Page 10 - SSD Nodes Celebrates 7-year Anniversary

Joe Dager: I find that the most challenging for most young companies is the amount of time
required for personal support. I know you've taken time, that you've directly answered people
and that's part of the support structure I think any successful startup does. I can remember at

my kid’s football games talking and troubleshooting a control panel on some equipment or
something, on the phone with someone. That's part of creating and running a business. Was
there ever a time in these seven years you were just like, "I'm just going to stay in bed today"?

Matt Connor: I think it's really important to take time to reflect and to relax and take some time
to vacation because a lot of what happens with founders is that they are on call 24/7. They work
on the business 24/7, and then you burn out. You're just grinding so hard on this one thing, and
you miss out on a lot of opportunities by doing that. So, being able to take time to reflect, having

a hobby here and there, helps a lot. I would recommend stuff like that. There hasn't really been
a time where I was like, "Screw this, I'm out of here." Never, because I committed to this and I
want to prove everybody wrong that I can do it.

Joe Dager: Was there certain milestones or hurdles that changed the way you did business?

Matt Connor: There came the point where I needed to hire. It was scary, and I just wasn't really
sure about how to do it, about how to find the right people and that sort of thing. I just learned
it by doing and just being really deliberate about how I was doing it.

Joe Dager: What are the threats for SSD Nodes? Do you think it's mostly competitors? Do you
think things will change in the future?

Matt Connor: I expect the landscape is going to change and I think it's really important to
embrace that. The threats are really just not being able to move quickly enough. I think when I
was talking about the informal structure before. If you have a really formal structure, then there's
no room to move because everybody is used to just repeating the same process over and over,
nobody is thinking for themselves. I think the biggest threat is complacency. Remember when we
talked about being, "Are you a startup or not?" I think that still being in that startup mindset, that
yes, we have this business model that works, but if something comes along that completely
changes it, we just have to do it, because one, our customers are going to be asking us to do it
and two, we need to serve our customers. So, that's kind of the main threat.

Joe Dager: Do you have a 7-year plan laid out there for the next seven? What's in the future for
Matt and SSD Nodes?

2522 Chambers Road Suite 100 Tustin, CA 92780
https://SSDNodes.com