Algorithms, Family Businesses and Slacking Partners

Business Brain the Entrepreneurs Podcast Episode 405 for Wednesday, November 9, 2022. Greetings folks and welcome to or welcome back to Business Brain, the show where we talk about how we can use our, and how we do use our business brains, not just in our businesses, but in our, in our regular, in our everyday lives and our, in our non business lives. I don't even know what that means anymore. But here, let's, well, let's see. We have a couple of sponsors today. We have Shopify.com SBS. That's where you can go to get your 14 day trial and full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. And also bambi@b a m b e-e.com that's where you can go to get your dedicated HR manager and they'll give you a free trial. So we'll talk more about both of those a little bit later in the episode. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. Where, you know, in California, whenever it rains, everybody loses their minds.

Right.

And just driving down the road here today, I can attest to that because everything is wet, which is highly unusual here. And everybody has lost their minds.

Yeah, well, it's, I mean, it's, it's like when I lived in Austin and it sort of, we had kind of an ice storm and then mayor was on tv, stay home. And I look outside and it's like this is like January where I grew up, like, it's going to be fine. But nobody knew how to drive in it. And so, you know, and they didn't treat the roads the same way they do in the northeast. And so it was like actually, you know what, the mayor was right. The next time he says stay home, I'm just going to go ahead and stay home. So everybody was hitting their brakes on bridges and it's like, no, it's. Why? Why?

Yes.

Hey, I have a question. Yeah. I have a question for you. Do you use. I'll just jump. I'll dive right into the specifics. Do you use TikTok, the social media platform? TikTok. Okay.

You're talking about. It's also referred to digital Fentanyl.

I mean, but they all are, right? Like, yes, exactly. And, but that's, that was actually the, the thing I wanted to ask about is, you know, we have, I mean, there's obviously been lots of talk about Twitter and where that's going because of Elon Musk, his purchase. I'm very curious to See where that's going. And I, my, my prediction is that year over like a year from now, Twitter's user base will be up by a modest amount. 10%, 15%, something like that. Just sort of typical growth. I don't think they're going to see a mass exodus that's going to last.

I agree.

You know, I think I, I'm curious to see. I, I think I know I'm going to get yelled at for this. I think Elon, every big move, he does a lot of little. Elon Musk does a lot of little things that, that are very self serving and, and weird. And he's a different person. He sees the world differently. But I think all the big things that he's done, and I include Twitter by the acquisition of Twitter in that are done to make the world better as he sees it. You know, I mean PayPal is a great example. Right. You know, nobody, I didn't think we needed PayPal when like, I didn't think the business that commerce belonged on the Internet. And it was like, why would we use the Internet to send each other money? We can just do that other ways. Obviously I was wrong. And he's done, you know, other things. SpaceX and Tesla and you know, all this other stuff and he's, he's, I think his feeling is he does these things to make the world better.

I would agree.

You could disagree.

That's right or wrong.

Right. You could disagree with it. Your feeling could be that it's, that it doesn't make the world better or whatever. But, but I, I think his intentions are from that place. Like, I think I know how to do this better and I'm gonna do it. So I'm curious to see what he does with Twitter. But just, you know, the, that was a tangent. The, there's been a lot of focus not just because of that acquisition, but just over the last couple of years on the algorithms that are out there. You know, Twitter's algorithm. Elon has said that he wants to make that open source or at least transparent. I don't know about open source, but transparent. He wants to expose the algorithm. I like that idea. There's been a lot of discussion about Facebook's algorithm and, and how it really works to engage sort of the, the dark side of each of us.

Yes.

The worst parts of us because they know that that's what captures us.

Yeah.

Tick tock. And it's bizarre that I'm about to say what I'm about to say because TikTok is basically run by the Chinese government.

Yep.

TikTok has the best algorithm out there because they create. And they say it takes 40 minutes for. For TikTok, 40 minutes of use for TikTok to totally tailor itself to you. And I would agree with this. I mean, this is why they, you know, we're the fastest to a billion users and all this stuff. Yeah. They figure out what. What you like, what makes you happy, and they keep delivering that. And I think that's the. I mean, if you're going to have an algorithm that tries to engage people, I like that better than the Facebook path of let's find the darkest recesses of each person's soul and pick at it like a scab, you know?

Yeah, I agree. And I think that they're obviously very successful at it. And to your point, the concept of giving you what you want all the time, I think is interesting to explore. And if you can manage it as an adult, I think it's one thing I worry about younger people. And, you know, one of the concepts that I really embraced was not to use apps that don't have an ending. Right. That. Just constant. It's a constant.

Yeah.

Feeding you more stuff because it really sucks away a lot of your time. And yeah, I think probably my biggest, you know, issue with TikTok is the fact that a. It is, you know, any Chinese company is. You have to.

Have to know that going in.

Yeah, that's going in. And the. The Chinese Communist Party is. Has access to all their data and your data's in China and all that stuff. No going into it. That's fine. And it's no big deal. Like, probably if you're watching people dance. But yeah, as. As it becomes more impactful, then I get. I get concerned. But I agree with you on that standpoint. Or that one topic is. Yeah, that's. It's brilliant. Instagram tries to do it with their Reels product, I think, as well, which I gave up on because again, it's just such a time suck.

Yeah. I don't think their algorithm for Reels is as. Is as focused on user happiness as. Right.

What they want.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it's more that, you know, let me get my hooks into you with the dark side of things. I don't. I don't know. I could be wrong about that, but it sure feels that way.

I think you are. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just interesting that the. I guess what really fascinates me about this is that focusing on, you know, building the algorithm to make People happy actually works, because I would have. I would have said that Facebook would have been more, you know, that. That algorithm that. That speaks to your dark side. I would have thought that that would be, like, far and away more successful than one that just makes you happy because, you know, you get happy and then you sort of, okay, I'm feeling good. I'll leave now. You know, it's. But. But I think maybe your comment that it's the, you know, digital Fentanyl. Is that what you said? I think. I think that's. Yeah, that's a Scott Adams term.

But I do agree for young people, it's. I'm so glad my kids, you know, aren't teens right now or. Or, you know, they had. They kind of just were on the edge of it as it and same. I would never, never hand a little kid a phone or an iPad with Internet access. Wow.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We.

You and I got lucky in that regard that we were able to. I mean, I guess, you know, but we deal with Instagram and Snapchat, but.

Correct. It's all how you manage it. I mean, it's another. It's another tool, you know, and if you need to. Just like everything else, you do need to teach your kids as they're growing up that, okay, this is the pros and cons, and this is you. You know, they have to manage it in moderation and teach them that. Understand you're being manipulated. Right.

Well, that's just it. We all. Well, and that's the hard part. And we're getting in a different tangent, but it's fine. That's the difficult part for parents right now. And it was also true for us, most of our generation. I'm this weird person that I grew up online, even though I'm 51 years old. You know, I was online on bulletin boards from the time I was 14. And so, like, I have probably more in common with millennials in that regard than people of my generation. It's just. Just, you know, that's how it is. But so. But even with that, what we. All our kids and us have access to today is far deeper than what I had access to then. I mean, I had to be sitting at a computer in order to be online with people. And as soon as I got up from that computer and went anywhere, school, you know, the grocery store, whatever, I was detached from that online presence. That's not the case anymore. It's 24 7. You know, we have it in our pockets. And the problem is, you're right. We have to teach our kids and ourselves that, you know, what this means and how to manage it. But we don't have our lifetime of experience to. To draw upon when teaching our kids. Right. Like, we're learning it literally at the same time because this is when it's happening. We didn't have TikTok. We didn't have phones in our pockets when we were kids. You know, like I said, I grew up online, but it was a very different definition of online. Yeah. One thing that I found interesting about TikTok's algorithm is it is different in China for. For children specifically. I think if you're under the age of. Yeah, like 14 or something, you're. You're only allowed. What's that?

It's smart.

It's smart. Yeah. You're only allowed to be online, like, for. You only get 40 minutes of TikTok a day or something like that. And the content that you get is, you know, science and math and all of these things. It's fascinating what they know, that the crap that we consume is not all that good for developing minds. Yeah.

No, it's not.

Anyway.

And. And, yeah. And so I think as a, you know, as a parent or. Or. Well, two. I have two things to say. Yeah, as a parent, you got to help your kids put context or put this stuff in context. And. And again, see it. Is it. Okay, this is entertainment or a tool of something. And from a. And then from a business aspect, I think you should be studying what they've done and think about how can you use that. And let's call it positive manipulation or persuasion, whatever term you want to put it. Hopefully it's not malicious. But how can you adapt or adopt some of those similar techniques to your business? No matter how small or large it is, I think it's an interesting thing to. To study.

It is.

Maybe we could do a whole episode on that.

Yeah, we could. I'm curious, folks, let us know. Feedbackusinessbrain show. What is your favorite social media algorithm like? What's your favorite platform and why? I think there's a lot that we all can learn from what those of us that are sort of aware of using our business brains. What do we like? What do we gravitate towards? What do we separate from? Let us know. Feedbackusinessbrain show. I love that notification. I'm not a fan of most notifications, but that one I like. Let's hear it again. That's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start run and grow your business. Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether your thing is vintage teas or recipes for ghee, start selling with Shopify and join the platform, simplifying commerce for millions of your favorite businesses worldwide. With Shopify, you'll create an online store in your vibe. You can discover new customers and grow the following that keeps them coming back. Shopify has all the sales channels sorted, so your business keeps growing from an in person POS to an all in one e commerce platform. Even across social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. And thanks to 24. 7 support and free libraries full of educational content, Shopify's got you every step of the way. It's how every minute new sellers around the world make their first sale with Shopify. And you will too. Shannon and I have used it as well. You're in good company here. Shopify is fantastic. When you're ready to launch your thing into the spotlight, do it with Shopify, the commerce platform, backing millions of businesses down the street and around the globe. Sign up for a free trial@shopify.com SBS all lowercase. Go to shopify.com SBS to start selling online today. Shopify.com SBS and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Speaking of using our business brains, entrepreneurship has its ups and downs, right? It's how you deal with those obstacles that make the difference between success and failure. And we're listening to another podcast that helps navigate that path. It's called Entrepreneurs Enigma. It's hosted by former journalist Seth Goldstein. Every week, Seth interviews entrepreneurs from all walks of life about their journeys through entrepreneurship. The ups, the downs, and how to deal with them. Entrepreneurs Enigma episodes drop every Tuesday at 8am Eastern. Check out entrepreneurs enigma.com or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, let's do some listener questions. We actually got quite a few in the last couple of weeks here, and the mailbag is full. Shannon, you want to take us to Kate?

Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with this one. So Kate writes, my daughter is really into horses and we want to support her hobby, but it is expensive.

Huh.

We have an idea for a small business related to horses that could help bring in money to cover those expenses. My question is about starting a business with a family member, specifically a teenage child. What advice would you give to help us succeed and avoid problems? That's a great question. And it's awesome that, you know, you're thinking about starting a business with your with your kid. I think that's a great experience. And I think. And it's. I think it's very smart to be asking questions before you start.

Yeah. Well, I have owned horses in the past. My wife, especially when we met, was. Spent a lot of time and a lot of money with horses.

Money pit. Yeah.

Horses are. Yeah, yeah. If you. If you've ever had a boat and you think that is a money pit, it's only because you haven't had a horse yet. Yeah, that's right. I would love to know your specific business idea, Kate, because there are ways of breaking even with horses that I've seen that are. Are sort of reliable ways of going about this. Right. I mean, you have to start a business. A lot of people start boarding stables. I don't know many people who have actually made money, like, significant chunks of money, like income from boarding stables. It's doable. But generally speaking, most boarding stables are people who want to have horses at home but want to break even on this and also want to have other horse people in their lives and at their homes who can take care of their own horses. Like. Like. Like it. And I'm not saying Kate's doing this, but, like, if. If I was. If I was going to have a boarding stable at home, I. I would want other people that were interested in and had a working knowledge of horses to be involved because I would pick one or two of them and give them a cut rate on their board.

Yeah.

So that they can take each other out. Yeah. They could take care of my horses while. If I could. If you want to go. If you've never had horses, it's not like other pets where, you know, with cats, you can go away for the weekend and nobody has to check on them. It's great. With a dog, you can go away for most, but not all of the day with no one checking on them. And everything's great. With horses, you can go out to dinner without someone checking on them. Right. I mean, like, they. They're very fragile animals. And. And so they were. You can't just leave them alone. You need to have somebody check on them. And unlike asking your neighbor, hey, come over and walk my dog. Like, that's not. Like everybody in your neighborhood could do that. They might not agree to, but they're. They're capable of coming over and walking most dogs, most people are not capable of taking care of horses. So. So that's what I see most boarding stables, especially the smaller ones, where there's like 10 stalls or, you know.

Yeah. I was just going to say, how many horses do you think you have to have.

Yeah.

To help cover the cut. Let's say just, you're just trying to cover the cost of your one beast.

Well. And your land that you've now had to buy. Right. You know, so you're probably looking at somewhere in the, I would say 8 to 10 horses range and you're probably doing okay. And I've, yeah, I've done the, you can tell I've done sort of the loose math on this. I haven't gone deep but I've, you know, I've paid attention because I'm always using my business brain and like why is this, is this sustainable here? Why is it sustainable? How does this work? Okay, right. One person is in the, in the, you know, it's usually a couple. One person is sort of the horse person that's taking care of this. The other person is the one that's actually paying the mortgage. Right. Like they're, they leave the house every day and go to, you know, go to a job and that's great. Like it works out great. We, we certainly talked about that we don't have horses at home anymore, but we did and it was a huge liability to have them at home when it was just our horses. So. Anyway, tangent again.

But yeah, yeah, it's interesting that that's a common, pretty common way to do it.

I don't know what Kate's plan is it, you know. Yeah. And, and so I would be curious if it's not that, what is it? So let us know feedback businessbrain show, please, Kate.

Yeah, and, and I think with the, if especially with a younger person, probably the first, you know, thing to really get across to them that okay, if we are going to do this, either bring in other horses and have and you know, board them at your facility or make some kind of product related to horses or offer a service related that it is a, a business and that look, these are, this is how it would work and this would be the minimum amount of time because I think that's difficult for a younger person. Not all younger people, but some. Me in particular when I was a teenager thinking that, oh, I've got to do this every day for X number of hours to make this work.

Yeah.

And maybe you could do that with our working agreement template that we have up on the website where it asks you that the template is basically asking you questions how this is going to work, how it's going to make money, who is going to do what, who's accountable for, you know, each different tasks in order to make money. And maybe going through that exercise would be helpful as well.

I think that's a great idea. I also think, just speaking realistically here, you, Kate, you know, the parents or parent. I don't know. Yeah, it is. This is your business and you are going to employ your child at this business. Whatever the official arrangement is is sort of irrelevant. But you need to know that you're talking about a 14 year old here. And so, like this person, as you said, Shannon, doesn't have enough life experience to actually understand what they're getting into. So this is on you to manage not only the business, but them. So you now have an employee and it happens to be your family member. Now, is it an employee that you plan or even out of the gate, you plan to give a stake in the business to? That's fine, you know, but know that they don't know what that means because they haven't lived enough to. To do that. So you have to just like, it's the same thing. You know, you hear about people who say, oh, yeah, my, you know, my son wanted to get a dog and. But really it turned out to be my dog. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is your. This is your business. Right. And. And so just again, using our business brains, let's go into this knowing that and knowing that you're going to have to expend some time and energy managing not just the business, but your first employee who happens to be your child. And I think it's worth having that conversation. You know, I think about, I'm sitting here in my music studio, which is where I podcast from. So it's a combination podcast music studio. And I remember when my daughter asked me to teach her how to play the drums. This is going somewhere. And it's related to this. Previously, maybe a year, year and a half prior to that, she and I had both started taking guitar lessons together. Now, neither one of us had played guitar, but I had the benefit of having been around people who played guitar. And I also had learned two musical instruments, at least by that point. So I knew the process of learning, you know, a musical instrument, you put in the time, you get it on the back end, it's all fine. You know, she did not. This was her first musical instrument, and guitar is a tough first instrument that did not work out well because she saw me excel quickly and she got frustrated and the whole thing sort of blew up. Fine. Yeah, she came to me and said, all right, look, I want to join the school jazz band. I need to learn how to Play the drums very well. In order to do that, I have six months. Can you be my teacher? And so, first of all, she was bought in with some life experience. But we made a rule, and this is, I think, where, where I, where I. My experience might be able to help Kate here. The rule was at home, you know, we're father, daughter, parent, child in the studio. We are teacher, student, and anything goes. And it's. We are. There's no punishments that are going, you know, whatever happens in the studio stays in the studio. And it's not like if, you know, if she yelled at me about something in the studio, you know, I wouldn't take that out on her. You know, I wouldn't take her phone away at home or anything. Like, there was, there was no parent child relationship in the studio, and it really worked. But we both went in eyes wide open with that and, and it worked out spectacularly. She, I mean, she took to it like kids do. She learned faster than I could, you know, and almost faster than I could teach her. So it was great.

I think that's. Yeah. And I think that's good advice.

Yeah.

For anyone in a family business being able to have that. The relationship is going to be different. It should be different. That's how you avoid bringing personal things into the work environment and bringing work things home. Now, you can talk about them at home, but understanding that, you know, the framework is different at each venue and your roles are different, you know, at each venue. And so you have to have that autonomy. I think that that will help be, you know, help things be successful.

My wife and I have the same arrangement at, at the business. So when we are working on the business, I'm the boss at home. I am not the boss, let's put it that way.

Yes, I got it. That's good. It works.

All right. Hey, you know, when running a business, your employees can create all kinds of interesting situations. Like when somebody isn't showing up when they're supposed to. This can create problems not only with that person's performance, but it sets a tone and you want to address it, but you don't know what to do. You talk to our sponsor, Bambi. With Bambi, you get access to your own dedicated HR manager. Starting at just $99 per month. It's true. They're available by phone, email and real time chat. So onboarding and terminations run smoothly. Team members reach peak performance, and your business stays compliant with all those changing HR regulations. And with Bambi's HR autopilot, you'll Automate your important HR practices like setting policies, training and feedback. Bambi's dedicated HR managers are US based and they are dedicated to your business. You get one person. That's what I'm saying. Like all of their HR managers are US based, but they assign you one of these. It's dedicated to your business, giving you access to the HR expertise and personal touch your business needs. Normally an HR manager, it costs you like 80 grand a year. But like I said, Bambi starts at just $99 per month. You can schedule your free conversation today to see how much Bambi can take off your plate. To do it, go to Bambi.com right now and type in Small business under podcast or when you sign up. It'll really help us here with the show spelled bam b e.com bambi.com type in small business and our thanks to Bambi for sponsoring this episode. All right, our next piece of feedback at BusinessBrain show comes from listener Stan. He says, I was listening to the last episode, Business Brain 404, about working with people I dislike, and I wanted to ask about business partners. I know I'm supposed to figure this out before I got into the partnership, and I did, but our partnership's gone on for over a decade now and we've had some decent success. But those little things my partner does are getting under my skin and I'm not sure what to do about it. I realize now that my partner is inherently. Let me rephrase this. I realize now that my partner is inherently inefficient and probably lazy. Oh. And compensates for that by putting in more and more hours into the work. But to use your examples, he's doing $20 an hour work instead of 200 an hour work. And so it doesn't really matter that he's putting in the time. We could pay someone far less than what he's being compensated by the business. Obviously, though, he's my partner and we're 5050 in this business and started things together, so it's not like I get to decide to change his compensation. I realize I need to have a conversation with him. Right. Or is there another way to address this? Or if I have to have that conversation, how would you suggest I proceed? Oh, man.

Yeah, that's a, that's a good one.

I appreciate your honesty, Stan. Like, this is. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I, I thought it's interesting how he describes. I think he's, you know, probably lazy by working more hours. Right. Because it, what the focus or the key thing is is what he's doing. And I, I've been in this position before, and it's very hard to convince someone that what they're doing that they think is very important isn't the best use of their time. Right.

I wonder if, I wonder if Jeff, if the. Jeff was the next question we have that we're not going to get to this week. I wonder if Stan's partner knows that this is not the best use of their time. My guess is that. That they do. My guess is, yeah, I mean, I don't know, but like you said, I've, I've encountered this before and, and a lot of times it is a compensation exercise to be like, well, let me just find something to do. And I, when I say I've encountered this before, yes, I've encountered it in other people, but I've also encountered it in myself. It's easy to even, even these days where, you know, like in backbeat media where I have no partners anymore, I bought them out. I find myself convincing myself sometimes that, oh, yeah, I've got a bunch of grunt work that needs to get done, so I will do that today. And then I pat myself on the back for being productive about it. But if I were to do that every day, five days a week, the business wouldn't go anywhere, you know, and so that's. I understand this and I think, I hope projecting here. I'm assuming we all do this to some degree, but at least from Stan's perspective, his partner does it too much.

Yeah. I think you can try to have the conversation and, you know, try to. I always like to start it and use myself as an example, just like you described. Hey, I'm doing this. And I think that, you know, this is, let's talk about this. And if that, you know, start with yourself and see if you can push it out there where they are going to say, you know, I think I'm kind of doing the same thing. You could, you could see how it goes, but you could also think about maybe bringing in a third partner. Oh, and this is what has helped me solve this problem a few times. And I would bring it up again. I always try to focus on me because it's. It, it's easier, an easier conversation than to go, you, this is happening, so we need to do this. So I would go and say, look, I think it'd be great to, you know, maybe bring in some new blood and maybe each of us, or maybe you have an employee that already works there, says, look, let's sell, let's each sell 5% and bring in a 10% equity partner.

Yep.

Perhaps somebody, you know, perhaps some. The business can use an investment of capital. So it's another benefit that you can discuss to ultimately get what you want to happen. But once you have that trifecta you can have, it's a much different discussion.

It is.

And I would say you may not even have to say anything because that person is going to be far more sensitive to what's going on now that there's a new partner in the equation. And that new partner will have a voice as well. And they also, you know, have you and that other partner, if you agree and maybe you're wrong, who knows, maybe, you know, if they agree with you, you have more leverage to come in and say it. And I've. I've had to do this to where eventually I gave the opportunity. Look, okay, look, we'd like to buy you out.

Yeah.

Seems like you. I had a partner that just loved billing hours. Right. And no matter what I did, I couldn't convince them that that was not what we needed in like a, you know, a chief technology officer position.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

And he was good at it, but there was just a minimal number of hours in the day and. And he couldn't. He couldn't pay for himself and couldn't grow the business, like you mentioned.

Yeah.

So we said, you need to make this change and this kind of thing, and when they just would not and that was what they wanted to do, we in, in a cordial manner said, look, let's. Maybe we could spin off this part of the business and you can, you can take it and we'll focus on something else and you can go out and do these billable hours. So we were able to split off part, get, you know, he kept part of the business as compensation. We gave him, you know, paid him out a bit as well so he'd have some time to land on his feet. And it worked out great. And then we referred people back and forth. We had more focus on hardware and he was more focused on service, and it worked out good. So getting that third person in, I've done it twice, has helped me a lot to come up with different scenarios that can work.

You know, this is great as you're saying this, I realized that I did this, I'll say unintentionally, although if I'm thinking back, I probably had some grand designs in mind as it. As it unfolded. But I brought. I had a partner who was similar kind of thing. This is a long Time ago and I brought in someone else to expand. We in fact brought in someone else to expand that sort of department that my partner was, was hell bent on, you know, on working in. Right, okay. And this, this person that came in outperformed my partner and yeah, yeah. And it's so much so that it was like, and, and it wasn't a surprise because it was like, well, yeah, I mean, we're bringing in someone who has expertise in this field as opposed to just someone who has an ownership in the business and understands that this job needs to get done. Because there is that aspect of things. Right. When you're running a business, there are some jobs that you simply have to do. Even though you know darn well you're not the best person, but you're the best person currently in the company to do them. Right. And that's a good trait to have, just being willing to just dive in and go. But we brought somebody else in who had experience in this and was more suited to this type of role and completely outperformed my partner. No great surprise, but it actually caused my partner to, it was truly my partner's idea to say, hey, you should buy me out. You should. You know, like I, I, I, I no longer can provide value to this business, but obviously I could be self.

Aware.

Like, yeah, I did provide value to this business and, and so like there needs to be compensation for this. But I think there's a, the, the business, all of us, including the business as its own entity, are better off if we do it this way. And I'll tell you what, in terms of like splits and stuff, that's a great way to do it. When, when it's, you know, when it's, when it, when it's obvious and like you said, the self awareness and, and this particular partner had probably more self awareness than I'll ever have in my life. So I, um, yeah, it's great too. Worked out great.

You recognize. Yeah, you recognized or, and they did. Or better. But, but it's a good point to recognize what that person has done up till that date, you know, because it could just be the last year or two that they were. But you know, if you've been working with them for a decade, it is important that you recognize. Say, look, you know, you put so much into this and you were great. And business is all about adapting. Right. What you did in the beginning, you can't do forever or you will not adapt and make it and grow and, and be successful.

Right, Right.

You have to keep changing and Some people just hit that point where they're like, well, this is what I like to do and I'm going to stick with this. So I, I really think, you know, stand have the conversation if you don't want to bring in a third person. But yeah, consider that we always found someone. It was typically a partner we had with something else or, you know, somebody that was an employee that we wanted to bring in as an equity partner. And it, it worked out really well.

Yeah.

In most cases. So give it a shot.

I love that. That's great. I. Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Thanks everybody for sending. So, yeah, this, this is good feedback at BusinessBrain show is where all those comments came from and that's where yours can go. And also make sure you let us know what's your favorite social media algorithm. We want to know. It's good stuff.

Yeah, we do. Thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks so much. Make sure to check out our sponsors. Like we said, Shopify. Com, SBS and Bamb. Com. B A M B E E Com. Use small businesses. The code. And hey, keep living that charmed life, huh? See you next.