 Hey GovCon Giant family your host Eric Coffey here bringing you another episode of the GovCon Giant's podcast and today's guests We're featuring mr. Ali Bay of Height Bay and Associates He built not one but two successful federal contracting businesses and in today's episode We're going to discuss those companies the first company that he built developed from a niche marketplace Serving meteorological weather stations He took that niche and then turn that into a multi-million dollar opportunity for himself and his future Employees and then the second company came as a result of scratching his own itch Doing the process of growing that first business He learned about the requirements of CMMC and he had to quickly implement those Particular requirements for his company for his IT staff and for the customer that he was serving And so he was able to come up with a way of doing so that he is now Introducing into the marketplace and we're going to discuss all that and more in today's upcoming episode of GovCon Giant's Thank you so much. Stay tuned if you like love Want to comment make sure to leave all your comments and the show notes below on today's episode. Thank you My name is Ali Ahu, Kairu Edoa Bay Junior I know that's a mouthful my friends call me Ali. So Ali Bay I'm the president and CEO of a small defense contracting company called HATES Bay and Associates and HATES spelled H-A-I-G-H-T Again Bay my last name is the UI We're currently we're currently a prime on several weather based U.S. Air Force contracts and sub on a few cyber security initiatives Around the U.S. Second to HATES Bay and Associates We are doing business as a company called Totem Technologies and Totem Technologies is a cyber security compliance based Organization and we focus on small and medium-sized businesses Ensuring that they understand NIST and CMMC compliance how to adhere to it We help them develop system security plans plan of action and milestones and a process of rolling out Cyber security compliance within their organization while ensuring that it's cost-effective and not So burdensome that they would rather quit Or shut down their business rather than just try to comply hmm And right before we did that you were telling me that you you want a contract They got you out of your basement into a corporate environment. Yeah. Yeah, so I started I started HATES Bay in 2014 Just out of my basement and kind of on a well out of necessity like I said earlier I had lost my job and what I knew was defense contracting what I knew was program management So I decided to try to try it myself try the small business route and in government contract So first couple first couple proposals I wrote I kind of failed miserably at 2015 my luck turned around and wrote a proposal with the help of a large portion of my existing team Right now, and we ended up winning a forty seven and a half million dollar IDI click ID IQ contract I say we it was a team of five of us that sat down and wrote to our core competencies and wrote to what we knew in the past By the way, just so you know, I mean a lot of us we started after that 2008 Yeah, debacle a lot I mean a lot of people really that changed the pathway for so many folks out there It's like it reset a lot of the entrepreneurship in the business community. Yeah, so I I call it an accidental entrepreneur I call myself. Let's say that an accidental entrepreneur. I didn't really I didn't really mean to do it I was a procrastinator. So I drug my feet on on getting my completing my degree Just a couple of credits shy when I found myself jobless So I knew that my skill set was far far surpassed my education level So the best thing that I could do for myself and my family was just started to start something on my own But your rights the economic turned down in 2008 2010 Kind of through everybody for a for a big loop and that my family and I found ourselves beholden to Corporations because that's what we were dependent upon for our for our insurance Some of my family has special needs. So no like it or love it Obamacare did something great for our family and made it so that's when I made that decision to step away from To step away from corporate America. I could knowing the special needs by family I couldn't go out and find health care on the exchange without that. It would have been It would have been Unsurmountable for us to try to climb that insurance hill without that without that help. So That's an interesting point you brought up because I hear so many entrepreneurs that that's one of the reasons They don't leave their jobs is for the insurance. Yeah, so well, I'll just come right out with it My wife has multiple sclerosis. So it's it's a very debilitating disease for her and in some aspects our family as well We were to the point back then that you know by February we had reached everything out of pocket So if it wasn't for HSA or our maximum out of pocket if it wasn't for HSA and the money that we had scrolled away the year before We would have been broke every year come February just just for out-of-pocket medical expenses So that was one of the reasons I never even Consumplated starting my own starting my own business. So when I when I lost my job and was forced into it That's the first place I went was the was the marketplace to try to find health care. I figured out that it was By no stretch of the imagination easy, but at least it was somewhat affordable It was a lot more affordable than going then forgoing insurance when you have we have health care problems, right? so Was able to navigate those waters collectively as a family 2014 Started the company in 2015 got our first win when we got our first win I was already imagining how I wanted to structure an organization a small organization I wanted to take the structure that I had at the large primes that I worked at and and Duplicate that so that I could offer as a small five-person organization. I wanted to be able to offer the same type Benefits that large primes did now of course my pockets aren't that deep So I fell a little short, but I was still able to to provide Ample health care for my employees 401k and 401k match we don't have it We don't have a time-off policy and I believe one of the reasons that works so well for small business is people taking It's easy to see it's easy to identify those people who are going to take advantage of you and the company if you have A very open paid time-off policy So if you don't have any structure around and say hey take take the time that you need make sure your job's done Make sure your people are taken care of make sure your boss knows what's going on And take the time that you need to make sure to ensure that you have a healthy work-life balance Some people are going to take advantage of that and they're going to do so pretty quickly So it's been an easy way for us to identify those people who are going to work Within our culture and those people that we want to to be around us So at first I was I had mentors that were telling me no that's never gonna work You don't want to offer unlimited PTO, but so so far for our organization. It's worked I mean, you know, it's showed us quickly who's gonna work out. Who's not so that's actually a really interesting test Because you're right people wheat themselves out. I mean, they're the ones you give them the rope and they hang themselves I mean, obviously if you leave for a month pay time off With no conditions or no illness. That's a spelling a lot about you know You are as a person or individual that's actually really interesting Well, it's it's I think that my mindset there is gonna have to change as we grow We're up to about 17 people full and part-time right now It's still working, but I think once you break that like 50 person threshold It's really hard for me to have a personal relationship with 50 people as the CEO So I think we would I think we're gonna have to tweak it a little bit as we grow So that that's one of those It's one of the things in the back of mind like do I really want to grow I really want to lose this family kind of mentality that we have here at this company You know outside sources looking in always tell you grow grow grow grow, but right on like We're pretty happy where we're at. We found a pretty comfortable little niche It's not my personality to be complacent though So I know we started in 2015 with five people were up to 17 now We still try to be as lean as we possibly can in every aspect that we that we work But it's gonna it's there's gonna come a point where we're gonna win another contract And we're gonna have to add another group of people. So I'm gonna share a couple thoughts There's a book that I'm listening to By Reed Hastings, okay, and it's called no rules rules Netflix and the culture of reinvention Okay, and he talks about the same kind of policy that you that you discussed about them And again, that's that Netflix Okay, and you know how big they are Yeah, yeah, definitely something that you may want to listen to about how they built their culture and For a large organization. So it's really interesting because again, it's very similar to which we're just talking about On the money. The other thing is yeah Yeah, definitely and the other thing is you know I have some friends who have like comfort business and they they said hey look I don't want to get any bigger, you know, and they literally will work Like six eight months out the year and then the rest of the year they go to the Caribbean You know, I think that says something something to say about that as opposed to as an entrepreneur, right? We could we could when does it ever end and we could work ourselves and Definitely and there's always there's always something new that I'm always Want to play with and you know being a being a black man in this in any industry in the United States One of the things that resonates with me is that generational wealth You know something that something that a lot of our people have missed out on over the past few hundred years So there's a there's a part of me that's always thinking in the back of my mind Well, if I stop now have I done what I could do for future generations and I haven't been able to fully answer that question yet, so I Can tell you that's part of the reason why I started teaching government contracting online is a lot of people You know, I I would meet some of my counterparts Like you said that we're non-black and they would know about industries and businesses things that I had never heard of before Right, and I remember someone saying to me They had a friend of theirs that would host like executives and CEOs and take them out They go that would be a really good job for us. That's a job for people Someone has that job It's going back to government contracting, you know, when we had career dares, we didn't have government contractors come to our career day Okay, and that's changed because you know, I've attended career days and I let people know about these various industries and Going back to again Rob Wong the interview that I did with him He pointed something out to me, which was interesting small business contracting last year was about 130 billion Okay, just small business contracting the NFL NBA and NHL hockey combined is less than 130 billion But where are the kids energy going? Where's the efforts going, right? We believe that that's a pathway Right, but when you look at it Government contracting is bigger than all three of those areas combined and you know Now we're talking I'm gonna grab the stats of movies so like we could see how it compares like entertainment and movies because This is a huge opportunity for a lot of people and again with only 2,000 Companies really grind a lion's share it again. You walked into the industry. I walked into the industry There's we could and you know, we can all come in and provide value and there's room for everyone So that's part of my mission again with educating Folks out there about the power of government contracting like you said Which is actually a question of mine, but you already beat me to it formal education Versus actual, you know street smarts and you said do you have guy you put it you put that what do you say you? You were smart what you were smarter than education told or something to that effect you said Yeah, I knew that my my skill set was greater than what my education said You did but it but it's perfect, but that's a perfect fit for an entrepreneur And that's the recipe right and again a lot of people the education system wasn't designed for everyone Absolutely. Yeah, and I think there's something to be said about which you know that statement that you made because again, like it's that's a It's difficult because within within the large primes Education still is key. I mean that there are there is some value in Having real practical experience but getting that real practical experience and then going to work for primes almost impossible So if you don't have a bachelor's degree of some level or some type of military specific military experience in a job that that large prime is looking for Getting your foot in the door is almost impossible and on honestly whenever I became a program manager That's the way I felt I didn't feel like I had the Traditional education level that was going to be required for me to do the job What I found was my practical experience suited me a lot better Than anything that I had learned in school because as a program manager it was understanding for this specific program that I worked on it was Understanding what our warfighter was going through Understanding what their needs were and being able to communicate that back to a corporate level being able to work as the liaison between our government contracting officer and program management team to the original equipment manufacturers and then back to again to the to the users and just Utilizing what I knew my skill set as that liaison so instead of looking at myself as a program manager I looked at myself as a communicator. So I was able to I was able to clearly Communicate what it was the warfighters needed. So I found that more important than education was understanding what my customers needs actually were and again, it boils down to Clear customer service and understanding what I could provide what I couldn't provide and then communicate and that served me that served me quite well and I don't know that any College level course that I ever took could have served me better than just living the life one as a soldier and Again as part of an OEM manufacturing equipment and sitting on the sitting on the large prime side figuring out Trying to figure out what it is our customer actually needed How did a five-person team win a 47 million dollar IDI queue? Did you partner with someone a large organization? Past performance wasn't required. Oh, I mean, how does that work? Yeah, so for one I was the foremost expert in this product that we're looking at there was nobody else in the United States That knew a much as much about this tactical system as I knew and it's because I worked for the OEM and I had a great relationship with the original equipment manufacturer Developed all of their depot level services and their logistic supply and support of the large prime that first won the contract out of ILS So I worked there as a liaison the five-person team. I had worked with in the past So I had trained them on every on almost every aspect of the program that we were going after so we knew it very Intimately we were not strangers to our government customer. Our government customer had known me for 10 years so when people tell you that it's all about relationships and Relationships matter. It's very true even in government contracting if you if the if your government customer doesn't know you it's hard for them to trust you and Trust me when I say that the government customer loves our users just as much as I do and They're not going to entrust someone that they don't know With running a program that is in support of a warfighter because they're there to do a job And they want to ensure that the contract they're Contractors that they hire to support these guys know how to support them know how to do their job So how did a five-person team win such a large contract? It was Long-term relationships Focusing on what we knew and what we knew well The reason I lost those other contracts is because I didn't know them as well I didn't have the intimacy of What the what the users were going through what the struggles of the program management level on the At the government side was what their needs were what their shortcomings were on the other side of the house I knew all of that. So if you can find a niche Exploit it an exploit might not be the right word, but you've developed your expertise or at least for me Anyway, I developed my expertise in this obscure area called Meteorology and most people think of meteorologists or meteorologists or meteorology as the you know, the guy on the news Telling you what tomorrow's weather is gonna be that data had to come from somewhere So where it comes from our boots on the ground collecting little tidbits of information from all over the globe and then feeding that information up to to Big Air Force so that they can use it to make mission and critical decisions So while some people see that it's you know that are specially you know, you're just working on weather stations You're just working on things that measure temperature and humidity. How important can that be? there's lots of operational decisions that are made strictly on weather data Go and no go decisions for you know inserting supplies inserting special ops flying Specific missions that they all come from they all have a weather components to it So it's it's not glamorous. We're not kicking indoors and we're not supporting any large weapon system That's protecting ships of any of any size, but what we do we find Extremely valuable to overarching mission of the U.S. Air Force well said we worked at NOAA and Had a chance to see them send off those weather balloons in the air Which is really cool. I don't meet a lot of people that are supporting weapon systems. Anyways, I meet people that built the hub zone map or designed their website or you know people that like you said we know I were you know what the actual sitting off the balloons in the stations, but we were only there to remodel facilities, you know fixed to air conditioners replace the systems things like that But and being around, you know, we get to see what they're doing So that's I think that's really interesting and I and I do Think nowadays given all of the natural disasters people understand how important the weather is No, I think I think given all the natural disasters that's occurring. I think people value the weather For sure, and it's kind of funny that you brought up NOAA and weather balloons That means that we were only about one degree of separation from each other because the OEM that I kept referring to is a Finnish company called Vaisala and Vaisala supplies all of those weather balloons for here You had one in your hands more than likely I knew the engineer or the technician that put that together and and made that possible We just said we said at the beginning how small the world was, right? Wow, Vaisala. Yeah, I think I have a picture of someone I gotta get a picture I think a picture of one of my people. Maria who set up the center room. She I have to I think I have a picture of her holding it Oh, really? I'm gonna see if it has a Vaisala Yeah, yeah, so on one of the one of the first times I ever went out and taught students about whether it was in Colorado and there's a there's a picture of me holding a very large weather balloon with all these kids looking at and And we're just odd at the size of this monstrous balloon they could care less about the equipment that is caring Right, it's the balloon like a big balloon, right? Which I think that's true, right? That's the fascinating part is it it is a big balloon as opposed to the equipment that you don't know What's inside of it? So interesting enough? Let's talk cyber security. Okay? I know this is a hot topic and there's a lot of changes And I had someone on and it's been probably over a year since I had someone on our show discussing cyber security Now as I understand they are putting Into some of the contract language that you must be compliant with CMMC And so that's starting to happen more often. So what's happened in the last year on this and CMMC What's whether some of the new updates and changes that people should be looking out for Be aware of and then we could talk about Uh, you know your preparation methodology and some other things that you guys are doing Okay, I can give you the I can give you the super high-level um CEO perspective of what's going on with Cyber security once we get into once we get into the weeds. I gotta call somebody smarter than me. Okay. All right. No, that's okay I'm not gonna know the weeds. All right. Good. Good. So we're talking my language NIST the national institute of standards and technology has rolled out a For a lack of better description of a list of um required NIST 800 171 rolled out a list of requirements for that that stated all Contractors prime or subs need to need to adhere to you know, these 120 different cybersecurity controls ensuring basically that our Countries intellectual property collective intellectual property Is protected as well as possible on the toes of NIST was a compliant matrix called cmmc, which is very similar to Um a compliance matrix that was there a maturity. Let's say that a maturity model It was very similar to a software security model that the u.s. Government prime and subcontractors have been using for years basically it's it's Measuring your your cybersecurity maturity level and then basing that against the type of Con controlled unclassified information your organization is utilizing and controlled unclassified information. That's one of the most complicated most complicated pieces of information to identify right now for prime contractors subcontractors and for our contracting or program management offices A lot of people don't know what cui is. So that's the that's the crux of cmmc right now is trying to get an identification of what is cui within our infrastructure So it is It's a big nut to crack and One of the first large contract that we won about 30 of it was cybersecurity except it was instead of on instead of compliance it was hardening of Some of the assets that we supported for for the for the warfighter So we came with a very unique Capability into the government contracting world. So when this day 171 hits We thought you know it'd be relatively easy for us to Get and stay compliant. So our cyber security team which consisted of two people at the time took on the endeavor of adhering or getting us as close to Compliant as possible against in this day 171 standard It's it's a misnomer saying that you could ever be fully compliant because you you can't be a change Just so often your organization changes so often you just have to have a plan a plan of action milestones to to basically a roadmap for your organization on what you're going to do Today and you know five years from now to Get and stay as compliant as possible So as as we started this journey, we realized that you know other small mom and pop shops in the defense That are part of the defense industrial base There's no possible way that they could adhere comply to this stuff because it's extremely complicated and the language behind it is quite difficult to understand and decipher and Implement down to a business level As a CEO I I as a CEO of a defense contracting company I thought I knew everything that I possibly needed to know about defense contracting and I think Eric You've read the far or at least some of it. We all have and it's it's a mess as it is so Now take the far and add this NIST standard to it. It only becomes more and more complicated. So My first and most logical solution to this was to reach out to an IT support company Reach out to my msp reach out to somebody who knew more about cyber than we did and see what they could do It would help us implement some of these controls and actions so that we could keep our keep our contracts what I found was No one knew as much as we did about the NIST 800 171 specifically And by no one I mean no No company that you would call that's an IT firm or a managed service provider that claims to You know install boxes with the linky lights and solve all of your cyber security problems Like it's it's not a one-for-one like that doesn't solve any of your NIST or cmc problems Or very few of them anyway So what we found was that the companies didn't know all that know a lot about it and the costs were prohibitive for small companies So I I received quotes from organizations starting around $50,000 up to about $250,000 For at that time. I think we were up to eight people for a small eight person team That may or may not process ceo I to comply with this standard so Again, I jumped ahead a little bit there So we decided to roll our own we decided to do it all in-house because it was cost prohibitive We started this journey in late 2015 early 2016 Got serious about it in 2017 by the end of 17 We realized that we had in stacks and stacks of documents that Were going to help us prove our compliance right so when an otter came through the door We were going to be able to show him 10,000 pages of Excel spreadsheets and prove that we were compliant Well that in and of itself was a nightmare extremely burdensome No way that anybody could actually stay on top of documents like that So our cyber security lead decided to create a cloud-based solution for us internally Okay, so that we could so that we could have you have a little bit more manageable platform So we developed that at the end of the Initial kind of wireframe diagram what what this software solution is going to look like We're sitting in this conference room and we decided at that time that We probably had a solution here that we could that we could Share with our small business peers because one of our biggest fears One of my biggest fears was that large primes were going to push us out because there was no way that small business Could continue to to support or to continue to adhere to these standards So so at late 2017 that became our passion. All right, so we want to keep the defense industrial base Um consisting of the majority majority of small businesses So there's 2,000 primes that support the u.s. Government There's about 300,000 small businesses that that make up what's called div or the defense industrial base So that's who our focus was this small mom and pop shops that were operating out of their out of their garage I was trying to figure out how in the world they were going to comply to the same standard that you know Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman had to apply had to apply it to their networks so 2018 we found out rapidly that we had no idea what the hell we were doing in marketing and We did not speak marketing language at all. We were defense contractors and there was we rarely ever marketed ourselves to Other businesses and that's what we were trying to do. So we fell right on our face at 2018 Was this new solution that we were rolling out that was going to save everybody So in 2019 we actually hired someone who knew what they were doing in marketing We rolled out a platform that we were calling totem and totem at the time was what we were referring to as a GRC or a government risk and compliance tool Our marketing team came to Myself and my cyber lead and said hey, how about instead of marketing this software solution? We just market a whole new company. So that's why we're currently doing business as totem technologies So totem technology is a compliance-based company and what we do is we train from the ground up we train From the very basics of NIST 800 171 through cmc Through a series of online webinar based trainings and basically It's three weeks of an hour and a half Excuse me Monday, Wednesday and Friday learning from our cyber security expert about The things that we went through over the last five years and the learning curves that we've done that we've Endured and you know getting best practices out of the industry and utilizing the tool that we've created To implement your system security plan and control and track your system security plan and your plan of action milestones So that when it comes time for the for the small businesses to be audited We are ready and it's not just a stack of paper that no one really understands We're trying to come at it from a holistic perspective and teach people that this is Like we talked about earlier Eric This is just implementing a pc in your workspace instead of using carbon copy paper instead of using a typewriter So it's it's nothing earth shattering. It's nothing. It's nothing that Has to break the bank. It sure can but it doesn't have to It's just a dynamic shift in the way that we do business and we believe that small businesses Simply need to understand that and once they understand it they can start working through that process and adhering to these new cmc controls so There's a lot of fear out there around it and trust me. I felt that fear I knew that you know the level of cyber security that we Had to adhere to or cyber security compliance that we had to adhere to if we didn't get our ducks in a row and get Straight quickly we lost that competitive advantage. So if we had any any competitors out there that said hey I'm I'm cmc compliant our government contractor our government Program officer program team would look at them a little bit more favorable than they would look at us So as couple It's multifaceted. I guess one we wanted to help small business But at the same time we wanted to develop develop a competitive advantage that we felt at the time No one else could actually Could could could develop as quickly no one else at our size level could comply like we could So we've been holding our hand up for years saying hey make us the very first small business to get audited To the cmc because we believe the way that we're doing it is The only well, it's for one. It's absolutely compliant for two. It's the only way that small businesses are going to be able to adhere on a budget and We've been out we've been out now for a year and a half Teaching this to other companies and I'm happy to say that we have about 99 about we have exactly a 99 a customer satisfaction rating on All of our classes and on the utilization of the software that we have that we have out there And instead of tens of thousands of dollars for this Solution it's hundreds of dollars. So every small business can can afford it. And again, that's that's my passion is Small business and making sure that we get to stay in this defense industrial space No, I like that. We absolutely need it And like I said, this is supposed to be from what I've read the year where they finally start Requiring it of us, right? So they've said for years. It's been mandated It's it was part is supposed to be done. But but it's saying that for 10 years Yeah, it's a very slow and complex rollout. Um, right now the Right now Our government doesn't have enough auditors to out and audit the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that are out there So what they're doing is they're they're auditing a few very critical infrastructure contracts we've been privy to some of the auditing that's happening around the around the nation right now and it's it's extremely intense You know, some of the large primes that we've talked to you said it's the most difficult audit that they've ever gone through. So But you know, they're they're making it through and sharing some of the information as far as you know The good and the bad of the of the auditing practices that are out there With us so that we're so we're trying to Um, again roll some of the best practices that that they found Into into our solutions and communicate that to small businesses that are that are out there and waiting for it So, yeah, right now. I think there's only seven for 2020 2021 seven companies that are that are Slated to be auditing it against the cmc compliance whether it be one through five You know, whatever whatever levels those are the majority of folks are gonna Everybody's gonna fall into a cmc level one, you know regardless of what you do And basically If you're out there wondering what cmc level one is if you look at what's called the far 17 or the best the 17 best practices for cyber security That's basically going to Equal a cmc level one compliance And it's gonna it's gonna go up from there. There are a lot of the dip will end up being cmc level three depending on what level of CUI Or unclassified information you process within your network very few Probably selected to the big primes will need to be a level four and five. So Small businesses normally, you know, generally speaking, we're gonna be somewhere one two or three Which is relatively easy to comply to I say relatively There's there's some costs associated with it. There's like I said earlier dynamic change in the way that you have to do business But it's absolutely doable. It's it's just an education. So You just need we just need about three weeks of our time. We'll show you how to do it When you say a dynamic change in a way to do business So I went to a visit one of our podcast guests And when we came in, uh, we had to sign a book with our name on it Okay, yeah Something like that. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know having the log of Anybody and everybody that comes in and out of your organization Having a inventory of every asset in your organization when I say asset, I mean it asset So if you allow folks to BYOB and bring their own or BYOD Bring your own device to work. Are you implementing mac filter? Do you know every device that's coming in and touching your network? Are your networks properly segregated? Do you have a guest network that touches your primary network? What type of information are you housing on your network? If you're housing controlled and classified information, is it segregated from everything else? Or is it just lumped in with, you know, all of your company financials and your HR data? How are you transmitting information? via email Are you emailing what could be CUI? Straight uncrypted to your government customer or maybe even to your to your subcontract yourself If you have CUI in your possession that you have to flow those requirements down to anybody else that might touch that information So, you know here internally we When I say a dynamic shift in the way that we do business in the past, we always work very comfortable in And attaching a pdf attaching a microsoft word document excel emailing into wherever we want to email We don't do that anymore. We now upload them to a secure server and then we send a link to our customer Even internally and i'll tell you internally it is like pulling teeth Trying to get people to always upload the document to the to the server rather than emailing it because you know what? It's just it's quite frankly easier. Just email it right and i'm guilty of it Everybody's guilty of it. Like if i'm in a hurry man, I just want to I don't I don't want to upload that I just want to attach it and send it because you know who who cares like right? It's it's such a small piece of data like nobody nobody's going to care like What's on this or the cover letter of this to or like The the insert of you know the little bit of information about How you do proper maintenance on this piece of equipment? And I just need somebody to look it over real quick to make sure there's no typos What our adversaries do is they look for those opportunities You know, they take these little tiny pieces of information And they collect them like a big jigsaw puzzle and they put them together And that's how you know the chinese variant of the f35 looks very very similar to the united states f35 And we didn't share that information with chinese not knowingly they Were very good at stealing is a strong word, but yeah stealing that stealing that those little piece of information and then putting it together and Putting all those little pieces together and coming up with a variant of a stealth fighter that is Tens of millions of dollars cheaper than ours. So What's the danger in that? Well, um, they can build 10 fighters for the for the cost of one of ours so There's a level of national security that that should that should flag everybody that you know, we don't we don't want any Large adversary, um, especially in nation state like china being able to outbuild us on a high performance fighter jet or high performance any type of military asset It's bad for our national defense. So if we can't stop the outflux of these little Tiny pieces of data We're basic We're basically giving away all of our intellectual property all of our innovations We're giving them away for free china and some of our other adversaries they don't have to innovate because they've innovated on Breaking into our national infrastructure our databases and taking What we have failed to secure if you don't lock your doors in your house and somebody comes in and takes your stuff We'll shame on them. But also you could lock the door, you know, you could have you could have had a Deadbolt you could have a dog that probably would have slowed them down Probably would have kept them from taking at least the majority of your stuff. So that's what we need to do as As a nation as part of the defense industrial base. We need to make sure that we're locking our doors. We've got a guard doll Because they're going to get in it's just a matter of how long they're going to be there And what information they're going to be able to take out So we have to be able to limit that. I like that. I like that now your website. I have it up here It's totem totem dot tech dot tec h Correct. I'm looking at the webinar that you offer how to comply with cmc and this 800 dash 171 requirements Now is have they discussed if there's a penalty if you're not complying with this yet the government wise Yeah, so basically the the penalty the penalty is um, you won't be awarded contracts Or you have your existing contracts taken taken away if you Attested to being compliant and then you get audited and they figure out that you're not compliant They can take away your contract for lack of performance. Yeah Sometimes fear of loss is a greater motivator than opportunity to gain. So again Discussing. Yeah, you know, I want to be a compliance and I want to show that I have a competitive edge That may not motivate everyone. Yeah Um, and you brought up a point that I forgot to touch earlier and you asked a question about past performance And the way that we in past performance is extremely important. Um, a lot of times the government will omit past performance But a lot of times they want to see it. So I was worried when he first when I was first Being on contracts. So I convinced my father-in-law who has had an engineering company for 34 years to allow me to Solicit contracts under his company. Um, so that's that's how we perform. That's how we prove past performance He rapidly whenever we started getting cybersecurity said I don't want to have any part of this anymore He's like I'm very comfortable doing business to business and business to consumer Um, engineering support is like I have no interest in doing government contracts at all um, so he's not worried about adhering to those those standards at all because He's made the decision the strategic decision for his company that they're not going to work in a defense industrial base any longer Because it's too complicated. They don't want to put up with the bureaucracy. So there are companies that are going to do that I you know, I've seen that. I mean, I've heard that now even before cyber security effort people They didn't want to work with in the government space because it was just too complicated overall. So, uh, I'm not surprised whatsoever I mean, I've seen I remember I had students mine reach out and for solicitations where they were specifying this particular type of equipment And the manufacturer says I I don't want to sell to the government They're like, I'm not interested in selling to the government. We're like, uh, and I go, are you kidding me? They go, they're specifying your equipment and the guy goes Nah, and he says talk to one of the distributors distributors said no, we don't sell to the government either we're not gonna we're not gonna Register and Sam or do anything to sell to them. Yeah, speaking that tell us a story about growing the business I mean, what was that like again starting off losing your job? How did you get five people and then how did you get to 20 people? Yeah, um, that's a that's a great question Right, because I mean, I'm sure a lot of people that that don't have jobs can't afford to hire five people right off the bat Yeah, and Needed to die and that was Really difficult thing, you know, when I won this contract. I was I was literally working at Tyson foods on the midnight shift Running a tortilla line. So I was manufacturing tortillas with about 100 other folks and That was a very humbling experience So I got the call The day before I started a midnight shift I went to work and it's the only job I ever quit at the end of my shift I put my keys on the boss's desk and I walked out because I had bigger fish to fry at that point And the biggest one was how how am I going to onboard people and pay them? Because as as you know, the government doesn't pay in advance, you know, they're always paying in the rears They pay for for services rendered. So I went to the bank and I was like, hey, um, Mr. Bank I'd love to have a loan for 90 days worth of Worth of payroll and they gave me the same look you're giving me right now they laugh So they they're like, well great on that contract, but we don't loan on contracts we loan on I don't remember even what he said. So again, it was my partnership with my father-in-law. He gave me He allowed me to utilize his line of credit. So A couple years later I used I used about $85,000 of his line of credit in the first Six months for payroll and just infrastructure costs and getting the company stood up and building office chairs and Conference room equipment that's expensive man. I that's some of the things like I thought of but but it didn't really it didn't matter at the time We have folding tables, you know, so that's really what we started with Holding tables and you know a big open warehouse that was super inexpensive and and cheap to operate out of so Uh, anyway had that line of credit. That's how I paid the folks. That's how we got started the growth came through Came a lot through change orders on the government side. So the government issued the Issued the original contract and then you know, there was a there was a change that's immediately We we needed to add another body to help with some of the logistics aspects of it So then the then the cyber security stuff started maturing So we had to hire not only our engineer But we had to hire hire a cyber security tech and analyst as well to start monitoring some of the traffic on our on our ends and again, that was Somewhat of a change to contract and then we won a couple other small prime opportunities that allowed us to Grow a field service team. So we um, we added a couple trucks and added a couple technicians that just drive around and form preventative maintenance at some of the missile alert facilities around around the west here And again, we after that we got another boost on the cyber side So we hired a another engineer on the on the cyber team kind of free up our prime engineers time it's I didn't have this plan of i'm going to reach You know my next milestone and i'm going to add another employee and then after that there's another milestone that's going to tell me to add another employee another milestone. It's Basically having having having my eyes and ears open around the organization and noticing what's happening And identifying places where we needed to we needed to put people because people were being You know overloaded overworked or you know, the the simplest part was Was getting a new contract and knowing hey this contract we've been we've been at, you know, 1.5 fte's so we know we can at least hire one person and try to make up the other half somewhere else So that that's always the easy part. It's the It's it's growing and the difficult part for me was adding people When I wasn't adding revenue because the complexity around whatever was growing around mostly the cyber side was growing And I didn't know how we were going to There was no way that we were going to be able to stay caught up with the current Were with the current manpower that we had so there were times where you know profit took a hit because we needed Manpower we needed more people to to ensure that we were able to deliver what we promised to deliver So I was never promised profitability. I was never promised anything except a hundred dollars What the government it was what that government contracts said we would guarantee we will spend a hundred dollars with you Everything else is like, you know cross your fingers and see what happens, right? so I know that quality comes first and if delivering a high quality Product or service meant that we were going to have to hire another person and take a hit on profit Then, you know, that's that's what it was. It was never Profit never came first. It was always the warfighter in our case and then our customers so It's adding 15 people over five years It's it's been a learning experience because some of those people are still with us today and some Some have moved on sometimes We hired for a position that we just Ultimately realized that it shouldn't have been a full-time hire. It should have been a part-time, you know It should have been a contract person because really we only needed that person for 90 days But again, our culture was let's bring people in and make them part of the family And see what happened and you know, some of the folks that we've brought in Have brought have opened our eyes to new opportunities Whether it, you know, we've dabbled in construction now. We've done A little bit of work with the Department of Transportation We've done done a little bit of a little bit of everything Some things stick some things don't I think for me a big part of the learning was not being scared to try something new Even if it only meant Barely breaking even or even sometimes even in some cases taking a small loss has been worth us learning has been has been worth the The past performance and being able to put that on our on our resume So some things we'll never do again. It's the things We keep our eyes wide open to I mean, you're still a relatively new entrepreneur, you know starting 2014 Yeah, brand brand new. So I don't I don't even I don't know what's next honestly So I'm part of an organization called warrior rising and what we do is we take veterans and Turn them into what we call a veteran or so we take veterans with a great idea for an existing business or Like I said an idea for a business and we put them through a a boot camp. We'll Teaching them all the ends of also running a business I try to mentor those folks that want to go into the Yeah defense contracting or government contracting side of the house Last year we helped over a thousand veterans start businesses. Unfortunately. It's just like every other business out there It's just like every other entrepreneurial venture out there. There's only about one in ten. They're actually gonna work out You know and the rest have to Change and or go to work for somebody else. So it's important just to get out and try and And and see what happens. So is there a cost associated with that warrior rising? No, no, it's absolutely free to veterans and their family members If you got a warrior rising dot org And and sign up and we'll put you through put you into the next cohort or boot camp of business entrepreneurship At the end of the process if you're still part of Warrior rising you still have us. Yep. There we are. And you still have a strong idea and a desire to go forth. We help you I've actually started an incubator space here in my facility. So we have dedicated office space for veterans and minority Business owners that want to come in and just need a place to need a place to start from So we allow that to happen here. We go out and help you market We help you find funding We help you grow through introductions to our vast network and and funding through sba or funding through local banks or funding through A network of angel investors that we have out there this year We're doing what we call business showers. So we're taking every quarter. We're taking 12 high-performing Vectorpreneurs and Bringing them to a location like in march. We'll bring them here to solid city And we've got some very special activities planned for those veterans and I think so. Yeah, so we're gonna do that each quarter starting here in solid city I want to go deeper, but I can't and then we're going to napa valley Then we're gonna do los vegas and our final one will be at the army navy game and at medlife stadium At the end of at the end of 2021 in december. So If you know any if you know any veterans looking to get into entrepreneurship Push in my way won't get them into warriorizing to show you what to do. No, absolutely. Absolutely. No again and and we You know, we again like the vib network. I told you we promoted them really heavily For their conference, which was great. I want to change. I have a question. I like to ask people And I really like this question because it pulls out some really unique answers your most recent purchase from amazon that made you happy Um, I bought three things in the last amazon transaction one was a new Bullets antenna for my truck because I was liking snow off my truck yesterday I don't know last friday and not this stupid antenna off So I went and just googled replacement antennas for a Toyota tundra and its bullet popped up I was like, dude, that is awesome. I gotta have a bullet Yeah, I got so I I clicked on that little like it's like a little a little 50 cal like six Clicked on that and when I clicked on that then it took me to these decals There's america flag decals that go on your truck. So I bought I bought some of those the final thing was um kind of cyber and defense security related and that was a locking system for our for a garage door that separates our Fourth bay from our third bay because our fourth bay is what we have dedicated for our worry rising minority business startups and my security team has been very very Worried that we have nothing more than a than a roll-up door So I bought a really kick-ass security system for that for that roll-up door that I think is gonna Uh, I think it's gonna blow their minds super simple, but I can't wait to show them And I want to say it's out loud in case it doesn't and they're unimpressed I'm gonna follow up. Thank you. Well, hopefully uh, you share with it before this comes out Yeah Right, it hasn't arrived yet. Has it it's supposed to it's supposed to be here today. So oh no this won't you still have Probably three with four weeks before we come out this comes out. All right No, it's it it just brings a lot of unique answers from people you learn about things that um Again, the questions that you don't even know to ask Right because you don't know what's happening in a person's life and their story And so that that just you know, it brings out different answers. It's I love it. I love that I'm glad I don't know where it came from, but I'm glad I integrate it now So again as you're learning entrepreneurship What are some of the things that helped you like as a new entrepreneur some resources that maybe you could suggest to other people Are you part of any other organizations things like that that have helped you Like where do you turn to for your advice and mentorship and leadership? Yeah, so that that was um, Luckily, I had a An entrepreneur within the family and my father-in-law. So he taught me a lot. Um, he was ultimately my Start-up mentor. He had never done it the way that I wanted to do it before so I'm sure that I scared the crap out of him in a lot of ways, but um, he He he showed me the ropes on you know startup Not startup. That's the wrong word. He showed me the ropes on just running a business And outside of that I really didn't have a mentor and I wish that I had which is why I got involved with warrior rising So I got involved with warrior rising. I got involved with our local chambers And I know there's a they're gonna paid contingency to local chambers But if you don't have the money and you just go and talk to these folks, they're gonna point you to They're gonna point you to mentors within the community It's gonna help that's gonna help startup entrepreneurs Without a without a fee associated to it. The other place I found was the small business association in every state They always have a great they always have a lot of resources available to two veterans. A lot of it is very very basic But it's a it's a great starting point. It's all about getting to know the people in your community that can help you And can provide that's um mentorship capability There's also an organization called key tech for those folks that want to get into government contracting So it's the procurement technical assistance center here in utah. They're always associated with Colleges so maybe around the your local community college or State-run university could have a p-tech organization Also as an entrepreneur and the entrepreneurs that I've met All entrepreneurs like to talk about what they've created what they've built and how they've done it So, um, I encourage Anybody that's looking to start up in whatever space they want to start up is and especially government contracting to go knock on a door Send an email jump on linkedin Ask some questions because I know Anybody who has ever stopped and asked to talk to me about cyber security or government contracting I've never said no. I don't have time you know Tell me tell me some of the stumbling blocks that I've hit like I I'm always willing to share those stories and Anybody that's listening to this podcast and ask questions and want to reach out to me Feel free I didn't hear any stumbling blocks You tell me what's going up, man For just stumbling blocks. I'm waiting for the stumbling blocks. I heard I heard Nike rise Right. Yeah, I wish I heard a Nike rise A lot of people look at it that way like hey, you went from nothing to a $50 million contract. How is that possible? like well It took it it took the better part of it of 20 years of building that skill set the capability and And being trusted by those people around you. I I can't I can't state enough how important trust is and in a business relationship But if those people around you don't trust you then you won't go anywhere No matter what you know or who you're connected to if you're If they can't get to your customers and those people that you're going to be working with can't trust you Then you might as well go work for somebody else because you're not going to be a successful entrepreneur I like it. I like any favorite quotes sayings Oh, I had a sun zoo and I'm going to screw it up I like sun zoo. I like sun zoo a lot. My son's been reading him and I've read him holding your kids By the way, sorry. Good job. I've got a I've got a almost 21 year old daughter. Okay And um, she has twin brothers that are 13 21 and 13 my wife my wife and I planned on having one and um, You know the good lord blessed us with two more eight years later So we were a little unexpected about that That's nice. That's nice. All right. So go ahead. Tell me about sun zoo. Oh sun zoo So, um, I'm gonna paraphrase here But basically it's um, keep your enemies close keep your friends closer your enemies closer You know, if you if you know your If you know your enemy then you should you never have to fear them in battle, right? So That quote came up this weekend when I was talking to my visit one of my business partners on the cyber side About you know, some of the weird things that are happening within the managed service provider space and you know, how we Navigate some of the relationships that we have out there because a lot of the relationships that we have with msp On the cyber security side They want a piece of the knowledge and capability on on how to develop These cyber best practices for their for their defense clients We have to be careful not to give away the farm. We have to be careful not to Allow them to I I don't want to say steal but you know, take our intellectual property and Utilize it for their financial gain So I rarely consider anybody I don't consider anybody an enemy in this in cyber security business because there's so much Potential cyber business out there that there's not enough service providers So I don't I don't really view anybody as an enemy or a competitor in this space right now There's plenty room for all of us But we've worked hard to develop the solution that we're bringing our small business And I want to make sure that it stays and remains our solution Yeah, I know I the cyberspace I can tell you That I have people in my network that are program managers right now for the government And uh, there are cyber requirements that are they're not being able to fulfill with you know, just like you said There's just not enough providers to to do that. So yeah, if anyone listening go into cyber All your kids out there listening and you're considering what career path to take look into cyber Big opportunity People like you said that we need and what we have Yep, and I have one more thing on cyber Last research I did last year. There was over 200,000 open cyber security jobs within the united states 200,000 Worldwide by 2022 they were predicting 1.5 million open unfilled positions In the cyberspace. It's one of the highest paid industries in the united states Unfortunately, we're trying to grow a business around college grads that are commanding $75,000 a year with no experience and then you know, they'll work for two years and next thing We know they're getting a hundred thousand dollar offers from companies and then two more two years later They're up to 125 and you know, they're barely even 30 years old. So When you're when you suggest to your listeners to go into the cyber realm, it's not just kids. It's Anybody if you're looking for a career dream. Yeah, man think about cyber If my business failed, I might just go back to school and become a cyber security engineer. I don't know No, that's that's not a bad bet and I was uh, I was in a room on clubhouse this weekend We're talking about stem And uh, like you said the people there we're all touting cyber and all the big companies google amazon everyone They've got programs for stem for free to help people to come into this field Just to bring in the next The workforce to build up the work the base of people cyber people. So yeah, I agree with you. This is this is huge Yeah, this is here. All right. I still didn't hear any uh, those those heart heart stories that you were going to Oh the stumbling blocks you're talking about, you know, like I'm still waiting, man You know, I like when people say, you know, my overnight success only cost me 20 years, right? So I love it and I say that to people all the time is that They go man, you've been blowing up on youtube and all this stuff and I go You know, I started making some videos like back in 2014 I mean, I didn't they didn't go anywhere, but I started recording and Concepts lives and I did back in 2012. I looked at some documents I wrote and I've been teaching government kind of attracting since 2008 People at a small level now. I'm just at a bigger stage. That's that's So, you know, I think I think my stumbling block was getting laid off in 2010 and going and trying to find another company or another job to work at and then Finding that's finding the job at the large prime and then getting basically fired from that job So those were You know, I worked at a as I was starting the company I worked at the at a ski hill putting boots on, you know, rich folks going going skiing And that was a very humbling experience for a 40 year old man like putting boots on a 15 16 year old kid that Probably had more in the bank than I did at the time So I think, you know, we've been so fortunate as an organization not to have hit any real large Stumbling blocks even in the midst of kovid, you know on the cyber side One of the one of the services that we're bringing was consultative by nature So we wanted to be in front of the customer. We wanted to be in their facility What we wanted to be helping them from the ground up Build their policies, but when kovid hit we couldn't do that anymore So we honestly thought that there was going to be that we were going to lose the business But you know our team rallied together and we came up with an online solution That actually makes us a lot more scalable and we can reach a lot more folks that, you know Maybe didn't want us in their facility or couldn't afford us to be in their facility now Instead of thousands of dollars for an expert It's hundreds of dollars to talk to that same expert might not get the one on one They want it but we'll still keep those class sizes small So if you want to talk to if you want to talk to the lead engineer You can talk to the lead engineer. I just have to wait five minutes So I guess I guess, you know, there's been some stumbling blocks But as as hate Bay goes as an organization goes we've been so blessed and so I'm just so lucky in so many different aspects that yeah No, that's great. No, and there's again. I mean, I think You said it best was hey you put in 20 years of work to get here. Yeah. Yeah So you've got you had your on-the-job training Absolutely You had your adult training. How can people reach you? What's the best way to people to reach you? website platforms LinkedIn email LinkedIn social media. I'm on I'm on all of them. All right. I go by ollie. It's a lli Last name a be why you can reach me email ollie at hate bay.com or ollie at totem.tech No, that's great. That's great And some final words for people that you want to think about small bits that you're listening to this episode Never never be scared to take that step You know the worst the worst thing that's going to happen for a for an entrepreneur or for a fledgling government contractor As you're going to end up working for somebody more than likely like you do today. So Don't don't be scared to get out there and try because the worst thing that's going to happen is You gain some experience and know how for the next for the next shot of it. So, you know, thank you And I appreciate your honesty. I I really do like the that experience share that you gave towards the end About the ski boots. So I really do like that experience share because I think a lot of yeah, I know it's true Again, people only the people that are recently coming to know you only know this ollie And for me I've always said I like people who've been through something And you you did you know, you've been through some things and I appreciate that You sharing that with the folks because I think it will help a lot more people be able to identify with you I hopes yeah, I hope so and yeah Because there's some people like her listening now that may be working inside of a manufacturer facility as well Okay on a midnight shift. I don't know many people putting on ski boots, but they're doing something else that could be very humbling Uh, there's there's probably very few people putting on ski boots in south florida, but I'll yeah, exactly I hear you talk it's an everyday thing, but I did uh, I did have someone who that I recently trained He's he's a newly uh bd guy that used to be uh, he would he I mean it was More fun, but he did he was like a like a caddy to billionaires and and like, you know Rich people and golf so but again, he says it, you know the way he was treated wasn't that great So it wasn't as exciting as it may seem Yeah, right. So it seems glorious, but it wasn't as glorious. So Thank you for listening Stay on I mean we're gonna just cut off the chat. Thank you everyone for listening today I appreciate you coming on this episode and sharing with us your some of your thoughts or ideas and Also, if you need to reach him, uh, you can reach the company totem. That's t o t e m dot t e c. Thank you guys so much