The Company I Have Been Secretly Building the Last 3 Years

EP 674 Founding a New Tech Company Alright, welcome to the show. This is a special episode—dawn of a new era, if you will. We're doing something a little different today. I'm sitting at the table in our new podcast studio with my co-founders, and we're finally pulling back the curtain on a project we've been working on in secret for almost three years. Yeah, you heard that right. THREE YEARS. And we haven't said much about it until now because, honestly, once you go long enough without saying anything, it's like... where do you even start? So today, we're talking about the backstory of Bridger—how we went from a frustrating Turkey hunt where I kept pulling out my phone to check maps, to building an entirely new smartwatch company from the ground up. This is the full origin story: the late nights, the engineering challenges, the AI-generated designs, the battles over battery life, and why we decided to build our own operating system instead of taking the easy route. I'm joined by David, our product genius who's lived overseas building IoT devices and somehow ended up designing watches with a bunch of rednecks in Montana. And Travis, our CFO/COO who ran FP&A for public companies and decided a hunting watch startup sounded like a great idea. This episode is raw, real, and honestly, we almost didn't release it. But we figured, you know what? You've been with us on this podcast journey for years—you deserve to know what we've been building. Let's get into it. Upcoming Dates:  Kickoff Party @ Schnees in Downtown Bozeman Friday Dec 5th at 5:30 Pre-sales open Tuesday Dec 9th at 10 am  Watches will ship February of 2026 (not in time for Christmas)  Join the Watch List Here Maven Optics - Today's show is also proudly supported by Maven Optics—direct-to-you, world-class glass with zero middleman markup. Binoculars, riflescopes, spotting scopes—they build it all in Wyoming with premium components at unreal prices. Host has rocked Maven for years and stands behind the quality and the people. Need new optics? Head to mavenbuilt.com, check out with code TRO, and score a free gift at checkout. Tell 'em TRO sent you. www.mavenoptics.com Tricer Tripods - Fast, light, and simple—that's what Tricer is all about. From amazing tripods to bino mounts and their new bipods, Tricer makes gear that just works. I've been using the heck out of their bipod and it's helped me kill a lot of critters. Head over to triceroutdoor.com and use code TRO to save 10% at checkout. Chapter Timestamps 0:00 - Intro & Sponsor Ads 1:46 - Welcome to the New Era: Bridger Watch Revealed 4:33 - Meet David: From Decathlon to IoT Product Design 10:15 - The Bar Company That Started It All 12:45 - The Turkey Hunt That Changed Everything 15:30 - The Bear Hunt with Travis: Phones, Maps & Frustration 18:00 - Raising Money for a Feasibility Study 20:45 - "You'll Have to Build Your Own Operating System" 23:30 - Battery Life: The North Star We Wouldn't Compromise On 26:15 - AI Creates Our Design: The Dolly Experiment 29:00 - Nine Designers Later: The Battle for "Hell Yes" 32:30 - "Have You Ever Seen a Round Map?" 35:00 - Winning the iF Design Award 37:15 - Software Deep Dive: Maps, Battery Life & Performance 40:00 - Lost in Arizona: Why We NEED Maps on Our Wrist 43:30 - Vision: Hunters, Warfighters, Firefighters 46:00 - Beta Program Announcement & Timeline 48:30 - Final Thoughts from the Co-Founders Mapping Technology: Q&A and Clarification How does mapping work on the Bridger Reckon? We built Reckon and the Bridger OS to run any map as well as our own proprietary wearable-optimized mapping system. We have not officially signed with onX to integrate, but that has been the goal from the beginning and we are hopeful that technology is very close. With that said, we knew if we wanted to be the best watch for hunters, that meant creating a wearable-native mapping experience that worked whether you use onX or anyone else. What we knew we had to have is the ability to bring in your waypoints, markups, routes, and saved information—because without your waypoints, your maps are pretty useless. This is mapping built by hunters, for hunters. Not an afterthought, but the entire reason this watch exists. Three Cool Features About the Bridger Reckon Multi-Day Battery Life Without Compromise - From day one, we refused to build a watch that dies in 3 days. The Reckon is engineered to last an entire backcountry hunt. We built our own operating system specifically to achieve the battery life that serious hunters actually need, not what's convenient for engineers to build. This goal allowed us to build one of the longest battery lifes of any wearable on the market.  Wearable-Optimized Mapping with Your Data - Maps you can actual use! The Reckon is designed to import YOUR waypoints, routes, and markups from whatever mapping platform you use. We built the Bridger OS from scratch to handle real mapping functionality on your wrist. We build wearable first mapping that allows you to navigate the mountains from your smartwatch. AI-Designed Hardware That Won an International Award - We used AI (Dolly) to generate our initial watch design concept, then spent months refining it with industrial designers until it was absolutely perfect. The result? We won the prestigious iF Design Award—proving that a couple of rednecks in Montana can out-design the establishment when they refuse to compromise on what hunters actually need.