The new American dream - how does it affect startup field? By Joost van Dreunen.

And today's a guest speaker web host, 
and today we'll talk about the major problems of fresh entrepreneurs and how those problems can be solved will also talk about your experience of fund raising and later on selling his company. 

And we'll also talk about the new American dream. And how it affects the startup world. So use a lesson called by you giving us some background on yourself and on Super data. 

Sure, thanks for having me it's always a pleasure to. 

Talk to people directly or indirectly through way like this, because, you know, it's always interesting to get a bunch of questions and kind of see how that works out. And if things have changed since I started in my own right. Or, uh, you know, really. 

Pay back a little bit. Perhaps uh, I got a lot of help along the way so I'm always happy to help. My background is, um. 

Bit of a mess, but I guess the best way to put it is I have always lived in 2 worlds at the same time. On the 1 end. I'm an academic so I did. 

Quite a bit of reading and writing for a long time. I got a PC from Columbia University, which I completed in 2009, 2010. 

And the topic, and the aspiration there was to look at the games industry. You know, most of the as a cultural industry, and it's a form of expression. 

So, it was very interesting to be to kind of see how video games were growing up and how that became a medium on our form. 

Really and how that all sort of set in the world and then after 2009, after having worked with a gun for hire analyst to pay for all that education I ended up. 

Identifying a need in the market so we started the business. Uh, Co, find the business called Super data, which is. 

Today is still, uh, operational it's a a market research firm on digital games for interactive entertainment and after. 

3 years of running it just with my Co founder. 

We started hiring once we figure out the model, um, you know what to sell to, whom. 

Then, 2017, we raised a bunch of money and then 5 months later, we, uh, we were acquired by, um. 

My Nielsen, big market research firm and so it's been an interesting trajectory both to have an academic pass around video games and sort of talk about. 

I guess the software side of things where you talk more about, what does it all mean and what about presentation of self and gender and racial issues like, you know, sort of a broader societal discussion. 

And then also, the, the, I guess the more harder or the numerical side very how do you make a business out of it? 

And so both of those projects have ended with rewriting potential work in the academic case everyone a dissertation on. 
All those things with regards to the gauges that form of social exchange and expression. 
And then most recently, after signed the business, uh, leaving, you'll sit in February, I was able to finalize my book. 

1 up, and it looks more at the business side. The thing has been a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun kind of dealing with people in the. 

Awesome by the way make sure that after the injury you send me the link to that book so that I can include it in the description of the census. So people curious about it. 

Can actually read it so, 1st question is about the fundraising fundraising radio. So, if that makes sense. So, 1st question is super data. When did you decide to raise money for it? 

When was the moment when you were, like, okay, now is the moment when we go out and start raising money from investors. 

So the short answer to that is that we decided to raise money when we didn't need it.
All right, so the, the company was growing and we really hit our stride a year.
3, 4, the 2013, 2014.
You know, and you see the see the amount of money coming in go up, you start building the team. And the. 

Speaking for us, any of us that research firms are. 

Not content right this is not we're not a blog or a video game company. It's a demand for those. And multiple studios tend to be very different. So. 

We wanted to very slowly build the company to build up a currency and the currencies, of course. Trust. Right so that took a little while and we didn't want to get pulled or yank into different directions by way of having a venture capitalist also to do. 

Which perhaps was a naive understanding of how that works, but that's where we sat. And so we, we really walked the line very carefully for a long time where. 

If we wanted to hire another analyst, we just had to sell a few more contracts or so a few more. Reports and so that's the mindset being still than everybody else. 

So then, by the time he raise in 2017, things were really cooking and things. We were doubling year every year. 

You know, consistently revenue, the headcount was going up. 

And so, rather than, you know, going back to the bank again, for an extension on the credit line, or doing something like that or conventionally cidar. 

But maybe now is the time to come to some of those conversations, and the moment that reached out to people in my network of this overwhelming response. And it turns out that it's. 

It'd be easy to raise if you have revenue and you have metrics, which, of course, is a data company. Lots of that. We could point to that much to. 
Wide was this way and where it was going next year and so. 
Fit rather the short time just a few months we were able to secure the whole deal. The brown was ultimately oversubscribed. 

Um, and it was, you know, it was, and the big consideration was not so much to get a bag of money, but the. 

Sort of pulled in closer are some senior figures in the industry to help us, you know, prevent some mistakes and then, and to better the next year. And so. 

So, that was really the decision for us. We didn't really want to take on.
Too many people early on and then from there to to really just ask you to the fire. 

Right. That's that's great. Approach personal, love it. Whenever I see more than I know 5 people on the company that didn't raise preceed yet. It always looks really weird. 

So, next step is about hiring. 

Because, you know, ties down to the topic of hiring talent and bringing on new people to the team. You mentioned that if you want to hire an associate, you could just sell a little bit more of contracts. And that would cover the salary for that associate. 

So, do you start hiring prior to the fundraising, or mainly you hired most of your team right? After the fundraising. 

So, did you already basically approach investors? We, they ready. 

Team or do you say that, you know, you have some core people on our team, but we need to hire X Y Z more yeah. 

Right. That's a good question. So we had a team, I think of 20 people at the time. 

So, we so we always were, um, profitable. 

All right, and so, I mean, I guess at the beginning, we are profitable to the tune of like, 12 dollars, but. 

You know, we would always carry around weight the same. 

And so it wasn't really until we ran into problems that we couldn't solve to the 2 of us. 

That we needed to to be to think about hiring strategy. So. 

Just to take a step back for a moment. So in the research business, it's a, it's a knowledge based business right? So I've just done. So I'm. 

Walk around the industry going. I'm super smart. Give me some work. 

Going to be great and then in that process, you end up living from 1 project to the next project. Right? And so. 

The beginning, it's a 1000 dollar project, and then it's 2000 dollar project and then 5 and 10. so it goes. So you can take on bigger projects. 
To capacity, and then at some point, you're just done that you can't do anything more. 
You can only write so many white papers. You can only do so many studies in individual or the 2 of us. 
So, we figured out that the way for us to move forward was to create a subscription service, rather than a. 

Then operate on the project basis, right? And that's purely because. 

As a research firm, you want to have a constant influx of customers. 

And so they so you have to have something that they come to you for right? And so. 

Anybody can look at the window right? And say, like, oh, here's the weather but if you can. 

Give people an index or a metric that they use in their day to day decision making. It's extremely valuable. So long story short. We figured out. 

The best way to establish a proprietary data set and then sell subscriptions against it. 

And it's really, practically meant that I brokered a few relationships with data providers. And at that point, the data. 

Volume grew not just over my head, but. 

Self and breaking, but I couldn't open my files and good service. This became all very clumsy. 

I spend a summer learning SQL trying to figure that out then that's. 

Was pretty good. I could do some regression analysis after a while and see what 1 of the school at all. 

But then as the business became more demanding, I could just. 

Was out of the time again right? Even though had all this is accelerating. 

Skill sets now, and just didn't go very well because it was just me and my Co founder and then at that point, we decided and now we need to have someone who can do. 

The check and data part, which is driving me crazy and then once we do that, then it became very clear to you to start delegating components. Then we hired. 

A research manager and a salesperson and the whole team.
Every time, of course, based on the ability to close the next contract and to sell the subscription. 

But so, that was really so, it was very sort of organic growth for the 1st, 4 years before we really decided to a. 

To use the funding to start hiring. Nice. That's that's really cool to be able to last for 4 years. Now again that's just great. Congrats on that. Ability to sustain yourself. 

So, 1st, question here is, I mean, it's based on the 1st question, but that's the question. That I get pretty frequently, and it's a question about staying profitable and making those initial sales. 

So you mentioned that only at some point later on in the company you've decided to start hiring to hire the salesperson, right? So, before that, I assumed you did sales by yourself, right? 
Correct, and how how did it go so how do you find your very 1st, 10 customers? 
It is not well, it did not go well, so I.
So the biggest thing, which is sort of like a, and I'll come back to this in and then. 

And many, many of these conversations, but so, I think for me personally, and I think for a lot of people out there. 

Doing something on their own. The biggest challenge is not the economy. It's it's, it's your ego. 

All right, and so I had come off as, you know, after this program. Right? And so in there is some kind of romanticize notion that once you get some fancy degree that. 

Now, you're going to be let to do some like Secret mansion and they're going to give you some kind of. 

Chris and a K or something like this kind of secret cut, you know, and and of course, none of that happens. Right? But you still this idea, like. 

Yeah, it, you know, it's it's not like Harry Potter unfortunately so, you know. 

In many ways, because you end up with is, you know, having to kind of get over yourself. And so I spend. 

As I of course, like to tell the story about how the 1st, 3 years and all sort of 150 and cool. You have to be to get over yourself and for me, it was after doing all that it was.
Sobering to have to go out and.
All right, because you think well, I'm so smart, why would I have to go ask people for money? And it's, um, more concretely in terms of business terms. 

You know, I've taken a stance of well, I'm the smart guy here, so I will, I will know what people want and need and pay us for. Right so I'll just write these things. And then. 

They, they can't help themselves, but to give me their money, it turns out it's the opposite. Right? And so I had to really learn. 

The hard way that a lot of people were not interested in stuff that I didn't that I was pushing out. 

That we were pushing out and it's, uh, you know, so I'll circulate a deck for free among a bunch of industry content and they would just decimated them to say like, this is crap. This is. 

Too much information and not enough information is too complex. This is too simple or whatever. 

And she get all the feedback and so I realized that I had to kind of let go of what I had thought it should look like, and just listen to the customer base. 

And then once you go through the process of. 

Hey, thanks for your time. Let's talk about this because I know that a lot of companies this needs, we're working on this. 

What would that look like if I was 5 or what pieces of this could you use in your decision making in your conversations with your boss? Was your team whatever. 
And, you know, you, you, you call up enough people and you hit up enough. People have conferences eventually start to. 

Get enough feedback to kind of give you a sense of direction. Right? And that's in my case, it was very obviously. 

Not at all, but I had thought I was supposed to be doing. It was really the customer said, helped us develop the product. 

By just exposing yourself to that conversation of saying well, what do you think. 

Why, why is it? Good advice? Is that and so the 1st thing customers really came. 

From a process of doing that and, and just building an understanding and a friendship. 

Especially in the games, or in a, in a research business. 

It's all about reputation and so so you want to be if, if I were to go to. 

There's no certification for games researchers in that sense factor is for a doctor or lawyer but there is, uh, you know, something like well, I want to know that this person is not. 

Does not have a conflict of interest in line and so, as you have these are the re, open conversations about your product and you're offering. 

They start to you develop a relationship and so those relationships, and eventually grew into. 

Customer based relationships with they started the monetize you will. And so so that was the 1st thing. 

And then from there, it's, um, you know, you can you can start referring people to each other and you get. 

You get much more inbound after that. Mm. Hmm. Right. And that takes plenty of time. So don't expect to make sales fast as it's going to be disappointed as hell. So, next question is about the, uh. 

Approach to sales specifically, so after you've talked to a bunch of customers, you know, they give you your, their feedback. 

I've personally, when I was a star founder, myself, by the way, my company's failed. 

So, I'm not integrates advisor, but I've personally be advised that, you know, when you reach out, when you try to start making sales, especially on the phone, you should have some sort of a sales script, you know, that you just follow the script. 

And that said, do did you do something like that? Do you recommend developing something as professional as a script for sales? 

Well, well, yeah, in the condition that you don't sound like a robot, but.
I mean, sales is a personal, but why but you.
Because so I've never met a salesperson and I've never had filters on my team.
That didn't like people that just.
Was interested in what people have to say, what they have to do like well, you can kind of. 
Be strict about it, or focused on the conversation, or I'd bring it back to the transaction if you will. 
But none of them were introverted, skittish, shy, human. 

Uh, they were always extroverted, they're always excited to hear. Oh, is that what's going on? And. 

You know, you you often make, you know, 1012 phone calls before you talk about a sale or close a sale right? That that cycle can be very long in some cases. And so you develop a relationship. So. 

Well, initially when you start banging it out, it's. 

Is helpful to have some prescripted. 

Seems to say, right so that you don't sit there stumbling over your words. 

And it gives you confidence too, but because after while the script becomes, you internalize it and it becomes, you say, you don't need a piece of paper in front of you any more. 

But it also helps you figure out what the answer when people start poking at your product or service. And so, especially in research, they of course, go like, well. 

You know, as you can imagine, so we're research startup and people would say, well, why should I care about your offering? You're losing your 2 people or 5 people never heard of you. Why should I give you money and trust that you have to say. 

And so you're constantly challenged in that business if it's pretty rough at at 1st. 

And then he said, well, what did we say to those questions? But what's the answer here right? And when people say, well, where do you get the data and say well, it's kind of from here kind of 1st, you have to give them a straight answer. Otherwise you're seeing. 

And full of it, and so, for those reasons, I think you're right that having a script is good in the sense that you can. 

Anticipate customer questions, and then give them a solid answer right? That allows you to kind of maintain initiative in the conversation. 

But don't be a robot. Nobody people want to people want to buy from people. So, let them know that you're a person to. 

Yeah, fair enough that's as the major, I think, shift from like, the 20 to 21st century that and 21st century is just like. 

All about this personal relationship that you have to build prior to selling whatever you're selling even if you're selling Dem carpets. So let's move on and talk about. 

Successes specifically in the fundraising process, so now looking back at the fundraising proofs of Super data, I feel like it was pretty successful because it was oversubscribed. 

You've raised only 4 years after you started the business, you had great metrics when you started fundraising. But, you know, looking back at that experience, do you think there was some sort of mistake that you've done or? It was perfect? 

Uh, no, I mean.
It's it's thinking to to start a business and to to run a business major, just possibly failing. Really? But. 
Higher percent process, I mean, you just have to get comfortable with failure and then, and you'll be fine. 

It's the process of fundraising that was foreign to me. 

All right, and so I had done all the other stuff with so so rather than selling products. 

I was not selling the, the company and and what I was trying to do and so. 

I'm trying to think, you know, but I'd make it the impression that this was easy, or, you know, I got it. All right in 1, go. 

Um, I think it's tends to be very easy to kind of. 

So so VC people, so you so, I guess, like, you have to watch for 6. 

That's kind of thing so it's very, um. 

Interesting process that you usually when you sell a product, like, well, Here's here's the gizmo thing we do and here's how to walk and talk and here's what it costs. 

When you sell your business, people will do that. Okay great. How many employees, how much money you make? What about this? And so basically. 

To to really have interested suitors you have to go with a stack of paper under your arm that has all the private information of your. 

Little baby, that's it can be built and so and so.
I was hesitant the 1st to really have those conversation. 

Which is not to say that I lost leads because of it but it's more that I have to kind of get comfortable with that. I was not. 

Super keen on disclosing all of our numbers to some. 

Some guy in Dallas and see division for some oil company, family, or whatever and, you know, with all due respect, was it just felt very unnatural to me because we were just, you know, we feel exposed and so. 

And I think that I had to kind of get through for a little bit. It sort of the, the language of investments as suppose where you. 

A, very candid conversation with everything, and sometimes the feedback comes back and, you know, it's not your favorites and it's not so much that they think your company's crap, but they might see make you feel very small. They're like, oh, we only do. 

Whatever 200M for investment or something like this is not even near that. So please go away. So so there is, I guess more of that ego to get over. 

And then the process itself is, you got to go kiss all the frogs. That's it. That's the job. And and so you do. 
And the jobs, I think there is a, there's a lot of benefits to that process. Of course, the obvious. 
Cash coming into the company who. 
We focused very much, secondly, also on having a strategic investor so someone who could help us as opposed to someone to pay for things. 

And then go away and then, you know, but in the process of organizing yourself. 

To get funding, you also have to start. 

Taking care of your back end, which my Co founder, it's, you know, Benjamin, and she had. 

He's a wizard of that kind of stuff right? And so she ended up pulling together, like all these sort of financial models, and this waterfall structure like how revenue would, you know. 

Take place, and how we saw the future and really prove the case with, you know, 5 years of. Actual data from our company, so that, um.
You know, and I see so often companies that don't have that. 

That's part of their business together they sort of sit around and go like, I think I made 10000 dollars last year or 12. I don't know you know, so it's not very convincing to someone who wants to give you a 1M bucks. 

To, uh, to talk to someone who doesn't know how much money they made last year. 

All right, and so so maybe that's another thing that I didn't quite get. Why would you have to know your s***? Like, so the 12 data points that nobody cares about. 

You must note him by heart in the middle of night, in a bar, you know, 6, timezones away from here. 

Which is not the romanticize it. It's just like, that's how I would go about it. If I wanted to give someone said, well, just here, but this business in 2 seconds, you feel like there's a draft. 

There's some wind blowing in their numbers and it doesn't rhyme. For some reason. I'm. 

You know, if you can't even get the fundamentals right then why would I give you any of my. 

Right, right that's very fair. It's a tough process but, you know, you come out on top of the. 

Yup, yup, yup, that's right. And as usually pretty much everyone, you know, get used to know. So. 

Get used to no and know your s***. That's basically the way it boils down to. Let's move on to 1 thing that I mentioned in the introduction to the app is which is the new American dream. 

I remember we touched on to that in our preinterview called, but actually, at this point, I don't remember as much for why, why did we touch on to this? So, can you tell us what? What did we discuss about the new American dream? 

All right. Okay. So so the. 

So, I grew up in a world where, like, the biggest thing you could accomplish in live was to own your own home. 

Which is a very, very.
Interesting goal in life and you should be very proud of if you can accomplish that because that still 
puts you ahead of. 
I don't know how many people, but it's also very much tailored to like, a sort of mindset of a particular error. 

I think that the the dream now has to come. 

Much more about, you know, finding a way to pursue your passion, or, you know. 

To create value for yourselves and the people close to you some way. 

And oftentimes like, that just doesn't really exist in, like, in the machinery of, like, the corporate organization. 

Because it's just that, like, it's a giant, uh, you know, seeing of cogs. 

And it produces on the value extensively, but it also does. So, by way of limiting your ability to kind of cultivate drones. 

Interest and so having a rich.
A career and having a rich sort of, uh.
Intellectual life that then becomes really amended for a lot of people. So I.
Seen this in my classroom so many times for and I, so I teach a class at.
And so often people that's a class and video games, if you can imagine that. So. 

To give you the background, it's a temporary insurance as a business school, and every semester, it's 60 students, and they all roughly say the same thing saying I didn't know that. I could actually follow a class on the topic. That was interesting to me. 

I didn't know you could start a career in a topic or a field. That's interesting. To me.
And it's so strange, because I feel that there's an attachment between what people are doing. 

And they sort of buy into this trajectory of going to grade schools and then going to work for big fancy companies. 

And that's a great trajectory. You should if that's your jam, you should do it. But I think ultimately people want to have some autonomy from agency. 

And so, that's why I would say, you have the new American dream of the emerging American dream is entrepreneurship, right to be your own person and then be motivated because you figured out some product that really helps you because, you know, during your pregnancy. 

That just wasn't that 1 solution for the problem that you had whatever, and then you make it into a business. 

Or it could be that you are, you know, this, that the experience corporate person. 

Works for last company, and they figured out that here's these widgets that would totally unlock all the potential. 
And now the patents got sold to 1B dollar company X. 
Whatever that scenario may be, it seems that that is ultimately a secret dream that people hold on to and now we start to see the enablement of. 

Of those dreams, you start to see the tools come available. 

The conversation is available, the networks are more accessible of actually pursuing that. Then it becomes the thing like. 

Hey, you know what, I've been working it for 5 years I could do just told me on my own, or I should go out of my own and try to. 

Of course, I would warn the fact that, you know. 

When you said dream, not all of them. Come true. 

All right, and so there's, I think there's a generation or a. 

Uh, sort of an, in an inflation of what it's like to be implementation of what it's like to be an entrepreneur. 

But I think it is something that has a lot more to do about it. Like, I want to set it and forget it. 

The traditional, I want to buy my house and be independent in that way. Like, I want to be independent in the world and be my own boss. 

I think that that's the, that's a new way of thinking for this whole gen or at least a generation that I see. Uh, in my world, right? 

So, 1, more question before we move on to the final 2 questions is about those, you know, early stages, not early stage, Chris, but about those fresh entrepreneurs, those students that you teach in your class, what do you think is their major. 

Problem when that they're facing when trying to start a startup. 

Well, it's there's, there's. 

There's 32, so, students in my class, they naturally assumes huge amount of debt. 

So, I think it's absolutely bullshit that there are so much debt on a very young generation and she's crazy, you know, getting out of the gate. 

Owing a 10200 grand, and then just spending decades paying that off. Like, how do you expect to get any list financially? 

You know, and create the treasure chest so that you can start your own or. 

Whatever more out of play guitar if you want to, but it basically. 

I think covers an entire generation, so that's 1 desk and then there is, of course, discouraged. 

It's, um, it's so much easier. 

So so I liked school very much of in school for a long time, but often the kind of grow to be a skeptic in that. 
And it is very much geared around sort of industrial era model where you. 
Go and sit and you have to learn to sit still. So and you have to learn to show up on time. 
Which is the sort of same cadence that you would find in factories, you know, back into and so. 

So that was, that was the originals of the blueprint use for educational model. 

I think that that's changed quite a bit nowadays. Of course and it's and it's actually like the last, you know. 

Year when you see Kelvin 19 and the making all these things online, and there's so much more freedom. And so there's a huge expansion going on in terms of. 

How people learn things and how they process information and all this stuff. 

Um, but, but still often missing, instead of courage in that conversation, where. 

You know, I have too many students asking me. 

2, 3 times is it okay if I take this topic from my paper saying yes. Do do the thing that you want to if that you think is interesting. 

Because I'm not going to faulty for give me a reasoning. Give me. 

Give me an argument as to why I should believe you, but. 

It is it, it, it's okay to take a chance on yourself. And so and I see that that's. 

Absent from a lot of things that people just kind of go through the motion and then hope that. 

They'll somebody will catch them on the way out and I think that that's sort of an intersection of entrepreneurship and depth encouraged and all those things kind of coalesce in that. 

In fact, in your early twenties, and that's the time that you state the most amount of risk, because you don't own anything anyways. 

Do you have no assets? Right? And so this is the best time to.
To press the button and inject from the system and see what happens. 

But it takes a little courage to press the button. Definitely. Yeah. As a 20 year old generally you don't own anything, but you owe plenty so a good time for risking stuff. 

So, people who are listened to this, who are young enjoy, enjoy so, 1 more thing, actually, no 2 more questions and then we'll wrap it up. 

So, 1st question as an exit founder do you do some mentorship off earlier stage starts or to do angel investments? 

I am currently an advisor for a few game related and analytics related companies. 

And so, after I left my position at Nielsen, I no longer had a conflict of interest to work with some of the companies that had been clients and that I thought were cool. And so I joined them as an advisor. 

Um, I, I don't really do the investment side. That's really, uh, my wife.
She says she and I, we run a thesis where we invest in companies that are founded by diverse or 
female that teams. 
Because, you know, in my world in the gaming industry is a very much like a software business is. 

It's a lot of white guys in their thirties making decisions and so. 

That's not necessarily bad, but it's it is a little boring. And I think that that's. 

You know, it's, it's time for an update that we be focused in the game space was this in general and startups. 

On a more and get an agenda of diversity, but she handles the. So she is the so I'm more of the subject matter experts. So, I tend to come in more as a person that says, hey, here's how you can do this or here's how the gauge to work. 

And here's, you know, sort of the vision of your firm. 

She's the more operational genius so she is the, you know, it's just chops at the CEO. 

So, it all depends, but advising for me, it means it has to be very specific. 

Maybe maybe I should bring on your wife on these podcasts, but we'll see. We'll see about that. Okay, so. 

Here we're moving out to the last question of today's app, which is a call to action. So. What is the 1 thing you want to listen to do? As soon as the episode is over? 

Get back to work I mean, you really shouldn't even be the I mean, because it, I mean, it's at the whole process is as follows like, it's just. 

You're trying to launch a rock and so so you're trying to get into the stratosphere, which means that you have to burn some amount of fuels and just overcome gravity. So that you can get to the part where there is no gravity. And then. 

Things will go a little easier and it's just time and grit and effort encourage. You just got to sweat it out for a bit. 

And then, you know, I know that there's an entire economy of people that have a lot to say, like, things like shark tank is it's all very cool and cute. But, you know. 

That's sort of a sideshow if you do that late at night and on. Cool. But. 

Spend your time listening to other people too much take a few advice. So, maybe that's maybe the practical thing to say this. 

Get 1 or 2 senior people in your field that are 5 years, 10 years ahead of you right? 

So, if you're in sports, get someone who's been doing sports, 10 years longer than you. 

And talked to them a few times by a coffee by mid beer. 

And say, well, what do you think about this and I'm thinking about doing this business what do you think about it and sort of. 
Help set them up in a position where they can help you avoid making some working mistakes. 
So that your own process goes a little fast, but don't have too many of them like, had like, a handful of 2 3, people that you talk to. Maybe. So we used to do these phone board meetings where. 

We had the senior people at a time. None of them were formal advisors just for marketing purposes. 

They ended up coming in and be present all of our numbers and all of our questions, and all of our drama, and all of our wins and losses and then they would. 

Kind of help us sort out what the focus on and so. 

So, that was really helpful because, you know, again, like the ego where it gets stuck on something on a client or a project. So they would really help. 

Prioritize our efforts and just be more fuel efficient as we sort of launch into the stratosphere. So. 

Get some great, great quotation. Absolutely. Love it. Go back to work damage, stop listening to the tests and go back to work, but my call to action is going to be just slightly different. 

I would recommend you listening to fundraising radio waves. I mean, our schedule changed, so now we release only 3 episodes per week, not 7 episodes per week as we used to. So now you have the opportunity to listen to all our releases every week. 

So, I highly recommend you doing that and. 

As usually the 2nd part is go to the description of this episodes, I'll leave the book that was mentioned in the. 

Episode and also I leave a few other links that we mentioned in the episode, and 1 more link where you can feel out a form and if you want to follow just advice and yet, mentor, that's that's the link. 

You click the very bottom. 1. so do that and have a good day.