The Anti-Hype Founder: How Brandon Arvanaghi Built Meow

We are willing to play the longest-term game. We are extremely patient. We're extremely resilient. So everything we do is about compounding, not in like a one-quarter thing, not two quarters, over fucking 10 years.

On another podcast, we play a game while I interview you. I have selected a game for us to play.

Is it compliance-related?

Sort of. It's Operation.

Meet Brandon Arvanaghi, the mind behind Meow, helping companies simplify their finances. If you hire one B-player in the first 10 people, or even the 20 people.

Yeah.

You've basically set your company up to fail. All it takes is one, because that one person will lower the average temperature. And if you don't fire them and people see this person only working 9 to 5, that becomes the new standard.

If someone's working 7 days a week indefinitely, is that sustainable?

The word is really ownership. So it's not actually the hours that anyone gives a shit about. It's like there is this $30 million prospect who needs this feature to convert. Or to be delighted because they ran into a bug and they will move mountains for it. And it will turn out that they work the Saturday and the Sunday and late on the Monday and the Tuesday.

You have a really interesting no hype rule. Can you tell me a bit about it?

So what that means is we are not allowed to pre-announce something that will not be live, live for customers unless it's within 24 hours. And what this means is you can never post, can't wait to show the world what we're cooking up at Meow. This quarter is going to be insane. And this comes at a real cost, by the way.

Before we get started, I would love to just ask you a question. Why did you decide to build a bank?

I didn't. And we're not a bank technically, right? You, you, pardon my language.

Well, Brandon, thanks for coming on Not Another Podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Um, we've been friends a long time, but, uh, I'm really excited just to have you on and talk about your founding journey and, and everything you're building with Meow. Um, but before we get started, I would love to just ask you a question is Why did you decide to build a bank?

I didn't. And we're not a bank technically, right? You fuck with me. Pardon my language. Series of pivots led us here. If you told me we were building a business banking fintech like 4+ years ago.

Yeah.

I said, no, we're not. Like, what are we doing here? But one thing leads to another. And the interesting thing is like when you introduce the one feature people want, then they want the next feature. And if you have that feature, then they want the next feature. So for us it was eventually it was T-bills, right? A way for businesses to buy T-bills. And then we launched the business checking account from a partner bank. When you have a checking account, they want cards. When you have cards, they want expense management. Suddenly you're building a neobank, right? So, and so many people fall into this. So we thankfully got here. It's been working out, thankfully. Yeah.

Well, you've eaten a lot of glass to get here. Yeah. My, my story, like I've had, you know, I helped to build one of the first online banks and the amount of pain it takes to build something in a regulated space. I'd say like a normal startup is like incredibly painful, but then building something that's regulated, like you, you're just teasing me about calling you a bank, right? And for those listeners that don't know, like, um, banks are overseen by 3 or 4 different regulatory agencies. And even calling yourself as a bank is a regulatory, uh, Nightmare, to put it lightly. And so, um, on my end, I can't think of the amount of times, like, we wanted to ship a product or we wanted to build something that was good for an end customer, and then we also have to check with the federal government or check with the state government. And then there's, like, real laws behind that. So, like, if you bank someone that you're not supposed to, right, like, you could go to jail. Um, and I think that that's an, that's just an incredibly difficult thing to build. So, like that, I have selected a game for us to play.

Is it compliance related?

Sort of. It's Operation. That's good. And so in Not Another Podcast, we play a game while I interview you. Yeah. And this is, this is the building and financial services game that I thought was like apt for us to play.

I got to say, I haven't played this since I was 12, but I know how to play.

And I will try to set this up with minimal. We won't, we won't do the money. We'll do the cards. Yeah, we won't play with the, we won't play with the paper money. We'll just, we'll do cards and then I'll get all these going.

What's his name? Wooly, Willie.

Yeah.

Willie something.

Let's see if the, yeah, we have batteries. We're ready to go. This should work. Um, so can you tell me a bit about like what you think it takes to pivot as a founder? Because like you're kind of the king of pivots.

Yeah. You know, I think, I think whether a company is going to be successful broadly depends on the founder. And pivoting is just one of the things that the founder who's destined to win, determined to win, will do. They'll just follow the customer enough. Now, if you're in it for the wrong reasons, if you're in it to look sexy or look cool or get the accolades or increase your dating life or something like that, like it won't— you won't chew the glass required to pivot. You know, you'll call it quits when it no longer looks cool. and you'll maybe launch a new company and the new cool thing. So there's plenty of those clout-chasing people. And you know, the realest founders out there, they, they have pivoted many times to get to where they are. I mean, even, you know, someone like Mark Zuckerberg, he's still pivoting. You know, like 4 years ago, his, like, what was it? They bought Instagram, that became the company. And then there was the bet on Libra the full year. And then there was the bet on Oculus. And then there was a bet on wearables. So every year they're still pivoting.

Scale.

Yeah, there's a lot, a lot of things, AI, etc. Yeah. So yeah, it's just you either have that in you and you're going to build a generational company if you're in it for the right reasons and you're not going to lose, you'll win.

So on one end, and just to like play devil's advocate, sure, I actually like hate pivots, even though I think they're like largely required because I think in a lot of cases, like I meet founders like my story, like I was running a business that I hated. And I realized, I was like, wow, like I got into this business for the wrong reasons and I raised the wrong type of capital for it. And I think that like, there's actually, if someone doesn't love their bit, like it's hard to know like when to pivot versus when to call it quits and when to sell it. And so I ended up selling the business and I got my investor's return and like did my, did my thing. But You know, for me, continuing that business would have been really bad and detrimental, and I wouldn't have gotten as— like, now I've built a whole other business that's really valuable. And so I'm on the other end of this where I'm like, me not pivoting kind of like saved me a ton of time and value and then created more investor value. So like, how do you walk that fine line of like pivot and be a beast like Zuckerberg or you? And, you know, like obviously like if you would have called it quits on Meow like the first time, like you wouldn't have created a billion— you're what, like a billion AUM? Um, or much more than that. And so like, yeah, billions. And so like, that's like a big, like, how do you walk that line? And how do you think about that as a founder?

It's tough. I think, I think hindsight is always going to be 20/20. Uh, cause you know, you also find those founders who are just kind of like not quitting on something that is just not the right idea. Um, you know, when you're a founder, you have to just be able to be punched in the face, you know, relentlessly and power through it. And that's how you build a generational company. But there are people who can't zoom out and see that what they're doing is not working. I would say though, if you're in a large TAM, then I don't think you should call it quits. I think you should figure it the fuck out and win. Uh, but if you find yourself in a niche that you thought was going to be like a generational thing and that market just doesn't exist and it's not going to exist 10 years later, then Maybe it makes sense. It's not in my DNA to quit. I always knew this is going to be my only company.

Really? So yeah, that's crazy. That's like a bold— I love that. That's like a really bold statement, right? I mean, for me, it's always been more about aligning and finding what you love. So it's always been a journey for, for me on my side. So I haven't been as much of like, um, like an absolutist maybe.

Yeah.

Um, which, sorry, I'm trying to figure out how to turn this thing on. Do you know how to turn this on?

I haven't played in a while, Brandon. Neither. It's got to be under it though, right?

Yeah. If two founders can figure this out, I'd figure out a child's game.

Um, do you want to try?

Yeah, go for it. You'd think there'd be like a switch.

Yeah, I would assume it's—

And this is why we play games on Not Another Podcast, because hilarity ensues.

It's actually unclear to me.

We're going to read. Sometimes on Not Another Podcast, we test the game.

Is it just like working? Did you put batteries in it?

Uh, it's supposed to have batteries in. Uh, it should just like work. Maybe not.

It might be the case the batteries like come with those, uh, like flaps that don't allow them to work. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then if they're in, it's just omnipresent. It's like always on.

Well, I guess our, our founding, our founding journeys. Uh, this is, this is just like founding. Do we pivot and play another game or do we stay?

Can we power through it?

And power through. Because Brandon's on this, this is the, the Brandon podcast. I think we're going to like stay and power through. So like we're going to—

let's try the batteries. I think that's my hack.

Well, they— now I need a screwdriver.

Okay.

Um, so anyway, but no, so, so I really want to like get at this. Get at this thing for you because it's like on one end, like, like my, like I think that statement is like this is going to be your one company and how you're focused on it and it's a big TAM. Yeah. What about the founders out there that started something like I think love is a leverage and you like clearly like love your business and like that's where you want to focus. Like what if you started something in like influencing and you're just like, wow, I like really don't love being an influencer or like I don't love the TAM of influencers, even though it's like a very heavy, like a big market. Yeah. Like at that point, would you shut down and close to founders or like, is your recommendation still like, no, like pivot until you find something you do love, which I think is very fair.

I think it can be kind of fragile if you love something, if you're doing it that way, it could blind you. I mean, there, I think there are some good examples of counterexamples of that. Um, so Dylan from Figma obviously loves his craft and loves like what he does there, but I love serving customers. I love winning. I, I think my work is really interesting. I love the team. You know, these are all things that just give me like every day I just get excited to go, go after it. It's like I'm in a battle every day. So it's never been like I uniquely love this vertical or that vertical.

Yeah.

It's just, I wanted to create a boat for the wildest ambitions we could create with the most talented people and the largest TAM. So you could compound on it and build like a general, like a no ceiling company. And that's what Meow is. And by the way, that's why we named it Meow is like not to have it like pigeonholed. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

You have the best swag and the best name.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Um, all right.

It takes a contrarian investor, by the way, to, to think that. All right.

We're going to play Operation Without Batteries because that's, that's the way—

there's no losing.

There is.

Well, yes.

So, uh, well, at least it won't be disruptive to the listeners. Um, yeah. So that's— can you tell me a bit about— you and I also share a core value, which I love, which like one of my core values is that like hiring and headcount kills. And I think you've built a really lean generational business. Can you tell me a bit about why you aren't playing the normal VC game of burning down in 18 months, hiring a ton of people, and then like marking up?

What's the incentive to do that? I mean, there's, there's two incentives. One, it's investors who want you coming back to them every 18 months so they can get a markup. What do I do with this?

Try to get the funny bone out. And we're going to do the honor system to not hit the sides.

Okay, here we go. This is, this is an obstacle here.

I know.

It's part of the game.

I Jenga'd on one episode.

I can't hit the sides?

No. Oh, there you go.

I don't know if I hit the sides.

You didn't?

I did not. Okay.

I did not see you hit the sides. All right.

$400. Yeah.

So tell me a bit more about like incentives, um, around like why, like what is your incentive? So like think of the people out there that are like hiring up a ton of people and then raising FOMO rounds versus, you know, building how you're building?

There's two different kind of bad incentives that leads to the one-size-fits-all 18-month thing. One of them is on the investor side, which is it kind of lines up when with, with their own kind of fundraisers. They want to be able to get a markup every 18 months. They want the founders. It's okay.

Wait, I hit the side.

Oh, you did? Okay.

I'm on our system and it's up. It's up for you.

You probably picked the hardest one, the hardest game for me to focus on.

This is part of the thing is it throws you off and then we, we have spicy, fun conversations.

So one is the investors want the markup, right? And so 18 lines, like, you can't, you can't do that to any business. It just says one size fits all, arbitrarily burn money, right? Like, it's a, that's a ridiculous thing.

I think that's been a lot, a large issue in financial services companies or fintech companies too, because like there's so much regulatory capture that if you really try to like run the business on an 18-month runway and have the same growth that you'd get out of like a social media SaaS company. Yeah, it just doesn't work that way.

Yeah, there's a lot of compounding that needs to happen. Exactly right. Yeah.

You're good at this game.

Thank you very much.

You got the steady hand.

I have 3 bank partners. So yeah, that's one of the incentives. And honestly, the other incentive, I kid you not, I'm actually like getting the dopamine from this right now unintentionally, is that founders like telling people they have a big team. And like we have fought a big team for so long and like we've been just inching forward, like hire one, fire two incompetent people, hire another. And then that's led us to like, what, 26, 27 people now? And people tell me now, oh my God, you guys are growing so well. Like last time I talked to you, you were 12 people. And like, I felt the dopamine. I was like, wow, they respect me. Like, because all these people work here. Uh, but that's what people can get artificially If they do the fundraise and they push the chips on the table just to show the sick office and show all these people working for them. That's something I avoided like the plague. And I, as soon as that happened, I was like, this is the trap.

I feel like there used to be so many smart people in really different stages of life, right? Like, I don't know if you've ever read like the, like Kissinger's papers from the '60s or like just different, different people who are, um, you know, public servants or, um, others like you. There's just brilliant people. And, and I think everybody went into different industries. And I think for better or worse, it's been easy to get a lot of capital in tech in the last, um, I don't know, 15 to 20 years. And so like what that's done is, uh, you can kind of clout chase, like there's more, there's more status being like, oh, I'm a founder, right? And I'm a CEO than there is being like, oh, I'm on the city council or I'm on like, I'm a president of a union or I'm, I'm this. And so like, I really think like globally there's a brain drain into tech for sometimes like really stupid reasons and stupid companies. Yeah. You know, and so like what you're saying like resonates to me. Like I know like one of my first companies, um, I was like, oh, I'm here. See, we're doing a great job on the honor system.

I think I touched it like 6 times without realizing.

It'd be more funny if it was like lighting up, you know. but such is life. Um, it's kind of embarrassing.

We couldn't figure out how to turn it on.

All right. Well, not weird. There's no way for us to figure this out.

There's no way.

It's not going to happen. There is, they did not send a screwdriver and it is too small. Uh, this is, so we need, uh, board games built, built and manufactured with screwdrivers. Seriously. Um, okay. Um, yeah, it's, it's actually really hard to interview and talk while you're playing games.

Operation specifically, but Jenga too, I imagine. You choose really?

Yeah. All the, so there's ones that's Lego. I was interviewing someone on that. Um, so kind of like what you're saying is like a bit spicy and controversial. It's like, hey, I hired people and I like fired 2 people who were like not efficient.

No, just to be clear, it's not existing people who were like just for the sake of like firing them, right? But like, yeah, for every like 1 hire, we might end up firing like 2 net new that we would have tried.

But I'm, but what I'm saying is like, that's like a controversial statement because a lot of, again, like a lot of people like want to hire a bunch of people and like never have to fire them. And I think like a lot of us who have been like working in tech have been disillusioned. Like, I don't know how many companies I've like run into where they've hired up a ton of people, closed a big round, hired up more people, and then before you know it, you're sitting here at like 500 people and the business model is not viable. And the investor is like, well, fix the business model. And then it's like you're ruining and messing with people's lives. And so I think like what you're saying is somewhat controversial, which is like when I add people, I look really hard, make sure my team is upleveled. But it's also like a really like responsible way of doing it. So can you tell me a bit about how you think about growing your team and what your end goal is like with that? Because like, I think a lot of founders probably watching this are like, I see the biggest issue that people are thinking about is org design. Yeah.

You know, the org design should be you and like as few people as humanly possible.

I guess the— I guess they go back in.

You got the same card as me.

Yeah, we got to put them— put the funny bone back in and then we'll—

okay.

I think there's— because now I get $800 to get the funny bones. But yeah, tell me a bit about your like philosophy around like growing, like growing your business and org design because it just takes one.

So like, here's the thing, you're not going to have strong product market fit when you start out. You might, you might think you're going to and you might have it temporarily. So you're going to need absolute ballers all around you. If you hire one B player in the first 10 people, or even the 20 people. Yeah. You've basically set your company up to fail. All it takes is one because that one person will lower the average temperature. And if you don't fire them and people see this person only working 9 to 5, that becomes the new standard. Is like the least common, hardworking person that does not get fired. That's the person who sets the work ethic for the company. Number one. Number two, these B players are very manipulative. So what they do is they try to hire people beneath them to just kind of promote themselves internally. So they play politics as well. And suddenly that one bad decision leads to 3 or 4. It's a cell that kind of expands, right? Multiplies, uh, in, in your company.

Yeah.

Now, the reason these B players exist at these giant companies, these like trillion dollar companies or $100 billion companies, is because they have such product market fit that they can resist kind of the B players and C players inside of it because the boat is just so well positioned. Et cetera. But if you're a startup, like a seed company or Series A or Series B, one person will take down the entire org. It's just a matter of time. Uh, certainly seed and Series B.

Kind of what you're saying is like, you know, for the work-life balance crowd, that's like pretty sacrilegious. But like, can you talk a bit about, um, your thoughts about that within early stage companies relative to like life? Because like, I think it's very fair. I think a lot of people would look at this and you know, think, oh, that's fucked up. But I actually think it's very fair for there to be jobs and roles in society. Like if you want to work a 9 to 5, there are many places to do that. I agree. But I think that like you're bringing an intellectual on— like why I had you on this podcast is I think you bring an intellectual honesty to like what we're building. And I'd love for you to like elaborate more on the context around that because I actually don't think what you're saying is a controversial statement, but I think it's a very honest statement that I don't think a lot of investors or other people in the market are willing to have that statement.

Yeah, the work-life balance thing, if you just like zoom out like 100 feet. Uh, what it is is that when you are a seed stage startup, you have to do things asymmetrically to the people you're trying to disrupt. You have fewer resources, you know, you're coming later to the party, etc. You need to take every advantage that you can. One of those advantages unequivocally is working Saturday and Sunday, whereas the incumbent is not. So you have more time to gain on them so you can outslope them. You just have to do that. I don't care what anyone says. There's not a center, uh, successful generational company that worked 9 to 5. To start, number one. Number two, another thing you could do is there are benefits to being in person in New York and SF, but if another arbitrage you can do is get talent globally or talent across the country, you should do that. You know, if there's a 2,000-person company that has an in-office policy, suddenly you can get very good talent that's in Dallas, Texas, or in Ohio, or maybe not in just the 4x4 block radius in SoHo or something like that. Every inch you can get, you have to take when you're underfunded, undermanned, you got to do it. And so work-life balance, in what galaxy is that going to work for you at a, at a seed stage company?

Yeah, I mean, I, I have a different building perspective than you, but I think that like all of us as founders, like I, I definitely did that path for a company. And what I found is that I wasn't able to be present and I didn't notice like power law moments and like wasn't able to position the business well, but So like, I'm not like, I'm on the other end of like the 6 days a week or 7 days a week thing. Um, which I think that this is a great conversation to have where it's like you, I think our job as founders is to find leverage in our business. And I think you can, you can agree or disagree with what you say. You can agree, disagree with what I say. Um, but how do you, I guess in your world and how you manage, how do you find space to then be opportunistic to do things that are like power law centric without just like being too tired? Or do you cycle through a lot of your team? Or do you, like, how do you sort of, like, is, how do you keep hitting the rocket button and keep the team hitting the rocket booster button?

We've had almost no churn of, like, just full-time employees.

Yeah, that's insane.

Well, it's because they're all bought in, right? And they all like to see that they're all, like, A-players around them. So it's kind of, like, self-fulfilling. They become their own white blood cells to some extent. It's not just me, kind of, like, you know, striking everyone kind of thing. Yeah.

Um, but have you been doing, like, 7-hour work weeks for 7-day, or sorry, yeah, I mean 7-day workweek.

You always have to be on, I think. Um, like, are you working hot in the WeWork like every Sunday and Saturday, like from, from like 8 AM to like 8 PM or something? No, but you always are on. You have to be on to responding to customers instantly. Again, every inch matters upfront. Now I understand the argument about making, uh, about leverage, right? It's important in the long run, but what I think is you need to understand like every helix of DNA in your company for the first like N years, because you're going to have product market fit, you're going to lose it, And if you're not that bare metal, then you're by definition passing that baton off to someone who probably cares less than you about it. You know, you could abstract, like, you know, I could have hired 10 customer support reps like 2 years ago, but I was still doing support because I wanted to feel the customer's pain deep in my bones. Like, why are they reaching out? They are in pain. I need to feel that pain, you know, and I need to do something about it. Like, I don't know if I can find a hire that cares that much. you know, just on the open market for that. Eventually you find them, right? But until then, it's good to feel the pain yourself.

I love that, by the way. Like, that's just good product management. Yeah. Because like we had a company years ago and I like kind of my mentor, they were like my mentors in business.

Yeah.

And every new hire would have to go do a week as customer support.

Yeah.

And understand the pain and understand like what we were doing. Because I think as executives or as founders, like you can get abstracted. And I think it's really important not to do that. But I guess like what I'm trying to dig in with you and I actually don't, I don't agree you should always be on and I don't set the expectation to work Saturdays and Sundays, but I expect I'm getting leverage in other ways in my business where I'm, I do like this is like people are working harder and longer than they would at like a big large-scale company, I would say. And I think in venture-backed or startups in general, you have to be so. I don't think you're, you're wrong for your business because clearly you have a great outcome. What I'm poking at is what's the like, how do you charge yourself back up and how do you like charge your team back up? Because if someone's working 7 days a week indefinitely, is that sustainable? And like you, what you're saying is like, yeah, it's actually sustainable for me and my business and we've created a great outcome from it. And so I would love to hear about that because I think that that's very innovative.

Yeah, you're hitting on the right the right notes from my perspective. So there are companies that are very performative about their work, right? So they're in office 7 days a week without a reason to be. Like they're forcing that on their people to look good to investors, that kind of thing. We don't have that. And in fact, I encourage my engineers, like when there's not an immediate sprint need, uh, to take some time off. The engineers at the company are the hardest working people of the entire company. They're absolute savages. Uh, the word is really ownership. So it's not actually the hours that anyone gives a shit about. It's like there is this $30 million prospect who needs this feature to convert or to be delighted because they ran into a bug and they will move mountains for it. And it will turn out that they work the Saturday and the Sunday or they just work the Sunday. Uh, and, and late on the Monday and the Tuesday. If there's someone who's low ownership on the team, they're the first person to get fired. We won't have a single low ownership person on the—

So do you match that with also high equity ownership too? Like relative to like your peers?

Yeah. I mean, I, I think so. Yeah. We pay very well as well, like on the cash and equity side, but it's, it's really—

So you've had to like system design, um—

Not— we didn't put too much thought into it. We just knew we were going to be a smaller team. So generally people are compensated well. Uh, and I don't actually think it's the compensation that's doing it. Like on the engineering side, I think it's the, the love of the team and being around people who are all A players. I can't stress enough what that means to these people, like how demoralizing it has been to have a B player at the company, you know? And just like the protecting that we do of the culture goes a long way because everyone's— this is honestly like I said, this is the only company I'm ever going to do, right?

Yeah.

I want this to be the last job any of our team members do.

That's so cool.

Yeah. So that, that is like a— because I've been at companies where my equity went to shit and I'm furious about it. You know, I hitched my wagon to the wrong people.

Same.

And I'm not going to let that happen to the team. And they know that.

I think it's so easy, um, on like Reddit and Twitter or X, people are like, I'm working 7 days a week and I have this and that. And like, there's all this like fake performative hustle stuff. You're actually doing it. But then when you click a level below, you're creating the right incentive structure around your business as well as from like not only hiring and then building and crafting the culture, but then creating the right outcomes. So you're actually just promoting like a very first principles, like ownership culture. And if you were to stack you pound for pound, you're this like lean apex predator compared to like a Bank of America business, business team. Like I used to audit banks and, you know, like it's definitely not like for better or worse, there's like not that level of ownership inside the incumbents you're like trying to disrupt.

I have a lot of theories, theses about what's, what the future is going to look like. Just the bottom line is I think fintechs are going to absolutely dominate. Yeah, the next decade, it's not going to be close. I think they're going to be bigger than anyone's preparing for. Yeah, they own— was it 4% of the entire market right now? But yeah, there's a lot of reasons for that. I think that's one of them.

Yeah. One of my favorite books is called Bullshit Jobs.

Yeah.

Do you ever read that book?

It sounds like a book I'd like. Oh, yeah.

So it's written by a British anthropologist.

Yeah.

And it's all about incentive structures and it's actually about how capitalism has been more co-opted by communism because the incentive structure is like when you're an SVP at a bank, your job is to actually like double your headcount that's reporting to you instead of creating shareholder value. And so like every— and you're kind of like you're categorizing it as like A player, B player. Yeah, I think another like I would just be like right, wrong set, wrong, wrong set for your model, which like the wrong mindset for your model is like, oh wow, I'm going to join as Brandon's head of product and I'm going to hire 5 product people and I'm going to do this, this and that. And I think like in a lot of large corporates or large techs like that, head of product would be rewarded. And Meow, like, that's not how you're building your culture. That's not what you want. And I think that that's a really distinct difference, which I think is like pretty cool. And so for me, you're like connecting dots. Like, I always like make fun of the, like, there's like, you know, like VC specifically talking about like the hustle porn on Twitter. And I'm like, are you really working?

That's a new thing, by the way.

I'm like, are you really working that hard? But like, you don't really like talk about it, but you do talk about like your ownership and your ownership culture. And so like, I think that that's a really important difference. Yeah.

And just to be clear, like, I think I did talk, like we didn't talk about like 7 days a week, et cetera, like 4 years ago, but people are coming around to some of the stuff that we were saying. Like for a long time we've been saying no hype. We've been, they're not saying, they're not coming around to that part actually. I can, I can talk about that. Uh, but we were talking about you have to work hard. You have to be lean. Being lean was not a thing until 2023. And now it's like, oh, AI is why you should be lean. No, it's, there's a lot of reasons.

I remember you couldn't raise a round at one point because they didn't think that you had a network to be able to hire the team. So you have to show in some funds, a list of the people that were in your pipeline to hire, to double or triple the headcount, to then get the, to get the money in diligence. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy.

But there's incentives, as you, as you know, right? So like with that headcount comes the burn, comes the 18 months, comes the markup kind of thing.

But then I think you look at a lot of the funds and like the, the MOIC, the multiple on investment capital is really high, but it's because there's a whole ecosystem of markup. But then if you look at like dollars paid out, like the DPI, like what fund has a DPI of 3 or more anymore? Like really people who are like actually returning money to LPs. And I think that creates like a very, um, systemic issue for our ecosystem because if AI were not to have happened, yeah, I actually think the venture model would have been really broken because like if you were an institutional LP who put money into a VC, like I'd rather you put money directly into Meow or I'd rather put it into like T-bills or I'd rather put it into the market itself because it's actually a lower risk factor and returning more money in some ways.

Yeah, that would definitely be interesting, engaging directly with the LPs. Um, but yeah, that's the AI, uh, the AI kind of revenue multiples right now and the AI, like what people are quoting as revenue is also like, I've heard crazy things.

I don't know if it's true, but like according to how much they raise as ARR, uh, I, I mean, I think some of this stuff is bullshit on X, but I will also say that, you know, I have some companies in my portfolio, um, that like gravity is just different for than companies I was building 5 years ago and I think it largely comes and like you're, you're cracking into this, like you have an accounting offering.

Yeah.

And I think 5 years ago it had been very hard for you to sell a full stack accounting offering because it had been like, Brandon, how do you apply tech to that?

Yeah.

Because everyone's like pushing SaaS and SaaS fees. Now AI allows you to sell a full outcome.

Yeah.

And so you can go in and be like, hmm, there's all this revenue from CPAs, tax accountants, GL accountants, whatever, that now you can basically take or like You know, my company doesn't have to hire an accountant and we can use your company. And so I think that, that there's a real, there's a real change in the market with selling outcomes and new technology in place. So like, I think there's actually a lot of like realness behind some of those numbers, but with that, there's always like the grifters and bullshit as well. And I think the failure is actually a lot of, again, the investor community putting crazy multiples on like SaaS tools. Like so many are stuck in 2011, like it's SaaS when like like Palantir and ServiceNow, I think have good fundamentals even though their, their multiples are very high. I think there's— I'm a, I'm an AI service bull, as you may know. Yeah, of course. And so like, that's like what I'm seeing in the market itself. But, you know, people raising Series A's on like a million of like contracted ARR that happens to be like pretty flighty, I think is like a pretty like weak metric personally.

Yeah.

You know, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't raise that high.

What I do know is that these, these revenue numbers, I mean, the most extreme of them, say some of them are grifting, some of them are not, is actually throwing a wrench in the entire rest of the venture market because suddenly the fund that has that has great reporting to their LPs and then every other fund needs to have something similar in their portfolio. Otherwise it looks like they're, they're failing, right? So it creates this terrible kind of cycle.

Also, I was just talking to a portfolio company of mine that I angel invested in and They were talking about revenue for their next raise and they're just like, they're not an AI company, but they're a really great data play, great business, great founder, everything. And I do think it in some ways is like fucking with the ecosystem. Um, because essentially what that's going to do is like, if you don't have, you know, that $10 million ARR in year one, um, and you're, you're not in that, like you could still be a really good business, but if I were going build the Meow like a fintech version of a thing. There's just no way that you're going to stand up a banking partner relationship and stand up all the stuff that you've done in a year, which is actually a good moat for you. Um, but like, it's going to actually cause capital not to be raised in like certain sectors, I think.

Yeah.

So I agree, I think fintech is going to crush, but I also think the, the capital sources that are investing in it are going to be like really pressured. Same as healthcare.

Yeah, that's fair.

You're a hardcore founder. Like, how do you get in that mindset? Like, what's some of your, like, what's some of your routine personally that gets you to show up every day like, this is my fucking company. I'm never starting another company. I'm going to work 7 days a week if I can. Like, how do you show up that way and show up consistently?

I think you have to— there's a lot of things. I mean, you have to have a servant's heart. You have to like want to serve the customer. You got to work out in the mornings aggressively.

Agree.

Because you're going to get punched and you're going to get threatened basically every day. Like, vendors are going to try and extract money out of you. You're going to like You're going to battle on every day and the biggest, you're fighting for the customers. The customers have appointed you as a temporary representative on their behalf. You have a one-day turn. And what that means is they've elected you temporarily to negotiate with vendors to give them a good offering. And you can be fired at a moment's notice. That's churn. So every day you have to be prepared. You're representing every single customer that you have with your vendors to get a better offering in front of the customer. So working out in the morning is important. Honestly, like, you either have it or you don't. I'm not, I'm not talking about myself, like, having it or something, but I've never seen a consensus-oriented person be a good founder. So the people who are, like, reading the essays and, like, uh, you know, like, trying to look cool in front of the VCs or, like, saying the cool thing or the right thing, all those people have failed, in my opinion. Uh, we've had, I mean, there are, there's a graveyard of companies that tried to compete directly with us, uh, back when we started. Better funded, better branding, etc. Yeah, we're still here, you know, and we're going to be here in 100 years. We're coming for it all. Yeah.

So, so like working out is like really key to your routine.

That's important. You know, eating healthy and you're going to have days. Satya Nadella says this very well. He says it's not about like being like the biggest savage every day or being a machine every day. I'm not that. It's about the average. So if you have a couple of days where you're low, low energy, down, etc., it's fine. What's the average? Like, what was the average for that week? Did you crush it Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday? It's okay if you're not perfect on Tuesday and Wednesday. You can have a cheeseburger, you can have a beer, you know, you can like, uh, you can, you know, um, but the average is important.

What do you do? Do you get, are you like a big 8-hour sleep guy or are you about?

I'm a terrible sleeper, honestly. I work on it, but I get like 6 hours most nights.

I, not an investor or anything, uh, big plug of Eight Sleep.

That's good. Yeah.

Um, it's actually like maxed my REM sleep by 25%. And so even when I sleep less, it's like I sleep better. And what's funny is when I travel, um, I'm like, I can sleep more, but I don't feel as rested.

Yeah.

Which is like wild.

Yeah.

So that's, that's interesting.

I think, I think I've slept like 20 minutes longer, 30 minutes from that. But that's a, that's a huge difference.

Yeah. My, I have a lot of leverage specifically not on my time, but in like the leverage of REM and like deep sleep that I'm getting. Yeah. Um, but I think I sleep like pretty hot. What about like, um, do you do, uh, like, like I cut out drinking this year to get more leverage in my business, like, and just like for family reasons and stuff like that. Like what are, do you still have a drink here and there or like you, do you optimize your whole personal life to get yourself leverage for Meow or like what do you do kind of like personally to set yourself up to be an average good founder?

I think a lot of it's just working out honestly, like a very aggressive workout in the morning.

Yeah.

And that helps. And then when you're working out, you're eating right, you're— it's almost like when you work out in the morning, you're having that Felix Felicities, I think it's what it's called in Harry Potter. It's like the luck juice and there's things tend to work out for your company, right? Like, and so that's the biggest breakthroughs come when I'm working out.

Yeah. And I had not been working out for like 15 years. Yeah. And then I'd like my— I sold my last business and had some personal stuff go down and then I started just like lifting.

Yeah.

And now I'm like religious about it and I'm still like on my journey. Right. But like, that's the pause, like when I'm working out.

Get clarity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's just like, it's, there's intensity that comes with it, um, that I think like lets you bring, like work out a lot of that. If a customer is going to fire you or an employee is going to quit or whatever, like it's great to like work that out and work out that frenetic energy instead of like taking it out on those around you. Yeah, you know, I agree.

Yeah, you need to do it basically if you're in a, yeah. And by the way, there's a reason like what I've come to appreciate is that I used to think that like, you know, Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or all these people had these like weird founder routines because they were like, this is before I was a founder. I was like, oh, they do this because like, yeah, this is what founders do, etc. I realized these people are forced into these routines by the intensity of the job. Like Mark Zuckerberg wearing the same clothes every day is just because like the, the level in which the, the intensity is dialed up for Facebook and Meta is such that like everything has to be like he has to do MMA in the morning, you know, he has to wear the same clothes. Otherwise it's like he won't be effective at all. That's, that's where it comes from.

So what's, what's like an intensity that's dialed up for you in the last year? And then how did that change your founding routine? I'll share mine too, if you want. Yeah, this can be a two-way. Yeah, start with it. For me, I'm about to have my daughter, so I'm like, very— so that's like my personal life intensity is going up and my business has jumped a whole stage. So like we've like 4x'd in top line in, in a year. And both of that just requires a different type of founder. And I have to be to like show up the way I want as a dad and show up as a way as a leader has to be. And so my big, my biggest point of leverage is, I've started in the morning. I hate waking up early. I started having to wake up at 6 a.m. or else I'm like not going to get my workout in. So like this morning I woke up and did like an hour plus workout, and I'm still dragging ass. I'm still like not where I want to be, but like getting up, waking up, doing that whole thing. Like, by the time I'm sitting here doing this podcast with you, I'm just in a very, like, different state of mind than I'd be if I just, like, woke up, rolled out of bed from, like, drinking the night before.

Yeah.

You know, I used to stay up late and have a beer or, like, hang out with friends. And now it's like, you know, I'm more excited to, like, do my morning wake up, wake workout, wake up early, have my routine. Like, I'm becoming much more, like, routine-oriented. And I think I'm going to have to do 10, 10 or more things as the next year goes on when the business keeps growing and the family grows because, like, managing family and business too, like, they both just have lots of requirements.

Yeah, I feel like when important things come up, you just take away like the, the nonsense time that you might have been like watching TV or playing video games. I personally didn't like— don't do a lot of that. But like, if I'm just like, I don't know if I'm doing something casual or like playing online chess or something, that's the first to go. And suddenly you have the time for it, right? So like, there's always the time. It's just a matter of like prioritizing. Yeah.

So what was yours?

I don't know. This was a— this was our best year, thankfully. And what do we do? What do we do to dial it up?

Well, I meant for you. So if it's your best year, then clearly your top line and all your stuff's gone bananas. So then like, what did you have to do personally in your founder life to meet the business?

So I did, I did cut out alcohol for like 2 and a half years, something like that during the founder journey. And that was very helpful because you're sharper, you're in great shape, good energy, etc. So that was definitely helpful. The, the Morning Berries is like a very important part of my routine. And if it's not Berries, then it's like a workout class somewhere else. So I try to do something most days. Oh, you like the boot camps? That's the only one I really do it. I know there are other ones, but yeah, I, it's just, it's very simple for me. It's always just been about like that hard workout in the morning. Yeah.

Yeah. I would love to try to do some sort of fighting, like boxing or like I probably can't do MMA because of my knees. But I would love to like try boxing. Yeah. Because I think that that, that kind of like kinetic energy could be like a good release.

Yeah, I think that's the best workout possible. It's like that or maybe swimming or something.

Yeah, yeah. That's, that's so interesting. So do you, for your personal life, like how do you balance your personal life with your family, with founding, or do you not?

My family is me right now, so I don't have my parents. I'm an only child too. So admittedly, like that's, that's Um, it's not something that I have to like make a trade-off for right now.

Yeah.

And I'm conscious of that, you know, like I'm, I have all the time in the world basically. And I have one mission right now, one goal with this team. Um, and that's been, that's been a tailwind. So I don't have, that's not a trade-off I have to make as much. Um, I've always kind of been like a dive deep into my studies, dive deep into like the mission kind of thing. And this is really what I want to do my whole life is be with a team of 8 players, like focused on one goal.

So what did you study in college?

It was computer science and economics.

Oh yeah, that's why we get along. We're both econ guys. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was a— before Meow, I was a security consultant at Mandiant, and then I was a security engineer at Gemini. And that's cool. And then pivoted to this, obviously.

I think economics is that degree, like right when you graduate with it, you're like, what the fuck can I do with this? But then as you become a CEO, like I think about, like I'm always in the macros all the time or like understanding like what the Federal Reserve is doing. It's actually like quite helpful for understanding like my cost of capital.

Yeah.

Which then helps me understand my investor's cost of capital. And I think like that's probably like one of the most valuable degrees for a founder. Yeah. You know, like, I don't know if you feel the same way, but I feel like it was interesting for sure.

Just like understanding what opportunity cost is. I think that was the biggest thing.

Yeah.

For me. And you learn that in the first class. So maybe I could have done a minor. Computer science is very helpful for me at least. Just because I would— I'm impressed by non-technical founders who can build a good product too.

Yeah. Like me, I'm a peasant.

Yeah. So I mean, it's just like I talk to the engineers like every— I mean, every tech daily standup with my co-founder and it's not because I'm contributing, but like, I at least I understand what the— why something takes longer.

I think you have to like have that degree of understanding even if you're a non-technical founder. So like I did some like database and like data analysis stuff, but I can always— like a mentor of mine always told me, it's like, Brandon, you don't need to know how to code, but you need to be able to sit in a room and understand if someone's bullshitting you or not. And like, that's, that's the main thing is like a CEO or technical.

That's why people index, I think rightfully so, on having like a technical person like high up or very early in the—

but I think the same is for marketing or sales. Like I had a founder yesterday and they had not gotten the first like they had some clients there. They're up actually a lot in revenue. Yeah, but the CEO hasn't made— he couldn't tell me what made a good client versus a bad client. And I was like, well, then you're going to hire an AE And how are you going to tell them how to sell if you like can't articulate to me like what's a bad client? Yeah. And so like, that's just not like you're not able to call bullshit on that. So I think that's like a really important thing.

So yeah, that was the thing that we learned most was my mental model on sales was just so bad at the beginning of the company. Like, first of all, I thought sales was this thing from like the 1970s. It doesn't matter anymore, right?

Yeah.

Turns out it's very important. And the second thing was like, at first I always wanted to hire— I didn't like the idea of commission. I didn't like the idea of people taking money out of the business. I wanted everyone to be motivated by that, by the mission.

Missions are the best thing.

They self-regulate so much. I don't have to deal with nonsense anymore. Charlie Munger. Yeah. Is that what he says?

No, no, no. I just meant that like Charlie Munger is all about like aligning incentives. And that's been like the theme of my year. It's like the more time I focus as a founder aligning my incentives, the better. Yeah. The less work I have to end up doing.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So when that, when that happened, like our growth suddenly when the incentives are right, our growth skyrocketed, revenue skyrocketed.

So Brandon, you have a really interesting no hype rule. Can you tell, can you tell me a bit about it and like how you came up with that?

That's lowkey the most important thing in Meow's history. Uh, the 24-hour no hype rule. So what that means is we are not allowed to pre-announce something that will not be live, live for customers unless it's within 24 hours. And what this means is you can never post, can't wait to show the world what we're cooking up at Meow. This quarter is going to be insane. Or this year we're going to ship something you've never seen before. And this comes at a real cost, by the way. This comes at a cost of like losing all the virality and stuff like that. I could do that tonight and just get like hundreds of likes, thousands of likes, whatever impressions. But that gives me the dopamine and that makes me think that I shipped it. And that means that nothing else matters. And when that happens, we're, we're screwed. And that rule is so important because even though you're sacrificing the, the, the hype and the press, the eyeballs, you're gaining shipping faster and being a real company. So it's a trade-off that doesn't do you well in one year, doesn't do you well in two years, does well for you over a decade. You're outsloping everyone because of that. And back when we started, there were companies that were better funded than us, uh, tweeting things like, if you know, you know, you know, like, oh, I'm going to revolutionize the world, changing money, that kind of thing. They're no longer with us, right? So we didn't do that. We don't allow any of that forward-looking stuff publicly. Probably to the dismay of VCs, but it's, it's, I know what we need to do to win on a 100-year timeline.

So why, um, did you just wake up one morning after a workout and think of that? Or like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what, like what sort of like drove that? Like, why did you, like, usually I create a rule or I create a system because I like fucked something up or there was something I was like, ooh, I really don't like that incentive in the business. Like, how did you think of that from a creation perspective?

It was just pretty intuitive. I mean, it was always that like, it just, there always seemed to be real founders and then not real founders. And the not real founders, we didn't want to look anything like them. Like we had to be totally, they would do things that we were saying to ourselves, like, this makes no sense. This is like good for the founders, but not good for the company. Uh, terrible. Right. And they were crushing on like hype. So we want nothing to do with that. We want it to be as far away in the opposite direction as possible. And that's just who we are as people. Like we know you can't celebrate when you can't, you don't celebrate in front of the end zone, right? We don't, we don't say, oh, I closed a sale when, when someone had a good call also.

Yeah.

So we say is no counting chickens. Like, don't say that shit. Yeah. It's just who we are. Because we, the thing about us at Meow is we are willing to play the longest term game. We are, we are extremely patient. We're extremely resilient. So everything we do is about compounding, not in like a one quarter thing, not two quarters over 10 years.

So did you start that? Did you, did you come up with this like right when you started Meow or did you, was it like the market dynamics like you saw? I I won't name competitors out there, but like, I think there's some like very hypey competitors in this space. And like, did you see them and you're just like, I want to be the antithesis of that because like, I'm actually playing— like, do you, have you ever read The Outsiders by Will Thorndike?

Long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, uh, great book.

Like, uh, The Outsiders, like the, like Ponyboy?

No, like about capital allocation.

No, I saw Ponyboy. Yeah. And Johnny and yeah.

So basically it's like, do you like, you're kind of like doing the op, like you're, you're playing, you're a capital allocator game and you're playing like ultra long-term and you're counter, you're also like counter-positioning. Against, like, like in the 7 powers you're doing counter, you're counter positioning.

Yeah, I think you have, like, I rarely use the word moat, but I think like if you're able to, like, this is what Jeff Bezos says, he says that if you're playing on 5, 6, 7 year timelines, you're not competing with anyone. You know, most people are competing quarter to quarter, they're thinking quarter to quarter. If you make bets that pay off in 5, 6, 7 years, you are not competing with anyone. You catch all the shrimp, you win. So that's always been the north star. Jeff Bezos, we, we love that guy. We learn a lot from him, like customer obsession, long-term long-term bets. So that's where it came from. And we're still, we're still doing that. Uh, and we don't, yeah, we don't answer to anyone except for the customer. And like, we're thinking 6, 7 years. By the way, that means one of our theses at the beginning of the company, I've said this many times, is that financial services are a commodity. You know, you can't, you can't build a generational company based on clipping fat margins on, on customers. What is the logical conclusion of a customer getting a business checking account from, from a bank somewhere, right? Is it going to be like, are there going to be fees everywhere or in 10 years, are they going to find the lowest priced offering that's like the most efficient, right? So we're already just at the tip of the iceberg and seeing that. And then that compounds over time. If you can build a profitable business doing that from day one, what's going to happen in 6, 7, 8 years?

Yeah, absolutely. So prolific companies, um, a lot of, there's a lot of noise about like first-time founders being focused on product, second-time founders be focused on distribution. Um, You have some like interesting thoughts. Like, can you tell me about how you think some of the biggest companies in the world are actually like product-led rather than distribution-led?

I mean, I think about all the generational founders. I think they're all like, they've all built a great product, right? Um, I, I don't think any of them are distribution like people like NVIDIA, uh, Bezos, Zuckerberg, et cetera. They're all product people and they have the highest ceiling with that. Um, second-time founders, why do you think they think about distribution more than first-time founders?

Uh, I think that's just more of like a statement because I think a lot of first-time founders are, uh, you know, you romanticize a product and then you're like, I'm going to build this great thing. And then like no one gives a shit about it and you stop iterating and stop pivoting and then it doesn't work. So then the next time you do a company, you're like, I'm going to focus all about distribution. And like, I'm on my third, more than third, but, um, but my third cycle in, it's like, to me, it's a yin and yang. Like, it's like you have to build something, build, someone said this the other day. It's like, just build something useful to people and don't run out of money. You know, like build something someone will pay you for and don't run out of money. Like that's, that's the move. And to me it's like balance of product and distribution.

Yeah, my, my take— that's, that's a fair take also. But my take on why second-time founders think about distribution is because their time preference is, is shorter, right? They're not willing to stay in the darkness in the wilderness with product or for 5, 6, 7 years pivoting, right? If they're going to do it again because they know what it takes, like they want to have like a giant customer up front, they want to have a giant channel partner up front, right? So that's, that's my perspective on that. And I think that's why first-time founders tend to like you can get the better swing, like the bigger swing when you're a first-time founder.

I think too, it's, uh, well, we're arguing against each other, but let's do it. Um, I think the, uh, another thing in the first-time founder camp is I think, you know, less, and that's actually an asset. So like my first company I was CEO of, um, now I would never do that company, but I'm also so biased against that segment. I know a billion-dollar business is going to be created in that segment. And it's the same, like, uh, I was very biased against the neo-banking segment. And now there's like multi-billion dollar companies that have been created in that segment. And so I think you get this like, um, you almost get to knowing too much and then it like fucks up your execution because you're not first principles.

Yeah.

And that's, that's what I do like, but after building companies like, like again and again and again, for me it's more about like staying even keeled and then finding that angle. And it's all about like lift. Like I think Marc Andreessen was talking about this the other day. It's like, like, just the job is to find lift. And like, if you can get lift in the business, like, that's, that's where you're at. And I think it's also cheating to go get an early distribution partner because then you're not focusing on the product. But I also think there's a graveyard of first-time founders building shit that people don't need.

It's tough. I mean, I, some of the most cracked people on distribution, like, a lot of them are on Twitter, right? Like, I've signed up for their products because they're very good at distribution. And then it was ass. Yeah, it was terrible.

Yeah.

And I felt rugged. I felt like I'm never, for the rest, they can make, they can be around for the next 100 years. I'm never going to sign up for one of their products again. So yeah, they'll, they'll make the SaaS fees off the people on their distribution, but it's a high floor, short term, extremely low ceiling to be just distribution focused. Like you are not, you're basically rugging people in my, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Um, you need someone at the helm being extremely product obsessed because that's how you build trust. If you have no trust with the customer, like What are you doing? You're not going to build generational company. Every generational company is built on trust.

You're actually an old school banker. That's how they think.

I don't know if I— I don't know.

Like the— no, like the old school, the old school banks before interstate banking were all about customer relationships.

Yeah.

And so like one of my favorite— have you ever heard of Washington Mutual? Or do you remember Washington Mutual?

Is it like a white background? Like in the—

yeah, with like a blue letter. And they, they like— pretty much big in Seattle. Okay. They were super customer focused. And they had pioneered the branch model to create this, like, you know, I'll send you a book on it, but it's about like essentially they, they created this like very engaging branch model and they were all about delivering end customer value. And so if you look at all these like regional places, it used to really matter what you did to the small business, what you did to your customers, how their experiences were. And like some of the regional bankers that are still out here today are like diehard, like customer service people. They're not, they're not about like a bunch of hype, as you say.

I'll give you a good example of this too. Uh, Packy McCormick, right?

Yeah.

Seems like the king of distribution, et cetera, right? I asked him like, how did you get off the ground? Was there any like growth hacks and stuff? He's an investor in our cap table. Great guy. Uh, and he said like, you know, I might have posted in some subreddits like back in the day of like Kanye and like Kim K if there was like some like slight relation, but really it was just like the essays, like the writing, people liked it, you know? So he's a, even he's a product guy, you know, he's someone who's great at distribution. And people trust his writing because it's quality writing, basically. So even the best, I think, distribution folks on paper are the really good ones. You know, they're product people at heart. The mid-tier ones who get like to maybe $5 million ARR, $10 million, $20 million, whatever, like that's— they're charlatans. Like they're going to rug people ultimately and they have a ceiling, basically. That's the way I view that.

I think there's actually, uh, with, with all the AI slop that's out there, I actually think, uh, good writing is coming back. Like I was just reading, uh, like I've been, I actually was just reading two different Substacks this weekend, uh, on different things. And I was just like, man, I appreciate this so much more than like the hot takes here and there. And I'm like willing to like take the time and go deep on a subject. Um, and I don't know if you feel the same way, but, uh, yeah, like I love that. That's like the really good distribution people are also product people.

Yeah. There's a level of trust you have from like not using ChatGPT and stuff like that as well. I mean, like using it to refine some things maybe, but yeah, I think trust is the only asset in the long run, honestly. Like, that's what we care about.

That's awesome. Brandon, thanks for coming on. But, uh, just, you know, this is our section. How do we, how do we hear about you? How do we find you? Uh, tell the good people about Meow, because I bank with you. I think other people should bank with you.

Thank you. Um, so you can find us at meow.com. Spent a lot on that domain.

Uh, great domain.

Yeah, thank you. And if you come in through the intercom, like, icon on the bottom right, it will I will see it. So that's a great way.

So everyone should go and hit the intercom icon on meow.com.

Yeah. And if you're looking for, like, if you're paying for a bookkeeper, you should talk to us because there's a very good chance we can do it for you for free with US CPAs, which is just a savage, like, maybe the lowest hanging way for people to save money is to just cut out their bookkeeping expense, like, right there. Uh, we're @meow on X, and then I'm, I'm @BrandonArvanaghi as well, but, but just go to meow.com and we'll see you there.

Thanks for, thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.