Jimmy Huber: And welcome to another episode of the Info Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Jimmy Huber, as always. And we are going to have another discussion about the intersection of business and technology today. My guest is Seth Hastings. He is the founder of Aeon. Aeon is a startup. He's he's getting off the ground, he's got a lot of cool things to share, and I'm excited for this episode. I think our listeners will learn a lot from you, Seth, and just welcome to the podcast. Seth Hastings: Thanks for having me on, Jimmy. It's my first podcast appearance, so very excited, very Jimmy Huber: really? Seth Hastings: very humbled to be on. I Jimmy Huber: Hey, you bet. Seth Hastings: caught the most recent episode at time of recording, and and I enjoyed it quite a bit, so looking forward to it. Jimmy Huber: cool. Well appreciate that. Yeah. I did not know it was your first podcast. So that's exciting. hopefully we can make a splash here and get your name out there because not a whole lot of people come on the podcast that are in your phase, right? Which I think is really admirable. So tell us a little bit about, you know, yourself, your background, and how you started Aeon. I know you've you've got a co founder, you guys are figuring stuff out. but it is really early, which is an exciting time. for a business owner. Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Jimmy Huber: So yeah, tell us how you got here. Seth Hastings: So my name's Seth Hastings. I'm twenty eight. I was born in Louisiana, grew up mostly in Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas. my kind of early academic career, I started out as a mechanical engineer. was lucky enough to get into an internship at NASA, which kind of opened my eyes to the the possibilities of programming. so I came back very, very keen to switch to electrical, which in my program included a lot of computer science. I really enjoyed that and while in College, I got started with my first business. My my roommate, my random match roommate, freshman year, wanted to start a coffee shop on campus. So Jimmy Huber: wow. Seth Hastings: sophomore year, the summer of sophomore year, while I was off on an internship, he was back at campus building out a space for us. and we ran that business together for the next you know, two and a half years and trained up some replacements. So if you go back to my alma mater JBU, there's a a coffee shop called Ground Floor Coffee. And me and a roommate made that made that happen. So that was kind of my first dipping my toes into into entrepreneurship. Jimmy Huber: So you you've had a full cycle already then. You you you've started and launched and exited a business. Yeah. Seth Hastings: It's yeah, very different from from digital products, but very much that that startup process. So we had some things going Jimmy Huber: Very cool. Seth Hastings: on in our favor. We we were able to rent a space from the university that was being underutilized, so we kind of had a lot of overhead taken care of in some different ways. but it was really great experience to kinda go through that building a team. you know, you have to learn about the marketing, the accounting, all the different hats you have to wear to run a business. So it was a a nice kind of sandbox to learn that in. Jimmy Huber: Yeah, no, that's really cool. A lot of people I don't think have that opportunity, right? They might work for somebody Seth Hastings: Mm-hmm. Jimmy Huber: else doing that, but for you to get your feet wet on a small scale and get some of those first initial reps out of the way, that's that's pretty cool. So help me transition then from that to to Aeon. Seth Hastings: Yeah, absolutely. So in undergrad I was an engineer, ran that business, really enjoyed it, knew that I wanted to one, learn more about computer science and cybersecurity in particular, and two, start businesses in the future. That was already clear to me. and so I kind of looked around at the end of senior year, and I actually found a really cool program out here where I live now in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called the the Cyberfellows Program. So it was a a scholarship for PhD programs. where it was focused on entrepreneurial research, you know, actionable research and kind of had that entrepreneurship environment and support structure. so that's the program I was in for for five years, twenty twenty to twenty twenty five. I got my masters and PhD in computer science doing cybersecurity research and that kind of brought up my skill set, patched some of the holes in my computer science knowledge from my engineering undergrad and kind of got me into this this startup environment in Tulsa. so through that I met a guy named Adam Breaux. and he is my co founder on Eon. he's really, really smart guy. He went to University of Tulsa as well. And we were both associated with a a pitch competition that I competed in there. my team and I got third place on a on a pitch we did and got a little money for it. So always nice to have some money sitting somewhere that you can kind of allocate Jimmy Huber: heck yeah. Seth Hastings: towards new projects. and that's kind of been my approach. So straight out of graduation, looking for jobs, I did some consulting work, building up a bit of an agentic AI orchestration layer of my own. And that's actually the basis of what Eon is built on now. so I had Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: an idea for what I wanted to do before the kind of right opportunity came along. And then I was reached out to by Adam Brough. He actually came to me with a different business proposition. one more in the e-commerce space, looking at kind of connecting agents to do e-commerce more officially or efficiently. And that's obviously a good business idea. the market Jimmy Huber: yeah. Seth Hastings: is clearly there, the the dollars make sense, the the total adjustable market is is massive. But the issue was we didn't feel like we were the right team for that problem. we didn't have Jimmy Huber: Hm, sure. Seth Hastings: any kind of advantages making us the people who were gonna make it and make it out first. there are already lots of companies working on that problem that were kind of closer to it and had access to the things you need to have access to to make that work quickly. so Jimmy Huber: Sure. Yeah, I get that. Seth Hastings: we we ended up not going with that business idea, but through that connection, me and Adam started going back and forth and as he was doing more discovery along that line, talking to local business folks, this concept of pervasive, outdated systems in the energy sector, particularly oil and gas, rose to the surface. they said, you know, we don't need this particular automation that we were talking about at the time, but if you could apply that same thing over here, it would be really useful. So we we kind of caught the scent of a of a good problem. And on Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah. Seth Hastings: top of it being a good problem, it's a problem that's local to us. Tulsa is still one of the major oil and gas capitals of, you know, the United States and the Jimmy Huber: Sure. Yeah, yeah. Seth Hastings: the the Greater West. And so there's a lot of expertise and talent and knowledge here. which means we got to then take that question to the source. We got to start go doing discoveries with a a bunch of different oil and gas companies here and eventually we found a couple of design partners. and so right now we're partnered with one of those oil and gas companies in Tulsa, building out a product for them. We've had several meetings going back and forth and at the end we'll have a product that we can not only sell to them, but sell to many others in the space, built specifically for these needs. and we can kinda get into more of how we discovered that and what the needs are, if you want to. But Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's really cool. Let me step back a little bit 'cause that that was a fantastic synopsis, I think, about how most businesses start, right? You have an idea, you identify a problem, and then you discover, hey, is this worth pursuing? And I think a lot Seth Hastings: Mm-hmm. Jimmy Huber: of people wouldn't have pulled back like you guys did. I think, you know, it's hard to know when you're maybe wrong or not like in the right spot. Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Jimmy Huber: But it sounds like you guys did and pivot it into something where you saw there was some room for growth, right? which I think is really cool. And if the fact that it's in your backyard is even better. So just for, you know, to zoom out a little bit, so Eon, is it an ERP, like in the the oil and gas industry, or is it manufacturing in general, or how would you describe it? Seth Hastings: Yeah. So basically our approach is to automate and make more efficient a lot of these outdated processes in the energy sector broadly, but starting with oil and gas. Jimmy Huber: I gotcha. Seth Hastings: so oil and gas is surprisingly immature in its processes on the technical side. and this actually has a a really clear reason, which is the cyclical brain drain that happens when the oil price drops. And people get laid off. so we have this kind of whole whole industry environment where many of the tribal knowledge and and organizational how-to is concentrated into just a couple of people, and those people are retiring out. and as this Jimmy Huber: Yeah, see. Seth Hastings: continues to happen over a few decades because the the industry stays operating in this mode of of cyclical layoffs. the processes never mature. and so you can have a an oil exploration company like one we're working with that gets dozens of documents a day from their drilling partners that they're not able to take the time to read and analyze and understand in action in a reasonable amount of time. but they're spending over a hundred thousand dollars a day to drill. And so if you can actually Jimmy Huber: wow. Seth Hastings: process those reports Turn them into durable data that not only you can use to respond quickly in the moment, but analyze your past you know, well drilling and say, hey, we're drilling another well in this region. Instead of having two or three engineers spend eight hours finding documents, putting them together, making a basic summary, trying to strategize from there, what if we already had all of this in our system and it could quickly output an analysis to say, hey, Here's how we make the improvement, here's where the delta is, and then you can post test as you go, you know, without any extra hours. that's kind of the core value proposition of this first product. and it works because these are tasks that lend themselves both to traditional tooling for things like statistical analysis, but also really heavily to AI to be able to intake disparate sources and turn that into you know, database solid actionable evidence. so we built up kind of this orchestration workflow layer that we can then apply to a bunch of different types of solutions. so we're also looking in the manufacturing space. We have an early design partnership over there. but the the general idea is that we will take this common engine and then use it to build out more solutions across the space. There's also Jimmy Huber: Got it. Seth Hastings: There's a few more things in there, but I c I'll I'll hold off some for later, so Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah, no, this is great. So you've identified an operations or a process problem, which I think most people don't start there. They start at the whiz bang AI new thing and they don't realize unless you have a problem or a process identified and defined, like it's not gonna help you. It's maybe even gonna make it worse, right? So you're able to do that early in an industry that sounds like it's pretty stagnant. I think most of the Outside world has no idea how the oil and gas industry works, right? They just fill up their car and they move on, right? Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Jimmy Huber: So I think that's a huge value because yeah, I mean, even Impotex had manufacturing clients and they're great in a sense that they understand the value of time and outage and downtime and like they have to be working, right? Or else they're hemorrhaging money. This case it's Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Jimmy Huber: it's right in that that niche. So they can, I think, more easily maybe identify and connect those dots and the value of what you're trying to provide. And you're taking them from old school, like stagnant ways all the way current. I mean, that's a huge leap. And to be able to do that and then sounds like apply that then in other sectors. So you're you're basically creating a software suite maybe that you could license or repurpose and these first couple of gigs or clients are kind of how you're gonna get your feet wet and kind of establish that first build. Is that kind of the idea? Seth Hastings: That's that's exactly it. you know, you you mentioned manufacturing. One of the folks we've spoken to in manufacturing has a similar kind of systemic issue where, you know, there's maybe two people in the company that can actually take in you know, order request forms and understand all the customization and know how to write up the job and and turn it into a real built project and then assign people. so there there are problems like this all around and The the exciting thing is, this doesn't preclude you from the exciting new fancy AI things. This actually enhances what you will get once you progress there. garbage in, garbage out is true whether whether you're doing regular coding or or dealing with generative AI. And if you don't have the clean, well-hosted, well-maintained source data of the operations that are going on in your company and the outcomes. then you're not gonna be able to generate meaningful insights about them. So that's the other key component of Eon. That's part of where the name comes from, is that we're actually building in these layers to infer based on the actions taking in the platform, what the organizational posture on a given topic is, what that industry knowledge is, and surface that in a way that can be audited, reviewed, they can say, is this our policy? Because this is how we're acting. so you You can start by cleaning up the messy process. That gives you access to the knowledge required to align all of the processes, which is already an if efficiency increase in itself. And then you can start doing real analysis. I mean, I I spent four years doing, you know, data analysis for my PhD. And so data really, you know, Jimmy Huber: nice. Seth Hastings: sparks a sparks a light in my heart. and so Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: I I'm really passionate about that kind of in state part of it. but Every step along the way is compelling, every step along the way is a value add. And I think that's how you get to a complex system. You d you don't necessarily want to jump to the end. You want to offer a value add at each step that they have to take to get there. Jimmy Huber: I love that. Yeah, I think a lot of business leaders don't jump there first. I think that's a huge process that takes a long time to figure out and to to learn how to how to deliver value and explain it in a way that makes sense. So it sounds like you've already got some of those pieces in place. tell us a little bit about how you got, you know, some of your first clients here because I mean perfect transparency, right? You guys are pre-revenue. We were talking about that earlier. you're coming to market, there's a lot of new things here. So These clients kind of had to take a risk a little bit because you're building a project, you're you're building out your software offering with them, right? and I think there's Seth Hastings: Yeah, absolutely. Jimmy Huber: a huge win-win there because the you know, you're gonna be able to have case studies, you're gonna be able to have you know, proof of concept, all those things, but they're taking a little bit of a risk too, being that early. So talk to me a little bit about how that works and and how you're able to get, you know, them to trust you enough to hey. Give us an opportunity here 'cause we feel like the upside is worth it, right? Seth Hastings: Yeah. Well this kind of comes back to the are we fit for this project question, which you know, for this project where our primary industry is energy, oil and gas specifically, we knew that we already had access. you know, we are two locally graduated business people who are familiar with the space. Adam has been working for startup incubators and and various entrepreneurial companies in the area. So he already knows some of the business folks. University of Tulsa produces a lot of petroleum engineers. It's been a big oil and gas school for a long time. So we have connections we can reach out to through them. So essentially we just had a lot of these conversations and said, hey, we think we've identified a problem and we want to build a solution, but we don't want to build our solution so generic that no one can use it well and everyone can use it a little bit, we want to build it specifically to what the biggest value is for you. We want to come into the process, see what's holding you up, and see how that factors into the system to make it just right. and, you know, not every company's gonna take that bet. but plenty of companies will. They'll say, hey, if all I have to do is invest a little bit of time, you know, every however many weeks to meet about this, then sure, I would love to have my job become easier six months from now. and in some cases it can be that simple. in in other cases it can be a lot more complex. but you know people people are motivated to make more money and make their jobs easier. And if you can come to them and say, hey, we're just too Two people with nothing to hide, we want to do this business. it it puts you in a position I think that makes it a little bit easier to establish that rapport with you. Jimmy Huber: Sure. Seth Hastings: and so we've we've also kept up with people from our first conversations. and one of our our current design partners, our primary current design partner, we were called something else when we first talked to them. We thought our our problem space was a different problem space when we first talked to them. And we were able to come back around and say, Hey, we've honed in on this issue. Here's where we thought we went wrong. we would like to come do this for you. And I think part of the reason they agreed was because they had been able to see us on that journey over time. so I think it's it's never too early to start conversations like that when you're trying to get your foot in the door and following up with people to let them see that your actions align with what you're saying over time. is a really effective way for them to trust you enough to say, Hey, I'll give you a little. We'll we'll take the next step. Jimmy Huber: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, you guys are are basically doing the prospecting and the almost the cold calling or that nurturing that everyone tries to figure out, you know, usually later in in the development, the business development phase. You guys were doing that out of the gate. Sounds like Adam had the connections to start with, right? I think every founder, you know, somebody has to have those relationships to get something started initially, right? Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Jimmy Huber: and you guys are able to capitalize on that and be vulnerable enough to be like, hey, as we figure out what we're doing here, we want to bring you along and we feel like it's worth, you know, your time. I think that really resonates with people. and it's rare to have that vulnerability at that stage. I think a lot of companies they want to pr be perceived as like perfect and like nothing's gonna go wrong, and here's the thing, you know, and it's like, well, that's generally that's usually not how it works, right? So yeah. Seth Hastings: All right. I mean that's too much pressure for me. you know, as a as a solo dev project, early Jimmy Huber: yeah. Seth Hastings: on it's very tempting to try and make the most attractive promises you can. But after Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: a few months, you say, you know, let's let's make reasonable promises so we could Jimmy Huber: Right. Seth Hastings: all you know, succeed at a pace that's sustainable Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: and you know, reduce the risk of of making promises that don't end up succeeding. And you are new. A they know. Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah. Seth Hastings: even even if you're trying to present yourself as if you know, you have this, you know, maybe pedigree that you have or whatever, if you were a powerful business, you wouldn't be coming to them with the ask that you're coming to them with. you know, you you'd be engaging differently. so it to me it's just Jimmy Huber: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. I mean Seth Hastings: this you know, this is the reality. We have to we have to be genuine and and people respond surprisingly well to that in my experience. Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: So Jimmy Huber: Yeah. People buy from people and being able to know who you really are and develop those relationships I think is key. And of course you want to undersell and over deliver. I mean, the ones that go in promising the world, they don't give themselves any buffer for being a human and making mistakes. And that's not necessarily a a failure itself, because people expect that, right? They make mistakes themselves. And I Seth Hastings: Right. Jimmy Huber: think being able to acknowledge that is is huge. So you you talked about a couple things I know in our when we were prepping for this that You had a couple of struggles, I think, that you hit. One of them I I said was, you know, starting from zero, and you've kind of addressed that already. But another one I remember you saying was hiring too fast. and I really want to dig into that because I think knowing, especially in this economy, with AI booming and change just so rapid, not to mention your industry that depends on a commodities price, right? Like for Seth Hastings: Right. Jimmy Huber: that client, right? There's so many variables to knowing when to hire. and when to, you know, ride it out. So share a little bit about that for you guys. Seth Hastings: So Ian is yet to hire our first additional member. We are looking to do so in the next few months, and it likely will be an engineerslash product manager hybrid with the the core idea of unlocking more revenue quickly. the the kind of hiring too quickly story is is a story from the other company that I'm working for. I actually work three days a week for a company called Prelude, which is a startup here in Tulsa. they're my first job post graduation and it was a few months into that job that I I started working on this project, Eon, as well. so Prelude is a startup in the funeral pre planning space, which is not a space I was familiar with or or expected to work in at any point. but the the premise is actually surprisingly compelling. funeral planning is a a messy, difficult, heavy process. And when you're coming to it, you're not usually coming at at your best in terms of you've got a bunch of energy, you're you're motivated, things like that. And so it it's a it's a difficult process and that means on the side of people selling funeral insurance, it's mini appointments, it's long appointments, it's difficult appointments. And on the side of the customer, it's a scary process with lots of unknowns that takes a long time out of an already busy, chaotic time of your life. or if you're pre-planning, it's just a bit heavy and a bit scary. and Prelude is basically a company that sits in between and provides a a platform that makes it easier for the customers and easier for the clients. The customers get an experience that kind of walks you through step by step, hey, what would you like to do? You actually have a lot of agency in this. Here are the, you know, the legal constraints. There are certain things that you're gonna have to buy if you want to set aside money for those. And then there are other things that are entirely optional that are, you know, how how do you want your your service to be? Do you have specific wishes that you you want honored? Do you want to set aside something for your family? as as like you know, I don't want them to have to to worry about travel expenses for this. there's a lot of agency that you can give back to people in that scary time. And so Prelude kind of does that as as a platform. And the result is that appointments go much more quickly. people end up spending a little bit more because they're more comfortable with what the options are and more assertive of actually making it. how they want it rather than just okay what what do I have to buy here. and so it's a it's a great company for both sides. and they started about two and a half, three years ago. and the team today is an entirely different team. essentially the first team had over fifteen people on the payroll. the current team Jimmy Huber: wow. Seth Hastings: is a team of five. It was a team of three three for about a year, and a team of four for Jimmy Huber: wow. Seth Hastings: a while after that. and so in in their case, they knew they had a great idea. They knew they had a great concept. the business today, is actually scaling quite successfully. I I won't, you know, give give exact numbers, but growth has been, you know, high double digits month over month for multiple months. Because they're now scaling out successfully. Jimmy Huber: Legit. Seth Hastings: But they started scaling before they really had that revenue. They they hired Jimmy Huber: Hmm. Seth Hastings: a bunch of people before the contracts were in. And I I I wasn't there on in the early days, but you know, I I hear echoes of it today. And it's a it's a story you hear all the time, but it really hits home when you're actually more connected to it, and it's been part of the reason why. In Eon, we're committed to we're gonna get our first customer, first revenue, and then we're gonna start hiring. We're not gonna we're not gonna inflate the team before we we Jimmy Huber: Yeah. You're gonna learn the lesson. Sure. Seth Hastings: have something that we can actually sell people. we're we're gonna take it slow and as soon well, not even slow, honestly. We're gonna sprint towards the revenue and then and then expand. but Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: For Prelude that a very tough lesson. You know, lots of people had to switch jobs or lost their jobs and it took a couple of years for them to come back to a place where they're now doing well. And you know, now they're they're doing better than ever. There's all kinds of different contracts they have. There's there's a lot that you can get into once you are managing financial documents and processes for people. You can kind of expand into some related fields which they're doing. So they they had a great success of recognizing what the problem was, cutting it out at the root and rebuilding. I think very few companies actually end up doing that successfully. I I was very impressed that they and you know the the team and the board had the awareness and the the willingness to just do it and and it paid off. so it's an inspiring story, either way you slice it. but a good cautionary Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: tale. Of I don't hire fifteen people. Jimmy Huber: Yeah. I love that. I'm I'm glad that we got into that too, because I think that puts the pieces together, I think for me at least, on your background, because man, to have a front row seat to that, but not to be a part of it, but to be able to learn and then translate that into your own business, I think that's huge. Most people literally pay for it themselves and have to go through it. And it sounds like in that case, yeah, you're right. That's pretty rare to cut your workforce by what, is that eighty percent, I guess, at one point, and to not just fold up. I mean a lot of people I think would just, hey, let's do bankruptcy and start again some other time or, you know, quit. But these guys rolled up their sleeves, figured it out, and now they can do it, you know, the right way on the second iteration. So that's that's really cool. And the fact that you're able to benefit from that. yeah, I mean, I know at least at Infotech, we've definitely had our times where we, you know, overcommitted a little bit, had to pull back. You know, there's always this like ebb and flow. tech industry changes a ton. So you're always, you know, kind of combating that. But yeah, it's not about the failures necessarily. It's hey, do you learn from it and get better, right? That's what we're all trying to do. So I think that's that's a really cool story and and a valuable lesson that you can have, you know, for your whole career, I think, that most people might not get. Seth Hastings: Thank you. Yeah, I was very lucky to to find that role and get that position. I also got that role on recommendation from Adam Brewer, current co founder. I don't think I've ever Jimmy Huber: Nice. Seth Hastings: had a job. I've had maybe a dozen jobs in my in my life already. I don't think I've ever had a job where I didn't have a connection somehow. I n I know people Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: say it a lot, but I think more than ever in in today's economy, use all the connections Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: you have. I I had a nine Jimmy Huber: yeah. Seth Hastings: month job search, coming out of of school with student loan debt and a PhD and I I thought it would be simple. I thought it would be easy, to get a job. I didn't really think it would be easy, but I didn't think it would take nine months. so Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah, that's that is wild. It it all it is all about who you know and you gotta be willing to put yourself out there. I think those those connections always are are are valuable no matter what industry you're in. So tell us a little bit about, you know, going forward here. what is next for Eon? I mean it sounds like you you're you're still working in both companies, right? But Eon is kind of the the future. It's just you and your co founder for now, but you've got clients and things are rolling. So is the goal to kind of like you said, get that revenue in and slowly build out that team and eventually license it. I mean, this sounds like the sky's the limit for what it could do. but what's what do next, you know, year or two look like for you guys? Seth Hastings: Yeah, so the I'm anticipating switching to Eon full time as soon as we hit revenue. and I'm of course actively talking with Prelude about this and from the from day zero of me joining Prelude, they knew I wanted to work in startups and I wanted to do startups. so it wasn't a a huge surprise to anyone when that ended up becoming part of it a few months in. Jimmy Huber: Sure, yeah. Seth Hastings: at Prelude I actually joined them right when they were doing the scaling. They were deployed in three three state three states when I joined and now they're in something like thirty-five. so many many more markets. but Jimmy Huber: Nice. Seth Hastings: the the future for Eon is indeed to make this product, license it out, start start kind of selling it as its own vertical while building the next solution. the next solution that can play nicely with the others and can be part of a suite of products. but I my goal is for me to move on to the next solution after we have customer one, customer two, customer three, things are going well, then I can completely turn my focus to the next solution. So it's kind of make make this initial, scale it up a little bit to make sure it's good on its own. It has people you know, with their eyes on it at all times. then I can turn my attention to the next solution. 'Cause that is selfishly the the part that I really enjoy. I love talking to people, hearing the problems, figuring out how to solve them. so greedily I I will try and keep that role somewhat for myself, as as we add people, Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Yeah, no, I love that. Seth Hastings: but Jimmy Huber: I I think every founder that as they grow, they figure out what they want along the way and hire out the rest, you know. And that's kind of the yeah, if you have a successful gig going, I mean, shoot, I'm proof of that. Like I love doing podcasts and you know, up until recently you just don't have the time for it until you get to a certain point. So I I think that's definitely the way to go. and yeah, I've I've really enjoyed Listening to your story, Seth, I think I definitely wanna, you know, keep in touch with you because your story is powerful for others that may be wanting to start something new, but they just need a little extra nudge, right? Or a push in that direction. so if if there are people, like you mentioned connections, right? what's the best way to get a hold of you if if maybe somebody wants more information on Eon itself or or just to get in touch with you individually? Seth Hastings: Yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty good at responding to LinkedIn messages. So my my LinkedIn profile, which is just my my full government. I'm sure we can we can link it. and Jimmy Huber: Sure, yeah, we'll put in the notes. Seth Hastings: the the website for for Eon, use Eon dot AI. but yeah, I'd I'd be happy to to speak with people. I was actually approached yesterday. Eon recently got a grant, our our first funding of any kind. Jimmy Huber: nice. Seth Hastings: we got a twenty thousand dollar grant and a six month monthly stipend as well, from a local entrepreneurship Jimmy Huber: Nice. Good for you guys. Seth Hastings: program. thank you very much. It's it's comes in at a great time because it covers Jimmy Huber: yeah. Seth Hastings: all of our running costs. and so we we just essentially have free runway, which is great. Jimmy Huber: That's awesome. Seth Hastings: but leaving that event, someone actually approached me in the parking lot, because they were trying to get into this Microsoft building 'cause it was a Microsoft associated program. with something that they believed was really big. They had stuff printed out. They've been working on on projects. and we're we're in emails right now. usually those kinds of things don't pan out. but you have to get the reps in. and there are people like me who will who will talk to you. There w there are people who will be looking for a solution. to a problem that you're trying to address. And if you Jimmy Huber: Yeah. Seth Hastings: talk to enough people in that space, you will find people who are motivated to make your vision become a reality in in some way. but yeah, it a big part of it is not being afraid. Not being not telling yourself no before someone else even has the opportunity. I'm a I'm a highly Jimmy Huber: Yeah, that's huge. Seth Hastings: conscientious person with you know, sometimes it's difficult for me to be an imposition on other people. So that's a a muscle I've had to learn how to flex, in the business world. You have to be willing to put yourself Jimmy Huber: Yeah. I mean Seth Hastings: out there and people like doing favors. People like being somebody that enables something cool to happen. so if you if you talk to enough people, you'll find Jimmy Huber: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take, right? Was that Wayne Gretzky, I think, said that. And Seth Hastings: Absolutely. Yeah. Jimmy Huber: yeah, I think that, you know, we get our confidence by failing almost and being able to put ourselves out there and learn and grow. But you have to start somewhere. you know, I even have to tell my kids like, Hey, you you can't learn this because you're a kid. Like, I'm gonna teach you, and that's okay. Like, failure is just part of the growth process. And I think that translates into business too. So Yeah, thanks Seth for being vulnerable and for sharing you know your story today. hopefully our our audience got some some tidbits from that and and is maybe inspired a little bit to you know go further in their own journeys and yeah, make some connections, get out there, figure out your niche and and go for it. And in your case, it sounds like you were able to do that while being employed and they were they understood where it was going. And now, yeah, with getting a grant to you know to get more runway, it's paying off for you guys, like literally. So Seth Hastings: Yeah, absolutely. Jimmy Huber: I think that's a yeah, it's a pretty powerful story. And yeah, I just wish you all the best. We really appreciate your time today. Seth Hastings: Thanks, Jimmy. Thanks for having me on. Jimmy Huber: You bet.