#98 Perpetual Adjustment - Drew Bartkiewicz, Lettrs/Patriapps

Drew Bartkiewicz grew up close to West Point, had an older brother who went there and so it was a natural to attend there also. It wasn’t easy. He came up short in his initial application and spent what he calls, “the best year of my life”, attending a prep school to get over the bar. He studied aerospace engineering and learned that real creativity isn’t open-ended and willy-nilly, it’s a structured, disciplined path that leads to a revolutionary development. Graduating and sent to Northern Italy in the 82nd Airborne, Drew overcame his fear of heights, admittedly because he wanted to live in Italy! And it was a real life lesson in learning to live in the present, as the Italian people were expert at doing so. Drew served in the Gulf War and stayed after to set up a protective zone for the Kurds, another incredible life experience for him. He left in 1992 when he was accepted into the MBA program at Yale, graduating in 1994. This put him closer to family and home, and put him square in the middle of business. He joined United Technologies, which put him in business development in four locations around the world. He caught the software bug in 1999 and that has turned out to be his world. Calling himself in “perpetual adjustment”, Drew has stayed agile, moving and always looking to solve problems. His first company was Lettrs, seeking to authenticate mobile messages and by being both different and mobile, they attracted customers. Lettrs morphed into Patriapps really an incubator to start, grow and spin off software companies. One of the big takeaways from Drew’s experience? When taking investment money, the sense of honor to be successful and create a return for investors is higher in the Veterans community than all others. Veteran Founder Podcast with your hosts Josh Carter and Cynthia Kao We record the Veteran Founder Podcast inside NedSpace in the Bigfoot Podcast Studio in beautiful downtown Portland. Audio engineer, mixer and podcast editor is Allon Beausoleil Show logo was designed by Carolyn Main Website was designed by Cameron Grimes Production assistant is Chelsea Lancaster Theme music: Artist: Tipsy Track: Kadonka Album: Buzzz Courtesy of Ipecac Records 10% of gross revenue at Startup Radio Network goes to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries thru kiva.org/lender/markgrimes