#10: Matt Plooster, Founder/CEO of Bridgepoint - Rejecting Harvard, working with your spouse, and the future of investment banking

I can remember being a 25 year old, you know, analyst associate in this business at a big bank and there was an MD that literally would stay in his office and read the paper, watch the Cubs game until his kids went to bed. And I just thought what a, that is the opposite of what I mean. Was that guy making a couple million bucks. Yeah, you know, in 20 years ago dollars. But that was not who I desired to be. That's not consistent with my value system. And so again, faith, family and, and work in that order for me, it just takes a lot of intention and I don't view it. I'm not going to have a lot of lifestyle time, you know, until my kids are out of the house. And that's okay with me. I love, I love my kids and I want to be a great dad. And every second I get with those little suckers is a real blessing.

On today's episode, we have CEO and founder of Bridgepoint Capital, Matt Kluster. Steve, I was, I was sort of surprised to hear we've got an investment banker who rejected Harvard, turned his back, made it into Harvard and said, I think I'm gonna go local. I think I'm gonna go to University of Nebraska at Lincoln and be a cornhusker. I don't know if I would have done that. I mean, he's successful so like he didn't choose the wrong path. But that seems like at the time would have seemed like the wrong path.

Turning down, turning down Harvard appears to be the wrong path. Matt did a great job. You remember him saying, I wanted to be able to run out in the football field and be a cornhusker and get a date.

Get a date. The thought process of an 18 year old male is, it never fails. It's always the same motivations and drivers. I was expecting like some intentionality, some thoughtfulness and like I'm gonna skip Harvard and here's why. And I love his honesty and his humility just to be able to say I wasn't thinking about that, like it all worked out in the end. I'm Marri, a beautiful wife. Great visit. It worked out for him. But it was hilarious to hear that Harvard got accepted, turned it down to walk on so you can get more dates because of the football. This was a blast to talk to Matt today.

I loved hearing his story. Yeah, it was a great journey.

Yeah. Well, let's just head west and let people jump into it. Stay tuned as we discuss rejecting Harvard, working with your spouse, and the future of investment banking with our guest, Matt Pleister this episode is brought to you by Skyline Point Capital. If you're anything like me, you're always considering where to invest your money. Stocks, bonds, crypto, a rental home. The list is literally endless. As we've all seen over the past year, the stock market is unstable, the housing market is just weird, and inflation is on the rise. In times like these, the clear place to invest my money is in multifamily real estate, AKA apartment complexes. Here's why. Returns on real estate investments have little to no correlation with the stock market. There's lower volatility, stable income streams, and the tax benefits are insane. And let's not forget that the apartments will typically appreciate in value over time, which means you can walk away with a pretty nice return when the complex is sold in three to five years. Best of all, multifamily investing is passive, so you get all the benefits without the hassle and headache of your typical rental home investment. Getting started has never been easier. Head to skylinepointcapital.com to learn how you can start investing today. I thought we'd start at the very beginning for you. Heading west. If you've listened to any of the past shows, it's really a We love to start at the beginning and work our way through you guys. Each one of our guest stories because there's lessons learned in the failures that happen through life and through business and the ups and the downs and it's just an amazing experience to be able to understand people's journey. But I thought we'd start with yours because you're a. You're a homegrown guy, you're from the Midwest and you took a path that like is very common for most Midwestern men is that you turn down Harvard and went to unl. That's totally a normal thing.

The brilliant decisions you make as an 18 year old.

I know, right? Yeah. But joking aside, I would love to hear what is what's going through your mind as even at 18 years old where you get accepted to Harvard, you obviously get accepted to UNL as well. Where what's going into your decisions at that age of I need to turn down Harvard and go to UNL locally.

Clearly not a lot going through my mind that should have been going through my mind but you know I'm always thankful for. For God's plan I guess if you will not to not to get too righteous on anybody but that's my belief about my life is God's got me where he wants me and wasn't necessarily the traditional path for Me I had gone to, I'm from a small town down outside of Lincoln. Malcolm town of now it's over 400 people so it's big city. We still win the small town game because we've got a gravel main street, no stoplights yet but. But anyway it was blessed to grow up in a small town in Nebraska. Always kind of overachieving, you know, academic kid wanted to go to Harvard only because that was the best thing he could do.

Right.

So that's where I set my sights. Went to Elkhorn Mount Michael out in Elkhorn. As a Protestant kid from Lincoln, which was interesting. Benedictine monastery, huge blessing in my life personally and spiritually and all of the above. I was a pretty good, you know, 59 class C quarterback back in the 90s option, you know, option football Nebraska. And keep in mind that decision might be different today with what Nebraska football's done the last 20 years. But as I was thinking about college, I did did a visit to Harvard for football and Nebraska was coming off winning three of the last four national titles. And candidly what I was thinking is I've been in an all boys boarding school, I could hardly get a date for prom and if I went to Nebraska, the national championship Huskers and got to wear a jersey and run out of that tunnel once, I might get some dates.

That sounds like an age. Yeah.

And so I wish I could tell you there was some grand strategy but I mean it was, it was, it was pure. Yeah. I'm not sure the motives were, were great too. I think the cool thing is I reflect on that. I mean I'm actually thankful. I would say, you know, with reason or rationale it was probably the wrong decision. Right. If you said, you know, if you applied some logic of my future earnings could be X and that would allow me to do Y. That decision probably doesn't support itself but two things about that decision as I reflect one, to my parents credit and I grew up with a very authoritarian dad and a very structured faith based home. But to their credit they let me make the decision and I think they were disappointed. But it wasn't you're going to do this. Which I always wonder had they forced me to do that or heavy handed me into doing that, how I would have felt about that and how that would have ended up. Second is I wouldn't trade it for the world. And as you do the what would that probably have looked like and where would you have ended up? I mean certainly I might be working for Carlisle or whatever, but you know what I could have done that on my path, too. And I am super thankful that the Lord has me in Nebraska doing what we're doing. And I think it's hard to imagine that path yielding this result and just with, you know, the people you spend time with, etc. And so I always say, better lucky than good. I feel so blessed that, that I made a bad decision that turned out to be a good decision, if you will. And I'm super thankful for it. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I got to run out of the tunnel and, you know, stand on the sidelines and play in, you know, eight or 10 plays. And I got to go to the University of Chicago, maybe the top econ school in the world. And it was just. It was mostly luck and, you know, Lord's provision, it wasn't me being a genius. So I'm super thankful for the journey. And I still, you know, I'm 41 years old. I'm still on that journey. So good decisions, bad decisions, they're. They're kind of decisions.

Yeah, well. And it led you to where you are today, which you can't say is not a great place. I mean, you've. You're running a successful company right now. You've got. It looks like a team of probably two dozen. So things have worked out pretty well. But looking back, because as I'd heard that based on your current position and what you do, that seems like you headed in the wrong direction. Harvard would have been like a great start to do what you do today. But I imagine looking back, going to unl, University of Lincoln probably instilled, and staying in the Midwest probably instilled in you, further instilled in you some Midwest values that now benefit you. Now that you have a company that's founded in this area, is that accurate?

Amen. Yeah. I think it not only values, which I think came from my upbringing, so I'm not to say you necessarily would have lose those. Lost those going to Harvard or something, but. Absolutely. And I think, as, you know, motivational forces through my career and why I did well relative to all the Harvard and Princeton kids early in my career, et cetera. I mean, I'll admit it, I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder of, you know, there's plenty of smart Nebraska kids. Steve's son did it as one. Right. I mean, I didn't feel like we were at any disadvantage. I felt like we were actually at a competitive advantage. We knew how to work. We weren't entitled. And I always Carried that kind of Nebraska spirit forward into. Into Wall street, which I think was a differentiator. And quite frankly, we've carried that to our firm as we've boomerang back, which is certainly a differentiator look in our business. Steve can speak to this. He's got experience with firms like ours. Smart is kind of a commodity, right? There's lots of smart things. There's an old Warren Buffett about how he hires said, nothing more dangerous than a really smart person without values. And I believe that. And, you know, so you've got to be smart, you've got to be talented. But, I mean, we're in a trust business. People, we want people to hire us because they trust us, and we want to help them get to the right result. And that's in the DNA of, of who we are. It's actually kind of cool to see that come full circle again. Not my grand design, somebody else's, but last week we actually kind of did back to the future and open a New York office, which is, you know, I think my post on LinkedIn was like, back to our old stomping grounds, but it's kind of, kind of reflecting on that. And our slogan has always been bringing Wall street solutions to Main Street. And part of that press release was, now we're bringing Main street values to Wall Street. And I think as I think about solutions and values, I'm probably more, probably more proud even of our recent release. And just in, you know, it's probably not just an investment banking thing. I think doing business the right way, or at least trying to, and aspiring to for the right reasons is something that we're really proud of. And in our little industry is a little bit disruptive, which is kind of sad, right? But there's a lot of good people in this industry that want to do this business, but want to do it the right way. And so that. I think back to your question, Jake. Just that journey and how I came about it non traditionally through, unlike, I think, has given us a foundation there that's stronger than, say, had I, you know, moved to Boston or New York at 18 years old. And that was my world, right? And so I'm super thankful for that. And it's had a huge impact. And, yeah, I feel unbelievably blessed. I. I drive an F150 now, and I slap my leg every morning thinking we get to do investment banking for real. And I live in my hometown. My kids go to the same school, which is a great, you know, school with great values. That I grew up at. And I couldn't have probably designed that if I tried really hard to make all the right decisions, going to Harvard, doing all that. So I, I feel very blessed every day, waking up, getting to do this. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, it's. It's funny, it's. You commonly hear of Midwesterners exiting the Midwest and heading either to the coast or to big cities like you. I know you went to Chicago, New York. You rarely hear them coming back around. They usually vacate and stay away. And yet you've. You left and then came back.

What.

What was the driving force behind that?

Yeah, and I would, I would go, as. I'll touch on that. I would go as far as to say, maybe that's changing a little bit. In our experience, recruiting, etcetera, and what people are looking for out of life, etcetera, we find that there's been a little bit of a de. Urbanization out of New York City. I mean, traditionally, if you were somebody like any of our 23, 25 people here, that's where you wanted to get to. Right. I think we have a lot of conversations that people are saying, do I need to live in New York City to be a good investment banker? Right. And is that the life that I want to live? And we have a lot of conversations every day. I just had got off an interview right before this one, which was somebody that spent 15 years in New York and didn't want to raise their family in New York City anymore. For me, though, 10 years in Chicago, in New York, at two large investment banks was a phenomenal experience. You know, I grew up in a small town being in the middle of deals that every deal was. A Wall Street Journal deal. Right. A multibillion dollar deal in an apprentice industry where, you know, they don't teach you how to do deals at business school. Right. You learn how to do them by doing 100. And so I was super blessed by that experience. And so professionally, obviously, that's a huge thing in an apprentice industry. But even more than that, I think, you know, boomeranging back, I've gotten. I would humbly say I've got a bigger appreciation for being able to raise a family in Nebraska and live in a place that I care about. And then I would have had I never left. And part of how we've actually designed our culture is around that. Reflecting on my experience, we've. We've opened Denver, Chicago and New York offices because some of our young rock stars, Steve knows some of them, we want to be able to Retain. And we don't want it to be, hey, are you going to live in Omaha forever? Are you going to be? If not, you're not. At Bridgepoint, we want to provide that inter office portability because looking back, not to be, you know, holier than thou, I'm super thankful. I lived in those places for a while. I still have a lot of friends and love those places. I was in New York until Sunday night and we still spend a lot of time there. But I am also super thankful to be raising a family close to our family, in a great town, in a great school, with core values for our children. It's a real blessing. I think both sides of that experience set for me are foundational for how I think about life and my experiences and even carrying that forward into our children. I'm thankful they live on that gravel road. But Natasha and I, my wife, have been super passionate about getting them to New York City and we just did that, you know, so the perspective, the skill set and the perspective that that allowed, allowed us to even appreciate living in Nebraska even more.

Yeah. Do you find now that you're. Now that you have employees that are either leaving Omaha and going to Denver, New York or you're hiring them there, that it's becoming harder to manage your team because you've got an extension now where maybe it's done virtually. The dynamics are just shifting because if everybody was in Omaha or Lincoln beforehand and you could meet face to face, now the culture is sort of shifting to more of a virtual office. I'm sure you went through that through Covid, but are you starting to see things change within your business as you.

Absolutely. I mean, no bones about it, right. I mean, anybody. I think that would answer that question now. It hasn't changed. Is. Is probably giving you the answer they want to believe that isn't the truth. I mean, multisite management is tougher than everybody under one roof. And you're having a meeting and you're knocking on somebody's door and putting your arm around them. And so it's been a big change. I would just say for me as a leader was I've transitioned from being a practitioner to having a firm. Right. And being a CEO, which is kind of my frontier and my leadership journey. That's been a big thing. And you know, for example, this New York office we just announced, we waffled on that for a while just because strategically, all the things that, not because of that, you know, those people weren't good people and wouldn't work in our platform. But culturally, what would that mean? And so it's been a big challenge, but I think it's also been a huge blessing and it's actually brought us closer together. But it takes huge intention. And anybody that says it isn't harder is having a different experience than I've had with multi site management. But if, you know, so we work really hard to be intentional around connectivity and a lot of strategy around who's where and integrating on a daily basis. And if you, if you can accomplish that, we've also learned that you get the best of diversity of experience, et cetera. But it is harder. It's a frontier and it takes a whole different set of intentionality versus you know, you've got your, you've got your work, family and all in one place and you see each other every day. It's harder over Zoom. And certainly especially in our industry, I mean, there are people that have never gone back to work, right? A lot of them. We interview people all the time. We were interviewing a Chicago guy just a bit ago and he's never gone back to the office. And I asked him, well, are you an in the office guy or out of the office guy? And I think you can do both. We've come around and I believe in the creativity and the energy that comes from doing it together. I think it's better for our clients. I think it's actually better for our people. We do Mondays through Thursdays in the office and we are proud to proclaim, you know, I see these posts from other leaders in our industry of the hybrid forever model, and I think that'll work for some. We are proud in the office culture. I think we're more creative, I think we're better. I think when something comes up in a deal, which a hundred things come up every day in deals, it's better to be here and we can go sit in a room and powwow and trade best ideas. But to me, it really all comes down to engagement. And I think you could probably have engagement in a hybrid environment or together. We find that for us, we want to be together. We're better when we're together. And I think the people that come to our platform want that level of engagement and purpose in their day with what they're getting up to do. So call us, call us counter, you know, bucking the trend. But we like being together, we like being in the office. And I was on the phone with, or on a Zoom with one of our Denver MDs early. He's like, man, that break for Christmas Was too long, you know, three days.

I think anybody who says that being fully virtual is, is entirely beneficial is being disingenuous to a certain extent. I mean, there are certain, there are certain industries and companies where that is probably the better option. But there's a lot that's lost in, in having a fully virtual office, because like you said, you are more creative when you're in the room. You could just whiteboard everything, or you can bounce ideas off each other. You could stop in to your coworker's office, hey, I got, I got an idea. Let's talk about this thing. There's something about being in the office to generate this creativity, but also in just building a community and a culture that, I mean, I owned a fully virtual company and I could tell you that while we were really, really close and we had each other's backs and there was a lack at times in not having each other, not be able to see each other more regularly, although we saw each other like this all the time. And that's just a trade off. You have to, you have to come to, you have to be okay with at the end of the day. But I think it'd be disingenuous to say fully virtual is the way to go and you can get all the benefits of being in the office. That's just not gonna be the case.

Yeah. And I think the last thing, Jake. I totally agree. The last thing, I think, especially for our younger bankers, I mean, as I look back on the first 10 years of my career in this industry, you know, 80% of it, sure, you were doing deals and learning how to model and do finance, if you will. A lot of it was just being around it, Right. How do you serve clients? How do you think about problems? And for that, you know, it's kind of like my kids that were in kindergarten, first, second grade during COVID that wasn't good for them to be home. I mean, they lost something there. And I do think, especially for the younger bankers, or you know, pick an industry, not being around it during that foundational period in your career, which in our industry is highly regimented. Right. You're an analyst for two or three years and you either get it or you don't. It's not like you get to stay one for 10 years. And so we came back to the office because our people demanded it. I mean, some, some people never left, even though the mandate was to go home and stay safe. And I think just collectively, we all wanted to be back. And I think obviously, but I look Back on my early life at large investment banks. I'm not sure I will be, you know, being reflective. I'm not sure I would have wanted to go back. I'm sure I would have loved moving to Breckenridge for two years. And because I wasn't engaged, right. I didn't really. It was a. It was a good job. I was proud of it. It was more money than I deserved to make at 23 or 24. But I didn't feel as engaged as I feel our younger people being. And I think when you're engaged and you enjoy who you're doing it with and for. You want to be together if you can, we have fun together.

Hey, Matt, I want to go back to your family a little bit. You're CEO of one of the, if not the top Midwestern investment banking companies. You're opening up offices all across the country. You are interviewing somebody in Chicago before this call. And you're doing lots of deals. How do you balance the family?

Well, you make time for things that are important to you. And I think balance maybe is a word that I don't necessarily believe in. I'm not sure balance is a real thing. But we say it around here and we mean it. And I try to live this because it's where my value set is. It's more important for us, myself included. But everybody here in this is our standard that you be a better father and husband than you are an investment banker. And don't get me wrong, you better be a pretty darn good investment banker. In fact, the best. But success for me doesn't look like building the biggest investment bank ever in the Midwest. And my kids are not, you know, I missed those 10 years. And so for me, it's all about. I call it embrace the crazy. I mean, our life is kind of crazy. But I can tell you between 6 and 9 o', clock, I mean, I travel a lot. If I'm getting home at 2am I try to get home. It's important to my kids that they wake up and dad's home. Or even if I see. Even if I don't see them, just that they know there's something there with a father or mother. And so I do crazy trips, right? I'm on the six out and the midnight back. And if that means I get home and my kids wake up and Dad's home, I will do whatever I can. I coach my kids two out of the three seasons of the year. I'm head coach of their football and baseball teams. And you Know, I'm out on the field calling plays and football and I'm getting a call from Steve Navity on a deal and you know, maybe texting back, but I don't miss games. You know, I think I missed one baseball game last year. And so that's a highly, that's a, that's a dance schedule wise. But you know, for me it's most important. Right. Faith, family and Bridgepoint, in that order. And it's important to me and I want it to be important to everybody that's here. And so it's about time optimization. I don't drive anymore. I don't leave for lunch, I don't leave for coffee. It's here. And that's not to brag, but I want to make sure that, my God, given 24 hours, I've got time to be a good dad and a good husband. And that means there's like, the days are crazy, but I'll take it because I want to be at practice, I want to be spending time with my kids. To me, that is more important than Bridgepoint. And I'd say that openly to any of our people here, and I hope it is to them as well. But it definitely, it takes real intention. It's got to be important to you. I. One of the reasons that I became disenchanted with big banking and this is kind of a, you know, this isn't like just my take. People talk about this in this industry is I can remember being a 25 year old, you know, analyst associate in this business at a big bank and there was an MD that literally would stay in his office and read the paper, watch the Cubs game until his kids went to bed. And I just thought that is the opposite of what I mean. Was that guy making a couple million bucks? Yeah, you know, in 20 years ago dollars. But that was not who I desired to be. That's not consistent with my value system. And so again, faith, family and, and work in that order for me.

And.

It just takes a lot of attention. And I don't, I don't view it. I'm not going to have a lot of lifestyle time, you know, until my kids are out of the house. And that's okay with me. I love, I love my kids and I want to be a great dad. And every second I get with those little suckers is a real blessing. So that was a rambling answer, but that's how I think about it. And it really comes down to almost being fanatical about where your time is spent and time Optimization.

Matt, you guys, when you guys took tech brands, you took us to market. One of the things in our culture with tech brands was that if you are, if you had a child's play over the lunch hour or if you had a soccer game, you had to be at 3 and 4 o', clock, we expected you to be there. Just don't let the team down. Just don't let the team down. And amazing just how that changed the culture that you, if your son's going to play, go and come back. And people worked at all different hours, but it really solidified and gelled the culture and the team with that by putting the family first before the business. So it's really, really, really important.

Steve, I think that's, that's really cool that you formalized that or that was known. I mean, we do that. We walk that every day. Right. I mean, we literally, it's almost like, you know, we want you to be a better husband, father, mother, wife. But I think actually saying that, I'm going to steal that from you. Thank you. Because it's what we do. But we haven't said it.

No, that was, that was part of the, part of the norms given. And if you didn't go, you would, you wouldn't be shamed to go. But you knew you go, you go to the soccer game, go to the baseball game, go to the play because you'll never get that opportunity again. And the kids want your time, not what you give them or buy them. They want your time so important, they.

Don'T really care about what you buy them or what the house looks like. They don't know the difference. They want your love.

Yeah.

Amen.

Matt, you talked about, you talked about that Faith Family, Bridgepoint, in that order. And you're taking these late flights, you're coaching two to three seasons. A lot of that boils down to saying no. A lot. Right. Having a criteria for I know what things I can say yes to, I know what things I'm going to say no to. How did you establish sort of a criteria of what you'll allow in this season of life? Is it an intentional, like, list of if it doesn't fit in these three things, it's an absolute no? Or how do you go about identifying what's a yes and what's a no?

Wow, what a great question, Jake. And it's one of the things I've struggled with being a young entrepreneur and figuring out time allocation. And it's actually interesting, I would say, actually I am not just naturally or Organically great at it. Right. Kind of an authoritarian dad. My dad's my best friend, by the way. He'll probably listen to this. So I'll say this in front of him. I love him, but he was, you know, he was a hard ass. And, and so I'm naturally like in my DNA from a, you know, or in my, you know, nurture piece. I'm a yes person. Right. How high, how far? Yes, I did it. I got it done. And so I really struggled with saying no to things. And Gary Groat, Steve knows Gary really well and Gary's, you know, had, had more management experience than I did. Right. When I hired Gary had been running 225 bankers. He'd done a lot of people management. And he, he actually called me on it. He said, hey, I see you spending time with, I wondered why you had that meeting and I won't say names. And I thought, you know what, you're right. I just don't know how to say no to that meeting. I've gotten a lot of comfort saying no or not responding. I still struggle with it. But here are a couple examples, right. I, I don't play golf. I played a lot of golf growing up. I don't have time. And you know, I'd get a head, you know, Omaha Country Club, we've got to for some. Can you join? And I'd make up some excuse, well, I fixed that. I gave away my golf clubs and I quit golf. And anybody asked it, I say, I quit golf and I gave up my golf clubs. I put it all, all through the lens of time as a precious commodity and can I have impact or help somebody in that time? And so I don't do happy hours. I don't have time, I don't play golf. I probably will later in life and I really look forward to that. But in this phase of life that I'm in, where I've got a huge 10 year window here to make a big impact for my kids, would I love to play golf and have a couple beers with my buddies? Absolutely. But I'll do that in 10 years and this is a better use of time on boards. I've stepped off a bunch of boards. I was just one board I'm on. I got re asked to join a two year term last week. I said, listen, I'll do it. It's only for one more year. I believe in the cause will help you transition. But just so we're clear, I'm off in a year and so try to be really disciplined with Time and only spend time in high impact areas. And I also just don't schedule a lot of downtime. I mean, my schedule is full all day on purpose. And it keeps me, it keeps me disciplined to that to not have a lot of areas of lost time.

Yeah.

So I don't have a formal criteria, but that's the lens that I put it through any. And it's ongoing. I'll say. Like, you know, as I thought about the year that we had last year, you know, sitting, sit in the office while we were closed and thinking about 2023, you know, do I need to be scrolling through Instagram? Do I get any value out of social media? Is that the best use of the time that God's allocated to me? No. So I quit that. And that wasn't really my idea. There's another business leader I really respect and he just said, you know, there are better things that I can be doing with that time. And so I'm constantly trying to innovate on that and I, you know, being reflective, maybe too much at times. You know, I had a one on one with one of our senior bankers this morning who I hadn't talked to much since the year started, even though we're seeing emails, etc. And so I, you know, the balance there of still making time for people and being accessible, certainly I'm always accessible and responsive, but, you know, I want to spend time in places that matter where I can have an impact and help people.

Yeah.

And helping fail them.

Two things stand out about what you just said that I'm writing down. I'm stealing. Is the first your golf clubs. It's a brilliant. I mean, it's so simple. But you've removed the ability to say yes. You don't have to deliberate. Is this yes or no? I don't have golf clubs. I cannot golf. And no, you can't give me your second set of golf clubs.

Nobody's ever pushed me on that. Oh, come on. You can skip the meeting or you can skip the baseball game. It's okay. Thanks.

Maybe we should. Yeah.

So maybe I'll stop into the office for a coffee.

Yeah. Remove the ability to say yes and therefore there's no decision that has to be made. And the other one, I mean you talked about it is you're having an opportunity cost analysis in your head at all times. Okay? I've got, I've got 24 hours in a day. This is really not about time management anymore. This is about choice management. If I choose this thing over here, I choose this thing over here, which one has greater value? I'm going to allocate my time somewhere. It's either going to be with my kids or this meeting or it's going to be watching the college football championship or getting more rest, you know, so having that opportunity cost analysis in your head to say, well, what do I value one? And then does this rank higher than the things that I value that I could replace this time with? Is how you say yes or no to any of these things?

Well, Jake, you, you are much smarter than me. You described and encapsulated that way better than I did with my rambling rain, but you nailed it.

Hey, Matt, for our listeners here, you've your journey. You're to 41 with your business, with deciding on the opportunity cost, the yes and the no's. What other advice do you have for young entrepreneurs that are out there trying to figure it out? Because we're all figuring it out. But knowing where you are today, what's some advice you could give these guys and ladies?

I think the biggest thing is to have faith. I don't know about you, Steve, and your entrepreneurial journey, but mine is, I would say, felt more like failure a lot of the time than it has success. And I think, you know, you see the LinkedIn announcements about new offices or growth or Inc 5000. I mean, pick the trophy behind all of those. I mean, you've seen it, right? It's like the iceberg of what success looks like. And then there's that huge thing underneath that is at least for my entrepreneurial experience, that is absolutely the truth. And have some peace in that. You know, I can remember my dad saying, have some patience. Right. Well, I'm not a patient person, but wait till you get some gray hair. The line isn't, you know, a steady slope up into the right. It's, it's kind of, it's one of these. And I think the biggest thing for me is and I'm still a young entrepreneur. So, Steve, you should be giving me advice. I shouldn't be giving you advice. But I've come to embrace that. Right? That's beautiful, that part of the journey. Some of the most impactful times for me have been the hardest times. And I can't remember the saying, one of my best friends who's also an entrepreneur, probably my best friend, there's an old saying, I can't remember if it's Polish or whatever. Good thing, bad thing, not sure. We'll see. What seems really bad at the time might actually be a good Thing, the kid broke his arm, good thing, bad thing, we'll see, right? And so I think just trusting that process. For me though, it's been a total faith journey. Being an entrepreneur is tougher and better than I ever could have imagined when I was bright eyed and Bushy tailed 29 and thought I knew everything, but looking back I knew nothing. But I wouldn't trade the journey for the world. And so I think just, just have faith that, you know, the journey is a big piece of it and being on the journey is a part of what success looks like, whether it feels like success or not at the time. Because I think that's an endless cycle, right? I have, I personally, as a leader, also a servant here, have days where it's like, man, we're knocking the COVID off the ball. And I have a day like I did yesterday where I'm dealing with HR stuff and like, man, that was tough. I'm not sure we won today. And so I think just faith in the process and the journey and, and not holding yourself accountable to what it looks like publicly because, because behind that public success journey, there's a lot of failure and a failure. Failure for me has been probably the most impactful piece of forming me into a person, even more so than a banker, into who I am today. You know, my faith, kind of my core tenants and core values. And so enjoy the journey and, you know, learn to appreciate the failures. It's part of the process.

If I go back and look in our company over the years, the biggest excitement in pivoting in our business always came after a failure, after something didn't work. And the greatest success on that journey is figuring out how do I go around that failure? What can I do with that? How can I take that and do something better? And we lived it in our business and the goal is not to have a whole bunch of failures, but, but the point is learn from that and keep it going and take a failure as a great opportunity. As we say, head west, figure it out and get going on that. So every entrepreneur you're talking, I saw a chart, talked about the life in the journey of an entrepreneur. And it was, it went from, oh, we're doing great, oh, now we're going out of business. Oh, we're going to, oh, much better, much better. Oh, oh, we're going out of business and back and forth, and we've all felt that way over the years. Things go great and then you kind of get knocked down. You just got to get back up again and make it happen. So that's just all part of life, being an entrepreneur.

It's funny, though, if you look at that chart, like you just said, Steve, of the ups and the downs, it looks like that oftentimes because we're so close to it. If you were to take that same chart and put it against the wall 50ft away, it would look fairly flat. Right. And I think, as I'm thinking about what you're saying, Matt, is you've got a really healthy perspective of the good and the bad, that not everything bad is in its entirety, bad. There's probably some good that might come from that down the road, maybe, or maybe next week or maybe 10 years from now, but that's a healthy perspective to take the bitter with the better. And just to say this, on the surface, looks bad. We'll see how it plays out long term. But I'm just going to keep moving forward, keep heading west. This thing might look good now. It might be a stinker down the road. Who knows? I'm going to keep walking forward. And as you step back, you start to see that this thing is not as volatile as it might seem beforehand. But that's just a healthy perspective as an entrepreneur because like you guys both said, there is going to be so many ups and downs that you got to take a step back or else you're gonna burn out pretty darn quickly.

Absolutely. My dad. My dad used to say every time I tell him something that happened right in the business, perfect. You know, whether it was good or bad. And that was the spirit of his comment. Right. It's perfect. It's part of the journey. Head west. And so another one of my friends who's an entrepreneur that he gave a speech all about my dad, how he's always say perfect no matter what, you know, whether it was good or bad. I think that's that same spirit.

It's brilliant and infuriating at the same time.

Yeah. Hey, Dad, I couldn't make payroll today.

Perfect. I want some advice, please.

Yeah.

Hey, Matt, tell me about. I understand your wife works in the business. Can you tell us about that? How's that work?

Yeah, it works beautifully. I'm not sure it's for everybody, Steve, but for us in our marriage and just our daily walk together, it has been an incredible blessing. I mean, I literally just got goosebumps thinking about answering your question, but it's been a huge blessing for us in our marriage. So, background. I founded the business, I guess, 13 years ago now. She came into the business about five years ago. We actually Met though, on Wall Street. We were working at Deutsche bank together. She subsequently went to a private equity firm. I then went to Morgan Stanley before moving back. And so we had met in this business, but she had gone away, had three babies really quick. And that was, you know, just full disclosure. That was the toughest time in our marriage. Right. She was at home with three kids under 18 months. You know, her language versus I met, you know, trying to build a business from scratch, you know, with. I'm not a trust fund baby, right? So with, you know, with the revenue that came in yesterday, using more than all of it today and that time, you know, both of us in periods of stress, but doing totally different things with different languages was really hard. And God's really blessed us, bringing us together in this business one for our marriage. It's really cool. And so when everybody talks about balance, I'm like, I don't even know what that means. Right. I mean, we'll be at home on a Sunday and our business is our life. Right? And so it just, it's interwoven in the daily fabric of our life, but it's really given us a great understanding and purpose together. Right. I mean, when I've got to do a tough trip and I'm not home, I think there's more appreciation and commonality around language of that. And so it's been an amazing personal blessing. But beyond that, it's been a huge blessing to our business. She has skills that I don't have. She's really good at things that I'm not good at. And I don't think it's coincidental that our business really started to accelerate exactly when she came into the business. And I can't imagine not doing it with her. And I think it's also an option, amazing opportunity for us to. To walk out our values in our daily life and the be a better, you know, husband or wife and father or mother. I mean, I. We do that in front of our team every day, all day. And I, you know, be my prayer that that's. Hopefully we exhibit what we talk there. So I, we. Steve, I get a lot of. Wait, you work with your wife? I could never do that. I mean, you can imagine the comments, right? Oh, my goodness, that sounds terrible. But for us, for us, it works beautifully and it's just been a tremendous blessing. It wasn't by grand design. It just kind of happened. And, you know, it happened pretty organically. Right. She started to do some things, but she's hugely impactful. She's every bit of the leader of this business that I am and has had just a tremendous impact on our business and our people, and it's been pretty special.

That's really cool. My accountability partners, when we were talking about, you know, the family, your. Your marriage, your wife and et cetera, and I'll explain certain things, and then they asked that one question. Okay, if I asked that question of your. To your wife, what would she tell me? You know, how was that going? So if we asked if Natasha was here and we asked her, how is it working with Matt in the business, what would she say?

Well, I think she's a lot nicer, more talented and personable than I am, so maybe it's not as fun for her, But I've heard her. I've heard her say the same thing. I think, look, I. I think just naturally we feel a little bit different about our roles, right? Inherently, I think a mother, at least in our family, there's a. You know, there's a. Where does the buck stop? On the business and as a parent and our roles are slightly different there, but, boy, there. I mean, they're maybe 55, 45. It's not like breadwinner over here and caretaker over here. I mean, it's pretty. It's pretty integrated. And I've heard her say the same thing, you know, the best. The toughest time in our marriage. It's not like we've ever had a substantially tough time, but it's been incrementally easier when we've been doing this together. I think we both think, you know, not to get all spiritual on everybody, but it's. It's a God thing for us, and it's really helped us.

You're doing life.

Did you have to do in life together?

Did you have to set rules or boundaries between work life and home life? And not that it needs it, but I've heard people in the past say, hey, we work together, so when we're at home, we just don't talk about work. Or when we're at work, we don't talk about home. And did you guys set any boundaries up or did you have any rules or was there some intentionality about how you're going to go about? I mean, you probably oversee her. Her eval, right? Like, she's your coo, you're the CEO. There's probably some. I'd be terrified. I'd be terrified about that, by the way, if my wife worked for me.

We don't have boundaries, and I think that's a function of our industry. We are not in an 8 to 5 industry. I mean clients, they call you at 9:30 at night, expect you to answer. And that's the level of accountability we give clients. And so it's a delicate balance. The we do. I mean from time to time, you know, she'll, as a CEO, I, I take a lot of pride. I'm not great at it, but I, there's a lot of high courage conversations and that includes with her and she, you know, sometimes that'll trans. I think the tran. I'm very, you know, I can get past something in three seconds. That transition for her can be rougher. And so, you know, we might be in the car on the way to the Omaha office in the morning and I'm all of a sudden CEO Matt, she calls it. And I think, you know, that doesn't always land as well probably because I'm not very thoughtful or perceptive. And so those things do come up and I would, I would honestly tell you, Steve and Jake, that's literally like the 1% exception. We've just developed a beautiful flow there. I think we, we do do a decent job of being very intentional. Look, I'm never really unplugged. I mean if you send me an email, I'm going to see it in 10 minutes. That's kind of the accountability. But I think you develop an operating system there where you can kind of do that and you can still have dinner with your family and be present. And so I struggle with presence. Right. I totally unplugging and putting the phone down. If she was to provide a piece of feedback, that would probably be her area of continuous self improvement for me. But there's also a piece there, I think when you're doing it together and you understand, okay, if Steve's calling me, I know who Steve is. I know what you're working on that allows a level of understanding there that I think is probably tough. If, you know, one person's working at Google and one's working. One person is working at an insurance company. And so I think, you know, there are no rules. I think it would be hard to build rules around our values of how we serve people and the accountability we have in our business.

Yeah, I'd love.

Again, I think it's more, it's more back to the relativism and the opportunity cost. Right.

Yeah, of course.

How we think about decisions. Yeah.

Before we move on, because I want to, I want to talk a little about what you do, the markets, things like that before we wrap up, but before we Even get there. I want to ask one more thing. On your marriage you had sort of touched on. There was a season where Natasha was home with the kids. You just had three kids. Her world is raising kids has nothing to do with work. That's her world. You're starting and running a business. Seemingly opposite world you guys are both living in. And you alluded to it. It sort of created this rough patch in your. In your marriage. How did you work through that? And how did you guys get to a place where your world can meet and you guys can understand and be empathetic about what each other are going through through that season of your life?

Great question. I would say we didn't totally come to peace with that season of our life. We, Natasha and I and the firm use a success coach and that we do that personally and professionally. So every month. But I can remember we. We actually went to Napa. That our success. They live there, a couple named Phil Toll and Gail Toll. Phil's famous. He's the guy that brought Metallica back together. And he works with Rascal Flats and Dick Vermeil.

God bless him.

All these famous people. And then he works with two investment bankers in Nebraska. Must be a charity cause. But we actually went and had a session and just. I mean, we, you know, I think we were both in periods of stress in our life, and we just kind of sat down and actually had a facilitator just voice our feelings. And I think, you know, look, I. It was 10 years ago, earlier in our marriage, we weren't as good at communicating. They really helped us kind of bridge that gap. Even though it wasn't really intentional, it kind of came out. And I. So I think, you know, being more intentional about communication and taking the blinders off at times and being just, you know, I think it's. Which is probably just part of the marriage journey too, is learning to trust each other. The stuff you spend the first couple years fighting about, you kind of laugh at each other about later. At least we do. And I think just learning, you know, learning to trust each other and that you're on the same team, at least for us in our marriage. And having a facilitator to help do that, even though it wasn't really. It wasn't like we went and saw a marriage counselor. It was more part of this bridgepoint thing. But, you know, a good facilitator is like, oh, well, that was interesting. Tell me more about that. Really just helped us break down some barriers. And when you get to the roots of those Issues, at least for us. We both love each other, right. We both want good for each other. And I think just coming, you know, communicating about that and level setting and putting away baggage really helped us to us to move on. And I would just say for me, emotional maturity, looking back, I was. Yeah. I'm not sure you're that mature of a guy at 30 years old, if I'm being candid. At least. At least I wasn't.

Welcome to the club.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Hey Matt.

Thank you.

The since 2019 to now from economic macro level, a lot has gone on. You took our company tech brands to, like I said earlier, to the market and we ended up selling in 2021. And then 2022, things just went so different due to the rates. What would you tell a business owner who's thinking about selling in two to three years? What advice could you give him right now to be ready to call Bridgepoint for their investment banking? But can you give some advice?

Yeah, maybe just. Steve, I think your summary of the market is correct. It's actually been kind of a crazy couple years. And you know, looking back at that, right. I mean 19 and 20 and well, 18, 19 and up until was it. Was it January and then really March of 20 when Covid started were kind of the go go days. I mean businesses were selling and everybody thought they had a 10 times business which were, you know, record valuations over the historical norm. Right. Covid, we all kind of thought the world was ending as business owners for a couple months. And then the government became the bank. Right. And then we had another kind of 12 months where it was great. And then, you know, the clock kind of stopped in July, July 9th of 2022. You know, the credit markets effectively fell apart for a while. Deals were disrupted and so, you know, valuations came down and really credit impacted that more than anything. But it has been an extremely dynamic market. And for a couple of years there we were in a market where, you know, a company certainly sold, but so did Bs and Cs more easily and at higher values than they ever had. And now we're back in a market where A companies are still being sold probably at not quite the valuations they were, but the Bs and Cs aren't even getting done. There's really not a market there. And so, you know, if you've got a great company that's recession resistant, that didn't have a huge Covid bump, there's a lot of discipline on buyers on, you know, okay, here's what happened during COVID Is that really the norm or were there Covid factors that impacted that? Great businesses with great management teams, with clean financials and with growth opportunities and well defined strategy are always going to have value. They still have value in this market. And I would argue that maybe even more for those really premium assets where those box boxes are all checked. The reality is as private companies, a lot of them have guys or gals who are kind of the person, right, working on transitioning to that next phase of leadership that somebody else could underwrite and own them for five or 10 years under their leadership to drive additional growth and quality of financials. The number of processes where we've seen the financial function of a middle market or a lower middle market business cost an owner or a family tens of millions of dollars, literally are more than I'd like to count. And so I don't. Steve, you probably see my LinkedIn stuff. We put out thought pieces about all that, but I mean, we're in a deal right Now. That's a $200 million deal where it seems to be hard to convince an owner that he should hire a $200,000 CFO. And I believe in that advice. I mean, I think he's gonna see a 10 to 10 plus times return on that investment. But invest in your people, your leadership team. At the end of the day, if you don't have a public company or some really large private equity company, they're all jockey bets, right? You're betting on a team and a group of people to generate growth and return, right? And then also on the financial side, investing. And I, I actually think pre investing in your financial function and the quality of your financial statements is a good investment every time. And so both of those are really people answers. And I can't overstate just the importance of people, both in the financial function and the leadership function beyond just the one person, the founder, right? To really create a sustainable business that somebody else wants to pay a premium for. That would be the main advice. And then I think the other advice that just most people with private companies don't know is the answer doesn't always need to be, hey, I've got a bank, right? They've got a revolving line of credit, they'll give me some money and someday I'm gonna sell. If you've got a family, right, maybe multi generational family, or you'd like to keep the business, but you've never had liquidity for your family, there's a lot of in between capital that can allow those outcomes to have your cake and eat it too, if you will. Especially if things like brand and legacy and the employee base are really important to achieve partial liquidity at a time where maybe valuations aren't the highest they've ever been. Right. We're in that phase now where we were here. Maybe they come back, maybe they don't. Still good, not great. Take some chips off the table now potentially, if that's interesting and you've got a need, but not totally sell the farm at a time that might not be optimal. So I guess a long rant, Steve, to say invest in your people and make sure you're aware of the options that might not just look like the push the red button sale outcome.

You know Matt, I remember back in the earlier days of my business, I didn't want to spend $5000 a year on a controller, additional $5000. So I went and I went and saved $5000 a year in salary. You don't want to know what it cost me, what that $5,000 did. If I can, if I can tell anybody and I work with young, young business owners and try to mentor them is to hire a people. Eight people will make you money and it going to cost you a little more. But don't settle. You're, you're, you're hiring the jockey to run the horse and don't skimp, pay for the people to make you grow. And I had to learn the hard way making 30 year old decisions. It was very expensive.

They always say you get what you pay for but man it for people. That is so true. If you're good, if you want to save money, you will see the results and you got to be okay with it. But that guy who, you know, you said your 200 million dollar deal doesn't want to pay 200,000 for a CFO. I mean I can only imagine what, what rewards he'll reap if he makes that decision and what bad outcomes are going to happen if he doesn't.

He'll spend a lot more than 200,000 for sure.

Yeah. Take 10 times whatever number that's wrong.

Right.

In the same spirit, Steve, I'd agree. I always say you can't put crappy rims on a Cadillac.

So true. Do you, oh good.

Do you see more in that mindset of the guy not want to, you know, your client not wanting to spend that sort of money which would be beneficial for his business. Especially as he sounds like he's, is he's selling his business. Right. Are there Other things like that that you run into where you, you just. People tend to be short sighted on how they view what they should do for their business. Pre sale.

I think so. And a lot of times it's well intended. I mean, I don't mean to stand, yeah. Stand here and say I've got the only gospel. But a lot of times, look, managing people is hard, right. So other instances of a CFO who probably shouldn't isn't a CFO who maybe was a controller but now has the title and you've gotten to the size of a business where that person is probably not the person to be the next cfo. Right. We've seen that quite a bit where we've given the advice of, hey, keep them on his controller, but you need a cfo. And I think, you know, that comes from the best of intentions, right. As leaders, we care about people and it's uncomfortable. You know, I do that sometimes, right. I say, man, I really wish I would have had that hard conversation. But I love them and it's awkward. So we see that. I think, I don't think there's a lot of people that are just openly. I don't believe your advice and I'm going to make a bad decision. I think when you see the human element though of managing people and org charts and all the emotional, you know, love things that go into that, that's where we see the challenge more often than anything. It's more like, you know, Thelma's our controller, she's been with the company for 30 years. I can't imagine what that would do to her if we brought in somebody above her. That type of conversation. Well, the reality is there's a balance there between, you know, doing the right thing for the organization and all of your people and your family as well.

Hey, Matt, what does 2023 look like for your industry if you start looking forward?

Yeah, great question. So 2022 is the worst year in investment banking for the big banks in a long time. The revenue was down 38% in our industry. We're excited about the year. So we don't just sell companies. It's a lot of what we do and it's the majority of what we've done the last two years just based on where the market is. We do a lot of capital raising for private companies. I call them Main street companies or companies that matter. Right. Real companies owned by real people, that employ real people. And I think, look, banks are tightening up, valuations are down. Like you think about software. Right, Steve, I know you, you know, you and your family are familiar with this dynamic. You know, definitely venture valuations are way down or just you can't even raise equity capital. So it's a tougher time there that in between capital that could help save some companies that the bank's tightening up on or as ratios tighten, etc. All the way to. It's not a great time to take on equity capital. Should we do some type of structured capital on the in between? We think there's a real opportunity to be part of a solution and drive a lot of value for private companies, which we're really excited about and which is we uniquely, we're one of only a couple of firms in the country that really do that. Most boutiques really just sell companies. So we're really excited about that. So that's a long way of saying, Steve, I think for our business there will be a bit of a mix shift to where we've been very heavy sell side M and A. I think we'll be maybe 50, 50 this year and we'll be able to help companies in ways and with solutions that I think will be potentially more impactful than just, hey, I'll get you another quarter turn or half turn on your business. That's great. That's a little bit of train chimpanzee work. These are, you know, bespoke solutions. We're saying, hey, have you thought about this? Or here's a capital solution to us that really excites us. And I'm, you know, I'm hopeful that can be of great help to the private companies that we serve. And uniquely, at least for us, situates us. But I think if you're a, if you're a pure play sell side M and a banker, I think it's going to be really tough. I think there's going to be a lot of bankers competing for a few a assets that are going to transact by being just very candid. And so for us, we view that as an opportunity for competitive differentiation. But no bones about it, we've got our work cut out for us. We got to make it happen.

Have you had to adjust your team for this outlook of less sell side deals?

We have, but I would say we've just been, we've pre invested in that happening, Steve. So we've had a mind to that for really for the last 10 years. And it takes, it's a long game, right, because you've got to, not only do you have to find the clients, have the expertise in house, you've actually got to have the relationships with the capital providers. And so, I mean, for the last at least five years, if, you know, closer to 10, we've really focused on that from a skill set standpoint, from a relationships with funder standpoint. We thought it was going to happen with ppp. We were ready back then, and then the government stepped in and became the bank. So for us, it's been more preparing for this to happen than it is with the headhunters we use. Everybody's looking for those people. Well, the reality is you're probably behind if you're just starting now, but it makes strategic sense.

Matt, you were talking about relationships in any business. And I just want to say with the relationships that we had at Tech Brands, with Bridgepoint was phenomenal. Bridgepoint is a company you could trust. We felt they were part of family and you guys shepherded us in the right direction and got us the right result that we wanted. And so I'm just gonna say thank you here. You guys are a great organization and it's great that you're an organization that we can trust to get the job done. Well done.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. To me, that's what success looks like. It's not an EBITDA or revenue number. That's. That's success. So thank you for sharing that. That's why we get up in the morning.

Keep getting up, Lord willing. Amen.

Hey, Matt, before we finish every episode, we go through a little speed round of questions. So quick questions, quick answers just for people to listen to, get to know you a little bit better. So if you're ready, I'll. I'll jump right in. Do you have any daily rituals that you swear by?

First thing I do when I wake up in the morning before I get out of bed is Bible study. Second thing I do, and that's not to be holier than thou. It just level sets me with what's important in my life. Second thing is I try to do the hardest thing the most. Everybody, every entrepreneur or business owner knows here's the thing tomorrow that's really gnawing at me, right? I try to do that first. It's easy to win the day when you do the hard thing first. I try to do that. I don't always do it well, I did it this morning. There was a fun call that was uncomfortable and I. Eight o', clock, I was in the car working and I made that. That was the first call. And I've, you know, I felt like we're having a good day ever since. Those are the biggest. Those are the biggest two things that I start my day with.

That's so good. What's one item you could not live without?

Physical item.

Yeah. I mean, not your family. That one goes without saying. So you say physical.

We did this. So I'm a YPO member and we. This was one of our icebreaker questions and I couldn't come up with anything. There's nothing physical. To me that is. That. I mean, if I'm being honest, that sounds kind of righteous, but, you know, if it's not a person or God to me, you know, they're replaceable. They're just things.

Yeah.

So nothing great.

That's a really good answer. That's probably the best answer.

Yep.

All right. And what situations do you find that you're most happy or fulfilled and that can be personal or professional? Professional.

I'll do the, I'll do the opposite question or whatever. Whatever you call that. The times that I, that I feel unfulfilled or I don't feel happy or, you know, you got that uneasy feeling is when I feel like anything about integrity, right? My personal integrity, it's not wins and losses, it's, oh, did I really, did I say the easy thing or did I say the full, you know, not the 90% truth thing, the full truth thing. And so for me, it's all about if I'm, if I'm walking with integrity according to my core values and belief system, I feel good. And it's not about winning or losing. It's really about doing the right thing. And so when I don't feel good, it's when I don't feel good about my personal integrity. Not from a, like, I don't lie to people, right. But if I, you know, I didn't have the hard conversation, right. Or I kind of pussyfooted around a tough issue, that's when I feel unfulfilled. And when I am doing those and those things with, you know, having hard, high courage conversations that are the right thing to do even though they're tough, that's when I feel the most fulfilled, you know, the impact that I made.

What's one thing in your business or industry that you're really excited about?

Capital solutions. Non bank debt and structured capital and structured equity, I think can have a huge, huge impact for every private company that we touch. We're like the only folks that do it. I can't wait to tell people about it and have a bunch of, more importantly, have a bunch of success stories for people like Steve that say, you know, the postmortem that was hugely impactful, helped my family business make it or transformed our business.

All right, last but not least, we always end with this question. Heading west is the title of the of the podcast. It's essentially you start in one spot, you end, you head in a direction to the end, destination. Life's about a journey. You learn along the way, but eventually you get to a destination. So the question is, as you head west, where do you hope to end up?

Heaven.

Amen, brother.

Perfect answer. Well, Matt, it was a blast talking to you. Thank you so much for spending time with us today and hope we can do this again soon.

Hey, thanks for the conversation, Jake, Steve, you guys are a blessing to me. I appreciate it. Thanks, Matt.