Dropping Out, Raising Capital, and Starting a $1.5B Defense Tech Company | In The Arena

Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg walks through his founder journey, from the first days to a $1.5B valuation. We cover his lessons learned and key decisions he made along the way: why Vannevar is not dual-use, how to think about defense TAM, why you should reference-check your investors, and building credibility in the early days. Finally, Brett explains what shifts once you do raise venture capital – how incentives and expectations change, and why managing founder psychology and energy becomes part of the job if you want to build something durable.Highlights-- The $16K bill that triggered the leap-- Why defense-only > dual-use for actually shipping value-- How to talk TAM in defense (and how not to)-- Building credibility from zero with “part-time hooks”-- Reference-checking your investors-- Founder psychology and burnout, from survival mode to scale🔗 Careers at Vannevar: https://vannevarlabs.com/careers/Outline00:00 The very beginning01:08 Deciding to drop out of school02:24 Making the leap 03:23 The early co-founder partnership05:46 Product development before customers 07:26 Fundraising then vs. now09:39 The dual use trap (and why we avoided it) 12:33 How to think about defense TAM 15:47 Recurring revenue in defense18:03 Screening investors 20:26 Building credibility as an unknown quantity 22:13 Biggest surprises about being a founder24:08 Mindset shifts from zero to $1.5B