He knew it was wrong the day he got promoted. So he left Google! Now he's dominating storage data

I sit down with Ethan Gallowitsch, Chief Product Officer at TractIQ, for an inside look at how two former college lacrosse teammates teamed up to transform data transparency in self-storage.

Ethan and TractIQ CEO Noah Starr spent their college years at the University of Texas at Austin as co-captains running their club lacrosse program, dreaming up business concepts on their apartment rooftop after graduation. While Noah pursued real estate acquisitions, Ethan ran an early startup before joining Google, where he worked on YouTube ad revenue systems and early LLM implementations. But when a corporate promotion made him realize he was climbing the wrong ladder, Ethan walked away to build TractIQ alongside Noah and their partner Marina.

In this episode, Ethan shares the evolution of TractIQ from an internal underwriting script into an indispensable industry platform monitoring more than 72,000 facilities. We discuss why Noah stepped away from buying facilities to protect client trust, how the team adopted the philosophy of Unreasonable Hospitality to deliver sub-five-minute customer response times, and why real-time construction starts and CMBS debt data have become essential tools for modern acquisitions and development.

Key Takeaways From This Episode: The Co-Founder Dynamic: How managing team budgets, travel, and logistics in college club sports laid the operational groundwork for launching TractIQ.

Leaving the Corporate Machine: Why Ethan stepped away from Google after realizing corporate promotions failed to provide true entrepreneurial fulfillment.

Eliminating Conflicts of Interest: The critical decision Noah and Marina made to halt their own facility acquisitions so TractIQ would never compete against its users.

High-Touch Customer Success: Implementing "Unreasonable Hospitality" where engineering and product teams interface directly with clients daily via private group chats.

Rapid Deployment Cycles: Why shipping incremental 10% improvements directly from user feedback consistently beats multi-year corporate roadmaps.

Macro Insights on the Ground: Utilizing verified data—including nationwide construction pipeline maps, floodplains, and debt maturity records—to underwrite self-storage and small bay flex deals.

Whether you are underwriting your next storage build or scaling a software platform, Ethan's perspective delivers an exceptional look at product discipline, speed, and founder alignment.

Access TractIQ:

Head to trackediq.com/tssr to ch