Elcomm’s Story

Thank you for taking the time to come read the founders personal story and follow along in this journey. It’s a story from a perspective of a person that was part of a significant event that has had a profound impact in the world we live in.

This story is presented from the viewpoint of the founder and is not necessarily the viewpoints of decisions of anyone else.

During WW2, these concepts were used to train thousands of farm hands to build and fly aircraft.

Introduction

My name is Ronald Ellerbee, I’m a Navy Veteran, Technical Writer, and Business Owner.

Since college, I’ve always had a passion for Technical Communication (communicating complex information) and Instructional Design (creating instructional information).

I was Intrigued how thousands of people, especially military could be trained in a short amount of time using Technical Communication and Instructional Design.

Preface

Back in 2016, while on a training assignment in Chinhae, South Korea, I was assigned to MSC unit EPU 108. Our team's job was to assemble satellite radar dishes to guide ships into port.

While assembling these satellite radar dishes, our team had experienced tremendous frustration due to the size of the contractor provided assembly manual. During this same training assignment, the leader of North Korea was test firing missiles into the sea between Japan and South Korea.

Our unit efforts were hindered due to the difficulty of assembling the satellite dishes using the 50 + page provided contractor manual that was provided. Using my skills as a technical writer, I was able to rewrite the contractor manual; decreasing the page size from 50 to 6 pages.

The time it took to assemble these satellite dish radars dropped from 3 hours to 30 minutes.

After, I developed a concept and created a app to automate content, manuals and instructions.

2021

Prior to 2021, I joined the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech, in 2020, where I initially interviewed around 70 people in a class called “Customer Discovery”. In this class I also had to develop a hypothesis of my idea to test it while I was interviewing potential customers.

After I had done initial customer discovery, it had validated that the need was there, and that the idea was going to have a significant impact.

Fast forward to later that year, I came across an opportunity to pitch to the Taluga group, a research and development organization within the Navy. I pitched to this group about my experiences within the Navy about using manuals.

During the presentation, the listener admitted there was a problem with how manuals were being created and used, and that past the opportunities to fix it had failed. He said that If Elcomm could fix it and find a solution, they would be interested in helping us developing it more, or buy it.

Immediately after this opportunity, an urgent feeling almost like an emergency, came over me, because it was admission that this was a problem, and the work I had did to get to this point and what I had believed also, was right. I just started to scramble.

Shortly after hearing that, I went back to my customer discovery class and told the instructor what had happened. He had said it was one of the fastest customer confirmations he had seen. I had asked him, what do I do now? He was like I don’t know. It was the fastest confirmation he had seen.

A few months after, I came across a proposal opportunity from the Navy that about content challenges, curating content, and knowledge sharing. The opportunity was focused on the problem of curating content, it did not talk about a solution. I knew I had a solution, and that if I had a chance to take a shot at further getting my solution into the hands that needed it, then it would have to start here.

So, I scrambled to write a proposal. While writing this proposal, I had the idea to ask my local congressman for help. I knew If I could get as much support as possible, the better the chance that this idea would work and that the challenges faced from how manuals and content was being created and used would have a better shot of succeeding. The work I had done so far, with interviewing people in the military and businesses that used manuals, showed a disdain in how they were being created and used.

The Congressman's Office had agreed to support Elcomm, in the form of writing a letter of support.

I had asked his representative, what would happen, and he told me that they would send a letter to the Secretary of Defense. I had originally thought that the Congressman’s office would just write a generic letter saying they support my business and idea. Instead, they chose to write and send this letter to the Department of Defense. This was a big surprise to me. I knew that if I had a shot of getting this idea in front of someone's face as important as the Secretary of Defense, I had to be as accurate as possible and ask for exactly what I needed, and let them know exactly what the problem was.

Along side this effort, I had been trying to build a team. I had been trying to convince some of the people I knew, that I believe I was on to something.

After submitting my proposal to the Navy, which included the letter to the DoD, shortly after, my LinkedIn account just blew up. I remember it went from maybe 1 to 2 views every couple of weeks to around 30 views in a single day. And this stayed consistent for a few weeks. I knew something must of happened. The proposal that I had sent in, in combination with the letter from my Congressman, I believe started to put in motion a series of events that would end up starting one of the largest technological transformations in U.S. history. I came to realize that what was sent in, must of been devastatingly accurate.

Part 2

Around May 2021, I came across a “Special Notice” about how a DoD research agency, had recognized there was a problem with the way content is being created, documented and used in military and in large organizations. It was strikingly similar to what Elcomm had proposed earlier that year.

I dove into this opportunity immediately, and I found full pages of research that when I read it, caused a fire inside of me, which would become one of the most ultimate confirmations I had experienced so far. I give this organization credit, for being extremely brilliant.

From there, I just went into panic mode, I just tried to do as best I could from then on.

The proposal from this “Special Notice” was due towards the end of September 2022. I was already involved with other organizations, getting mentorship, and trying to understand what had happened, and the gravity of what was to come.

The same year (2021), I was in a mentorship program. I was introduced to a mentor, by way of an Executive Summary I had developed at Georgia Tech and submitted to them explaining what I was doing.

I had a great mentor. I was also under a lot of pressure to write and really give a good use case for a proposal I was putting together. My mentor was one of the best coaches I had so far. But I never told him how much pressure I was under. I had already chosen doing this proposal over what he was coaching me for. I was also afraid, I was in uncharted territory, no one knew in my network (ironically, other than my coach/mentor) what to tell me what do. I didn’t even know what to do myself. But I did know that I needed to complete this proposal because I believed this opportunity would never come around again and I knew in my heart, if I missed it would really regret it. And looking back, I believe that was a correct assumption.

2022

Part 1:

At the beginning of 2022, I had started to see the first wave of this transformation starting to take place. I was already positioned with the Space Force to try and take this on.

I scrambled to meet this first wave of opportunity. I still knew very little about government contracting. All I could do was work with my local business support agencies, like the GTPAC at Georgia Tech. But it was still not enough.

I just did the best I could. I really didn’t let it stop me; I just saw that I had a shot at being a part of this and riding this wave. I just needed to form a better team.

In April, I signed up for a 1 on 1 meeting with the Space Force with the goal of letting me know if Elcomm’s idea and capabilities was needed for a project they just had put out. For this meeting I had come prepared and submitted a statement ahead of time with Elcomm’s concept. I was so enthusiastic, I was really trying my best, I knew that I was going to speak to a project team, and they would let me know if what I had, is what they needed.

Much to my surprise, and further confirmation, the Colonel leading the project had said yes. It was my first official yes from the Government, that Elcomm’s idea was a match for what they were doing.

As an enlisted person, coming from the Navy, always seeing the officer’s lead, especially at a high level, was a complete acknowledgement that all I had done, and what has been done is real, very real. And I was poised to be one of the first ones in the country to become part of this technological transformation.

I could not even explain in words what was happening. I had started to turn red hot I talked to my friend, a Navy Commander about this. He talked to me about how I should go about this and how I should try to frame the proposal. In addition to writing another proposal, I also need to do an presentation to the Space Force team.

in the meantime, I needed to find a team…I felt like I was searching for needles in a haystack. Eventually I formed a team consisting of a leading scientist from Georgia Tech and a Chief of Staff who worked for NTIS. They had been okay with working as a team as long as we won.

Before then, I had tried to partner with multiple teams and had got rejected multiple times. While putting this team together, I reached out to the scientist at the university and scheduled a meeting with him. When the meeting finally happened, I remember meeting him and going to his office, which was located in a restricted area of a building at Georgia Tech. From a business perspective, I had never done this before, this marked a new phase of my involvement, not only with this university but with the Space Force.

I remember, I presented my pitch to him, and with all seriousness, he responded, “Do you know what you have done? You have helped the entire Department of Defense, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines”. I did not know how to react after that. I went back to my car and just sat in silence.

A few weeks later, the time finally came to present, despite setbacks, I had got myself ready. I invited my two teaming partners. And to my surprise, they both showed up when it was time to present.

The presentation was done virtually. I was in Georgia, they were in California (from what I knew). I remember, that when I started the presentation, there was a room full of people. I couldn’t see anybody at all, their cameras were all turned off. The only knowledge I had of someone being there was the host, who was guiding me. I felt completely alone in the dark about what I was going into. I just did my best to go through and give them my story and what had been created. I gave them the best I could.

Although I didn’t get selected for the project, the feedback they gave me was extremely beneficial and gave me what I needed to strengthen my proposal and gave me a “foot further in the door”. I had gotten direct access and contact within Space Force to make this work and later I was talking to about 25 officers and program managers from the space force, all of them telling me their needs and letting me know that Elcomm was positioned to deliver a solution to what they needed. I also learned that I didn’t know how to “sell to the government” and that I was so deficient in that area of knowledge because I did not even know I had a problem in this area. With the government, I needed to be providing my service/product for them to try as opposed to only pitching an idea. But I figured this out and am now moving forward.

What I didn’t know back then, which I had to learn, was that I didn’t know how to sell to the government. It was a totally different way of doing things. I was so deficient in that area of knowledge; I didn't even know there was a problem.

All I knew was that the government was telling me what they needed, and what Elcomm had made could help them. And I wondered, if they are telling me what I have is what they need, then why are they not offering to buy it from me? Now I know it should have been the other way around. I should have been asking them and walking them through the process versus them asking me. I wouldn’t figure that out until later the following year.

A little before October 2022, I had purchased a domain name to upload the app that was created. It was hard to focus on that part due to the events earlier this year. All that mattered was launching the website, which I did. I had put a place holder there until I could upload the code.

By November 2022, ChatGPT had exploded into the public’s consciousness. That was a hard pill to swallow. Did I give up? No. That very same month, Elcomm was selected by the Space Force to come to Colorado for a working group that was preparing to fulfill Space Force’s vision of being born digital. The details of this working group I can not discuss, but about a month later, the companies that attended this working group, along with Elcomm, would be recognized as some of the top innovative companies in the U.S.

After, and with much thought, I had came to the conclusion (which is entirely my belief), that through the Government’s "Special Notice", and solicitation, that essentially, Elcomm’s concept had been released into the world, bolstered by the Governments own research and development, and essentially democratized. With the introduction of ChatGPT, I had seen an entirely new industry be born and revolution take place. An, amazing event.

At the beginning of 2023, an explosion of AI, Digital Engineering and Emerging Technology opportunities was released. I fought to be part of this, but by then, I had ran out of steam, and to support my family, I had to get job and focus on really taking care of my family. It was one of the biggest setbacks that had happened to me. I was so devastated. I was out of energy, my time had essentially been taken up by work activities, and I just felt defeated. This happened while all of these opportunities was being released, and I felt so helpless to because I couldn’t muster up the strength or the will power to fight. And these opportunities had been some of the easiest ones to take advantage of.

Eventually, and little by little my energy and depleted resources had started to build back up. A mountain of small business support environments started to appear. I did my best to start to take advantage of these. Because I knew I needed the help. I knew I needed to rebuild. It was so hard. But it became worth it. I eventually secured a small business loan, and then eventually a grant. That was the most success I had seen in almost two years. With those two funding sources coming in, I worked on product development and getting a trademark.

In 2023, I was also part of DoD’s Phoenix Challenge, where Elcomm was further acknowledged as an innovative business.

But the best part of 2023, is when Elcomm became a founding member of one of the largest AI projects in the country.