335 | The State of Lexington's Startup Ecosystem with Garrett Fahrbach & Ben Strevy of Awesome Inc

There are 40% fewer small businesses in America's defense industrial base than there were 20 years ago. The machining, welding, and fabrication that turn a program into an actual weapon happen three tiers down from the primes - and that's where the capital has stopped flowing. In Louisville, a veteran-owned holding company is buying those shops and keeping them.This week's episode is from Mission Critical, our series on the industries American prosperity runs on: energy, manufacturing, defense and space.In this episode, Patrick Malcor (Founder & CEO) and Wesley Sparks (Chief Strategy Officer) of Ajax Defense join Logan and Alex at Whelan Machine & Tool in Louisville - a shop that has machined parts for the Naval Strike Missile since the first prototypes in 2018 - to share how Ajax is buying and permanently holding the tier-2 and tier-3 manufacturers that build the defense industrial base from the bottom up.The conversation covers Patrick's thesis that defense has a capital problem rather than an innovation problem, why a trillion-dollar industry running on one-year continuing resolutions can't make long-term investments, and what happens when multi-year commitments reach the primes but never flow down to the subcontractor who owns the machines. They also get concrete about AI on the shop floor, where new tooling has taken CNC programming on a new part from six hours to thirty minutes, and about the retiring owner with no successor who can't simply shut the doors because he's a single source on a live program.Anduril and the neo-primes still need the 110-person welding shop that makes the part. Keeping that shop alive is its own kind of building.Hosted by Logan Jones and Alex MercerMission Critical is proudly supported by:Valent → getvalent.com

There are already 700 to 800 FDA-approved AI devices on the market, yet a busy oncologist still has nowhere trustworthy to learn which ones are worth their time.In this episode, Dr. Doug Flora joins us to share how he is closing that trust gap. He is the Executive Medical Director of Oncology at St. Elizabeth's Yung Family Cancer Center and co-founder of Tensor Black, a clinician-led education platform he calls "the GPS for oncology."We discussed the three layers of AI in cancer care, from ambient note-taking to the "co-pilot" that supports physicians, and why detection is moving upstream to the "pre-patient" stage. Dr. Flora unpacks St. Elizabeth's screening program, which has caught roughly 900 stage-one lung cancers across 65,000 patients screened, and why keeping physicians "at the wheel" matters. From a region often called the epicenter of cancer in America, this is a founder using better tools to fight a very local fight.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

Your car has a dealership that knows every service it's ever had. Your house - usually the largest asset you'll ever own - has nothing.In this episode, Builder Backed co-founder and CEO Paul Koop joins us to share how his Covington, Kentucky startup is building what he calls the "Carfax for homes": a permanent, portable service record for a house, created from the day it's built.Paul traces the idea back to buying a home built in 1892, then moving four times in five years and losing access to his father-in-law, a lifetime tradesman and the only trusted resource he had. He explains why partnering with homebuilders - starting with Erlanger-based Fischer Homes - gave Builder Backed the clean data and the distribution that home-services aggregators spend fortunes chasing, how a provider-paid model keeps homeowners, trades, and builders aligned, and why the partnership turned out to drive Fischer's sales rather than just improve customer service. He also gets specific about where AI stops: nobody, yet, will let a bot walk them into a $40,000 decision about their house.It's a case study in what happens when a seed-stage founder finds one anchor partner in his own backyard, and a reminder that the Cincinnati region's deep bench of big-company talent is a real startup advantage.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

Small businesses represent nearly half of all American jobs and 45% of all technology spend, yet less than 5% of venture capital goes to building technology for them.In this episode, Tim Metzner joins us to share how Fireroad, his Cincinnati-based early-stage venture firm, is betting that AI is changing that math. A serial entrepreneur who co-founded Coterie Insurance ($70M+ raised) and Differential (the studio behind Cincinnati's first unicorn, Astronomer), Tim returns to the show four years after his Episode 190 appearance with an entirely new chapter.We dig into the "silver tsunami" of retiring business owners with no succession plan, why Fireroad targets AI-resistant categories where technology supercharges rather than replaces, the flywheel of having business owners as LPs who become his founders' first customers, and why Tim believes staying small as a fund is the alpha most VCs are missing. Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

Hospital-acquired pneumonia is the number one hospital-acquired infection in the United States — and it often starts with something as simple as a missed tooth brushing. After 37 years of consultations in Eastern Kentucky ICUs and nursing homes, one dentist decided to fix it.In this episode, Dr. Greg Baker and Dr. Brandon Wilde of Toothsure join us to share how they're building OralVac and OralVac+ — preloaded, measured-dose oral care devices designed around two years of ICU nurse feedback — from their home base in Hazard, Kentucky.The conversation covers the personal moment behind the company (Greg's mother spending a week in the ICU with only a cup of water for oral care), navigating the FDA as a combination drug-device targeting Q4 2026 clearance, the funding journey from self-funded to Keyhorse Capital and a seven-figure state grant, and the $7.3M manufacturing facility bringing 60 jobs to Perry County.It's a story of Appalachian grit: a clinician-founder betting his legacy on the idea that Eastern Kentucky can build world-class medical devices.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

A union electrician with zero coding experience built an AI tool that's stopping EV owners from getting upsold thousands of dollars in unnecessary panel upgrades - and then Mark Cuban reshared his post.In this episode, ChargeRight founder Jason Walls joins us to share how 15+ years pulling wire in Kentucky led him to build an app that puts the NEC code book directly in homeowners' hands for $12.99 - replacing $300 truck rolls and $3,000–$6,000 panel upgrade quotes.The conversation covers Jason's path from automating job site paperwork to building a full product with Claude, the moment a Mark Cuban reshare hit 800,000 views, and how he's expanding ChargeRight into a broader product suite called RightSuite (Inspect Right, Spa Right, and more). We also dig into the trades-vs-AI narrative, why Jason isn't trying to raise venture capital, and how he learned to code by mapping git and repos onto motor control circuits and smart switches.Jason's story is what AI-era entrepreneurship actually looks like outside Silicon Valley - domain expertise plus the right tools, built by a guy who's still going to work every morning.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

Kentucky has millions of acres of underutilized land, a shifting energy economy, and a generation of farmers looking for what's next. Sunflower Fuels is trying to answer all three with a single crop.In this episode, Sunflower Fuels CEO Gabrielle Blocher joins us to share how the company is building a Kentucky-rooted biomass business around Miscanthus — a perennial, "fire and forget" crop that can yield for 30+ years, grow on reclaimed surface mine land, and feed multiple growing markets.We dig into the full stack of the business: the horse bedding product (Revive Animal Bedding) generating revenue today, the renewable food packaging market forming next, and the long-term vision — bioenergy with carbon capture (BECCS) and sustainable aviation fuel. Gabby explains why the real economics of BECCS live in the voluntary carbon credit market, why Sunflower Fuels pivoted in 2025, and what her Naval Academy and Marine Corps background taught her about building a real-world startup. Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

What is the current state of Lexington's startup ecosystem? Garrett Fahrbach (Awesome Inc) and Ben Strevy (Awesome Fund) give us their perspective from in the arena with founders. From idea inception to providing funding, Awesome Inc is providing the resources necessary for founders to find success in Lexington, Kentucky.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

99% of companies were built before AI became commercially available in 2023. Now every one of them must transform their operations or watch post-AI competitors do the same work with a fraction of the people.In this episode, Buddy Bockweg returns for his third Middle Tech appearance to explain why Vsimple raised $7 million and moved headquarters back to Louisville.Buddy breaks down the divide between pre-AI and post-AI companies, why the digital assembly line must come before AI deployment, and why starting transformation in 2028 means results in 203—potentially too late. We discuss the "SaaSpocalypse" eating software companies with each model release, why Vsimple requires deep customer engagement rather than self-service signup, and why the window to start this transformation is shorter than most leaders think.Hosted by Logan JonesMiddle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

The U.S. generates 8 million metric tons of e-waste annually, yet ships nearly 100% of its valuable circuit boards overseas for processing. Export bans and tariffs won't solve that—they'd just create stockpiles. The real fence we need to build is one that keeps material in.In this episode, Matt Bedingfield joins Logan to share how Mint Innovation is building that domestic processing capacity using biometallurgy—a method that combines chemistry with naturally occurring biological matter to extract critical metals like gold, copper, and silver from printed circuit boards. Matt draws on 16 years in metals recycling across four continents, from strategy roles at Novelis to building a $120 million copper smelter in Kentucky, and now as Global President of a company that's already partnered with HP to create closed-loop recycled copper for new EliteBook production.The conversation covers why the U.S. is 1 million tons short on copper annually, why Mint's 15-month, $40 million facility buildout challenges the traditional smelter model, how batch-level traceability lets OEMs own their supply chains, and what the Longview, Texas facility opening in 2027 means for domestic manufacturing. Matt also digs into the consumer behavior problem—aluminum cans hit 85% recycling rates in deposit states versus 15% without, yet e-waste lacks that mechanism. He breaks down why deposits work (Americans respond to financial incentive, not sustainability messaging), why even industry insiders have drawers full of old iPhones out of data privacy fear, and why the real bottleneck is infrastructure, not policy.Everything downstream—data centers, semiconductors, defense systems, grid infrastructure—starts with the metals we have the capacity to process at home.Hosted by Logan JonesMission Critical is proudly supported by:Valent → getvalent.comAbel Construction → abelconstruct.com