Introduction

Pete Paisley (00:00):
Nathan Thompson, we’re very pleased to have you on The LTO Show. Thanks for joining us.

Nate Thompson (00:05):
Well, thanks for inviting me.

Pete (00:07):
I want to talk a little bit about how you built SpectraLogic. What led to your interest in electronics while growing up?

Nate (00:17):
That’s a great question. My family and economic circumstances meant I knew I’d have to pay for college myself, so I had several jobs and even ran a few small businesses in high school. When I was 13 or 14, I had paper routes for the Denver Post. I think I had five routes, which was about 500 to 700 customers.

One of my customers had a pinball machine on his front porch. I ended up purchasing it from him, took it home, and tried to power it on—it didn’t work. Parts of it would light up, but it was fully electromechanical: relays, steppers, transformers, light bulbs, and switches.

Early Electronics and Programming

Pete (01:54):
So you had to figure it out yourself?

Nate (02:02):
Exactly. I made simple drawings to understand how it worked and taught myself basic digital electronics. I went through the machine fixing it, which got me interested in two areas: electronics and the digital side of things.

At the high school I attended, Emily Griffith Opportunity School, I could punch cards and write programs that ran on a Univac 1106 computer. That’s where I started programming. Later, I worked for three computer companies before attending college in Boulder.

Pete (03:15):
Do you remember the names of those companies?

Nate (03:30):
Yes. The first was MinComp, which worked with a Xerox computer digitizing elevations on topo maps. This was before satellite mapping. It taught me fast math skills but wasn’t a long-term career.

The second company built interface cards for 8-inch floppy drives for hobbyists. I did both hardware and software there, including device drivers. After that company went under, I worked on Texas Instruments 990 computers, a 16-bit system, writing software and working with hardware.

Entrepreneurial Spirit in High School

Pete (05:52):
You had amazing tech experience in high school. Did that lead to your electrical engineering path at CU Boulder?

Nate (06:03):
Yes. I applied to the engineering school, was accepted, and finished with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science.

Pete (07:10):
You were repairing pinball machines as a business during high school?

Nate (07:17):
Yes, not very efficiently, but I got the work done and didn’t charge much.

Pete (07:48):
Did you always have an entrepreneurial streak?

Nate (07:48):
I’ve always been like that. My first venture was in second grade, selling “Creepy Crawlers” I made to other kids for lunch money. I even got in trouble with the school for it, but it was my first taste of product sales.

Building Western Automation

Pete (09:19):
At CU, you ran Western Automation while studying. Tell me about starting that as a student.

Nate (09:19):
I started the business with my last $500 after struggling to pay tuition and rent. I managed full course loads and ran a business, often sleeping only three hours a night. By graduation, we had about a dozen employees, with three still with the company today.

Pete (09:57):
What drove the first deals at Western Automation?

Nate (09:58):
We realized we could build memory boards for 16-bit computers. A 64 KB memory board cost $18,000; I could make a 1 MB board for $1,000 and sell it for $4,000. We also dealt in 8-inch floppy drives, selling to the local Visa processor, Rocky Mountain Bank Card.

Pete (12:08):
Were you building these in your house in Boulder?

Nate (11:45):
Yes, myself and a roommate built them in the basement, selling them to customers daily. Eventually, neighbors complained, and we moved to a small building in East Boulder after graduation.

Lessons from Early Setbacks

Pete (14:03):
Did any deals go bad in the early days?

Nate (14:03):
Yes. We released a caching memory board that initially failed for some customers in Puerto Rico and Florida. I personally went to support them — almost as a “hostage” to ensure the engineers could fix the problems.

Pete (15:47):
And you met your future spouse during that process?

Nate (15:37):
Yes. The Florida reseller was run by Dana, whom I got to know and later married. So a major business screw-up ended up as a lifetime relationship.

Pete (16:02):
Making lemonade out of lemons!

Nate (16:02):
Exactly. We’ve always focused on making things right with customers — listening, following up, and delivering solutions. That approach has been central to long-term success.