Built by someone who never took the easy road. Every project is personal.
Tommy Strader served in the United States Air Force, where he learned the fundamentals that would define everything that came after: precision under pressure, mission-first thinking, and the discipline to execute when it counts. Service wasn't just a chapter — it's a framework. The military doesn't leave you. It becomes how you think.
The Air Force gave Tommy a foundation that no classroom could replicate. You learn to solve problems you've never seen before, with resources you don't have, faster than feels possible. That instinct — figure it out, ship it, debrief after — runs through everything Fiction Factory builds.
After service, Tommy found his way into the motorsports world — a universe where fractions of a second separate winners from everyone else. He trained through the Skip Barber Racing School, developed a deep appreciation for mechanical precision, and embedded himself in a culture where performance isn't a buzzword. It's the only measurement that matters.
Motorsports taught Tommy how to read systems under stress. A race car isn't just metal and engineering — it's a feedback loop. Every lap is data. Every adjustment is a hypothesis. That scientific, iterative approach to building things never went away.
Tommy co-founded 360 Wraps, helping pioneer the vehicle wrap industry in an era when few understood what it was or what it could become. He built the business from the ground up — operations, marketing, client relationships, production workflow — and turned it into a recognized name in a space that was still figuring itself out.
360 Wraps wasn't just a wrap shop. It was a brand identity operation. Tommy understood that a vehicle isn't just transportation — it's a moving billboard, a statement, a first impression doing 70 mph down the freeway. That sense of visual storytelling and brand impact became core to his DNA as a builder.
Tommy's motorsports and marketing worlds collided when he worked with Gas Monkey Energy — the high-octane brand from Dallas's most famous garage. He helped bring the brand to one of motorsport's most iconic stages: the Indianapolis 500. Working at that level means navigating sponsors, broadcast relationships, hospitality, logistics, and the intense media ecosystem around IndyCar.
The Indy 500 is a masterclass in scale and spectacle. Tommy absorbed everything — how big brands show up, how stories get told, how presence is manufactured at events where hundreds of thousands of people are watching. Those lessons live inside every Fiction Factory project.
Today, Tommy runs Fiction Factory — a creative studio, fabrication engine, and AI systems operation that builds products most companies would take years and millions of dollars to produce. He does it with AI, velocity, and the hard-wired ability to figure things out that no one told him how to do.
Active projects include H2Obot (AI growth platform for the water industry), Haystack (AI-powered digital forensics infrastructure), IEP Compliance AI (keeping school districts out of court), and a pipeline of new products under the Fiction Factory umbrella. The list gets longer every week.
Tommy doesn't believe in waiting for permission. He doesn't believe in hiring a team of 20 people to validate an idea that could be live in 72 hours. He believes in building first, asking questions second, and refining based on what the market actually tells you — not what a focus group predicted.
Zero employees. Unlimited output. That's not a marketing line. It's a genuine operating thesis. AI agents handle the work of entire departments. Speed becomes a competitive moat. Systems scale without headcount. The old playbook doesn't apply.
Fiction Factory exists to prove that one person with the right tools, the right instincts, and an Air Force veteran's refusal to quit can build things that matter.
Vincent Strader is the creative co-founder of Fiction Factory — the next generation of the build-first ethos. Where Tommy brings the operational intensity and systems thinking, Vincent brings fresh creative instincts and a native fluency with the visual and digital tools that define modern culture.
Fiction Factory is, in part, a father-son story. The belief that building things — real things, useful things, things that last — is worth doing. And that the best time to start is now.
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