Greg Davis bootstrapped Overwatch Imaging into a profitable, venture-backed dual-use company — before defense tech was a fundable category. In this episode, he breaks down how to sell autonomy into risk-averse, mission-critical markets: why the message that closes investors actively kills deals with operators, how to give customers an adoption on-ramp without commoditizing your technology, and what a decade of real-world deployment actually buys you in government sales cycles.

Topics Discussed:

• Selling autonomy to risk-averse, mission-critical operators without overpromising

• Why investor messaging and customer messaging must be kept completely separate

• Designing an adoption on-ramp that layers onto existing fielded hardware

• Navigating long contracting cycles and building institutional trust over time

• Bootstrapping a defense tech company before venture capital entered the category

• Managing a dual-use business across civil, commercial, and defense verticals

• How to find your "mission-market fit" using a problem signature, not a TAM slide

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