is is on
the path to open source.
But you know, there's an opensource game development engines,
my favorite engine, and it'sit's like it's a forever engine.
It's not going anywhere, it'sit's you know, they're not going
to, there's not going to beanyone like changing the rules
in the middle of the game,hopefully.
You know there's always someshenanigans that can happen with

(32:23):
open source, but I just thinkit's the most solid foundation.
A user, you know, basically aconsumer of the tech, whether
it's the person writing the gameor the person using the game,
you know, buying the game it'sjust a better foundation than
commercial products that couldbe canceled at any time.

(32:44):
You know, like if, if you sold,if I sold Tempo to Amazon, you
know, and I, you know we decidedto shut down the product.
All the open source tech thatwe built doesn't get destroyed
in that process, you know.
And so I think I think it'sgreat for the again, it's great
for the world for the importantcore parts to be forever, you

(33:07):
know not, and not like at thewhim of some executive to kill
it, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
What I like about that is that your priority is
serving the customer.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Mike, over the long term, doing the right thing for
the customer.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, I talk about a time, like you know, the great
thing about Tempo is we'reinvesting money in the Postgres
ecosystem and whether or not wesucceed as a company, Postgres
will be better off.
That makes me feel good, youknow, because I think it's a
great technology.
Of course, I want to build agreat, successful company, but
we're improving the world.
You know, again, it's like a.
It's not like we're improvinglike carbon capture, you know,

(33:42):
like we're not fixing globalwarming, you know, but we are
trying to make databases and theworld of databases better than
it was when we, you know, whenwe came on the scene.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
So that's an enabling technology for so many things.
I mean every medical device andlife science company uses
databases to do the work thatthey do, so it's fundamental,
yeah, I agree, yeah, I mean,yeah, it's definitely it's.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, it's like a pickaxe, you know, or a
screwdriver you can use it forlots of different things,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
So let's talk a little bit about your transition
to becoming an investor at FireRoad Ventures, and I know that
you've always kind of been aninvestor because you're
investing time and resourcesinto projects.
But now it's different whenyou're writing checks.
Talk about that transition,yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
I mean, for me it's it's, you know.
So now you have, if you have alittle money, what are you going
to do with it?
You know you could give it away.
You know you could just becharitable, you could hoard it.
You know, like, these are someof your options.
I like the idea of I meanbasically after I, after I
really feel like most foundersfeel this way too.
If you have some success, it'slike you got lucky.

(34:50):
Yeah, you know, obviously youdid a lot of things to put
yourself in a good position toget lucky, but still you got.
You got a good role of a die.
You know I got some good dicerolls and my thought is I want
to help 20 other.
You know entrepreneurs make itthrough the gauntlet.
That I just made it through andif I, you know, like using my

(35:11):
money to help do that is, itseems like a good.
Again, it's a social good.
You know it's not necessarilyfor everybody, but there are
founders that are challenged inthis ecosystem and if I can help
them get through it, you knowlike I just feel like that's a
good karma thing to do, and infun, you know, too, it's fun to

(35:32):
see people win.
You know that you're helping.
So that was my idea there and soI started something called
Cincinnati Ventures, whichdidn't last very long because
teamed up with my friend, timMetzner shortly after I started
that.
But yeah, I just I just wantedto help entrepreneurs and you

(35:53):
know it's investing as an angelis kind of a it's hard.
Well, I'm not the mostorganized person in the world,
so it's not I can make reallyfast decisions, which aren't.
You know.
It's nice to have, like,basically, some people around
the table that are going to do alittle diligence and spend more
time comparing this versus thatand so on.

(36:14):
I like that teaming up with Timand Christie Christie Johnson
and some of the others in thefirm now and just kind of
building into that is, in asense, like Tim's one of those
guys that I'm trying to help.
You know he's not far behind mebut you know, like you know he

(36:35):
deserves to win just as much asI.
He's put in as much effort as Ihave, and you know I'm going to
try to help him get where heneeds to go.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Absolutely.
Tim and Christie are greatpeople, and I think that's also
a big part of what you're doingright is picking the right
people and doing so veryintentionally and carefully.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I mean it's.
Yeah, I'm also pretty.
You know I'll generally meetwith just about anybody.
It's again that's kind of oneof the reasons why it's hard to
be organized is if you have lotsof meetings it's hard to.
You know, you don't have timeto reorder your desk necessarily
, but I'll meet with anybody inour ecosystem at least once and,

(37:13):
you know, try to figure outsome way to help them doing some
of us.
I'm doing some fun stuff nowwith Centrifuse too, which is
our Cincinnati startup ecosystembooster organization.
They have a little fun now andbut we're doing demo nights.
So once a month I'd basicallysaying telling entrepreneurs,
come demo, working software infront of everybody, and it's

(37:35):
just a really good habit toshare your work publicly,
especially with people who couldbe critical of it.
You know.
So that's right.
You know you should demo I also.
You know one of the reasons I'mdoing this is the best VC
pitches are software demos ofsomething amazing.
Like that's the best way to getmoney is like, just show them

(37:55):
what you built and if they'rewild, you get their money, you
know so it's very very rare tohave a pitch where they do a
great demo.
A lot of a lot of talk.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
you know not as much you know back in the day we used
to call it vaporware.
Yeah software right.
Yeah, it was a bunch of reallypretty slides and nothing behind
it.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's so hard to build.
You know so hard to buildvision.
You know, in general too,that's the thing.
Like vision is the easiestthing to make.
You know like, right, yeah, tryto manifest it.
You know, hire a developer andget them to do the work.
You know it's.
And then you know, you realizesometimes like your vision was
super flawed.
You know, like it's just not aspristine as it is when it's in

(38:43):
vision form.
You know.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Well, when I founded my software company, I used to
say that my job was to go outand pitch it to as many people
as possible, invite them toshoot holes in it, and then go
back to the office and fill theholes with the team.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, yeah, and the way I see it is like it's like
discovering the holes, like theydon't have to shoot anything.
It's already it's alreadyswitchies, you know like.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
It's already evident, right yeah?

Speaker 3 (39:06):
yeah, like yeah, just tell me where you see holes
there are, we know they'represent, right?

Speaker 2 (39:12):
You know it's interesting too.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
like I actually view software now, as you know how 3D
printing.
You know like, let's say, youhave a body in 3D printing, like
the inside is not solid, youknow it'll do like a lattice of
some sort inside.
You know to make it juststraight, make it just strong
enough to do the job, but not somuch to waste material.
I think that that's what'shappening in software too, like

(39:33):
switching back to open source alittle bit.
A lot of the work we're doingat Tembo and even an astronomer
was gluing together open sourcecomponents and and like I just
view that as like uh, it's notas solid as like at least in
terms of effort.
It feels like we're just likegluing together these lattices

(39:53):
of software and it just feelsway more lightweight than if I
had to have a developer likewrite that code.
That's how that feels like asolid body to me, you know, like
in terms of cost and weight andeverything.
So you know we're just we'reable to be like open sources
giving us everyone.
I mean, when you realize howmany open source products go
into, I should do a count.

(40:14):
You know, like how manydifferent open source projects
are gone, have gone into eventhe Tempo product in a year.
It's got to be, it's got to be500 open source projects and and
I'm not kidding about it it'slike there's like little
libraries you use for building afront end website, you know,
and there's, you know, there'sjust like so many layers.
There's a dependency tree youcan see in a front end

(40:35):
application.
You know you include a coupleof open source things, they
include a bunch of open sourcethings, and you end up with this
tree of hundreds of open sourceprojects that are powering even
a simple website.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Some of those open source projects are so Goliath
that, excuse me, some of thoseopen source projects are so
Goliath that they really takeover.
Look at Apache.
I mean, what percentage of theweb traffic goes over an Apache
server?
It's hard for me 90 pluspercent.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, I mean, someone might actually have the stats
on that.
But then, like, its competitorsare NGINX and other open source
product.
You know, there's like there's,there's so many web servers If
you, if we look at the totalnumber of web servers available
versus, and how many of thoseare commercial, now it's it's
like the, the open source is,there's 100 of them for every

(41:25):
one commercial open source webor commercial web server.
I should say like proprietary,you know, web server.
It's just, it's just likethere's certain areas where that
, that battlefield has alreadybeen overrun by open source.
And that's why I say like, like,explain to me why any field of
open source or any field ofsoftware that same fate is is

(41:46):
destined, as far as I'mconcerned, like, how do you
defend proprietary softwareagainst the horde, the open
source horde?
And there is.
The answer is like no one'sdone it yet, no one's really
defending that, and it's it's.
It's like and I was reading abook about how, you know,
fighting in Afghanistan, youknow the whole world of war

(42:07):
change because there's like notan army, it's not like you can
go and there's a battle line.
It's it's like intelligencegathering, reacting quickly, and
it's really hard to fight abattle when there is no formal
definition of who you'refighting, you know so Great.
There's no way a commercialsoftware company can can defend
themselves against open sourcebecause it's it's basically

(42:27):
faceless, nameless, very youknow weak.
It's weak, it starts out veryweak.
Like you look at a projectthat's just got born, you're
like that is total garbage, likeour product has 5000 extra
features.
But you know it's it's justlike this organic process, like
you know, like a virus forreproducing your body.
Like you can't stop it.

(42:48):
It's going to happen, right.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Exactly, exactly.
If you can't stop it, you mightas well enable it with some
tools on top.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Well, that's what I think.
The best companies are going tojust go ahead and say let's use
open source as our core, andthat's what's happening.
And many, many, many Amazon.
Amazon's gone that way for sure, you know.
Most of its new products arenot proprietary completely.
They're the wrappers of opensource.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Sure, I attended startup week since, or start
since, he started week a coupleof months ago and I was really
impressed.
It was a fantastic event.
It seems to me that all of thegroups in centrifuge sincey tech
, refinery, fire, road soundslike the ecosystem is really

(43:31):
gaining a lot of momentum andpositive momentum.
Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Yeah, I think we're when we got started, when this
like the ecosystem started about10 years ago.
You know maybe a little morethan that, but I don't know if
you're.
You know the Bradfeld thesis,you know the 20 year thesis and
like we're kind of like halfwaythrough.
He's revised that, by the way.
He said there's always 20 years, it's always a 20 year process.
From wherever you are right now, you know.

(43:56):
So there's not like you're not,you don't get halfway done,
You're just there's a 20 yearhorizon in front of you at all
point, which is true, you know.
But you know one of the bigprinciples there is the founder.
The founders, entrepreneurs,have to take control of the
ecosystem for it to work.
And I think we're getting tothe point now where that
transition is happening.
Like we've had these amazingexecutives from you know, like

(44:16):
Kroger and Proctor and Gamble,and you know just big companies
involved in centrifugeleadership for a long time.
But I think I think it'sstarting to shift where it's
getting more and more towardsfounders and entrepreneurs
having more and more controlover that.
And the more that happens to me, the more helpful it'll be.

(44:38):
I think that you know it's justtricky, Like when you have
corporate people leading astartup accelerator type Program
and it's funded by another bigcompany.
It's really hard, I think, forthem not to Figure out a way to
like to serve that big co.
You know, like it seems likethey're paying for it.
They should get some value.
But as far as I'm concerned,like those big companies always

(45:02):
made you know, they always knewis this is an investment in our,
in our town.
You know, like I don't need youto do anything for me, but so I
just think when, when, when theentrepreneurs take over the
ecosystem, we're gonna focus onthe founders and that actually
helps the big co's.
That's actually the helpthey've always wanted and it's
that's really starting to happen.

(45:23):
Now Centrifuse is committing todo local investments now.
So you know, before it was afund of funds I don't know if
you know too much about that,but they, they invested in
world-class funds and they madethey.
You know they had a great firstfund as a result, but it was.
It was really.
You know, it wasn't like theywere doling out cash to a lot of
Cincinnati startups.
They were doing a little bit ofthat, but not not very much at

(45:45):
all, and it was very quiet whenthey did it.
You know like sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, I had Tim Shigel on the podcast a while
back and he was talking aboutcentrifuge and they really did.
I like the approach that theytook is that they focused on
returns and Geography whenpossible, and I I think it's
great to have programs likethird frontier because it
absolutely provides a Stimulusat the beginning, you know, to
overcome inertia.

(46:09):
I don't think it's either, or Ithink it's both.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
That yeah, no, I agree, like I said, I mean, in
the startup week, yeah, I don'treally think our entrepreneurs
could put on an event like thateither.
It would be way more raw, youknow, it's very polished, you
know, and that's.
That's the kind of stuff thatthat team is really, has been
really great at, and Icompletely appreciate it.
So, yeah, I agree it's got tobe a blend, but I'm just saying,

(46:31):
like that, the founderinfluence is is rising and I
think that's gonna take us tothe next level.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Sure so let's talk briefly about mindset the
mindset of people in theheartland of America and the
mindset of people on the coasts.
Yeah, what needs to happenthere?

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, I mean I, I remember when we were early
astronomer, we had a customer onthe West Coast.
They needed us to.
He's like you're not moving inSilicon Valley time and our team
wasn't, and you know, it's kindof like it was really the first
time that I realized howdifferent, like you know,
there's a lot of people herethat Focus on quality, getting
it right.
You know, like they got therewhen you get it a on the paper.

(47:10):
You know where what we need isa B, be fast.
You know, like right instead ofan a eventually, and so it's
really hard for a lot of peopleto switch that mindset.
And so I mean, I think one wayto do it is you just have to,
you have to set almost I want tocall it like artificial

(47:32):
Pressure.
You know, um, like real, itshould be real pressure.
You know, like in my case, likeI'm telling our team like
here's what we need to raise ourSeries A, you know, and like
here's what I'm promising here.
There are all the lies in myslide deck that we need to make
true.
You know, it's not really a lie, in the sense that you know
what I'm pitching is vision andit's just basically unrealized

(47:55):
vision, you know, but like thatit's, the longer that's not a
true statement, is a visionstatement.
You know that the worst thecompany fund raises and I just
try to keep that pressure onthem and you have to.
I think it's great to have a CEO.
That's just Basically, you know, exposing that reality like

(48:15):
that's.
It's kind of the main driver.
Obviously we gotta getcustomers but, like you know, a
lot of people say allfundraising isn't the goal, it's
not a really an achievement.
I actually pretty diss, Idisagree with that pretty
profoundly because you can'tfundraise without the result you
know it's, without the inputsthat are required, you know.

(48:36):
So you can't raise our entriesand Horowitz Without doing all
the right things.
You know and and like gettingthat money from them is a huge
accomplishment.
It means you accomplish lots ofother things in the process,
you know yeah so you know, I amyeah, anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
We're gonna say putting gas, putting gas in the
tech.
I mean, you can't build andexecute without resources, and
we all know it's about scale.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
And yet and the reason you take money is
Primarily to grow faster thanyou could without it- oh yeah,
yeah, I was just talking to afounder to about boost wrapping
versus, you know, raising VC,and I just say like I mean again
, 20 years ago the term vulturecapitalist was a thing and it
was real like there.
I mean there were people thatare literally I mean they're

(49:23):
just like there's little evilterms in the, in the docs that
they hand coded, you know, justTo get you someday.
If you, if you stumble and theyget the company, you know
effectively and so that's allgone, at least in If you, if you
go to a premier investor, evenin the Midwest, like they're

(49:44):
using standard and CVA docs, youknow Like there's just there's
not like any of that kind ofcrap going on and it's.
You know I started my when Istarted track but I had a
personal Guarantee on like banklines and stuff.
You know like it was scary totake money.
This is the stuff is like it'sso founder friendly.
I'm like I don't see why youwouldn't just take money from

(50:05):
someone who's gonna give you amillion bucks.
You know if it works, they getsome equity, if it doesn't work,
no big deal.
You got some learning.
I don't know it's like fundingyour education.
I just I don't understand whyyou want the stress of having to
not have money during thatprocess you know, not having
money for your family like it'sjust.
It's just a.
I think there's fear in thereand there's like I Think it's

(50:28):
like lack of the ambition.
There's all kinds of it'sconfidence too, like I was
saying like like they don't havethe confidence to try to build
a venture scale company.
And you know like, yeah, that'sthat's the downside of all that
.
But I mean I I'm basicallypushing against bootstrap more

(50:48):
and more.
I mean, not, not everyone has abusiness they can raise venture
capital.
But if it's not a venturecapital business, that it's
probably like an angel investorkind of business.
Right, you can find someone,some rich guy in your town like
me, that will Happily give yousome money for unfair percentage
of your company.

(51:08):
You know like, and that's it'slike, should you do that?
Like?
I think so, because like it'sbetter to have them in your
corner than go it alone.
You know, in almost every case,if you're, if you haven't made
it before, you know like, justget a, get a lowercase w before
you're going for the upper caseW absolutely.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, I like that you have to hit some singles before
you can get a home run andclearly in your career path you
did that.
You didn't go out and do aunicorn on your first one, it
was like your seventh orsomething, right.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's.
It's been a long journey.
Yeah, so it's, you know.
But again, like the journey'sbeen the, you know, as I said,
I'm telling my team we are teamin town today and or last this
week and I basically said, likeguys, you got to understand,
like this is like such the goodold days right now.

(51:56):
This, you know, like that, oh,we're trying to get these
features in, try to get so thatwe can get signups, so that we
can get series.
A like this is, like this, isit right now.
This is the best part of theclimb, you know.
And, right, you know, it's sofun.
Like it kind of gets worse fromhere.
You know, eventually we'regonna hire a, hire a bunch of
people.
Everything slows down, you know, like Personality conflicts

(52:17):
have to happen the more peopleyou get.
And like, right now we're kindof in this little pristine, it's
still very stressful, but like,dude, we have, we raised seven
million dollars.
Everyone's getting the moneythey want.
It's not that stressful, youknow, compared to yeah, yeah,
it's anyway.
I just think, like you know, sothat's the mindset stuff, you
know.
I just, I just tell everybodyconfidence and speed.

(52:41):
You can't have too much ofthose two things you know,
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
I like your mountain climbing analogy.
I like your mountain climbinganalogy.
In fact I use it Myself as well, because I say many people
climb the mountain, but noteverybody makes it to the summit
, right.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, and that's why I mean, that's why I told you, I
talked to people like, why am Idoing tembo?
Why am I taking on postgres?
There are, literally this isthe super red ocean there's
hundreds of competitors, all thebig clouds, all have a
Competitive product, you know.
So I basically said this isMount Everest, you know, to me,
and I don't need to get to thetop of Mount Everest, but if I

(53:19):
do, if I do, if I, if I canbuild the postgres company, like
holy crap, like what anaccomplishment.
And you know it's, it's, it'slike, okay, let's just let's
start climbing, see what happens.
You know, am I prepared?
Can I make it?
Have I done enough?
You know, training in life, youknow, and my career, to get to

(53:41):
the top of this thing, likewe'll see.
But Right, that's that's, Ithink, at some point.
That's why a lot of these, a lotof founders, start something,
even though they don't need to,is they just want to do
something even harder than theydid last time.
They, you can try to run upMount Everest, like if you,
let's say, you climbed it once,but now, like I have a friend,
actually one of my investors,ethan from Venrock.

(54:01):
He like runs up, runs upmountains and runs down
mountains.
I'm like, wow, like oh man, youknow it's like we went up this
path.
You know, in San Francisco itwas like an hour up in an hour
back.
He's like, oh, I usually runthis.
I'm like, oh my god, you know,he's like I mean, there's always
a way to make it harder, youknow.

(54:22):
Right if that became too easyfor him, he could wear a
backpack while running it, youknow so.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Well, always push yourself hard, do hard things,
and eventually you'll you'llfind lightning in a bottle,
right.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's good, I mean, if you can,
yeah, it, like I said, it's allpreparation for, for the
opportunity that are presentedto you and and every time you do
something hard, you learn.
You learn something valuable, Ithink, whether you win or lose.
And yeah, I mean, I mean I'mstill like I consume podcasts
like like Very thirstily, youknow, like knowledge.

(54:58):
I'm like, oh, my god, I don'ttell him, tell my new sales
leader Read, listen to thispodcast, take notes let's talk
about, because there was likethere was like 20 gems in there
and it's, you know, in somecases, like I care about his
learning more, more so than mine, because I, you know, I want
him to do all these great thingsthis guy's talking about.
So, yeah, it's just, even ifyou're, you know, you kind of,

(55:18):
are somewhat accomplished Always, if you're always learning,
your help, you know, and youhave people around you, they're
gonna, it's gonna rub off onthem.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
So Absolutely, and I think we need to constantly have
a hunger and thirst forlearning, and I think my big
takeaway on a lot of thisConversation is if you're not in
the mix and understandingsoftware and data, you're gonna
get left behind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, as we approach the end ofour time together today, we
always like to share a couple oftakeaways that we can emphasize

(55:46):
for the audience, mostly firstand second time CEOs.
What are the best two pieces ofparting wisdom that you would
share?

Speaker 3 (55:55):
I would just say, like go to San Francisco, meet
people, build a network thereand have the rule number one.
And then I would just say rulenumber two they say fake it till
you make it.
You know that confidence, youknow, find yourself, figure out
a way to get yourself into aconfidence state of mind, or
else you're, you're doomed insome ways, you know, to

(56:17):
non-success.
And then speed you know likeencourage your team, encourage
your Yourself to just move wayfaster than you think you could.
I'll give you one last example.
Like my dishwasher broke Broke,got an Electrician out here.
He's like up, yep, it'sdefinitely broke, it's not the
electricity.
And then I just went to Lowe'sI bought the thing and it's

(56:40):
coming.
You know like it's like in 15minutes the new one was ordered.
You know that that's the speedand confidence, like, is it the
perfect one?
Like I don't know.
Like, like our dishwasherdoesn't really matter too much
to me and it's off my plate now,you know.
So, yeah, that's the kind ofstuff that you can make really.
You know, non-consequentialdecisions very quickly, and not
everybody does that.
They'll, they'll, they'll.

(57:00):
Shop too long for somethinglike that.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
So right, paralysis by analysis.
Don't get stuck there, yeah.
Good, Well, this has been greatright.
Yep, great hanging out with youExcellent.
I appreciate you making thetime today and I know our
audience is gonna enjoy thisepisode Awesome.
Well, that's it for thisepisode of the smart money
ventures podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
Our guest has been a Rye Walkerfounder and CEO of Tenbo,
co-founder of astronomer and aninvestor at fire road ventures.

(57:25):
Thanks for listening and welook forward to seeing you on
the next episode of the smartmoney ventures podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
Right, thank you.
That was great man.
Thanks, yeah it's fun.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yeah, it's awesome.