Episode 64: Matt Devost on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Succeeding in Competitive Environments

Informing your decisions with intelligence analysis and insight brought to you by the team@ooda loop.com hi everybody.

Welcome to Oodacast. Once again, Matt Devoe has allowed me to turn the tables and interview him, one of the co founders of the venerable ooda. And today we are specifically going to talk about entrepreneurship. This comes on the heels of the last conversation I had with Matt on udacast where we got into some discussion about entrepreneurship at the end. And I said to Matt later, let's do a whole episode, even a series, stay tuned, about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and, and everything he's learned along the way. Welcome, Matt, to your own podcast.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Great to be talking with you as always and learning from you as the beneficiary of many of your entrepreneurship lessons. I'm really glad to be able to put some questions in front of you for the benefit of our OODA audience and I really like this conversation. I'm gonna ask you a lot about sort of certainly your experience, but I'm going, I would really like this, for this to be as practical and actionable for our audience, both those who are already entrepreneurs as well as those who are contemplating becoming them.

Okay, perfect.

So with that, please be as candid as you can throughout this. Share the good, bad and neutral. As you know, I like to hear. So I, so I wanted to start and we addressed this a little bit the last time. What was the first inspiration that you can remember even as a young Matt? To become your own boss and to build and create something yourself?

Yeah, I think, you know, my father was in business with my grandfather and my uncle. They had a logging business that required a tremendous amount of work but also demonstrated some self sufficiency given where we lived. They had to do all the mechanic work on all of their equipment. They had to build their own roads, they had to haul, you know, cut the lumber, haul it out of the woods, arrange with the mills as to where it was going to go. So at an early age I was exposed to kind of the family business from that perspective. I think the first kind of sign that I demonstrated some entrepreneurship as a kid was when I got my Commodore 64 and I decided to write a game that allowed you to play hockey. So, you know, as a big fan of hockey, there was no Commodore 64. Games to begin with were a little bit lacking. There was obviously no hockey game. So I wrote one and then small number of neighborhood kids in my neighborhood, but when they wanted to come play, I wanted to treat it like an arcade, I would charge them a quarter.

To help recover the costs of writing the program.

So that I guess was kind of my first, you know, instinct with regards to trying to get some of the fruits of my labor would continue to kind of have that entrepreneurial streak as I, as I grew up. I started a computer coding consultancy when I was in college. You know, there are other things that I did that were kind of entrepreneurial along the way as well.

Tell us about your first business, what it was and what you learned from that experience.

Yeah, in the very, very first business that I started was something I called Information Age Consulting, iac. And that was when I was just coming out of high school, going into college and trying to make money that was beyond the construction work and the mowing the lawns and the kind of the stuff that I'd done to make money in the prior summers. So I had noticed that business use of technology was increasing. There was opportunity there. So. So I started offering up classes for small businesses on how to use computers, how to modernize, and then I started doing coding projects. For example, I went in with another guy to write a point of sale system for an auto mechanic who had big parts management inventory issue, and we computerized that for him. I count that as my first business because I printed out my own business cards, I went out and did my own business development, I found partners, and then I executed against what we were trying to achieve.

That sounds really fun. Was there anything about that that you didn't like or that surprised you about what was hard about it?

Yeah, I think I was a little caught off guard with just the, you know, I knew how to go and scope a project and do the project, but I wasn't as familiar with invoicing and taxes and franchise fees and like, all that sort of stuff that's associated with a small business. So definitely a couple of surprises in that regard that I fixed later on. As I became an entrepreneur, I became very astute in understanding the legal and regulatory and reporting and tax issues around starting a business.

Right. The necessary drudgery. As you just said, there are a lot of different components to running a business. There's the administrative and finance, there's business development, there's the execution on the work, the billable work. What's your favorite part?

My favorite part is building. I like to have a vision for an opportunity in the market, and I love to realize that vision by executing a business plan against it. So that has been kind of the common thematic for me throughout my entrepreneurial endeavors is That I have an insight, I have a hypothesis about the market and put together a company and a business plan to execute against it successfully. So for me, some of them are novel. Sometimes it's an improvement on an existing business. But I like that, the forming of the idea and then being able to go and kind of be master of your own destiny by executing against the opportunity.

Right, right. Along the way, you've had a lot of companies, you started successfully, run, sold some of them. What's been the most for the benefit of our audience? What's been the most counterintuitive or surprising thing you've learned along the way?

Most counterintuitive?

What's something that surprised you, that you've learned that's perhaps been a threat or throughout your career as an entrepreneur or something?

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think it was just, you know, the fact that risks aren't as risky as you might anticipate. Earlier in my career and it seemed like the risks were bigger, they seemed more daunting. You have that fear of failure which later as an entrepreneur, you know, I think everybody learns that that failure is an essential element of success. So I think that that understanding that maybe the risks aren't as consequential, that you need to try, your heart obviously needs to be in it, and that if you fail, that there is a lesson in that that you can apply forward. And if you succeed, there are lessons that you can apply forward. You can kind of measure. As time went on, as I built subsequent business after subsequent business, by the time I got the Fusion X, which was the most recent one that I sold, I really understood the mechanics for creating a successful business. I understood not only the narrative, the go to market strategy, the execution, the niche in the market. I had basically developed a degree in architecting business and was able to pull together all the requisite skills that I learned from building houses and building porches and building elements of prior businesses. Some of the successes there and as well some of the failures.

You mentioned something that you also had said in our last discussion on oodacast about your heart being in it. And that could. That's pretty foundational to being an entrepreneur. But say a little bit more about what you've learned that that really means. I thought it was interesting in our last OODA cast how you brought that up, that you advise entrepreneurs that you can't just do it a little bit after work, after your 9 to 5 and hope for it to succeed. You have to really believe in it and go in pole hog, say more about that and why that's important and how that actually cascades down into things you need to do in behaviors you need to follow.

Yeah, I think the passion is important. Right. You know, there are some that are argue that it's not the key thing in successful business. All I can say is that it's the key in successful business for me, because to understand the market, to be able to predict where the market is going, it has to be something that I'm engaged in, that I'm intellectually engaged in, that I'm passionately engaged in. So finding that kind of sense of purpose to go and, you know, determine a course and then execute against that course. Obviously, I want to believe in that. I want to be kind of all. In the other piece we just kind of alluded to a little bit. It requires taking risk. I have a lot of entrepreneurs that have come up to me over the years. They set up a meeting and I make myself very, very accessible. And so I've talked to a lot and they'll say, well, how do I know when is the right time to start my business? And I typically will tell them, if you have to ask that question, it's not the right time. It needs to feel like you're being held inside a box with the air running out. I mean, you need to want to be going to pursue it. You have to have that feeling and that energy to apply to it. Now, obviously, there are lots of people who have been successful in business without that passion, but for me, that's an essential element. And it's also allowed me to tie my entrepreneurship and my successes as an entrepreneur to issues that I think have consequence in society that are meaningful issues that advance in our battle against. From a counterterrorism perspective or cybersecurity perspective. I mean, I've been able to engage in what I believe were purposeful development of a business, while also, I don't want to say advancing the human condition because it sounds a little grandiose, but at least advancing our capabilities in some of these critical areas.

The passion that clearly comes across when you're talking about what you are an expert on and what you care about, that's also an important component, quite frankly, in sales, in selling yourself and selling your expertise, the services of your business. I'm really interested from entrepreneurs like you and others we'll talk to on this podcast. How do you sell and what works and what doesn't work.

Yeah, I always tell folks that for me, and I've built my sales teams around this, sales are a combination Of a couple of things. One is you have to have kind of the credibility to establish the initial conversation. Cause that's what it is. It's a conversation that you're having with the client. And it needs to be a two way conversation. It can't be a one way transmission. I mean, it's one thing to go on Shark Tank and pitch an idea. It's another thing to sit down with a client to meaningfully discuss how you're going to improve their cybersecurity or how you're going to develop a new approach to catching terrorists with mal intent. So that's the key piece, is to come in with the credibility and with a conversation based style. As a result, I didn't have any PowerPoint decks. I've never been a big fan of going in and giving the pitch. I like to have a conversational track that we follow and we diverge from and that the client can direct as well. I don't want to set the structure to be so rigid that they go through the conversation thinking, well, this is the definition of my problems and how they can solve them. I, I want us to have a dialogue. So, you know, the best analogy is really kind of a choose your own adventure book. You know, you start and you are creating these hooks where there are opportunities for the conversation to go in different directions and for the client to articulate what problems that they're trying to solve. What has worked, what hasn't worked, what they're most fearful of. We would ask a lot of conversation, ask a lot of questions around. What is it that keeps you up at night? What are the things that, you know, are risks that you're trying to manage or that are the most worrisome for you. So I think that's the key piece is that it is a conversation. The second element is that from my perspective, sales are stories. You have to be able to articulate a story to the client that takes them from that perspective of I have a problem, do I implement a solution or service, do I have a success? So I was very big on using analogies, using case studies and past performance and being able to get them to relate to the ways that we had helped other clients through very difficult problems. So did that through this, you know, the act of storytelling. And these were true stories, but it was, you know, gave them that sense of being able to put themselves in the story and say, okay, well I have a problem and if Matt can help me, then I have a success.

Right?

So the being able to structure sales as storytelling for Me was also very important.

Yeah, I really like that. And at the risk of inserting myself into this dialogue, we had done a training, two trainings through OODA about the use of asking questions and promoting dialogue as a means to learning about the pain points and challenges of a client, to build that relationship and also to come back to them with solutions to the problems as you help them define them. To return to the question from a moment ago, quite frankly, what doesn't work? What have you noticed either from just learning the hard way or what you've seen other entrepreneurs do in going into meetings with clients or prospective clients? And what are the mistakes that people have made? You've observed this throughout. I mean, I'm not saying that you're witnessing people making mistakes all the time or that you have, but along the way there are things that work and things that don't. What are the things that you would really advise a potential entrepreneur or an existing entrepreneur away from doing in client interactions?

So part of that is the counter narrative to what we were just discussing. Coming in with too rigid of an approach, coming in with a stream of output that doesn't allow for the client to provide any input. Not listening. You know, I've been in some, some horrible meetings where it's taken forever to get the CISO in the room. And not a meeting that I've run, but something that I've been pulled into and then the person goes into just, you know, constantly talking at the client, not asking a question, not showing any emotional IQ with regards to the problems that the client is trying to solve or the teams that they've structured or the successes that they've had. You know, it can be a little bit accusatory in nature where you're trying to say, well, things are really bad for you, implying lots of failure, playing into the uncertainty and doubt aspect of it. I've literally been in meetings that have gone so bad where we've had an hour booked with the prospective client and at the 25 minute mark, I see them look at their watch and do a text on their phone. And then five minutes later the admin comes in and says, oh, I'm sorry, something came up, we need to end this early. Where, you know that they've just basically killed. It's been so, you know, invaluable for their lack of value for them that they're killing the meeting halfway through that mark. So that, you know, that is the key to not come in and be arrogant, not think that you have the perfect solution for every client, not make the client feel like they're a failure because they need your solution. Right. This is about kind of mutual success enablement. You have to come in with a positive story. Now, obviously, in the spaces that I've been in, there's a lot of inherent risks that we're talking about. Risks, we're talking about managing risks, we're talking about best practices, getting them to understand that they're not alone. Right. That you've helped other clients in similar circumstances, that other companies are facing the same thing. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a client express relief visibly in their body through body behavior and facial expressions. And you say, well, that is pretty typical for what we encounter for a company kind of your size, position in the market. You're not an anomaly. The problems that you're facing are problems that others are facing. And we can work through approaches to make sure that you're successful here. So I definitely would be wary, full of being too arrogant, too proud. I mean, one of my best sales guys, Jason Harrison at Fusion X, had a phrase where he would say, if we went in a restaurant and they're trying to charge US$15 for bacon for breakfast, he'd say, well, they're a little bit proud of this bacon. And that always stuck with me. Right. Don't come little bit too proud of what you're offering. There are other smart people out there. There are competitors. The client is likely smart.

Right.

Come in with a bit of humility and being part of a broader solution, not the sole and only solution.

I like that. Jason's funny. As a fellow entrepreneur, I've talked to people that consider going out on their own, being their own boss, starting their own thing. And it's interesting how it's the small things that trip people up. Oh, well, what about health insurance or what about admin things? And I say, don't worry about that. You can figure that out. You need clients to have a business.

Sure.

That's the first thing you need to get clients. Who are your clients going to be with that? I pose to you the question, how do you identify? I know this is very broad and expansive, and it's different for each business you've had, but if you can extract any themes or lessons from how you've identified clients and figured out where your market is, what's your process for that?

Yeah, the businesses that I've designed, again, are a bit predictive in the direction that the market is going to go.

So then it's a matter of finding.

People that are willing to listen to your message to market. Right. The solution that you've evolved in that space proposing. So part of that is kind of direct outreach, Part of that is events, you know, and being at conferences and speaking at conferences and just participating in conferences.

But I will tell you, the most.

Powerful sales engine for me over the years has been the reputational aspect and the network that I've built around kind of my performance in industry, the way I have helped others and interacted with others and been parts of teams. I mean, I get a lot of inbound leads based on referrals, you know, based on reputation. I'm able to make a cold approach to somebody based on that established reputation or based on some commonality kind of of purpose. Some of them have been difficult, you know, for. I always like to tell the story of with iDefense, we started the first cyber threat intelligence company. I mean the, the product did not exist in the market and sitting down and having to articulate the value proposition, you know, that the nature of the fact that cybersecurity is changing, that there are threat actors that are out there, that those threat actors are sharing tools and tactics and techniques and they're observable. And you can get early warning that we operate in different time zones. So it matters to you in New York what happened in New Zealand yesterday, because at the time we were dealing with a lot of of time based malware. Right. It would trigger at a certain date and time. So getting that early warning from countries that were opening well before the United States was important and finding the right person to have that conversation with and basically convince them that your vision of where the future is going is correct and that the solution that you've engineered is going to be helpful to them in reducing risk in that instance or realizing opportunity in other instances.

Client relationships, going back to what you're just saying about your reputation and maintaining your relationships with clients along the way, of course you burnish your reputation as you go. What's your advice and experience related to maintaining clients over the months and years? What are your suggested, I hate to say tactics, but what are your pieces of advice for those out there who want to stay in front of their clients? Cultivate relationships for the long term? What have you found to be effective?

Yeah, establish a rhythm of conversation that is collaborative, not sales based. Right. So there are some clients where they come in and you establish the relationship and it's a continual relationship. There are some where they come in and you solve a problem and then it might be a couple years until they have that problem, a similar type problem, or with high frequency, you have a client and then they move to a different organization. Right. Like, I was very proud at Fusion X, we had one chief information security officer that over the course of the years we were running the company, moved us to three, three of the top 10 banks in the world. Because as he moved, he brought our team.

Now, that wasn't a matter of me.

Pushing and having constant sales and saying, how can we help you? It was me being a colleague. It was engaging in regular communication, it was sharing input and advice. When I saw something that came up that wasn't sales, it wasn't something that, that Fusion X was ever going to solve, it was soliciting feedback on their thinking. Right. So for me, my clients are never really clients. They're collaborators, they're partners, they become friends, become great friends with a large number of my clients over the years because we've had this sense of collaboration. And I fully understand that we're able to provide them with a valuable business service. But the business service is not the end all what matters in these relationships is the people. If you look at my Twitter feed that my top tweet is pinned at the top of my profile that articulates that it says that organizations come and go, brands come and go. What matters are the people that you come together to solve hard problems with, and that you should stay connected with them, you should be helpful to each other, and you should pay it forward from that regard. From a relationship perspective, at the end of the day, the Terrorism Research center no longer exists as a corporate business. But I have hundreds of friends and colleagues and people that I interact with from the period in which that business existed. That is the lasting legacy of the company.

Ultimately, you stay in touch with and develop working relationships with people you like working with. And chances are, if you like working with them, you want to be friends with them, and that's that natural continuation of dialogue that you're reinforcing. Just on a, on a slightly personal note, I want to share for the audience something about our friendship and working relationship, which I'm going to use to share a lesson I've learned, which is that when I met you, I thought, oh, you're way different. I mean, your technical expertise, technological knowledge is way out of my domain. And what would we have in common? I don't know if I've ever told you this, so this is the first time. I apologize that I'm surprising you, but you are the icon of this example that I want to share with the audience, which is that in talking to you and being open to the fact that you do something different, but a different from. But adjacent to what I do, and we've worked together over the years quite a bit. I think it's really important as an entrepreneur to be open to meeting people that know very different things from what you do, because you never know what opportunities may arise from being open to that. And well, first of all, I thank you for that. But also I've imparted that to other people along the way and I give the Matt DeVoe example. Don't be daunted by someone who has different knowledge, a different skill set, different business from you. You never know how you might work together.

That's a great point.

Right. I mean, I love.

That's why if you step me through the kind of like the career progression of my career and all the things that I've done, it's crazy eclectic, right? You can paint it in different buckets. Counterterrorism, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, private intelligence and threat intelligence.

There are kind of buckets.

But the nature of the networks that I've built and the folks that I've interacted with is incredibly diverse. From an expertise perspective, I can reach out and talk to somebody who is a PhD focused on biological warfare if I want to. I have no expertise in that space. It's just somebody that I've collaborated with and built kind of multi functional teams to work with.

So I would herald that.

Definitely be willing to get outside your comfort zone, build eclectic networks. I mean, obviously professional networks in your domain of expertise are great, but the eclectic networks are incredibly valuable as well.

Yeah, I can't preach that enough. It also just makes life a lot more interesting and you never know what direction you'll go in. There's just, there's a consistent thread of your interests, but the different permutations of where that can go becomes really fun and fascinating. If you're open to it and you open yourself up to new work and growing your business in new directions.

Absolutely.

And you expose yourself up to new.

Ideas and new thinking, which I think is also critical to being successful, that you don't operate within an echo chamber. I mean, I get that lesson early on attending some of the early hacker conferences where you would sit on the floor and you would chat with people and there was great diversity of expertise. Although the commonality of interest in cybersecurity or I would go to something like computers freedom and privacy and sitting on the floor, you would have a cypherpunk that was looking to use encryption to advance humanity and suppress government's ability for surveillance. Sitting next to somebody from the National Security Agency. Sitting next to somebody from the FBI. Sitting next to somebody who is a lawyer from the aclu. Sitting next to somebody who wrote software. Sitting next to somebody who was a professor. The nature of the conversations and that type of environment for me are incredibly stimulating and satisfying, and I just learned so much.

Agreed. Speaking of what I just brought up, I think that's a good segue to talk about mentorship. You've been a wonderful mentor to me. Maybe without even realizing it, both through our conversations as well as your example, I wanted to ask you about, apart from focusing on specific mentors you've had, and you're welcome to tell us about that. I'd love to learn from you, and I think this would benefit the audience. What works and doesn't work in mentorship? What should people look for and how should they maintain mentorship mentee relationships? What's really important for it to be an effective and helpful kind of relationship to have?

Yeah. I think, you know, from my perspective.

I've been both a mentor and a mentoree. Right. I mean, I have my generation of folks that helped me. And when I was being mentored, what was always appreciated was, you know, I would say kind of access to expertise without this, you know, again, this. This sense that you're. You're not intelligent or don't understand the problems, like being able to ask the questions of somebody who's been there and those answers being provided in a very genuine. In a very genuine way.

Right.

Where they're not looking down on you for. For asking the question. So I think having that kind of trusted relationship, trusted dialogue, I think is important. Being able to have them speak truth and receptiveness to the message. Right. Some of the best mentoring for me over the course of my career when I faced those big decisions were the people that helped me confront the reality that I didn't want to address. Right. It was kind of like the elephant in the room that I had thrown a sheet over, and they'd pull the sheet off and say, look at. Here's the elephant.

Right.

Like, let's talk through this. You've avoided talking about the elephant for the past half hour. Let's talk about the elephant and how you feel about it. So, you know, incredibly valuable from that perspective if you're a mentoree. You know, as I evolved over time and started mentoring other people, again, being receptive to that, being persistent in communications, I think is important. I always tell people, you know, life gets busy. I'm a businessman, I'm a college professor. I'm a hockey coach. I'm a father, I'm a husband. If I miss your email, it's likely not intentional, so I am not going to be upset if you email me a second time. I would need the persistence to keep us both honest with regards to establishing a cadence around communication and interaction. I think there's also that sense of moving beyond the I'm bothering this person or they're not responding, so they must not care. Just kind of accepting that if. If we've engaged in a relationship, I do care, I want to be helpful, but life gets in the way. So let's make sure that we use the tools and the technologies available to us to help work around that. The best invention for me from that perspective has been calendly. I mean, I used calendly as my automatic calendar system. And the people that I mentor, whether as an individual coming up in their career or an entrepreneur that I've invested in their company, they can just go and schedule time. Like, I tell them that you have permission, if the time is available on my calendar, you have permission to schedule time. And maybe something comes up downstream, a client emergency or something, and we'll reschedule. But I'm being very permissive in saying you have the ability to take time out of my calendar. Right. To me, that's a great relationship for somebody to be able to take advantage of.

I think there are so many resources, whether it's, you know, scheduling time on somebody's calendar that you already know or trying to identify people you would like to talk to. LinkedIn, all kinds of other resources are available, alumni networks. And I just want to reinforce that point that asking people for some time with, you know, focused, purposeful points for discussion, not just saying, let's catch up, but having something you want to ask. The worst that anyone could tell you is either, no, I don't want to do that, or I can't do it this week or next week, but how about in three weeks? And having the at times audacity to ask for a conversation can be really impactful and surprising. That you can talk to a whole universe of people that you wouldn't realize if you didn't try.

I would also say, well, just as.

A closing point, because I think it's an important one to get. Mentorees shouldn't feel like they aren't providing any value to the mentor because I learn a lot. I learn a lot from the questions that they're asking, from the problems that they're facing, from the perspectives that they're bringing to that. So don't assume that it is a relationship in which the mentoree gets all of the value. Recognize that the mentoree has value to the mentor. And I view the same from a professor perspective. Right. I love to teach. I love to think that I provide great value to my students. But I've learned a lot from my students over time and I've especially learned a lot from them after they graduated. And we stayed in touch and I saw what they were working on and how they were bringing their skill sets to solving hard problems and the unique perspectives that they were bringing into the equation. So never assume that it is just a unilateral relationship is definitely a benefit for both parties.

I think after this podcast you're going to get a lot of calendly applications possibly. Matt devoe is a great mentor and he just said he learns from his mentees. Spread the word everyone. Thank you for that. Matt. I am a subscriber to the Global Frequency Sunday Morning email and as I've told you, I enjoy the quotes and I hate to put you on the spot, but I know you're in an encyclopedia of quotes and I wanted to ask if there is a quote related to I'm certain there are. I just want to know from you, is there a quote that jumps into your mind that is in the collection of Global Frequency quotes that you've got at the ready that you think is particularly top of mind for you as an entrepreneur as you go about, maybe not every day but over the course of your career, that you find to be really true about the essence of building something and creating?

Yeah, I think my favorite by far.

Is from one of the playing colders of the formation of Delta Force where he said some people say planning is everything and for those that never execute, maybe it is to me that struck as you know, plan and vision, right? Obviously is essential, but execution is what brings it together. Going out and actually doing something, building something, executing against that vision is kind of the essential element of entrepreneurship. If all you have is the vision, write a book. If you're willing to execute against it, build a company.

To dig a little more into that. That term is used a lot and I think at a high level we all know what that means. What does that mean down to brass tacks in your experience, what is executing? Is it making that call? Writing that thought? What does that actually mean when it comes down to it? When an Entrepreneur who's thinking about starting a company is listening to this. What does that really mean in practical terms?

There's a couple elements.

You need to execute against the mechanics of the business. That means you have to start, you have to be out there, you have to be providing services in the market, you have to build that vision, you have to build the go to market strategy and then you have to execute against that. So there's the business operations, execution and then the execution for the clients as well. Right. You need to go in and actually be providing those high value services. I mean, from my perspective, I've not been a product guy, I've built some products, but my focus has been professional services. So you have to execute in performance to the client as well. You have to build that value, build that passport performance. And part of execution is kind of having the wherewithal to engage in some of the hard planning. I was looking through some documents today and I came across kind of mid cycle in building Fusion X, a very detailed strategy I built that I called the Fusion X chasm strategy. And chasm was recognition of the crossing the chasm. I forget the the author of the book, I think the last name maybe was more. That is a typical problem that businesses encounter where you have this great Runway and you're growing and you're doubling in size and then you kind of hit this peak where you're either going to fall into the chasm and you're done or you're going to make some great leap and then on the other side is the hill that allows you to keep growing. I recognize that and address those risks and built strategies for how are we going to survive that? How would we survive if 50% of our clients went away? How are we going to scale up hiring? Like figuring out what are some of the challenges that you need to surmount in the building of your business and recognizing and building strategies and executing against those. You're not going to get it 100% right. But it's important to have the thought process around that type of not only strategic but tactical thinking as well.

That's really helpful. Thank you for spelling that out. Matt. This has been a great conversation, as I do in all interviews and conversations I have. Is there anything else that you would like to impart to our OODA audience about your life as an entrepreneur and your advice or encouragement to them?

Before we go read lots of books. I think if you find this kind of one commonality amongst entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs and time is tough. Right. Because you have all these challenges. But you learn so much from reading about how others have built their business, about how they've addressed these challenges. And similar to Jen, as we talked about the diversity and having an eclectic network of people that you interact with as professionals, it is good to have an eclectic reading list. You know, I read very few books about cybersecurity business, but I've read all the books about consulting. You know, I've read the book about the formation of, of Nike and Amazon and Apple. And you know, right now reading the book about Mary Quant, the woman who invented the miniskirt. Right. I mean, there are. There are all sorts of different forms of entrepreneurs that have faced all sorts of different challenges. So, you know, be eclectic and read a lot so that you can understand how others have solved problems or how they've risen to the challenge can be inspirational as well, because entrepreneurship at times can feel like a very lonely business. It can feel like a very daunting business. So there's nothing that can pick you up like a great success story in a book as well.

I would add to listen to oodacast and not just this episode, but many of the others, because you and Bob have interviewed a number of different really fascinating entrepreneurs across not just cybersecurity, but other disciplines as well. And I found that really beneficial.

Absolutely, yeah. And we try and capture the lessons.

Learned that have allowed them to be.

Successful and even stories from their experiences. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Matt. Thank you for allowing me to put you on the hot seat and for inviting me into the oodacast universe and the Ooda family. This has been really informative for me and I'm sure it will be for all of our audience members.

Absolutely. Thanks, Jen.

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