EP 16 — Zulu Pods' Rob Sladen on Navigating Government Contracts as a Small Business

On this week's episode of the DIB Innovators podcast, David speaks with Rob Sladen, Co-founder, Chairman, & CEO of Zulu Pods, to explore his entrepreneurial journey and the innovative technology behind their modular lubrication systems, including the challenges of raising capital and how creating prototypes to show potential investors made a huge difference in showing their vision. 

Rob shares insights into the impact of building a resilient startup team and the importance of understanding market pain points. He also touches on navigating government contracts and leveraging SBIR topics to gain traction in the aerospace and defense sectors. 

Topics discussed:

• The importance of assembling a team that collectively doesn't take no for an answer, emphasizing perseverance and collaboration.
• Insights into the complexities of working with government agencies and the patience required to secure and manage contracts.
• Utilizing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) topics to gain traction and funding for their projects.
• The significance of understanding market pain points and customer needs, and the role of effective prototyping in product development.
• Strategies for raising capital as a small business in the competitive tech industry.
• The necessity of adhering to industry standards and regulations to secure government contracts and ensure business success.
• Implementing cybersecurity measures to protect intellectual property and comply with government requirements.
• Practical tips and insights for entrepreneurs looking to turn their innovative ideas into successful products and businesses. 

Guest Quotes: 

“And so the Z pod was born out of that conversation in the car. It didn't look anything like this in the moment, but really, it was just a car ride. And the fact that my wife's also an aerospace engineer. And ended up talking, or we still talk about, kind of weird things that engineers talk about. And a couple days later, the company was formed. So that's kind of the backstory. And it's been a great ride since then over the last four years.” 

“We're able to figure out how to solve that problem in the sense of keeping costs low or where it should be or at, you know, at not increasing cost while also increasing performance. That's what our pod technology does, you know, at the macro level, from a system-level standpoint.” 

“We do know that there's lots of smart engineers that work at some of these defense primes, but thankfully, what we've seen is that those defense primes and those engineers that work there, they want to partner with us, work with us, versus going and spinning up their own teams or investing their capital in what we're doing.”

“I think people need to, like, it's important to know that, like, it's. You're gonna have some hard days, like, it's gonna have some really tough days, but if you've done those, if you built that right team around you, like, you really can do anything.” 

Get in touch with Rob Sladen:  

LinkedIn 

Website 

Get in touch with your host, David Graff: 

LinkedIn 

Listen to more episodes: 

Apple 

Spotify