Kyma | 2023-2024
Building a Company Operating Model From Scratch
From first employee to headquarters, team, roadmap, partners, IP, and commercial traction.
Overview
Originally hired as Head of Battery Engineering, Travis was asked by the company's investor to assume executive leadership after the founding team departed.
The Challenge
The business needed an execution system: headquarters, team, roadmap, supplier strategy, partnerships, IP management, customer development, and daily operating rhythm.
Travis's Role
CEO responsible for turning a technical concept into an operating company with practical execution capacity and commercial traction.
What Travis Built
Headquarters operations, hiring plan, five-year technology and commercialization roadmap, supplier and technology partnerships, IP strategy, and customer-development cadence.
Contracted revenue secured.
Engineers and technicians hired and led.
Five-year technology and commercialization plan.
Lesson learned
An operating model is not a slide. It is the set of decisions, roles, rhythms, relationships, and constraints that make execution possible every day.