Engineers first. Two of us. We don't outsource.

After school we went deep in different directions. One of us went into engineering. The other went into financial services, working in retail banking and wealth management. From both sides we kept noticing the same thing: the most powerful tools in a generation had become available to everyone overnight, and almost no one knew how to put them to work.

The same thing came up everywhere we looked: people were using ChatGPT and Claude but couldn't see how any of it fit their business. The tools were there. The hesitation was real. The know-how was missing. That gap, between what AI can do and what a real business can actually use, is the reason Grand River Labs exists. We don't think anyone should get left behind in this, least of all the kind of businesses we grew up around.

At Michigan State we met on the crew team: the sport of 5 a.m. practices, brutal lake-effect winters, and boats that only move when everyone pulls at once. It teaches you two things fast: discipline, and that nothing good happens alone.

Between training, we made a habit of breakfast in the dining hall, and the conversation was almost always the same one: business. What we'd build. How companies actually work. What we'd do differently if it were ours. We were seniors when COVID arrived, and we went through that strange, uncertain year shoulder to shoulder. The partnership that came out of it is the foundation this company stands on.