Building Through Broken Glass - Chieh Huang - Boxed - Episode #77

So you're trying to be the greatest of all time, but most folks don't realize the sport in which they're trying to be the goat of is a broken glass eating competition.

Welcome to Not Another CEO Podcast. I'm your host, David Politis. Every week we talk to inspiring leaders and get the true stories, the ups and downs, the lessons learned, and come away with actionable advice for our own journeys. Foreign.

One of the most authentic founders I've ever met, he's the co founder and former CEO of Boxed. Boxed was an online wholesale retailer that Chase started in his garage and ultimately scaled to serve millions of customers across the country. He started boxed in 2013, took it public in 2021, and ultimately had to shut down the company in 2023. Che is a serial entrepreneur. Before box, he was part of the founding team at Astro Ape, a mobile gaming company that Zynga acquired in 2012. He's also a board member at Six Flags and an advisory board member at McLaren Racing. He dedicates a lot of his time to sharing his stories of resilience, leadership, and building businesses with the next generation of founders. I heard him speak at a founders event a couple months ago and immediately reached out to see if he would join me on the show. Please welcome Che.

Thanks for having me, Dave.

Excited to do this. Excited to do this in person. Thank you.

I was sorry to start off, I know you were going to ask questions, but I actually had a question about the show. So is it. Is it, oh, not another CEO or.

Is it like I thought of it because I. No one's ever asked me that question. I thought of it because I listened to a lot of podcasts, a lot about business and everything else, and I found that podcasts were getting increasingly fluffy and I started feeling like there was all these conversations that I was listening to. I'm like, I know that company or I know that person, and that's not actually what happened. And so then when I was telling people, I'm going to start a podcast, they said, someone said to me, another CEO podcast. And I said, no, it's not another. And they said, that's actually a good idea. So it's basically this whole trying to come up with a name was really, really difficult. And then when someone said that, I was like, actually, that's exactly how I describe it, dude.

I. Because, you know, there's different ways of reading it. I thought I was actually really excited, feel like, oh gosh, not another CEO. And like, you know, but. But it seems like most of the Episodes are. People are very authentic, and they're not like. I think you've done a good job of cutting the fluff out of it, so I'll try to carry on that tradition.

Thank you. I know you will. That's why I'm excited to have you. So, first question. What is the one thing, big or small, that you did it boxed, that had the biggest impact, and you do again if you're CEO of another company in the future.

So that one thing.

It'S hard to take credit for in terms of, like, on day zero. This is the one thing that we did well and we planned it from day zero. It was actually through time that we instilled a sense of purpose in the company. And I think we often conflate, like the royal. We like, in general, like, we conflate.

Mission, goals and purpose, or actually goals. Mission and purpose. So goals, especially when we're public goals, are to make or meet or beat the quarterly earnings kind of expectations. Your mission is perhaps something that you want to do for the customer, but the purpose oftentimes is actually what's not written on the wall. It's how everyone behaves when just it's you and one other person in a room making a big decision, and there's no guide on how to make it. What is that underlying purpose that ties everyone together? And for. For us, that wasn't on day zero, we said, okay, this is the purpose of the company. But through the many years, you know, especially as we began to hire more and more frontline team members in our fulfillment centers, that that underlying purpose became the purpose of the company. I know a lot of founders on other shows, potentially, they come on and say, this was the purpose of the company on day zero. I can't take credit for that. That was through a very hard road of discovery that we found purpose in ourselves, in our company.

And when you found it, did you somehow take that and amplify that? You know what I mean? Or was that just so organic? It just permeated the company in some ways. It.

At first it was organic and it began to permeate the company, meaning we started to do well by our team members, especially, again, the fulfillment center teams, because simply we thought it was one, the right thing to do, and two, is also good for business. It's like, these are the folks that actually packing the boxes, unloading the trucks, getting. Determining how someone was going to get their order. Was it going to be packed in a haphazard way, or is it going to be very neat writing a Handwritten note, they could write whatever they wanted to. So what were they writing on the cards? And so all these different things. I think again, not only the right thing to do, but also right for the company. Over time though, I think we got more and more publicity as being that. And so as folks were actually joining the company, they knew the type of company they were joining. And then also once they joined, they also realized that, oh, it's not just a glossy brochure, this is actually how the company operates.

So when they would join, they had read about it, heard about, but you told them when they joined that we.

Still, we actually really didn't talk about the purpose of the company. Yeah, but once you came to the company, it was pretty apparent from day one. So I always like to say that we never, it wasn't in our core values to treat our team members well or right or to make sure that we're treating those folks the same as if they're making the most at the company, even if they're making the least. But if you walked into a room and someone said, hey, you know, we can save a lot of money by cutting all the benefits at the fulfillment centers, you would get laughed out of the room. Even though it's never written anywhere as a, as a cardinal rule.

Wow.

Nor was it ever posted on a wall.

Wow. I, I, I do think people have talked about values and mission. No one has actually said it in that way. And that feels like to drive people when you have like a real purpose and it's that organic.

I don't know how to explain. Like, I feel like that probably gives the company 10%, 15% more throughput or drive or it just, it's like that extra boost every day it feels like, I mean, exactly.

Because at the end of the day, we all have different choices in life. You wake up every day, you could, you quit your job today, you can quit your job tomorrow. And so why are you not only kind of going to that job, but why are you excited about it? You know, that doesn't, of course money can be an issue. It can be one of those things, but that starts to wear off over time because there's all probably, probably a bunch of other companies willing to pay you the same, if not more. So why are you sticking here? And also why are you continuing to come and be excited? And then also I think, I don't know if you can force that level of purpose or authenticity. It just naturally happens and everyone will have their own journey. It doesn't matter how rudderless A company is, they will have a purpose. It might not be a purpose they like, but I guarantee you there'll be some through line amongst the whole company. Again, no matter how, I guess haphazard in a way, that culture was set at that company.

One of the things. So when I read about Box and I have heard the story and listened to a bunch of stuff, there's always this thing about like starting in your garage and, and you got pretty big pretty fast. Did you actually start in the garage?

It actually started in the garage, yeah.

Actually sound like a thing.

No, not, not a thing. What was I at the time? You know, I don't know if it's an embarrassing thing, but at the time I was already like, when we started Box, I was already 30. So you know, you're sitting there and you're like a 30 year old sitting in a garage and you're like, you know, and like when the kids, you could just tell the kids would cross the streets before crossing in front of your garage because like their parents are probably like, don't go in front of that weird dude, like, you know, selling toilet paper out of his garage. So it wasn't a very proud thing at the time. But I look back and man, was it like I, it was a really awesome experience.

How far did you actually get in the garage?

Oh, we got like, we got to the point where there were people I didn't know who joined the company.

In, in my house. Yeah. And so we also had to start. Yeah. There were trucks coming down our driveway and we had to like undrill the garage door and make it a screen, like a screen mesh instead. It's, it was a whole thing.

And how many years, like about.

We were there for a good year, year and a half. Because remember like when you start in a garage, there's this like I guess romanticized version of it. It's like, we're starting today, guys and gals. Tomorrow the orders are going to come. And then by week four, you're like, oh my gosh, this is going so well, dude. We're there for months sitting in our garage, in my garage with like nothing to do. There was like days where no one ordered a single thing. And I remember one of the, our first team members who quit his kind of decently high paying job to sit in the garage with me. He was like, dude, he's like, there's 300 million Americans and we sell things that every one of them actually uses and not a single person order from us. Is this going to be a thing. And you're sitting there, it's like, I don't know. And so you start to. There's a lot of self doubt that creeps in when, again, when you're sitting in a quiet garage just staring out into the ether. But luckily, I think we had our big break.

And what was that? I mean, that to go from there to what. How big was like at the peak, Peak, peak. How many people were using millions, right?

Oh, yeah. Like at a. I think by the, by the end of box, I think tens of millions of Americans had used the service. So. And to this day, I still, you know, if I meet someone, they're like, oh, you found a box. You're like, oh, you're my lifeline during, you know, Covid, or I used you all time in my office.

But it wasn't, it was before COVID that it took off. That it took off for sure.

So started in 2013. And so.

Someone like a influencer who is regularly on the Today show started using our service and she loved it. And she and the Today show wrote to us and said, and this is again when we were maybe getting three orders a day, five orders a day, like, yeah, yeah. And so she said, do you mind if I talk about you and plug you on the show.

Tomorrow or the day after? And, you know, we're like, this is clearly spam. Or like, is this real? Has anyone said, Is this an IQ test? Has anyone said no? And so she said, if, yeah, if, if, if the answer is yes, then bring kind of what you want me to bring onto the show by 5pm at, at the studio. And so we rushed over there, dropped it off, and they talked about us. It was like Hoda, Kathy Lee and this influencer. And I remember we're sitting on the couch watching the show live. We're like, this might be good. And then within that hour, then became that quintessential moment where all these orders started to flow in. And then we're like scrambling in the house. And then by the end of that week, we were calling people we knew be like, hey, come on, if you have some hours, just come work nights at this guy's house. And so that's when it really took off.

Wow. It's amazing how I've never built a consumer company. I have very little exposure to consumer companies. It is amazing how something like that.

Might be a good or bad thing. So I don't know.

But it's amazing how that can, like, actually instantaneously change up. You can't. And I don't know any enterprise business that could get changed like that.

Yes.

But consumer businesses, I've heard store like a shark tank type story or this story and one time on the air or something or one influencer and that's it.

So yes, that's what makes consumer businesses so, so potentially attractive, especially to first time founders. It's like, I have a problem. I personally have a problem. I know all my neighbors have the same problem. Can I solve that? And so, and once you solve it, what makes it so, I guess, unique and almost so addicting in some, by some standards, it's like the first time you see someone in the wild using your product. It's a really cool experience, man. It really is. And for me, especially when I, I still remember not my direct neighbor, but someone kind of in an adjacent neighborhood used our service. I was driving home and I saw one of our box boxes outside of a house. Like I remember slamming on the brakes and being like, oh my gosh, like we made it. And, and yeah, it just, there's something alluring about that.

I mean when you're friends or family or kids, friends, I, I, my friends who do have consumer type businesses, you feel that where they're, oh yeah, someone's using my, someone who like doesn't know about technology or like they're using my product. And that I can understand that. That's a different, honestly, it has to be a different sense of pride.

Totally. It also can. There's interesting dynamics that come out of that as well because you become customer service for millions of Americans that are using a service. So somehow inevitably, like your information, someone's like, this is the, his email address. And so you're getting customer service emails. But I, I enjoyed it. Or if you're seeing friends, they're like, oh, my last order. You're like, oh, we're here watching the game. Where I'm like, I don't want to hear about your last order, man. But you know, it's, there's certain aspects of it. The, the most interesting part was that to engage kind of our designers, we made it so that we had these limited edition boxes.

That we would have this other plate so you can print the outside flap the top of the box. And so each artist got to kind of make their own plate. And so, you know, they had a different take on what they wanted to build and, and what they wanted to kind of design. One of my co founders, who's the head designer as a giant f you to me just, just made this weird caricature kind of Version of me. Yeah. And it got voted and I was like, we can't do that, dude. We're not doing that. And they're like, okay, fine, it was just a joke. I'm sorry, we won't do it. They did it anyway. And so it ended up being the only plate that we started printing.

So your face was on every box.

So the largest size of box, which was our most popular box, my face was printed on the top. And I remember, you know, just on New York at our peak, you'd see box, boxes, like quite. Yeah, quite prolifically on, on the street. And so I would just see my face on all these boxes and every time I'd be like, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, because they weren't in great shape. And.

Yeah, and you, and you, you had a gaming company, you were part of the founding team of a gaming company before. So you've been in consumer. I mean, you've been in consumer. And is. Is that what draws it? Is that why you were drawn to that?

Initially, yes, it was what I knew. So we made games when the iPhone first came out. We were one of the first social, mobile, social game studios for the iPhone and for. For Android when it first came out. And so we knew B2C, we knew how the consumer interacted on devices and we basically said, okay, games was kind of the first wave. We actually think these people will transact their daily lives on these devices, which sounds completely innocuous today, but rewinding back to 2012, 2013, some of our first customer service emails were people saying, wait, you don't have a website? You want me to put my credit card into my mobile phone capital? Ha ha. Good luck. That was just the state of the world less than 15 years ago. But that thesis born itself to be true and we rode the wave in the ensuing 10 years.

What do you think is the next wave for consumer?

I think we, you know, at Boxed, we always talked about it and we actually built this. It actually worked really well for businesses. We started based upon the data we had on how you ordered and what you ordered. We just thought, well, why do you still need that? That step of going into the app and clicking what you want, why shouldn't it? Like now, back then it was machine learning rather than just true AI. Why couldn't we begin to predict what you were going to order? Now, for a consumer, that's a dangerous proposition because the moment you get shaving cream when you didn't need it and you got to charge in a credit card, and showed up, you're like, I didn't need it or I didn't want it, that becomes an issue. But for most businesses like that are just stocking the pantry, they're going to consume it anyway. So it actually worked really well for businesses. But to answer the. The reason why I brought that up is that we never had, I thought the technology to make that really, really amazing. But now I think you can actually make it pretty amazing. And that I think the next wave, over the next 10 years, I think the automation of your life for the more mundane tasks will probably be a big thing in consumer. So, you know, there's no reason why, with five years of data on how often I order shave cream, why AI can't predict when I need it and yeah, I don't need to go and click the button anymore. Why couldn't it just be sent to my house?

So automation. The mundane.

The mundane, exactly. I think.

Which by the way, I think is the same for businesses. I think when you look at. When people say, oh, it's going to take everyone's job, at least in my opinion, from what I'm seeing, I don't know if it's going to take their jobs, but all the mundane things that they're just doing over and over and over, that should all get taken care of, I think.

And also the AI is more in the mainstream these days, or not more in the mainstream. It's firmly in the mainstream where even seven, eight years ago, if you were like, hey, we're using a mix of machine learning and your habits to predict folks were like, what? I don't, what is this? Like, why, you know. But now if you say that to someone on the street or an office manager, they're probably like, okay, great, great. Like, I hear it about it all the time now. AI is making my life easier. Like, great. Why wouldn't I do it? So, yeah, for any entrepreneur out there, that, that's. If you have it, if that service does not exist, go for it.

I think the thing that, that you say that I want to. Something interesting from my experience, like my career has been in SaaS and from the days that it wasn't called SaaS or Cloud.

What was it called back then?

It was called the. Well, the first company I was at was a cloud PBX business, but at that time it was called IP Centrics or something like that, or Hosted pbx. Hosted. Hosted was the word. Instead of cloud, it was, it was hosted in some other person's cloud.

Yep.

And so we Just said host of pbx. That was actually the first term that was used and, and there was a lot of that being talked about. Hosted, exchange, hosted. And so someone somewhere was hosting that for you. But when you think about that people, it was the same as people saying I'm going to put my credit card in. Back then it was people saying I'm going to put my data in your cloud. Like in. Not in my server, in my office. Yeah, it was the exact same thing.

I could only imagine. And like where is it? Like who's, who can have access to it, who can have physical access to.

It but it's exactly the same thing. And then at some point it turned over where they're like why would I leave IT server in my office? That can get hacked easily. That can get, you know, some disaster happens and I have no access to it. And so. But I think in AI my observation recently is like that we went from not being comfortable to comfortable in a matter of months versus a matter of five, seven years.

Like a whole generation of products in the enterprise space needed to educate the market in order for folks to be more comfortable with that. I totally agree and but going back to what I originally said, it's like that. I think that's what makes consumers so alluring is that any day you wake up it could be your day as a consumer founder. It could be that. I don't know. The hottest star today wakes up, goes on TikTok and says has anyone used this cream? This thing is amazing. Like I woke up refreshed, I look better like. And that could be your day. And I think part it's the allure of consumer is.

I mean it's scary to me because there's no real. It's hard to know what is like the, what am I doing to really like did I just get lucky? Did I orchestrate that? You know?

Yeah.

I like, I love it and I love the founders in Consumer. I don't know if Consumer would be my, my next company. So yeah, I've done enough. I've done it for 15 years so I've seen enough.

So you raised, you raised a lot of money for Box. I think if I looked it was 250 something. A lot of money. 200 million. 250 million a lot.

Which is surprising if you think about it in Today's lens where 250 is like for a late stage company that's like probably not that much which at the time when we were, you know, I remember our series a was like 7 million. And folks were thinking, wow, sure you want to go that big on a Series A, you know, we're now, you know, seed rounds, like pre seed rounds. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, the world has changed so much.

And, and so when you went through the fundraising, was it easy? Day one, like that 7 million that you raised? Was that or the pre. You know, when you first raised, you were in the garage, I assume.

I, I'm, I was awfully blessed that our original gaming company was quite a big success. And so it was, you know, folks who had invested, they'd all made money. And so I think having that initial win under your belt buys you the credibility for folks to say, I'm betting on you next time. So whatever you do, just sign me up. Like, if you want to tell me the idea, great. If you don't, great. But here's my $100,000 check, or here's my $50,000 check, or here's my half a million dollar check. I don't think maybe not half a million, but a few hundred grand, folks were happy to write up, I guess, a blind check.

Yeah.

To whatever you were doing next.

Okay. So that's how you kind of got off.

That's how we got off the ground. But then rubber hits the road, and Series A, it's, it's, it's serious A. I often say it's like the hardest round to raise. I, I thought because there's just enough data, right. There's just, just enough data to make anyone who loves your idea or who is critiquing it be right. So you can cut the data and say, this thing is a disaster or this thing is the next rocket ship because the cohorts aren't firmed up yet. You know, it just, you know, it's, it was a really hard round to raise. I remember.

So that was hard. So compared to that, where you could get in the first round of what was that pre seed or angel round you were able to get from anyone who had backed your last company. And I'm sure once that started, it kept going. And then the A was hard.

Yeah. Well, what I found, and this is probably different for many other entrepreneurs, I found early stages, especially seed or pre seed. They're betting on you. And then like a mild part, they're thinking about the idea, but for the most part, they're betting on you that you'll figure it out.

Then as you get to A and B, they're betting on the idea and the promise of the idea and the execution of it. And then I think once you get to, like, B plus C and like, bet on you, maybe, maybe not bet on idea. Well, we know if it's a good idea or not. It's just a spreadsheet analysis once you get to the later stages. And so that was a. A real evolution of how I. I had to think as we were pitching.

Those investors, how long did it take to raise the A?

Took a few months. This is a while ago now.

How about the B?

The B went very quickly because the A. We did every. And this was great in the sense that we kept our Series A deck and we said, this is what we said at Seed and A. And this is what we accomplished with it. And actually we were kind of outpacing what we thought we were originally going to do. And so that was a lot of validation. So I remember we had a few meetings. We didn't even like, kind of. We certainly didn't boil the ocean within a few meetings. Our first term sheet was there, and it was great valuation with someone we really liked, and they said, we can close within 30 days. And so as a founder, you're just like, I want to get back to it. And so that's what we did.

That's a really good idea to. To show the deck. That's a smart. I never thought about that.

Yeah.

So that people have told me.

What did you. What did you show the last investors?

Yes. No, that's a really. The one. The one friend I have right now at a company, and they're raising like every six months and they're growing like crazy and everything. He actually said, it's exactly because of that. Where the deck was out there and people saw the deck, then heard the new numbers and said, wait, the deck that was pitched was lower than what you're actually doing. And then they.

They're probably like, is that a bad thing? Yeah.

And then they preempted and then the next decks, you know, and. But that's a really interesting idea. You would actually share that with the series. Like you took the Series A and.

Yes. So we shared kind of our original projections, and this is how we're. We're kind of projecting out.

And then Series C. How is that? I.

Was it A. So Seed was betting on us. So because we had the. The Zynga win, that was good. A was difficult. B was easier. And this is all curved. Right. So when I say easier, it's still not easy, but, you know, easier. C was difficult.

D was, I think, around Covid, actually. And so D was quite difficult. And then E was your pre IPO round. And then as I learned it, no one likes a series F. And so, so, yeah, that's, I guess, the ups and downs of our fundraising journey.

So it wasn't always up and to the right.

No, no, no. I think any entrepreneur that's been an entrepreneur for 10 years on the same journey, it would shock me if they had just easy rounds the whole time. Doesn't matter what company it is, there are, there will be a time when it goes sideways. And so those are the. You just have to time it so you're not raising money when it's going sideways. And unfortunately, if it is going sideways while you're raising, those are extraordinarily hard and painful rounds.

And it's not just, let's be honest, not also just the company, it's also the market. And the market could go sideways. Your, your company could be doing fine and the market goes sideways and all of a sudden everything changes.

Thank you for that clarification because that's exactly what I meant. So it's not just what you did, it could be the market. And so yeah, there's, you know, during the time of boxed, we had like I would say for venture, we had at least not at least we had three bear markets during that 10 year stretch where like consumer and E commerce was not in, then it was in, then it was hot, then it was not hot, then it was hot again. So, you know. Yeah, there's only so much you can control.

Yeah. I think the one thing is having been through the same journey and those ups and downs and having to raise like literally at the peak of like February of 2020, March of 2020, which was terrible. Having to do that in, in 2008. 22. I've been through that same cycle. And when the money is there, you take the money.

Oh yeah. And it's also a nice edge. Right. Because January to April, the world has frozen. But then if you wait six months after, so later in 20 and early 21, then suddenly it's like we can't find enough good things to invest in. Like, come on, bring the idea.

And it.

So, you know, and there was no way any human being could have controlled that, but you just had to ride the wave as an entrepreneur.

Yeah. I think when the, when the windows are, I mean, we're in that window right now. We are in one of those windows right now that could end tomorrow or could go on for six, you know, you have no idea. You. Right.

I think as I've done more and more companies. I think the one thing that has permeated my psyche more and more is that I've become way more paranoid because, you know, I hate to sound like the older guy, but sometimes you're just like, listen, I've lived through tough times and the market changed like that in 08, market changed like that in 2020. But that's the reality of it, man. Like overnight, overnight.

Literally overnight.

September 15, 2008 is when I started my professional career.

September 14th was when Lehman collapsed on a Sunday night at 11pm or something like that. Next day I'm at work and we, my office was across the street from Lehman's and you just saw thousands of people stream out of that building with bankers boxes and that happened overnight. Now there were signs like Bear Stearns had collapsed kind of the summer prior. But September 15, 2008, if you go back and look at CNBC vintage footage of that day, yeah, people were pretty, pretty surprised and think the bottom had fallen out.

So you know, we don't know what it, what it's, what is the bottom going to be here? You know, but something's going to happen. Something's going to happen. Now we're seeing valuations. I mean I saw a company doing half a million of revenue, half a million of revenue and they raised at like 400 million post and they did that six months after their previous round at 100 which like just feels, I.

Almost choked in my drink by the.

Way because I, it just feels like the peaks of these other times where something doesn't, something is not adding up.

You know, I, I don't blame the entrepreneur and in a lot of ways hats off to them because if they're squirreling that away then they're going to survive winter. When you look@thefirst.com boom and bust, the folks that actually made it to the other side, some of the most prolific companies that we know today, but there were a lot of great promising companies that just didn't have enough to go and unfortunately they fell by the wayside.

But you just said something. I think if someone's listening to this and they are one of those types of companies, it is squirreling it away and not assuming that tomorrow the same money is available at the same valuation because most likely it will not be most likely. And so if that's the case, you have to put it away. That's why I tell a lot of the 25 year old entrepreneurs crushing it with their AI company and they're raising all this money. I'm like, don't spend it like you have it.

Yeah, I, I a very prolific investor that was an investor in boxed. After we raised our first $100 million, he said, I thought he was kidding, but he said take 20 of it and 80% of it. We need, we should consider amending the doc so that the, it's in a separate account that the board that you have to get board approval in order to access. And at the time I was like, that's lunacy. That why, you know, you worked so hard, you finally got to a stage, you had plans for that a hundred million dollars of how you were going to grow it. But now, kind of a decade after that conversation, I know his mindset now because, you know, for a bunch of reasons, because you never know where the world goes. But also more importantly, in times when resources were not as abundant, that's when a lot of the good kind of, I guess, habits of a company are formed. Like, that's when the time that those habits are formed because you don't have a lot, so you have to be scrappy and that you have to make do with what you have. Whereas when you have a ton of money, you know, that money can kind of COVID over some, some potential kind of, I guess parts of the business that can be solved by money but fundamentally are not solved.

Actually, when you look at the, like you said, I think it's kind of like that limiting yourself or whether it's forced or manufactured drives the innovation to even think, like, just look at the business in a different way and say, do we actually need this? Do we actually need this? I mean, it's, it's a. Doing layoffs is a terrible, terrible thing that I think any CEO will say. It's probably the worst moments of their kind of career. But many times after a layoff that I've done or that I've Talked to other CEOs about, they end up saying, wait a minute. I actually, we're moving faster, right? We're more efficient, we're doing better. We got rid of a bunch of projects that weren't even important to us. And it's a forcing function to kind of see that it's hard to remember that, you know, when the money is available, it's hard. But, but I think you're making, it's a good point of like, you get better in those times, even if it's the most uncomfortable of those times.

I couldn't agree more. So now, whatever company I start next, I feel like.

That'S probably what the board's going to say it's like, hey, remember that podcast where you said we're going to invent the docs? But it's a good inspiration, that, and a good reminder, even for me, that even if it's not you actually put it in the docs so that you need to access it as a special vault. Even if you just start a separate.

Account.

It should be the mindset.

I think there's a really weird analogy where we just moved. My family just moved from one apartment to the other after I don't know how many years move or, like, two blocks.

Did you use a mover?

We did use a mover. I actually, my first job ever was a mover, so I have, like, a lot of anxiety from moving.

Oh, I thought you would. I thought you'd be like, I don't need to.

Like, I mean, I probably don't need to, but, like, it gives me anxiety, especially 10 years of life. And so we moved, but the move took a really long time, and we were left in our apartment with nothing. Nothing. I mean, I think actually four cups, four plates, like, for nothing for, I think, like, three weeks. We only had two outfits each. And, and at the end, I said, did we even need any of our other stuff that we just moved? Because we've been living just fine.

I, I couldn't agree more. I. So I feel the same way. So, like, every time, you know, you upgrade an apartment, you're like, you know, you start to amass all this stuff. So it's a good analogy. I, I think, yeah, that is similar thing.

You know, I, at the end, I said to my wife, literally, we do not need 88, not like 50, probably 80. But why do we have so many cups? Like, we, we don't need that many, you know, like, why do we have. And, and it's this. It's. Unfortunately, it's a very similar dynamic where you're like, wow, okay, I can do a lot more with less than I thought.

Yeah. Yep. Then was she like, well, then we'll get rid of 99 of your stuff, Dave, and then we'll balance out what it did.

If you saw our closets, you would know that I already have of the stuff. So, so let's just talk now. The journey of kind of going public, which that was 21, so really the peak of everything. And, and what was that? Did, did you have a dream of being a public company CEO?

I did. I, I, I thought we have to do, of course, what is best for the company. As a entrepreneur, when I put on my Personal hat. You know, it's kind of like that's what I think most entrepreneurs dream of. It's like, I'm a public. I've made it from the garage to a public company, CEO of an enduring company that will last for the next hundred years. And when you think about companies that last for 100 years, many of them end up being public companies at some point in their life cycle, especially if you've raised outside money. And so, yeah, it was a personal dream of mine to be that.

And how did you do that?

So perhaps it was a sign of the times. We went public via spac. And so I think most folks know what a SPAC is, but if you don't, it's a special purpose acquisition company where they're already public and they basically merge with a private company and thereby, voila, you have a new public company.

And the reason people were doing that at that time was because it's faster.

Faster. There was guaranteed money at the time because the SPAC itself has a certain amount of funds in trust. And then also they would also help you raise another round to bolster whatever they had in trust at that time.

Yeah. And so from the time you decided to do that to doing it, how long was that?

Way longer than we thought.

Oh, longer.

Way longer. Because when we first started the process, it was a very kind of, I guess.

Popular way to go public that was very, very hot. But by the time we had gone, it ended up being way longer of a process, way more arduous of a process than if we had just followed a regular S1. Yeah. So but once you're halfway through it, there's no way to rip the band aid off and go right back and start over again. And so, yeah, looking back, we, we. There's probably a multitude of ways we should have gone public.

Whoa. And then how long were you. You're probably for a couple years. Yeah, about a quarter, seven quarter, something like that. How was it to be a. Was it, was it everything you dreamed of to be a public company CEO?

I have no good dreams and bad dreams too. So, you know.

In some ways, yes, because I had a very supportive board. The sponsors, the original founders and sponsors of the SPAC stayed on the board. They were very supportive and they were great individuals. So in some ways, yes. Like it was, I had the tools that I needed. In other ways I didn't have the tools that I needed. And in some ways it was very market driven.

The market acts in sometimes in very rational, but yet sometimes in very irrational ways. Especially in the short term. And so once we were put in the penalty box, that were just spacs in general, new issuances in general, that became a very difficult kind of dimension to navigate. So already, if you think about you being a private company, you're probably thinking you're already paying 100 dimension chess at the moment. But then to have a daily report card out there and now, you know, up rounds and down rounds by the millisecond, it just creates a whole new dynamic that you have to, that you have to kind of navigate. And yes, you know, what we said on the day we went public is like, don't watch the ticker in the office. We weren't allowed to have the ticker up because let's just focus on the best way to make a great stock and a great, great company is to just focus on our jobs. But at the end of the day, your vendors, your partners, they're all watching the same ticker, you know, and so they're going to call when things go well or when the things go poorly, and you can't control that. And so that, that makes it yet another dimension on, on. On being a CEO.

I, I talked to, I talked to a CEO. I'm trying to remember who it was. And they were saying how people were just glued to the screen watching the stock price. And he said, we would do nothing wrong, nothing different, and it would go down. And then people would start freaking out that it went down. And asked the CEO, why did it go down? He's like, I don't know why it went down.

Yeah, I, you know, what's interesting is that I think once you've been, Once you've kind of felt that, you know, in the. Sorry to take a step back. In the private world.

The evaluation of a company is set by one lead. It's one trade, realistically. And so everyone's very worried about up and down rounds, which is fair, because as a vc, that's really how you make money, and that's how you make sure that the overall portfolio is going well. But once you turn public, it's like up, round, down rounds, literally by the millisecond. I mean, it's just like the ticker. It's a ticker is a ticker. And so someone is trading a stock because someone's buying because they think there's brighter days ahead. And someone's saying, no, I'm going to sell because I don't think the days are brighter. And so every millisecond that's happening with your company. And so it puts it all into perspective. I think very quickly.

You've, you've, you, we've talked a lot about the investors. You talked about the investors who stayed on. When you think about all the investors who are part of boxed, is there one or two that really stick out that like, we all had a lot of investors, but did you see one or two or three that like really were value add to you?

For sure. For sure. I would say not even just two or three. And I'd say of course there were some that were so amazing at helping us navigate business challenges. But there were also some advisors as well as investors that were great just making sure that the team was well equipped mentally and from a livelihood perspective to be able to tackle the business challenges that they were not opining on.

Can you go more into that? I'm curious about that.

I think at the end of the day it's being a CEO. Of course it's outside in. It's very glamorous. It's like you're the CEO, you work for yourself, but the reality is the minute you take outside money, you don't work for yourself. You have a board that you report to and the board actually reports to then probably their LPs as well. So you've then put yourself in this chain. And so it's actually quite a lonely job at the end of the day because you're making oftentimes very unpopular decisions based upon imperfect information. And that just creates this kind of vacuum that you have to sit in yourself oftentimes. And then anyone who's gone through that, who will lend a hand and say, hey, these are my shared experiences. This is how I've navigate similar challenges. I think it's really helpful and it's helpful even if you don't follow their advice, to just kind of delete out the, the standard deviations up and down.

From your daily psyche. Because, you know, maybe I just think too much about stats and math. But you know, if it's, if you're having a day that you're two divs above or two Ds below.

You should probably think twice and you should call that mentor or, or that investor.

That's. Yeah, that's good advice because it is, it's a lot of like this oscillating line and sometimes that oscillation in like one day is exactly a perfect way.

To, to explain it. That, that, that oscillation, it's, it's not even the altitude in which you're flying, but that, that up and down Oscillation, that's what can really get you. And I didn't know that throughout our first company. So the gaming company, I would just ride it. I'd be like, there would be like, yeah, up and down. 10am we're taking over the world. 11am oh, this is not gonna work. 1pm Taking over the world, and you just come back so fatigued and exhausted. Whereas again, you just delete out the tops and the bottoms and just like, doesn't matter who says what about a company both, both good and bad. You know, if we get a great giant client, guess what? We need to get 10 more. If we, if one of our biggest clients kind of ditches us, it's okay. We got. Because there's a pipeline with 10 more. And so just being able to stay focused and just one step at a time, as cliche as that sounds, it really helps you in your kind of mental state to just say, okay, doesn't matter. Whatever anyone says, whatever happens, I still got to do the job in this next hour. It was a lesson, a hard lesson that I learned that really helped me kind of withstand 10 years at a consumer company.

I heard you describe being a CEO at the event that we were at, and I think you were kind of getting there. Like, I would love if you could share, like, how would you describe this job to someone who hasn't done it before?

It's like you're, you're trying to be.

As, again, as cliche as it sounds, you're trying to be the goat, right? So you're trying to be the greatest of all time. But most folks don't realize the sport in which they're trying to be the goat of is a broken glass eating competition. So that's, if you ask any entrepreneur, it's like no one will ever say, amazing. Yeah, just fun, fun, fun. Every day, you know, it really is like one challenge after another. But yet next day you wake up, you're like, oh, more broken glass. Let's put in my mouth, let's chew it and let's put a smile on our face and like, let's keep marching so that I can be the best at this. And so it really, like, unless you really enjoy it, it becomes a really difficult existence. But I guess that's what makes some of us kind of just, I guess, different and cut from a different cloth is like, I, I'm a fish in water when that happens. I, I, you know, I, I've lived kind of peacetime livelihood as well, and it just didn't sing to Me as much as kind of like just being in it and, and knowing there's challenges and knowing it's painful. But just maybe perhaps what I was put on this earth to do professionally.

Yeah, I think that is, that's such an accurate description. And what my. I was at this event and it was a small group and we were talking about this and someone said I was really, it was like a 40 person group. And one of the founders in the group said, how do you deal with burnout? You know, because I've been doing this 10 years, he said, and I just don't know. In front of everyone, I was, you know, he said, I don't know how to deal with it, you know, like, when did you have that? And that. And I think that I would consider myself really good at the glass eating contest. But then at some point, you know, at some point it's, it's, it's exhausting, you know, even if you enjoy it.

You know, for sure, I, I use our first company. I couldn't agree more. And I think when you don't have the perspective of multiple companies, I think there's a stigma out there or there's this kind of preconceived notion that entrepreneurs need to work 27 hours a day, 400 days a year. And if you're like a decently wise investor, like you had Chip Hazard here, I think, I think Chip was saying, no, we don't want that because you're going to last six months if you work like that. We need you for the long haul. And actually being able to get some perspective and recharging once in a while actually probably makes you a much better CEO. So our first company, I remember when we were being acquired, I told the corp dev teams of some of these companies, I'm like, it's just the speed at which we work. Come to the office 2am I'll give you a copy of the key. You open the door anytime. We're all there working. It was a small team and that was generally true, but actually the team got pretty burnt out. Working at that pace now you still have to work in a frenetic manner, but there is a fine line between going to the point of burnout and also kind of like not working hard enough. So you have to really make sure you're balancing that correctly.

I think my lesson at the later stage of Better Cloud was how to go almost burned out, like almost to that dark red.

Yeah.

And then pull when it was necessary and then pull back when it was unnecessary.

How do you know, back, like what.

Were, what were my biggest things? Like I can remember, for example, every fundraise we did post a certain time, I think post series A or every single one, I took a three day weekend with my wife. As soon as the money was in the company bank account, we took a three day weekend where I was fully disconnected. And it's not that much, but actually three days of actually being disconnected. And my, it also helped me with my wife so she wasn't pissed off because I hadn't been there for three months leading up to that. So it's things like that where I, I, we did that every single time that we did around. For example, some weekends I would just say to my wife, like, I can't, I need like a day. And I would just curl up on the couch and do nothing for 24 hours. And that's all I needed.

You know, I, I'm glad you're saying this because like, it's different for everyone. But you, you didn't say I, I, I went away for three months. I went away for a weekend. Wait, what? That, that's normal, you know, and so, you know. Yeah, so taking a weekend once in a while, again, it just depends on the person. It could be just one day. Like I'm just not, you know, the phone's gonna be on the table, like actually call me if there's an emergency. But I just need to recharge or actually get some perspective about what we're up to. And I think that could be powerful. And it's different for everyone. You know, some folks it just might be, I don't know, I just wanna go for a, a long drive somewhere. Um, some folks, I want a weekend off. Some folks, I just want an evening where I'm with my friends and I don't talk about work. It's just different. And I think every entrepreneur just needs to know that that's normal. And then you have to modulate. There are times when you should be working 27 hours.

Exactly.

But there are times when did like, company's not going to fall apart if you take the night off and go out with your friends and watch the game or kind of just have a nice dinner with each other and then you know, in the morning, like, guess what? Most probably, yeah, everything's gonna be there most likely, you know, and so, yeah, I think sometimes in your first company you don't have that perspective.

Yeah. What, what has been the greatest, A lot of challenges. Glass eating contest. What has been the greatest challenge you faced at Box and how did you overcome that if you did?

The greatest challenge was being a public company. And I don't think we, like, I don't think I passed that challenge based upon.

What the scorecard says. So meaning that yes, we became a public company and actually in 2022 we're one of the best traded public debuts of the class of 21. But in the end, box didn't turn out in a great place. The market didn't like new issuances, interest rates were rising, we were unprofitable.

Went.

Public via SPAC smallish cap. Like our peak market cap was 1point X billion. So it's still relatively small when you're in that kind of world of public companies. So I don't think I, I, I don't think, I think, I don't think I, I kind of won the Super Bowl. I feel like in some ways going and ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange or the nasdaq, it's like that's, that's your ticket to enter the Super Bowl. But I don't feel good that I got blown out. And so yes, there's a certain amount of pride and like, yeah, not a lot of people playing the super bowl. But again like doesn't feel good if it's 42 to 0 at the end and there's no prizes handed out for that. So I think now that I'm equipped with the hard lessons of having an early stage company that sold, of having a company that went public, of, you know, of seeing all that scale from small to large and the ups and downs over the last 15 years, I do think I'm better equipped to make it back there and be better and actually have a better result. So. But yeah, I can't sit here and say like, you know, I passed with flying colors the biggest challenge of my professional career.

How was that la the end of box? That must have been.

Because it sounds like, from what I understand, like a pretty finite end.

Oh yeah, yeah. So at the end of boxed, our software business that was quite profitable ended up in the hands of, of, of, of blackrock who we had a. So sorry. We were, we started off as a consumer company, then actually we sold more and more people. A lot of people don't know this, but we actually were servicing every airport in America. So if you've been on a, if you were on a flight through some of those years, there's a high chance that like you were a box customer and you just didn't know it and then also.

Going on, we actually began to sell the software that powered all the technology that was Boxed. And so that was packaged up, the software part was packaged up into a separate company that, that was acquired. The E commerce business unfortunately shut down and was. Was bought. 4 pennies on the dollar, but you could still order from it now. You can still be a customer.

So you, you, from what I see on your LinkedIn and from the conversation we've had, you're is going to do this again.

Yeah, exactly.

So you can't.

I'm back at it. After all that pain I just talked about, like, can't wait to do it again.

How long, how long between stepping away from Boxed and making the decision you were going to do something again? Was it like, did you know, like, I'm going to. I'm definitely doing something.

Oh, I.

It was a millisecond. Like, meaning that I remember what I told our team that if this doesn't work, like, we, this is one of those times where we're going to work 27 hours a day and do everything possible.

In order to make sure that we, we can get back to becoming a, you know, a good company again in the public markets. And if it doesn't work out, then it won't be because we didn't do everything we humanly could have in order to make it a good result. And I think that mentally was good for everyone because we worked so hard and there was no stone left unturned.

At the end of Boxed. And so when the board said, okay, we just got to call it, this is, you know, it is. It is what it is. At this point, I remember telling the board member what he, he asked me, like, what are you going to do next? And I'm like, I mean, I'm starting a company, like, tomorrow. Like, I'm going filing paperwork. I'm gonna start a new company. And he, he said, I will, you know, I'll be here for you for the rest of your life. I have that much kind of respect for what you've done.

But if you do that, if you don't at least take the summer off or even a month off, he's like, he actually said, I will never pick up your phone call. I will never invest in anything you do. I won't even pick up your phone call.

And at the time, again, sometimes advice and shared experiences at the time seems so counterintuitive. But looking back, it's what I needed. So I ended up going on a. I took a sabbatical for about three months, which, you Know, some people out there will say that's not a sabbatical, that's just some time off. But three months felt like an eternity. And then actually I ended up working at the World Economic Forum for a few years after that. So now you'd have to say about two years plus. I've been kind of out of early stage.

But you roam back.

Yeah. You know, when we're talking about weekends off.

Yeah.

Think about what two years off does for you. I feel like, yeah, I got a wealth of knowledge to deploy again, so I feel good about it.

Yeah. Do you have any general sense of is it going to be a consumer company?

No, it will not be a consumer company. Not a knock to any consumer founders out there. It's, you know, alluring. It'll be the enterprise. And the themes that, you know, I've been trying to discover is that when you look at kind of history and technological innovation throughout history, no matter small or large, if you focus on actually the large ones, but this applies for even small ones, there's massive job destruction in certain categories, but there's actually job creation as well. So how do you kind of. How do you make sure that folks are transitioning well into that and the economies that you're dealing with are transitioning, their kind of citizenship? Well, perhaps it's a bit of, kind of my last job at an NGO that kind of has inspired this. But entire companies, entire countries need to navigate how AI will change work in their countries and in their companies. And so how do we make sure that we create a company that can help folks do that? That's a theme that I want to investigate.

Very cool. So let's transition to your background a little bit. So did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I. I was always interested in building businesses because I remember I. I was like, I used to sell candy. I used to play a lot of basketball when I was younger. I used to. And I just realized, oh, man. Like. Like candy. Like, people are on the courts. Like, there's kids with a few dollars in their pockets, like. And yeah, they want candy. They don't have to go all the way to the convenience store to get it. So I brought it to them. And. And yeah, that was my first, I guess. How old?

At what age?

I was definitely sixth grade, maybe before that. Yeah. So. So I kind of caught that bug early. But then, you know, maybe it was that.

Because of family pressure, I went for more, stayed down the middle kind of career. So I was an English teacher first, and then I was an attorney after that. And then I think at some point, yeah, when you're at a big law firm and I, I, I loved my law firm. Like, they, they treated me quite well. But when you're. It's like 3am and you hadn't gone home in two days, and you're like, staring at documents like, it will. It will make you think about what else you enjoy in life. And so I fell back to entrepreneurship and said, okay, this iPhone thing came out. Let's. Let's build games for it. Yeah.

You went from the law firm to the gaming club.

Yeah, it was in, in. In 2010 too, in the middle of the Great Recession. So I remember all of my colleagues thought 100% Shay got the boot because no one was quitting their jobs at the time. People were hanging on by their fingernails. And so I was like, oh, I was the first person in my class to voluntarily leave. And so I remember people like, sure, you know, and what are you doing next? I was like, I'm going to join this video game company that my friends. Or do I. And they're like, what?

Like, what did your parents think?

Oh, my gosh.

Where are your parents from?

So my parents are from Taiwan, but background is a bit of mix of Taiwan and Japan, and so a bit of everything. Like, but they wore her. They're first generation, so they. I think they were so. I wouldn't even say angry or disappointed. They were just so perplexed. You know, it's like my mom, for the first. Not for the first time, but she wasn't even angry. She didn't yell at me. She just said, like, she doesn't understand the decision. Like, most folks work their whole lives to become an attorney or a doctor or something, and now you're starting out, you're. You're just gonna throw away the years that you like and to what, make video games? Like, what? But I'm like, yeah, we're gonna do it. And I guess again, that probably makes us quite strange, but. But it seemed natural.

What? Did you have a role model or let's say a mentor kind of in those. Because making that transition is a pretty big kind of transition. Did you have someone in those years or did you have someone at box, like one person that kind of. Was that mentor to you?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'd say role model, definitely several. Just from kind of like in, like, for example, an Asian American that had made it, like, at that time, Jerry Yang. And so. And so really kind of eventually being able to meet him and actually Having him as an investor, that was an awesome thing, you know, just to be.

Able to meet him in the gaming company.

In the. Yeah, no, in. In boxed.

Oh, he was.

And that's cool. Yeah. And. But then as a true mentor, there were a few. But actually, I would say one of the folks that really helped us, just a few country bumpkins from New Jersey really get into the startup game was our attorney, of all folks. So from where he was in Silicon Valley, he's not an attorney anymore. He's actually, I think, a coach. He's an investor and coach. So we had Ted Wang as our attorney.

He was kind of Facebook's attorney at the time, Twitter's first attorney Square. So he was like that person. And I was so naive that I just cold called him like, you know, like, I was just like. And left a voice said, you want.

To be our lawyer?

Yeah.

And.

And called because we were interviewing lawyers at the time. And I remember my first question to him was like, you know, Ted, and being from a law firm, like, everyone's trying to get business, but I didn't realize that, like, when you're in that realm, like, you pick your clients. And once you get a certain realm, it's like, I don't. I represent who I want. Like. And so, you know, being this naive kind of guy from New Jersey, I was like, ted, tell me why you should be our attorney. And he was like.

And I would never forget this. He said. He took a deep breath and said, you could just tell he was restraining himself. Like, kind of like, how did you get this number? Like, what? Who are you? And like. But he's like. He actually said, I don't think you know how this works. He's like, I pick who I want to represent. I don't know you. And where are you from? Again, like, and how, like. And so it didn't end well. The first call, I remember after hanging up, I turned to one of, kind of the folks on our coo, who was also with me at the law firm. And I was like, dude, I just had the worst conversation with the biggest ever. Like, clearly, like, that we're not using that guy. But to Ted's credit, he called us. But he called me back a few hours later. He was like, you know what? He's like.

I kind of like how naive you are. Like, I kind of like how it's a open blank canvas. And I think. And he said, I think gaming is going to get hotter and hotter in mobile gaming. So I think the company has legs. And I Think I can help you guys. And I was like, at that time, I kind of thought, like, I don't want you to help us now. You're so mean, dude. But actually, I was like, you know, let's. It seems like he can really teach us. And we went for it. And he did. He helped us navigate our rounds of funding. He helped us navigate our first ever acquisition of the company. And then years later, he really helped. Even when I was like, should I stay? Should I leave? Which I started, he was more like a business and life consigliere than he was our attorney.

Wow. It's a good. Yeah, it's a good one. What. What is it that really drives you? You know, we. We've talked a lot about entrepreneurship, how hard it is. But what, like, deep, deep, deep down at your core, what drives you to keep going, to keep building, to try to be a public company CEO? Like, what does that drive? Where does that come from?

I think it morphs over time, right, because you're not born with a chip on your shoulder, but after having kind of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, a big part of my drive is having a chip on the shoulder. It's like going to the super bowl, getting blown out. It's like.

I'm going back there. Whatever I do next, we're going back there, and that's a big part of my drive. But then the exact idea and the exact how you get back there with the company, I think it needs to be deeper than just a chip on your shoulder. And so really grafting myself onto things that have been personally important to me, I think will be important for this next company as well.

Okay, last question for you. Knowing everything you know today, all the experiences that you've had, if you go back and give yourself one piece of advice at the very beginning of your whole career, what would that one piece of advice?

Be whole. In the. Early in the.

Like, before you started as a lawyer.

You know, like, remember, I was a teacher before that? So you're going back to those actually.

Before you start as a teacher.

Oh, my gosh. Like, make that seatbelt tight as hell, but it's about to be a ride.

I'd say be yourself and don't have regrets.

Because even if things don't work out in the end, if you did everything you possibly could and you were authentic, like, to yourself.

I think.

I think you'll end up probably realizing it was a. A life well lived. It's like I was myself. This is what, you know, God and the heavens have given Me in terms of my abilities.

And I did everything I could to make the most of it. And I really don't regret many things of anything in life in terms of how I try to take advantage of that.

The be yourself. The be yourself is a really. I, I, that one resonates with me a lot that I think a lot of. I find a lot of first time CEOs, founders, they, they have, they don't, they're not themselves actually.

This is how, remember we, we bonded over this because it's like you meet a lot of especially exact first time entrepreneurs at these cocktail hours or meetings. They're like, how's it going? You're like, good, good, good.

I'm crushing it.

So good. Gooder than good. I can't imagine anything being bad, you know, and just like, all right, I'm gonna get a refill. I'm not coming back to this conversation because, you know, just we're all going through the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur.

And it's like even the multi time that I think that's the most important, that, that's what I've learned from these interviews is that for me, I, when you're in it, even if you've done it a couple times, you feel like only my company is struggling, everyone else is doing great. Oh, and then when you, when I've been doing these, it doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter. I've met people who got to two employees and then shut down. And I've met people who've built $5 billion public companies, you know, like the whole spectrum. And every person has these issues, every person has these challenges. Every person. And, and I think being yourself, not just with other entrepreneurs, but with your own team, with your family, with, I think it makes, makes it easier actually. If not, it makes it really difficult.

Yeah. Yep. I, it makes it less tedious as well.

Yeah.

Like mentally taxing when you just have to like put up this facade or it's just like, it's just the business doesn't get better just because you're telling everyone that it's perfect. You know, it's like you still got to fix these problems. And actually if you kind of not, not like to the whole world but for, to folks that you trust and especially in kind of the realm of other entrepreneurs, the reality is probably they might be going through the same challenges and if you share some of those challenges, like they might have solutions or you might jointly come up with, with solutions or actually might just feel better, you know, knowing that to your point, we're all going through this together. And so, yeah, I, I remember we, we had a good laugh about that. I'm sure you've. You've. Yeah, you've been the same. And I'm sure, you know, people listening to this or watching this have. Have also been the same. You're like, man, that person's life is perfect.

Exactly.

How do I, you know, just like. But. But. Yeah, I think so. Again, going back to your original question, that's probably what I would tell myself is just be authentic and no regrets.

I love it. Che, thank you so much for doing this. I did not disappoint. I really enjoyed this conversation. It's fun.

It's cathartic for me too, you know.

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