What can Startup Founders learn from Bank Robbers?

In this episode, we explore what aspects of the criminal mindset -- and prison life -- can be applied to the journey of startup founders -- both in funding and growing their businesses. Graceann Bennett interviews author Gregory Roberts as he relates colorful stories of both his successful string of startups, as well as how he actually funded one of his companies with a bank robbery. It then moves into prison, where Roberts deals with some of the more powerful gangsters in America, and compares their leadership styles to those of capitalist CEOs.

order your copy of the book today at piratesoldierking.com

Chapters

• 0:00 A Serial Entrepreneur
• 9:32 dSky, Google Glass, and Oculus
• 13:09 Think like a Bank Robber
• 23:19 Make the Choice: Lead, Follow, or...
• 31:08 Bending Rules & Breaking Laws
• 32:47 Go All In
• 34:36 The Darkest Hour is Before the Dawn

Transcript

0:21

All right. Welcome to Pirate Soldier King. I'm your host, Graceann Bennett, interviewing Gregory Roberts. All right. Okay. This one, Excited for today. So this one, this one's a good one because this one gets personal. So in addition to hosting this show with you, I'm also a startup CEO. and embarking on, yeah, exactly. You got the holy water right there for the company. So someone might be asking themselves, how does a startup CEO, successful startup CEO like yourself end up robbing in banks? are there any corollaries between kind of that profession and bank robbing? we'll first talk about, give a little bit of... Backstory about yourself as a startup CEO and what you did before you ended up robbing banks and in prison Perfect, yeah. So I kind of started out as a non-conventional route, but maybe a conventional route for a startup person, which is got into a really good college and ended up running my own company and never even going to the first class. you know, and it was hard at the start. It was just, it was a services business. We did a... design. We were some of the first people to really use computers for that and use the Mac. But really quickly we got we moved from like print design into interactive multimedia design, made a pretty good reputation nationally for ourselves and then in 1994 we were one of the very first people to build websites for Fortune 500 companies. And we had just amazing opportunities with that because no one knew anything about it and they're just like "make us a website --we don't care" and we're like total creative freedom And it was so easy like it was back then, you know, it wasn't-- wasn't very complex. It was like just Making beautiful graphics and and having fun with it And we lucked into or God blessed us I should say We designed all the interfaces and first sites for the first high-speed internet trials in America. Mm. everyone was on dial-up modems and they were like, Hey, we have these cable modems that go like 300 megabits per second. You know, you need to build content that just shoves stuff down the pipe. And we were, so we did stuff for the NFL, for Formula One, multiple live camera streams, 3d avatar group chats. it was off the handle. Awesome. And we had a blast with it. so that was the first startup that was, that was the blood, sweat and tears startup. It took about 11 years, but we got well into multiple seven figures revenue and it got really hot in like 1999, I want to say, 1998? And we were able to sell that to a public company. And thanks to my partner, who was a financial wizard, he was like, no, we're not taking stock. We want an all cash deal. And so it was just like, boom. So we got the money out of that and it was, it was awesome. Like, you know, started out, how old were you? You didn't go to... 17 when I started and sold the company at 28. So, millionaire by 28. When a millionaire actually meant something. Well, then I had been consulting for a little startup up in New York, actually, or Connecticut, just outside New York. They really wanted me to come on as a co-founder and raise a Series A with them And I was playing hard to get because I loved the company, my own company. And I finally sent them, they kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And I finally sent them a letter saying, it was kind of an F.U. letter. It was like, all right, yeah, I'll come on as co-founder if we get to fire 90 % of the staff, we're moving the headquarters to Silicon Valley. I want a penthouse apartment in San Francisco with six months rent and all utilities paid, full closing costs on my house, full moving costs, massive cash bonus, this salary, yada yada, this much equity. just named the Moon... was basically like, <middle finger> And so the next day, I think it was a Friday, something comes in on the fax and my partner goes, here, this fax is for you. And I look at it and it's my letter signed by the board of directors. No. Oh! my, they called my bluff. Like, and I took it to my fiance at the time and I was like, we're moving to San Francisco. And then that kind of started the ball rolling. And yeah, so then, you know, we did, we gutted the staff, we moved, we took the best of the best, we moved out there, spent a year on a road show fundraising and ended up with a$21 million dollar wire deposit to our to our account and Then we just built like you do in Silicon Valley Yes, that was that company was called BrightStreet And yeah And then, I mean, I don't know if it's the third company, but this is kind of goes into why you started robbing banks. Cause you, you talked about in the book how you didn't have enough money and you were trying to raise money. That was fourth. Okay. So, okay. Let's go. And then what's third then? The third company was called PlayMotion. It was kind of like my best... I think it my best company ever, actually. I had plenty of money in the bank. just taken like a two-year sabbatical, just kind of like figuring out what I want to do next. And I was like, you know what? Video games are hot. This was like 2002, 2003. So I bought an Xbox, a PlayStation, and a Nintendo and bought the top 10 games for each one and spent like a month playing them just to figure out what the field was. Went to some conferences, met some amazing people like Jason Rubin from Naughty Dog. Shigeru Miyamoto is famous for like Donkey Kong and Zelda, like the god of Japanese games. And Will Wright, know, who made SimCity and SimEarth and all the Sims things. So got guidance from them and they were like, you know, kind of giving me some things. I was like, you know what, I'm going next gen. I'm not going for a console. So we designed, like I had a really good friend who I had hired at age 14 as an intern, Matt Flagg, from Georgia Tech. And he was a computer vision major, was basically like, or a PhD, I should say, which was like the, that's how A.I. got started. Like how to take a camera feed. and interpret it as a human would, like, that's a person, that's a dog, that's a chair, and this is the scene, and et cetera. So him and I and a gentleman by the name of Scott Wills, who was kind of a visionary and my co-founder of my Silicon Valley company, got together, brainstormed, and just went to R&D for six months. And we built this awesome system. that allowed up to 200 people to play at once with huge projectors and they could just dance and move their bodies and make stuff happen. was basically like virtual reality with no goggles or gloves necessary, all camera based. Anyone could walk into the playground and just start manipulating things in 3D on the screen. So we installed that all around the world for like Disney, NASA, Red Bull, Nike, I mean, you name it, like the top brands in the world was a blast. Mm-hmm. yeah, so that, I loved that company and the genesis of that company, one of reasons I didn't want console games is because I wanted people to get off the couch. I was like, I want you all to get off the couch and be like, Hehehehehe jump around a place. We had like virtual volleyball and like a place where you could like push planets around and learn about them. And it was really physical. Like when we had the installation at Disney, they had to put in like three tons of extra air conditioning units, because it smelled like a gym after a week. Because everyone was like, you know, and I was like, yes, that's great. And we did the post interviews of them coming out of the attraction. And everybody's like, yeah, we want this in our home so we can play on our couches. I was like, NOOOOO Oh, gosh. And that and a little more like some rich people came to us and wanted exactly that. They wanted our system in their mansions. And I was just like, you know what? That's not what I'm in this for. And I'm spending 12 hours a day in front of a computer monitor building things that supposedly is to encourage people to rock climb and play volleyball on the beach and do physical things in the world. And I got kind of twisted up in my head about it and I left the company. Okay. Left your own company. And then what? And then I just became like a, well essentially ran away and joined the circus. Like I just, I became an acrobat. I, so, and I just for the audience, I met you in 2013. So what company were you part of in 2013? That was after I was coming down from the circus or doing, I was doing a little startup then, an augmented reality startup called dSky and we were prototyping on Google Glass, which was like the very first, know, like Meta has the Ray-Bans now, but it was the very first augmented reality platform that was viable. And that's, yeah, that's where we met at the Google AI... IO conference. Yeah. I think at the Billy Idol concert. Billy Idol concert where no one was dancing but me. And you were dancing. And I always say that I meet the best people on the dance floor. So I meet you there. You're doing the Google Glass or some version of that. And then... And we met with Andreessen Horowitz and all the people back then, and no one was funding augmented reality. For good reason, quite honestly. But yeah, we had challenges. And then, And I do think I challenged you on that because I'm like Google Glass..? I was just like, eh, I just don't know exactly. I wasn't 100 % into it. But I remember meeting you there and you made an impression. And then 12 years later, here we are now, meeting you three months ago and figuring out that you started robbing banks and you were in prison. And then now we're interviewing. So that's crazy. OK, so the fourth company. There wasn't the augmented reality one that you got into some fundraising. so we rode the wave with Google Glass. It became clear from our communication with Google that they were not going to make it developer friendly. Like they want, for some reason they wanted consumers to develop apps and they made all these like retarded toolkits. But we couldn't get to the metal as developers say. Like we couldn't use C++, we couldn't like, you know, get down to the actual chip and the processor. Like we had to do everything in HTML and JavaScript.

I was like, that's not a viable, you anyways: 11:37

Then Palmer Luckey came out with the Oculus, I think in like 2012, 2013. Mm-hmm. So maybe like a year later and I got a hold of that Kickstarter and and that was viable and clearly Palmer and his team was developer friendly. I mean they had John Carmack on their team so like that's we could go straight to the metal with that we do whatever we wanted with it and I was like, okay, skip the AR. AR is gonna happen eventually but VR has to happen first. This is an awesome platform. Clearly there's gonna be a billion headsets within three years. Let's go. And there was some funding interest in that and so I went to raise like a seed round and But it was going slower than I wanted and I just wanted to build and launch and This is gonna sound crazy and it is crazy, but I basically my internal narrative was I said "You know what? If I can't raise the funds by July 1st by by the end of second quarter I'm just gonna go to a bank and take it!" You literally said that to yourself. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I think honestly, I just like there was something in my soul that wanted to rob a bank and I just had to come up with an excuse and that was like a deadline and an action. So sure enough, July 1st rolls around, we only had raised half of what we needed or what I thought we needed. And I was like, all right, pedal to the metal, let's go. Oh God And I like, I either lied to myself or I'm really going to do this. And so I kind of, you know, wiggled and wobbled for about like, I don't know, five, seven days, but eventually just, yeah, went in and got the money. I got the money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We raised the funds for sure. But we don't recommend this to the listening audience. I would not. That's not the method. It's not a viable method. It has yet. viable when you think about fundraising and some entrepreneurs and startup CEOs that might be listening to this podcast, when it comes to fundraising, we don't need to go rob a bank, but what, like, what do people like me and some other people that are about to -- embarking on that journey, like what, can they learn from robbing banks? I would say the first thing is commitment. I talk to a lot of startup CEOs who it seems like it's kind of a hobby and they have a plan B. If you go into rob a bank, there is no plan B. As soon as you walk in -- in fact, as soon as you put the costume, know, put a balaclava over your head or, you know, walk even within 30 feet of a bank wearing all Black with gloves and boots on, like, it's, you better go. So. Yeah, so there's no turning back. So I'd say like, if you can engage that type of mental attitude when you go to visit a VC or something, you know, of like, I have to, there's Many founders have read a book called Sun Tzu, The Art of War. There's a beautiful passage in there that's called, the translation is "Death Ground." And Sun Tzu is saying as a general, he's like, you really want your soldiers to perform? You want victory in war? put them in the back of a canyon with a river in front of it, with a dead end at the back of the canyon and put like 300 of them there and go against... 5,000. And as soon as they realize there's no way out of the canyon, they're gonna crush those 5,000 soldiers. They're gonna just storm across the river and slay. Because what's the other option? getting smashed in the back of the canyon and dying, if they recognize and believe that they're going to die, then they have nothing to lose. And whereas these 5,000 soldiers, they want to go back to their family. They're like, oh, easy victory. So getting into that mentality of, I'm going to do this or I'm going to die. 50 Cent has an album called, - brand. We say "Come Hell or Holy Water" We're going and doing this. Back to like we're committed. So the commitment. Right. a hobby and not like, well, if I don't raise the funds, then I'm going to go back to my corporate job or this, that, and the other. No. This is your only plan. And it's your only plan because you're going to smash it and succeed with it. Got it. So what, so you're, you went into rob banks without a gun and without a note, right? And so, you know, that's like a founder going out with, - no investor deck, right? And no like big... big people on their board or whatever, they're just going in there and they're raising the money. So okay, so some people have more leverage, some people have less. So you went in with like not very much leverage in terms of you didn't have a gun and you didn't have, so what was the leverage? So how do you create leverage out of seemingly no leverage? Well, it's good that you mentioned like a deck because I came to the conclusion raising money that the deck was the death knell of investment pitches. Like they say, hey, you yeah, before the meeting, before I even take your call, email me the deck. And the deck has like all your juice in it, all your proprietary, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's your essence. And really they're looking for any excuse to say no. That's what they're looking for. And the fact is, all you want and need is the actual face-to-face meeting. If you can get it. mean, there's so many nowadays, they screen you on Zoom and that's painful. But I'm saying, if you can get the face-to-face meeting in the room where you can smell each other, then that VC knows in the first five minutes, probably the first 45 seconds of the meeting, whether they're investing in you or not. And the rest is just like courtesy or pattern. But they know. And so you're not... putting your deck in front of the first 45 seconds, you're making eye contact and you're judging each other. I mean, the VC is going, is this founder committed? Is this founder gonna take what I give them and 10x, 100x, 1000x it? Like are they gonna go to the fences with this thing? And you as a founder should be saying, do I want this dude on my board -- or this woman? Do I want this person like, like calling me up quarterly and holding my feet to the fire and inserting their own opinions and values on my company. Mm-hmm. And that kind of is the script flip of like going in as a founder with a mentality of I am choosing my investors because I'm not taking money from any old person. I'm taking money from people who are going to actually help me strategically and help me accomplish the goals or at the very least give me the money and not say a word while I make multiples on their money. But there are investors who will interfere with your business. Right. you need to be selective like that. So instead of going in with need, you go in with you are interviewing the VC as much as they are interviewing you. And that's good for both, right? The VC wants a founder who has choice and selection. And the founder... I heard when you're selling, you're losing. Like if you're selling yourself, you're just already losing the conversation or what have you. And then you're really looking for alignment, not trying to sell anybody. It's like, are we aligned? are we, like, is this going to work? But I do like the idea of that because I think a lot of people in my position feel out of control or no power, powerless. know, someone has a big pile of money and you don't have it. And you need to get part of that pile of money that they're sitting on. You don't have it yet, but then it is -- as a bank robber mentality, do you just feel like that is yours and you're just getting what's Yeah, there it is. You just nailed it. And that's the second part of it. It's kind of a script flip of like, you're not asking for the money. You're choosing to accept the money. And if you choose to accept it, if you feel that this is a good fit, then make the demand. Okay, but a lot of people say don't make a demand, just ask for advice, don't be too pushy, all that stuff. So what's your philosophy on that? From both like your bank robbing days and your prison days too, because there's a lot of demanding and commanding respect and all that kind of stuff going on there too. So what's your thinking on this? My thing in this is, is as a founder, you gotta go in a little bit with what do I have to lose? And saying, I wanna be your friend, would you give me some advice? That sort of thing, that's like pussy footing, right? It's like being nice. No, you're asking for a substantial check. You're asking for $100,000, $500,000, twenty million, whatever it is. You're asking for a lot of money. To me, that's not a delicate conversation. And like I said, they already know. They know whether they're in the first part of the meeting, whether they're investing or not. So part of the confidence is I just say, and this is risky, but I just try it and find out. When you go into a bank, could I please have the money in your drawer? No, give me the money in your drawer right now. You have 60 seconds to do it. Go. And you know, so I'd say just go in there and say, "All right, we're good. Write the check." At worst, you'll get a laugh, right? Like, I can't believe they had the balls to say that to me. At best, they'll go, "Hey, Judy in accounting? Yeah. Yeah. Get the check ready. 500,000. Yeah, bring it here. Thank you." And there you go. You got it. mean, look at how Zuckerberg got funded with Facebook and how he got his first check from Peter Thiel, that was like a five minute meeting, $500,000 boom. How did he get it? I mean, I wasn't in the room. You can only go by legend and watch the movie. I mean, he had something special. We'll say that. I don't know what his actual approach was. He was a young man. But yeah, there you go. We'll interview him. I I do think I was thinking about it, the idea of like a con man, right? It's a confidence game. So confidence does seem like that is important. So how did you build up your confidence both in kind of as a bank robber, but also in Beaumont where you could just get killed at any second. So if it's a confidence game and you think like life is a confidence game. and having confidence in yourself in a lot of ways and projecting that. how do you, any tips on projecting confidence? And like you said, you walk in the room and they can feel you, smell you, they just get a vibe of like if this is a winner or not, if they're committed. So how do you actually exude confidence? I think you always have a choice of whether to lead or follow. And I mean, a good example is when I landed at Beaumont, which again, level five max, it's pretty much one the most dangerous prisons in America. I mean, for sure. It's a penitentiary for those who don't know the difference. Like it's not a "camp" or something. So arriving there, I actually... The way worked out, got COVID as soon as I arrived, so I had to go to quarantine. And by the time I was out of quarantine, the cell I was assigned to was taken by someone else. So they slotted me into like the serious gangster unit, which was FB, unit FB. And not just there, but they had just taken the head of the Aryan Brotherhood, which is like the most notorious white supremacist prison gang in the nation. Like they run a lot of blood, money, and drugs. They had yanked him out of this cell and sent him to ADX, which is the SuperMax in Florence. And so they put me in that cell and all his stuff was there like furniture, clothes, MP3 player. Like, mean, just crazy all his, you know, this guy had been down for I think 30 years already and was a major operator in America. And there was all his stuff. Now I had his old celly who was a young man, a Skinhead... kind of like a White Army type of guy. But he was like, "Hey, I'm going home in 40 days. So I'm going to sell some of this stuff just so I have some street money, but the rest is yours." so, yeah, so I, and he was also, honestly, this kid kind of took me under his wing. I mean, he was, he'd been in... Juvenile since age like 13 and in prisons his whole life like he was a hardcore skinhead That was like he'd been a total of two years in the Free and I think he was 38 years old Yeah, so Well for a minute yeah, but basically I think he kind of took me under his wing he was like Crazy white dude, what are you doing at Beaumont? You need to get some chops here. So he introduced me to all the heads of mostly the Mexican gangs. But he's like, hey, this is Phoenix. That's what they call me in prison, is Phoenix. Play nice with him. He's cool. Yada, yada, yada. And then when Travis left, there was only eight white guys on our tier. including a Navy SEAL, which we'll get into later, but they were like, well, who's gonna be Speaker now? Because Chris is gone, the big AB guy is gone, Aryan Brotherhood, and now Travis is gone, so who the hell is representing the whites amongst the gangs? And in that moment, I was like, well, I can either be somebody's bitch and somebody's gonna speak on my behalf or I'm gonna speak, and I was just like, hey, I'm doing it. Yeah. And so I became the Speaker for the whites on our unit with like insane gang level people from every other race, know, the Texas Blacks the DC Blacks, the Gangster Disciples, MS-13, like, I mean, and I was, and so I was like on the council to like, you know, negotiate between the races and the gangs. And that, so getting back to your startup question, decide whether you're going to lead or follow. And when, and you'll feel those moments in your life. And it's like, If you're a founder, you damn well better be a leader. Right. Yeah, because the alternative is you're going to die. Your company is going to die or you are going to die in Beaumont. Right. You will die if you don't lead. I did have a little fear of dying, but I was more like thinking in that moment, I was like, well, I could get in a very bad, life-threatening situation based on someone else's stupidity if they're the Speaker. Basically, a Speaker represents all members of the race on the tier. So I don't want one of these dumbasses getting me into trouble. All I'd rather get into trouble on my own and be able to solve it by, you so that was my idea and it did work out. It worked out wonderfully because immediately my respect went boom. And I realized this is like one of the keys. When we had like our first council meeting amongst the heads of the gangs, I was like, you know what? This is a bunch of CEOs. That's what it is. Like these people are serious leaders. They had, each of them has between like six and 600 people like underneath them who they command, you know, on the yard, who they run drugs through or they tell, you know, stab that guy, you know, and these are not easy decisions. I'd actually argue that they're much harder decisions than a normal CEO or a founder. You these are life or death decisions. And so I... you know, just being with them, was like, of course I belong here. This, it actually reminded me, I had been in the boardroom of CSX Corporation, which is Fortune 500 corporation, back at my first company. And I kind of like was with all these people and their suits and ties and you know, they're, you know, a hundred millionaire yachts or whatever. And I was like, these are just dudes. You know, these are just, and I was a youngster then, I was like 26. I was like, these are just people. I don't need be shivering in my pants. I know what I'm doing here. And so I spoke with confidence. when I was in the council with the gang heads, was like, this is the boardroom of a Fortune 500 corporation. This is actually the boardroom with Bezos and Zuckerberg and Jobs all in the same room. And all I have to do is have confidence and know, I know what the fuck I'm talking about. Like, you guys know what you're talking about. We don't have to bullshit. Like, let's just get this stuff done and let's have peace amongst ourselves. Okay, so they want peace, they don't want war. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When people get hurt in prison, it's just an ugly necessity. It's because someone goes so sideways that they're... I mean, generally, it's your own gang is the one who's gonna beat you up. Because you're threatening to have... conflict between the races. Like if you're a Mexican who wants to kill a Black person, if that happens, then the Mexicans and Blacks go to war. And that echoes across the entire federal prison system and even into the states. like if it pops at Beaumont, that word gets out within like, it's amazing how fast news travels and there's many ways to do it, but that news gets to Victorville within like six hours and then it gets to Big Sandy and then there's riots in all those prisons. So like when three people got killed at Beaumont, which was a Mexican thing, was like MS-13 versus just some other Mexican gang. They locked down the entire federal prison system across America, like all 250 prisons for two months. Because they were like, we're having no chance that this is spreading to other prisons. And they interviewed everyone and moved people around to different places. So that's how it goes. And no one wants that. huh. Well, there are maybe a few psychopaths who want that, you know, to get an upper hand. But in general, people just want it to, they want things to be in control. They want like the drugs to flow freely and the money to flow freely and everybody be able just to do their time and eventually go home or make their lives in prison without having to get stabbed, et cetera. Wow, well it sounds like you have, there's a lot to learn and you have respect for the leadership abilities of people that you met in prison. I have tremendous respect. They would hold their own and they do. mean, you know, they... The reason they got there is because they had street gangs doing their orders. They're not following the letter of law, but you might argue that neither are startup CEOs. Startup CEOs are breaking civil law left and right, and eventually goes to the courts and Facebook gets fined $2 billion for misinformation and not censoring it properly, or by intentionally allowing people under the age of 13 to use their products, things like this. for some reason that's not criminal. So the risk reward calculation in prison is life or death. The risk reward calculation for a startup CEO is money. And you're like, okay, I'm going to break these rules just like Uber did, just like Facebook did, just like Amazon did. I'm going to break these rules. I talked to my lawyers, maximum exposure, 10 % of revenue across three years, maximum profit plus 30 % revenue. Okay, I'm breaking the law. Like that's real actuarial conversations. And it's true. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're going to, I mean, we could talk about, we can have a whole, we have a whole series on this. think business lessons from bank robbery and prison life. sounds like, and it's just, yeah, it's fascinating. I don't think people fully appreciate the parallels. I feel like we think it's something totally separate. okay. So parting word of wisdom to our listening audience, especially think a lot of people. that are starting up companies and right now we have a lot of entrepreneurs in America and in the world. So what would kind of your piece of advice be to people like me? You know, getting in there. I think the piece of advice is like you're already a risk taker because you're doing a startup and that's a high risk activity. But I'd say like model yourself after both bank robbers and World Series Poker players. Like the way to win is to go all in. And again, no plan B and swing for the frigging fences. There's no dream that's too big. Get past your limiting beliefs and like, my book's gonna be a New York Times bestseller, guaranteed. I'm gonna make it happen, okay? And that's the same thing, like my company's gonna be a unicorn. I'm gonna find a way. I may have to pivot three times. I may have to do this, but yeah, I'm starting out with Holy Water, Yep. And next I'll be head to head with Coca-Cola. No, I'm there. Exactly. I'm going to beat Liquid Death at its game. At least get up to the level, right? Get up to the level because it's just like you watch high stakes tennis and you want a good competitor in the ring. You want that. You want that in with business. You want to see someone jump in there and be strong and do something interesting. so like, why not? Why not beat me or someone else who's listening to this podcast, right? I gotta say also, because every startup I've had has its darkest hour. And you got a choice in the darkest hour. You can stick with it and make the hard choices you have to and win, or you can bolt. Right. Yeah, in a way. You don't friggin' fold and leave the poker table if you have chips left. You you just, you friggin' play. And I guarantee you every time, that darkest hour is like God's test. Yeah. when you get through that darkest hour, that's when you really start to kill it. Like my first startup, you know, we got to that darkest hour. I had to fire a third of the staff. I actually had people working for me for months without pay. We switched it to equity pay. but at the end of that, that next year we made 35 % profit. Next year, 40 % profit. We did profit sharing to all the employees, like doubled -- some of them, we tripled their salary. I was just like, you know, we had made it through the gauntlet. Right. And that's the test of an entrepreneur is like when you get to that moment, you can't back out. You've got to like plow forward with everything you have. Yeah. everybody. We're just rrrraaah. Okay. Exactly. Determination. Go time. Fist bump. Put on the mask. Put on the clothes. Just jump in and go, go get that money and go make your dreams come true. All right. Okay. Well, thank you so much. Amazing talking to you. Very inspiring. So I hope everybody else is inspired too. Here we go.