Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Lil Roberts on Growing Up Poor to Building Xendoo, a World Class Company. Lessons Learned.

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Lil Roberts on Growing Up Poor to Building Xendoo, a World Class Company. Lessons Learned. · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:07
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:13
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:16
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:20
today's guest is Lillian Roberts.
0:22
Lil is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zendu, a
0:26
cloud based bookkeeping, accounting and tax company built
0:29
for small businesses. Zendu started in 2016 and their
0:34
team combines real accountants with smart software so owners
0:38
get clear numbers every month. Their platform links with
0:41
QuickBooks Online and Zero and shows key data on a custom
0:46
dashboard. Now, under Lil's directions,
0:49
Zendu has been spotlighted by Ink Magazine, Bloomberg and the
0:53
South Florida Business Journal. Lil also writes for
0:56
Entrepreneur, sharing practical tax tips for owners.
0:59
Before launching Zendu, she built and sold a manufacturing
1:03
company, so she understands the daily grind of an operator.
1:06
That first hand knowledge pushed her to fix the pain points she
1:09
faced with traditional accounting.
1:12
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Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:07
today, the founder and CEO of Zendu, Lil Roberts.
2:10
Thank you for making the time for us today.
2:12
Thank you, Anthony. A pleasure to be here.
2:14
So before starting Zendu Serial Entrepreneur, you had multiple
2:18
businesses and I know one of those in particular we mentioned
2:21
in the intro you successfully exited a manufacturing company.
2:25
Can you tell us about this company and what that exit
2:28
process was like? Sure.
2:30
And so I actually had a few manufacturing businesses.
2:34
It was wholesale manufacturing in the print space.
2:37
So I watched the print space get decimated really by technology.
2:42
So when I exited my last business, I wanted to go sit on
2:46
the other side of the table and build technology that was going
2:48
to reshape an industry. So the printing why did it get
2:52
decimated by technology? It went from being a local
2:57
analog type business that when it probably 2008 when the
3:02
Internet was really starting to hit its stride for commerce that
3:07
you could buy anywhere. And so when that happened, you
3:10
started to see some really big companies come in that were
3:14
hundred million, $200 million size.
3:16
And that when you have that kind of scale, it changes the price
3:21
and so and gives people the opportunity.
3:23
So as an example, business cards that sold for, you know, $20
3:28
wholesale became $10 wholesale. And if the smaller companies
3:32
can't, it's a high CapEx business.
3:34
And if they can't afford to invest in the equipment to get
3:37
to that size and they don't have the level of business to compete
3:40
at that size, they lose out. So we saw all the local
3:43
businesses going out, kind of like Home Depot to hardware
3:47
stores. Gotcha.
3:48
OK, so big technology shift took place.
3:52
Rather than buying local, now people are buying from a
3:54
Vistaprint online or something like that, and the writing's on
3:58
the wall. So you're like, OK, I don't want
4:01
to be on the wrong side of the technology table and what I do
4:04
next. So how did you cook up this idea
4:07
for Zendo? Great question so I lived
4:11
through the the wrong side of the table for eight years as I
4:15
re engineered that business and put a lot of technology forward
4:19
and that business is still alive today and a lot of my old team
4:22
are still there today. And so it's a matter of how do
4:25
you you know branch into the products that are modern day
4:28
world products. And so I did that the how I came
4:31
up with this idea is that after I exited the business, I built
4:35
the scorecard. I'm big on scorecards and I
4:37
built the scorecard and I, I listed the things that were
4:40
important to me and I love small business and I love small
4:43
business owners. So I'm super passionate about
4:45
that. I wanted a technology first
4:47
business. So I wanted to leave the
4:49
shoreline. I wanted to be out of a business
4:51
that was analog first. I wanted to build a business
4:54
that was technology first from the shoreline.
4:57
And I wanted it to be able to be scaled to 100 million or higher
5:01
in revenue, not for money, but just to build that bigger, you
5:04
know, climb a higher mountain. I wanted it to be venture backed
5:08
because the prior 7-8 businesses were always on my money, on my
5:12
back, in the banks, money together, right?
5:14
And so I wanted to go to the path of venture, raising capital
5:18
for that learning. I'm a lifelong learner and I
5:21
wanted to reshape an industry. And so it was either legal
5:24
accounting or insurance, and they chose accounting.
5:27
Why did you choose accounting out of those 3?
5:30
Because it's a lifeline and it is the oxygen of a business.
5:34
There are of the businesses that go out of business, 92% of the
5:39
business owners run their business from from their bank
5:42
account. They wake up in the morning and
5:44
say, oh, I've got money to live another day. 85% of those
5:47
businesses, according to U.S. Bank, go out of business because
5:51
of cash flow, not because they were profitable.
5:53
So imagine you're climbing to a highest peak that you've always
5:56
wanted to go to, and you're just a few meters down and you turn
5:59
around because you just run out of fuel.
6:02
You have no more water. And that's what a business is.
6:04
Finance to a business is oxygen. It's cash flow.
6:08
It's how it can grow and survive.
6:10
But you didn't have a background in accounting yourself.
6:14
That's what helps. I have the.
6:16
Background. Yes, I have the background as a
6:20
small business owner and so I know what's important and I know
6:23
the life that all of U.S. business owners live and what
6:27
and what we need from accounting.
6:29
And then on the flip side of that, because of my
6:32
manufacturing background, I understand process and I
6:35
understand what it takes to deliver work in a timely manner.
6:38
And the industry, you know that the accounting industry filled
6:41
with amazing good people, but they didn't have the right
6:44
tools. So I set out to build the right
6:46
tools and that's what we've been doing.
6:48
And then we also have our own team, so when they come to work,
6:50
they feel like they're running downhill when typically the
6:53
accounting industry comes to work, feeling like the climb in
6:55
the hill everyday. So talk to me about those early
6:58
days when you thought about putting together the plan,
7:02
finding the investors, building the team, because I get what
7:06
you're saying, Lil, that, you know, from a small business
7:09
owner perspective, you knew like what you needed, but you, you
7:13
need somebody on the accounting side of things as well to, you
7:17
know, kind of bridge those two worlds.
7:19
So talk to me about how you started to cobble all these
7:22
pieces together. Great question.
7:26
You know, as you know and and people listening that are
7:30
entrepreneurs and that want to be entrepreneurs.
7:32
When you focus on something, you become a pit bull and you just
7:36
go after it, right. And so for me, I knew you start
7:41
out with an idea and a thesis. And so first I had to vet the
7:44
thesis. That was the industry big enough
7:47
for this to happen? Was it the right time for the
7:49
industry? So you need to go through all
7:51
those pieces of it and once you get to those pieces to know that
7:54
you can build a business and and it'll reach the size that you
7:57
wanted to get to become. Then I had a Co founder who that
8:03
was, you know, early days, I, you know, to do it over again.
8:06
It wouldn't have been. I picked the wrong guy and so we
8:09
parted ways after a year, a year and a half and there's lots of
8:12
lessons in that. Doesn't mean he's not a nice
8:16
guy, he's a nice guy, but it was just a wrong match.
8:19
And so you bring in somebody that knows accounting and from
8:22
observing that and doing business analysis, you build how
8:26
you believe that you can now start to deliver PN LS in five
8:29
business days, 10 business days, 15 business days.
8:33
How do you help the team have the right tools?
8:35
What are those right tools and is it the right process?
8:37
Just because you've done something one way always doesn't
8:41
mean that that should be the way that you apply to technology.
8:44
You have to look at it and look at it from the end backwards and
8:48
from the beginning forwards and from the middle out.
8:50
And when you take that approach to any problem, if you're going
8:53
to arrive at something that's going to be different and then
8:57
what's the test? How do you know that you're
8:59
going to succeed and be care, you know, for for people, a lot
9:03
of people will stay with their beginning idea and never change.
9:06
And some of the most successful businesses are those that have
9:10
pivoted. You know, if you look at Airbnb,
9:12
his story, a lot of stories out there.
9:14
So just be open. Never dig your heels in, be
9:17
open. And you mentioned that the Co
9:20
founder that you initially had was not the right person.
9:23
Say more about that. Good guy just didn't want to
9:27
work the hours. You know, he was ACPA and and
9:31
when you're an entrepreneur, your hours are always and you
9:35
know, it's 14 hours, 16 hour days when it needs to be.
9:39
And the world doesn't wait, an opportunity doesn't wait.
9:43
And if you want to go down that path, you have to be prepared
9:46
for it. And he just wasn't prepared for
9:47
it. And so he didn't contribute.
9:50
He wanted, he went and looked for something easier.
9:53
And he actually wasn't really passionate about the industry as
9:56
a whole anyway. It was just more he was a, a
9:59
practitioner, I would say. And so he used a lot of the
10:03
learning that that we were doing and and how we were building the
10:07
technology and he applied it to a different industry.
10:10
OK. So we parted ways.
10:12
So looking back, were there signs?
10:15
Would you do it differently? I maybe is my ultimate question.
10:19
You know, were you seeing things early on that now with, with the
10:23
benefit of hindsight, you're like, oh, that should have clued
10:25
me into how this was going to go.
10:27
There is a saying in founder world and the saying is you
10:33
don't hire, you don't have a Co founder for a position that you
10:37
could hire. And that isn't anything mean or
10:40
bad. It's there's a certain ethos
10:43
that comes with Co founders and founders, you know, founders and
10:47
you know this. You have to be willing to jump
10:50
off the ledge and figure out how to fly on the way down.
10:53
And that has to be fun to you. Like that's fun to me and it's
10:57
fun to all the other founders that I know.
10:59
And if you don't have that core piece of who you are as a human,
11:04
then it's you're not in the best, you're not putting
11:07
yourself in the best spot for you.
11:09
OK. So tell us specifically what it
11:11
is that you do for your clients. So Zendu takes care of we
11:17
specifically what we do is we deliver financial Peace of Mind.
11:20
It's a little bit different depending on what each client,
11:23
right. Some clients that are new in
11:25
their journey and maybe have a business that's, you know, four
11:28
500,000 in annual revenue to a million $2,000,000 then they
11:34
need cash basis bookkeeping and accounting done.
11:37
And we take care of that for them.
11:38
And we do that on a monthly basis.
11:40
We touch their books every single week and then we publish
11:43
the reports and then if they would like taxes at the end of
11:46
the year their their IRS tax return done, we take care of
11:48
that. Businesses that are, you know,
11:50
call it 3 million to 15,000,000 typically will be, will fall in
11:55
either modified accrual or full accrual.
11:57
And businesses above that, we have businesses that are as big
12:00
as 80 million, hundred million in size.
12:03
And we have a, we have 4 public companies that we do the
12:06
subsidiaries, subsidiaries of and those businesses need full
12:10
accrual, which is much more involved accounting.
12:12
And typically they'll have a team internally and we're
12:15
integrating with their team internally to deliver the
12:17
monthly financials and help with maybe fractional CFO work or
12:22
controller work. But at the core of it, Anthony,
12:25
it's about that you want to know somebody has your back for your
12:28
books. A lot of small business owners,
12:30
they don't look at their books monthly.
12:31
They, they, they just want to know they're ready for them to
12:34
understand what they owe for taxes.
12:37
But in my opinion, people should look at their books every month,
12:41
know were they profitable? Did they make money?
12:43
Did they lose money? And how do they tweak their
12:45
business? It's a monthly health check on
12:48
your finances. So that monthly health check,
12:50
what specifically would you coach a business owner to be
12:52
looking at on a monthly basis? There's three components of a
12:56
business that you should always look at, right?
12:58
It should be your cost of goods, cost of wages.
13:01
Well, actually 4 things, your gross margin and it should be
13:03
your, your net income. And those should be the four
13:07
metrics. And you should know what those
13:08
numbers should be for your industry.
13:10
You know, in manufacturing, I knew that my cost of goods
13:14
needed to be 23 to 25% and I knew that my cost of wages
13:19
needed to be 30 to 33%. And, and so every industry has a
13:24
range of where their business should be and the business
13:28
owners should be laser focused on getting there because if your
13:31
cost of goods are high, you either have theft or your
13:34
pricing is off, right? Or you're not buying them
13:37
properly. And if your cost of wages are
13:39
high, then same thing. You have people, you're
13:43
overstaffed. And it's OK if you're
13:44
overstaffed for growth, but if your cost of wages are low, are
13:47
really low, then you're driving your team too hard.
13:50
And then you may be setting yourself up for not having the
13:53
proper retention rates, right. So as you know, you and I
13:56
aligned very much on this, that that the human capital of a
14:00
business is the most important part of a business.
14:04
And so how do you think about the human capital side of your
14:08
business, Lil? How do you focus on recruiting
14:11
the right folks and once you've got them, holding on to them?
14:15
A lot of ways. First off, you have to know who
14:18
you're looking for. So the people that we look for
14:21
are heart LED that will run into a burning building.
14:26
So they, they, no matter what their skill set is, they must be
14:30
heart lead. You know, people tell us when
14:32
they walk into our company that you feel the love and it could
14:36
be just anybody could be a vendor that walks in and they're
14:39
like, wow, there's a really great vibe here.
14:41
And the reason being is we hire heart lead people who run into
14:44
burning buildings and and then how do you retain them?
14:47
There's a lot of ways. We also only hire lifelong
14:51
learners. And so through inter our
14:53
interview questions and practices, we determine if
14:57
somebody is a lifelong learner. And if they're a lifelong
14:59
learner, they're going to love being here because we're
15:02
constantly learning. And then you just feed them the
15:06
food that they want. And and that's both figurative
15:10
and literal, right? We have snack table, we have
15:13
lunch on Fridays, we have food, we have camaraderie.
15:17
We have people that really, you know, watch each other's back in
15:21
life and when they're going through through tough times.
15:24
And it's a culture of the company.
15:26
Everybody will say that has a successful company, that it's
15:29
the culture of their company. So what kind of interview
15:32
questions are you asking to determine if a candidate is
15:37
heart lead and a lifelong learner?
15:40
So I unfortunately, I don't get to interview that much anymore,
15:44
but I'll give you some of the things that that, you know,
15:46
typically I'll find out from them.
15:49
Like I'll say, so tell me what you do on on the weekend.
15:53
What does a Saturday look like, a Sunday look like?
15:57
And then if they tell me that, you know, throughout noon,
16:01
that's OK, on one day, I'll say, oh, that's great.
16:03
You know, what about the other day?
16:04
And and I'm trying to find out what it is they do.
16:07
If they say, Oh, well, you know, weekends, I spent a lot of time
16:10
with my family. We go to the park and we have
16:13
family outings. You know that there's somebody
16:15
that that love mean is important to them.
16:19
You know, same thing if they share with you what what they're
16:21
doing with their friends, you're going to get a sense of who they
16:24
are through that, that are they heart.
16:26
Let we'll ask, you know, tell us the time we, we, we take our 5
16:31
core values and on a piece of paper, we ask interviewees
16:35
before we even sit down to interview them, we ask them to
16:38
fill out what the five core values mean to them.
16:41
So that tells us about their heart.
16:43
And then if they run into a burning building, comes down to
16:46
really, you know, how engaged are they?
16:48
How engaged in life are they? Are they a problem solver?
16:52
I'll ask them when you run your errands on a Saturday, you know,
16:56
walk me through that. I'm looking to see, right?
17:00
What's their process? What's their actions?
17:04
They tell me they sleep till noon and it's both days.
17:07
You know, good for them, but they're not going to make it in
17:09
our in our business. OK.
17:12
So in the intro, we talked about how you have built the
17:16
integrations with tools like 0 and QuickBooks Online, which are
17:21
great bookkeeping accounting platforms for smaller companies.
17:24
But now I've also heard you say you work with much bigger
17:27
companies, publicly traded companies.
17:30
So I'm guessing you're not just locked into those two platforms?
17:33
Believe it or not, those, the public, the subsidiaries of the
17:36
public companies are on those two platforms.
17:39
Really. Yes, 'cause you know zero.
17:44
I've seen a couple of billion dollar companies on zero and.
17:48
OK. Yeah, today.
17:49
I learned. Yeah.
17:51
And and you know Anthony, our business what what we've built
17:54
is we built ACPA practice management software that we use
17:58
internally, right. So our software is built really
18:03
on, on a concept called the knowledge work cloud.
18:06
So it's data-driven, prioritization, workflow and
18:08
measurement and, and then just iterate, iterate, iterate on
18:12
that. And so for our team, when
18:14
they're working on a customer, they have everything that they
18:18
need right at their fingertips, like being in a fighter jet
18:21
cockpit, right? And the customer has the ability
18:24
to upload and give us the documents digitally and have a
18:27
lifeline that inside our our mobile app, they can reach out,
18:31
talk to their accountant, they could schedule meeting, they
18:33
can, you know, call them right from the mobile app.
18:36
And so truly the CPA practice management software is our
18:39
secret sauce. And so we use it for our team
18:44
and we have about 1000 customers across the United States and
18:47
also in other countries that have AUS based business.
18:50
But I'll share with you some really exciting news and that
18:54
news is that last week we completed the acquisition of
19:00
Botkeepers assets and Botkeeper is an amazing company that had
19:06
built AI to help the accounting industry.
19:10
And so they have a lot of accounting customer CPA firms
19:14
and many of them they sold their software to top 100.
19:18
And and you know what happened was they just ran out of money.
19:21
They ran out of money before they got to that.
19:23
What happens to venture backed startups where one as well where
19:26
you hit that break even point and start to become profitable?
19:30
And and so we love the founders. The the Co founders are brother
19:35
and sister and and their CT OS are great guy.
19:37
And so we in the acquisition of the assets of the intellectual
19:42
property, we also they have joined us.
19:45
And so we're just at the beginning of the new chapter of
19:50
Zendu. We'll continue what we're doing
19:53
on our mission of helping small business owners.
19:55
And with that, we're going to take all the great pieces of our
19:59
CPA practice management software.
20:02
With Botkeeper's AI and in their processes, and we'll be able to
20:07
continue to do Botkeeper's mission, which is to support CPA
20:11
practices across America. And there's 152,000 of them.
20:15
So, so it's a huge, huge, you know, problem that we'll be
20:19
solving. So with this new acquisition,
20:22
this is a way not so much to better serve the small business
20:26
clients that you have, but to go after a different set of clients
20:30
which are other CPA firms. Same mission, it's the same
20:35
mission. Our mission and, and, and our B
20:38
hag right big hairy audacious goal is we want to help 50,000
20:43
small business owners by 20-30. And there's so many products,
20:47
you know, we should talk in, in six months or a year.
20:49
And I'll, I'll share some of the new products that we'll be
20:52
introducing. But with that mission, we're
20:55
going to help the supply chain of the CPA practices that need
21:01
that best in class software that's going to help them serve
21:04
their customers, which are small business owners.
21:07
So we're still on the same mission, we're just touching a
21:10
different part of the supply chain of that mission.
21:13
Fascinating. Wow.
21:16
OK, that brings up a whole slew of questions actually.
21:19
Let's go back to early days first for Zendu and then we'll
21:22
come to it's called Botkeeper, right?
21:24
The acquisition which you just made so early days of Zendu, how
21:28
do you get that first client? Put out the website and, and it
21:34
was actually the first client came from a trade show.
21:37
So I, so part of my process of saying is this problem to be
21:43
solved is the timing, right? And so years ago I was, I've
21:47
always been in tech and at the leading edge of different parts
21:51
of industries. And, and years ago, I used to go
21:53
to Comdex, which is now CES. And at Comdex, I would see all
21:57
these amazing things that were going to come out and a lot of
22:00
them didn't come out. And so I would watch and say,
22:03
why didn't they come out? And it was timing, right?
22:05
The market has to be ready. It could be the greatest thing
22:07
in the world. If the market's not ready, you
22:09
have to prove the market is ready with your concept.
22:12
So for people listening that have a concept, especially with
22:15
AI at everyone's fingertips, everyone has a problem to solve.
22:19
Make sure the, the market's ready.
22:20
So what I did is I, I, we spun up, you know, the, the bare
22:24
bones and I put together a trade show booth and I went to where I
22:28
felt that I could spend a day and there'd be thousands of
22:31
small business owners. And I did that in three
22:33
different cities. And so in the first city, it was
22:37
Atlanta. Picked up. 3 customers.
22:39
Second city was was New York at the Kravitz and actually we were
22:45
picked to be on ATV show at that.
22:48
And so there picked up 3 customers.
22:51
And then the last place was Miami and picked up 3 customers.
22:54
And so I said, OK, market is ready and that's how we got our
22:57
first customers. And then how did you go from
22:59
that to scaling to, I think you said 1000 customers?
23:05
Klon, digging, painful, you name it.
23:09
Scratching our way there. It's hard, you know, through,
23:13
through paid media, through organic, through, you know, I'm
23:19
asked to speak a fair amount and I'll go and I'll speak at
23:22
different events. And we're not there for
23:24
customers. Of course, they come when you're
23:26
out in the public, but we do it through a repeatable process.
23:30
And, and we don't say yes to all the customers who want to come
23:33
to us. They have to be a good fit.
23:35
And so instead of having a, a team of, of Bulldogs that's just
23:39
going to whip in every customer, we, we go through a process to
23:43
make sure that it's a fit on both sides because we're here to
23:47
take care of the small business owner like we live to take care
23:50
of the small business owner. And we do that through
23:53
accounting. Tell us about the TV show.
23:57
You're at the New York Javits Center for your second trade
24:01
show. And what's the TV show?
24:02
How did you get involved with this?
24:04
So a casting guy from ITV came by the booth, really loved our
24:09
booth, started talking to us about what we were doing and he
24:14
liked my energy and my Co founder was there and and he
24:17
said, hey, would you guys, we're we're doing ATV show on a major
24:21
news channel. He wouldn't tell us it ended up
24:23
being CNBC and he said it's going to be on a major news
24:26
channel and we'd like you to audition.
24:28
We're going to audition 100 companies and we're going to
24:31
pick 12 out of the 100. And and so we went ahead and did
24:35
the audition and it turned out we ended up being premiere
24:38
episode and it still runs because it comes back.
24:40
This is 2017. Our first dollar of business was
24:44
August of 2017. I started the company in 2016.
24:48
That's when I started building the technology.
24:51
But anyway, we ended up being on the premiere episode in November
24:55
and it was wild. What's?
24:57
The name of the show? What was the premise?
24:58
Job interview The job interview. And then what was the show
25:02
about? The show was about people coming
25:05
for interviews and you asking them questions and then how you
25:09
look at who you're going to hire.
25:11
And, you know, we had a lot of questions like, you know, one of
25:13
the questions is praise, financial and productivity.
25:20
That was one of my questions. Put them in the order that's
25:22
important to you. Nice, right?
25:26
So you'd be amazed. A lot of people will say praise
25:29
#1 like, and so then, you know, one of the outtakes they took
25:34
was I'm like, get your praise at home.
25:36
Like when you're at work, you know, as humans, you should be
25:41
at a job to be productive in life.
25:43
That's what makes us all good humans.
25:45
And then financial comes naturally from, you know, doing
25:48
well at your job. And then praise, of course.
25:51
And we're very good about, you know, patting our team on the
25:54
back and always acknowledging that the wins and, and all of
25:57
that. But they shouldn't be at a job
25:59
for praise. Yeah.
26:02
You mentioned this time around you wanted to go venture backed,
26:05
right? In the past all the businesses
26:07
that you started were on your back.
26:09
You know, you're the debt that you're signing for personally
26:12
with the banks, etcetera. Tell us about some of those
26:15
investors. Who are they?
26:17
So Jason Calacanis, who is all in podcast amazing, he's an
26:22
amazing human. Steve Case, founder of AOL,
26:26
another amazing human deep work capital out of Orlando, just
26:31
incredible managing partners that the founding partners
26:34
there. Mitchell is our our board member
26:37
and in our main person there, Mitchell Lasky as well as a lot
26:42
of private high net worth individuals that have invested
26:46
in US. Mark your heart, Brett Tuchman,
26:48
just you know the the list goes on.
26:52
There's other, there's other investors on the Cap table, but
26:55
probably the ones that people would know, mostly Steve Case
26:58
and and Jason Calacanis. But this was your first time
27:01
going the venture route, right? You were completely green to
27:04
this. How did you approach it?
27:08
I approached it with zest. How did you know where to get
27:13
started? What was the first call that you
27:14
made because you didn't have relationships with these folks
27:16
before? You're right, but that's what we
27:19
do, right? Like, how did you know what you
27:21
wanted to do on your podcast? You didn't, you didn't know, you
27:24
just did it right. And what, what was going to be
27:27
your theme? So what happened was I knew that
27:31
it would, you know, I'm from South Florida.
27:32
And so when I was first in South Florida wasn't sexy.
27:36
Now South Florida is sexy, right?
27:38
We, we've got Larry Page and Sergey and, you know,
27:41
Zuckerbergs here and we've got all, all of them here.
27:45
I I, I pitched at Emerge Americas and so Emerge America,
27:51
Manny Medina and Melissa Medina, the family they wanted to make
27:55
South Florida a tech hub and this was 20.
27:59
I think they started in 2014 or 15.
28:02
And anyway, when I they, they would take in 500 startups and
28:06
they'd pick 100 of them to be in their startup showcase super
28:10
hard. And out of the 100, they would
28:13
pick 25 to pitch and you would pitch and you'd go through 2
28:16
rounds and you, you then got down to five and five went on
28:21
the mainstage in front of 3000 people.
28:24
I had never pitched before. I had never built a pitch deck
28:28
any of it. And, and I pitched to Pitbull
28:33
Mason Calacanis as the celebrity guest, which was just super
28:38
fortunate. We've had a lot of super
28:39
fortunate moments in our journey.
28:42
And, and then somebody from Comcast and, and that was it.
28:47
And so we won. We didn't win any money.
28:50
They weren't doing money back then.
28:52
It was that I was going to sit down with the founder 45 minutes
28:56
with the founder of Y Combinator, which was hugely
28:59
important to understand. And Jason said, I'm inviting you
29:03
to my incubator. We weren't looking for any
29:05
money. We had just raised a million to
29:07
just really friends, family round right.
29:10
And and so it was a big decision.
29:12
Do I go out to SF give up? You know, when you're with an
29:16
incubator, you give up a fair, a fair amount for their
29:19
investment. And I'm like, you know what?
29:21
I don't know what I don't know. And I need to get to California
29:25
and understand how the venture world thinks and how startups
29:28
think and how you look at problems.
29:30
And so that was it all. Right.
29:34
What do you think that they saw in you that they were so excited
29:37
about? They told me.
29:39
They told me I'm a glass eater. They look for founders that are
29:42
glass eaters. Explain that more.
29:47
So they look for people that founders that have the grit and
29:51
their, you know, the, the resilience and the passion to
29:54
get it done. And they want people that no
29:57
matter what comes their way, you know, eating glasses like you
30:00
don't care, you, you know, it's a ride or die.
30:02
You're going to get it done. No matter what you're going to,
30:05
you're going to achieve the mission.
30:07
And that's what they look for to invest in.
30:10
And then, you know, look, I was at a disadvantage.
30:12
I'm older and I'm a female and so I was invested in, you know,
30:16
this past year $73 billion was invested in females, which is
30:21
like the highest ever. Prior to that, you know, females
30:25
get maybe one percent, 1 1/2% of venture venture capital, so.
30:33
That's fun. Fun that you were able to rise
30:36
to the top there and with this acquisition Botkeeper.
30:42
So this is not, this is not getting infused into helping
30:46
your current core customers. This is going after another
30:49
segment. Or do you see some of their AI
30:52
tech being applicable to what you're doing with the small
30:56
businesses? 100% So a lot of our and it's a
31:01
specific product we bought, we bought their infinite product by
31:04
Keepers infinite product. And so we will pull in some of
31:09
their best of their software into our platform.
31:13
So our platform is a single tenant platform and their
31:16
platform is multi tenant platform, multi tenant rails.
31:20
And so we're gonna take the best of the best of ours and we're
31:23
going to migrate that over into Botkeeper so we can share that
31:26
with the CPA industry and help them achieve a higher gross
31:29
margin, give them more time back so they can spend more time
31:33
helping small business owners. And we're going to take the AI
31:36
components of of Infinite from Botkeeper and move that into our
31:40
platform. And actually it's going to allow
31:42
us to where when a customer say under three $400,000 a year in
31:47
revenue, it doesn't make sense. Our lowest package is 395 a
31:51
month. So that's 5000 dollars a year.
31:53
It doesn't make sense for somebody who's 100,200 thousand
31:58
a year in revenue. Small business just starting out
32:01
to pay 5 grand for monthly books.
32:04
This product now will allow us to package in the next 45 days
32:08
or so package product just for them for the for the beginning
32:13
stage right of the life cycle of a small business owner will take
32:17
care of that big middle stage. And then now we have product to
32:22
really truly help the Cpas interesting was doing, they were
32:26
truly helping. So within 45 days, you'll think
32:29
you'll be at a point where you can help those really small
32:32
businesses, you know, a hundred, $200,000 a year.
32:35
And is that because the AI tools allow for the process to be much
32:41
less labor intensive? The tool can do the bulk of the
32:44
work with maybe a a quick human spot check. 100% so it it
32:48
actually the human spot check what happened by the small
32:51
business owner. So so in a smaller business, AI
32:56
can do 7080% of the work, right? And AI can still do 70 to 80% of
33:05
categorization depending on the industry of a business.
33:09
But AI is not and I don't believe will be.
33:13
And I'm a huge AI fan, huge AI. Like I had a problem in my
33:17
backyard. I'm, I'm, I have chat and I have
33:19
video on and I've shown chat the problem and it's telling me all
33:22
the different things and what I can do to fix it.
33:24
So I'm all about AI everywhere, right?
33:27
But you have to keep critical thinking in line with it and you
33:31
have to make sure that that you have guardrails on it.
33:33
And so accounting requires precision, consistent precision
33:38
and AI doesn't have that. And so for larger businesses, a
33:42
business that's half, $1,000,000 on up, they should have a
33:46
professional doing their books. Smaller businesses, I think all
33:50
day long you could have AI, you're not going to have as many
33:52
transactions. You don't have as much going on
33:54
in your business. And you know your business, you
33:57
know at that level you see everything in your business
33:59
because you are the one doing everything in your business.
34:04
So, Lil, I want to get a better sense of how far your services
34:07
go into the company. Obviously, you're helping to
34:10
present data to them, right? That's sort of Step 1.
34:13
You need the data in order to be able to make informed decisions.
34:17
Are you going beyond that in helping them make those informed
34:20
decisions or guiding them, counseling them on?
34:24
Here's what this data means. Here's what we suggest you
34:26
should do. Two ways that can happen.
34:29
So one, if they want to have fractional CFO work where you're
34:33
now diving into the data and you're strategizing and thinking
34:36
about their future. Accounting has 22 components to
34:39
it, accounting, P&L, balance sheet type accounting is from
34:43
this point in time backwards. So you're looking in your rear
34:47
view. Fractional CFO work is from that
34:51
point in time through the future, looking in your
34:54
windshield, looking through your windshield.
34:56
And so yes, we do have fractional CFO components if
35:00
it's something you know, easy, mild, similar.
35:04
I'll give you an example of something.
35:06
I don't often get to talk to customers.
35:08
I'll talk to them anytime they want me to.
35:10
I had a situation where I was chatting with a customer, they
35:14
were in the pet industry and they were losing money.
35:20
And when I looked at their PNL, you know, I saw where they had
35:24
this new division that they were that that was costing them a lot
35:29
of money. Basically, you know, they
35:31
weren't getting the sales. They were buying a lot of
35:32
inventory and they were branching out into this new
35:35
area. And so I just chatted with them.
35:37
Business owner, you know, to business owner, hey, you know,
35:39
what are you looking to achieve with this?
35:41
Is it worth it? It's taking you backwards.
35:43
If you don't have enough money to invest in it for how long it
35:47
may take to come around, it may be best to go ahead and just
35:50
sunset that and, and come back another time with it.
35:54
And few months later we connected and they had sunset it
35:58
and they were back to profitability.
36:00
But sometimes when you're in the middle of something, you can't
36:03
see the way out, right? And somebody on the outside, no
36:06
matter who it is, can just say, hey, there's another door over
36:10
there. Why don't you go through that
36:11
one, right? It's as simple as that.
36:13
But it happens to all of us, right?
36:15
I belong to EOI. Don't know if you know, EO and
36:17
YPO and I belong to the EO South Florida chapter.
36:22
We're 300 plus members, all eye of the tiger all out there, you
36:26
know, foraging ahead building, you know, we employ I think it's
36:30
25,000 people in the South Florida community and and
36:35
account for $3 billion of revenue in the South Florida
36:38
community. So it's great because you share
36:40
with owner, with with fellow founders what's in your heart
36:43
and your head. You know, I think would be
36:46
helpful for others to hear is it's like you just said, like
36:50
these rough times, they happen to everybody, right?
36:52
And sometimes we lose vision, can't see the forest through the
36:54
trees, kind of whatever metaphor that you want to use there.
36:58
Zendu's doing really well. You guys have been on an
37:00
incredible growth trajectory, but there's probably a story
37:04
somewhere along the way of where things weren't going smoothly, A
37:07
hardship that you had to overcome with that. 100% lots of
37:12
times lots. Can you choose one and just talk
37:15
about it and how you got through it?
37:17
Try to stuff them all the way in the back of my head and then I'm
37:20
gonna have to pull one to the forefront.
37:23
The you know that there's several.
37:26
Look, one of them was, you know, obviously the the wrong partner,
37:31
the wrong Co founder. And that was very distracting
37:34
and very hurtful to the business.
37:36
And it cost me probably and a half a time.
37:39
Even though the focus of it was six months, it cost you a year
37:43
and a half because any time that you're taken off of your
37:46
traction, off of off of your rhythm to move forward, it hurts
37:50
you. COVID was massive.
37:57
You know, here we were a tiny little company in COVID, we were
38:05
about 1/5 the size we are now. And the board said to me, cut
38:10
everyone's salary 30%. And I said I'm not going to do
38:16
that. I said we're going to grow and
38:19
we're going to use this time to really become stronger and built
38:23
and thank God the board, you know, 'cause they can fire me.
38:25
Thank God the board supports me. And I didn't cut the team salary
38:30
and we did grow 30% and we grew through 30% through a couple of
38:34
little tweaks in the business. So one, I didn't stay at home, I
38:40
stayed coming to work. We were in a we had just
38:43
subleased a large space for growth.
38:46
And so there's plenty of room. Everybody was safe.
38:48
Anybody wanted to come and was safe.
38:50
And it was on a highway. And every day I would eat soup
38:54
looking out the window on the highway, thinking who's on the
38:59
road, who's working, what businesses are working.
39:03
And I kept seeing trucks and ladders, trucks and ladders,
39:06
trucks and ladders. And I shifted our budget, our
39:11
marketing budget to trade services and E com and we grew
39:15
at 30%. It was something as, as you
39:17
know, you, you look back at it now, of course it was massively
39:20
stressful, but it was something as nuanced as that of you could
39:25
either put your head in the sand and say we're not going to make
39:27
it through this. One of our competitors failed
39:29
during that time scale factor. It was a big article in Forbes.
39:33
They'd had $90,000,000 and and they went out so.
39:38
And so you attribute your success through that difficult
39:41
period to tweaking the marketing that you were doing, noticing
39:45
the industries that were really strong at the time and let's
39:48
focus our ad budget there. And to and, and, and it to take
39:54
that up, you know, from the ground level to say 10,000 foot
39:57
view. I attribute that at that to not
40:00
sticking my head in the sand and, and going, oh, what was us?
40:03
And we're going to just go out after seeing one of our major
40:06
competitors go out. I instead of doing that, we
40:09
popped our head up and said, you know, there's always an
40:12
opportunity and every tough time in life, there's always an
40:16
opportunity. And you have to be a person who
40:19
with the glasses overflowing, not the.
40:21
The glasses, you know, half empty.
40:23
It has to be the glasses overflowing.
40:26
Go figure it out. Can you think of another example
40:30
in your career where there was a big challenge that you chose to
40:37
look at as an opportunity? Because I, I think hearing these
40:40
stories, the one that you just gave us is great and listeners
40:43
would benefit from hearing another one.
40:46
Yeah. You know, look, I'll give you 1
40:49
of of a disaster that happened to one of my manufacturing
40:52
businesses, you know, a couple $1,000,000 in equipment, 13,000
40:58
square feet. We had a hurricane that hit
41:01
ripped the 1/3 of the roof off and water was 12 inches high.
41:06
I got to the building as soon as the storm passed and just
41:10
complete devastation. And we made it through that and
41:14
grew even stronger. And how we did is I've always
41:17
had a strong culture of my companies and I had 55 employees
41:20
in that company and 54 of them showed up the very next day.
41:27
And we didn't wait for insurance.
41:29
We didn't wait. We, you know, ripped out the,
41:33
the, the stuff, the bad soap, carpeting and everything else.
41:37
My team did that and I had great relationships with my
41:40
competitors. It was a local business and I
41:42
had great relationships with my competitors and they didn't have
41:45
the damage we did. And they let me employ my team
41:49
and run in the middle of the night in their place and.
41:53
Wow. Yeah.
41:55
And so, you know, the, the. And it gives me chills right now
41:58
when I think about, you know, going in.
42:01
And I walked in that building and I and I looked up and I
42:04
could see daylight through the roof and water everywhere.
42:07
And I'm like, I got 55 families to think about.
42:10
And what are we going to do? And, and we just wanted to
42:14
action and we just stayed looking through the windshield
42:16
and we didn't, you know, take a moment to go, oh, you know, what
42:19
was us? And I think those are the same
42:21
stories you hear from anybody, whether it was people in
42:23
California through the fires or, you know, people through floods.
42:28
But as a business owner, you have a choice.
42:31
And you can, you know, put your head in your knees and and, and
42:35
and, and call it a day. Or you can, you know, do what
42:39
you need to do to take care of your team.
42:43
You think you're just wired that way?
42:45
100 percent, 100%. Since we're talking about
42:50
overcoming challenges and hardships, let's stay on this
42:53
track for just a moment longer. Would be curious to hear a
42:56
little about a serious personal challenge that you've had to
42:59
overcome in your life. Well, you're a tough guy with
43:04
all these, like, serious things, huh?
43:05
That's great question. You know, the from the outside,
43:13
you wouldn't know the childhood I had, right, Because I'm a
43:17
super happy go lucky person, always positive, rarely ever in
43:22
a bad mood. And, and, and if I am, I, I
43:24
hopefully I don't show it. I try not to, but I grew up, you
43:29
know, super poor. I had a dad that was abusive to
43:33
my mom. He would beat my mom and I would
43:34
see this and there were five kids I had.
43:38
There was 4 boys and me, I was the 4th in line.
43:41
My dad died of a double heart attack at the age of 38.
43:45
Left my mom, I was 10, left her with, you know, 5 kids, 15 to 8.
43:50
And by the time the very next year I lost my only grandmother.
43:55
The year after that I lost my first brother.
43:58
It was my second oldest and by the time I had turned 22, I had
44:04
lost my three older brothers. So nobody lived past 24.
44:08
And I was the first one to live past 24 years old and so grew up
44:13
super poor. I mean, last two weeks of the
44:15
month we, you know, we ate spam when we were eating and cube
44:18
steak was like a really great meal.
44:20
Like big, big, like you're, you know, big time, but, you know,
44:23
didn't have enough food on the table.
44:25
And, and I didn't think I was going to live past 24.
44:29
So I ran like hell and accomplished a lot before I was
44:33
24, made a fair amount of money. And, and when I turned 25, I
44:39
didn't know what to do. I had to rethink my life because
44:41
I thought I was going to be gone.
44:43
So that was, you know, it was wild.
44:46
It was, it was a tough childhood, But what it taught me
44:49
is that no matter how dark a day is, the sun always shines.
44:54
And you know, I look at life as a 30 year life is really, really
44:58
good. A 30 year life is really, really
45:00
bad and a 30 year life is so, so And so the positive spin for me
45:04
is I got the third of my life that was really, really bad out
45:07
of the way. So I'm in the third of my life
45:10
that's really, really good now, so.
45:13
So, you know, there's a lot of people that have really tough
45:19
circumstances growing up. And anecdotally, I would just
45:24
presume that most of them don't make it out, right?
45:27
They they don't know a way out. They don't have a path out.
45:30
They don't have the education, access to opportunities.
45:34
You didn't let that stop you. Why do you think you made it out
45:37
in the way that you did? I have incredible guardian
45:42
angels. I am I, I I believe in God.
45:46
I believe in guardian angels. I believe in reincarnation.
45:50
I, I have incredible guardian angels every step of my life,
45:55
even right now. What we just accomplished in the
45:59
business. When I share with you that we
46:00
acquired by keeper, you know, that's on a level that you would
46:06
think not possible. They went in, they went out,
46:10
they they went into an ABC and there's a ton more companies
46:14
that have a lot more money that could have swooped in to buy
46:18
them. And they were trying.
46:19
And it was I was just in the right place at the right time.
46:23
I met the the Co founder a week before at a conference.
46:27
We had never met in all the years in the same industry, knew
46:30
of each other, never met. And he said, we're going out in
46:34
a week. If I wouldn't have been there,
46:36
we would have never had the opportunity.
46:38
This is going to, this is going to take Zendu where we've always
46:43
and where we were headed to go, but it's going to take us there
46:46
faster. What's your superpower?
46:53
I'm a connector. If if you, if you ask people,
47:00
I'm a connector. Like I'll have friends go, they
47:04
need this. I'll go, oh, hang on a second.
47:06
I grab my phone and as it could be somebody I haven't talked to
47:09
in five years, they'll pick up and I'll be able to connect.
47:12
My friends and I, I get nothing for it.
47:16
It's just doing the right thing. You recently wrote about the
47:22
three tax decisions quietly costing small business owners
47:25
thousands each year. Can you highlight what those 3
47:29
oversights are? Yeah.
47:31
So one entity type, right. If a small business owner, they
47:39
don't know, they don't know how to set up, what's the right way
47:41
to set up. So they'll start out as a single
47:44
member LLC, they'll leave themselves as a single member
47:47
LLC, and they don't file for an S selection, and they leave
47:51
thousands and thousands of dollars every year on the table
47:55
that they pay to the IRS that they could keep.
47:58
So very important. Once you're profitable, more
48:00
than say 30 grand a year, you need to be an S election.
48:05
So entity type is #1 #2 the books aren't up to date.
48:09
So, you know, I don't care who you are, if you don't do your
48:12
books monthly and the end of the year comes, you're going to miss
48:16
out on tax write offs that you could have had throughout the
48:18
year. You're going to miss out on
48:20
opportunities that you could have done in your business.
48:22
So the books aren't up to date. And then, you know, the last
48:26
piece of it is that that there are major tax deductions to take
48:32
that people don't take. Section 179.
48:36
You can take up to $2.5 million that you can write off in
48:39
Section 179. Cheap is expensive.
48:44
You know, people will be cheap. They'll go to H&R or they'll do
48:49
TurboTax and they'll leave. They won't understand that you
48:52
need to go to somebody who is, you know, degreed and licensed
48:57
to do what you need in order to to maximize the savings.
49:01
There's an Augusta rule where you can rent out your house 14 *
49:05
a year and have a team meeting and the money you would pay a
49:08
local Marriott, you pay yourself and that will help you take it
49:12
tax free. So a couple of those things.
49:15
Tell us more about Section 179 and this $2,000,000 write off.
49:19
2.5. 2.5. South and the administration
49:24
just put it back in. So when you go say, you know my
49:27
last business manufacturing, we had $1,000,000 press.
49:30
So what that means is that say I had $1,000,000 in profit for the
49:36
year and I go out and I buy that press and even though I'm buying
49:39
the press with a loan from the bank, the IRS allows you to
49:44
write off that full $1,000,000 in that one year.
49:48
So that $1,000,000 of profit, if you use the rule of you're going
49:53
to pay 30% in tax, I would have, I would have $1,000,000 in
49:57
profit to keep it easy in round numbers.
50:00
I would have paid the IRS $300,000.
50:02
I would have had to pay him in business taxes, right.
50:05
I was in that selection. So it would have flown to me.
50:08
But by buying the $1,000,000 press, instead of depreciating
50:12
it over five years or seven years, the IRS let me depreciate
50:15
it all at once, spiked out my tax bill.
50:18
So it helps the small business owner to retool their business.
50:22
That's section 179. You know, we live in a world
50:24
today where it's, there's not many businesses that are CapEx,
50:28
right? It's all vaporware, it's all in
50:30
the air software. But but the IRS allows you to
50:34
write off software. So whatever investment you're
50:37
making in your business, you should be looking at it through
50:40
the lens of how profitable are you, when's the right time to
50:44
put it against the taxes so you keep the money in your pocket.
50:48
And that's how Fortune 500 companies make so much money,
50:52
because they pay no tax. And they're doing that in part
50:56
because of these accelerated depreciation schedules.
51:00
Rather than having to do it over 5 or 7 years, you can do it in
51:02
that first year now. 100% and they plan when they do things
51:06
based on forecasting their profitability and what write
51:10
offs are at the best time, right?
51:11
And there's bonus depreciation. There's all these things.
51:14
Now, I'm not ACPA or an accountant, so I'm just giving
51:17
you the layman, you know, explanations.
51:21
Yeah, fair enough, Lil, I understand you're a bit of an
51:25
adrenaline junkie. How do you get your fix?
51:28
I love danger, so I, I, it used to be a buddy of mine had a
51:34
helicopter, so we'd go out and fly.
51:36
I like to fly in small planes anytime that I have an
51:39
opportunity to have a friend that has a plane that flies
51:41
upside down. I have a friend that has an
51:44
acrobatic plane. So I've gone up the nose just
51:48
recently did a 29 mile over 4 days hike in Machu Picchu to
51:54
hike the the Inca trail without any prep.
51:57
Not too smart on my part but it was grueling but I went with it
52:02
was 2 couples and and the other couple was a entrepreneur friend
52:06
of mine and him and I we didn't do any prep.
52:09
Not too smart. In terms of any prep, you just
52:13
mean you weren't like in good physical condition for the hike,
52:15
is that what OK. Didn't didn't do the six months
52:18
of hey, walk 3 miles, you know, 4 * a a week didn't do that.
52:23
We we hiked 14,000 feet was the highest point.
52:27
It was called Dead Woman's Passing and you certainly felt
52:30
like nowhere at 14,000. Gorilla trekking, you know,
52:38
water repelling the, you know, waterfall repelling.
52:41
Just whatever I can. Once or twice a year I get out
52:44
and do something somewhat dangerous.
52:48
Skydiving. Done that through the years.
52:51
Actually, in one of my companies, my teams asked me to
52:54
stop doing it so. They want to make sure you stick
52:58
around for a little longer. It was back in the days when you
53:01
signed the checks. That life insurance policy was
53:05
getting too expensive, huh A. 100% right, you have to let them
53:09
know. So how about you?
53:10
What do you do for fun an an adrenaline?
53:12
I am not a an adrenaline junkie. You and I have a lot of
53:16
similarities. That is not one of them.
53:17
I do not enjoy going up in small planes or roller coasters or no
53:22
my, my fix. I I love conversations like
53:25
this. I love being creative and
53:27
growing businesses. That's that's what checks the
53:31
the fulfillment box for me. So I'll, I'll live vicariously
53:35
through your your danger stories and be just fine with that.
53:38
Yeah. How about pickleball?
53:40
You play pickleball. I have not played pickleball
53:42
yet, is this a a big passion of yours?
53:45
And I just had a guest on who just opened a, they call it
53:48
Toledo Pickle, This giant facility on the the Bay.
53:53
How is it the Maumee River? I think where they're located in
53:56
Toledo, OH, just an incredible facility.
54:00
What part of the country are you in Lil?
54:01
South. Florida.
54:02
OK, so you're probably not making it up to Toledo too
54:05
often, but just an incredible facility.
54:08
Amazing. Check out Play thefort.com.
54:11
That is the world's first pickleball stadium.
54:15
Your friend would like to see that playthefourth.com.
54:17
He probably knows of it and so it's amazing.
54:20
Yeah, little Do you have any daily practices that help you
54:26
get your day started or keep you on track?
54:32
Probably need more of them, but I have a couple of songs that I
54:35
like to listen to in the morning.
54:37
What are they? Yeah, what are those songs?
54:41
I like listening to in through the in the evening Led Zeppelin.
54:46
OK. Eddie and the cruisers.
54:50
It's some old school rock here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
54:53
But I love Chris Cornell. Nothing compares to you and also
54:58
Amazing Grace, Andrea Bocelli. But the one where he's in front
55:03
of the he's in Italy and he's in front of the cathedral, it's
55:07
just so powerful. Terrific.
55:11
Any podcasts or books you want to recommend to the audience
55:14
that have been helpful for you? Well, of course yours.
55:16
So now that I know you, I'm going to be listening to yours
55:19
and also the All In podcast, you know, if you really want to know
55:23
what's happening in the world of, of AI and all that, I love
55:28
yours, you know, as, as I did the research on yours, I love
55:31
yours because it's founder stories and it's people stories.
55:34
And I think that that's huge. And I think people should always
55:39
keep a component of the human side and, and, and remember
55:42
that, you know, we all started from somewhere and, and, and
55:46
it's about just doing the right things every day, right?
55:50
Lil, I've just got one more question for you today.
55:52
But before I ask it, I want to do 3 quick things for the
55:55
audience. First of all, if you want to get
55:57
in touch with Lil, the best way to do that is share with us
56:01
though. Well, if they want to get in
56:04
touch with me personally, it's lil.roberts@zendoxendoo.com.
56:12
If they are interested in maybe becoming one of our wonderful
56:15
customers and joining our family, that would be to go to
56:19
sales@zendo.com, XEND, oo.com and that would be the best ways.
56:27
Great. And we'll have links to that in
56:28
the show notes if you've missed it, folks.
56:30
And if you're enjoying the show today, please take a quick
56:33
moment to subscribe wherever you're listening.
56:36
It helps to send a signal that helps others discover our show.
56:40
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
56:43
And as a reminder, you can be the hero advisor that helps
56:46
clients give their employees access to therapists, doctors
56:50
and prescription meds while paradoxically increasing their
56:53
net profits, real gains that can change how a business is valued.
56:57
Contact us today at AD back benefits.com.
57:00
OK. So the last question for you.
57:02
A year from now, what is 1 very specific thing that you hope to
57:05
be celebrating? We will have either recap the
57:11
business with a growth equity partner that is going to give us
57:16
the fuel to scale to the 50,000 or we will have raised a
57:23
significant round that will take us to the same direction.
57:27
OK, fun stop. That gives us a reason to check
57:29
back in with each other in about a year.
57:31
I love it, I love it. Lil Roberts from Zendu, I want
57:34
to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your
57:37
story with us today. I really appreciate you being
57:39
here. Thank you so much, Anthony.
57:41
It was an absolute pleasure and an honor to be with you.
57:43
I love your energy. It's just awesome.
57:45
Thank you, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
57:47
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us.
57:51
And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.