Foregoing Big 4 Partnership for a New Adventure with Stewart Spiers

Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by a former colleague of mine, actually, Stuart Spires. Welcome to the pod, Stuart. Thank you, Dom, for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah, my pleasure. So you were, I believe, a manager when I started as an intern at Deloitte. And you were always kind of the, you know, SMB guy, like, I feel like you were always super interested in serving that clientele. And you're kind of kicking off a new journey now, I think probably largely driven by that interest in the SMB space. So do you want to talk us through kind of what you what you've been up to over the last little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've definitely my focus was on the SMB, and we called it a bunch of different things over the years. Actually, when I started in at Deloitte, about 15 years ago, as a co-op, we were, they called themselves PCS, or private company services. So really servicing that market of small and medium sized companies, and they had a wide range of stuff. They had recently made an acquisition of a smaller firm. So it was like, anything from professionals to construction companies, real estate. And I really liked the space when I joined first, like you got to know the clients pretty well. Their owner managed a lot of entrepreneurs. And one of the reasons I went into accounting was because I like business, I wasn't sure which major to go into, I'm just like, I just want to be with these businesses and watch them grow and stuff. And accounting kind of clicked. The tale as old as time. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, and so it was kind of like a de facto, I'm like, well, everybody needs an accountant, numbers and accounting is the language of business. So I'll just work there. So I get to work with everybody. And that's what ended up attracting me to that space and at the time Deloitte. And then, yeah, so I practiced there. And I had, you know, going up in Deloitte, at least professionally, I did some other stuff. Like I went to international tax for a while to see what that was about, working with various groups. Yeah, I always got pulled back to that small and medium sized business, the SMEs or SMBs. Again, because I felt the value was there, the clients like it, but you really grow that relationship. And it was just kind of exciting to be there with them. So yeah, I guess by the time when I was manager that you started, yeah, that was the space I kind of doubled down in. And that was probably like you mentioned before, that's kind of what drove me to where I am now is kind of being attracted to that space. So yeah, it's something I've always been passionate about, for sure. Yeah. And then, so most recently, you're about a month into your new job. And so you kind of, you ended up leaving the big four to go work at TAG. So a much smaller practice that, you know, has a pretty wide scope of offerings. And it seems like you would be kind of the first sort of, you know, dedicated tax planning person at that firm. So you know, they were doing some tax work before, but it just seems like there was an appetite to level up that practice. And I mean, you would make a lot of sense for that, right? So I think that's a great role. Can you talk us through what kind of drove the decision to want to look for something new? You know, for a lot of people, like you were at that next step where, you know, the next thing for you would have been partner at the big firm, which I'm sure is kind of what you aspired to for most of your career. And so what drove the decision for the change? Yeah, it was a hard choice. I mean, I didn't leave anything like that was really negative, per se. But I was at a crossroads, like you said, it was kind of, I'm going to take the next step at leadership if I stay. And I really, which is a big commitment, right? I felt like if I took that step, you know, stay for a little bit longer, I'm going to be more committed, which is not necessarily good or bad. But it kind of made me take a step back and say, okay, well, like, what do I really want to be working on in 5, 10, 15 years? And what really excites me? And it's probably something kind of like you said, you're always aspiring, like I started 15 years ago. And it was just like, you know, you want to be part of the leadership team that it's kind of the upper route mentality. And at some points, maybe you question it a bit, but it's really important to have that conversation with yourself right before. And I was right there at the crossroads and kind of going back to your other questions is what is really excite me? What am I passionate about? And that was really working with these owner managed companies, the smaller ones. I was still doing that at Deloitte, probably at a different level. I was focusing on some different markets. That was, it was great. And it made sense for the markets that I was serving. But what I noticed is that, you know, my career over 15 years has kind of shifted. Like there were some, you know, divestitures and stuff like that. And business changes that happened that made me shift focus a bit, which were good. Lots of good opportunities there that I got to learn from. But I'm like, what do I want to do and what kinds do I want to serve? And again, going back to the small businesses, I really wanted to be working with them. And I want to do that more, not less. And it was a bit tough to do. So I'm like, if I stay here, what would that look like at Deloitte? And it kind of brought me, it was like quite a big journey of me figuring it out. And it wasn't like an aha moment per se, because I find any good decision or any big decision it's really rare that you're going to be like, okay, here's the one answer. You know, I did my pros and cons list and I talked to everybody and I made a decision. I feel really good. It's usually, they're probably both good answers, but it's just which one excites you more. And that's really what I try to do. I'm like, I don't want to wake up and be like, oh, I have to go to work or one of this. I really want to be excited. And so for me, I went back to, again, why I went to school, why I chose accounting. It's working with these small companies and that's really what I have to do. And so that was a big factor in terms of what I want to be working on. There was other ones as well, for sure. Because like you said, I went from big four to a small firm. And there's a range, a spectrum of how large firms are, of course. And I went from probably, at least in the city, one of the largest tax practices to definitely somewhere on the other end of the spectrum. So what drove that decision was probably more, I wanted something more entrepreneurial. And what that really means is more autonomy, more ability to be involved in the strategic direction. Something that's a bit more, you can have more direct input. As you are aware, the big four partners, it's a very large partnership. Like the leadership table, there's lots of different leadership tables, depending on the region and how they're structured. And because of how large they are and how they're governed, you lose a bit of that entrepreneurial spirit. And you can get it within your little market and your team, but I really wanted that to be a big focus of my career. So that was the other thing. So it was definitely the autonomy, the entrepreneurial aspect, and then the clients. And once those two things, I kind of realized them, they clicked. And it gave me a different lens when I was looking for a good position that would be a good fit for me. Yeah, I mean, some people on the way out and when they talk about leaving a place, they leave because it's truly just really bad conditions. I think you and I both know the Ottawa office, at the very least, at Deloitte, there were some really good people. And I felt like in terms of the big four experience, we had it pretty good. There were really good people. There were people who would kind of vouch for us and advocate for us there, which was really nice. But then there are these structural challenges. And that was really, that's where I saw the writing on the wall for myself too, is it was just like not a structure that I was going to thrive in. And it was a bit of like, it felt like a square peg in a round hole. And very quickly realized like, oh, this is just not going to be what I want it to be. And for you on the small business side, just so we kind of understand this a little bit more clearly, from my perspective, it seems like the biggest challenges of you being able to serve that market in the way you want. I mean, A, I remember towards when I was leaving, there was a big push for the firm to move more upmarket. And I know there was like a lot of questioning of should this person be a client or not? There were some people that I had met that I had kind of brought forward of like, oh, I really want to work with them. And it was deemed to be not a fit, which can be challenging when what you maybe want might be at odds with the firm's goals. And then I would imagine the billable hour rate too is probably a bit of a challenge as well. Like sometimes you might just be pricing some of these businesses out that you want to work with, I imagine as well. Is that a factor? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and like I said, they're dealing with a lot of different challenges because they're so big, like any big four. Between the chargeable hours and the shift on focus, I don't think the issue, but the difference would be that I've observed is the push to bigger markets is they have all this value that they can add, which is really good. But really what they're trying to do is have a client that's a good fit with the value that they're offering. And sometimes that's not, you know, a small construction company, a landscaping company, or a dentist. They might have something where they have a transaction where they're getting the value, and it makes sense, and maybe they're one-off or advisor consulting engagements. But for the most part, that's the challenge that they have. And they're not really in the business of turning anyone away. It's just how they're structured is to make sure they bring the full value to these clients. And full value, I'm meaning like, you know, consulting ERP, the audit, and then financial advisor services, tax, of course, like everything, and when they can engage going together with multiple service lines, it fits really well. And it's a challenge, like you can imagine, like if you talk to a second generation landscaping company that's working in my area, and it's like, oh, do you need an ERP implementation along with an audit or a review? And they're like, well, no, but I need some bookkeeping and some accounting, and I need some advice on some succession planning. So I think that's where you have a bit of friction in terms of what the client needs and the value of the firm, what they're offering. And it's a big challenge. So it's something I've observed and, you know, like every firm goes through different life cycles, every office as well. Like you mentioned Ottawa, that's a wonderful office. And again, when I started, they had acquired a smaller firm within the city, and they were doing pretty well because they took the team there, they integrated them with, again, it was PCS, and they were working on those clients, and it was structured fairly well to serve them. But over time, as things shifted, like for one reason or another, and through some divestitures, like that just didn't exist anymore. And it's not, you know, better or worse, it's just different. And then, of course, you mentioned the billable rates. So yeah, that's a big challenge. Like I think I was, yeah, I was like, I looked at my billable rate before I left, and it was quite high. And, you know, if I'm even talking to somebody, like, I'm like, I, you know, I'll work on onboarding you, getting your engagement letter out. And I'm like, okay, we're already at like $5,000, and I haven't even done anything yet. So it is a big challenge for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about the actual process of, you know, planning where you wanted to go. I mean, we had some conversations. And as well, earlier, you mentioned, you were a little bit more interested in the sort of entrepreneurial side of things where I definitely do agree from all the conversations I've had. Yeah, you might be an equity partner at a big four, you're still kind of an employee to a degree. I mean, you share in a lot of the financial upside, but not necessarily the business making, you know, the business decision making experience of actually just being an entrepreneur. So one of the challenges with those big firms is they have excellent resources. But what ends up happening is you're in the, you know, the Deloitte verse, basically, where all of the CPE is their CPE. And there's, they have their own conference, they have this and that, and you really don't end up, you know, seeing the field of what's going on in public accounting and what might be out there for you. So I'm curious to hear more about that journey and how you kind of decided that what you wanted to do was join an existing firm to scale up a practice rather than maybe just go out on your own. Yeah, yeah, that was a good point. And the whole journey was filled with probably a few surprises. Like you said, you're kind of focused on that environment being in there, like a big four environment. In my case, that Deloitte, especially starting from co-op, right? Like my whole coming of age for my career was all at Deloitte. So all my training, like you said, everything was Uncle D. And they did a really good job. I think I don't have another bar for reference. But like you, like after 15 years, you can imagine like, I know what's out there from industry. Like you always get, you know, you're talking to clients, you know, what's out there on the industry side. But if you're looking at something in public practice outside the firm, you probably know what's going on at the other big four. There are similarities and maybe, you know, you've probably worked with them one way or another, have colleagues there. But I was surprised at how much else is out there. So you mentioned like you and I talked and like, because I know you had a very interesting journey and you were out there. So you were one of my first conversations that I had and you put me in touch with some people. So I was surprised when I started talking to those people outside the firm, surprised at how much is going on out there, how much opportunity. I wouldn't say like how much market needs to still be served, but how much appetite there is for, you know, CPAs or good accountants out there. But also like the amount of varied stuff you can do out there, like you can go out and be a solo practitioner. There's a, I know people doing that, like we know some people doing that. And I listened to a lot of guests in your podcast as part of that process. And I didn't really realize that was there, right? I never had, not that I wasn't interested or maybe it was just me living under a rock or in that Deloitte silo. It's not something I ever paid too much attention to. So when I did look at, I was surprised and I was like, that actually sounds pretty good because I'm comparing that again to what I want entrepreneurial. And I'm like, you know, you can do that without killing yourself in a lot of ways. Like there's a lot of good tech out there. There's a lot of good tech stacks and like, there's a lot of good resources out there. So I was really surprised at the amount of people and support as well. It wasn't just like, oh, hey, come work with me or I'll share you, you know, I'll share a model with you and you can kind of do that there. There was everything under the sun. There was like platforms you can join. There was just support groups you can join. And there's like, I think I'm on some Facebook tax practitioners in Canada that like they get the oddest questions on there, but it was, I joined all these groups. And yeah, it was just, it was, it was, yeah, eye opening to see how many are out there and good opportunities too. Like, like it wasn't like, it wasn't that they were different caliber, they were great opportunities out there and there still are. So I was really surprised there. And probably what took me a while to kind of make the decision is I was really trying to see which one was a good fit for me. And you kind of mentioned that the latter half of your question is, you know, why did I end up joining a firm that's already scaled up versus starting my own? And that was one I've spent a lot of time on. Because again, if you like, I wanted to work with small clients, I wanted to be more entrepreneurial. So for sure, one of the things I looked at was starting, you know, something on my own small. I'm like, do I want to do solo or do I, would I want to scale? And then I really looked at what that journey would be like. And I've got two young kids and a wife that played a factor in that. And I told, I told Alice and my wife, I'm like, look, I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm probably going to leave. I mean, I wanted something more entrepreneurial. You know, it'll take me like two years to ramp up to my salary. Don't worry, we just renovated our house. So I've got like a mortgage. She's like reluctantly like, okay, you know, she wants to be really supportive. I'm like, I'm like, it'll be okay. I'll get some, you know, consulting jobs on the side to kind of stop that. But I really want to focus on, on ramping up. And honestly, I'm not even sure it would have taken 24 months. Like most people I've talked to are like, it's going to be sooner than that. Right? Yeah. I mean, there's a, there's quite a spectrum. And once you're at like the experienced senior manager level, it's also a bigger backfill. Right? It is. Yeah. Yeah. You have to build the handcuffs, which is, which is, yeah, a real danger for sure. Yeah. Like by the time I left, I was like, listen, I need to get to a hundred thousand. Like that's not, not feasible, but then the goalpost might be two and a half times further. So that becomes a little bit trickier for sure. And there's a huge gambit, right? Some people are like, oh yeah, like year one, I doubled my salary. And then some other people are like, oh yeah, I'm, you know, I'm two and a half years into it. I didn't want to kill myself. Like, one of my things is I want more control autonomy and that's including my flexibility to work. So I didn't really want to be dealing with IT issues and, and, and HR stuff. And that was just a personal choice. Like, like I knew I would have to scale. Like that's, that's something that was like, I tried to, I'm like, what's true. I was not going to be solo for, it's a good, you know, if you could, if you could do it. And it just wasn't a good fit for me. So I'm like, I'm going to have to scale. And the firm that I was looking at that I ended up with Tag, um, we clicked really well. And I, I kind of took a step back and I'm like, they grew something really well. And there's a big need for, for somebody like me coming up with tax experience. So I feel like I was really lucky to find that good fit. Cause I'm like, if I were to scale up a firm and, you know, try to grow it over 10 years, it probably looked like something like this. Uh, and I was fortunate enough to find that what I felt was a really good fit. Uh, so it made the decision a little bit easier for me to join something like Tag, a small firm rather than start my own. Yeah. That's been my, my newest thing over the last sort of three or so months where I'm, I'm pushing a lot of people towards similar moves as that when they speak with me, because I think this is a, it's a really underrated opportunity. Um, this one isn't exactly that, but, um, you know, I, I've just very recently was helping a, a, a Kaz sort of bookkeeping practice who wanted to tack on tax services. And I had a couple people who would have been good tax leaders for that. And I find that to be a really interesting opportunity because it's, it's really synergistic for everybody. And I'm sure you don't end up with the full amount of equity that you would have otherwise, but it's a bigger pie, right? So you, you start on second, or maybe in your case, even kind of third base where it's like, all right, well, there's an existing base of compliance clients who already trust us. You can probably sift through that pretty quickly and find a bunch of tax planning opportunities. And then there's a cross sell base from, you know, the wealth advisory group that they do who de facto will probably be a pretty good high net worth pool of people who tend to have some things going on that are tax planning opportunities. Right. And so you can really limit your downside while still having a lot of the upside. Now, at that point, it just becomes kind of like a personality thing of, do I really fully just want to be able to do whatever I want and put up with all the downsides of that? Or do I like having coworkers right off the bat as someone who's been working alone with contractors for the last year? I can tell you, sometimes you feel like you're going a little bit crazy, right? So, yeah, there's definite benefits to that. So what's been, you know, immediately one month in, like what stood out as being very, very different to you? Yeah, I'm exactly one month today, which is kind of kind of worked out nicely. Yeah, it's definitely different. Like I went in and it's like just physically it's quieter because like you mentioned, the people like they're, you know, I'm still working with people, but it's a lot less people. And they're a bit more concentrated. But some of the things that stood out over the last month is how agile they are. Like there, I mentioned like going through the onboarding process at Deloitte and engagement. Like if I want to onboard a client, you know, you go through the know your client KYC exercise, you do the background checks, you do the engagement letter, it gets approved at many different levels. It goes back and forth. You know, we do some sort of pricing thing in the background. And, you know, a week and a half later, if you're lucky, you get an engagement letter. At the new firm, you know, one weekend, I was on a call with a prospective client there for some advisory work. And, you know, we're like, OK, here's what we can do. And she's like, that sounds wonderful. Let's move forward, you know, with an engagement. And two hours later, she had an engagement letter in her inbox. And I was just like, I was like my I'm like, is that for me to review? Like the engagement? They're like, no, it's all been approved. It's out the client. And I got like we open up like job costing. Right. The job was opened up as well. And like that was like, I don't even think it was two hours later. And I asked him, like, is this normal? It's like, yeah, yeah. There's there's just not a lot of bureaucracy going through the process. Like it was it was it's crazy how agile they are and not just with the onboarding, but with everything else as well. So I think that's I looked at that as a as a positive thing. Yeah. Again, not having to get like various levels of approval for stuff. So, yeah, you have and stuff's more in the feedback's more like immediate. So if if we need something changed, if something's not working, we just have a conversation, again, less people than you just among like a couple of people and stuff changes. Like we're just like, OK, let's let's let's adjust that. Let's fix this. And it just happens like almost real. So like the agility to me is just is amazing because I'm not spending like what would otherwise be hours or days waiting for something to happen. It just you can you can affect change really quickly and you can move forward really quickly. So I really appreciate that, because one of the things that that I'm doing here is, you know, growing the practices. I want to really make sure that our clients are being served really well. Like we you know, we do good work, of course. And do it right, but that they're served well. And part of that is, you know, you're being timely. So like getting your engagement letter, getting the work delivered quickly and then getting, you know, everything built out. And instead of like months, because we have a huge process, we can condense that down into a pretty small time frame. So, yeah, that's been the biggest thing that I noticed over the last the last little while. And then on the people as well, I think you mentioned it before, but like the resources is is way different. And I would if I get some complex indirect tax issue or cross-border, I've got a bunch of people who I know that are that are in that like service line specialty, that's all they do. I can get an answer from them pretty quick or loop them in with a client. It just doesn't it doesn't exist. That's a small firm. So if they ask you a question like like like that, that comes down to basically you have to figure out what it's going to be. So like losing that, not losing, but not having, you know, those specialists to rely on is is a lot different, too. So it's like it's not like it's all on you, like you can go in as a team. But at the same time, it's like it that's a big difference that I've noticed is like you just don't have that specialty of resources to to get. And and that's something I think I anticipated. But actually, you know, seeing that even over over one month is that's been a big difference as well. Yeah. And I think I mean, to a different degree, but some of that will come with time, right? Like I'm in all these group chats from conferences and whatever I go to and. Some people will just they'll drop a question in there and someone will step up and be like, hey, yeah, sure. You know, if you're looking for the quick answer, it's this like or if you actually want support on the whole project, like we'll subcontract under your engagement letter if you want, you know, let me know for this. And I think that's a big driver of why there's all these communities as well. And in the accounting firm space, I'm not aware of as many in Canada. Otherwise, I definitely would have sent you their way. Yeah, I was going to say you get me in that grip check. Yeah. But in the U.S., like there's like, you know, there's realize there's thrival. There's counter there. There's like so many communities. But these are they're all these different flavors where one of them is super good for tech and automation expertise. And another one is really good for, you know, firms, maybe zero to three million dollars. And like all the problems that come with that. Yeah. I mean, there is actually future firm in Canada. Ryan Lozanis, I might I might point you towards that. But yeah, no, there's there's all these kind of communities. And at one point I was starting to scratch my head where I was like, OK, is this is this too much? Like, has this gotten out of hand? But as I have more conversations with entrepreneurs, like I realize how important it is to have sort of every flavor, every kind of group, every peer group for whatever size you might be. Right. So C3 Canada, I signed up for something they introduced. I think it's semi new. CPA Canada has CPA Canada tax 360. And I don't know if it's taken off, if they if they they've been able to get enough people. But I think they're trying to do something like that. I don't know how successful it's going to be or is, but they do have a platform for it, because I think that's important. Like what you're what you're talking about. And I do it to have a community. Yeah, it's it's definitely vital for sure. Yeah. And then I sort of have one last question for you as well, and this is going to be we're just going to share it to whatever your comfort level is. But I'm sure the economics of things come into question a little bit when you're making this decision. Right. And without talking of like, what was your old salary? What's your new salary? We have the database for that. And it's more anonymous than this. But what what are kind of like the expectations and metrics at at the partner level? Because I'm pretty sure I think at the big four, it was like $3 million book of business for income partner was the expectation. And then you can get some percentage of that. Like, what's the what's the difference there between the big firm and the. Yeah, they have different models like between Deloitte and I would assume other big four and most big accounting firms. And then and then my current firm, Tagg, and then they there's also different models at other accounting firms as well. So definitely something I took into consideration. Yeah. Deloitte. And they're pretty transparent with the whole process, like one of their goals over the last two years is to be like your path to leadership, including how partners are compensated. Your expectations from a financial point of view are pretty open, at least internally. The number was for income partner, which is usually your first step before equity. The numbers, it was a bit lower, at least in Ottawa, than than three. I think three is probably closer to equity and be like that would be the expectation around around equity. And it's growing pretty quick. I was talking to somebody else and, you know, that's still at the firm and I equated it to, you know, if you imagine a young person trying to save for a home and the housing market keeps going up, the housing market is going up more than you can save. It's sort of like that, like it jumped a lot in some years. Some years it doesn't. But if you wait, like the person I was talking to, they, you know, they didn't get there on the list, but they didn't make the cut this year. Now they're going to go through the process next year and but there's new metrics with the new process. So they have to kind of revisit things. And if it happens again, you're kind of falling behind unless you can keep your book up. So it's a it's a big challenge and a big consideration. Yeah. So, I mean, it's like, yeah, I think the expectation for, you know, for income partner or summer like director, which would be the step before, you know, equity would be like, it depends your region, like one and a half. Probably two. And which, I mean, I mean, I was there personally, and that wasn't necessarily why I left. But going to your point of like how you're compensated on that, that's where things change a bit. Yeah. And they do a pooling system. So like directors and income partners, they're basically payroll, like they have a pretty set thing. But when it comes to equity, like they pool everything together, right? Like you get units, you get compensated dollar value on your units. This is similar to many different partnership models. And things can fluctuate. The number of units you hold can fluctuate. The dollar value every year fluctuates. But like, as you can imagine, with a lot of the other processes, that's really centralized and in some cases can be a bit of a black box. Like, oh, hey, I did four million dollars of revenue this year. Am I going to get my 30 percent? Like in like old school thinking is one third, one third, one third. Like one third for overhead, one third for staffing costs, one third for, you know, the owner of the revenue. So 33 percent. But it's not really like that. Maybe you're plus or minus once you work it out, but it's really the pooling models driven by a calculation, a metric. And like they pull it all together and they allocate it based on units or some other measure. And I was a huge fan of that model because there's, you know, you're not directly incentivized. I'm sure you are indirectly. Like there's a lot of financial pressure, but it's a bit of a complicated process and it can shift a lot every year versus the model. You know, like some small firms are a bit more direct. So something instead of like a baseline plus pooling profits, they do like eat what you kill. So it's what's your, what's your revenue, like your managed revenue. Okay. We have overhead costs and then we have your direct salary costs based on standard rates, like what went into it. And that's good because as you can imagine, if you use leverage, um, you know, using some junior resources, in addition to training them, they like on, on more complicated stuff. They're, they're going, you like your indirect costs is lower. So then your profit margin is yours. You keep it. So you can, and generally the percentage there is probably 40, 45, even up to 50% if you're, if depending on what your overhead component is. And that's really what attracted me to a smaller firm. Um, specifically because as you can imagine, like that's very entrepreneurial because you're like, you're like, like you're like the, the profit. You it's all yours basically. And you contribute to the health of the firm overall. Like you can still work on other files and they have a system for that. So you're not just siloed off in terms of like only care about your book and not care about others. There's mechanisms to work together and to, to, to, for the health of the firm, but really that's probably the most entrepreneurial model out there. And then there's other ones in between where it's like, okay, you're going to get a base and, or maybe you get a contribution margin. You get 40% of your, you know, or 30% of your, uh, of your revenue or some maybe contribution margin. And then the rest goes to the firm and you pull it together and then you get a bonus based on maybe on 5% of the firm or 20%, you get a bonus based on that. And that's probably more of a hybrid model. Um, that could be really attractive as well, but probably exists more at, uh, like the mid firm level. Yeah, no, that's really interesting. And I appreciate you sharing that. I think that's, that's good for people to understand as well. And doing the calculus of like, oh, like, does this make sense to do and whatnot? And for the stage at which you're entering is really cool where you can probably determine also like the mix of your team, right. Of like, oh, okay. Do I want more junior staff and, and have this sort of lower cost bar, or do I want more senior staff and maybe, you know, not have to worry as much about me being involved and I can focus more on other things. Right. So you do definitely get that kind of entrepreneurial experience. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm fascinated by your kind of journey and I hope to, I hope to check in at some point with you about how things are going a little bit later down the line. But in the meantime, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this and, uh, you know, I'm really rooting for you in this. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. And yeah, we'll definitely have a follow up chat, uh, sometime sooner rather than later.