ERP098 - From Startup to Exit an MSP Journey

I see it as almost three tiers, right? Working in the business, that's one tier. Working on the business, that's another tier. And then another 100,000 foot view is, okay, this is an asset, what do I want this asset to return in a given year? Is that 10%? Is it 15%? Is it 20%? Why would I invest in this asset versus another asset such as real estate or a stock or whatever. And if you kind of think about it and okay, is this a good asset even? Like, hey, this asset's returning minus 3%. I don't know if I want to do this anymore, right? Welcome to Evolved Radio, where we explore the evolution of business and technology. I'm your host, Todd Kane. This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training courses, a whole series of courses built specifically for your MSP training needs. There's a project management for MSPs course, an MSP Service Manager boot camp, MSP Security Fundamentals, and an IT documentation done right course. Check out the full suite of courses at training.evolvedmgmt.com. Or look for a link in the show notes. Today on the Evolved Radio podcast, I'm joined by Brian Hobby. Brian built, grew, and ran his MSP. Then he went on to be acquired. In our conversation, Brian and I discussed the journey of his life in the MSP world. We talk about some of his early growth through acquisitions, his thoughts on playing in a niche, and some of the great lessons learned like faking it till you make it and how peer groups and mentors impacted him. There are lots of lessons learned here and many that may help you on your business journey. So please enjoy my conversation with Brian. Brian, welcome to the Evolved Radio podcast. Thanks so much for having me. This is fun. I'm excited. Awesome. All right, so a place I usually love to start with IT entrepreneurs is how did you get into IT originally? If you throw into the the way back machine, how did that get started for you? Yeah, that's a that's a good one. Everybody has their kind of their story. You know, I I just started messing with stuff when I was when I was young. I'm kind of like the, you know, the the geek of the family. I was always like taking stuff apart, trying to figure out how it worked and all that. So I got into computers like, you know, relatively young. I'm one of the few people that like you talk to people in the IT industry, and most of the time it's like, hey, yeah, so what'd you go to school for? And they're like, uh, you know, art history or uh, you know, religion degree or something like that. I'm one of the few that actually got an IT degree. So I got a business degree in information systems. So I knew I wanted to work in technology. More on the, you know, on the networking side of things. And so, yeah, actually went to school for it, worked at the computer store. Uh, when I was uh, going to Baylor and uh, that's where I learned how to fix computers and all that. And then just kind of went deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole after that. So that's how I got rolling. Okay. So eventually you you had some maybe an epiphany moment and said, you know what? I'm I'm going to do my own thing and I'm going to start my own IT company. How did that come about? That's a great, great question. So, so yeah, I spent most all my most of my career in in MSP. Uh, of course, like transitioning from a break fix shop over to 100% managed services. And that was working for uh somebody else. So I I transitioned from an MSP to kind of a software company back in like 2016. And the owner of that software company was also starting a kind of purchasing an MSP, a very small MSP. And and as part of that said, hey, why don't you, you know, run this for me? And I said, well, I, you know, I've I've already run an MSP for somebody else. I think I would like to own the MSP if I'm going to run it. And so we worked out a deal, we became business partners. So I bought into um an existing small MSP. And so that's how that's kind of how I got into it. And then kind of grew it from there. And we can talk details around growth and that kind of thing if you want. Or I guess kind of depends on where you want to go with the conversation. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll scratch a little deeper on this one. So like what was the calculus in your head on why you wanted to be independent? Like it like what was what what was driving that of, yeah, I've worked for somebody else, but, you know, you wanted that equity, like what or you wanted the control? What was the rationale for wanting to have some ownership stake at that point? Yeah, I think that that's a great question. I think that it was due to the fact that um, yeah, I did. It was really the equity piece of it for me. Was saying, okay, if I'm going to if I'm going to grow a company, the first one I was part of the leadership team that grew the company from two people. It was me and one other guy and, you know, all the way up to 40, 45, 50 people and, you know, at the end of that, it's like, well, you know, what do you you just walk away, right? Thanks. Yeah. They're like, thanks so much, appreciate that. You know, I mean, I I gained a lot of great knowledge and and experience and leadership capabilities and all kinds of stuff. It was I mean, absolutely fantastic. Then at some point it's like, hey, I want to uh, you know, I want to have something for my family. Something that's mine ultimately and so yeah, that was kind of a lot of my the rationale around it for me was, yeah, I want to if I'm if I'm going to do it again, I want to have a a significant ownership stake and so that's what uh, that's what we did. Okay. Uh, so what did that sort of first year and a half look like? I I find in in most MSPs, the upstart, it's very scrappy, you're basically just like fighting in the corners, trying to win whatever business you could get a handle on or in other instances, you know, people have a bit of a flagship client that they can they that they have in the pocket that keeps them floating while they're looking for other things to do. What did that what did that first kind of year and a half of growth look like for you guys? The first year and a half, yeah, it was it was scrappy for sure. And, you know, from the from the first time I started, it was just kind of like building the uh, the building out the frameworks, right? It there was a lot of stuff that just wasn't there. The maturity wasn't there. I mean, the sales process, agreements, you know, I mean, just kind of like think about building stuff from kind of the ground up. So yeah, definitely scrappy. I think one thing that we had going for us, which was really great as far as growth goes, is that we had basically a sister company. That was a a good source of referrals for us in our in kind of our niche, which was uh credit union. Yeah, credit union managed services. So knowing that industry and then having kind of an in with with potential clients was a was a really helpful thing for us as as we were as we were growing. So not too far into it, uh, you know, I knew that because at this point it was a, I mean, early on it was a sub sub $1 million company. And I knew that I didn't want to run a sub $1 million company for very long. And so we so I was like, hey, I think a really good strategy for creating value is acquisition. And so we actually ended up acquiring another company that was significantly larger than than we were at the time. Which is which which is definitely a a choice and and also a ride. So that was that was another piece that that we, you know, that really kind of took things to the next level, I think, for my company. Okay. So so that's an interesting aspect, like what was the Jujitsu for the smaller company acquiring the larger ones? And how did you guys sort of finance that being a smaller company, I guess you had some some friends in the credit union, did that come into play? Right, you know, uh, the the credit unions did not finance um any of that. No, I mean, I think it was a function of, you know, a a business partner for me that was, you know, was able to bring some, I don't know, oomph to the table. As far as as far as buying somebody larger, we had we had kind of another company that was kind of helping, you know, helping in that journey. Uh, significant amount of owner financing, significant amount of earnouts, uh portion of the purchase price as well. So those few things, you know, obviously you got to come to you got to come up with a with a chunk of money. But it was very well, um I I I think we just did a really good job at structuring the deal where it made a lot of sense. Based on where we were at and it could, you know, essentially could more or less paper itself over time, which was really, really nice. So, um, valuations, yeah, valuations at the time were not what they are currently. And so, uh, so uh, I think I think we did pretty good, you know, on on purchase price and then, you know, kind of it was it was very creative towards towards the value. So. Okay. Did you sort of maintain that as a growth strategy, like was there a lot of M&A for you guys kind of in the in the early period? Or was it just sort of this one was an anomaly and then you were on to other things, what did what did the growth kind of after that look like? Yeah, that's um, that's a great question. I I think we tried and we actually had multiple companies on retainer for, you know, certain to do search for us. At the end of the day, we just never had anything any other deals work out. So everything from there, everything from kind of like the that, you know, the original was in a very small acquisition, the second one was a was a sizable acquisition, not huge, but sizable. And then uh and then from there, it was everything was organic. So and and the part of the reason being is that we, you know, we started off with credit unions. The company we bought was 90% banks, community banks. And so we really, I really wanted to hold on to our niche. And I didn't want to, you know, to our to that vertical focus. And I didn't want to just branch out into, hey, we we do IT for everybody. We were really focused in the in the financial services space and I think that was, you know, that was a really solid move and if you can possibly do that, that's like a really, really good way to go. Uh not only for profitability, but also value, I mean, I think it it it adds a lot of strategic value to in a in a potential sale down the road as well. So. Definitely highly recommend that for those those who are able. Yeah, so I I think that's a great place to explore. Because I find this is this is obviously, I think a fairly controversial area, right, around like people always say like, ah, you should niche, you should niche and A, it's difficult to do because it requires some discipline. I find one of the probably most difficult piece around niching is that it restricts your sales funnel. Like really aggressively. Whereas like before, you're small, you're in that scrappy period of trying to win whatever business you can. And then you decide on a niche and you're have to start turning away a lot more business. Then small businesses will be comfortable with of like, we could be growing, but this isn't the type of businesses we want to do business with, so we have to keep turning these people away. I find that that is a really difficult thing for people to wrap their their arms around. So like, how did you think about that about about defending against the work that you kind of didn't want to do? Despite the fact that it was real revenue that you could win early, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, I would say we took on some uh that that in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have. So there's, you know, there's definitely that. Uh of, okay, well, this is right here in front of us. We might as well we might as well take it on. And, you know, definitely have some regrets as far as that goes. It's a huge discipline thing. And and I think for me it was like a lot of I just remember a lot of my peers being like, don't, you know, like stick with it, man. Stick with the niche. We all wish that we were like that we were doing that. That we're doing what you're doing. Like stick with it. Don't let it go. And so, so yeah, I mean, ultimately it was, you know, it it did require some discipline. And we did take on, you know, we did take it wasn't 100%, but it was it was very high. That's what I would say on that, it's yeah, it's hard, but it it it definitely pays off. If you can manage to stick with it. Yeah, okay. Uh so again, kind of the in that early stage, like in the what are the lessons learned or the minefield to be avoided? What lessons would you sort of offer to other people early on in this journey, maybe they're starting an MSP or, you know, they're kind of the first five years into this? What were those some of those early lessons that either you learned or reflecting back, you wish you had maybe had earlier? Yeah, great question. Um, I would start by saying figuring out how to act like you're a much more mature company than you are. If that makes sense. So if you're just starting out and, you know, maybe you've got two, three, five people, you got to act like you're more mature than you are. So and so that's saying that's saying, okay, is is what I'm doing now going to work when we're 10 times the size we are right now? Is it what is is this process going to work when we're 20 times the size that we are now? And most of the time, I think what ends up happening is the the owner just says, well, I'll just handle it. It's just easier that if I just take care of it and and therefore they end up being, you know, the center of their company forever. Obviously that doesn't scale, right? So I would say I would say that. I would say SOPs were were a huge thing. I'm sure you've heard from Nigel Moore and uh that was uh, you know, one of the things that that really was kind of like a an eye opener for me was like, hey, if we actually like do this thing and write down write down how to do everything. And put it in IT glue or whatever your documentation is. Then suddenly, you know, not only are we more efficient, not only can we be more profitable, we can it also increases the value of the business upon sale. Like, hey, check out our SOP library. Um, that was like that was a big eye opener for me. And I and I think that attaches to the first thing that I said. Like, if you're if you actually create procedures, processes that can be followed, you can have a uh, you know, less expensive labor do those tasks. You can, you know, there's there's a whole host of positive outcomes from that. So. I would say those are a couple of of things. Yeah, another thing for me that was huge was was peer groups. That goes back to even before I owned my company, um and and was part of peer groups for a long time. I think that's like everybody, I think every MSP in some way shape or form should have some sort of peer group and some sort of mentor or coach. Those are like the the two things for me that were that not only helped me be successful in business, but also contributed to my personal growth and growth in leadership. And really just my understanding of what my company was. If that makes sense, not not just like, hey, this isn't just like a cool job or uh, um or whatever. It's actually a it's actually an asset. Like and how do you think about it as an asset and not as, you know, not as a a job that I have or a, you know, or or that kind of a thing and and what do what do owners of assets, how do they treat that investment, etcetera, etcetera. You know, yeah, I could go on and on about lessons learned in and from peer groups and and coaching and uh and that kind of a thing. But I think those are those are two things that really contributed. I I like the way that you put that. Like I I don't think I've ever heard that description of of treating your company as an asset. I think I think like things like that, but I think that's a really succinct way of people visualizing in a in a fashion. Like everyone talks about sort of the the working on the business, not in the business. But I think if you actually visualize it as an asset, like how are you treating it? What are you doing with it? And and how do you visualize it in the future? Because to me, like if you're visualizing your business as an asset, you're automatically already on the outside looking at the business. And it it sort of externalizes that and removes you from the inside of it and automatically puts you in that position to be able to understand it differently. I think that's a really powerful way to sort of position that psychologically. I like that. Yeah, well, 100% and and I think, yeah, I think you hit the hit the nail on the head. So like I see it as almost three tiers, right? Working in the business, that's one tier. Working on the business, that's another tier. And then another 100,000 foot view is, okay, this is an asset, what do I want this asset to return in a in a given year? Is that 10%? Is it 15%? Is it 20%? Why would I invest in this asset versus another asset such as real estate or a stock or whatever? And if you kind of think about it and okay, is this a good asset even? Like, hey, this asset's returning minus 3%. I don't know if I want to do this anymore, right? I mean, yeah, at some point that clicked, um and and that was through the power of peer groups. And and being, you know, just being in the industry and having conversations and all of those kind of things. It it was uh I I think that was a powerful moment for me. And and it's a really good way to look at things. Yeah. Very cool. Just to flip back to the the acquisitions really quickly as well. Like I wanted to explore sort of similarly the lessons learned, but more specific to the acquisitions. Because as you kind of alluded to, like valuations are a little nuts. Like four years ago, I was like, valuations are nuts and they just continued to go up. So I mean, like there's never really been a better time to to to look at at selling your business. I think acquisitions is still a decent growth strategy. A lot of people talk a lot about wanting to acquire. It's sort of an interesting period for that as we go through kind of what I view as sort of this expansion and collapse of of the industry. And it's trickier to find good assets nowadays. I think that's definitely one of the the tougher things is that we're a lot of the the sort of the easy acquisitions have been done. But still a ton of interest in that area. Any sort of lessons learned or things that you would reflect on through those acquisitions of again, kind of landmines to avoid or or things that you would do over again based on what you know now? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that if I if I could have found, you know, five more of what the same thing that we did, um I would have been, you know, really ecstatic. But yeah, so what I'll say is to start, I think that a, you know, growth by acquisition is a great strategy. Second, I would say that if a company is already on the market and broker, you know, has a broker or or something like that, you're you're probably in a tough spot of of whether you're going to get whether it's going to be a good buy for you, right? So. I would I'd much prefer the method of, you know, either going out myself and and trying to find, you know, find companies to buy that are not on the market and or having uh, you know, a buy side consultant or uh, acquisition, you know, experts there which are there's there's several in our industry that, you know, that specialize just in the buy side. And they are cold calling and, you know, they're out all the time, you know, talking to people who who might be interested. I I think you have a much better shot at getting a a solid deal, not like you're, you know, you're trying to pay way less or something like that, you want you know, it's fair and all of that kind of stuff. But but you're you're less likely to have a lot of competition and that kind of thing. Because you're building that relationship with them, right? So. That would be that would be one. Yeah, and then I think I think the other thing is it is always harder than you think to integrate companies. And so, I mean, I I think most people know, but majority of the value comes in, or the value increase comes into play when you actually have integrated systems, processes, all of that kind of stuff. Because you're buying one thing instead of two separate, right? So if you if you buy a company and then leave it on all of the, you know, all the same PSA and RMM and and all that and everything separate. Well, it's just maybe the books are combined, but you still really have two companies, right? So the integration process, obviously critical, takes a lot longer and is a lot harder than you think it's going to be. And then definitely turnovers an issue both employee and customer turnover. Definitely, I think I think harder harder than I thought or planned and I had done acquisitions in my previous company before. So as like as CFO and and whatnot, I had done acquisitions and integrations and all that. And you always you obviously, you always lose some. But it was it was difficult for sure like overcoming those those obstacles. Because you, you know, you buy an asset. You're expecting, you know, you're expecting clients and you you got to price in some uh some churn. But, you know, if you lose, you know, your top three uh within, you know, within two years, then it's like, oh, wow, this is really changed the, you know, changes the numbers. Um, I'm not saying that's what happened, but. It could potentially get a lot more expensive than what you would anticipated basically, right? That is correct. That is correct. So, so I would say that's a that's another big piece from my perspective on on the acquisition side of things. What about the cultural side? What did you see there? Yeah, so on the cultural side, for me culture is was has always been like the most important, one of the most important, if not the most important thing in in the companies that I have led. Because I think that I I think that culture is kind of like it can be a superpower. You know, like for the most part, MSPs do a lot of the same stuff. It's becoming relatively commoditized, right? So one one MSP from another, definitely there's some, you know, there's some differentiation. But, I think that your culture is like your greatest superpower and if you have a culture that's strong, that's good, that is that's solid among the team. They're going to do a really good job servicing your customers. And so yeah, that's a huge piece of it. At the end of the day, I was really thankful because the cultures the cultures matched pretty well. And as we kind of built that in, so like one thing that I would do is every week, or every other week in our in our team meeting, we'd always talk about values. As a like, this is not it's not like the thing that you put on the wall. This is, you know, actually what we do, right? These are our values and and we're going to talk about them every time we get together, we're going to talk about our our big, you know, vision. We're going to talk about our our core purpose and and that like starts to build it into the fabric of of the company. Yeah. So, sorry, going back to the acquisition piece of things. At the end of the day, the the people who didn't fit self-selected out. I mean, that's the, you know, that's the uh, you know, the the long and short of it. Is if you're if you're really building and pushing the culture that you want inside your company, the people who don't want to be a part of it are going to go find something else to do. And uh, and if not, uh, then they're and they don't follow the values, then eventually you've got to have a hard conversation of like, hey, either you follow the values or you don't belong on the team, so let's, you know, have that hard conversation, which which is never fun. But. Yeah, that's I would that's kind of how I would characterize, um, you know, the culture side of things. And we were still relatively small, I mean, at the acquisition time. We had, you know, I mean, maybe 20 people in total and so it was still like we could we could really, you know, we build that culture how we wanted it to be built. So yeah, that's what I would say about that. Okay. So a little flash forward, you know, you were at 20 people, kind of the early growth stage, got some some boosts from some acquisitions. And and being very intentional about how you were building your business. What did it look like sort of in the in the later days, like you're you're now exited and and what did that business look like sort of in that later stage of the business? Yeah, I mean, you know, to be quite honest, it people-wise, we it didn't grow a lot. Which, um, you know, was never my goal, right, for it to grow people-wise. Because the that's expensive, right? Uh the goal was always to make it more efficient and so we were we were able to do that. We were able to have some some pretty significant growth without significant head count growth. And a lot of that was getting the right people in the right seats and building building out process. Building out SOPs, integrating, you know, the functionalities of the two companies, all of that kind of a thing. And so, you know, at the end of the day, it was more it was more like, hey, we've we've integrated, we've built process, we've built systems, we've, you know, gone deeper and wider into the client base, we've added new clients, we've had clients grow significantly. And that's that's really like a lot of the a lot of the growth from from that point forward. Uh so more on the financial side and less on the head count side. Which, I don't know, some people really like the head count number and they like to say, we've got X number of people. And it's like, well, you know, if you have 50 people, that's great, but is your revenue, you know, how much per employee, right? And what's the mix and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, we could we could get into metrics, uh those are always fun, but. Yeah. Well, I I guess like maybe like just perspective of like at that early scrappy phase, you'd done that integration, you're around 20 people. Like what was the sort of your revenue, your top line revenue at that point versus like when uh when you when you sold? Like just because I'm curious. Like I I agree with you, it's not always head count, it's even not always revenue. Like those are sort of vanity metrics in a lot of ways. But I'm just curious about the perspective of like from what to what, basically. So just figure roughly double. I mean, I I don't I don't want to I don't want to do numbers, you know, throw out exact numbers or anything. Or but yeah, I mean, just figure roughly double, but maybe a little bit less than double. Okay. But so like and that's that's totally fair, like I I we don't need to sort of dig deep on numbers and at all. But I think like so that's exactly what I wanted to understand. Is like double is a lot without a lot of head growth. Like I think a lot of people are like, what, really, like, okay, that's possible type thing. Right. So I I think that that that perspective is is unique and interesting. Yeah, to yeah, to be fair, it's probably not it's probably not quite double. But, you know, significant, significant growth. And yeah, I mean, sometimes you got to find ways to be scrappy, right? I mean, part part of it, I mean, the pandemic was in there as well. And and that was that was difficult. I mean, we had we had some we had some rough quarters for sure. So it wasn't all like sunshine and rainbows by any means. But yeah, we we were able to we were able to to grow it and keep the head count down. And uh and and that was I mean, that's just great people. I mean, like realistically, and I like, by the way, let's just let's just say like I had the most fantastic leadership team that I've ever worked with. And they were they kicked so much butt. I mean, you know, great operational people, great financial people. My goal was never to for it to be like all about me. Uh I was like, hey, I want to actually be involved in as little of the day-to-day as possible. So please like you guys you go kill it and like we'll do our level tens. We'll we'll meet one on one, all of that kind of stuff. I'm not going to tell you what to do and when to do it, but you know, like you you go kill it and then let me know when you have a problem, right? And that and so all that to say, it was not just me. It was a kick butt leadership team and uh and and just a, you know, fantastic team as well, all the people. So, yeah, so I can I can consider myself very lucky to have found the right people that that could that could make all a lot of this stuff happen. So. Okay. All right, so to flip around sort of where we began to to where we're heading and and sort of towards the the wrap up here is like, you know, I asked you kind of where like what was that moment where you're like, I'm going to start my own IT company. Like similarly, where were you where you kind of decided, you know what, I'm I think I'm ready to sell this thing. What what did that look like? How do you like was there a realization, did the pandemic play into this at all? How did that happen? Yeah, man, that is uh that's another yeah, we could do an hour on on that story. Yeah, so where to start with that? I would say a conversation was started with with a potential purchaser. And so I at that point, I thought it was way too early as far as like what I, you know, what my goals were, what what our goals were for the company and, you know, to make an exit and all that kind of a thing. So the uh, you know, the first kind of the first conversation with uh, you know, private equity was kind of like, whoa, what are we what why are we even having this conversation? Because, you know, uh because I just I was just like, we've got five more years. There's, you know, at least. You know, maybe 10. I don't know. And that kind of turned into an okay, well, maybe it's worth thinking about. And then that turned into multiple conversations with different companies. And then uh, you know, and then at some point in there, it turned into a, okay, this could make a lot of sense to do right now. Even though I thought that it was going to be much later and so, you know, I don't know if there was a moment per se. As much as, okay, you know, I think that the way that the valuations looking and, you know, and just the way the market was was looking at the time, it was like, okay, this makes it seem like, yeah, this is the right time to uh, you know, to pull the trigger on it. You know, and and it was a good move, um at the end of the day, it was it was a great move. You know, things didn't work out exactly as planned, right, but and and they they rarely ever do. But but it was it was definitely a positive thing and glad that we did it. So, yeah. Like what were your thoughts about sort of like you had that leadership team in place and what were your thoughts about sort of how they played into the into that exit? And and what their sort of their trajectory would look like post acquisition, what was your thinking around that? Yeah, that was that was a big piece of it for me. Was, hey, whatever deal ends up happening, these folks need to be, you know, a part of it. Uh and not be uh cut out, right? So it, you know, it had to the numbers had to work with, you know, all the all the salaries in there. Um and, you know, all of all of that is that's always fun. With the, you know, the due diligence stuff. But yeah, the numbers had to work with everybody in there and employment agreements and all of that kind of stuff. So that was like for me was a huge piece of of whether or not I was willing to, you know, to do a deal for sure. And, you know, everybody made the transition. And not everybody, you know, enjoyed it afterwards necessarily as much as as as we thought. And so, you know, some some still there, some no longer, but, you know, but everybody had a everybody had a shot, right? Yeah. Um and so, yeah, things never end up exactly how you think they're going to. One of my favorite quotes I say a lot is uh from Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face. There's a similar to the patent quote is uh what is it, a strategy never survives first encounter with the enemy. Right, so like it's not that it's an adversarial situation, but just to that point of like, yeah, you can think and plan all these things all you want, but they never really go exactly the way that you envision. Um when when there's more than two parties involved essentially, right? Exactly. Two two or more, you know, yeah, exactly. And so, you know, things change, right? I mean, any acquisition, things change. Culture changes as we talked about. Sometimes yeah, you can vet as much as you want, but you never know how it's going to how it's going to be until you get in there and spend time in it and all of that. And so, so yeah, you've got to, you know, you you make plans. And then you also write everything down in case it doesn't work out, right? So if it doesn't work out, here's what happens, X, Y and Z. Okay, great. Well, we we know. So here's a, you know, here's a worst case scenario or or whatever. But at least you know what's going to happen, right? If you if you write it down. Right. All right, so before we started, I usually ask people to tell me what they had for breakfast. And you gave like a very as I said, a very common response, which is nothing. And you mentioned being very early on in the intermittent fasting train. I'm I'm curious sort of like uh how that plays into your thoughts about sort of health and well-being. Because I think this is something that is actually, I want to maybe touch on a little more in general in in some of the content that I'm doing. Because like this is something I've been very intentional about in my life. And I I think it's something that doesn't get the necessary attention in our industry, right? Like we're not a terribly healthy cohort of people in our industry for the most part. Like there's pockets of health in the in those things. Like I I'm sort of curious like, what has this been something that you've always been aware of and always maintain your health and kind of looked after yourself? Or where did that come from in your life and how did you balance that with the growth of the business? Oh, wow, that's a fantastic question. I love talking about this stuff too. So, you know, just stop me if I'm talking too much. Yeah, no, I I I started intermittent fasting back in like right around 2012. And and kind of like chose the uh kind of 16, eight, uh I guess roughly. So, you know, I just uh eat lunch and dinner and that's pretty much it. Uh and and I have for a long time, I don't get hungry for breakfast uh ever anymore. But you know, as far as as far as health goes, you know, I got started with, you know, I mean, I was a runner when I was young, all of that. I got started with weightlifting when I was in high school and and college. Kind of fell off the wagon a little bit in like later on in college and early in my career as far as health goes. And then and then kind of right back into it. I ran a marathon back in 2009. Or actually I like to say I ran two marathons, my first and my last. Um on back in 2009, so I won't be doing that anymore. But I've still I've still an avid runner. I spend doing something every day, whether it you know, I take maybe a day off a week. But that, you know, pick up basketball, uh most mornings or or, you know, a run. That kind of thing and and and have stuck with weights as well. And yeah, I mean, for me it's just an essential part of life. And it's where I it's where I get energy from is like is that exercise and exertion. And one of my one of my biggest fears is like getting some kind of like catastrophic leg injury to where I can't can't run anymore. Or, you know, or or run around or be active because it's just it's just what I love to do. I don't love it all the time. But. But yeah, and then and then I I will say this. And I don't know if you've heard of this book yet, there's a new there's a relatively new book out called Outlive. Which is uh by Dr. Peter Attia. And I think it should be required reading for anybody who wants to, you know, live for a long time and have an active healthy healthy uh lifestyle. Uh fantastic book. Um it gets a little nerdy, you know, health nerdy, but we're nerds, right, kind of, so we can we can handle that. Uh definitely highly recommend that. Have you heard of that one? Yeah, absolutely. No, I I follow Attia. I've uh interestingly, the one I I found really interesting was the he was sort of the basis for this documentary with Chris Hemsworth. What is the name of it and now blanking on this, but it was a it was basically a national geographic documentary about like longevity and stuff. And it was based on sort of his meeting with Attia and Attia doing sort of a full assessment on him. And then they do like this uh like five-part series on longevity and and health and well-being. It's a really, really cool series, like and it kind of encapsulates in a very consumable fashion a lot of these things that I've been kind of learning through my history. But yeah, Attia's fantastic because like he's he's very relatable. And puts sort of the science into an accessible format and makes it somewhat entertaining as well. But there's just an ocean of this information now, I I really hope it's sort of gaining that level of popularity that people start to pick up on it. Because I agree, like it's to me, it's it's non-negotiable, right, because it's it's so foundational in my life to that it's it's a creative. It does all the things that I need for the other parts of my life, like a like I often feel people especially busy entrepreneurs. They're like, well, when am I when am I going to have time for this? And like, that's not how you should think about this. It's like, when am I going to make time for this, right? Like it has to be prioritized because it's so crucial to everything else you do, right? Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, yeah, there's there's a lot. I mean, you a lot of uh I don't know, cliche things, but it's like, you know, at the end of the day, it's are you working to live or living to work? And um and hopefully, you know, hopefully you don't get to the end of your career and then you've got none of your health left. And it's like, what was what was all that for, right? Um I want to be as active as I am now when I'm, you know, 20, 30, 40 years in the future. And and how do I how do you plan for that? How do you make sure that can be the case, right? Yeah. So, absolutely agree with that for sure. Awesome. This has been great, Brian. Well, uh appreciate uh kind of all your lessons learned and and inputs. Uh if people want to connect with you and and hear a little bit more about your journey and and the things you're doing now, where should they look for you? We'll we'll make all the links available on show notes and things like that. But any any call outs or or things that you would point people to? Yeah, absolutely, I mean, Brianhoppy.com. That's my website, um I'm really active on LinkedIn. So definitely hit me up there, I'd love to connect. I love talking about this stuff, so anybody anybody that has any questions or or thoughts or anything like that. I always love to connect. So, absolutely and really appreciate you having me. This has been fun. Awesome. Take care, Brian. All right, thanks.