Kristin Slink - Co-founder of LoanHero

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge technology and the builders making it happen. I'm your host Neal Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador and together we're going to uncover what technology San Diegans are creating with our own blend of local lifestyle. This podcast is practically proudly brought to you by our friends at Cox Business. Cox Business provides broadband, Internet and cloud services to the modern tech company. Cox Business, a long time sponsor of the San Diego Startup Week and the startup community recently handed out the top tech awards and amongst the winners were Ryan Rusnack, CTO of San Diego Startup Aerospace Technologies. Congrats to Ryan and to all the winners. Coming up on May 30th is the new TechArt series featuring a night of applied Blockchain in Balboa park where technical leaders will speak to real world applications applications of the blockchain concept. And you'll get a chance to meet local companies working on it too. Go to 7ctos.ticketsocket.com for more info. Welcome back to another podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom and I have with me Kristen Slink, co founder of Loan Hero, recently acquired by Lending Point. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me, Neil. I appreciate it.

No, really excited to hear your story and hear about the recent acquisition. So we'll circle back on that in a bit. But really want to hear how did you get into finance, technology and San Diego? Take us back.

Well, San Diego is a separate story. So I grew up in New England, went to school in New Hampshire where it's super cold. So after four years of walking to classes in the snow and getting everything all wet and gross, you kind of feel like you need a change. I actually came to San Diego my junior year of college. I didn't even know what San Diego was. I actually thought I was going to San Francisco.

Oh, really?

So, yeah, totally funny. I was like my roommate who I traveled with, I was like, oh, we're gonna see the full house. This is great. And she's like, yeah, this is by the beach, by Mexico. So I quickly researched San Diego and saw the beautiful pictures and I was like, okay, this is great for spring break. But you know, I got here, fell in love with the area and so I had it in my head that this is where I need to be. It's so like me, it's so laid back, it's beautiful and there's no snow. So I went back to school and I would just talk about San Diego all the time. So I literally put pictures of San Diego over my bed, everyone I talk to, I'd say, hey, I'm moving to San Diego. What are you doing after you graduate? I felt like if I'd say that to more people, it would actually happen. So I was really manifesting my move to San Diego because even talking to my parents, they're like, you want to move where? Across the country? But here I am, so I did it. So I waitressed right after I graduated college, made some cash, got a one way ticket with one of my best friends, came out here with no job, no car, nowhere to live, two suitcases and big dreams.

You made it happen though.

I did. I rented a car at Enterprise, rent a car and met some really cool people and they said, hey, you should come work with us. And I was like, oh, I don't know, I've never done sales before. And I was a psychology major. So my vision was, I'm gonna go work in a hospital setting or something like that. So when I first got here, started loving the area, getting to know everything, applied to a bunch of places, and ended up deciding I didn't want to follow mental health and I wanted to go into sales with Enterprise. It was young people, it seemed really fun, it was a cool culture. And it was really neat that they had this management program where you basically learn how the business works and then manage it. So I thought that was really interesting. So I had always been interested in business, Spent a couple of years with Enterprise and got kind of my first taste of entrepreneurship when they had a brand new division open. And so it's called rideshare. Basically what we do is coordinate van pools, basically rent them the vans so that they can go back and forth to work. So thinking I live in Temecula, I travel downtown, so I'd have to convince people to jump into a van together and commute. But with that, I was really able to build up the division, really understand what the needs were, set up different processes and figured out the whole business model from a certain standpoint. Noticed there was a lot of opportunity in San Diego because there are certain incentives for the military. So convinced my team, because I had moved to Orange county to build this out, convinced them I wanted to move back to San Diego. So that's where all my friends were. So I spent maybe a year and a half in Orange County. Wasn't really for me. And so I brought that division down to San Diego and grew that from a very small footprint to a fairly large one. And that is the point where I met Derek, my co Founder. So we became instant good friends. He's very entrepreneurial as well. And so he was at the point where he wanted to quit his job and he was kind of dabbling in a few things. I would look over and be like, what is that? That's really cool. So kind of just said, I want to build something, I want to create something. And so with that desire, we both were trying to get a couple of things going. It was the time when Groupon started. So there was this tiny little company that was similar to Groupon. We tried selling that didn't really work.

What's that company called?

It was called Kunanza. You would never hear about it. It was kind of like a pyramid theme type of idea. That was one of my first learnings. Don't bring friends into business. Because I thought it was such a great idea, I convinced some of my friends to try to pay in and do it with me. And it's just so silly when I think back at it. But that didn't work. So failure, you kind of keep things close to your vest at that point. So learnings from that. So I hadn't quit my job. Still working for Enterprise. Derek had through this wholeanza, he ended up meeting this man who was working for something similar, but in consumer finance. So what consumer finance is, is you walk into a store, you want to purchase something and you get a loan to buy it or maybe a credit card. So a lot of people are familiar with furniture financing. You go in, you want to get the couch, you have 0% interest for so much amount of time. That's consumer finance. So this was a small little business. It was a broker that would work with a couple of different lenders. And what their job would be is to go out to businesses and sign them onto the program. So Derek started going into that and develop a sales marketing company. When he did that, he met an online lender up in Utah called First Health Funding. First Health Funding was just two doctors, two brothers who wanted to do something like CareCredit. So that's a big name, CareCredit, it's run by Synchrony, which used to be GE. They rebranded that, so they wanted to compete with that. And so what they did is they wanted to absorb Derek and his company into theirs and go big and create a platform and go out with a financing product.

Interesting.

So at this point, they need someone in operations. So he's like, I think this is your time to jump ship and come and do something really cool. So quit my job, got rid of my comfy Salary, my company car and really embarked on the adventure that I've been on. Yeah. And this is probably six years ago. So when I started with First Health Funding, what I immediately recognized was a need was to build an origination platform. So what I say origination platform is basically how do you get someone to apply for a loan and work it through the system in order to fund the loan. And so I worked with a software company that basically has a program in a box where you modify it and then you make it work with your flow, basically. So dove in there. I've never been in operations. I just think I'm very operational. So just dove in and created all these processes around it, started understanding technology and the different pieces because I would need things have to work with their developers in order to make it work for our system. Built up this really okay origination system. I mean it was the first one that we did. We got loans accomplished. You can go apply, we'd fund it and go through servicing and we'd send out notifications of payment and all these things. And so that was really exciting. However, the two brothers from First Health Funding decided that they didn't really want to keep going down this path and so they decided to part ways. However, that gave us a really good opportunity because it gave us an out the contract. So Derek was a partner and he was able to identify himself out of there indemnify. So he cut off. And through that process as well, we were talking to all these different lenders in the space. So him and I felt really strongly about consumer finance and saw a need there. And so we decided to create a business around this and we called it first look approval.

Was it First Look.

First Look Approval, yeah. So basically that was in 2000, early or probably late 2013.

Okay.

So here in San Diego, here in San Diego started working with some of the lenders that we had met in the past through that whole venture. Learned about this aggregator program. So basically you become a broker of their financing program. So you take their platform, you sell it to merchants and then you manage that merchant. So I would go into a furniture store and say, I have this financing program for you, you to use. I'm going to teach you how to use it, teach you how to implement it in your business, and then you can offer your customers loans. It's all about conversion, about how to take, I like to say, turn browsers to buyers. So how do you take someone who's interested in purchasing and actually close the sale? And sometimes it's difficult to do if they don't have the money to pay for it. So introducing financing, 0% interest, you know, stuff like that. So we ended up working with that lender, we ended up white labeling that platform. And so that's really where I got a knack for what do I want this user experience to be. I call them dinosaurs. So I was working with all these dinosaur lenders. It was really brutal. For someone who is younger and understands technology and knows that things can be super quick and easy, these processes were not quick and easy. So we built the platform, but it was always like, hey, why don't we do this to improve it? Why don't we do this, why don't we do that? And it was always like, well, you're not the developer, it's not your platform. Good suggestion, but I had no control over it.

Gotcha. Were any of the lenders here in San Diego?

No one. The lender that we primarily worked with is based out of Vegas.

Okay.

So this is also a time where there are a lot of aggregator programs out there and also a time where the CFPB came in. So it's Consumer Financial Protection Protection Board. I hope I got that right. Cfpb, they basically regulate consumer lending. And so what a lot of people would do with these aggregator programs is that they, they are not the lender. They don't know compliance, they don't know how to accurately explain financing details to someone. And so the lender that we were working with got hit hard in December 31st of 2013. So on New Year's Eve, I got a phone call that everything was shutting down. All these merchants that relied on our service to offer loans to their customers. And so Derek and I had to quickly think on our feet and figure out a different solution. So we reached out to a couple of different lenders and put together this interesting platform that they could use and basically do online loans where the person would get the, the money and then go pay the merchant. So it was a little bit of a different model because in our model we pay the provider, the business. So like the, the dentist or the contractor, we pay them okay for the loan. So we had to think quick on our feet, have a solution for our merchants. This lender just dropped us. They're like, I'm not lending in this space anymore. It's, it's, there's too many fines and everything like that. So that worked for a little bit. Met another lender, ended up white labeling their platform. What's unique about that platform, that experience, is that they would tie in all these other platforms. So it was basically an interface to tie in all these other platforms. So what we were essentially doing is creating what I call a waterfall. So I got to know intimately how all of these financing platforms worked. So I understand what was good, what was bad, and really helped merchants walk through the financing process. So I really got an intimate view about how does financing work in a business? How do they offer it? What do they run into? Do you need to download the docs and get a signature? Do you need to verify income? Do you need to send additional documents? There are all these different processes that it did, but it kept coming back down to it wasn't our technology. We weren't in control, we were not the lender. And so we were always having to adhere to the rules of these other parties.

And you'd never built a technology before.

Never built a technology before. I just understood how they worked and I knew I could make it better. And so Derek and I looked at each other and said, there's got to be a better way. Is also when peer to peer lending was big. So a lot of online lenders started coming in. So someone all of a sudden realized, hey, why are we doing lending in such an archaic way? Why aren't we using technology? Why aren't we doing electronic signatures? Why can't you give an instant decision? Why not? So these companies started coming about like, oh, that's really interesting. What if we could, you know, build something our own? That would be really cool. Oh, but we're good right now. Let's just keep doing what we're doing. Well, then that lender told us that they were shutting everything down. So then again, we found ourselves a lack of control. Had businesses that relied on our services and then could no longer satisfy that. So we decided, hey, let's raise money and build a business around this.

Wow, really cool.

Without any knowledge of that. So I literally think Derek googled investors in San Diego and found an article and called every single person on there.

That's incredible.

We did get a call back and we pitched our idea. Coincidentally, one of the investors that worked closely with that individual was also intimately tied to a company called dealstruck.

Oh yeah.

So remember dealstruck? Dealstruck had a similar business model in that they had a technology platform to issue loans, but business loans, where we wanted to build a technology to issue consumer loans. And so we're like, ah, there's a lot of synergies. Also, one of our old employees from when we were building first health funding actually worked there so we're like, oh, that's where he works. That's really interesting. Hmm. So we kind of use that synergy to get them excited about the opportunity. But they said, you have nothing. You don't have technology. You're not a lender. You've got knowledge, but you don't have anything solid. And so basically they blindly were like, let's just go for it. And so they gave us $400,000. And so it basically, we spent it as a talent acquisition. So First Health funding was spun into Loan Hero. Did take us a little bit to come up with a name, but we really loved it. Great name. And. Yeah. And then hit the ground running. So that's kind of the background story to get us to the point. And Lonehero. So Lonehero got its raise in June of 2014. So if you think about the timeline, December 31, 2013, we get shut down for the second time with no control. And then June of 2014, with literally, I think I had $5 in my bank account, and I was signed up to be a Lyft driver, the money hitter bank.

Wow.

And so from there, really learned how to build a business. Yeah, a tech business. Yeah. And that's really where I ended up falling into, is the tech side. So because I had that intimate experience of understanding all the platforms, what worked, what didn't work, what I liked about it. I became the architect of what our platform is today.

Really cool.

So putting together wireframes, working with the tech team, understanding how do I communicate with you, how do I make you understand what I'm trying to achieve? Where do I start? Where do I focus on what's an mvp? How do you build that? Really learning everything as we went. We had bootstrapped everything with First Health funding. We were making a little bit of money with first look approval, and then all of a sudden found ourselves like, we're building a business. This is great. And so that started our journey. There was one point where we were doing $8 million in loans per month with some of our clients. Everyone loves our technology. Our process is super simple in regards to our competitors. We really bring in a lot of aspects of technology to make the process simple. And that's really what's at the heart of what I do. So I consider my role product. I sit between the business and technology. I really help everyone understand how everything fits within the platform, how does it affect compliance, finance, legal, all of that. So making sure that all of the needs are met and what's ultimately the best user experience. So how does someone go through? How do you retain them? How do you make it so that it's super simple? So that's really my focus.

Big role.

Yep. And so had Loan Hero for, I think, four and a half years. And then our acquisition to Lending Point happened in December of 2017.

That's exciting. Let's go back a little bit into Loan Hero and significance of it. Building a company here in San Diego. So you'd built some loan companies in the past. Fintech or finance companies. This was your first tech company. What was it like doing it here and learning that here? Did the community lean in for their mentors?

I'm glad you asked that. So the first thing that we did is we worked with a company out of Tijuana called Sonata Services. And so they have a team of developers that they put together for you. And it was really easy to work with them because I could just hop on right across the border and actually be there with them physically. So I'm a very visual and person who likes to talk with my hands and be very animated. And so it's important for me to be able to explain what I'm trying to do. Draw things out on a whiteboard, you know, really talk through what I'm looking for. And so I found a lot of success in that also. After we got going for a little bit, we were first in a building shared with one of our investors. Then we moved up to Carlsbad, working alongside dealstruck. So they were downstairs, we were upstairs. We shared our chairman, so he would work between the two different companies and kind of guiding us as we were growing. I think we were four employees at that point. And then we got into EVO Nexus. So we heard about an incubator. I never had any idea of the concept. What's really funny, actually, is that as we were bootstrapping first look approval, I had no idea about the startup scene. I had no idea about what investors were, what to ask, how to do a pitch deck. I had to look up what a pitch deck was. We had to look up what goes in a pitch deck. How do you do this? And it was really crazy that once we heard about EVO Nexus, I think one of our investors told us about it to apply. I realized there was a whole community of people like me who are building businesses and figuring stuff out. May not know everything, but have that vision and that desire and that dream to really make things happen. And so getting into EVO Nexus, going in the downtown location, being part of a new cohort and Meeting all these different businesses, like, I'm not the only one. This is great. There's other people who are passionate about stuff like this. And so that was huge. And right. I think it was like maybe two months after we got into EVO Nexus, there was Startup Week and all of a sudden I was like, there's all these people in startup, like, where are all these people coming from? This is great. It's awesome. And so that experience, really the most benefit I got out of EUO Nexus was meeting other people, other like minded individuals, seeing other companies, seeing all the cool things that are happening in San Diego that I had no idea, absolutely no clue.

Did that community not exist in the finance world? Not in the same way.

Not in the same way, no. And I mean we were really boxed in. It felt like we were just very, just trying to make stuff happen. You know, you're just very dedicated to what you're doing. We had an office and our first one was in Kernesa before we got the investment worked out of there with a couple of people, got interns bootstrapped, made every little penny count and didn't have any help. I mean, now that I look back at it, knowing the people that I know and the community exists, I really wish I did know that that existed. I think it would have kept me sane. It's really hard working out of your house. Well, this is before we got the office, but working out of your house, being constantly involved in not knowing how things are going to work and where money is going to come from and where you're going to go with it, looking back, I can appreciate the journey. So as I tell my story and I'm not even saying all the things that happened, I mean, we'd be here for hours. But looking back at my story, I see my learnings and I see how I've grown from that opportunity, that process. And now I know that there's people around that I can talk to. Even before we got acquired, I'd reached out and said, how does this work? What am I supposed, what kind of questions do I ask? How does this go down? So being able to reach out to people in the community has been a huge help. So it's like night and day from when we started to now of knowing that there are resources out there, even where we sit today, I didn't even know anything about shared workspaces. Yeah, no clue. So yeah, it's been crazy.

San Diego is a pretty giving community, that's for sure. You know, at least the tech community that we know, people lean in to help. So it seems. I can't speak for many other communities as detailed, but it seems like people lean in and give before they get.

Exactly. It really is. And the biggest thing is support. So there's a couple of groups that I'm a part of and sometimes I don't want to go. Sometimes sitting on my really bad day, I don't know if I can go and just talk about things and I go there and I figure it out. Sometimes I cry and sometimes I laugh and sometimes I drink a lot of whiskey. But you know that there's a support system there that people are going through similar things that you have can give you some insight. And also what's good is getting an outside perspective. So being able to talk about things that you're going through and have someone who doesn't know you and doesn't really know what you, you're doing be like, well, this is what I'm hearing you say and this is my suggestions to you. So that's super helpful.

Yeah, definitely. Having that tight knit network for sure. Well, take us through a little bit the, the last few months, whatever you can say about this acquisition. You know, it's what everyone builds a company they think is what they want as an exit.

Right.

You hope for either acquisition, ipo, but some kind of milestone that you're trying to hit and whatever you can say. I know usually things are, you know, under wraps for quite a while because of whatever you can. But tell us, take us through kind of the wrapping up of Loan Hero and then bouncing into Lending Point.

It's not easy. There's a lot of challenges that come with it. As a founder of a business that you spent six years building, you know, through this and then that and so on and so forth, you feel a real big ownership to what you built. The platform's my baby. If anyone says anything about it, it's like, I take it personally, which I've been working on. Don't take things personally, but you really have this connection to it. And so when your business is acquired, you sell your company, it's no longer your company and you're now part of new business. So it's been difficult. A little bit about LendingPoint, we've known them for a while, so I had mentioned earlier that in the time where we were kind of in this transition phase or a lot of online lenders coming up, they raised money right around the same time we did. Okay, so they are, we call it direct to consumer online lender. So if you're looking for a loan, you go to Credit Karma, you go to LendingTree, or you go to their website directly, you can get a personal loan. So you say what you need the loan for. A lot of people are doing it for debt consolidation. So if I have a ton of credit cards and I want to get one loan to pay it off, the smaller interest rate, a lot, that's the typical use case that we see. So you go online, you get a loan, you get that money. So we had known them a while. We had seen that different conferences were kind of, you know, start at the same time, and you see how businesses grow. And we had been friendly. You know, we had seen each other at different conferences and talked and kind of knew each other. And so we reached a part in Lone Heroes existence that we needed to raise a lot more money than we were making headway with. And so we started to look for strategic partners. Because with a lending business and as a lender, not only do we need to have money to support the business, we need to have money to lend to people. As I mentioned, we were at one point doing $8 million a month in loans. So as you can tell, you need to have a backup with that money. And so we started looking for strategic partners. What other lenders can we tie into who are not directly in point of need, but like to lend money that we can put into our platform and give them deals? Because the thing with online lenders is they're all competing for basically the same business. I give you a flyer, I send you mail at your house. I have a partnership with Spirit Airlines. Anything that I can do to say personal loan, personal loan, come apply to me. Even in Credit Karma or LendingTree, you're competing with all the different lenders because different offers are presented to the consumer. So what we found is that these lenders that were not in our space wanted loans, but didn't necessarily know a creative way to get it. Our business model, we work with merchants. So merchant is just a general statement of what we use for the businesses that we work with. Think home improvement contractor, automotive specialist, dentist, plastic surgeon. Any business where the cost of service is usually $1,000 or more, average ticket is about $3,000. So our average loan is right around there. So we work with them. And it's all about conversion, right? So use our financing as a way to close browsers to buyers. So because of that, the merchants are basically, I call them our cheerleaders, our merchants, if they like the platform and you're giving them approvals where it Makes sense. They'll keep using you. And so instead of having to compete on these different platforms and send out mailers and get people interested, we rely on our businesses to offer financing at.

Every sale and drive customers.

And drive customers. And so that's very appealing for some of these lenders who it's a very competitive environment. So we started going down this strategic, hey, we need money to lend conversation and quickly found out that they were looking to build this side of the business. So call it consumer financing. Point of need, point of sale, all the same thing. Getting a loan when you need it most. And at the same time, we just closed the deal with Invisalign, so we work as partners of Invisalign. You will be seeing our marketing in a variety of different point of purchase areas, which I'm really excited about. But there's a ton of synergies, so they wanted to go in the space already. They loved our technology. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Product Officer.

Yeah, and. And it just made sense. And so at that point, we're like, why compete against each other? We're going to do this anyways. We like your platform. It's all speed of market, and we had a lot of synergies with them, so it made sense for them to acquire our business.

That's really great. Congratulations.

Their team has been together for a while through a variety of different businesses. They have built and sold a variety of companies and so felt really comfortable with the management team. It was just a good move. But, you know, that all being said, it's not easy. Again, that's what I would like people to understand, that, yes, it feels good to get your business sold, to create something that someone sees value in. But no one tells you about the personal struggles of giving up the reins and the control and what you feel so connected to. And so the past. What is it? It's March, four months or so, almost April. In the last four months, it's been a roller coaster. It's been a lot of personal development, you know, dealing with the fact that I'm not in control anymore and that I have to work with others and coming into a more mature company. There are about 150 employees. We were at 25. So coming into a more structured company where everyone has very specific roles, where I've dabbled in everything. You know, I do product, but I also order the coffee or the office supplies. I do a little bit of legal and compliance, and, you know, I do it all. And so now it's like, what do I want to focus on the question was, where do you think you're going to add the most value? Where do you want to focus on? And it's not always easy to answer that question. Sometimes you don't always understand what you want. But I really found that my home is in product, in technology. I like to call myself a business person who understands technology. I get it. I can talk the talk. I can't code. I would like to learn. But I can now, through my experience, articulately explain what I want and be able to build the requirements around that and be able to track the progress and understand how everything comes together. So the sausage making factory, I kind of understand how the sausage is made.

Yeah. But you're the product owner.

Yeah. So. And it's. And it's been fun. So we've. We're fully integrated now. We are rebranding as Lending Point Merchant Solutions. So we've. We're fully integrated. Lending Point is the loan that we offer. So it's great. They do all the servicing as well. So when we gave the loan and we would want to get paid back, we would use a third party. Sometimes you need to focus and hone in on what exactly you're going to do. We were too small to do it all, but again, it kind of comes back to that lack of control. So with the other businesses, I had lack of control in doing things with servicing, you had a lack of control. So now we have. Our business is the one that's in control of the servicing. And so being able to take care of consumers and work with them on payouts and this doesn't work for your budget. How do we make it work? And so I think it's just overall a better experience for everyone.

That's great. Well, we know that part of this acquisition is you having to move to Atlanta.

Yes.

Which we as a city are sad about.

Yes.

But we know you can't take the San Diego out of a San Diego.

No. So I've been here for 10 years.

Yeah.

So I am a San Diegan. Just want to. Just want to put that on the record here. I, like I said, I was in college and I had pictures of San Diego, but my bed. I love San Diego. I love the people. I love my network. I will be back.

Oh, we know.

Mark my words.

For sure.

So Atlanta's cool. They don't have good tacos, though.

So talk to us about your favorite tacos.

Taco stand. Taco stand.

Taco stand.

All day long.

Across the street from the office.

Oh, my gosh. All day Long. That atabata taco is to die for with a grilled pineapple. Yeah.

So we'll have to do a lot of tacos before you leave. Yes, that's for sure.

Yeah. Well, I actually was there last weekend looking at places and fake tacos, I want to say. Not authentic at all. I mean, they're good.

Yeah.

It's not a taco. Yeah, it's not. No. It doesn't even come close.

Talk to us about some other favorites of San Diego. Do you have a favorite local beer?

I do. I've actually been really liking sours. Love sour beers. Fall Brewing has a great one called Jazz Hands. They do different flavors too. So sometimes they'll do like a watermelon or just a regular Jazz hands or a sangria. Jazz Hands they've done. I live in north park, so it's walking distance.

That's perfect. I like it.

Yeah. But I mean, it's hard to choose because there's so many breweries around here and a lot of them are starting to do sours.

Yeah.

Which is something I'm really gonna miss because there's not too many sours out in Atlanta. They have like a couple breweries. They try to be cool like San Diego, but it's not the same.

You'll just have to take like either sandy vacations or get gift packs from people. We'll send you some.

You send me beer. Send me beer and tacos.

Yeah. Another burgeoning scene here is our coffee scene. Do you have any favorite coffee spots in San Diego?

I have to say, I love Better Buzz.

Oh, yeah.

And they've been doing great too. I mean, I used to always go at that tiny little location on Garnett. A little drive through. The best drink ever. I get half of the sugar mixture, though, because I like it a little less sweet. It's awesome. Gets you ready to go for the day. They have locations everywhere. They've got. Not only did they have a coffee stand in the mall in Fashion Valley, but now they have a storefront.

Oh, yeah.

And they think they just opened a new one in PB and then a.

Huge one in Hillcrest.

I haven't been there yet. There's one near me.

Yeah. Yeah, check it out. I think it's like a two story coffee spot. Co working almost kind of place. Yeah, Check it out.

And their slogan. But life's better buzzed. I mean, how can you not like that? It's so cute.

I go to the one in Encinitas.

Yeah, they're great. Yeah. So that was an Easy. That was an easy answer.

Well, we're gonna miss you here locally, that's for sure. But we can keep track of you socially online. Where's the best place for people to find you? On Twitter, LinkedIn? Any of those that you're active on?

I'm more active on Instagram. I like to post pictures of my dogs.

Cool.

And it's a lot of lonehero too now Landing Point Merchant Solutions. But we do funny things in the office. Like one old picture is someone built their own stand up desk through cardboard boxes. So, you know, get really creative.

Yeah.

But yeah, I should probably up my social media game, but probably Instagram's the best.

We'll follow you on Instagram. We'll see the eyes of Atlanta through San Diego.

Yeah.

Well, Kristen, thanks so much for being here. Really good to get to know your story and we wish you all the luck in Atlanta and don't be a stranger. Come back soon.

I absolutely will.

Awesome.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Blum. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. This has been a partnership with the San Diego Venture Group and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation's SD Life Changing campaign. You can find Neal bloom on Twitter eelbloom and on LinkedIn. And join us next time when we host Maxime Percierski, the Chief Data Officer for the city of San Diego.