[78] Changing the Course of Our Businesses
Is Boot Strap Web episode 78. Brian, it's been a while. It's good to be back.
Brian Casel:Yes. It
Jordan Gal:has. This is yeah. Finally, this is the podcast for you if you're the founder who learns by doing as you boot strap your business online. Today, we have a bit of a different show for you. Brian and I have both kind of been sitting on and dealing with a whole set of issues on my side and on his side that we haven't really been able to talk about.
Jordan Gal:And today, finally talk about it. We figured, let's do it on the same day. Brian will get a chance to talk about what he's been dealing with, and I will get a chance to do the same. And we're gonna start off with you, Brian. So why don't you help break the news and then we'll kinda I'll interview you in a sense to kinda ask the questions that any bootstrapper would have as you're telling the story.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, know, a lot has been going on for for actually quite some time for for both of us. And and actually, it's good timing that we can both share this news on both of our in both of our businesses today. So it's That's perfect. It definitely aligns pretty well.
Brian Casel:So I mean, who is Sharon first? Am I going first or are you?
Jordan Gal:You do it, Ben.
Brian Casel:You can.
Jordan Gal:Oh, I forgot. Forgot.
Brian Casel:We were going
Jordan Gal:to do you. I think this has made us a little nervous, both of us. Maybe not like it is the biggest thing in the world, is just that something that we have been sitting on. Alright, cool. So why don't I go first then?
Brian Casel:Go for it. So what tell tell us what's been going on with Carthood.
Jordan Gal:I have betrayed the name of this very podcast. I am no longer bootstrapped. I have I have gone over to the dark side and raised raised the money. So that's that's the thing. And I haven't been able to talk about it for legal reasons and all SEC stuff and all that.
Jordan Gal:But long story short is we raised a friends and family seed round. I I like the terminology that Rob Walling uses that I think he credits Colin from customer IO with, which is fund strapping.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:So this is kind of like an in between strategy of bootstrapping isn't going fast enough, going the full blown, like, million and a half dollar seed round and then trying to get to the a round in eighteen months. And the VC game of shooting for the moon isn't as appealing either, and this is kind of an in between. Like, how much do you need to raise to get to profitability and then kind of take a deep breath and say, okay. Do we stay profitable? Do we just grow it on our own?
Jordan Gal:Do we raise more money? So it's kind of like an in between strategy. It feels a little bit like trying to thread the needle, and I have a feeling that twelve to eighteen months from now, a lot of the pressures will be different than what I expect them to be, but that's that's what we're doing.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know, this is really exciting. I mean, you know, congratulations on this development on on on Cardhook. I mean, this this really is huge and it's I I do wanna get into the story and and ask you how all this kinda came to be. I mean I know a bit of it from talking to you offline, but I think it'll be interesting to to hear what went into this process, why did you do it, kind of you know, some of the math behind it.
Brian Casel:How and how does this kind of thing work? Because I think so many of us bootstrappers are so unfamiliar with with the the investment route. And I know that's certainly the case for me. So so I I we have a lot of questions to go over but before we get into that, I just wanted to kinda talk about, you know, what you mentioned earlier, the name of this show Bootstrap Web. Because, you know, to tell you the truth, I I don't think it goes you know, what you're doing now, this development, goes against the spirit of this show at all, to tell you the truth.
Brian Casel:Because
Jordan Gal:I I agree.
Brian Casel:And and this goes back to episode one when when I started it. And you know, as as you guys know, Jordan joined in somewhere in in the thirties somewhere. Bootstrap Web, that that name came about really just as a way to describe figuring out figuring it out. Like, this is what we do on the web. When when you build things on the web, it's all about figuring things out and learning by doing.
Brian Casel:It's the the name was not really so much about being anti investment or anti anything like that. You know, it's it's really just
Jordan Gal:It's almost like the constraints you deal with when when when you do things a certain way where raising a whole bunch of money and being able to hire a bunch of people at once, it's just that you don't have the same constraints. And the truth is with raising this money, I feel almost the same constraints. It's it's a little it's different. It's not that different. It's not like I'm going out and hiring eight people and getting an office and everyone gets a MacBook Pro and we have fancy furniture.
Jordan Gal:It's it's not like that at all.
Brian Casel:Right. Right. And and, you know, I I think it's I I like the name, it's really all about like utilizing your your your resources that you have available to you. And I think what has developed here with Cardhook just really helps you better utilize your your resources and and help you execute really strategically on on your plan. So let's let's actually dig into it a little bit.
Brian Casel:Why don't we go back to the beginning? When when did this first become a possibility, and and how did this idea, you know, come come into play?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It was it was pretty organic. So it goes back to December 2014. I can't believe that was, like, seven, eight months ago, but it was. In 2014, at the end of the year in December, I got an email out of the blue from a pretty well known Internet entrepreneur that a lot of people would recognize, a lot of people listen to the show.
Jordan Gal:The email was very straightforward. Hi, Jordan. I am interested in talking to you about acquiring Cardhook. What are your thoughts? You know, like, do you wanna talk?
Jordan Gal:That perked me up. Obviously, that's a that's a good email to get. I was very, it's one of those exercises in, all that you look at all the things that you think you could have done, and like I really would have liked to have been further along when that email came. Right. But it came it came when it did.
Brian Casel:But you you really explore that route like
Jordan Gal:I did.
Brian Casel:It was not it was not like a brief thing. Like you you really that almost happened. Not I I don't wanna say it almost happened, but you you you kinda played it out.
Jordan Gal:Yes. It was serious. And we went back and forth, and we talked, and we connected, and we saw if we kinda like each other and got along, and what are your plans, what are my plans, Different products and different options, you know, cash versus stock versus joining company. There's a whole bunch of different things, we explored it. At the end of the day, it didn't make sense for us to do, and so we didn't do it.
Jordan Gal:And there's a whole bunch of reasons behind that, which I don't think is appropriate to to get too far into, but I definitely came away from it feeling great about this person, and they conducted themselves very admirably and and we're we're we're friends. It's good. I did a few things. First, what happened was the it was a coincidental timing where it's right around New Year's. I I had gone gone down to Florida to spend Christmas and the holidays with the fam, and then I went up to New York for a week to go see my family up there and see friends after the New Year.
Jordan Gal:And it was right around the time when I was in negotiations with with this person. And so what I did is I reconnected with all my college buddies and all, like, my business school connections and kind of just having lunch with and drinks and hanging out with everybody. So I I'm telling them about what's going on, and I kept hearing the same thing back. I kept hearing, Jordan, don't freaking sell now. You're just getting started.
Jordan Gal:Just let's let's let's put some money together, raise some money. So that was the first time I was like, oh, that's that's cool. Maybe. And then I heard it again. And then I heard it again.
Jordan Gal:And then I heard it again. And I said to myself, oh, wait a minute, buddy. Maybe maybe this is a real avenue. And and then so what that did is that also increased my confidence. It also increased the expectations.
Jordan Gal:That's the real the real interesting part of what it did. Because soon afterward, it became apparent that it didn't make sense to go forward with this acquisition or merger, whatever the hell you wanna call it. And then my expectations were just a lot higher than they used to be. And then all of a sudden, looked around like deflated, like, okay, so this thing didn't go through. What am I gonna do now?
Jordan Gal:Go back to doing things the way I was doing it nice and slow? Like, if I wanna raise money, it's right in front of me right now. Now is the time to do it. And then I started doing all the calculations of should I actually do it and why and does it make sense.
Brian Casel:So now you're starting to see like you have the ability to raise money, you have a starting point where to go to get that money. Are you thinking at this point like playing out strategies for for how you would start to spend that money and and what that would or like the reason behind raising money? The the merger acquisition kind of thing did not go through. In your mind you were you were gonna go back to what you were doing before. I guess I'm I'm curious like what was the plan before before any of this?
Jordan Gal:The plan was before was just to totally bootstrap it and and just bring it up to a level of income that replaced any other income, any other work that I was doing to to bring money home.
Brian Casel:So like the the original plan from the first year has been just kind of slow and steady growth?
Jordan Gal:Slow and steady, get it to 10 k a month, get it to 15 k a month, get it to 20, hire someone, grow. And it was was a fine plan. And the truth is I'm not doing things that differently. Right. It's just that it became enticing and it started to make sense.
Jordan Gal:And look, I've never asked friends for money before. You know, it's a big deal. It's not like a thing you take lightly because chances are you're gonna lose their money, and that's not cool. You don't you don't wanna do that. So I had to really think about is this is this for real?
Jordan Gal:Am I committed to dropping everything and working on this for the next five years? You know, I had to go through all those legit things, and it was healthy that it's friends and family at this stage because, a, it's not the amounts of money aren't that high. The people who are investing can afford it. Alright? That's part of the process.
Jordan Gal:You're only talking to accredited investors who have the money to lose, essentially. But it makes you take it very seriously. Know, these are these are people I went to school with, one of my buddies I grew up with. You don't want to lose the money. You have to take it.
Jordan Gal:It makes you take it very seriously. Mhmm. And also like, you know, you got to talk to your wife about it. Yeah. And then also, you have that dynamic.
Jordan Gal:Like, my wife's like, are you sure you wanna take money from your friends? If it doesn't work out, year from now we're hanging out with them at dinner. Is that gonna be, like, acceptable for you with your ego and with the friendship? And so it's it's a little complicated.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm wondering that. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I mean, that's that's one thing. Like, what if what if you lose the money and you have the the relationship with your friends?
Brian Casel:But but I'm also wondering about what about the relationship of working with your investors as you work on Cardhook? Is that like are they involved at all or did you have any understanding that what their role is as as investors?
Jordan Gal:Yes. And and that's been that's been very helpful. And we've gotten great feedback and very interesting introductions to people. And it's a healthy sort of pressure of you wanna perform. Like, okay.
Jordan Gal:Now every month you're sending an investor update. You you wanna have good things to talk about. You want to show revenue growing by a certain percentage from the previous month. The things that you mentioned in the previous investor update that you're working on, you wanna show what you've accomplished on those. So that that pressure side of it's good.
Jordan Gal:What what you mentioned earlier just about more more generally speaking about, like, you know, raising money from friends. At the end of the day, I felt first of all, this is how it works. This is this is what people do. People raise money from their friends and family. It's like Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:It's relatively common.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It also flipped at some point. At one point, was I was very nervous or uncomfortable to ask someone for money, and then it switched. And then I started feeling weird if I didn't ask a friend because then I was gonna leave them out. And it it was just like an exercise in growing confidence of like, I'm gonna raise this money with or without you. You don't need to do it.
Jordan Gal:If you wanna support me, cool, but it's not necessary. And and that was a lot of that was attributable to so we spoke a little bit offline. It's been a it's been a very political exercise. It's been a lot of, like, expectations management and strategy. It's not like not not manipulating.
Jordan Gal:It is, like, understanding what's happening, what the outside perspective is versus what you feel internally and how to put on the best face forward without being deceptive in any way. So it's really been like this push and pull of like what to say and when. And so we kind of look, we went about it smart. That's what anyone would do. So we raised the easiest money first.
Jordan Gal:So that way when you speak to a friend and say, hey, we're thinking about doing this. And then three weeks later, you email them and they're like, so we're a 100 k in. Right. And are you if you're still interested, do you wanna talk? So we've kinda like helped it build on top of itself and built momentum and got like the easiest money in first, the people who were like, I don't care what you're doing.
Jordan Gal:I'll support you if that's what you wanna do.
Brian Casel:So how, how, what is the process for going about this? Like, are we talking about like you're putting together kind of pitch decks, laying out the plan? I mean, know you're dealing with friends and family, so you already have like a rapport there, but-
Jordan Gal:Yeah, not all friends and family though.
Brian Casel:Okay, I
Jordan Gal:mean Some mentors but no professional investors yet.
Brian Casel:Gotcha. But what, yeah, so like what are like the steps that play out and then even from the point where the person is like okay I you know, I'm I'm giving you the initial okay on this. Now how do we make it official? Or is there like a due diligence kind of process? And
Jordan Gal:I didn't know this stuff either, so I I think it's good to get into some of the specifics. Step one, you gotta get ready. Meaning, literally, you literally have to be able to take on investment. So I was running an s corp, and I had Cardhook lumped in with other businesses and consulting and whatever else, know, the other income I was taking in from business and being able to put expenses against it. So as soon as we thought about this seriously, we I started a Delaware C corporation that is able to take on investment legally and right and and all that.
Jordan Gal:So I got got lawyers involved in the formation because there's there's a whole bunch of tricky stuff, and you're just better off not trying to do that on your own, like, through LegalZoom. You know what I mean? You you better okay. Fine. Right.
Jordan Gal:Just, like, just pay the few grand and you have to get it done right. So then once the company is established and it's a Delaware c corp and has all the, you know, the x million number of shares that are like I forget the terminology. Anyway, so that was step one. And then step two is deciding on how what vehicle you're gonna use to raise the money. So we ended up doing it on a convertible note, and that is more complicated than I expected.
Jordan Gal:You think like, oh, everything's figured out. I'll do a safe document. I'll do a 500 startups, like, standard note or I'll do a Y Combinator thing. Give the you know, they give all the documents online. No big deal.
Jordan Gal:It's it's actually a big deal. It's actually complicated and and
Brian Casel:So can like, can you break it down for us? Like, what what well, how does a convertible note basically work?
Jordan Gal:Sure. So the con a convert convertible note, the beauty of a convertible note is a few really good things. I might miss a few, but whatever is what's coming up off the top of my head. You it's relatively inexpensive. So you're spending 5 to $10 to get this done instead of like a series a, which is like, you know, a 120 page placement thing, and it costs $25.30 grand.
Jordan Gal:So it's just more reasonable on the expense front to begin with. So it makes more sense to raising a relatively small amount of money. You probably shouldn't shouldn't spend $25 on just getting the paperwork done. So it makes sense that way. Another huge factor is that you don't have to close at once.
Jordan Gal:So you don't have to wrangle everyone together at the same time and then close, like, on the same day in the funding and the signing. That's what pros do. They're used to that. That's what they do for a living. When you're talking to, you know, a mentor that wants to support you, and then you're talking to, like, a family member and then, like, a friend from college, like, it's real complicated to wrangle everyone together.
Jordan Gal:So what a convertible note does is allows you to have different notes. It's all part of the same financing, but you can get it done with one person, and then three weeks later, get done with someone else, and a week later, get some with someone else. Now another advantage in theory, you can have different terms for each note. We did not do that because we did not feel ethically or whatever. It didn't make sense for us.
Jordan Gal:Right? Because we're we're talking friends, family, mentors, people who are close to us. It wouldn't make sense to give one person a better deal than the other. It, like, doesn't that doesn't sit right. So what we did is we took our most professional investor, a very experienced business person, and we negotiated with them first.
Jordan Gal:And it was a more difficult negotiation than than expected, let's let's say that, because he's he's the real deal. He's a real businessman. He's done a bunch of investments, and he doesn't really mess around. So once we got settled with him, then we said, okay, this is as hard as anyone's gonna negotiate. Now we're comfortable giving this deal to everybody else.
Brian Casel:Right. Gotcha.
Jordan Gal:Right. So it's like, no, like, like, you if a family member is you can't know, give a family member a better deal than like a friend. It's it's just we wanted the same terms.
Brian Casel:Kind makes it easy for for the rest of them because it's alright. We've established what the the the what the basic terms are, basic framework and either you're in or or you're out.
Jordan Gal:Right. And it also allowed us to say, like, this person is who we negotiated with, and that's why we got here, and here's why. And and it was healthy because we started off a little bit unrealistic, and we we could have gotten money in the door at an unrealistic valuation, and we'll we'll talk about that next. And then that would have been problematic later on.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:So we negotiated hard with with one person who's most experienced, and they brought us down to reality, and then we applied reality to other people. So it it worked out the right way.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:We we could have gone from people who were like, don't care what you're doing. I'll give you money because, you know, I really care about you, and I've made enough money in my career that I wanna support you, and that actually would have screwed us. So so that worked So
Brian Casel:so how does it play out, like, in the future as as things go forward?
Jordan Gal:Well, let's let's just finish this first before we we get into that. So Okay. The next big thing about a convertible note is the valuation cap. It is not a valuation. So this has been a very difficult thing to explain to investors because they're like, I put in x amount of money.
Jordan Gal:Your valuation cap is y. That means I should get z percentage. Right? And it's actually no. It's not like that.
Jordan Gal:What you're doing is you are establishing a cap, a maximum valuation, and the convertible debt is transferred, is converted. That's why it's called a convertible note. It's converted to equity later.
Brian Casel:Right. It's kind
Jordan Gal:of it's kind
Brian Casel:a time of a of of like an exit or something.
Jordan Gal:Of a qualified financing, an exit, or the or the maturity of the note. So that's why people like convertible notes also because it it they say kicks the can down the road on the valuation conversation. That was not my experience. My experience was like, oh, cool. Valuation cap.
Jordan Gal:I understand the concept, but I'm assuming that's the valuation. So it's in effect for math purposes, not all math purposes, some math purposes, and just, like, conversationally and in negotiations, that that's kind of what you're what you're saying your company's worth. Then in the future, depending on a qualified financing at a higher valuation or the exit of the company or a maturity of the note, debt then converts to an equity share. One of the most challenging parts of this process has been educating myself to the point of being able to accurately portray the situation in these scenarios because you don't wanna mess that up, man. You you don't wanna tell somebody the wrong thing and then have them assume that because guess what?
Jordan Gal:Legal documents, people read, but not really. They listen to you. They know you. They trust you. What you tell them, if you tell them, hey, under this scenario, if we raise money to x valuation, your debt converts to equity in this particular way with this premium attached.
Jordan Gal:You explain to them, that's what they're gonna assume is the truth. If a year from now, something happens and that didn't quite work out, that's not cool. So I I had to work really hard to educate myself. And there's a lot of information online, but it is it is imperfect.
Brian Casel:So, like, when it comes to the terms of this round and I mean, did you have any kind of like, going into it before any deals were were struck, did you have any kind of baseline what you would accept or what would make it not worth it to to even go this route?
Jordan Gal:Yes. And and this this has a lot to do with other people. So this is not just me. Right? So I have a cofounder now, and he has an equity stake.
Jordan Gal:And I have another cofounder, and he has an equity stake. And so and now and I have the largest equity stake. Right? I was the original person to to kinda get it started. So I can't just think about myself when doing math.
Jordan Gal:I have to think about how does this affect the other person. Because if I look at an outcome, right, this is what the stuff you start to think about. You're like, would I sell for $5,000,000 today? Would I sell for 10? Would I sell for 2?
Jordan Gal:So you look at that and you say, okay. So a $5,000,000 exit, how much do I take home personally? That's cool. You also have to look at what your cofounders would take home personally and say, are they gonna accept that? Are they okay with putting the amount of work and risk as as that being the reward for that?
Jordan Gal:So that's it it a little complicated that way. And then just a little bit more on on the process just because I had no idea on this, and then we can get into, like, scenarios in the future. The way it works is when you get somebody interested so we we use the deck. Literally, conference call line from freeconferencecall.com, join.me, free screen sharing. We put together a deck, zero style, zero formatting, just black on white with bullet points, a few screenshots.
Jordan Gal:That's it. And we just ran through the opportunity and what we're doing and some screenshots of the product and a testimonial and a case study from a successful customer, and then a bit about the opportunity, the market, what we're gonna use the money for. So we just kinda ran people through that over the phone while they looked at the screen. So let's say someone goes, alright. I'm kinda interested.
Jordan Gal:What's the next step? The next step is a term sheet and a suitability document. So a term sheet outlines the general terms of the deal, but is but is nonbinding. And all you lawyers out there, if I'm wrong, this is my experience. Okay?
Jordan Gal:So the but what the term sheet does is it basically says, I accept the outlines of this deal. I haven't accepted the deal. I accept the outlines. And then a suitability doc is to prove that the person you're speaking with is an accredited investor. Right?
Jordan Gal:Basically, you only wanna deal with accredited investors. If you're not dealing with accredited investors, your SEC filings and and your needs on that front are unreasonable for for our level of funding and our level of businesses. So you have to only talk to credit investors, and you have to have a document that says, this person proved to me that they were an accredited investors before we went to step two. Once you have a term sheet and a suitability document, meaning I accepted the outline of the deal and I'm an accredited investor, then it's a purchase agreement and a promissory note. That and those are the actual deal documents.
Jordan Gal:And so that's the the step is, okay. Cool. You're interested. Let's talk more. Let's talk detail.
Jordan Gal:And there's a next step.
Brian Casel:How much time for for each individual investor? How how many weeks are we talking about from like initial interest, you know, to deal done?
Jordan Gal:Between three weeks and three months.
Brian Casel:Okay. So some of them just kind of take a long time, some of them are go
Jordan Gal:straight They just literally in your CRM to be like, send an update on how we're doing. And then three weeks later, send an update on how we're doing. Know? And it's it's a process. Some people are like ready to roll.
Brian Casel:How hands on have they been during this process before they're officially invested? Like how much digging are they doing into the past and current business and into the plan going forward? Like are they kind of really trying to get a deep understanding of everything or is it kinda just high level bullet points? This is what the business does. This is where we think it's going.
Jordan Gal:It depends. It very much depends. Now so we've dealt with friends, family, and mentors. So there hasn't been, like, show me proof of everything. You know, it's not it's not quite like that.
Jordan Gal:And depending on the level of sophistication, some of the guys that invested are in finance. Some of them are, like, in private equity. So they're really used to this stuff. They're just looking at the companies and valuing them and all that. So the the questions vary tremendously.
Jordan Gal:It's from this sounds cool. You're my boy from elementary school. Like, I'm in. Let's do this. Leo, let's have fun doing this together to what's the plan?
Jordan Gal:What's the competitive landscape? Why are you different? How are you different? What's the plan? What about this danger in the market?
Jordan Gal:You know, all all valid, valid questions. You get confronted with reality. All the risks you didn't think of, you know, people giving you, decent chunks of money. So they they take it seriously and and it makes you take it seriously too.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Cool. So, you know, I'm still trying to understand, you know, strategically. Right. Why do
Jordan Gal:why do this?
Brian Casel:Why why do this? And and this actually goes back about what, like eight months now or like back to the beginning of this process. What was your thinking then and how did your strategy change like tactically? You know going into this thinking, okay we're going to raise about this much money, how is this going to change what we're working on? Well two questions with that actually.
Brian Casel:One is what are the new strategies that you're gonna pursue now that you have money and how did you think about that throughout this process? But then the other one is like, you're investing all this time into dealing with these investors. How did that impact what you're actually working on from day to day?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So that's obviously a complicated answer. The bottom line is that the acquisition offer and then the interest to invest, just kind of made me relook at the opportunity with fresh eyes and say, what am I working with here? Is is this an opportunity to make 10 k a month, or is this an opportunity to make millions? You know, because we've talked about this before.
Jordan Gal:I'm I'm in the game to make millions. And this started to lead lead to the conclusion that it is more likely to make millions if I go a lot faster. And to go a lot faster, I was just simply not willing to continue to fund the business myself for another year. And at the same time, I knew that speed was where it was where it's at. That's why look.
Jordan Gal:Right after this, that's when I went looking for a cofounder. That's when Ben joined, and that's when it was like, look, man, let's let's really get after this. So it was just like an intensification. Right? So bringing on a cofounder is just more intensity.
Jordan Gal:Another person working full time. Raising money is just expectations, intensity, stress, excitement, confidence. It's just like it's a growing, like, energy. We've gone slower than I wanted. Part of the reason is because we spent time on fundraising.
Jordan Gal:Right? That's a given. You you know it's gonna happen. The plus side is that it buys you time, and it provides more opportunity. So we are, you know, we're about to get back out there with a lot more firepower with and and time.
Jordan Gal:So it's a combination of like, okay, we're gonna be in the game for twelve to eighteen months. How now now it's a matter of how fast can we grow. Right? Can we grow really fast? Like, what are the ways to get to get to 25 k to 50 k to a 100 k?
Jordan Gal:Not in twelve months. Like, how do we do that in six months? Like, now there's, like, there's less stopping you. There's still constraints. We didn't go raise a giant ton of money, but the the the math is still very similar in in a lot of ways.
Jordan Gal:Right? One of one of the original reasons not to raise money is because of what it does to the the bar for success. If you raise a million dollars, you can't sell for a million dollars. Right? You can't sell for 2,000,000, really.
Jordan Gal:I mean, you can, but it's it's not really. If you bootstrap yourself and you get you get to a point where the business is making some money and someone offers you 500 k in cash, you can say yes. In this situation, you can no longer say yes. Not reasonably, not with a good outcome. So I was always hesitant to do that because it's a lot easier to sell a company for $2,000,000 than just to sell for 10.
Jordan Gal:It's just a lot easier. It happens a lot more often, which is why we're trying to thread the needle with a relatively small funding round so that we are still in the atmosphere on the the bar for success. That number has changed. The amount I can say yes to today has gone up, but I I am okay with that because of all these resources and energy and people now. I think it's more likely to get to that higher number as long as it's not astronomical.
Brian Casel:So I mean, like, kind of hiring are you doing or marketing plans? What what kinds of things are you doing now or do you plan to do this year that you wouldn't have done without this investment?
Jordan Gal:One of the biggest ones is product development. So if I kept Cardhook a very focused, very, you know, specific, solution that was relatively rudimentary in its scope and features and all that, I could have kept doing that myself with a part time developer and grown it. Now with resources and with a full time product person and working with amazing, amazing developer, the product can go where we envision it to go. And and that is a much more valuable product and potentially much more valuable company. So that that's one of the, like, resource constraints that's most exciting.
Jordan Gal:Like, salaries is cool, but no one's in the game to make a salary. Like, okay. You have your expenses covered for a year. Cool. You know, I got, like, two kids, man.
Jordan Gal:Like, college is coming. You know, it's that's covering your expenses is not enough. So product development and then and then firepower and marketing. Right? So we have the resources to hire a full time salesperson in The Philippines who's out there hitting the phones, and and we can experiment.
Jordan Gal:We can spend a thousand bucks on Facebook ads and see if it works and spend, you know, partnership, and we can do a podcast and and pay our boys at Podcast Motor $500 a month because I think that's gonna be good lead generation, good credibility, and authority building. So it's a little bit more firepower, but it it's definitely still within reason. It's not like hiring a giant marketing agency and spend, you know, $50 a month. It's not like that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You're still I mean, you're still very hands on with with all the strategy and all the tactics and everything. So
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I can see why people raise more money because the second you start to think bigger, you you need more people, man. You need more people. So I I can see that. And I can see if we start to grow faster, the pressure to raise more money just to be able to hire five or six people will start to make a case for itself, and we're gonna have to we're gonna have to navigate that if that's the right decision or not or I don't know.
Jordan Gal:It's gonna be it's gonna be an interesting year. That's what I think.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Absolutely. It'll be interesting to hear the the rest of the, like, the second half of this year, you know, going going forward and how things are moving much faster now. So, I mean, you know, congratulations again on this big development.
Jordan Gal:Thank you. It's like a lot of things in entrepreneurship. It's it's like a dichotomy. It's like, congratulations. First time doing this.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Awesome. I feel good. I'm walking around with, like, a sense of confidence. Like, you know, it's, like, very exciting. Same time, it's like, congratulations.
Jordan Gal:A whole lot more stress. Yeah. Expectations. People watching, people are watching. People I know and respect and love are watching.
Jordan Gal:It's it's a little hardcore, but it's it's good.
Brian Casel:But, you know, you just gone through a major development in a business for the first time. Right? Like, raising money for a business of your own. Like, this is a new milestone that you've hit in your career. Like, this is outside of Carthook.
Jordan Gal:Just Yeah. An experience of a
Brian Casel:career. Experience that that now you you've been through it.
Jordan Gal:So Yeah. The previous business, like, selling the business previously was, yeah, it was one of those career things of, like, okay. I've done that now. Next time, I wanted a zero, but this time was like, I did it. Now it's, like, under your belt, and you can kinda keep moving forward and building on top of that.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Thank you. I feel like I finally got it off my chest after after a few months. Yeah. That's it.
Jordan Gal:Now I'll stop sharing details forever because all my competitors, like the ones who just raised $11,000,000. $11,000,000? $11,000,000? What what do do when your competitor raise $11,000,000? Nothing.
Jordan Gal:You fucking ignore them and get back to work. That's
Brian Casel:right. Uh-oh.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Cool. So Brian, that that was a pretty natural transition there.
Brian Casel:Well, so the big news on my end is I have officially sold the restaurant engine and the hotel propeller business.
Jordan Gal:Wow. So speaking of career milestones, congratulations to you, my friend.
Brian Casel:Thank you. Yeah. You know, it's still it does feel real because I've been so wrapped up in this whole deal and and closing this deal for the last few months, and it's been kinda hard not talking about it publicly, but it's in a place where I can start kinda sharing the the fact that it that it has happened. Mean, you know, I've I've spoken to a bunch of people offline about it. But yeah, you know, so as of this week, we've closed and really happy with everything that that went down.
Brian Casel:Good.
Jordan Gal:Was it nice and easy and straightforward? No no no problems? Okay. So let's not. So Now now we get to interview, my friend.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So I think what naturally comes to mind is, right, the same kind of questions. Why? And then, like, walk us through the process. How does this work? What happened along the way?
Jordan Gal:Kind of your plans for the future. So let's let's back it up into into why originally, why why would you you know, you don't think about selling it every day. So what what popped into your head that thought of selling seriously?
Brian Casel:Yeah, know, I don't want to get too deep into this. Kind of covered it a lot in real time when I was thinking about it. I just didn't really exactly say that I was talking about selling the business. So a couple episodes back earlier this year, I think the thought became real, I forgot when it was, maybe January or February this year, 2015. And was just thinking, and it took me a long time to go back and forth on should I kind I had basically three choices, sell it, hold onto it and kind of let it run-in maintenance mode while I start up something new.
Brian Casel:Or the third option was to really double down on it and make Restaurant Engine my focus for at least another year or two before. And so my thinking there was, you know, I've already put four years into it. It still had more potential for sure, but I felt personally that I brought it as far as as I can take it. And especially I I just felt that I've learned everything that I'm going to learn from this business. Doubling down on this the the return on on that investment for me in terms of learning, in terms of experience, in terms of positioning myself and connecting with everything else that I'm doing business wise, those pieces just didn't connect when I started thinking about what if I double down on this in the next couple years.
Brian Casel:And then you know but the other legitimate thought which I kept coming back to throughout this process was I could just hold onto it. I could just let it run because the reality is by the time I was ready to sell it as of earlier this year, I literally spent only two to three hours a month working on that business.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Which is amazing in in itself.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean obviously I would spend more hours a month if I'm working on like a new initiative like like doing like a adding a new marketing campaign or adding something to the product. But in terms of maintaining the business, like tickets that get escalate support tickets that get escalated to me a couple a month and that's just about two or three hours of my time a month. So you know that was a very real possibility and you know this process of finding a buyer and going through process of getting a deal together, the the due diligence process, which wow, I heard that as a long and drawn out process and very stressful and it was 10 times more than what I thought it would be. You know, I am happy with the outcome and and I and throughout the whole process, a big reason why I didn't talk about this publicly until now is I really didn't know how it was going to conclude.
Brian Casel:Like in in my mind, even as even as late as just a couple of weeks ago, like a week or two ago, I was thinking yeah. I mean, it it was probably gonna happen a week or two ago, but I was still thinking like that this could go down. That like the whole thing could, you know, contract negotiations and sticky bits around due diligence and, accepting different variations on terms and things like that. There there was a strong possibility that that the whole thing could fall apart. And and I in my mind, I had a backup plan, which was I would just hold on to it for at least another year or two.
Brian Casel:And I started to to actually play out a scenario in that because I I had already started building my new business, audience ops.
Jordan Gal:Right. That was gonna happen one way or another.
Brian Casel:That that was happening and and I had started building that basically since MicroComp. And and as of the last month or two, I am very much in it because Audience Ops has been growing much faster than anything that I have done before. So in my mind as of just a couple months ago, I'm full time on audience ops. So my backup plan for Restaurant Engine and Hotel Propeller was just let it run on autopilot, let it maintain and I start to think of ways, you know, having someone kind of become the manager of that and different things. But in the end, it all concluded and I was very happy with the terms and with the price.
Brian Casel:You know, I don't really I know people might be wondering, I don't feel totally comfortable sharing exact numbers. I'll, you know, I'll just say it was low 6 figures. Good terms. It it met all of my it definitely met all of my baseline requirements to make it worthwhile.
Jordan Gal:Right. Those things have a way of of ending up fair because you have to accept it, and they have to accept it. Right? You're not dealing with a, you know, a giant public company like Starbucks buying La Boulange bakery for a $100,000,000 because it doesn't matter to them. You're dealing with real people with hard earned money.
Jordan Gal:You have to be okay, especially in your situation. You weren't working and spending all day on it, so you didn't get into that mindset of like, okay, now I wanna get rid of it, and it's painful to hold on to it. So you were in the best possible situation where you didn't spend that much time on it and kinda had the option of keeping or selling, which is which is healthy.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and that also very much helped me in in my negotiations over price and terms is that I was perfectly willing to keep it.
Jordan Gal:Right. Most people, once they wanna get rid of it, they'll start to accept lower amount because they they just wanna get rid of it. I I know for for Our our situation was to say we we were done. We were mentally done, And we didn't have the systems in place that you did. We were not as good of a situation as you were from a negotiation.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, there were certain points during the the negotiation and and the due diligence. I was actually working with a couple of different buyers at different stages. Like the first buyer that deal actually didn't come together and then we came to a second buyer. There were certain points in there where where I thought where I almost became more excited about keeping it than than the current terms on the table.
Brian Casel:Once once we started working with with the second buyer, it it was pretty clear that this was going to happen. Both sides were very excited about it. And we we made it work. It was a long process to get there, but we but we definitely we definitely made it work.
Jordan Gal:So speaking of the process, I I wanna kinda drag you back through it because I think it's it's helpful. Yep. Right? I I didn't know a lot of things I just talked about on the fundraising stuff.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You know, it's it's not something you do every day, and selling a business isn't something you do every day. So, you know, help us walk through
Brian Casel:So many things.
Jordan Gal:Once you decide to sell, like what what happens after that?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, like so many so many things I learned. I mean, is first time for me going through this process of of selling a business, I guess my very first step was speak to a business broker. And I worked with Thomas Smell and his team at FE International. I can't say enough good things about them and I was actually talking to Thomas, he actually might come on our podcast at some point pretty soon, so will be good to have him on.
Jordan Gal:They are like your shepherd through the process.
Brian Casel:Yeah, they've been fantastic. But you know, the very first step for me was actually to have a call with Thomas and just to get, you know, see what this looks like. Because at this point, I'm not even like convinced that I want to sell out. But the thought is there, let's see what this would look like. So I had a call, asked for basically an assessment of I I told him all the basics about my business, and he told me a basic range of what I can expect in a sale price and and kind of framework basic terms or or well, not exactly terms, but just what what kind of things can I expect?
Brian Casel:And and I was I was pretty happy with his assessment, and in my mind, I was actually a little I I felt that it was almost a little bit optimistic. That it was it was a little it was in line with what I had wanted for the business, but I I was expecting, you know, that I would probably have to settle for less for for whatever reason.
Jordan Gal:So so this is the conversation you have before you start and saying, here's what my business looks like. What do you think I can get for it? Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Right. And that's a tricky one from his side because he wants to make you optimistic but he doesn't want to
Brian Casel:over Yeah and I was aware of that. You know he's a business broker and so I'm aware that he might be a little bit overoptimistic. The the truth is, all said and done, the sale price was, I mean, spot on, like, right in exact like, it met it it is this thing exactly, which is, you know, I I think it just goes to the testament for for Effie International. It's just awesome. So yeah.
Brian Casel:I mean, that was the first step, then and then I gave it some thought a couple of weeks. I think it was pretty fast after that that I decided, okay. Let's go ahead. And then
Jordan Gal:you signed agreement with them?
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:Okay. And what do what do they get out of it? What's like the normal you don't have to give exact numbers, but is it like a a fee or is it a percentage?
Brian Casel:Yeah. They they take a percentage and there's a there's a certain period that they are like the exclusive broker for the business. So, you know, it it all made sense for me. And and then we go ahead and and list it, and basically they build a prospectus for the business. They ask me for a a bunch of information, some financial information, some basics about the business, how it works.
Brian Casel:Actually they had a very long questionnaire, know asked a lot of good questions. It took me actually several days to fill out this questionnaire. And then they used that information to build this prospectus document and then they kind of put it up for sale. And then this was the other thing, one of the questions I had asked initially was like well how fast can we start to hear offers and how fast does this go? And I think he had quoted something like within two or three weeks we'll see offers.
Brian Casel:And I was like, okay, yeah, that's yeah, right. I'm sure we'll get offers in two weeks. I'm expecting like a six month process. I mean we had lots of questions within the first week and we had offers on the table by by the second week. Multiple multiple offers.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. There's a lot of money out there looking for existing businesses instead of starting it from scratch.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Especially when it's not an astronomical price. It it's it makes a lot of sense to some people to invest, you know, less than a million dollars into a business that already exists as opposed to starting something from scratch.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Exactly. And I was I was just blown away at at how fast this interest came in. And so had a couple of offers that we spoke to and worked directly with my broker David over there at Effie. That was a pretty fast and easy process to get to a point of accepted offer.
Jordan Gal:That part is easy. That sounds like the most exciting part.
Brian Casel:Yes. Then we get into due diligence. And man, I knew this would be tough and just kind of a grueling process, but it it was was very hard.
Jordan Gal:So I think there's a there's a big range in experience.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And I think a lot of it has to do with my inexperience with with this whole process.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's not what I was alluding to. I was alluding to the other side. Some people are really hardcore and some people aren't.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So, you know, I I definitely saw all different angles of of this process for sure. But, you know, the part of the thing that made this a little bit difficult, and maybe this is helpful for anyone listening who is running a bootstrapped business and it's kind of like your first business that is starting to grow, because this was the case for me, as you know I run a bunch of different things. I had originally done some consulting work, I had done that for years, I've been selling the productized course. I've got restaurant engine and hotel propeller.
Brian Casel:I've got other little small revenue generating things. The tricky thing is that all of that stuff goes into my one business bank account. That's the tough thing about this. Like, I'm not selling my LLC. That is my blanket business for everything that I do.
Brian Casel:This is like a carve out deal where we're just taking Restaurant Engine and and Hotel Propeller out of what I'm doing. So there were Right.
Jordan Gal:It's an asset purchase I believe is the term. Right?
Brian Casel:It's it's an asset purchase. Yep. So there are certain there were certain aspects about my business that were very easy to do do due diligence on. Basically the the the nice thing is that that all of the revenue has come through Stripe since day one, and and it's never Oh, that's good. It's never been through any other source.
Brian Casel:So that made it easy on the revenue side. The the tough thing is on the expenses because it's, you know, what are what are expenses related to restaurant engine and what are expenses related to my other stuff? Oh, yes. There was a lot of of due diligence on that.
Jordan Gal:So you had to break out numbers where you were looking at it as one entire lump, but like a business with revenue and expenses. And when someone wants to buy just this asset, you need to break out the income and the expenses related to that specific business. But it's not, it's easy to do it for last month. It's eighteen months ago that it's hard to do.
Brian Casel:Yeah, and I had certain systems that I used to keep track of what's what within my business. And I could see the specific revenue and expenses for restaurant engine and for product ties and for all the other stuff. But it's I mean, there were certain things that are shared across all of my businesses and we had to kind of account for that. And then, you know, it it it's like this is due diligence. The whole point is, okay, it is what I say it is, but now we have to prove that it is what I say it is, you know.
Jordan Gal:Right. Bank statements.
Brian Casel:Bank statements, tax returns, information. All the credit card statements, all of it. And so that's just a long drawn out process and then just like flagging certain items and then having conversation after conversation, just really stressful. Then but you know, we we got there. We we got through it.
Brian Casel:Part part of the stress for me was that I'm working on launching audience ops. And that is a ton of work in in the early days. So I was spending in in in at some points at least half of my week, sometimes almost a full week working on the restaurant engine deal when I should be doing things for for audience ops.
Jordan Gal:Right. So if you kept the business and kept the income coming in, you spend 2 or 3 hours a month on it. You try to sell it, you end up spending Forty like
Brian Casel:hours a week. Thirty. Yeah. You know?
Jordan Gal:That's how it goes.
Brian Casel:So so, you know, we got there and then financial due diligence, product due diligence, operations due diligence, all of that stuff needs to be really combed through. Phone call after phone call. Actually, the so the buyer actually traveled up here to Connecticut.
Jordan Gal:I was gonna ask that. So you guys met?
Brian Casel:We met. And it's actually kind of fun because so he's from, North Carolina. He came up here, and one of our customers on Restaurant Engine is a restaurant here in Norwalk. So so we had dinner over there. Perfect.
Jordan Gal:It was
Brian Casel:it was great.
Jordan Gal:So it
Brian Casel:was you know, it was nice to meet him and kind of spend the day and talk. So then we get into the contract negotiations which also not very easy going. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:There's there's so many minor points that make such a big deal. Yes. You don't think of. You know, what what what were some of the things that were, you know, tricky? And neither side is wrong.
Jordan Gal:It's not like someone's being unreasonable.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:It's just a different perspective.
Brian Casel:Yeah. The thing that made it difficult at certain points, again, worked with, you know, one buyer and then a second buyer. It was a little bit I mean, obviously, was a little bit easier with the second buyer because the deal got done. What what happens is, you know, from from day one of of due diligence, like, I've accepted an offer and and some, like, framework terms. We we we on paper, these are this is the sale price and these are the basic terms that we've come to an agreement on.
Jordan Gal:Right. And that's called the letter of intent.
Brian Casel:Letter of intent, yep.
Jordan Gal:Right. So it's kind of like the term sheet that I talked about when fundraising, cool, I agree, but that's not the actual contract.
Brian Casel:Right. But then once we get past all the due diligence and then into the contract, terms start to change. And that's that this is actually something that I personally just wasn't really prepared for.
Jordan Gal:Did you work with a lawyer?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And because that's
Jordan Gal:a pain too. Because you're looking at them like, every time I look at them, it costs me $400 an hour. And so you you you kinda have to do some negotiation negotiating on your own and then, like, pull in the lawyer
Brian Casel:where appropriate. I mean, the nice thing is that my lawyer is actually my father. So he he's he's an attorney. That's nice. Which was which was great.
Brian Casel:And I'm not just saying this because he's my old man, but he's awesome. He you know, does a fantastic job and obviously brought up all these points that I wasn't aware of and all this. And then there was also a timing aspect of these contract negotiations because oh the other thing that kind of came up was that the due diligence from day one we agree on a certain closing date. And then due diligence kind of dragged on past that closing date and it kind of extended into week five, week six, week seven, I think it was week seven, maybe even week eight that we finally closed. So that was kind of difficult, like just things kind of dragged on, due diligence dragged on and then contract negotiations dragged on.
Jordan Gal:Yeah, the longer things drag on, the higher likelihood of it falling apart.
Brian Casel:Yeah, mean the nice thing working with my father that really helped at least our end go very, very quickly. If anything is needed from us, we can get it like same day.
Jordan Gal:Right. That's nice.
Brian Casel:I mean you know back to like the terms and contract negotiations, again I'm very happy with the outcome of everything and I think both sides are happy.
Jordan Gal:You don't get everything you want.
Brian Casel:No, you don't get everything you want. I certainly had to make some concessions and some things that I just wasn't really expecting or prepared to give. And I'm not going get too into specifics but there's there's you know there there's a large chunk upfront and then there's an earn out period. And there are certain terms based around the earn out. What and a lot of the contract negotiations are these contingencies that that happen during that earn out period.
Brian Casel:What if certain things happen, how do we handle those?
Jordan Gal:Right. If the technology explodes, is it your fault even though we bought it six months ago?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Or or and
Jordan Gal:like compete in the space with us for four years, and you say that's not reasonable. It has to be one year. It's just a million little wrinkles.
Brian Casel:Right. Right. Right. Right. And and there are, like, little there there are all these little risks.
Brian Casel:Each individual item comes with a certain amount of risk, and then we have to somehow agree on a dollar amount that that risk is worth. And then tie that into the contract negotiations. Right.
Jordan Gal:Ahead of time. Like before knowing how you're gonna feel or think. Exactly. You need something on paper.
Brian Casel:Yep. So that was just you know very difficult, stressful, a lot of sleepless nights in these last couple weeks. I guess I'll go through a little bit of like the last week which was okay we closed, we signed the contract.
Jordan Gal:And you've been drunk ever since. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Last night we actually broke out the champagne but there's like a seven day period from the closing, then we've got escrow and the transfer of assets.
Jordan Gal:Alright.
Brian Casel:And the inspection of the of those assets, and then it's not fully official until until the the inspection period is, you know, complete. Right.
Jordan Gal:You gotta transfer domains and hosting
Brian Casel:Domains and stuff. And all these different accounts and, like yeah.
Jordan Gal:The So how how does that work? They put their money to escrow, so you know it's there. Yep. But then you then you give up the stuff. Yep.
Jordan Gal:And then once they get the stuff, then they're okay with the escrow letting go and sending you the money.
Brian Casel:Yes. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:That's Beautiful thing. Our system has created all these, you know, all these little pieces to to satisfy people so the stuff gets sucked.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yep. And so that is basically how it went down. I guess another aspect of this, which I think went fairly smooth, is the team on Restaurant Engine. I have been working with them for a while and at a certain point in all this I had to kind of break the news that, okay guys it looks like I'm going to be selling the business.
Brian Casel:And I actually had to tell them about two months ago I broke that news. So it was not done yet. I had accepted an offer and then at that point I kind of told the team that this is coming, we're still several months away from it being final, but just so you know, that's what's happening.
Jordan Gal:Did that add stress to the equation? I mean, what if if three of them, like, quit, all of a sudden that starts to impact this the the possible sale
Brian Casel:and Right. I mean, you know, luckily, nobody quit and I don't expect them to going forward. And and that this was certainly something that that the buyer was he definitely wanted to make sure that the team was coming coming with. I mean, again, this is a product type service. There there are a lot of manual service aspects to this that, you know, depend on on the team being there.
Brian Casel:But that all went, you know, pretty pretty smooth. But, yeah, it was just something that I had to deal with because the other the other aspect of this is that in my mind, I've I've now told the team that that I have intentions to sell and that it's looking like that I'm going to sell to a new owner. And then what if this doesn't? Again, this deal might fall through. So then then it's back to, okay, I still own it, but there's this, in my mind at least, there's this like weird tension, you know, managing a team who they know that I was trying to exit this business.
Brian Casel:Which also kind of plays back to some of my original reasoning behind selling it in the first place, which was it is a very team intensive business and the thought of holding on to the business and letting it run on autopilot, totally a viable option, but there was just a small part of me that didn't quite sit right with that because I knew that I would be completely focused on another business and and all of my energy and resources would be going into that business where while I would leave this other business kind of just running but without my attention and resource. And and I maybe that's not the right way to to look at it
Jordan Gal:but Yeah, but that is fine. That is how you felt it. It was almost like a guilt thing. I feel like you are abandoning them in a way. In theory, it sounds great.
Brian Casel:I don't know if, yeah, I guess kind of guilt. I don't know if that is the right word It for just like if I in their shoes and they are working for this company and like if I'm working for a company and I know full well that this company is basically just running on autopilot and and there are not resources being pumped into this company to to grow it and to be super successful, my prospects here are not looking so good. You know? Right.
Jordan Gal:It's less exciting. That that makes sense. Yeah. It's like an emotional guilt thing. It's also, you know, a business sense.
Jordan Gal:In theory, it sounds great to be totally hands off. The owner has nothing to do with it. Money keeps coming in. In reality, you know, it's not it's not quite that simple.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and you know, to be honest now, I'm actually very excited for the future of Restaurant Engine and Hotel Propeller and the team, because I've talked at length with the new buyer, with with the new owner, the the now owner of of that about what his plans are to to grow the business and and and expand it and things and
Jordan Gal:Right. He didn't buy it to keep it the same.
Brian Casel:No. Yes.
Jordan Gal:He's to bring a whole new energy and focus and maybe capital and new ideas.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Exactly. And, and we talked all about that. And and I am very excited about the plans that he has in place. I think they are right on.
Brian Casel:You know that was another part of this. Again, I had multiple offers and I worked with a couple different buyers and I ultimately settled on this buyer because I really wanted to find someone who I felt comfortable handing the reins over to, who I felt confident that would be successful with it and they had a strong track record behind them and also a good match for this type of business, this type of technology and things and just getting a good vibe in terms of how they're going to treat the team, treat the customers and and really, you know, do well with this business in in the next year and and beyond. Know, so I I feel pretty good about that with the final buyer.
Jordan Gal:Nice, man. Well, I I get to say congratulations to you.
Brian Casel:Thank you, sir. It it definitely feels good. And and you know, now the the like, I I like to I I just feel good about this, you know, going forward really truly focusing on audience ops. Mean, this gets back to like the first question of like why sell? Right.
Brian Casel:And real really it comes down to I'm trying to focus. I'm to work on one business at a time. And for me right now, that is audience ops. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And if you were to stair step up, sounds like you needed you needed to let go of one before you went up the next step.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I definitely. And it gives me, you know, a a good bunch of capital going into the next year to kind of feel comfortable about, growing audience ops. But the truth is audience ops has grown way faster than I than I thought it would. So Audience Ops is is actually, you know, plenty profitable at this point and it's it's looking like I can actually just kinda bank everything from from Restaurant Engine and just keep kinda pushing on Audience Ops.
Brian Casel:So that's what I'm going to be focused on in the next while.
Jordan Gal:Nice, man. So it's good. Bootstrap web to that, you know, 2015. We're gonna have some cool stuff to talk about, bring bring on some interesting, guests as well.
Brian Casel:Definitely. Yeah. Should we wrap it up there? Long one. Lot lot of news today, but it was good.
Jordan Gal:Good one. We're cool. If if for nobody else than for ourselves to listen to in in about a year to kinda re relive some of it and kinda laugh at the naivete of all of our expectations and hopes.
Brian Casel:Exactly. Exactly. Cool, man. Cool, man. Well, know, congratulations to you again, and and we'll we'll talk again next week.
Jordan Gal:You too, my man. Talk to
Brian Casel:you soon.
![[78] Changing the Course of Our Businesses](https://img.transistorcdn.com/LDB_Cv9bHAA2vtoSPkZCpkdHPF6fAqfl7PL-PG7_c-M/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:800/h:800/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jMjkw/MDYxZDQ0MWIxYTUw/NTMzMGI2NTExZWMx/MWQ1Yi5qcGc.webp)