Selling Your Small Business – Interview with Abbi Vakil of U-Socket– Small Business Show 128

The Small business show, episode 128 for Wednesday, July 19, 2017. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business Show. The show by, for and about small business owners here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I am good. Yeah. Crazy week. Lots of travel, but, you know, that's just how it goes, as anybody who listens to the show knows.

Yes, that's how it goes. Yeah. Lots of hustling.

Actually met up with a couple of Small Business show listeners at the MaxDOT Conference and Expo out in the Chicago area and actually had some great conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was not expecting people to come up and talk about this show out there, but actually had, I think three or four different people.

That's very cool.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a good roe. Return on energy.

It is a return on energy. Yeah, exactly.

I like that. I like that. Hey, you know, when we first started the Small Business show, our goal was, you know, we have guests on and do interviews. And, you know, one of the guys I knew from the beginning that I would tap into is Abby Vakil from Almack and various other businesses. And, you know, Abby was our first guest back in April of 2015, and I'm really happy to have him back on the show today. Abby, thank you for coming out and hanging out with us again.

Hey, you're welcome. Glad to be here. Looks like you guys had 117 shows without me.

That's right. Yeah. Well, you were busy.

Yes.

You guys are busy too.

That too. Yes.

That's true. So, yeah, so we've been talking about, you know, Abby made a comment I thought was good. You know, we did a show on failure, and then, you know, last week we did a show on, you know, success selling your business and setting things up. And I know Abby's had experience, rarely any failure in his life, but. But certainly success and selling his business and things. So I thought we, you know, could continue that discussion today and see where it goes.

Be cool. Yeah.

So. So let me. What can you tell us about the company that you sold? You know, how did things work for you? And just give us some background.

Sure. So what I sold was not the whole company, but I sold a portion of that was a product line, a business called the USocket business, which is a USB outlet that has built in USB ports and AC outlets. You've probably seen them in hotels or airports or dorms and things like that.

Sure.

It was a really hit product. I came up with the idea back in 2009 with some other people in my company. And then we brought it to market in 2009, 2011, and we had a lot of success with it. In 2012. We went to a lot of shows. We won lots of best of shows awards, including Mac World and just Builder show after builder show. Just in, in that space. A new space for me, by the way. I was always in the Mac space and this was a whole new business for me, but was bringing technology, which I knew, into a space that nobody had even looked at, the outlet, the wall outlet, in a different way for maybe 85 years until I looked at it this way. And we brought this product to market.

Yeah. Now. And I think people probably take it for granted. They see them all the time, everywhere, just so we can get one of those. But back then it was certainly a big deal.

That's right. So that business, that product actually ended up taking up a big portion of our company's sales and focus. And it was doing so well. There was a lot of up opportunity and potential. So I kind of ended up asking our company to focus only on that one thing.

Okay.

We, we had sales, some other things that we used to make that we had made in the past, but we stopped developing new things in anything else other than this space, which is USB outlets.

Okay, sure.

And I had, and we had some, some great sales. We were making it in America. We sold, you know, hundreds of thousands of units. And for a long time we had no competition. It was great. But even though this business was doing well, I still had, you know, we still had a lot of staff from when we had lots and lots of different products. We still had a big building and things like that. So even though I was making all these sales, we still had. It was a struggle to, you know, make profit, net profit.

Interesting.

Into your, into your pocket or even just my pocket.

Yeah, yeah. So we were, we were at a stage where we were, I would say, break even.

Okay.

Even with a hugely successful product.

Yes. With top of mind awareness. I would go to the Apple Store and I would go to the Apple Store and people would find out, you know, what company I'm working for and they say, oh yeah, I've heard of you guys. And so it was great. I had lots of recognition, I had a lot of fame, I should say.

You were Internet famous, but you weren't making any money.

That's right.

I had the fame, but not the fortune.

But you did have cash flow.

Yes, you did.

That's key. Right, yeah. Okay.

But you see, the thing is that it's great to have cash flow, but if you. If it's that way for a long time, where you don't make money for months and months and months and months, or actually more than once years now, it's actually one of the worst things that can happen to a business.

Interesting.

Because a business, it's. There's only three possible outcomes. Either you're going to succeed, you're going to fail, but the worst outcome, in my opinion anyway, is, is that if you don't do either, you don't succeed or fail. You're just muddling along, you're making no money, you break even. So other people might look at that and say, that's great that he's not losing money. But the thing is that when you are, if you fail, you're losing time.

Right?

That's right. Yeah, exactly. If you fail, then you can just say, okay, this didn't work out. Let's stop this and let's do something else. And of course, if you succeed, then there's nothing to talk about. But when you don't succeed or fail, then you don't know. Right. Should I keep doing this? What should I change? So that takes up.

And I think that also so many of us have been in that position. And I also want to comment on the Looking from the outside because like the book we always mentioned, rework by the guy from Basecamp. Yeah, Basecamp. And one of the things they always say is, ignore your competition. And I always have a hard time with that because I always look and say, wow, they're at all these shows and look at the website and this, and they must be doing so great. But you never, never really know because you're not on the inside. And they could, you know, the people putting in all the time and effort could not be making any money in.

The end of 2012 or 2013. If you looked at it, you would say, wow, this guy got a whole bunch of best of shows. I went to like 10 shows in 12 months, and I won every single show's best of show that I ever went to. Right. So you would look at that and say, wow, these guys are doing really well. People are coming to me and saying, hey, let's get a raise.

Yeah, right, Right.

But people wouldn't understand that there's nothing but the bottom line. You need to make money.

Yeah.

And it needs to. You don't have to make obscene amounts of money. But sure. Just. You need to be more than just.

Breaking even no, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it is a. That's a common small business, you know, conundrum is that, you know, you have to take care of your employees and everybody on the team first often. But, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, I can remember, you know, growing the business by millions of dollars a year and then going, wait, you know, I didn't make any more money.

That's.

That's. That's a frustrating place to be in.

That's right. So then what happening was that? And if you. The first time I was on the show, I was talking about how I had given up on companies sometimes ideas early. And so this time I stuck with it because I thought, there's something here. This is going to be good. And then. But, you know, a year goes by, another year goes by, and then at some point, it's a great decision. You have to think of when should you give up, when should you keep going? Difficult, very hard to make that call. And so I had to do a lot. And it's your baby. You have invented it. You brought it to life. So then it's even harder to give up on it. Right. Because if I'm just selling something that somebody else makes, it's easy to not be so attached to it.

Sure. So along the way, you decided or at some point, I mean, had you always structured it to a, hey, we're going to sell this someday, or did you decide halfway through that, you know, hamster wheel of cash flow and not much, you know, money in your pocket that, hey, maybe, maybe we can find somebody to buy this thing.

So this particular business, I. Because it was so well received, I used to get a lot of people wanting to invest into it. So I would get people. Some people flew out from Los Angeles and other people. So I was getting a lot of interest. People would want to help me. I put that in.

Yes.

Help me to, you know, invest in something that they already know works and things like that. But then I never. It never worked out with any one of those people. Sometimes they would want too much as a. For a small investment. They wanted like, say, 40%.

Sure.

And that was not, you know, something that I wanted to do. Right. So I ended up saying no to all those people. And then there was one particular person who was just after me to keep or kept on investing. He just wants to just. He loved this product and he loved this space. And he was a wealthy individual. He was retired, but he had done this sort of technology before. So he was just thinking, I'm Going to add. I can add a lot of value to you guys. I just. Let me. I kept. After some time, I got kind of tired of saying no to him.

Okay.

Tired is a wrong word, but. But. But I felt okay. I just relented, basically.

Sure.

I had said no to him many times before. First time I came on the show, I kept talking about saying no. Practicing. What? I actually said no to him many times.

Right.

And then eventually I just, you know, because it was not going anywhere.

Right.

I was spinning my wheels. I said, okay, fine, I will take your investment. And then that led into, you know, just because I was not making anything from.

Yeah.

So I just said, maybe he should just take it.

Guy. Right. Well, we talked about this last week, too, when I was discussing selling, you know, my business. It's finding the right person or the right group or team that interest company that wants to buy.

Yeah. You only need. You only need one.

That's right. In this case, to be frank. And it doesn't matter if he's listening or not, but he wasn't the right guy for it. But he was the most interested in it.

Well, I mean, yeah, but. But your opinion about whether he's the right one or not is. Is only mildly relevant. Right. I mean, you need to be comfortable selling to this person. But having someone who's eager like that trumps a lot of things.

Right. Well, you know. Yeah. So if a girl wants to go out with you and she really wants to go out with you. Right. It can't be all that bad.

Right? Right. Yeah. It's worth having dinner. Yeah, exactly.

That's right.

Yeah.

So in this case, the reason that I say some things like he may not be the right guy. I didn't think he was the right guy, is because the structure of my deal was based on more. He's going to pay me as you go, kind of based on performance. Right. So it's actually even more that he be the right guy to execute.

Yes.

I mean, he's the right guy because he has money or he's, you know, and he's interested. But that's great. But can he then do his part in the future to make sure that I get paid?

Yeah, right.

That's. That's the risk. You're rolling the dice based. Because for you to, you know, get the performance revenue going, he has to perform.

That's right.

Yeah.

So. So that puts. But he was very interested and he was not daunted by the fact that the business was not making any net profit.

Sure.

And the Reason the business was not making net profit, I would also like to say is partly my fault because what I did was we had a lot of employees in a big building and lots of product lines. And Dave, you know this, Shannon knows it too. So when I focused on just having one thing or focusing on this one great opportunity, what I didn't do is I didn't cut my expenses, I didn't lay a whole bunch of people off small business. I didn't downsize my building. It's not easy to just break your lease and things like that. So, you know, you come. I was basically in a 20,000 square foot building and to do this business, I should have bought you being in a 3,000 square foot building. Yeah, not, you know, so I didn't bring my costs down fast enough compared to the focus that I was doing. So this guy, he felt that, hey, he wasn't daunted by the fact that I wasn't making any net profit.

He realized it.

He saw, he saw the opportunity. Yeah, yeah.

He said that, hey, you have an office. I don't need an office. I'll do this all from my rented office.

That's right. Yeah.

Things like that.

No, that makes sense. Okay, so two questions at once here. What was the best part of selling and the worst?

So the best part of selling for me was just the relief of having sold it or closed it.

Yeah.

Because it was something that kept dragging on for a long time. There was many times he wanted to do it, then he didn't want to do it, then he wanted to do it. So for me, you're just happy just to close it. So that was a nice part. And then knowing that a lot of things that I need to worry about, I don't have to worry about anymore.

Sure, that's great.

So relief is a good word. And then the worst part of it, while it was not close, it was the, you know, the anxiety of it.

Yeah.

And then, you know, it's your baby, so you don't, you know, it's hard to see it within somebody else's hands and they start making decisions that you wouldn't yourself make. So, you know, so you think about those, those, those things. Letting go, I would say letting go is, is hard.

Yeah, that makes sense. Especially when you're involved in it beyond.

Right. So the deal that, the deal that we did was is based on him paying me a little bit of money for the stuff that I already had, like inventory, work in progress, stuff like that. And then he is going to pay me or is paying me for my time as consulting.

Okay.

And then a royalty per unit sold with any product that either I designed or invented or that had my name on it. Like my brand name.

Sure. I see.

So I built up a couple of good brand names, and so if he even decides in the future to make something completely different, like, let's say he makes a battery case or he makes a power bank to put in your Tesla.

I see. Yes.

But he puts my brand name on it, then he's got to pay me.

Okay.

He might choose to use a different brand name for the Tesla power Bank, then.

Yeah, well, the royalty is not that. It's only. It's a dollar a unit, basically.

That's crazy.

Well, you know what? Hey, my favorite dollar a unit story is Todd Rundgren, Right? This is a great story, folks. He was approached by Meatloaf or Meatloaf's management to produce the now that we know as very famous Bat out of Hell album. But they had nothing, right? And so he said, no, you can't pay me enough. And they said, wow, we really want you. And he said, no, you can't pay me enough. And finally, I think they negotiated some flat fee of like, you know, or a base rate of like 30 grand or 50 grand or something. And then they said, but we'll give you a dollar for every album that's sold.

Wow.

That's pretty good.

Yeah. And now when you see Todd Rundgren living on that palatial estate in Hawaii. Do you know why?

Yeah.

Because that album sold zillions. Yeah.

He probably made more than Meatloaf did.

Oh, he made more than anyone ever has from an album. I mean, nobody gets a dollar for every album that's sold. That's crazy.

Yeah.

So you never know, Abby. This, you know, in 15 years, maybe, you're. Look, you're living like Todd Rundgren. So there you go.

I hope so. Dollar a unit. A dollar a unit on a ten dollar thing is like ten pretty significant.

Yeah.

A unit on a $100 thing is.

Yeah, of course. Of course.

So hopefully, yeah, hopefully this guy can keep selling, and then I'll get to make sure, you know, a little. That's great coin.

Yeah, absolutely. So I know, you know, you've been involved in selling a couple of businesses, and, you know, one of the questions I had for you is, you know, what did you wish you knew before you sold either with USocket or another company?

Yeah, that's a good question. On this business, I feel like, you know, I kind of backed into. Not backed into a sale, but kind of, you know, wasn't going into the sale from a position of strength.

I see.

But. But there was another business that I had sold earlier. And. And the one lesson that I wish that I had known was never sell to your staff and finance that same staff. And the reason is. So what I did was I made the sale, but I. But I had been the one that financed it. So what I said was, I'm going to keep the checkbook. Right.

Because, you know, of course I can't give the accounting. No way give the keys away.

Right.

Yeah.

So I'm going to keep the checkbook. I'm going to keep the lease, for example, in my name and things like that. But you will pay me over time. What ended up happening was that these guys were employees and never really were. Not owners.

Oh, sure.

So what they started seeing was every month they would give a check to me. So they would say, what's different between the time that he was the boss and now I'm the boss, I'm still giving him a check. He still writes the checks. This guy just scammed me and he just said, you know, they didn't understand the concept of, like, he's buying a house.

Yeah, sure. Once it's paid off, you're done, then it's yours.

So they were expecting a lifestyle change. I'll buy a new car, I'll have a new house. I'll have all these things. Because all this money that I was.

Of course, making all this money. Yes.

But unfortunately they still had to pay me. So then they started presenting, having erratic payments.

Sure.

And sort of, I don't want to say checked out, but it's not.

The ownership mentality started going there.

So it was a mistake. So the mistake that I made was choosing the wrong team to buy it and then also offering to finance it's okay to sell to your staff, but then let them go get the money from somebody else.

That makes sense.

Yeah. Right, right.

Yeah.

You don't want to finance their purchase from you.

Right?

That's right. So if you. If that's the. If anybody's thinking of selling, go ahead and sell it, but just don't do both.

Yeah, yeah.

Because otherwise you're just buying from yourself.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. I mean, you got it.

I know I'm oversimplifying, but maybe not so much.

Yeah, that's true. So, okay, I think you answered a little bit of this, but maybe we could talk a little more about this. How did you come up with the valuation for the business that you, you know, recently sold.

So there's a lot of you can do X times multiple revenues or you can do, okay, I'm making X. And this time I wasn't making any net profit.

Right.

So I couldn't go off of profit so I could go off of sales. But I knew this guy was not willing to part with a lot of money and he was more interested in show me. So what I did was I was eager to make that sale and eager to get out of it because I felt like my time was being wasted in this business and I didn't know if anything would come from it. Okay. So I did a deal with the person that was more friendly to him, make it easy for him to do this deal, which was I said, okay, I'll consult with you and I'll give you a price that is below my market rate. Okay, you want to hire me to do some consulting? I would charge you so much, I'm gonna discount you. And then I said, I'll make it easy for you. Just give me this royalty deal. So I, I just wanted to make sure that I got all my money that I had invested in terms of inventory.

So you bought your inventory assets. Yeah.

Take that.

Right.

Anything that I, you have that is finished, that needs to be sold. Tell you what, you don't even have to buy that when you sell it. Give me the money for it. I see. So I, I did everything to make it easy for that guy to take over the business. As long as I was going to get some percentage or like a dollar unit per, you know.

Yeah. In the future, I think that's great advice. You know, making it easy for the buyer to actually buy the thing. And, and you, you've got to know, you gotta, you know, really figure out what your buyer can do. Right.

Yes. I think also that when you, from a small business owner, right. You use your business so you're always in it and you, you're just, you're deep in it, so you don't really see the forest from the trees. But once you make that decision that says I am going to sell it, then you already. I. Anyway, in my case, and I'm not sure if it'll happen to you, Shannon, but you start checking out.

Yeah.

Of your own business, of course. And so then you want to do everything you can to make that guy take it over. Because one of the worst things that can happen to you, that you almost make a sale.

I was just thinking about us with, with Deals on the web, Shannon. I mean, it was the, There is a remarkable. There, There was a fulcrum there where we were rocking and then we almost sold it, but didn't. And after that, it was, it was. I don't think either one of us fully reinvested.

No, I don't think it kind of takes a wind out of your sails, right? Totally. Yeah. And I think maybe that lesson was why, you know, I came up with what I mentioned last on last week's show was a plan B that still met your needs as a seller, but also made it easier. And it could be, it doesn't even have to be financial. There's all kinds of ways to structure a deal. That's right. But know, you, you're, you know, that's your. I think just a great point to make, Abby, is making it easy for this person to buy your company. And it depends on their situation.

Right, right.

Yeah.

I mean, this guy didn't have any shortage of money.

Yeah.

So it wasn't about that. He just wanted to have, he was at an age that he didn't want to have any risks. I got it in his life. So he liked the business. He didn't like the risks. I said, okay, I'll make it easy for. I'll de. Risk it for you.

Yeah. Okay. So did everything go. Oh, go ahead, Dave.

Well, I, Yeah, I mean, I. This probably jumps us out of order a little bit, but I'm curious, Abby. You, you mentioned that you had this building and all these employees and other product lines that. And other, you know, business lines that you didn't sell. What happened to those after this sale? Did you, did you resurrect or rekindle those or are those still in the same state that they were in?

Well, so then. Because that was not the focus of that business that was already sort of dying.

Okay.

But I kept, kept, I kept all the inventory of whatever I had because it's already paid for.

Yeah.

So if, if somebody bought something once in a week.

Yeah.

It didn't matter to me because the entire sale was a straight 100 margin. Right. Because I've already paid for everything he already paid for. Sure. And then there was an element of that business which is, you know, like a part of my four hour work week, Tim Ferriss style business that I intend to do. I kept that back because I only sold that one thing.

I see.

And, and maybe perhaps in the future I can, I can revive it or I don't know what I'm going to do, but I was Just so relieved to get out of it that I kind of decided I'm not going to think about it for, for a little bit.

Okay, so you don't, you don't have your big building and all your employees anymore, is that right?

No, that, that I did not.

Okay, all right.

That was.

Yeah, that was my question.

Then I would be in real trouble because I would have to pay.

But you still have, like, Right. We talk about on the show all the time, you know, the revenue stack.

Yes.

And you know, we just constantly are talking about, okay, you've got some money coming in here now, what's the next thing? Because eventually I think it's important to, to talk about for a minute or so is, you know, revenue streams don't last forever. Right. And they are inevitably going to go away. So, you know, it's almost like Apple, you know, we're all Apple guys here, you know, how they put themselves out of business, so to speak, or, you know, make their own product line obsolete with a new product. Right. So you're involved in it. I mean, what other kind of businesses are you involved? Or I mean, to what you can talk about today, you know.

Sure. So having been this business that I was in only started because I was already in the Apple service business, which is of course how I met Shannon. And, and so I still have that.

Okay.

And then from being in the Apple business for so many years, you get, get a lot of opportunities and ideas and things like that. So I do that.

Okay.

So this, this one door closed and I partially closed it myself. But that doesn't mean that other doors are not open and other things are still coming in. So I do do a lot of. I still have my service business.

Sure.

And I'm looking for perhaps a future outcome like yours, Shannon. But in addition to that, I, I am, since I'm in the space and since I am in Silicon Valley, I get a lot of, you know, opportunities or investment opportunities. And you can diversify your income from, not just from being in the Mac space, but also doing other things. And what I did was I started doing a lot of investing, startup investing, but I have a little twist on it. And what I do is I try to say, what do I know? So if, and then I invest in things that I know. So for example, I know the Apple vertical really well. So I try to. If somebody has some idea that is in the Apple space or something to do with Mac or iOS or something, then I can invest in it because then I can add value.

Right.

Either I can Help you distribute or I can help you make a better product because I know hardware, you know.

Yeah. So you're not being just a passive cash investor. You're being a, you know, board member. Might not be the right term or the right. But it's. But it's that. That role, serving that role in addition to providing perhaps some. Some capital.

That's right. But what I do is, for example, so if you were Facebook and you came to me, I would not invest in you because I don't know anything about social.

Right, right.

But if it was something in the Apple space, like if you were Jawbone, for example, or. Jawbone is a bad example.

That's a bad example. Yes.

Right. Let's say it was Fitbit or something, I would do something. And what I do is, because I'm in the Apple space, one of the things that I do, I think that is this is different than most other people. After having given money and then seeing the people I gave the money to go buy some Ariane chairs and fancy tables, I started doing something different. I would say, look, you're trying to raise, I don't know, 250,000 and you not going to get all that money from me, obviously, but let's say it's 50,000 or 25,000. What are you going to do with that money? Oh, I'm going to buy this and this equipment. I'm going to buy some Macs, I'm going to buy some servers or not servers now, but surely software or stuff to do things. So I'll say, okay, you know what? Instead of me giving you a check and then you write that check and you do whatever you want with it, I'm going to actually give you the stuff.

Nice.

That you're going to buy, but I'm going to keep owning that stuff. So now I see if that business goes south, guess what?

You get your.

I can get that back. And because I. It was mostly Mac stuff, I still have a Mac business.

You know how to deal with that stuff.

I can. I can dispose of it. So now instead of investing 50k in cash and then losing it all in case it goes south and more. More of these things go south than succeed. I have a chance to get some of that money back. If it doesn't go well, that's great.

That's like asset investment. So. Yeah, I like that. Yeah.

And then if it succeeds, then they give me a percentage of that value, what I put in, say, 50k.

Sure.

As options or warrants. So I have all the upside and then maybe 50.

Limited.

Yeah, limited risk.

I mean the, the depreciation value of the product or if you don't get.

It back or that usually a company like that doesn't if you know it's going to do good in three years. And in that three years, if I bought you brand new MacBook Pros in three years, I can still get half my money back. Yeah, because it's all Apple stuff. It's not nonsense Dell or something.

Yeah, right, right. That's smart.

Yeah, I like that. That's great. Okay, so what do you think? You know, the most important bit of advice you could give for. And we've got a lot of advice here, you know, so. And if you have other questions for Abby or us, you know, it's just feedbackusinesssh we can pass on the information. This guy's a wealth of info, let me tell you.

And Abby's also a member of our small business support group. So you can just ask.

That's right.

Yeah.

There you go.

So what's the most important bit of advice you could offer other small business owners that are thinking of selling or at some time horizon, you know, what do you think is the most important thing they need to think about?

So the most important thing when you do you. If you have a mindset that I'm going to start this business and I'm going to sell it at some point, then you must, must always have your good books. So that if somebody asks a question about something, you can just instantly come up with the answer. That's very important. Yeah, very important to have that. I'm sure you guys have good books already. And then the other thing is to you know, have, have pride in what you have done and know that it's got some value so that people will, there's people going to come to you and say it's not worth anything but you know, that is worth something. Something because it's making money for you.

Sure.

So it's. And this guy's interested in buying your business. He would be not interested if it wasn't having some value. So then hold your guns and stick. You know, have some self respect or pride in what you have created and, and, and that person will pay.

Yeah, I agree.

Have to. Don't drop your shorts is another or something like that. Yeah, that would be a crude analogy. But I'm saying. Yeah, just, just, just, you know that you have created something. Have pride in that and you will, you will get that right. You know, you don't be unrealistic obviously, but so you have to know yourself, know what the value is, but then don't settle. Say no if you have to.

Yeah, say no. Absolutely. And I think your first comment, you know about the good books, good accounting, that's probably one of the biggest challenges for top line sale guys or deal guys, where you're always running forward to the next deal and you may not pay as much attention to the, to the books on the back end, how things all tend together. And that's critically important for your sale.

And I should say one more thing is that when I say that, I don't mean that you have. Somebody else is doing the books. Obviously somebody else can make entries, but you should if you're not in your accounting program, you know. Well, I would say every day, but some people are not like that. But I'm just saying you should be in there and see what's going on and know. And then when somebody asks a question, you already know the answer instead of I'll get my accountant to bring that up for you and things like that. You got to know your own numbers if you're trying to make that sale.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, you need to know your own numbers just to run your business. I mean, right? Yeah, I think. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, man.

But there's a lot of people who have this shoebox accounting which is that they, they have accounting and they have QuickBooks or whatever, but they just take the stuff put in a box and then they give it away to somebody and then that guy comes back a month later or at the end of the month. So you look at your books only once a month. Some people I know do that. And I'm saying if you're a small business, don't do that.

That makes sense. That's great. Well, you know, some excellent advice and we really appreciate you sharing your story again and giving us feedback on how things went for you on. Thrilled to have you back on the show.

Oh, you're welcome. I love being of help to small business people. It's one of the nice things about that you talked about revenue stack and it's nice to be able to help people and then also give back to the community. That's great. Thank you.

Awesome. Thanks again. And Dave, thanks for hanging out and running things.

Yeah, of course. No, this is, it's fascinating. Congratulations on the, on the sale of Usaka too Fabi. That's, it's fun stuff. Yeah. Folks, you can find us at BusinessShow Co as always. And like we said earlier, BusinessShow Co Facebook for the small business support group. Keep doing what you need to do to live that charm life, folks.