Meet Dustin Dam, Co-founder and CTO @ Set Your Sites

Set Your Sites is a camping technology startup that offers solutions to campgrounds, including modern payment and reservation options for walk-up sites and Wi-Fi services. The company recently closed a $500,000 pre-seed funding round and was a finalist in the 2025 Silicon Prairie Startup Week Pitch Competition.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or support other entrepreneurs?

I grew up in Sidney, Nebraska, where people don’t spend much time talking about innovation; they tend to fix what’s in front of them. If something breaks, you figure it out. 

Sidney was also where Cabela’s started. Watching a company like that grow out of a small town changed how I saw what was possible. I wanted to understand how something like that worked, so I pushed my way into a job in their IT department while I was still in high school. That’s where I started connecting the dots between systems, people and scale. 

After that, I studied electrical engineering at UNL, did a co-op at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and worked for National Instruments in Texas. All of that taught me how to build things that actually work in the real world. 

When I came back to Nebraska, I took an entrepreneurship class that finally pulled it all together. It helped me see how the engineering side, the systems side and the problem-solving side all fit into something big and how I fit into it. That’s when it clicked that building businesses was just another form of building systems.

My wife, Stacy, and I started Set Your Sites after too many frustrating camping trips where the systems didn’t match reality. We wanted to fix that. Every campground we modernize strengthens local economies and keeps outdoor revenue in-state — proof that solving small, local problems can add up to statewide impact. 

Supporting other entrepreneurs comes from the same place — I like helping people who are trying to make something work better.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you were just starting out?

After college, I realized how quickly grades and credentials matter less and less; results are definitely preferred. I used to assume other people were smarter or more capable, but over time it became clear that most people are just figuring it out in real time. Some are better at sounding certain. 

If I could go back, I’d tell myself to stop overthinking and start moving. You don’t learn from waiting; you learn from seeing what breaks and why. Once something’s real, the feedback tells you what to fix.

I’d remind myself that being wrong isn’t something to avoid — it’s where most of the real learning happens. You can’t be honestly wrong unless you’ve taken a hard position and defended it. Hedging doesn’t count. When you’re willing to commit and find out you’re off, that’s when you actually get better.

How do you stay motivated when things feel overwhelming — or stagnant?

I don’t really think of it as motivation. I’ve always had an urge to do things — the work is in pointing that energy somewhere useful. 

When things get stuck, I’ve learned to redirect it instead of forcing it. Sometimes, that means picking up a guitar, doing something physical that requires no thought or switching to a different problem entirely. Other times, I’ll talk with a friend about one of their ideas or clean my desk.

It’s the same logic I apply to work: If one part of the system locks up, you don’t force it; you redirect the flow. That reset usually gives me the space to see the problem for what it is and start again with a clear head.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome and how did you overcome it?

My first business was making PowerPoint slideshows for graduation ceremonies and small events. It was simple work, but it taught me a lot about deadlines, expectations and what it means to deliver something that actually matters to people. 

Then one job came along that was different. A man in town had died unexpectedly, and his family brought me a grocery bag full of old photos. They asked if I could make a slideshow for the memorial service. I was 16. I had an old flatbed scanner that took about five minutes per picture, one line at a time. For days, I sat there scanning each photo and watching his life appear on the screen, piece by piece. 

At the time, I would have given anything to get out of doing that after I said I would. I couldn’t figure out how to quit without making a bad situation worse, so I just started — one picture at a time. That old scanner took forever, and I kept telling myself if I could just do one more, I’d make it through the whole sack of photos. 

I guess I learned that if you take things one at a time and don’t stop, you can do a lot more than you think you can.

How can the Nebraska community support you?

By continuing to do what Nebraska already does well — solve real problems and back people who build useful things. We’ve had strong support from the Natural Resources Districts and the Nebraska State Fair, both of which took early chances on us when the product was still new. That kind of trust is what lets a company move from idea to reality. 

Every startup needs that kind of window — enough time and opportunity to prove itself before being expected to scale. If we want more successful startups in Nebraska, we have to make that normal. 

Talk to founders. Tell them what you want to see. Ask them to perform. Give them feedback and let them go again. That’s how you get better companies — not by guessing, but by testing, learning and improving together.

So come build with us.