What Comes After the Exit? Building Again with Travis Hevelone Ep 32

Yeah, so I think I was 39 at the time.

So I had probably, I don't know, 15 years in industry.

I was with a couple engineering firms, turned IT guy around end of 1990s, right? Kind of got in IT doing consulting, ran a couple consultancies, got into managed services, right? which was also very IT related.

And I was just at a point where I was kind of feeling restless in my career.

I kind of was going back into like 20, 30 person companies, helping them grow to hundreds, thousands.

And then, I don't know, there's something about when a company gets to like several hundred into the thousands where I just can't do it.

I'm like a startup guy.

I like to know everybody.

I like that small, knit, personal connections.

And so, you know, I had done that two or three times.

And I thought, am I going to do this the rest of my life? And, you know, 39 going on 40, it's kind of one of those moments for most guys, right? Where you kind of take stock and you kind of go, what's the rest of my career going to be like? And so I want to do something for myself, right? You hear all the glamour stories about entrepreneurship, how...

how sexy it is and you can make all this money.

And so as I was approaching 40, I said, you know, I want to do my own thing.

I want to be one of those founders.

I had been in a company prior that they exited and I saw the founders like make real wealth.

And I thought, yeah, I want to do that.

That's the way to make a lot of money is build your own company and sell it.

I'm very founder-oriented.

If I'm your employee, I'm still thinking like a founder.

So I'm like, I might as well start my own company.

So in 2012...

I came across an idea that was out of Colorado State University.

So I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado.

That's kind of our flagship university here, Colorado State University.

Go Rams.