Barrett O'Neill, CEO of Bright Line Media - The competitive mindset - The Michael Girdley Show Episode 42

If you're saying, how can I put $700,000 to $1 million in my pocket per year? I think an agency is the best way to do that over any other job on planet Earth in terms of how much time you can put in versus what you can get out. But if you try to push it past that, I think it becomes a miserable lifestyle pretty quickly.

Hey everybody, Michael here. Welcome to another episode of the Michael Girdley Show. Today I had my buddy Barrett O'Neill on the show. He is out of Boston and I met him through Twitter. Um, so I know he's smart because he writes a lot of smart stuff on Twitter. Um, we talked about some really neat stuff, um, his journey into entrepreneurship starting as a competitive athlete, what kind of muscles that would work mentally, um, his two businesses. He runs a digital agency, uh, and then secondarily runs a storage business. So, um, really cool to dig into both of those and understand how they work. Um, we talked about global workforces and hiring overseas. You notice that, uh, theme. He's been doing it for over 4 years now. And attributes a lot of his success to that. So we talked about what's worked well and what hasn't with him and that stuff. So that was it. We finished up, of course, with a little bit of Twitter talk and turned out really well. And I learned a lot from Barrett. I think you will as well and definitely appreciate his energy and verve with all the stuff he's in. So with no further ado, a quick word from our sponsors and then we'll get on with the episode. Hey, Michael here. Sponsor for today's show is actually a product that I'm a part of called DM Bridge. And what DMBridge is, uh, is a service that we built, uh, to solve the problem that Twitter's direct messaging functionality is a total mess. So we built DMBridge to help you fix that. Um, a lot of the other solutions, uh, do things like requiring you to install a whole nother inbox. We didn't want another inbox, so we created DMBridge. And what it does is it takes all of your Twitter DMs and has them appear inside of your email inbox. So you can reply to them just like it's a regular email. You see them just like it's a regular email. You can search them later like it's one of your regular emails, all just by using DMBridge. So, uh, we're currently live with the product. Uh, would love for you to sign up and become a customer, uh, and check it out. So you can find that at dmbridge.app, uh, and go on there, put in your name, uh, and be either part of the beta or join us as part of the live use of the product. And again, check it out, dmbridge.app. Oh man, Barrett, thanks for being here. It's so cool to take somebody from Twitter friendship to like real life friendship. Or is this still real life friendship? Because we're both talking over Zoom. But anyway, it's so great to talk to you.

Yeah, well, I'm happy to be here. And yeah, I think this is 2022 version of real— in real life friendship is when, when you move from, uh, Twitter DMs to like seeing each other's face live on screen.

Yeah, well, I went to, I went to Capitol Camp last week, which I really enjoyed, in Missouri. That's Brent Beshore's and Patrick O'Shaughnessy's conference that they put on every year for business nerds. And like, I kept meeting people and they'd be like, you're taller than I expected. And I meet people and I'm like, you're shorter than I expected. So, so anyway, we'll, we'll get through that when we meet in real life someday.

Yeah. Well, just so you know, just to debunk any excitement for the future, I'm, I'm 72 inches exactly, 6 feet on the nose. So about as as average as you can get. Nothing too exciting.

Well, so I know, I feel like I know you really well from Twitter and interacting, and we've talked over DMs and stuff, and we're in a content creator group where we look at each other's threads before they go up and stuff. But, you know, I think I'd love to find out a bit more about your story. Like, how were you in life and what happened up until now? Like, catch me up.

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a, if you go back to college, I'll I'll breeze through this part, but I have a pretty interesting story where I was a high-level athlete and I went to University of Virginia as a baseball player. I didn't care about anything other than sports, wanted to be a pro athlete. And in my sophomore year, I ended up having elbow surgery, and after that I just could not compete at that level any longer. So I was at this point where I had literally not, not thought of anything else other than sports my entire life. I'm like 20, 21 years old and I need to decide what to do. So I ended up transferring to Babson College, which is a business-focused school near my house in Boston where I grew up. And I immediately just fell in love with entrepreneurship. I thought it was similar to sports where it's super competitive. It was kind of the— but like it was endless because in sports your career always ends at some point. But in business, like in theory, if you're good, you keep getting better as you get older. Um, so I thought that was really exciting. Like, there's no cap on how good you can get, where with sports it's like once you turn 33 or something, even the best in the world, maybe other than Tom Brady, uh, but you start to decline a little bit. Um, and so that really attracted me to it. And, and, and kind of just the endless scope too. People are— make money and do well in so many different industries. It's so interesting and exciting, and that's when I really fell in love with it. So we came up with this idea to store students' stuff when they went home for the summer. At Badgen, there's a lot of international students. So we ended up storing 67 kids. I self-coded a website. My business partner at the time put flyers under all the doors on campus, and we stored 67 students in my parents' basement. And we made— I think we made $22,000 in revenue at like 98% profit. It was the best business ever. and that was it for me. Like, once I realized you could make money on your own, it was hard for me to ever think about anything else. I went and worked one year at a company, but then after that we started On Demand Storage, which was taking advantage of this tech-enabled storage market that was like an alternative to self-storage. So we've been doing that. We're about to be in business 6 years next month, um, and so we've been growing that and it just recurring revenue and we filled up warehouses and now we're looking into some cool industrial real estate in the metro Boston area, which has been really exciting. And then on the flip side of that, through that business, I picked up a lot of digital skills and just like figuring out how to make money on the internet. And I'm just fascinated by the scale of that. And so I started working with clients on like their digital strategy and their content strategy and their search engine optimization. And so I've actually built a pretty good business working with like 25 to 30 clients at a time. I have a whole team built out and a strategy and process, um, which was like an unintended benefit of getting into entrepreneurship. Like, I had never thought about anything digital really ever, and I just picked up those skills and just figured out how to monetize them. So that's pretty much where I'm at now and what I've been focused on.

Yeah, totally dig it. And so, you know, the transition from kind of competitive athlete to now business competitor, do you think that's the same kind of mental muscle and emotional muscle for you, or do you feel like like that is different? Like, 'cause I know a lot of people come from being competitive athlete and I was a competitive athlete, but it, you know, and I'm still competing in stuff, athletics, but it feels like business is different to me. I'm curious if you feel like the same muscles or is it different?

So up until I'd say a year ago, I thought it was the same, but I think the interesting thing about business and I think part of my audience growth and like investing more time into Twitter has taught me this is athletics is very zero-sum, right? Like, you're either the shortstop or you're not. You either came in first or you didn't. Where with business, like, lots of people win. Lots of different industries do well simultaneously. Even in industries that aren't necessarily great industries to be in, there's still big winners in there. So it feels like you're better off being collaborative. So it's like a collaborative competitiveness where I view competitiveness in businesses— I want to do well because all these other people are doing well, and it's fun to do well and, and root for other people and have other people rooting for me. Where with sports, I think, I think the, the uncut truth of sports is you're, you're always— it's either you or them, right? It's very rarely like together, even in team sports. It, it— at the highest levels, it's very cutthroat. So I think that's what I enjoy more about business is like you get to be friends with people and both win, but it's not any less competitive.

Well, and it's the game seems to be designed, like I think you're saying the game's designed differently. You know, in classic athletic competition, there's a winner and a loser, even intra team inside the team. But in business, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I do think, you know, I'm curious your take on it, but You know, I'm a pretty competitive person. I'm starting to realize that more and more as I get older. And like, I've seen just like, and it's a lot of younger people. So I don't mean to, I don't mean to age myself 4 minutes into the podcast, but you know, it's a lot of younger people are like, well, you know, competition is not right because one person feels bad. And to some extent, like, competition is like a real motivator for me. It makes me like a better person. Whether it's competing with somebody inside of a gymnasium or in business. Like, I'm curious if you feel like business has become, or competition in business is becoming like a dirty word. 'Cause sometimes I feel like it and I feel like I'm pressured that I shouldn't admit it.

So I'm 30, so I'm right in the middle of the millennial crowd, maybe on the slightly younger end, but, Yeah, I don't, I don't know when that happened, but it's definitely true. Um, I think people associate competition with doing something nefarious or like cheating somehow, meaning like you're willing to do whatever to win. It's like, you know, there's nothing wrong with being great at something. My dad actually told me this when I was younger, because when in athletics, as you know, once you get to a certain point, people realize they're good and people realize they're bad, or they're not good enough to play at the level everybody wants to when they're 12. And what happens is those people start to bring people down and say nasty things about them. And it all ties back into this lesson, like, it's okay to be really good at something, and it's okay to want to win. And yeah, I think that's been lost a little bit. But on the other side, I, I think maybe it's just rising to the top a little more. The people who want to win are all finding each other, and I think that's what ecosystems like Twitter happen, which probably only leads to more of like, you have all these successful people trying to out-success each other, and then you have this group of people that don't want to compete at all. And I, I think that's— it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out in our society. But to answer the initial question, yes, I think some people in my generation don't want to compete, but I think there are people that, that do, and I think they're finding each other.

Yeah, I tend to find them well because the non-compete people, I'm like, oh You're not gonna like what I have to tell you later when we get to know each other some more.

Um, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's—

go ahead.

No, I was just gonna say it, it is impossible to build anything of value without competing hard, or do anything of value. And I mean, I think it applies from everything, like to relationships. If you're not trying to be the best, like, your girlfriend's gonna find someone who's nicer to her or something like that. It just, it applies to every area of life. Like, we live in a competitive society. It's just the fact So you can either ignore it or you can play the game. And I would rather play the game personally.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that was most amazing for me, and I've brought this up a few times, and I don't know, have you seen the Michael Jordan, the documentary they did about the '92, '93, I think it's '92, '93 Bulls recently?

I actually have not.

I really recommend it. And the, you know, I'm learning more and more like being as into human psychology as I am, is not normal. But, but I watched the whole thing. And I watched Michael Jordan basically, like, be so competitive. And then when he ran out of things to compete with, he managed to, and I think a pretty healthy way, become delusional about what other people thought or who his competition was. Like, he, he would make up, like, stories that newspaper article— newspaper writers had never written and then just sit there and tell you like, oh yeah, well, they wrote this about me and it's total falsehood. Like, it just wasn't even true. And like, I saw myself do this once. Like, I was at my gym and I was doing a team workout with like another guy who's my buddy, and I started screaming at him. I was like, we're not going to lose. We need to compete with those people over there. They're cheating. They weren't cheating. So it was just one of those things where, you know, like the power of the human mind to convince itself. And I saw myself kind of do exactly that. Like, it makes me feel more comfortable. But I mean, having watched those kind of— having seen people do it, I don't know if there's a point to my story, but it's like, oh, okay, like, like, the power of the human mind to use competition to make you a better person, even if you manufacture the competition, is just so powerful. Like, that day, that workout, like, I worked out harder than I would have by myself, like, by an order of magnitude.

100%. I think it works both ways too, where people will ignore things that make them uncomfortable to avoid having to compete, and people will make things up to find an extra spark. Or it's like, whatever, whatever works, I guess. As long— the newspaper one's pretty funny. I have to check out that documentary. I'm sure that the journalists weren't too thrilled about that.

But, uh, so the other— I think the other fun byproduct about competition is that it actually oftentimes helps your competitor get better. And so, you know, I talked about that, that episode at my gym, like, and there's people that like, you know, I go to group fitness classes, right? And like, I'll pick out like the people that I see as my peers, and I'm like, I'm going to beat them, like the people who are like 5% better than me or 10% better than me. And there's a, there's a woman like about my age, like she knows I'm competitive, like that's just the way it is because because I happen to tell people I'm competitive, and then I happen to be like, oh, you beat me today? It's not gonna happen tomorrow. Or hey, I beat you today. Anyway, so I knew it was making this person better, this lady better, because one time I left the gym, I'm getting in my car, and like I'm driving out of the parking lot, and I hear this like, Girdley, Girdley! And like she like is, this lady who I compete with is like waving me down, and she like runs across, all the way across the parking lot, And she's like, roll down your window. So I roll down the window. I'm like, oh hey, how's it going? And she goes, hey, I just wanted to make sure you knew I beat you yesterday. And I was like, yes, I'm very aware you beat me yesterday, and I'm, I'm glad it motivated you. But yeah, that was one of the—

that's why I'm rushing out of here.

I was like, that's why, that's why I'm leaving in shame. I'm trying to avoid talking about this. But, uh, that's one of the things that I've seen where it's like, oh, competition could be healthy even for people that you you know, maybe aren't inclined to do it, um, they can help them be better and get more out of whatever they're doing. So anyway, I just thought that was a funny story we're sharing.

Well, it even— it's like, yeah, it's like the iron sharpens iron, because even if you don't like somebody that much but you compete hard against one— I think sports is the obvious example of that— you compete hard against one another, there's this, this unspoken level of respect where, you know, I don't like them at all But I don't want them to go away or something because, you know, they make me better. I make them better, which is, which, yeah, totally. I couldn't agree more.

I still wanna beat 'em. Uh, yeah.

Well, we want, well, you want, yeah, you, you wanna win. Yeah.

That's just the way it's gonna be. Uh, and it's, I'm fine with it. And if people aren't fine with it, I guess that's just the way it is. So, So you, just to make sure I understand, so you're really doing two main businesses right now, plus probably Twitter and the amount of work you're putting into it as a third business. So you have it, is it a classical digital marketing agency where you're helping people with content strategy and acquisition strategy and all that stuff, or is there a niche that you guys do, you know, on the agency side specifically?

Yeah, so we're working mostly with software businesses, um, but the funny thing about my agency business is I'm not super open about it. And I haven't talked much about it. And it's kind of funny as to why I think you might find it interesting. So when I first started doing it, it was very much— we were reinvesting all of our profits back into storage. So I was like, man, you know, I'd really like to make a little bit more money. Maybe I can sell these skills to people. I'd seen people on Twitter doing stuff similar. That's where I learned the idea. So I started doing it. And recently I've realized that people are leaving like very competitive and high-paying jobs to start businesses like this. And I think it's because the cash flow is so high. And so now I'm kind of seeing really smart people do similar type stuff. And so now I kind of want to double down on it and take it a little bit more seriously. Not that we don't deliver high-quality work, but like my website's garbage. I don't have an email list. I don't— I mean, you've rarely seen me tweet about it, probably. So I don't even use the audience. So, you know, so that's where I'm, I'm thinking like, hey, there's a reason why all these people are, you know, leaving, whether it's like private equity or management consulting. And it's because you can make similar type money but not have to actually put in as much work with your own hands if you build a system to get it done. So now I'm super interested in it and say, hey, maybe there is something here. And I'm thanking my former self from 2 or 3 years ago when I started doing it. And so it's been a passive business where I've just kind of used my knowledge and haven't really leveraged much else, but I'm going to start taking it more seriously and growing it a little bit in the coming months. So you'll see me tweet about it a little bit more as I hammer out some process and stuff.

Yeah, dig it. So, and so mostly focus on software companies. And then what is, what is the size of the agency? Is it just you and client number or how many employees do you have? That kind of stuff?

Yes, so I have 4— so I've— I, I usually keep around 22 clients, um, so I keep it relatively boutique by design because I like to be involved. I like to chat with people, um, I like to learn about their business. It's actually made me a much better businessman by learning so much about different companies and what they're doing. I've seen what works and what doesn't work, which has been great. And I usually Usually have 4 people on the team. So I have 2 developers that will do, they do some projects for me, software development projects for me, but they also can do like very technical stuff on people's websites and make sure they work really well. And then I have some content writers that I bring in as well. So that's really the dynamic. Sometimes like sometimes I'll bring on a 5th like freelance type person, but usually it's 4. and myself.

Yeah. And then, so the 8, you know, I've seen, I have friends that run agency businesses and, you know, they're, I think the kind of the common wisdom about them is it's easy to get it started and get it to a certain size and then it's very difficult to scale them. Um, and, and so, you know, I'm just curious, do you agree with that kind of common sentiment about those? And it kind of sounds the way you're talking about it that you're at that kind of point where probably scaling a little bit more is not going to be incredibly difficult. But then, you know, what I've seen is when they start to get to that $1.5 million to $2 million top line revenue, you know, with kind of more than the founder can manage personally as like a customer base, that's where like I see them just go through feast and famine kind of stuff when they're running agency. So I'm just curious how you think about it because you've— I'm sure you've talked to more agency people than I have. I've just watched a few of my friends and been like, oh, That looks really hard.

Yeah, I think you're hitting the nail on the head. So I wish I could give the credit to whoever wrote this, but I cannot remember who it was. Wrote a Twitter thread about the— called it like the— basically the Agency Valley or something was the theme behind it. And what it was is exactly what you're saying. It's super— you can build a great high cash flowing business for the owner up to like $100K per month. If you, if you, then the agency business is a brutal business until you get to the other side of about $300K per month. So there's like this middle ground, maybe even a little bit more, maybe till you get to a $5 million business. So maybe it's $400K per month. But there's this really big area where results revert to the mean. So it's harder to keep clients for a long time. Therefore, you need to replace clients faster. So you need to pay more salespeople, you need to pay more lead gen. So it just— you, you lose some of the what makes it a good business. And so I agree with you where I think it's one— a great asset to own if you keep it at the right size. And you could— you can earn incredible cash flow, which then can be invested into other things and, and do whatever you want to do with. But there's definitely this area in an agency where it's not a good business to run. And that was why I wasn't super public about the agency, because I don't think an agency business is a good business if you want to make a $10 million company. If you're saying, how can I put $700,000 to $1 million in my pocket per year? I think an agency is the best way to do that over any other job on planet Earth in terms of how much time you can put in versus what you can get out. But if you try to push it past that, I think it becomes a miserable lifestyle pretty quickly because it's, it's not a business that really compounds that well. We're like our storage business. If we add 10 storage customers in a month, we may lose one, right? So it's like it's always getting bigger and better with very little input. The agency business is not like that past that. I think it's around $100K per month, but it's really probably client-based. But for my size clients.

Yeah. Well, so I mean, what is your personal aspiration with it? Do you want to— do you want to try to get over that hump or do you see it as just a stepping stone to try to eventually get into other stuff?

It's a stepping stone in, in the way where I'll probably always keep it going, but I think like I usually keep it between maybe $60K per month now. I could probably get it to $100K by adding one more person and then like being a little more public about it on Twitter and just like throwing a link in bio. Um, so I've soft tested it on Twitter and it's worked really well for getting clients, so I'll probably start doing that more. And I think my, my goal is always to, to build assets. And I don't think an agency business is an asset. I think it's like a relatively high-paying job that you can make a little bit better. Like if you were going to go be a management consultant and make $750K, you have to probably work 80, 90 hours a week for a long time to like get to partner level or whatever. I think with an agency, you could have a similar outcome working like half, maybe a third of the time. So I view it and say like, can you build that cash flow? And then can you install somebody who you trust to run that and and turn it into a little bit of an asset. But I don't think you can sell it. I don't think you really sell those businesses that great at that size. So I look at it as experience. It's taught me how to sell really well. It's taught me how to manage relationships. It's taught me how to have tough conversations. So I think it's going to be a great segue into managing a larger company, um, down the road at some point. And that's kind of how I view it. And I don't think I could make more money doing something else in terms of like actual money into my pocket than the agency business. So that's like the conundrum of it. It's like, if you never graduate from it, are you stuck in there forever? Versus if you view it for what it is, and it's like you're not building a business that you could sell for a 5x of your EBITDA. I just don't think it's possible. If anyone wants to pay me that, I'll sell it to you. But I just don't think— I don't think they're out there. Or they shouldn't be doing that. And so it's a great, great, great thing for my personal life and family life in the short term. It's not in line with who I want to be when I'm 50 years old and I look back on my business life. But I think a lot of the success I'll have in the future will be a function of having started this business, if that makes sense. So it's a little— it's funny, it falls in like this middle ground.

Well, I mean, I'm a big fan of making your first or second business be actually a really hard business, whether it's a, you know, a Main Street style business or a startup or whatever it is. Like, I like, I like people who've made their first business a really hard one because you learn so many lessons so quickly. And then secondarily, like when you go into a normal business that doesn't have some of the same challenges, like things seem so easy. Like I remember transitioning from CEO of our fireworks business, which is like crazy hard. It's like the hardest business to run. And the feedback cycles are long. The cash flow dynamics are horrible. Like you're subjected to the weather. Like, I mean, just all these things are just incredibly difficult. You know, you're doing import and export. You're, you're dealing with tons of temporary employees. It's just so hard. It's a logistics business dressed up as, dressed up as family entertainment. And then I went to go work and start other businesses and get involved with them. And I'm like, you mean I get paid every day in this new business? Like, this is amazing. Like, I don't have to wait 6 months to get paid. Like, this is fantastic. So like, I think that's really smart, even if it's a pretty challenging business to start in something, you know, that's just— that's— it's such a great learning opportunity. So kudos to you.

Well, I appreciate that. And something to piggyback on that point is something that I wanted to do. And so when we started the storage business, something I wanted to do was get experience running a physical company in the real world, which is our storage business, which is— was a seasonal business. Now is— we have recurring cash flow from, from long-term storage customers. But at, at the onset, it was similar to your fireworks business. Yours sounds a little more complex than ours was, but similar in the sense where we were really getting paid like the bulk of our money in a very short window, and then you have to manage cash flow the rest of the year, which is hard to do. Um, we've since changed that model and it's become a lot better asset to own. But so I have this experience owning like this digital-first company and then this very physical company of like, we'll store your stuff. And so I have this pretty unique, um, I've seen both sides of that coin and the like biggest takeaway I have is the physical businesses, once they're built, are incredible, but they're really, really, really hard to build. And they take a long time because there's inevitably there's assets, there's more attorneys, there's leases, there's materials, where with the digital businesses, it's like you can scale them and grow them a lot faster. But like what grows faster also will shrink faster, I think. And so like we, for our storage business, for us to go to zero, like we would need hundreds of people to all call tomorrow and all remove their stuff from storage simultaneously. Like it's statistically very low odds that that will happen where, you know, some of these. So I think that experience is something I wanted to get before I was in my, my mid-30s is to say, hey, I've, I've succeeded and operated in two different worlds and what can I put those together to like have a unique skill set that maybe somebody else doesn't have. And so that's what I'm pretty excited about the future is I've been able to, I've been able to accomplish that goal. By 30, which is a little bit ahead of schedule. So I'm excited about it.

Oh man, so cool. I was barely working for myself when I was 30, so that's awesome. That's so cool. Actually, one of the things I'm going to start experimenting with is doing these podcasts in person because I think it helps the back and forth. And yeah, you get body language from people and shared energy and all that kind of stuff. And so we'll see how that goes.

But for round 2, I'll fly down to San Antonio.

Really? Oh my God. That's amazing. Okay. Yeah, that's very kind of you. The question I had about the storage business, so it morphed into one where it sounds like you're doing a managed marketplace of using people who have empty storage space and then finding clients and putting them in a kind of a recurring revenue model into those empty storage spaces and then kind of being the middleman and marketplace maker for that. Is that basically the way that business works?

Yeah, so it's actually both. So we originally started out in student storage, and then we built a pretty robust software program. Student storage is like, is highly logistical. There's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of small considerations. So over a period of time, we learned what the pitfalls were. So we packaged that into a software program. And then we, we have a couple of contracts that will service ourselves because they're so high margin, but will also empower traditional moving companies to use our software and go out and like Hey, you want to do student storage wherever you are? Great. Pay us. You can license our software and now you don't have— the logistics are taken care of for you. So that's one revenue stream. The second revenue stream is we do have physical space that we fill up. So we have about 40,000-ish square feet. We're jam-packed, we're full, and we collect recurring revenue on that. Typically B2B, like it's all contract-based. I call it soft logistics is like a term we've coined, which is meaning we don't own trucks. But if you want to run logistics out of one of our warehouses on like 1 to 2 pickups and drop-offs per week, that's fine. But we're not trying to be XPO Logistics and going to be doing, you know, volume like that. It's very much we're making money on the storage. We run a lean team. We only operate our warehouse 9 to 3. So if a delivery driver gets here at like 3:15, it's like you got to wait till 9 a.m. Sorry about that. And they'll sleep in the parking lot. Because what happens is when you start saying yes, that you get dragged and all of a sudden it's 5 PM and you're paying more hours and all this stuff. So it's our warehouse is 9 to 3. We're super open about that. And it's been great. And we actually only operate the warehouse on Monday, Wednesday, Friday now. So it's, we've literally cut so much cost with that. And nobody, our customers actually like it more because they just, they know when they can and can't come. So that's another revenue model collecting there. And then the third model, which is newer, is what you just said, is since we're full with space and we don't want to lease any more space, we're in the process of potentially buying some real estate. But we get so many leads and moving companies want storage so bad because it's— moving is a terrible business. They want the storage revenue that we're now just, we're giving it to them. When it comes in. So for example, we, we, we landed a $300,000 per year storage deal Friday, last Friday. We don't have the space for that currently right now because we're literally 100% full, and we don't want to go lease more space. We want to try to buy some space. So there's this time where we don't have any more. So we sign the deal with the person, and they're storing it at one of our affiliates' warehouses, and our profit on that is like $14,400 per month recurring, and we'll— we will never lay a hand on that stuff, anyone from our company. It's completely taken care of by our affiliate. So that model is like obviously super attractive for scale, um, but you have to get the jobs in the right way. Yeah, and so the arbitrage on the price per square foot comes from— we're so close to Boston, which is one of the hottest and most expensive industrial markets in the country, So we— if you were to come into our warehouse in Boston, depending on how much you want to store, we would, we would charge you $27 to $31 per square foot. That would be the price you would pay. But we, with this deal, one of our big affiliates who we do a ton of business with is a great company is in Connecticut, like central Connecticut. And so the price per square foot that they can make money on and we can make money on is insane. Insanely different. So when we do the quotes, we just do them all through the, the lens of, of the Metro Boston area. And so this company was, was coming— it's a lab company, they're coming from, from New York to Boston, big million— they're like having, opening a million square foot facility or something. It's gonna be huge. And so we just, we just said to our affiliate, hey, this is a deal we have, what would you guys charge us? And I, I'm, I'm forgetting the exact numbers. I'd have to look at the contract, but it's like $12 or $15 a square foot that they're charging us. and we're— we told this customer we would charge them $25 per square foot because the volume that they want to bring in. And so we don't ever have to touch the stuff or anything, and we just— it gets delivered to these— our affiliate's warehouse, and we just, um, yeah, we charge them, and then we just pay our affiliate on the, on the 5th of every month, and we get paid on the 1st of every month. So the money hits our account, it just goes right out, or half of it, you know, goes right out. And, um, So that model is incredibly interesting to scale. Um, you just, you need to have a brand that resonates and gets the right types of customers because there's a lot of bad customers where you could lose money. Like if, you know, if they're not big enough deals or they're not good enough customers. Like if you can get big commercial customers consistently, I think you could build a really great business on that brokering piece. I don't think you can do that successfully on smaller deals where it's like very high touch and people want like specific white glove services. I think it's a lot harder than it sounds to do.

Yeah, that probably smells more like the storing stuff for college kids business, which I think you, you've decided isn't that awesome, but I don't think it sounds that awesome. So you found this, you found this big deal, they came through your normal channels for your kind of industrial at-scale storage of stuff, and then you just Well, since you're full, you decided you found a place to put it and take a cut. Yeah, that's super genius. That sounds much better than building websites for people. Not that that's what you—

So we have another one. Like, we have a great affiliate in Providence. And so here's a great example of one that I think is scalable that you could uncover these types of jobs quite frequently. And so there was a hotel being redone in downtown Boston. And typically the way they redo hotels so they don't have to shut down the whole hotel is like they'll do it by floor, right? So they'll just like do it a piece at a time. But I think there's some sort of rule where they need to have these updates done so often. So we got this deal through our— an inbound lead in our website. We didn't want to store it because it was— the stuff was really clunky and big. And so same thing, we just— we gave it to our affiliate down in Rhode Island who set up to do it, and they love it. And same thing, you know, we probably make 40% on that, and we just— we don't have anything to do with deal in terms like physically. So those, they're out there. I'm not sure, I'm not sure they would work that well outside of major metros, but I think you could recreate this process in different areas.

Yeah, I mean, there's things like coworking as a business, right, that works really well as long as the market is supply constrained. But then you go to a place like San Antonio where there's basically infinite office supply. And it doesn't work as well, you know, just as a standalone business. I see people opening and closing and then I go to places like, you know, over by, I guess, Cambridge in Boston. There's a couple of WeWorks there and they were just like, people are just crammed into those places paying top dollar because there's no other, there's no other options. So yeah, I think it's very market dependent to make stuff like that work.

Yeah. And I think one thing that supports our business really well is to your point on Cambridge, is the lab community. So the, the price per square foot on rental in Kendall Square, which is in Cambridge, Mass., for those who don't know, is like— there's millions of square feet of lab space there, but it is literally rented before— if one's coming up for lease, it's rented before that company's even out. It's so competitive that they're paying so much to rent this space that like storing stuff on site is just simply not an option. And then you, then you add on the ROI of another lab rather than a place to store stuff. And they'll pay a lot to get stuff off-site because the ability for them to make money off of that space is so high. If that's the lab where they develop a vaccine, or that's the lab where they come up with some medicine or something like that, I mean, it's billions of dollars. So they're not even concerned with paying for things like storage. It's like, no, we want to maximize our, our the utility on our space and we'll pay whatever. So that is just a geographical thing that we have going on. And since COVID has happened, that space has exploded for us. Like, we get— we're getting inquiries almost daily, definitely weekly, from biotech and pharma companies looking for storage. It's a super interesting trend.

Wow. Yeah, and it— I mean, not, not to poop on Boston, but like the fact that this dynamic you're talking about exists is just like such a byproduct of Boston mismanaging itself for the past 50 years or so. Like the last time I was there, nobody was building anything. Like I didn't see anybody building one thing, not even like a Dunkin' Donuts. Like there was nothing being constructed. And it just kind of, you know, it blows my mind that Boston, when I like, when I started to come up in tech in the late '90s, it was San Francisco or Boston. Those are the two markets. And Boston has totally receded, like in terms of being competitive with that stuff. And I think it's just because, you know, they ran out of land, ran out of space, and like, like, it's, it made me sad to watch it. And like, I actually think it's what's happened to Boston and that part of Massachusetts is actually what, what I think California should look at and be like, oh, this is like where we could end up if we really screw things up, not allowing new development and things to grow and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, that was just my soapbox moment about, man, Boston, like, what a missed opportunity.

Yeah, it could have been like Silicon Valley East, but they didn't. Getting stuff approved here is— you can ask any of the developers. I mean, it's, it's a nightmare. Although there has been a ton of development in the past 5 or 6 years. But yeah, it's a little late to the party.

Yeah, it's a bummer. Okay, so anyway, I'm sorry to be a downer about New England. I go there all the time.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go on Zillow after this and find a place to move to.

Oh, yes. Or yes, you should. I mean, if you're there already, I'm sure it's great. You know, if, but if somebody said, hey, Girdley, list like the top 10 places you would want to move to for maximizing opportunity and lifestyle, like, like Boston wouldn't crack the top 10. Like, it's pretty tough just because you're like, well, you know, it should have been what New York has become. You know, it's kind of crazy. So anywho, I'm sorry to be a downer. So you and I prepared some stuff to talk about on this. And so let's talk about how— let's talk about the future of work, because I think you wrote a really interesting thing here. Why does the future of work get people so angry? And I'm fascinated. I want to hear what your take is on, on the future of work and then why are people so angry about it?

So, yeah, geez, we may get canceled here. So the, the future of work, I think, ties in a lot with what we were talking about earlier, where we're living in a time where there's, there's technology and ease of communication has created opportunities for people with skills to earn incredible income on their time or those skills. And what I mean by that is before— so think about 20 years ago. Well, we'll keep it in Boston. We'll just— we'll keep putting Boston down. So if you think about— so if I were selling a product or service like my agency business, right, for all intents and purposes, I'm relatively restricted to this area. Like, people were not comfortable doing business with people all over the place. So people were not comfortable even doing what we're doing now, which is just having a fun conversation after developing a relationship on a social media platform for 2 years. It's like, that's kind of a very new concept. And so I think the future of work is very, um, it's a meritocracy where the, the people with skills, I think, will be able to really, really do well. And I think there's going to be people that rise to the top. And then I think because we all have access to the same email lists, because we all have access to LinkedIn, because we can all build Twitter audiences, it's going to be able to find— you're gonna be able to find out who is good and who is worth working with in certain fields. And I think that's going to cram like the lower 50% of people even closer together, and it's going to be incredible competition within them for maybe non-ideal clients and stuff. And so then I think you add on the layer of globalized workforce. Um, I have personally been using a globalized workforce for about 3 or 4 years, and Frankly, I attribute a lot of my business success to that because if I were having to pay, uh, my fellow American workers— like, and the people who, who crap on this, like, just don't understand exchange rates, I don't think. Like, they're— it's— and this is where, like, I guess we're going to channel our, our Nick Huber here— is the— it's not like some slave labor relationship. And if you talk to the people that actually do this, the relationships they're building with people across the globe I've been working with the same team for 3 and a half years. I talk to them every day. They're my friends and I work with them and I view them like my colleagues. And the people who say that it's, it's taking advantage of you, they don't understand that it's like very much a two-way street that works really, really, really well. And the globe, the world is full of people that work really, really hard and are really, really talented and maybe just weren't born in Boston, Massachusetts. So this is giving people opportunity to work with leading companies, leading entrepreneurs. And I think it makes a lot of people very uncomfortable, frankly, that— back to the competition, to tie— to put a bow in this whole thing— the competition has increased big time, uh, because we went from working in our city 15 years ago to the entire world. And as the internet gets better and connectivity improves, I only think this is going to keep going. Um, so I'm like, I'm very bullish on anything that is globalized work because I think it's inevitable.

Yeah, well, it's super, it's super interesting to see kind of what you're talking about when you talked about us getting canceled on the podcast, but I don't think we will. But it's super interesting to see people get, get so angry about jobs going overseas and they weren't angry when, like, say, t-shirt manufacturing or like some of the, you know, the dirty stuff like around making, you electronics in China and Taiwan. They weren't mad when that stuff went overseas, but when it's potentially their job starting to go overseas, they get really angry. And I think they also, it's exactly as you said, they have the wrong idea about it. It's peers, they just happen to live in a different country. The second thing that I think people don't talk about enough with offshoring of labor Like I just hired and started yesterday a new employee in New York State and like, like I'm paying an extra 20 to 25% over the top of his compensation in taxes, fees, all this stuff that just New York State just makes it a nightmare. Right. And then trying to figure out what my employer identification number is, you know, just it is nobody's talking about how much we're actually incentivizing employers that if they have a choice to send a job overseas. Um, you know, and it— we— it's got to get fixed. Like, either— and I think the fairest thing actually is it should cost you or me the same in terms of overhead to hire somebody overseas or to hire them in the US. And, you know, like, right now you just— like, you just send a check overseas and nothing comes back from it, um, for the US government or the, the taxpayer. And it, it really has me worried, and I'm just blown away that nobody talks about it.

Yeah, I, I don't necessarily want to bring it to anybody's attention, but, but I, I agree with you. So in the, in the US, I think a good rule for hiring US-based people as employees is whatever your salary is going to pay them, it's going to cost you 30% more. And I think you just echoed that, right? It's your 25% more. And maybe there's an additional 5 if you're in the office. Maybe there's an additional 5 or 10% for like an office setup. Up and just the natural consumption of resources that, that a person, that a person does. But I think back to your first point is no one was upset when t-shirt manufacturing went overseas because that was the time when college was getting very popular. I think right when this first started to happen, it was like, so, oh no, we're educated in the United States. We do the educated jobs. We're really smart. And then everyone started financing college on this promise of future income. And then What they didn't realize is that technology was, all this information is free online. And if you don't care about credentials and you just want jobs done, which small business and mid-sized business entrepreneurs do, they just want stuff done the right way. It's such a better option. It's not even close. Like I don't even think it's, it's probably 2 to 3 times more advantageous to hire someone overseas, even if they're less talented. And if they're of equal talent, it might even be closer to 5 or 10. When you factor in everything about it. And I don't know, even if there's a tax put on it, I still don't know if that makes it equal. I'm not really sure how you can stop this, really. Um, it's kind of— I think it's gonna be really bad for a lot of college grads who are relying on like some job that just may not exist.

Yeah, well, I mean, when I was a kid, you know, I'm 47 now, you know, in my 20s everybody was talking about how all the like manufacturing and like manual labor jobs and stuff like that would eventually end up overseas. And it's actually turned out to be the opposite. Right now, it's like all the programming, accounting, like those are the jobs that are leaving. Like if your job can be done in front of a computer over Zoom, like it's at risk of going overseas. And like, people are just now starting to realize that. But actually, you're in good shape if you're having to fix somebody's, you know, fix somebody's dishwasher. You know, we had a guy come out and fix our dishwasher on Friday, um, spend an hour with us and charge us $200. And I was thankful to pay it because there's no way I could fix our dishwasher in an hour without having to buy a new dishwasher.

And to echo that point, we had window cleaners yesterday, and I was talking to the guys, booked solid through July. And it's, it's like these guys are just willing to do the work. And I, I do think that's one thing that I think, um, that Nick Huber tweets about a lot that I really agree with. Like, you can live a great life in America if you're, if you're just willing to do the work. Um, it might be tough to become the richest person ever in a trade or a service business, but you can really live a great life. And it's just most people just don't want to do it because they went to college to do computer science, but they didn't realize that you can learn computer science just on the computer from anywhere in the world. Um, and now like, there's investment accelerating this stuff. Like, have you seen— have you seen Pesto? Is a cool tech company that is out of India, and they're helping developers get to the point where like legitimate funded people, funded companies will hire them because they're vetted through this like special process and testing that they use. But they teach them how to do it. So I mean, that is really going to accelerate things, I think, once that things like that become a little more mainstream.

Yeah, it's interesting. Pesto, P-E-S-T-O.

I think it's either pesto or presto.

I've had that.

See, I can't remember. There's either an R or no R. Yeah.

Well, I mean, if I was in the marketing department, I would say, you know, I think you're better with presto and less with pesto, which is, you know, a green, green fatty paste you put on Italian food. But anyway, so yeah, super good. I need to check that out. I've had that same idea for a while. Like how do you, you know, 'cause we have a business that I helped incubate called Near and it's got the same challenges, right? Like everybody is rushing to hire overseas. And so, you know, how do you make it easier not only for people to do that hiring when they're in the US and manage those people, but secondarily, like how do you create more of them? 'Cause right now, you know, Facebook and all the Silicon Valley companies have gone through Guadalajara, they've gone through Latin America, they've gone through the Philippines. China's basically been cut off for most of them, 'cause I know people that have had developers in China for a while. Like all those places have been like picked over and there's just few and far between now. Yeah, so how do you create more of those people and upskill everybody? And I think that's the second, You know, the second thing that's been really surprising to me about overseas hiring is how the attitudes are very different. Like, you don't have this, like, heavy sense of entitlement that you have with a lot of American employees. And I don't know how to feel about that. I think at one point I'm happy that America has been so prosperous that people feel entitled. On the other hand, I'm like, man, this is so much nicer when people want to work hard and achieve stuff. It's really, it's really a pleasure to work with overseas people that way.

It is. Well, I think the thing— and I mean, I love America. I mean, I'm, I'm— it's— I, I do think it's the best country on Earth, and I'm grateful to live here. I get concerned because I think, I think we've been so prosperous for so long that sometimes it's easy to fall asleep at the wheel. And I think there's just major trends with like really important functions of companies that are just going overseas. And even people who love America and want to see it thrive. It's like, you know, they're concerned with their own family and their own business and their own well-being. And it's such a competitive advantage that you have to do it. I mean, we both do it. We're talking, you know, we're, we're both— and we're open about it, and we're talking about how great that is too. So it's, it's super interesting. And I think that is where I just— the entitlement comes from, like, an expectation to make a certain amount of money regardless of performance. And I do think that goes back the competition thing. Like, we've diminished what it means to add value. And that's why I'm so thankful for Twitter and that community, because the only way you can grow and get to meet people and have interactions like this is by adding value. So like, it keeps you in that mindset of always like, hey, you need to continually add. You don't get to add value once and keep growing forever. Like, you gotta— it's about adding more and more and more. And it's unfortunate, um, It's— well, it's unfortunate, I think, for, for a lot of people in the future that are not going to have jobs that, that they are expecting to have, um, or get paid what they're expecting to get paid, or may need to get paid because of loans that they took or something.

Yeah, I'm totally with you. Um, cool. Well, last thing, I'd love to talk some more about Twitter because I want to get your advice. There's one thing I've been struggling with on Twitter, but One of the things I did want to ask you, you have a genius for copywriting. Like, you're so good at it. Like, I think back to like, we share, like sometimes we share hooks in our like little creator group and like get people's feedback on the first tweet in a thread. And you're like, like the times you come back with something, it's like, duh, duh, duh, just so good. Like in terms of how everything's put together. Like, what is your— is that innate? Do you feel like you've learned that? Like, or how did you get to the point where you're at today where you just— I mean, I look at it, I'm like, oh, that's like some Michael Jordan stuff right there. Like, so how did you get— how did you get that ability?

Well, I— one, I appreciate that, but so here's the thing is I actually did not consider myself someone who was a good writer or wrote a lot up until I really started really trying to grow Twitter earlier this year. And what I think about writing is I think we're all a lot better at writing than we probably think. It just is really, really hard to write. And it's, it's honestly not that fun because a lot of like this, what makes it go from good to great, I think, is like just taking the time to edit and say like, yeah, I should delete this tweet and rewrite it because it's not good. And that's why one thing I think that I've done very well is like I really take a lot of time to make sure that it reads well because I think that's a competitive advantage on Twitter is most people just do a thread and tweet it. And as far as the hooks, I don't have a particular framework, though I have been trying to figure one out so I can streamline this and produce more. But I think it's about clarity and getting to the point quickly. And I think a lot of the time, sometimes I read hooks and I'm like, that doesn't— the connection isn't quite there or it's a little too long. And so I think if you can make the connection between your main attention-grabbing line and what you're going to write about fast and punchy, then you get people to click into the next tweet. You'll notice something about all of my threads is my second tweet, I think, is as important as the first tweet, which is like my contrarian Twitter take because everyone says it's like the hook, the hook, the hook. And while I think that's important, if you can't quickly support that with some interesting context, it's like, I'm not reading 15 tweets. So like the hook needs to grab them, but the second tweet needs to provide like really, really like, oh, whoa, I got to read this. I got to read this. And I think it's as important. I really do. And so I think that's something that I put a lot of energy into the second tweet. And so I think that's been helpful in getting like some virality on some of the stuff I've put out. Yeah.

Well, I will keep watching and try to learn. So the thing I've been struggling with, and maybe you see it or not, so just A little context, my personality, I have trouble bullshitting people. Like I have trouble ass kissing and I have trouble bullshitting. It's just, I just, I'm just not very good at it. You know, I think I'm either a genuine praise guy or I just keep my mouth shut. Like those are the two options. There's this like game that gets played on Twitter where like, you know, there's the, I was about to say a bad word, but I won't say the bad word. It's like this. Everybody's like, I rub your back, you rub my back, you know, amongst the content creators. Okay, well, hey, I put out this thread, like, will you please, you know, like it or retweet it or whatever? And you'll see it, there's like circles of people, like our content creator group, there's other groups that kind of do that too, where they're all helping each other grow and replying to each other's threads to get more visibility and stuff like that. So here's the problem I have. Whenever somebody like writes something awesome, really good, like I'm happy to go in there and do that kind of stuff. Like retweet it or like, you know, and reply and help magnify the thing and be like, this is awesome. I just have so much trouble saying like, this is awesome when it's not. So like, I feel like on one hand, like growing a Twitter audience, you have to play that game, but there's somewhere I'm stuck where I just don't feel comfortable playing, you know, bullshitting people. Like it's just not who, it's not who I am. And sometimes people like that are my friends on Twitter, write some stuff and I'm like, It's not that good. You know, it's— I don't, I don't know what to say. And I don't, I don't want to play the game in that scenario. So I don't know if I'm explaining this well, but at once I feel like, okay, I want to achieve my goal of followers for the year. Yeah. So what do you think? What's your advice for me?

Um, I would say this, I would say, one, I operate under this rule, I'm more than happy to be in groups and stuff like that. I'm never going to guarantee engagement because like, I I also live a life and I have a kid and I have a wife. It's like I got to do stuff sometimes. So I like, sometimes I just don't get around to it. And it's never personal. So even if you tweet, and if I see something great in the timeline, I usually, even if I am not in a group with a person, I try to engage now that my account has gotten a little bigger because I know how hard it is to create good content. So I want to reward those people for doing it. I think it makes the platform better. I think there's one, you can just not engage like you don't want to, but if you like the person and you like what they put out, normally, and, and maybe you just don't agree. So maybe you don't want to say like, hey, great job, Barrett, that's a really cool thread, but you want to, um, engage because you like me. Maybe you could say, hey, I don't agree with this. And that might actually, from a counterintuitive standpoint, might get more engagement because it might get a little conversation going and more people might pile on and say, hey, you're right, Girdley, this guy is an idiot, what is he talking about? And so I think respectful disagreement actually is a way to like, a lot of people do that very successfully on Twitter. I think some people try to ruffle feathers. But personally, I would never have a problem if you commented on mine and said like, hey, you know, nice writing, but I don't like this take. It's like, okay, why? So I don't know, maybe that could be an angle to try out when you don't think something is good. But you like the creator normally, uh, and you want to give them engagement.

I like that. I like it. Yeah, I think where that has me reconsidering what it means to be nice, because I think that's a core, core value, core behavior of what I do. Like, I just want to be nice. Like, I'm not never going to be mean to anybody, especially on social media. I just, you know, I'm going to take the extra time to say even mean things very nicely. But I think what you're saying there, and I can reconsider it, is Sometimes polite disagreement is actually a kindness, right? And being nice, and I can do that and be helpful that way. Yeah, I just, I guess I was worried. I don't want to come across maybe I was like dunking on someone's thread, you know?

No, I think it makes the platform better, right? If you think about it, because I go on Twitter, and the reason I even started on Twitter is because I built my entire agency business of the stuff that I learned on Twitter as a Twitter learner. Darker before I created content. Um, and I think a lot of people have that experience. So I want people to put out stuff and not— it doesn't need to be— and this is where it goes back to everybody gets a trophy. It's like if every thread everyone's saying like, cool thread, great job, way to go, it's like, all right, this is boring. Like, let's get a little debate. I mean, I think that is part of the attraction of Musk, right? It's just like he tweets something and, you know, like the best part of his tweets are the comments. Like, I sit there and laugh out loud at the comments. And I think that's okay as long as you, you know, I think saying, hey, this is the dumbest take I've ever seen is probably not a great way to do it. But if you have like a thoughtful disagreement, I personally welcome that. I just block the people who say like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever read. It's like, okay, well, if you're not— if you're not going to tell me why, then get out of here. And the dumbest thing people do on Twitter is when they disagree with you and they want to say this is stupid and they retweet you. So I always comment, thanks for the retweet. Now when they do that, when they quote tweet me and say this is stupid, I say thanks for the retweet. So I know those people don't know how the algorithm works, which is probably why their accounts all have like 5 followers. Oh yeah.

I had a guy respond yesterday that was really funny. He, uh, You know, I was like, hey everybody, like, I made it to 100,000 followers. Thank you for participating and at least seeing something I wrote enough to click and like it enough to click follow. And, and he goes, he replied, he goes, follower, you know, follower growth, whatever, is a plague on Twitter. And I was like, I looked at his account, he has zero followers. I was like, oh yeah, of course it's a big deal. So yeah, but I mean, I agreed with him. I agreed with him. I mean, it's a total vanity metric. You know, I think my goal is to get to 150,000. And at that point, you know, A, I'm learning more as I've been trying to achieve that goal, how worthless of a goal it is. But I also like, I've put the goal out there and I don't want to quit on the goal. So I will come up with another KPI. After. There's my competitiveness, by the way, coming through. I'm just like, I'm doing this. It's going to happen this year.

And yeah, once it's in stone, it has to be done.

Yeah, I have a rep. I have a reputation. You can't—

you can't let 100,000 people down. We'll all be upset.

It's totally fine. It's totally fine. Well, cool, man. So I think we're out of time, but is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to cover? This was awesome.

Yeah, I get the one thing I'd love to plug just while I have access to the audience of Girdley is popular creator Sahil Bloom and myself, we created an app called Bravo.io. It's B-R-A-V-A-U-X, like the French way. And basically it's for small business owners to be able to quickly reward prospects, clients, and employees in real time with gift cards to the world's top retailers and with custom notes. So you like foster those feelings of goodwill, keep people excited, keep team members happy, stand out in the inbox. We have great deliverability. You can track it, everything. So, you know, if, if somebody sends me a Starbucks gift card with a note telling me how great I am, I tend to listen. So I think that will work at scale and that's what we're trying to empower. So if you're interested, check it out. We have free trials and everything. So we'd appreciate feedback.

That's awesome. Bravo spelled in a very, uh, Creole French, uh, manner.

Oh yeah, that's because bravo.io— that's because bravo.io, you know, is like, I don't know, probably 100K or something. We'll get it eventually.

Super cool. And for anybody that doesn't follow you already, you're at Barrett J. O'Neill @Twitter. Uh, Twitter, is that right?

Yep. Yeah, super cool. So if you're happy to— always welcome more followers to the tribe, so would appreciate a follow.

Onwards. All right, man, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it, and we'll, uh, we'll get this out. I learned a lot, so thank you very much.