When a services company and a product company try to grow under the same roof, one of them eventually has to lose. In this episode, Jared Shepard explains the decision that forced him to spin Hypori out of his 20 year old, bootstrapped services company, Intelligent Waves, and raise venture capital for the first time in his career as a founder. He walks through the moment he realized a secure communications tool built for a narrow military use case was actually a massive BYOD opportunity for banks, healthcare systems, and eventually consumers, and the tradeoffs that came with chasing that bigger market, including giving up control, taking on a board, and learning to sell against competitors with no comparable category.
Jared talks candidly about what it took to reposition Hypori's pitch as it scaled from a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue to roughly 35 million dollars today, including the moment investors told him security was table stakes and the real value was in data sovereignty. He also gets into what it means to lead when every adjacent platform, from phone manufacturers to Microsoft, sees your growth as a threat to their own business model.
For CEOs weighing whether to spin a product out of an existing operation, or trying to reposition a company that has outgrown its original pitch, this conversation offers a clear look at the decision points, cost of delay, and leadership shifts involved. Jared Shepard is the founder and CEO of Hypori, and also leads Intelligent Waves and the veteran-focused nonprofit Warriors Ethos. Learn more at hypori.com.
00:00 Jared Shepard’s Unconventional CEO Journey
01:22 From Homelessness to Military Service
06:49 Building Intelligent Waves in Iraq
11:19 Redefining the Ultimate Sacrifice
15:08 Creating Warriors Ethos
20:19 The Mission Behind Hypori
24:27 Products and Services Cannot Coexist
27:34 Swimming With Silicon Valley Sharks
32:05 Disrupting Secure Mobile Computing
38:25 Why No-Brainers Become Hard
45:13 Hire Diamonds, Not Shiny Rocks
50:12 Learn From Everyone Around You
