Ep. 311 How I Raised It with Stephen Schenk of Stapelstein

I think we inspire the market with the concept and naturally, as with any concept that is successful, there will be players that try to copy, that try to take part of the cake, but they're actually helping us to bring our mission into the world.

Does it drive you crazy every time a new copycat comes on the market or you see a copycat?

I had a lot of time to adjust to it. I would say at the beginning it was very hurtful, but then I kind of realized that it is lost energy. If I would worrying too much about these things. I rather worry about innovation and about new concepts, but it would be alive. I would say it doesn't touch me at all, but I try to get the positive thing out of it. And I would really say that the copycats and the dupes also inspire us to become more innovative. So it's really okay that they're there and I think it's for a good reason. That's for some kind. Yeah.

Welcome to How I Raised it, the podcast that goes behind the scenes with entrepreneurs who've raised capital. We uncover the tips, tricks and techniques they use to get investors to write a check. Strap in and turn it up. Hi, welcome to another episode of How I Raised it produced by foundersuite.com and fundingstack.com today I have Stefan Schenk of Stapelstein coming to us from the Stuttgart, Germany area. How's your day going?

It's been busy. I had a great start and then I had some intellectual property topics that were more like of a dry nature. But it was a good day and weather is amazing now. So kind of happy finishing this day with this podcast.

All right, well, we'll make it fun so you have a good finish to the day. So what is Stappelstein describe it for people?

It is an open ended play material for all ages, meaning that it is a self guided tool for kids and adults as well. To create landscapes, to move, to play, to sit. We also serve as a dynamic stool. So you can use it as a plaything, you can use it as a furniture. It's really open for basically anything you can imagine. So it's driven by the imagination and the creativity of our users and it's meant to move kids more because movement and the lack of movement is one of the huge crisis we have nowadays. It's not an obvious one because not too many people are talking about it, but it's a more and more serious topic that is scientifically proven a lot, but there's not many solutions that tackle it in a child friendly and human friendly way. And we're happy and glad that we found a way to tackle that problem in a very playful and free way.

And for people, you know, what you described makes sense when you already know what the product looks like. But for people not familiar, I mean, I'm looking at it, it kind of looks like bowls, I guess you could say, that stack on top of each other. They're very colorful. They're rainbow colors and other pastel colors. Would you describe it like, like bowls, stackable bowls, or do you use a different.

Yeah, I think, I think that's great. Great description already. Because if you turn it upside down, it's. It's kind of a bowl. And, and kids also love it that, that it has this feature because they love to collect things and to sort things and, and to also take it with them in the water, so they play with it in pools so they can collect and pour water from one end to the other. So the bowl feature is definitely a central part of it. But then it's round when you look at it from the top view. So I think that helps as a description. And some would describe it as a very fancy hat, so you can nest it on your hat. So it also explains a little bit the dimension. It's maybe like diameter is almost as. As the one of a football or a soccer ball. I don't know how you, how you name it in San Francisco. Yeah. And it's well, well rounded, I would say.

Well, it's interesting because unlike many toys, which are very specific, it's kind of ambiguous, if I'm correct. I mean, even the website I'm looking at, one of your distributors is talking about it as. They could be stepping stones, they could be storage trays, they could be bowls for collecting treasures. They could be things you balance on. It's kind of an ambiguous product, not a very, like, specific thing. I think that's by design, right?

That's absolutely what it's meant to be. Yeah. So we want it to be open in order to leave space for the creativity of the people, especially kids, because they really have the creativity and they're kind of driven by reimagining everything they see and reusing it in a way that I think we as adults can be or can find a lot of inspiration in the way kids look at the world and discover things. And our product is really about discovering your own way and many ways of using it. And it's really inviting everyone to do that.

Yeah, very interesting. All right, so what's the backstory. Where did you come up with this? Why did you come up with this?

Sure. So it was the year of 2015 when I was studying product design in Germany, Schebschmund, which is kind of like, how would you say, it's kind of connected to the Bauhaus area. And I think many people know that it was known for its new design language and very clear shapes or also kind of artistic approach in the very early stage of design. So this is kind of my professional background. My second inspiration was that I was raised in an educator's family, so I was always connected to the topic of like pedagogical realms and topics. And I. So I kind of bumped into a huge issue which is the lack of movement in the daily lives of children. In fact, 80% of all kids aged six or up are not moving enough or lacking as much movement that they don't even meet the minimum quantity of movement time the World Health Organization recommends, which is, which is huge. I mean, and since our body is made to move and built to move from our history and from the way we live. Yeah, Hundreds and hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago, we need that movement in order to develop not only our body but also our brain capabilities. Because everything's interconnected here. And since kids are lacking that movement, they also miss opportunities to develop their body and brain. So they're having problems in learning, they're having problems in building self confidence and many more things. So I was thinking about solutions to change that and I'm really a fan of solutions that invite people for intrinsic learning and intrinsic motivated change in their lives and not forcing them like a lot of old school kind of ways of teaching or trying to, so they would force kids to move. But we really want to invite them to move. And in fact, the first prototypes really did exactly that. So they invited the kids to, to move, to play, to dynamically sit. And so they created this missing whole body physical movement without them even noticing that they're moving, because they were just thrilled to play with the elements. And from that moment I was as convinced that this kind of idea, this very simple idea really can change a lot. And I decided to found my company in the year of 2016 with two business angels. They invested both around 50,000. So I had 100,000 of like initial capital at hand and I needed roughly half of it. So 50,000 to create my first prototypes and molds for industrial production. And from there everything was bootstrapped. So from this initial investment, I built a company that now counts 40 employees. Most of them are sitting in Germany. Berlin. Some of them, yeah, across Europe. And then we also have two employees or partner partnering people in the US since we have a US subsidiary since two years, which is exciting.

Cool. Congrats. Lucky.

Thank you.

Lucky people. I just got back from Berlin, spent a couple weeks there in June, and I just love that. So I'm jealous of your people.

A couple? What for?

We went to the Super Venture conference. It's sort of a conference put on by Super Return for networking between venture firms and LPs and things like that. And then I spent about a week just walking around Berlin because I studied there many, many years ago, shortly after the wall came down and. And lived there for a little bit. And so it was. And haven't been back since. So this is. Wow, a long time.

This. This must have been an exciting time. No, like, this is an excit. Like an interesting time to be in Berlin directly after the war.

It was the best time ever. It was so cool. And there's a book. Not to go, not to get sidetracked, but there's a book I need to find somewhere. It's called Berlin Wonderland, the Wild Years Revisited, 1990-94, which is like that period right after the Wall came down when it was like this artistic flourishing culture and crazy underground parties and. Yeah, I could spend an hour talking about Berlin in the early 90s.

Exciting. I was not born.

Yeah, I know.

Back then. I was born 1994.

Gotcha.

But happy to hear that. I can imagine it.

Well, it's obviously Berlin's changed a lot. It's still such a cool, cool city. It's a good startup scene there. Right? I mean, it feels like there's a lot of startup activity in ber, would you say?

Yeah, I think in terms of startup activity, Stuttgart, where I'm based, is quite innovative, but also Munich, so more the southern part of Germany. But Berlin is okay. Yes. There's also many talents that you can find in several industries and also especially in the creative fields. And we decided to have our third first flagship store in Berlin. I think it's a great place to be because it's a very international city and we see many people from all around the world stumbling into our store, being curious about the colors and thing, because they really are not knowing what this is like. Similar to you asking, like, how would you describe it? We start over and over again to really pitch why this is important and why we are there in the world. So we're used to that question.

Yeah, yeah. No it's very beautiful. So, okay, so you bootstrapped this, you raised a little bit of money from some angels. And then from what I'm reading also you're making this in Germany, which is not a low cost place to make this, but it's very eco friendly, which is also not a low cost way to build something. So maybe just talk about growing the business a little bit using those concepts.

Yeah, well, this is more of a value mindset thing where from my personal value set I was always sure that I don't want to compromise on sustainability and quality. And by following that values, it was obvious to me to find a local manufacturer and I was lucky enough to find the worldwide like leading manufacturer when it comes to high quality and also innovation with this material, with this specific material called expanded polypropylene that we use. And yeah, now we developed the whole engineering as far that we can also say that we are the most sustainable manufacturer for EPP products worldwide. So we're super proud to not innovate in the toy industry in terms of like innovative pedagogical concepts, but also innovate the whole industrial manufacturing of expanded polypropylene and being the leader with the plaything, which I think is kind of funny and very nice because often people think of very technical or high tech things when it comes to industrial innovation. But we are really thrilled to also work on that side or that part of the business.

Yeah, very interesting. It's, you know, it's, it's impressive. I mean, congratulations. It's impressive. It's one thing to want to be eco friendly and sustainable. It's another thing the economic realities don't always work right. You know, depends on the product of course.

But yeah, yeah. And I think we can only hold that standard because we, we were something very new to the market. So there was not a lot of like comparable products next to ours. So we could really kind of educate the market with our values for a long time until now that we reached kind of, you know, a scale and also how to say we are, we are, we are very visible in the market. So people know us, especially in Europe and the German speaking countries. So obviously other companies try to lean into our concept, into our trend. But we had quite some years to be pretty much alone with this concept and lucky enough that people were willing to pay for sustainable and high quality manufacturing. And I think that's also what people love about our brand, that we don't compromise here. And yeah, I know that our product might not be approachable for, like, for, for People with low income yet. But we're, we are working on concepts to make it more approachable for all people. And now there are also alternatives I would not recommend because of ways of production and social standards that I could not stand behind. But there are alternatives if people really need a low budget version.

Well, I think you're sort of getting there. But I was going to ask, you know, you had some time, you started this 10 years ago, roughly nine years ago. You have some time to build this up, build some brand visibility, all this stuff. But of course, when you start to have success, what happens? You get knockoffs and dupes. So how is that, how have you dealt with, you know, cheap plastic, probably Chinese made knockoffs entering. What do you do about that?

First, first of all, I'm. This is a proof of our success.

Sure.

Because they wouldn't do that if they would not see that there's a huge potential for them to lean into our trend and our success story. And obviously since we created this highest standard possible in terms of sustainability and quality, there is a lot of space for cheap copies in terms of low budget alternatives. And it's okay, I would say, I think we inspired a market with the concept. And naturally, as with any concept that is successful, there will be players that try to copy that try to take part of the cake. But they're actually helping us to bring our mission into the world. They're supplying materials to many more kids that we might be able to on our own. So on the one hand we are happy they are there. On the other hand, like on the other side, I would say I'm, I'm. This is not the way I, I would do business. This is not the way I could stand behind of like in terms of their sustainability standards and their social, social standards. So it's okay. They are there. And as long as they play, play with the rules in Europe, we have very strong protection. So as long as it's illegal copies, we also fight them to protect our.

Original brand new patents, like global patents or.

Yeah, okay, yeah, we have patents. We have very strong patents actually because our shape that we found is so unique and the way we work with the material is so unique that we have patterns in terms of the shape, but also in terms of the technology in the way we, we finish the texture and the surfaces of our products.

You seem very like calm and accepting of it. But does it drive you crazy every time a new copycat comes on the market or you see a copycat from, well, Amazon? I would go crazy. So good for you?

For me? Yeah. I mean I had a lot of time to. Yeah. To adjust to it. I would say at the beginning it was very hurtful. But then I kind of realized that it, it like it is lost energy. If I would like be. Be kind of worrying too much about these things. I, I rather worry about innovation and about new concepts, but it would be alive. I would say it doesn't like touch me at all, but I try to, to get the positive thing out of it. And I would really say that the copycats and the dupes also inspire us to become more innovative. So it's really okay that they're there and I think it's for a good reason. That's for some kind. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's interesting. That's probably a good philosophy. You don't want to waste your energy worrying about too much. Use it to inspire you to be more creative and innovative. Yeah, that's good. So let's continue with the business. And then. So you had the two business angels and then at some point, if I'm reading this correctly, they were bought out and you transitioned to this steward owned company. Talk about the evolution of financial backers and things like that.

Sure. So it's amazing that you raised that question because it's a very unique part of our story. At some point we, we were having our first profits. It was only three years after I found the company. So we were pretty fast in becoming profitable. And with the first profits my initial investors were eager to get their profits straight after the first successes. So I was kind of irritated because for me it was obvious that we would reinvest the profits to let our business and our vision, our impact grow and to. Yeah, and to maybe get some return on the initial investment later. But this really showed that they were not really interested in the impact growth of the company. But really after the money and it. I don't want to blame them. It's their philosophy. Mine is a different one. I really founded the company because of a good reason to solve that huge problem of the lack of movement in the daily lives of children and for humanity in general. So for me, from that moment on it was clear that these are not the right people for my business to collaborate with because they had different motivations than I had. And I was driving the business. I was driving the creativity and the vision of the business. So I needed partners that really, really support that energy and not, not the ones that take decisions for profit reasons. Yeah. And so I decided to buy them out. And it was, it was like crazy how much money like they, they made with this little investment. It was like venture investors would be, would be proud of them or on them.

How do you figure out a valuation to buy them out at? Because that's a privately held business like yours.

Yeah, sure. I mean in the end it's. You can measure as much as you want. You can only buy them out if they agree on the price. Right. So it's about, I would say it's about pure power and about good arguments and negotiations to get out of the situation. So we were obviously working with standard measures to evaluate our company value. And I mean you take figures like revenue, but also profitability and so on and so forth. And then also about market share, this and that. And at the end you get this one number. And maybe this is a starting point of the negotiation. But in the end it's about like what is the. Is it. How would I say, I think there will never be a price where both parties are happy. It's more. I think a lawyer once said to me the best price is when both are kind of unhappy because it kind of shows the right price. Never mind. We found price. It was hurtful for me and the business because we lost a lot of money that we could use for innovation and growth. But we got freed. And this was the most important part for me because my creativity and my creative power to create innovation and new products and to also find the right partners for our business in the sales area was really ignited by that freedom. And it helped us to grow to the scale that we are right now. And we're still paying back the money that, that we needed to. To. To buy them out. But I would do it again. And now we are in a steward owned model to protect our company for the long in. In the long run from investors creeds. That means that decisions can only be made by people directly working within the company, not external or people outside of the company. That also means that profits are locked in the company so I cannot extract them. I get a regular salary, which is fine for me. I as a founder, I also get a little compensation for founding the company which could be seen as kind of a return. And our company cannot be bought by like a third party company. So we are ever like belongs to itself.

Never ever. You cannot be acquired.

No. We could only. I think there could be the option that another company that is steward owned could acquire us. But I would need to go into in the very details to confirm that.

Gotcha. So maybe go into a little more detail on what is the definition of steward owned. And then somewhere I saw something about Purpose Ventures and Purpose Evergreen. I don't know what those are. If you.

Yeah, these are basically the vehicles like the entities that are investing into companies like ours. So they are the funding vehicles that enable companies to transform or to pay out or buy out initial investors. So they're exactly made for this transition and they're backed by purpose investors that also see the need for purpose driven companies and steward owned companies in general. And they see the need because it's so close to the original purpose of companies. I mean companies are made for a reason, to solve a problem in the world or to create a real value for people and not only for money reasons itself. So it is really a model that empowers the philosophy that a company is there for reason and sticks to its initial value and reason it was found. Yeah, yeah.

So Purpose Ventures is an independent external entity that has invested in you guys, is that correct?

Exactly. Yeah.

Okay. And they invest in steward ownership businesses basically.

Yeah. And a very famous example of a steward owned company would be Patagonia. I don't know if you've heard about their transformation, but they did exactly that to protect their company from a takeover or a shift in philosophy or you know, or creed of like individuals. But it is really the protection of the purpose of the company and that the money works or is there for to fulfill that purpose and not to fulfill individual unlimited wealth. I would say it's always possible to get a great salary within that model, but it's there to protect it from unlimited wealth that is unproportional to what people can actually contribute to a company.

Yeah, it's very different.

And does that make sense?

It does. And I, I know almost nothing about this part of the world. Like it's, it's part of the, the startup ecosystem. It's, it's very interesting. I'm on Purpose Ventures website and they say common financing instruments they use include revenue, royalty share redeemable, preferred, non voting supportive. So it's kind of interesting. They, they have a very different approach to this. Oh, go ahead please.

I think it's a, this, this model is interesting from many perspectives. So to, to make it a little bit more clear why this could also be very interesting for, for brands in other industries. I mean it's, it's the model that really creates trust to the very essential levels of a company. Because if we promise something as a company that we want to bring more playful movement into the world of, of kids and families, we, we must stick to this purpose because it's written in our statutes and we can change it and no one else from the outside can come and kind of change that purpose because it's written within our statutes which are protected by steward ownership. Meaning that the trust our company and our brand gets from our customers as soon as they read about it's. It couldn't be higher. So we have a huge trust factor. And then also trust plays an immense role when it comes to this whole technological shift that we're going through right now with AI. So everyone is. Or a huge topic is data privacy reasons. And with shared ownership you can really enforce the quality of data protection because no one from the outside can come and kind of take this data for reasons people did not agree to or something. The whole trust element is very huge in that model. And I think if you found a company or if you are working in a company where trust towards the customer plays an important role, this could be a very interesting thing to prove that you're trustworthy as a company.

Yeah, interesting trustworthiness, Right. I don't know if it's. It sounds somewhat similar to the Public Benefit Corporation, which is a kind of a newer entity type also. Right. Which is create. Aims to create a material positive impact on society and environment in addition to shareholder value. Kind of that dual purpose thing, right?

Yeah, it could be similar, but I think that the difference is that your purpose of the company could be something that is really not sustainable or that is not very beneficial to the social or the public. How you say good. Because it's just like the very statutes of the company and the very basic structure of the company that is protected, but what the company actually does is not defined. So you can do whatever you want to within that model.

Got it. Okay. So I want to get into this just a little bit and we're coming close on time, but maybe talk about that. So what, how much did Purpose Ventures put in? And then I guess what does that structure look like? Because they will eventually want to see a return on investment beyond the social good. So maybe talk about that deal if you can.

Yeah, I mean they invested a bit more than 2 million euros and the rest we paid from our profits and our like cash at hand. So they, they have a capped return. So they get a good return on their investment, but it's kept. And this is exactly the difference to conventional money that you raise for, for your company, that it is limited. And this makes it different because it is a fair return. It is not like that they're compromising on something here, but it is kept meaning that if we skyrocket they still get their defined return and not more. And I think that's exactly what this model really also wants to do. That the value that you bring into a company and this could be like workforce but it can also be financial potential that they bring into it is valued in terms of a defined and kept amount of money but not more.

What's the actual calculation? Is it kind of like a royalty? Like they'll get paid back based on your revenue or profit up until some point and then their return is completed? Is it something like that or some other model?

It's just defined. So they, they invested let's say the 2 million and they get like 6% as a, as a fixed return. And it's not. And it's not connected to our success. So they would get it no matter if we're going very well or not. Not, not so well.

It's more like a. More of a debt debt type of instrument or like.

Exactly, exactly.

Interesting.

But without having, but they're not having any influence on our decision making and I did not need to also. How do you say so if we would fail? I don't have a personal. How do you say it? Like half to obligation.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So they don't own. So in this steward model, typically the investor does not own equity. It's kind of more of a debt structure where they're getting paid back.

Exactly.

Okay.

Exactly.

That's very interesting. I haven't heard of two. Are there many of these types of investors out there? Did you talk to several?

Well, there are, there are especially from countries like Denmark where this model is very common. So it's not that this is something very fancy and very niche. In the US for sure it's very niche and in Germany it's still niche. But in other countries it's already pretty much standard that there is companies in this model because it just makes sense. So studies prove that companies within that model are more successful in the long run because employees are happier, they're more long term oriented. So their decision making is just healthier for the long term growth of the company because they're not always running for the next exit or the next part that makes their company look better than it actually is to sell it. So it's really about long term orientation and I think that that's exactly what our, our world needs to, to kind of become more sustainable and, and a healthy place to live in.

Do you have any idea how many steward owned businesses there are out there. I'm just curious if you've ever seen a statistic.

Yeah, I pet the people from Purpose like from Ventures and pec. They definitely know. I, I don't know actually but it's, it's thousands of company.

No, it's definitely interesting and Patagonia is an interesting case because they definitely have a, a halo effect around them. Right. Just with their.

OpenAI actually started in a similar model but then they changed it. So it was kind of a pity. But they actually also started with this very ideologic model to make it really like a purpose driven business. I think there's huge companies and pioneers that really choose that model because. For good reasons because they are really after their impact for a positive future and to also protect the initial reason of founding the company which I think especially for founders of companies is interesting and important because if they authentically found a company for a good reason and if it's not just a kind of a bubble to create personal wealth.

Yeah would feel like it's sort of suited well towards. I mean you know, what do you guys do? You make colorful eco friendly play play things to encourage more movement. Patagonia, what do they do? They make eco friendly clothes and have great policies about recycling their clothes and stuff like that. Yeah, I'm trying to see if it would apply to like a, a B2B SaaS business. It doesn't seem like fits as much. Right? I mean is it? I don't know. Yeah.

Why not? If they are really purpose driven it would just protect their purpose and their long term orientation. So there's basically no. I think it's kind of a bias. Now if you compare Patagonia and our business of course the sustainability and this long term eco friendly approach kind of pops out. But in fact that's what I wanted to express before. There's no kind of compromise in your purpose. You can do anything. You can be a SaaS company and be steward owned. And I think it really would change also the way that people feel working for the company because especially the employees, they can be sure that the work they put into the company and the hours and efforts are not for the private wealth of one person that founded the company or sells the company. But it's really because they are standing behind the reason and the very purpose of the company. You know what I mean?

I do, I do. I'm almost thinking, I'm thinking of it a little bit in terms of like even my business founder suite which is, I feel very mission driven. Like we're Aiming to help entrepreneurs. I feel like we're helping people pursue their dreams of building a better world, changing the world by helping them raise capital. But at the same time we're, we're profit driven. You know, like I have investors, so I have exit consideration. You know, it's interesting. We have the mission part of it, which is real and something I believe, but there's also the other reality of I have to return some profit to my investors.

Yeah, sure, but it could be like the investor money could just be kept. So it means like if you're, you pay them back and you pay them like a good return, but it's not endless, you know, it's limited. And I think you can find these people if they really are after the mission of your company and company and not only after the money that your, your company creates. And I think this is a great alignment if you, if you find investors that are willing to invest into your company because they really believe in the mission of your company and they want to support it, they are okay with, with a fair share and, and, and return, but they don't have the, you know, the like the need that it is 100x return or something. You know, like, I think it really helps to find the right people that, to invest in your company. Then one more question. If you would exit your company, would your wish be to like that the new owners would follow your mission or would you be okay if they really like transform your business that you grew into something that is really, for instance, that is against founding companies or influence people that would hinder them to kind of create new things that have a positive impact in for to the world.

That's a hard question. It's. When you ask that question, it's made me think of, we're currently selling my family's childhood home that We've owned for 45 years and it's going to get sold in the next like two weeks, right?

Yeah.

And it's kind of the same thing. Like part of me is like wishing it would turn over to some new family who starts a new family, but at the same time I think the new owner is going to tear it down and build her own thing.

Right.

So it's like I also have to just, just, you know, just let it go. Right.

Yeah, I see. I, I totally see your point. Yeah.

I don't know. It's a good question. All right, well, we're almost out of time, but what, where do you go from here? Like, do you, do you have to raise more money and would you. If so, would you continue to go after the same type of investor? Or maybe you're. You're good to. Good to go with what you have. Like what's the future hold? Yeah.

So for sure we could scale faster and grow faster if we would have more investments, especially for our international expansion. But I'm also a fan to stay at a scale we feel comfortable with until we really figured out a setup that is healthy to scale in the next. In the next phase. And I think at the moment I'm quite happy with our operating business and our success. We are profitable, we do well. We have enough cash at hand to create new products to research.

Yeah.

So I think we're happy with the situation we are in. Of course, growing our business is part of our purpose because we want to. With every product we sell, we increase the movement time in the world. So yeah, we are not against growth. But healthy growth and disturbed ownership model also defines that we can only use a certain quality of money which is limited in return. So obviously our access to investor capital or investment capital is kind of limited. But we are very lucky and happy to work with partners we feel comfortable with. Because I know so many founders and companies that burned themselves or kind of had really bad experiences with investors. Because at the beginning, everyone is happy and excited about growth and they found each other. Like the company has money and the investors are happy to have their new case. But as soon as the success is there, often the energy changes and people find themselves studying the contracts and what they agreed on in this exciting early stage. So maybe as a takeaway from my experience, really be aware of your company setup at the very beginning. Better spend more time figuring out the right contract details with your investors at the very beginning. Please also talk to your investors about their goals and talk to them at what stage they would be happy and when it at what stage it would be phenomenal. And then also try to ask if we could just define this phenomenal scenario and make a cap on it and say, okay, if this really happens, then we are all super happy. But we try to protect the company to bleed out by making a cap here. And it would not even need to be steward ownership, but maybe just try to really be clear with your investors on their expectations and not leaving this very important aspect open to the future. No one knows.

Yeah. Very interesting. I love it. Really interesting. Very different from most of our people on this show. It's really cool. So if people want to learn more or possibly order stoppelstein.de you can use com.

We have a US website and people mostly in the US most of the people say Staplestein so maybe they find it easier but it would be great if we find more people that enjoy our products and also spread the word because I think it's very important that we all are conscious about the importance of play, the importance of movement in our daily lives and and that we not forget about this very essential qualities of life within these very dynamic and yeah kind of troublesome times.

100% I like it. Good mission S T A P E L S t e I n.com staplestein or stupples stuff. Check it out. Also I think you can be found in other retailers in the U.S. so look, look it up on Amazon or a few other stores but really cool. Stefan thank you very much. Congratulations on how you've grown this kept to your principles, kept to your mission and and made successful business doing all that stuff. That's not easy.

Thank you so so much. N well done.

Thank you very much and and maybe we'll catch you later and see how the businesses evolved.

Duncan Shane yes again.