Recon Labs

by Renny McPherson and Alexander Mears

Recon Labs is a podcast that showcases the many sides of successful entrepreneurship for military veterans. Our Frontline Founders series focuses on technology entrepreneurship and veterans who have founded and built great technology companies. Our Search & Acquire series focuses on veterans who have pursued small business ownership via entrepreneurship through acquisition, also known as search funds. It's hard work to serve ...   ...  Read more
Entrepreneurship
Management
Investing

Podcast episodes

  • Season 1

  • Episode 15: Frontline Founders featuring Kyle Hanslovan

    Episode 15: Frontline Founders featuring Kyle Hanslovan

    S01 E15
    49:16

    Kyle Hanslovan is the CEO and co-founder of Huntress. Prior to Huntress, he co-founded and built a defense consulting firm, StrategicIO, worked as a senior cyber vulnerability analyst at publicly-traded defense firm ManTech, and won the World Series of hacking (DEF CON's Capture the Flag competition). He is still active in the ethical hacking community. Earlier, Kyle spent over a decade supporting Offensive Cyber Operations within the U.S. Intelligence Community and began his career as a non-commissioned officer in the US Air Force.

  • Episode 14: Frontline Founders featuring Craig Cummings

    Episode 14: Frontline Founders featuring Craig Cummings

    S01 E14
    46:01

    Craig Cummings is the co-founder and General Partner of Moonshots Capital. He actively invests and advises technology startups, many of which are founded by military veteran entrepreneurs. Before Moonshots, Craig co-founded and was the COO of RideScout, a mobile app that shows users how to get from point A to point B by providing real-time ground transportation information. RideScout was acquired by Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) in 2014. Craig has founded and built several other companies and organizations, including Upskill, which develops augmented reality software for smart glasses to enable the hands-free industrial and commerce workforce. Craig is a US Army veteran who served for 17 years, most of which were spent as an intelligence officer supporting the National Security Agency. He holds a PhD from Columbia University, and is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point where he was their first Truman Scholar.

  • Driving Value Creation through Technology After Acquiring an Old-Line Services Business

    Driving Value Creation through Technology After Acquiring an Old-Line Services Business

    S01 E13
    01:01:58

    Matt Bauer grew up in the Midwest in a small farming community. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois and was commissioned in the Army as a field artillery officer in late 2006. Matt subsequently spent 6.5 years in the Army with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. After the Army, Matt moved to London where he attended London Business School and worked in private equity. In 2018, Matt successfully acquired two industrial services companies, American Scale & American Welding, in Charlotte, NC. He currently lives in Charlotte with his wife and daughter.

  • Leveraging Prior Experience as a Pilot to Acquire an Aerial Services Business

    Leveraging Prior Experience as a Pilot to Acquire an Aerial Services Business

    S01 E12
    01:05:13

    Aaron Kinsey is the CEO of American Patrols and Partner in Bear Capital. Aaron is a graduate of Texas A&M, where he was the Deputy Commander of the Corps of Cadets. He served 9 years as an Air Force pilot. After leaving active duty, Aaron attended Harvard Business School, where he focused his studies in small business and real estate. Following graduation, Aaron returned to Texas to lead a commercial real estate company before partnering to form Bear Capital and acquiring American Patrols. Aaron enjoys swimming, road cycling, and telling dad jokes to his wife Katelyn and their three kids: Barrett, Charlie, and Isabel.

  • Episode 11: Search & Acquire featuring Danny Fields and Steve Reis

    Episode 11: Search & Acquire featuring Danny Fields and Steve Reis

    S01 E11
    55:12

    Following their time in the military, Danny Fields and Steve Reis met in business school at Rice University and decided to partner on a traditional search in 2017. They ultimately acquired Holland Supply, a value-add distributor in Columbus, OH in 2019. Our conversation includes Danny and Steve's insights into how they drastically improved their sourcing during the search phase by narrowly focusing on several specific niches as well as how to put in place a range of systems into a prior generation small business to enable it to scale and grow after their acquisition.