 Good evening everyone and welcome to entrepreneurial exchange number six insights for entrepreneurs. My name is John Redell. I represent CFS brilliant pathways educational nonprofit that works with students around the country to help them. Career and college possibilities used to we used to think more about just college, but now we opened up into. Different pathways as times have changed and different pathways have emerged. I will introduce our guest soon. He has helped us in the in the way that I just spoke. He spoke about with many of our students tours and kind of get got students thinking about jobs. They hadn't thought about before that's for sure, but I did want to do a little bit of housekeeping first. Some of you have have submitted applications. To the Vermont pitch challenge, which a brief, brief description description for you kind of gives high school entrepreneurs from across the globe. Chance to pitch innovative business ideas that make a difference ideally in your community, but it could be start there and germinate out to have a have a worldwide impact for that matter. But we've gotten some pretty impressive, uh, applicant applications. Already do want to let you know that the deadline 2 more days. Uh, and that that's the, the last February 15th is the last day they'll accept applications. Do want to give a shout out to tie, high school, 20 applications alone from tie very impressive. So, uh, it'll be well into the hundreds. I know people are, uh, hungry for that grand prize full scholarship to university from that's tuition and comprehensive fees. 5,000 per second place and, uh, and 3rd and then places for $5,000 each. So, uh, that is the bulk of, um, the, uh, book housekeeping, uh, for that. And I will get, I'll move on to, uh, introducing our guest who has done a lot for CFS. So we brought students over there to beta technologies in Burlington, Vermont. Tyler Seaholzer is a team member as everyone's title is. Over there, but they do different things and he develops educational training and outreach initiatives to help shape the electrification of aviation around the world. And, uh, beta technologies, uh, definitely a leader in that field and I'm going to, I'm going to turn it over to Tyler because he knows, uh, this world better than anyone. And he has some entrepreneurial, uh, tips and ideas, um. That have served beta well since it launched in 2017. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Tyler. John, thank you so much. Um, it's been an awesome opportunity to, uh, connect with CFS as a CCR and, uh, create some of, uh, those inroads, uh, working with you over the last couple of years. My story, uh, actually came to beta a little bit later after it, uh, first got started. In fact, I was born and raised here in Williston. I joined the Air Force, uh, 22 years ago now, um, and I did a 20 year career before I retired, uh, and I didn't think that, uh, a career in aerospace with the Air Force, uh, whatever, let me come home, uh, because when I left in 2002, there wasn't, uh, an aerospace industry to speak of, uh, here in my hometown. Uh, and so the opportunities, uh, that beta has, uh, created and specifically that entrepreneurial spirit, uh, has yielded here in our, you know, Champlain Valley and Vermont, uh, kind of workforce itself, um, are something I really want to celebrate today, uh, and I'm really here because of the entrepreneurs that, uh, that have put this program into space, um, and one of the things that's interesting is the way that we hire, um, is, uh, is to cultivate that entrepreneurial mindset even as you start to scale, uh, an organization. In fact, uh, when I joined, uh, beta in 2000 and, uh, 22, we were, I was employee, like, number 250, and we just onboarded, uh, we don't know which one because there were 18, uh, but we just crested 600 employees, um, and so you, you, you could call it quite literally exponential growth. Where we're almost doubling in size annually. Um, I've got a, I've got a deck to share, uh, for, for this audience. Uh, I, I saw that there were some questions and answers already. Uh, and so those of you who are using the question box, I'll keep that question box open and I would love, um, if, if you have specific pointed questions as we go through, uh, for this to be more of a conversation, um, than, than, than just, uh, a download of information. But there is a lot to download. So don't feel pressured. Uh, we can absolutely, uh, hopefully hold attention, uh, for the duration of this. I'm going to try to share my sound, but it looks like that function is disabled, John. Is that, uh, is that standard for the webinars? I think so, but, um, Kelsey, is that, should you be able to? Yeah, I'll double check, Tyler, but I don't believe we're able to share sound. Absolutely. So I will, uh, uh, make sound effects. How about that? Uh, and there's a, there's an intro video that I usually share, uh, that, uh, if, if you can't hear it, uh, then I'll just kind of talk about, uh, what, what we're trying to celebrate here. Um, beta technologies, uh, was founded by literally seven entrepreneurs in, in 2017. You'll, you'll see, uh, Kyle Clark, who's the founder and CEO now, uh, and Martin Rothblatt, who herself is an entrepreneur, uh, now with United Therapeutics, but previously with Sirius XM radio. Um, there they are, Kyle and Martin. And they, uh, together, uh, Kyle's vision and her ability to see market opportunity, uh, in the electrification of aviation. Based on some real foundational principles of, uh, quite literally aviation technology, uh, but most uniquely sustainability, uh, is what's brought in beta, uh, to where it is today as a 600 person company, uh, that we think is going to transform the aerospace industry. By for the first time, uh, potentially having a zero emission, um, platform, uh, that can, uh, move from one place to another, uh, with absolutely no carbon emissions in operation. Uh, and the, the, the foundational technologies that we're manufacturing, designing, uh, developing and ultimately certifying, um, our electric motors, fly by wire flight controls, and the battery packs that you see. Right here on this video, uh, the battery packs, uh, are a, uh, a thing today, uh, that enabled the electrification, uh, we, and the ability to transport with stored energy and this technology will continue to scale. In fact, entrepreneurship is going to be needed inside the company to be able to explore novel technologies and ways of carrying energy to extend the range of the vehicle that you see flying in this video right here. So we're going to get an opportunity, uh, to, to digest the, the way that we foster that culture, specifically teams, the way we address the market, and, uh, and the way we address the simplification of our product, but introducing you to the team and their effort with this video, uh, is key. And I know sometimes when we share the videos can be a little choppy, but I hope there was enough to, to really digest. Um, again, we're here in Burlington, Vermont. Uh, we have offices in Washington, DC, Ohio, Montreal, um, and Raleigh, North Carolina, um, we still are privately held. And when we talk about entrepreneurial mindset, one of the things that, uh, fades with a startup is control, uh, and when you lose control of your business to, uh, to investment firms and, uh, people who have quite literally, a quarterly, uh, financial impetus, uh, to see growth, uh, it becomes harder to be nimble and to sprint. Uh, and when, when you stay private, you, you have opportunities to stay agile as the market continues to evolve. Here's where you see some of our, uh, some of our footprint, specifically in DC and Ohio, we have this opportunity to, uh, deliver, uh, a simulation experience to, uh, to folks at the aviation hub for the Air Force, uh, Air Mobility Command, uh, in Wright Patterson, uh, Air Force Base, Ohio, and then in Washington, DC, of course, we integrate with folks on the hill. We, we take this first principles approach and I'm going to kind of tackle it through three different lenses, but the idea, these values that we cultivate owning and controlling our own technologies, focusing on simplicity, uh, approving them and getting them certified through a regulatory body before we did it, uh, try to improve is key here too. When you think about a product, uh, the, the design of a product has to, uh, fit within, uh, the market the way that a, uh, customer can actually engage with it. If the, if the products can't be legally used, for example, uh, on the open market and for example, an aircraft that stays experimental, it has very little commercial capability, but as soon as you can get a commercial certification or what we call a type certification in airspace, uh, you, you're allowed to, unblock some amazing opportunities, uh, that otherwise would, uh, fall to the wayside if it saved the experimental world. Uh, we do our own testing, offer a complete solution when we talk about electrification, we also have to consider the infrastructure, uh, preserve that optionality and, uh, by staying private, we have the, uh, ability to, uh, tackle where the market is hot and follow the pass of lease resistance to, to acceptance of ultimately the products that we're making. Uh, the, the ultimate goal here, especially with, uh, our, our company being in a state like Vermont, uh, is investing in the future, not just of the technologies that we have, but in the people, uh, who helped to create them. The three core technologies that we have here are electric aircraft, obviously the, uh, the propulsion systems fly by wire flight control systems and the stored electric, uh, technology that we have in battery packs, all fall in the aircraft that you see on the left. The charging infrastructure and the ability to, uh, to charge those battery packs and use this vehicle where missions need to, uh, begin and terminate, um, the, is, is a lesson that a lot of people have taken, uh, and made connections to Tesla. Uh, one of the things that's different, uh, in the way that we envision, uh, electrifying airspace is that we don't want to have a proprietary solution. In fact, the charge cube that you see right there, you can plug a Chevy Volta or F 150 lightning in the same way you can our aircraft and that interoperability between ground and air, uh, electric vehicles is a, uh, awesome opportunity to, uh, build upon existing, uh, electric transportation. And then finally, the training programs, uh, and this is where I come in, uh, as an Air Force, uh, RQ for global Hawk pilot. When I retired, um, there, I just happened to be at the right time, uh, to be able to come home and, uh, develop curriculum to train pilots in these novel means, um, of, of accomplishing, uh, commercial flight, uh, specifically vertical takeoff and land that transitions onto. Um, what the FAA is calling powered lift category aircraft. There's no training requirements yet, uh, to certify pilots, uh, in the operation of those aircraft. And so we get to work with the regulators right now, uh, to define new training requirements and standards. And, uh, that's the work that I largely do here at beta. We learned a lot of lessons from prototypes and this design process that you may have heard in engineering before, of design it, build it, fly it, break it, design it again, uh, is core to, to everything that we do. We learned through, uh, this project, the AVA project that was a thrust vectoring aircraft, uh, where the propellers actually are articulated, uh, that, uh, there are a lot of, uh, things that can be carried forward into a production vehicle, like the way we control, uh, flight controls and the way, uh, batteries can be safely, uh, optimized to have a high voltage, high capacity, uh, operation. We also learned that, uh, moving propellers, uh, from a lift configuration into a forward thrust configuration is exceptionally hard and requires a lot of redundancy and mechanical, uh, innovation, uh, that, uh, becomes a really hard thing to certify. And so we actually decided to design a different type of method of accomplishing this through that flight test campaign. And through the aircraft that we, uh, are, are bringing to market, uh, you'll hear when you think of, uh, when you hear about this market, you'll hear C-Toll and V-Toll a lot. And just to get you, uh, caught up to speed, C-Toll stands for a conventional takeoff and land vehicle and V-Toll stands for a vertical takeoff and land. Uh, the, the thing that's common among them both is they have a wing and the, the vast majority of the operation is fast forward moving through the air using the wing as its primary source of lift. In fact, even in the V-Toll, those four engines that you see on the top after it's moving forward fast enough will stow like you see in the silhouette and not operate for 95% of the mission. The charging network that you see here and the ability to, uh, to, to do work in real tangible places is the key enabling factor from an infrastructure perspective. The vehicles that we're flying right now have demonstrated range up to 336 nautical miles. But it takes 3,000, uh, nautical miles, give or take, to cross, uh, from the east coast of the United States to the west coast of the United States. And so you need to have the ability to stop, energize, uh, and ultimately, uh, do some kind of, uh, work along the way. The logistic solution that these vehicles, uh, endeavor to solve, uh, are what we call like that last mile logistic solution, where otherwise it would be a hub and spoke, uh, with, uh, a, essentially offload to a network of trucks that are extremely inefficient and largely, uh, combustion oriented as well. And now you can take a smaller subsection of packages and deliver them faster, uh, at an order of magnitude reduction in cost and time, uh, in operation. And with a company like United Therapeutics that is delivering human organs, uh, from a farm or a lab where, uh, they're created to the, uh, recipient in a hospital, time, uh, and cost are, uh, both, uh, big things in the consideration. Ultimately, when we get to cost, you have to start, when you, when you're talking to a customer as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to make those comparisons, uh, to things that exist in today's market. Uh, here you have a Cessna caravan on the right hand side and you have a Leah flying on the left. And while this looks like we took and minimized the picture, this is actually a picture that we took in flight of the Cessna chasing our test vehicle on the road to Bentonville, Arkansas. The other interesting things is the numbers that you see here, uh, that are informing the cost of fuel, the battery cost, maintenance costs, crew and capital are real demonstrated costs from this trip. Every stop to fill up the Cessna caravan, the average gas bill was $750. And the average electricity bill when we charged on the network that we had installed was only 17. And that allows for that extreme, uh, reduction in this fuel cost bar that you see on the left versus on the right. From a sustainability standpoint, when you're talking to customers that are, uh, forward thinking and thinking about future generations, they also want to know their impact on the atmosphere and on the environment and the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a zero emission vehicle. And this is a inclusive of the production of the vehicle and the, uh, the fossil fuels required to generate the electricity and charging. You can see a large order of magnitude reduction when you can get zero emissions in operation, 75% for C tool and 83% for V tool. And the reason this is more than this, uh, is because when you're talking about taking off and landing without a runway, the only aircraft you can compare that to as a helicopter, as opposed to aircraft that use runways and traditional operation. Entrepreneurship, uh, and the development of a product is only as valuable, uh, as the people who are interested in investing. Uh, and so a large part, uh, of our success so far has been the ability to have cashback orders of customers that represent many different industries. Capital investment, you can see government investment from health and human services, the air force and the army. Argo investment from UPS, Brista, which is the largest helicopter operator in the world. LCI, medical and United Therapeutics. And then even internationally, Air New Zealand has signed orders and Blade intends to do air taxi operations around New York City in the future. You need runway and you need financial capital to do this hard work and, uh, the, uh, some of the advanced innovation programs that come out of the Air Force, which I retired out of, uh, has been an enabling factor. And some of the contracts that we've been able to secure have enabled us to do testing, uh, in and actually funded the testing of our vehicles in ways that simply couldn't have otherwise been done. And here you see quite literally a funded trip all the way down to Duke Air Force Base, uh, in Florida, where we operated for three months, uh, to prove some of the logistics, uh, capability of this vehicle. In fact, one of my favorite, uh, stories is that during an exercise while down in Duke, um, there was actually a mistake getting, uh, people who were, uh, in a forward operating location fed. And so they had outside of exercise rules had to order pizza. And Aliyah was able to actually bring them back inside the rules of the exercise to mimic a deployed environment. Uh, and we, we loaded the plane up with, uh, MREs, meals ready to eat and delivered them to them so that they could be back into that true simulation of deployment. Here's an example of Aliyah on that runway, uh, quite literally, uh, with combat aircraft, uh, in operation during that exercise. And then typically you would think this is a photo rendering, but we actually got clearance in the National Capital Region to overfly the Washington Monument, which in an experimental aircraft, uh, is a pretty heavy lift that we are extremely proud of. I tell you all that to say that, you know, when you have a large team that's focused on, um, a single goal, you can do some pretty amazing things. Uh, and what I'd like to spend the back half of this, uh, kind of webinar is, is talking about how that team goes, but this is a, uh, this is a great kind of question off the, how does the cost to purchase the C-toll and the V-toll compared to a Cessna? The initial cost of operation, uh, or the initial cost of purchase is a little bit more expensive, but not to, uh, not to a point that would make eyes water. For conventional operation, you'd be talking like two to 2.5 million, uh, as opposed to, uh, a little over 4 million for the V-toll. Uh, while a Cessna, for example, uh, that would be compared to the C-toll, maybe a little bit cheaper, the cost of operation of the C-toll, when you compare that $700 in fuel cost versus $17 in energy cost, as well as the maintenance cost of these combustion engines that require, uh, tear down and depot maintenance, the actual cost of operation of the vehicle, uh, reduces. And so you end up with a net savings that's pretty high over the life of the vehicle. Most people who, uh, invest in aircraft are looking at about a 20-year investment when they make it, uh, and then the numbers, uh, help our commercial team, uh, close a lot of those sales opportunities because even though there's a higher ticket price on the front, uh, that will lower, of course, over time, uh, when we get into, uh, mass production, there, uh, is an instant return and operational cost that, uh, customers find attractive, not to mention the ability, uh, to say that they have a vehicle in their fleet, uh, that does a zero emission mission. How do you get there? How do you design an aircraft like that? Well, regardless of what it is you're trying to do, complexity and innovation can be thought of like on a diagram. And what I want to explain with this curve is that anytime you're trying to innovate, you first have to understand what the problem is and eventually you're going to find a solution. You'll design something, you'll get to, uh, a solution that works and it's very easy here, uh, to have a high complexity solution that works, but that's not necessarily, uh, true innovation in the sense of an entrepreneurial mindset. The hard part here is overcoming this, uh, idea of mental inertia. Uh, here I have a product that works, uh, maybe I haven't simplified it to, uh, the, the brass operation, but, but it, it works and it closes and then maybe I can sell it today. It's easy to stay there with a complex solution that can fail, but it requires a little bit more innovative, uh, spirit, a little bit more drive and, uh, to overcome that mental inertia, to make a less complex, simple design that can be low energy in operation, low energy in production, and from a pilot training standpoint, easier to teach. What's the key thing you have to overcome? Fear. Fear, uh, that the effort you put in won't return on the investment, but, uh, putting people and surrounding yourself with a good team, with a target towards that low energy solution, uh, that was thought of in the first place can help to overcome that as well. And so we'll talk about first principles here. We're going to talk first principles, uh, in three key categories, uh, of organizing a team, working towards technology, and we'll specifically focus on the technology of electric aircraft based on the topic that we have here and ultimately the market. And what, what do we think are the, are the core principles when you're addressing organization of a team technology, uh, and ultimately how you get into the market. The execution risk and that mental inertia that you have to overcome, uh, is in quite literally the way you select and organize a team. There's a formula here, but we'll unpack this as well on the technology side. There's a formula too. And we'll talk about the, the physics that you have to work with and how you design an aircraft to pose on that. And then the market, the key thing that you have to address is the perception, um, of the customer as well as the society at large of the product that you're, uh, bringing to market, uh, to ensure that it, it allows, uh, what your team, uh, has developed, uh, to, to shine on its own as opposed to the way that you package it with first principles, engineering. One of the things that's really key is understanding at its core, the factors that you can and cannot affect with first principles, engineering. And I spend an hour on itself just unpacking this range equation when we teach pilots, the thing that we want to, uh, we want to go after has to be defined or is ideally defined first. And so in this situation, we try to solve for the range of an electric vehicle because batteries, uh, typically have less range and less energy density than their weight in fossil fuel. Uh, and it's about 30 to one ratio right now that is still improving as battery technology continues to improve with the expansion of electric transportation. On the right side of the equation, these are the factors you have to consider. If you want to extend the range specifically in flight, uh, of an electric aircraft, you have to consider gravity and you have to consider the, the atmospheric pressure within which you're working with and against. And that's one over G, we call it nature's constant, essentially taking for granted that we want to do our work largely on planet earth. We have to consider the amount of lift that the aircraft makes versus the amount of drag that it makes when it's moving through the air, the efficiency of a motor, the weight of a battery over the weight of the aircraft when it's carrying its batteries and how much energy the batteries have to start with. If you select a better, uh, energy battery and you're able to package it in a way that's lighter, uh, you can improve this factor without necessarily affecting the others and are gets bigger. Similarly, if I carry more or less batteries, this fraction changes and I can affect R as well, depending on the type of mission that I want to do. And being able to understand this from a fundamental standpoint allows engineers, uh, to work within a common understanding of the problem. And if you make this problem well understood and known and let them just do their work, you'd be amazed what they can do. And so when we talk about lift over drag, the main thing that we focus on is having a really slippery design. Oh, that's a question I'm going to have to take back to an engineer. Why is the gravity acceleration 9.8 meters per second squared and 9.8? It may very well be, uh, that we mis-wrote it down and I'll take that back to see if that's the accurate answer or not. This teardrop shape that you see, you can see in any fluid dynamics, uh, it would be, uh, the same thing that you'd see in a boat or in a car. Ultimately, you want to create as little drag as possible. With an aircraft, uh, you want to make sure that you're able to generate lift. And so what you see in this design looks similar to an airplane that you may, uh, you may draw from memory. The main difference from an airplane you may draw from memory and what you see in front of you is that in this aircraft, uh, uncommon to most designs, the propeller and the control surfaces, uh, that affect pitch and yaw are on the same side of the wing. And the reason we can do this is because that the batteries don't change weight in operation. They can actually counterbalance anywhere on the aircraft structure in a way that's useful ballast, uh, where most aircraft designs have to accept that their fuel will be burned up and their weight will change throughout flight. Uh, we can take for granted that batteries weight stays the same and have novel designs of aircraft that put propellers in the wake, like you see here without sacrificing center of gravity concerns, uh, or the visibility concerns that come from putting control surfaces out in front of the pilot. Here we have the way we accomplish vertical takeoff, which is essentially four propellers that, uh, like a quadcopter design, like you'd see in your typical, uh, drone, uh, with a very simple control algorithm and absolutely no articulation in their pitch, uh, again, simplicity being key, uh, to the design here. And when you put them all together, you end up with an aircraft that can take off and land without a runway, uh, and can still fly exceptionally far. Now this 250 nautical mile range, that's a challenge. Uh, in fact, if all things are optimized in the equation, you can get 250 nautical miles on a sheet of paper, but to do it in real life requires a lot of people. In fact, it requires a team. When we organize a team, the, the best way to ensure that you're selecting people that are fit for mission is to define what the mission is. So we say, okay, on the pay, on the napkin, based on the math that we did, we need people, we need people that can help us engineer solutions to get an electric aircraft to 250 nautical miles, recharge in under an hour, and can fly it over a hundred knots. If you do it just one person to that thought, uh, they're going to come up with some amount of solutions. They may even come up with a high complexity design, but it's going to be really hard for that one person to overcome the mental inertia that we should, uh, talked about before. You put a couple people together and they can have some different thoughts. You put an entire team together and then you show the hurdles, the mountains that have to overcome the pitfalls, the regulatory, uh, blocks, all of a sudden with all of these different, uh, skills and disciplines and experiences, uh, can be leveraged together to ensure that you can tackle the problem, uh, given all the obstacles that could be in your way. This last summer, uh, we had, uh, high school students and what we call our high school job shadow program. And I hope that I have enough, uh, Wi-Fi and fidelity to share my screen here, uh, it's specifically the video, but this 12 second video is what we challenged high school students, uh, that had completed a high school job shadow process with us, uh, to, to explain what they recognized based on their assumptions, um, when, when they spent an entire summer with us here at Beta. And what you'll see in this 12 second video, and again, I know I can't share audio, so I'll do my best to share it with you. You'll share somebody thinking that their, uh, work of an engineer is going to be inside of a box. Um, and then you'll see somebody pulled out of the box and you'll see them collaborate as a team and even communicate, uh, across channels based on their disciplines, uh, because that's what it takes to overcome that mental inertia. And then finally they'll rally around the box and realize that the box and that challenge that somebody felt like they were stuck inside of, when they've worked on it together as a team, uh, can actually become the gift or the, uh, or, uh, the actual return on investment, uh, that was originally the struggle all along. And so I'll let the 12 seconds kind of show you the idea here from a marketing perspective, the, uh, the most important thing when you're trying to, uh, bring a product to market is honesty and integrity. You can put up smoke and mirrors and you can tell everybody what's behind the smoke and mirrors and you can even make, uh, computer generated graphics about what your ideas are, but ultimately people are always going to be trying to look and it's really hard to hide the truth when, uh, what you're selling is simply an idea. It's a lot easier to sell something if what you're selling can be touched, can be felt. Um, and even though the aircraft that you see in front of you is not actually the aircraft that we're going to certify and bring to market, it is what we have today to tangibly inform that, uh, decision and that truth, uh, the truth telling that comes, uh, that, that enables, uh, this integrity philosophy and marketing and only showing something that's real buys you, uh, essentially capital of trust, uh, in not just investors, customers, but even competitors where they know when they see that beta has done something, uh, that, uh, it's an actual achievement. Um, and they don't have to go researching whether, uh, this has been essentially, uh, colored over, uh, with gravitas, uh, or, or added words. And ultimately it on our way up to lunch, even in, uh, our workspace, uh, we have this, uh, essentially quote that we see in the stairwell and, uh, you can read it as well, but it says perfection is achieved not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away and overcoming mental inertia to, to be able to, uh, simplify a solution as much as possible, uh, itself is a beautiful thing. And when it comes to product design, and you've seen this with, with quite literally the phones that you carry in your pocket today, the simpler they are, the less buttons they have, the, the less, uh, complexity, uh, specifically at the surface level from a user interface perspective, the more likely people are, uh, to adopt that technology. And it's what we endeavor to do with the design of our aircraft, with the products we bring to market, uh, and the way we, uh, train the people that will operate them. That concludes most of the presentation. Um, I'm excited to, uh, to be able to, to dive into any questions if, if folks have them, um, and also, uh, interested in, uh, just discussing where you guys are in this pitch challenge, uh, and, and seeing if there's any ways that, uh, that I can help there, too. Thanks. Yeah, that was, that looks like great. I wish we had you a month ago as well to help, uh, we've had students talk about, they use a different term than mental inertia, but, uh, there was mental obstacles of, uh, kind of breaking through to, to create their idea and then, and then submit, uh, their proposal, which, which many of them have. So they came through, but I find it fascinating when you talk about mental inertia, you're talking about in a way making sort of a less, you said, complex, simple design, you know, low energy solution in this case. I think sometimes people think the other way, they think I've got to create this really complex, you know, unique thing. When in some ways it, like I'm a writer, for example, for me to, to, uh, say the same thing, but in a more, uh, easily understandable way. Yeah. It's harder to get it down like that than it is. You can just explain stuff and write in. It's complicated and maybe people get it, but to write it or create it, like you're talking about in a way that everybody can understand, that's hard. And it is a mental block, if you will, or there's inertia to get there. So the, I love the way you talked about it, but also that you brought in team members like that mental inertia when working with others can, I mean that it can be solved. I think a lot of people think I got to do this myself. I got to come up with this, but the creativity you talked about, talk a little bit more about that because we've had students, you know, kind of struggled to overcome fear as well, as you said, to get to where they want to be to, to, um, submit, uh, in this case, you know, uh, an idea. Yeah. So it's, it's a really interesting thing. And the way that we've organized as a team, I think one of the things that comes with fear, um, is hierarchy, right? And this, this perception that, uh, I have to, uh, show deference to another individual, uh, even though I think my idea is valid. And it's, it's really hard to share ideas when you feel like you're below in the pecking room. Um, and especially in academia, uh, it's, there, there's a natural resistance, uh, to challenging, uh, a professor, uh, to challenging, uh, somebody whose paper you're referencing, uh, because it's already been peer reviewed, uh, there's a, there's a natural hesitation, uh, to challenge ideas. Uh, and when you, and that carries true, um, even in, uh, my military career and certainly in, uh, what we see, uh, here, the, the, the biggest difference I saw when I retired from my military career, which is probably the most stereotypical hierarchy you could possibly imagine. Everybody has a rank and that rank has a responsibility and there's a deference and there's salutes and there's all of these things. And then you were joined an organization where everybody's job title is quite literally team member. Well, all of a sudden the playing field is quite literally love. And the only question that you ask is, uh, is your solution going to help us achieve the greater goal or not? Um, and so one of the things that we had, especially early on, uh, in every single conference room was a scale. Right. And if you were going to put something on the aircraft based on your industry experience and everything like that, maybe there was a good justification for it, but you had to weigh it and it went into the equation. Quite literally it went back to the equation and we would say, okay, it looks heavy. Uh, and if we're going to accept that penalty because of the safety requirement or what have you, there's a lot of other innovation that has to happen to make up for that weight penalty that we're putting onto the aircraft. And so a team has to accept all of those. It became this, such a cultural thing that Kyle distilled it into a very simple, essentially binary solution. If you're, if you're presenting a solution to the company, if it's to take something off the aircraft, almost nobody's going to fight you. If it's to put something on the aircraft, however, you're going to have to go through us all. Yeah. And that, and that allows for simplicity, right? It's like, it's like if you're editing a paper, uh, if everybody was allowed to add words, then every book would be a Wikipedia article on Fidel Castro. And if you go to a Wikipedia article on Fidel Castro, do you know what's true anymore? Do you actually know the story? Or is there just so many people that are downloading all of the data from their research and think they're being helpful about creating a cacophony of information? And so what we endeavor to do is, is simplify by organizing the team, uh, and, and maintaining site on a vision. In fact, we've created an entire tool, uh, to allow those teams to organize their effort in a way that's genuine and inclusive of every idea. And so the, the main thing that I would say back, uh, to, to those in the audience or those watching the recording in the future, uh, is that the, the imposed hierarchy that you exist in right now in academia, um, doesn't, shouldn't block, uh, your, uh, your desire or motivation, uh, to make your idea or, uh, uh, intentions known. Uh, and so if, if for some reason you're, you, you have an imposter syndrome that's keeping you from pushing submit, if for some reason you think that where you come from or, uh, or your ideas based on previous experience with hierarchical, uh, leadership or, or traditional, uh, academic endeavors, um, if that's coloring or adding into any of your hesitation, um, it, it sounds really basic but stop, um, and trust yourself, uh, that, that, that your words have value and your words have more value when they're heard by a large group of people, uh, because when we hear everybody else's opinions, that's how we overcome the mental inertia. A question from the group, how do you get away from distractions drifting and how do you make a strong enough reason to motivate yourself, uh, to keep going? Man, um, I would say that that, that, that question is exponentially harder as time goes on. Um, and if, if you think about, if you think about the products that come to market and the inundation we have with information, uh, it's easy to, oh, social media and all of that, it's not about any one tool, it's about the information and, and ultimately if you want to focus, if you're, if you're concerned as distractions are drifting, this, the techniques, uh, are quite literally a tale as old as time removed. Uh, whatever those distractions are, I've got three kids right now that, uh, could be here in this space while I'm trying to talk to you and they're locked in the basement. Um, if they were, if they were in this room, I wouldn't be able to have this conversation. I didn't lock the door. I put on bluey. Um, but, but it's a similar kind of exercise. If you have your phone right next to you while you're watching this conversation, you're not downloading the conversation as genuinely as you can. And so I would say the first thing is, is suggest calendar the time that you think that you need and then commit to that. Um, commit to the time that you think you need to focus your effort where it needs to be. And, uh, if you need a strong enough reason to motivate yourself to keep going, um, remember that the, the best things in life, uh, typically come to us, uh, after we do the hardest things. Um, and, and anybody who's ever done sports, uh, or competition, or, or any type of endurance challenge, um, it's not about, uh, quite literally the end. In fact, the end is somewhat, um, sad in a lot of ways. It's the struggle and, and it's the ability to, to overcome your, your own physical blocks and your own, uh, your own perceptions, um, of what you can and can't do. Um, a, and I would say that type of mindset carries itself into the business world, um, and into, uh, your education as well. Yeah. That's well said. Um, yeah, maybe I know there's some, some students that, uh, are trying to get done in the next, the 15th is the deadline. They're trying to close it out late. And at some point, you know, deadlines are, you've got to, you do, there's no choice. It's either you're going to submit it or you're not, but a lot of times I, you know, the work that's put in leading to it is, like you said, it's the most important piece. And then hopefully you can close it out in a way that the final product is, is solid. Um, yeah, there's a, there's a quote, the, you know, the perfection is the enemy of progress. Right. And if, if your concern is that it's not perfect, and that's the reason you're, you're hesitating to, to push send. Um, it, especially if it's up against the deadline, send what you have. And if you have to qualify it, then, then, then qualify it with, with a note or what have you, but, but send what you have because you know, the only, the only shot that never hits is the shot not taken. And it's, this is a classic example of that. And so if, even if you're up against the deadline, overcome that and, and push submit. Yeah, that's a, that's great advice. I, you know, I think there's also like you'd mentioned the fear of like, well, you know, what if it doesn't, if it's not good enough or whatever, but you're right, you'll never know. You got it, you got to submit it and, and see what comes of it. Um, yeah, I did have a question earlier about initially the founding or the start rather of beta and sort of Kyle Clark. It was a question. I think someone did a little research on him. And it was related to the idea, you know, when, when you launch something or when someone submits a proposal for this, for the pitch challenge here, is it usually something in Kyle's case? And if that's not true, then it isn't, but it's something that a they care about and they're passionate about, but they also saw it without seeing a need or the problem, if you will, uh, entrepreneurially speaking, is there really a point? I mean, aren't you trying to identify, hey, it's something you care about and there's a problem or an obstacle that needs to be addressed within whatever that industry or, you know, product, whatever it might be. Is that fair to say? Yeah, you know, and I can't pretend to answer for Kyle, but I know Kyle, the way he met Martine was literally when he was essentially on a speaker circuit talking about how the electrification of aviation is possible based on the equation that you saw there. Had he thought up Aliyah? He hadn't. In fact, Aliyah hadn't even been driven on a napkin yet. He came from, you know, electric controls. He was previously in dyna power. He's always had a passion for aviation. And so the ability to connect all of your interests into that, yeah, into the business that you set up is a pipe dream that not all of us reach our first time out. But if you've got an idea that you don't see being well employed in market, sharing that idea, even if it's not fully baked and generating interest and building a group of people around you, doesn't have to be an incorporated process. You don't have to be an LLC to have success here. It can be quite literally a group of friends or people with like interests that help to drive that initial spark. In fact, I think Kyle would agree with the statement that he and Martine through this process became friends. And being able to develop those relationships with the people who can either ideologically, financially, regulatorally support your endeavors is always a good business plan, especially when it's an entrepreneurial project. Yeah. Yeah. We're a little over the time already, but I have other questions that I can send you after. I do think it's interesting. We've had some students who are going to submit proposals and decided not to and felt like they like to be part of things, not necessarily the person that creates them and generates them. And so people working at Beta, that there's plenty of people like they love the idea, they want to be part of it. That's a whole nother conversation. But I bring it up partially because one student asked about how do you become part of it of something like Beta? And then one of our teachers had heard about and you've explained this to us over in Platsburg, you've got at the Air Force Base, right? Is it paying? Yeah, it's now Platsburg internationally. It used to be an Air Force Base, but we're going to have 85 jobs over there as well. And in fact, we just closed a grant, $20 million grant with the State of New York, so we'd better hire 85 people. Otherwise, the grant doesn't close. But the business plan there is to deliver aircraft out of the State of New York, essentially flying over there for final plane paint. And so there'll be opportunities there as well. Entrepreneurial ship can be at its core Webster's definition, starting a business based on your own idea. It'll never get off the ground unless you surround yourself with people that want to help you accomplish that goal. Whether they join your team, whether they invest with you, you see it on Shark Tank and all of that, you need a group of people to help see that idea through to fruition. And entrepreneurship doesn't stop with the one person with the one idea. It's this concept of creating with a group of people, something that accomplishes a really hard, ambitious goal. And the new product that you made, the simplification efforts that you do, employs that mindset, whether you endeavor to do it yourself or with 600 people. Yeah, that's a good place to live in. I think a lot we've had students say, I want to be an entrepreneur. I have my idea. I want to do it. This is my thing, like it's an individual pursuit when it's not. And I think as some of our students have gotten into this process, they've realized that they don't know everything. They're like, wow, I have this idea. And then they're like, oh, but I don't know about that, which really matters to this. So then they start reaching out and talking to other people. And it just enriches the whole product. So I think some of the people that are still trying to get in submissions in the last couple days here have, that's been part of the process that they've actually included more people. And maybe it's taken a little longer to put it together, but it's a positive thing because it's adding a lot to the process and parts they just didn't know about. John, real quick, I don't know if it was Devon or Devanche, but there was one question about what did we find more helpful when it came to beta making things come to fruition, soft or hard skills. And the answer there unequivocally is soft. Do we need smart people? Bar none, we absolutely do. But if those smart people can't work with the other smart people because they don't have the ability to communicate effectively, if they don't share common passions and they're not able to relate to each other, then we're never going to be able to get the hard things done. And we're never going to feel like we can actually challenge each other in a respectful way. And that's how you simplify. And so at beta, we really select for soft skills first. And with a small piece of ensuring that their hard skills are there or able to be developed. And we do a lot of that internal development. In fact, we have a flight program at beta where everybody flies for free because we think some of those hard skills can be learned. In fact, people have been learning how to fly for 100 years. Yeah. Well, that's a great place to leave it. Really appreciate the time. We'll share this out tomorrow. So in case any students are still trying to get it in last minute, but it's just part of a process. We want to continue the conversation next year. We're hoping this will get even bigger and get you on a little bit earlier. So some of these things you addressed, they can start thinking about earlier in the process. But thank you so much. Any parting advice you have before we sign off? You know, John, just because there was one last question that was asked, I'll address that and go. I actually got recommended a book at the end of the year. One of my friends who helped provide the platform or the system at work that we aligned all of our goals and efforts, she had read 24 books and she was really proud of that. We were talking about like New Year's Resolutions and I said, okay, well, what was your favorite? And it was a book called The Four Agreements. And it's a really quick read. It's only a two and a half hour audible read as well. And the Four Agreements, the entire premise is that you get to every single day, decide how you view the world. And it's an agreement that you make. You get to agree to be impeccable with your word. You get to agree to not take anything personally. And you can read the rest. But the thought of being able to distill the way that you view the world through four basic agreements in how humans interact with each other directly correlates to entrepreneurship. And I'd encourage that it's a read. Well, I'm going to be, I will read that soon. That sounds real good. John, yeah. Interpersonally, after you read it, I'm at the top. Yeah. All right, for sure. Well, thanks again. Thanks for taking the time. I know you got three little ones who you are. I'll unlock the basic. Yes. Yeah. Well, thanks again. You felt a lot of our students continue to do so. And we really appreciate it. Thanks, John. All right. Have a good day. Buddy. You too. Thanks.