CEO Spotlight: Scott Tibbitts of Katasi
Scott Tibbitts, Founder & CEO, Katasi
Scott Tibbitts was the founder and CEO of Starsys Research, a global leader in spacecraft mechanism design with 150 employees, and a record of 3,000 mechanisms flown on 300 spacecraft with zero failures. Starsys was acquired by Sierra Nevada Corporation in 2008. Prior, Scott was the Founder and Vice-Chair of eSpace, the Center for Space Entrepreneurship, a congressionally funded aerospace incubator supporting the creation and development of entrepreneurial space companies.
He is currently the founder and CEO of Katasi, deploying Groove, the first network-level solution to distracted driving in partnership with US and International Telecommunications providers. They have five employees in Colorado, with a part-time employee in Sydney Australia, as well as a distribution partner in Cape Town South Africa. Most importantly, Scott is the keyboard player in the garage band “Too Much Fun”, known for playing the same 40 classic rock songs in the same order for more than 30 years.
Please describe what your company does today.
Katasi, in partnership with US and International Telco’s, has developed and is now deploying the world’s first network-level distracted driving solution, Groove, in collaboration with a top 10 US transportation and logistics company. Groove does not require an app on the phone. It identifies the driver of a fleet vehicle within 60 seconds of trip start and blocks distracting content before it can reach the phone. Groove can allow apps considered safe, such as navigation or music streaming. When the key is turned off at the end of a drive, blocked and stored messages are forwarded.
Groove is considered by experts in the insurance, telecom, and transportation industries to be the first truly effective technical solution to distracted driving.
How has Katasi been impacted by the current pandemic?
COVID-19 initially looked to be an existential crisis with customer programs slowing and investors pulling back when the market collapsed. A PPP loan was life-saving.
As the country adjusted, trucking and transportation at first slowed, then flourished keeping that side of our business healthy, however, as Telco’s shifted focus to their COVID-19 threats, the consumer side of our business slowed. Shifting to a singular focus on transportation, a market that was flourishing because of COVID-19, saved us from being a COVID-19 fatality.
What aspect of your team or company culture are you most proud, and how are you maintaining it?
I believe start-ups by their nature are built upon a “we will figure this out no matter what is thrown at us” culture. However, the all-in context must be in the DNA of the team, not simply the founders.
I believe this can be engendered by constant attention to how best to honor a team that believes in the vision to the point that they are willing to trade the comfort of a stable job for the uncertainty of a start-up. That, and a transparent telling-it-like-it-is sharing of the real-time concerns and threats to the company, helped us create a band of brothers and sisters that pushed through our COVID-19 challenges.
What is the most important thing you're working on right now, and how are you making it happen?
Our one thing… Do It again! Replicate the revenues and customer experience of our anchor customer. After more pre-revenue years than we could have anticipated, and against all odds, we are now in a position to scale. Our singular focus is 2-3 fast-follower customer captures. Our near-term strategy is high-touch C-Level partnership development with other large US transportation companies, catalyzed by the addition of A-team senior sales talent to the Katasi team and Board.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received as a CEO?
Best advice ever: Recognize and celebrate your weak suits as well as your gifts. Find a leadership partner that can’t do what you can and can do what you can’t. In most cases this is the founder/creator partnering with CEO/COO operational talent.
What has been the most meaningful aspect of your engagement with the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network?
Being warmly welcomed by BEN Colorado to both sides of the table, as both an advisor (Aerospace) and BEN company (Katasi): Having the simultaneous opportunity to be both the student and the teacher, much like life.