Jeffrey Dirrenberger of VAULT Innovation

first start off with a a little bit of introduction yeah for sure well thanks for having me on here this is fun and uh

I think it's an awesome topic to be sharing and talking with people about so um yeah I mean I you know kind of my my

background um is has not been Linear by any means and I think as a business owner that's often the case people you

know get drawn to certain things but my background I uh started out as a front-end uh engineer and a designer um

I guess by trade um and that's how I got into technology to start with but really

was the entrepreneurial side for one of my first um I guess Ventures was uh an

Esports uh startup an Esports company and uh I was working with my brother uh

and a couple friends and you know we were that classic young entrepreneur that would say we didn't have it all

figured out uh maybe the best way to describe it we were we we all Builders we were all people that were creators and you know let's make something and

let's make it better and let's make it better we were not sales people we were not Financial people uh and just going

for it you know kind of having that fearlessness of like let's take a risk let's go and um and it was an amazing

experience to sort of help Forge so much that I have become um but that part of

it um was was also very eye openening I mean we didn't know the stuff that makes a business actually successful we knew

how to make products s and even then I don't know if we did either right um but so from there that kind of was the

Kickstart to that entrepreneurial uh Journey for me and I said I want to get better at this so I worked at a small

agency called The Plum Tree group uh based out of Chicago and that's where I actually first met you say we in fact

had work together yes and uh that was just a worldclass time of my life

because I learned so much and you know everything sort of came together I remember thinking about getting an MBA

and exploring you know was that good for me because I needed more I needed more knowledge on you know how did businesses

work how did businesses grow and I opted out to go like well put me into a small

company let's just see what happens and it was the best decision I ever made because um I just got exposed to

everything I was I was hired as a designer and a frontend developer and really quickly you're like well we need

this or let's build this and you just start you know leveling up on all these different buckets and um grew that

company um played many roles in that company and most importantly learned that software development life cycle

just backwards and forward um and it was um uh agnostic so uh the the owner of

that company one of the things he he taught me a lot of things but one of the things he really taught me was it's not

like you know there's a universal lesson in things and there's a very specific granular lesson and so we'd be like

learning a tool for example or some framework or whatever and he would kind of level you know sub like guys remember

this is not about you know this e-commerce tool it's about e-commerce and and it was so true it's like there's

these Universal things that apply not just once and that has been uh key to Growing companies is that you have to

sort of be a granular but then you have to also understand the magnitude of what it actually means and so anyways I

stepped down from there uh and started Vault my company now so a long way of introducing my company now but Vault

Innovation we built software for companies um to specifically help them grow so uh you know very hardcore

tech-based Focus so uh you know Ai mobile apps web apps but the goal is to

make companies grow with that technology so uh the two most common scenarios are

to build a new product that creates a new Revenue Stream So startups we work with a lot of startups or existing

companies that are just doing something different hey I got a new opportunity I want to build it uh and then the other

one is just uh using uh tools to make that that product better that service

better so you know we'll do a lot of like customer facing portals um customization and personalization of

experiences so you know it converts better um and then of course like workflow automation that type of stuff

but it's fun uh every day is a new day technology is is awesome that is awesome

so uh I can definitely relate to kind of your path to where you got here this

today is about you not me so I won't reflect and regurgitate a lot of the same but it's interesting how much you

learn in the different experiences that you weren't necessarily expecting to that kind of leads you to find who you

are and what you do and and kind of take that risk 100% yeah 100% um cool so with

Vault and uh you talked about getting your workflows and things like that what are if someone to say what type of

problems do you solve another version of that maybe more boring is what are your services but I like to look at it from a

problem yeah no what yeah and it's software is can be pretty um you know

agnostic it's a pretty wide range of things so we do we've touched I mean almost every vertical I can think of but

I would say that the main thing we focus on is uh B2B um services and

service-based companies so companies that are providing Services where there's a lot of touch points with their

clients it's I would say the main thing is uh you know kind of customer experience and I don't want to say

buzzwords but um what are your clients problems that they have and uh an

example I would just say uh I think is is one that people may understand it's like Domino's Pizza delivery right they

they made that uh status of what of the pizza delivery tool and it was this just

really straightforward kind of silly thing in a way and it was just Earth shattering to their business number one

but also to the customer like I know where my pizza is and I know they're making it yeah and that sort of

transparency is a big problem we solve with technology you allow things to be self-served for customers you allow them

to do things yourself but also you allow them to see inside of what's happening so that's a huge use case is giving a

business's customers more transparency on the process you're doing because you know service-based companies

you know are usually not one-off things they have clients for a long time so those touch points are many so it's

making those touch points uh smoother and better for customers so unless that's super granular but I can I can go

through more examples but it's it's really making customers more comfortable with your service well that's interesting because um you know and some

of the questions asked led to some overviews of service and solving problems and Automation and that sort of

thing if you're comfortable uh without saying a client name what might be an examp Domino's Pizza we've all heard of

it we all understand it uh what would be a unique example to give us a little bit of insights into what's what's vault

working on right now or a fun Story to Tell in the context of uh that type of

solutioning oh yeah the the the stories to tell of building software um whole

whole lot of stuff to talk about that but no some some cool stuff we're working on right now um we're we're

working on a medical record retrieval uh product and so the service is very you

know honestly pretty straightforward uh an attorney or an insurance company uh needs a medical record to to basically

look through the evidence to process a claim or to process a lawsuit so it's there's a very formal process to get

that record retrieval so by kind of like level one you simply go what what what

record do I need to get okay let me contact the hospital uh let me pay the hospital for that record when the record

sends it to me I have to what they calls bait stamp it or make it like a formal document um that stuff can that stuff

can be done uh in a human form and it has been for many years we went in here

and said okay how can we make this faster so that the turnaround time of that record uh is best in class and so

best in industry and so um we built a portal to intake those uh requests

really simply um and again that's not rocket science but it just wasn't in the industry so the intake of the requests

of the order is really simple now and comprehensive and then when that order that process happens usually is about

two to three weeks time period there's all these statuses that we give them so we talked about the status stuff and

then the third thing is we give them everything in essential location so back in the day you'd send an email or you'd

send them a physical copy and it was you know desperes all over the place so this is now a centralized portal for anyone

at that law firm or anyone at that insurance company use and they can just keep going back to it so that's a that's

a cool project we're working on it's sort of taking this sort of Niche industry and like bringing it ahead to

the Modern Age and uh we really love doing stuff like that that's that's fun um because you can see the impact so

vividly and clearly um and it does indeed actually have an impact you know it's it's not kind of a side project

this is the core of this business right that is awesome and question so one of the things I happen to know coming into

this with Vault some of your uh clients are clients fee for service Etc others

you play a role you play an investor role as well um talk to me a little bit

about how you kind of identify those opportunities whether that is one of those or not uh

yeah it's I mean I I've uh I think when I went into so when I started Vault

Vault Innovation we were actually a venture Studio to start which is which is definitely uh different from our our

setup now and what I mean by that is we were just launching our own Venture so no customers you know there wasn't a

service if you will um and that's always been kind of the root of of our business and and who I built my team around so

kind of people that are that have that approach that generalist approach but also Al a very specific skill set so

kind of that t-shaped employee um I like to call them and uh but you got to

understand the business of what we're building you know there's a lot of people that build software and they just kind of don't really get or believe in

it and that's what everything we're building we really understand and believe um and so yes we we sometimes

will get in and and kind of get married with some of our clients if you will not just uh date and so the process of

evaluating that I mean I've seen a lot of deals um I've done some you know Angel Investing myself I've done some

investing through VA and Partnerships kind of the biggest thing you would think it's like well is this a cool idea

that's obviously that's got to be there so that's really not even a factor it's it's really all about the people I mean

it's like a traditional investor right um you know what makes a business go it's the founding team and you know do

you believe in their mindset do you get along with their mindset and that's such a key thing I mean um you know there's

an old uh kind of way we'd say is like we got a date before we get married you know some people will go I'll sign you

up I'll give you Equity to my company a week after meeting you and you're like this is a pretty serious thing here like

we're being we're going to be at the hip For Better or Worse forever with this Venture until something blows up or

something you know exits and so um it's a very serious thing and the process is

get to know the individual first uh as a human but two can you know can you guys

pull it off you know I see a lot people that innovate or have ideas that they're

you know maybe arms length away from from succeeding so they're like I got this idea this is a huge problem all

right well how you know how are you gonna get it to Market how are you gonna sell it well I just have to get a partnership with Netflix and you're like

well that's you know do you know anyone in Netflix no have you talked to anyone on Netflix no you're like okay so I mean

that's a big leap and you're like I don't I don't see the reality of that happening quickly so you you want to see

that scenario where people are sort of entrenched in the industry or I'm entrenched in the industry and that's

huge you know I don't want to work with a doctor that's trying to make like a social media app or a right um you know

a restaurant owner that's making a tool for attorneys right so it's usually people that are very seasoned in

industry and then they can go sell it yeah um and that's massive it's hard to evaluate that to be honest with you oh

100% I we I have done that in my lifetime and uh with with our team as

well and it's very interesting the ones that uh had super chances for Success

were the ones where the people were from industry they knew the names they knew the context they just needed to have

someone help them through that build either through his part of that skill set part of that expertise and then the

others other person that walks in and before you even talk about cost says well what if I was to give you a

percentage you know it's uh there's a that remember the AL show oh yeah L is

great and's he's talking about air boards and surfboards and all this stuff and like you have this technology he's like well no that's where you come

in so yeah I mean you know a fact that that always blew my mind in this kind of

entrepreneurial game is you know it's sort of considered a young there's the myth Mythos it's a a Young Person's game

sure and um and I and I think I feel that as I've gotten older sometimes you know sort of startup world or

entrepreneurial land or the resources are are kind of meant to be this educational kind of younger component

but I remember reading a stat and this was years ago that it's like the average uh age of a firsttime Founder was like

47 like way older than I you know I'm thinking like Zuckerberg and right all these young people it's like yes there

are those success stories and there are many of them and and it's it's a great model but a lot of people will you know

I've got this portfolio of clients relationships Network I've got a war chest of money that I've saved up and I

have the expertise now let's make my business as a Season Pro an industry and

they're not trying to necessarily make you know a billion dollar business they're trying to make a $50 million

business right and that's something that as I started it was so eye openening to

me I mean like you know why how come I can't get a CEO for that company on the line you're like because I haven't made

any relationships I'm 25 you know right um and so um that's something I think a

lot of people don't realize you got to do it now or never and it's like no it's anytime is time you just got to have the

right uh mindset and the right thing you're going after yeah that's that's uh I could talk about that for a while

because one of the things I always take a look at too in that entrepreneurial piece is is there are folks that say get

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