Latest / Auto Collabs / Focused for the Long Term with Ilana Shabtay

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Focused for the Long Term with Ilana Shabtay · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  You know one of the things I love about doing this podcast with the two of you? [upbeat music] This is Auto Collect. Just one thing? Y- just, just this one thing in this moment. Uh. Uh.
• 0:16
  It's that you, you are introducing me. I thought I knew people, and now I, I'm having so much fun realizing how many people I don't know and how big this, this industry is.
• 0:26
  Of course, you know, I'm super excited to sit down and chat with Ilana Shabtay from AutoLeadStar. Nailed it. She's our guest today. N- hey, you got the name. Did I get it? You got it. Did I get the name right? You did.
• 0:38
  Yes. It's amazing. I hate getting peoples' names wrong. Yeah, I think we dis- just dispelled a m- myth for, like, half of the auto industry that she has an I and an L to start her name. So it looks like two Is.
• 0:51
  I get Lana, Yana. It's Ilana. So that's, that's the start. I've known Ilana for a couple years now, have really enjoyed getting to know her.
• 1:00
  You know, she hosts, uh, her own podcast and just has a perspective on the industry that is, that is well, um, well received, uh, and is an expert marketer and understands the auto ecosystem, uh, very, very well.
• 1:15
  So, um, yeah, I'm excited to kinda hang out with her and chat and see what's, what's going on in, in her world right now, 'cause she's always got a ne- unique perspective.
• 1:24
  And I don't think I have anything to add to this intro, so, uh, we hope you enjoy this interview with Ilana Shabtay. [upbeat music] All right.
• 1:38
  We are hanging out with Ilana Shabtay, and I think I got the accent on the A correctly, but, uh, yeah, of AutoLeadStar. Uh, thanks so much for joining us, Ilana. Thanks. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 1:51
  Yeah, definitely.
• 1:52
  Well, I, I wanna get into a little bit, because, uh, a, a lot of people, um, i- if you follow Ilana on, on social media, uh, at all, my-- One of the most interesting things that you get is a perspective into a world not so much American, uh, because you are actually primarily in Israel, right?
• 2:14
  Yep. We are based in Israel. Um, I-- So, so tell us a little bit about...
• 2:18
  Uh, what I wanna start with is how, like, being in Israel and, and having to relate to American and, and US dealers primarily, like, how that dynamic works and how learning about, like, what happens in the, in the rest of the world and tech teams there can, uh, like, a-- still allows you to stay connected to the American dealer network and, and everything that comes with that.
• 2:43
  Well, that's a great question. It's a little different for me. I grew up in the States, and I know what it's like to go to a dealership on a Sunday with your family, if they're open on Sundays.
• 2:52
  Um, but what's really interesting is we have this power R&D team in Israel, and they're sitting and they're building this, like, top-tier tech for automotive, and they've never stepped into a dealer, right?
• 3:04
  Because it's, like, such a different type of industry in Israel. So when we first pivoted to automotive, which was around, uh, 2016, um, we actually sent our developers. We have-- We would send them to the States.
• 3:17
  We sent them to NADA, we sent them to Digital Dealer. We'd send them to whatever we can send them when it comes to industry conferences.
• 3:22
  But we would also actually send them to dealerships and be like, "Walk in and see what happens."
• 3:26
  Once we started getting clients, we would bring them more to, you know, our top-tier clients, have them sit down, sit in on meetings to understand. But without that perspective, I think,
• 3:37
  um, you know, it's really hard to bring a product to market when you don't fully understand the market, even if you're behind the scenes in tech.
• 3:42
  So it's really interesting that you ask that question, because I don't know if necessarily other dev teams that are building things in Israel for, you know, different industries are necessarily doing that.
• 3:52
  We put a huge emphasis on that at AutoLeadStar, and it really helped, um, especially with our director of products.
• 3:58
  Um, they all circle through the States at least twice a year to make sure that they're on top of the market. Um, for me, again, it's a bit different 'cause I grew up there, so I understand kinda both sides.
• 4:08
  But it's really nice to be part of a, a team that's global and that's working through that and that understands, you know, what it's like to have an R&D team that's seven hours ahead of the US, uh, what's it, what it's like when a support ticket comes in and you need that support at midnight here, and we work it out.
• 4:26
  It's, it's really interesting. That's really interesting. Actually, well, one is, uh, this idea of, for me, the,
• 4:37
  the majority of automotive, there are two people in tech that are closest to the dealer, and that's the sales staff and the account specialists, right? The, tho- those people are always the closest to the dealer.
• 4:51
  And one of the things that, coming from the dealership side, that I always struggled with was relating my, like, product or development or idea needs through an account specialist or through even a salesperson actually was really difficult.
• 5:06
  Like, it was hard to connect the, the dots to- Yeah... what I was using on a daily basis to, like, a development timeline that I might be encouraging within a technology product that I'm, that I'm using.
• 5:18
  Not that everything from a dealer gets done, but that that encourages that product timeline.
• 5:23
  So I appreciate the fact that the product team is also close and the development team is also close to the dealer because I, I think that's a really important thing. Um, is, uh, like, when it comes to...
• 5:38
  And I'm, I'm gonna get real g- I'm probably gonna get geeky in this one because, [laughs] I don't even- I think- Ilana, we've gone product side... I knew this was coming. I should've brought the product team on here.
• 5:46
  [laughs] I was like, "I'm gonna sit back and just hope Ilana has, like-" [laughs] Cyril has left the meeting. [laughs] Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. Let's go.
• 5:55
  Well, okay, I won't get too geeky, but- We can get geeky if you want. Well, do it. Do it. Do it.
• 5:58
  Well, here's the, here's, here's what's hard is because-Like, you do, you have, you have different levels of accessibility to technology or, or understanding of technology in automotive, right? Yeah.
• 6:10
  F- A- anywhere from, like, your super high tech IT or marketing director, right, to, you know, maybe a, a general sales manager that, that didn't go to college, which is, which is, uh, the way a career path in automotive happens, and really doesn't have anym- any attachment to tech, no, no necessity for it outside of, like, their daily use of it, uh, and actually is kinda, like, tech averse.
• 6:33
  And so,
• 6:35
  uh, w- how does, uh, how do you bridge that gap when trying to learn, like, what a marketing or sales director or j- uh, or, or GM actually needs, and bridging the gap between, like, product timelines and, and a product team understanding what, especially a non-tech understanding, you know, dealer corps needs in order to execute on their, on, on their, on their daily, you know, workflow?
• 7:03
  I- i- is there, is there a translator in the middle that you typically see, or has the product team from, from AutoLeadStar kind of learned the language enough to, like, internally translate? That's a great question.
• 7:15
  We... I think the latter. I think product has really learned the language enough to do it.
• 7:20
  But I will say there's always friction between what sales, marketing, and customer success will want as a feature or as the next product, and what product thinks is, like, the next best thing for automotive.
• 7:33
  A- and generally, at the end of the day, product's right in the long run. It's very, like, long run, short run, right?
• 7:39
  At the end of the day, they see the big holes in technology that they can kind of, you know, bridge the, all those gaps for automotive.
• 7:47
  And for sales and customer success, it's like, "Oh, this is a churn risk," or, "Oh, I can close this deal if we have this one feature."
• 7:54
  But then that kind of, you know, slows down the, the long run, uh, product timeline a bit.
• 8:00
  So it's always a balance between what, what, what can we do to obviously retain as many customers and get as many customers as we can, while also building something bigger for the industry to actually solve tech problems that doesn't, you know, doesn't happen overnight.
• 8:14
  That's more of, like, a, a long, a longterm timeline. So- This- Yeah. This brings up something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, 'cause we, we have a tech portion of our business. Mm-hmm.
• 8:25
  And you're, you're battling so many different forces. In fact, uh, Kyle, Paul, and I were just in Philly together recording some content, and, and Kyle and I had, had kind of a side conversation going about this topic.
• 8:36
  Um, my mind keeps coming back to the... I, I think about the moments where we dropped everything, to your point, to, like, develop a thing to close maybe a deal or a handful of deals.
• 8:48
  And then ultimately, what you were saying about the long, the, the big picture is we look back over four or five years and realize nobody's using the thing that [laughs] we spent so much time developing.
• 9:00
  [laughs] Like, they're still only using, en masse, they're only using, uh, a very few select features.
• 9:07
  Do you find that that's the, the same thing, and, and do you find it's important to kinda maybe double, triple, qua- quadruple down on the thing you know for a fact is working and that they'll use?
• 9:17
  Or what, what's the balance there? I think it also depends on... I think, I think no one knows, right? We all, we... We're, that's what we're trying to figure out.
• 9:26
  But I think if you decide who your target market is, because at the end of the day, it always comes down to this. The longterm, the, that big tech that we're trying to solve, is, like, enterprise tech.
• 9:35
  And when it comes down to it, the top 50 dealers, we know they'll use them. These little feature t- you know, tweaks here and there, of course the enterprise dealers are gonna use it.
• 9:44
  But that, that caters more to, like, the, the mom and pop, maybe, maybe groups of two to three dealers. And so at the end of the day, it's all about the business strategy. Like, who are we trying to cater to- Right...
• 9:56
  and who do we wanna retain and who do we wanna acquire when it moves, like, you know, when it, five years from now- Mm-hmm... do we wanna w- be working with the top 150s?
• 10:02
  Do you wanna work with a percentage of the top 150s and then go toward the, you know, mid-tier? So it's really about the strategy.
• 10:08
  Once that strategy's aligned with sales and product, which we've done a really good job in the past, I'd say, like, six to eight months, um, at AutoLeadStar at least, then we, the- we really understand, okay, which features should we prioritize, and then how is sales gonna go after this, you know, the right type of dealer and the right type of client to fit the product strategy.
• 10:29
  And that's- So that's what we've seen work. But, you know. Right... I'm thinking about the number of companies that started in automotive.
• 10:34
  They're like, "Hey, we do, um, customer data, and we also have a robust dog grooming management system." [laughs] 'Cause they just, like, some dealer was like, "We got dogs in the back. They're our mascot."
• 10:48
  [laughs] I could do that. Totally. "You know what'd be really nice is if we had some, uh, like, in-booking and out-booking software to go along with our DMS." Was that Patrick Abad? Yeah. No. [laughs] Right?
• 10:57
  No, that is, but that, I, I- Do you do a nail salon? [laughs] Larry. Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:02
  So I, I think that the, the point, the thing that you just brought up about, like, who, who wins on, you know, getting the next thing developed, and a big part of figuring that out is the communication to the, to customers, the communication on, like, what the product actually does or what the need is projected to be.
• 11:22
  Because I think a lot of people don't realize the need for some of this new stuff coming out, you know, customer data lakes, and, like, why is it important.
• 11:30
  And so, um, I've seen an increased effort by AutoLeadStar to communicate better. Like, you have these quarterly launches going on.
• 11:38
  Um, what's the mindset behind the quarterly launch as, as I've kind of been seeing and hearing about it? Yeah. Well, I'm glad you've been, been hearing about that.
• 11:47
  Um, but basically, we wanna make sure that we have a commit from product, right? So every single quarter, we have to release something.
• 11:55
  So that, from a product perspective, is like, "All right, I gotta get my shit together so I'm ready for this launch." [laughs] Right. Right. There's a deadline. People are gonna be expecting it- There's a deadline...
• 12:05
  in public. Yep. Right? In pu- exactly. Uh, from a marketing perspective also, we have a deadline.
• 12:10
  We need to make sure we have everything, all our ducks in a row, to get it out to the public and get some kind of adoption.
• 12:15
  But I think it also, besides for the fact of just, like, from a brand perspective, gets us out there- Mm-hmmIt helps us just innovate.
• 12:22
  We've always been innovating, but it really pushes us to innovate and make sure that we're bringing to the industry that change that we wanna bring, that tech innovation.
• 12:32
  Um, and, and it, and it k- gets us on, like, a, a calendar, not just from a company perspective, but also from an industry perspective.
• 12:38
  And I'm assuming others will follow, and then it will be really nice to just be able to see that innovation quarter after quarter.
• 12:43
  The other thing that, um, I was thinking about when you, when you mentioned, like, oh, I have technology, but I'm also, like, you know, build dog houses for, [laughs] for dealers- [laughs]...
• 12:53
  is that you were getting super distracted. I'll, I'll use OTT as an example. Like, OTT, every single, every single company was all of a sudden an OTT company, right? Like, they were doing- That's right...
• 13:03
  I don't even know. Like, website, but they're also OTT. And so we, even us, we were like, "Should we do OTT? Like, should we, should we be doing that?" But that type of stuff is super distracting.
• 13:13
  And at the end of the day, you wanna own what you're good at.
• 13:16
  And if you have those quarterly launches and you have that, like, you know, deadline and that perspective and that calendar in mind, then you can really roll out quality, quality work.
• 13:26
  Um, so it just helps us not get super distracted- You know, to that point, I think the smaller companies have a big, big advantage in what you just said about, like, the pressure to get into the fad of the moment, right?
• 13:38
  Everyone got- Yeah... into OTT, and everyone would swear to you that they had data and inventory that nobody else had, and most of them were white labeling the same two or three things. Yeah.
• 13:49
  Um, and you get to kind of stand outside that. Obviously, the bigger the company, shareholders wanna see returns. They wanna just feel good about you being on the cutting edge and, and, like- Yeah...
• 13:58
  buzzword products do that for larger companies. "Oh, yeah. We got that. Yeah, yeah, we're all over it. Our people are out there. We have a sales force."
• 14:05
  So I think that the smaller, the smaller the company, the bigger advantage you have to actually stay focused on innovating the long-term meaningful things and not just, you know, those things that pop up, and they, they kind of...
• 14:16
  I mean, like OTT obviously is a very important part of the marketing ecosystem. Yeah. Oh, it's all important. But, but the- It's all important. [laughs]... the initial, like, "Hey, you got... Do you have OTT?"
• 14:25
  "Yeah, you know me." You know what I mean? [laughs] It's like- Yeah. It's OTT. Yeah. We've become rappers. [laughs] "Yeah, you know me. Come on." [laughs] Wait, so, okay, so this is what's...
• 14:35
  Because we're, we're ta- we've been talking and, and, like, I knew this podcast could basically go anywhere. Because if you don't know, Ilana has her own podcast, InsideAuto podcast. You should follow it. She's...
• 14:46
  It, it's incredible. But, um, the, uh, uh, the thing that I think is, is always a question mark for me, like, coming from the dealer perspective, is how's this valuable?
• 14:55
  How's this type of information valuable for me as a dealer, like, knowing product timelines, how close product is, you know, why q- quarterly releases and all this type of stuff? For me, it's like,
• 15:06
  any technology company that a dealer is, is working with that isn't, like, constantly after innovation, that's, that's a problem, right?
• 15:17
  Not that it's just a- after innovation for innovation's sake, but after innovation for customer and, and employee engagement's sake is a necessity, especially in our, in our fast-paced moving thing.
• 15:28
  You know, one of the things that I see a lot in automotive is that as you acquire a mass of clients or as you be- get on certain, like, OEM programs, you start, uh, like, you major on support and not major on success, which are two t- two- Mm-hmm...
• 15:43
  totally different things. And in order to major on success, you have to drive product timelines for new and integrated technologies.
• 15:50
  And so as I'm hearing you and as I'm listening with my dealer ears on, that's what I'm listening for.
• 15:55
  Whether, whether it's a dealer that's working with AutoLeadStar or not, that I'm listening for where, where are the tech part...
• 16:01
  What are the tech partners that I'm working with doing to ensure continued success, not just support for the current product that I own, right? Yeah.
• 16:10
  And also, you mentioned something else, which I think is really important, which is our actual communication with the client. So yes, as you're scaling and as you're getting bigger, it is...
• 16:18
  One of the challenges is how do we make sure that our support and our success is actually still top-notch when we're bringing on more and more dealers?
• 16:26
  And you'll see, like, the, you know, Google, Facebook, they're rolling out all these products right now which is totally automated. It's, like, no-touch stuff, right?
• 16:33
  You can automate everything without even talking to a s- a support manager, without even, you know, going into your campaigns. And that's great. We're all about automation.
• 16:41
  But then you kinda lose that, that, that community. We talked a lot about community on, on our podcast, uh, InsideAuto podcast, where I hosted Paul and Kyle last week or a few weeks ago.
• 16:51
  But you lose that touch of community. And the quarterly events really help us do that as well. It helps us reconnect to our clients, which I think is really important.
• 16:58
  And, you know, as they get bigger and bigger and people get to know about it more and more, hopefully we'll even bring clients into the launch a bit more, and it will give us an opportunity to, you know, make a day seminar about it and bring them in and, and do some tech seminar, you know, before or after the launch, or have them even speak at the launch.
• 17:15
  So it...
• 17:16
  There is also something else to it, which is, yes, of course, partner with people that are innovating and partner with technologies that are innovating, but also partner with people who wanna have that kind of community and communication with clients.
• 17:28
  So that's kind of like the, the second part to it, which I didn't mention before, but thanks for bringing me there. Here's my unpopular opinion of the day. [laughs] You only have one? Well, it's early. Yeah.
• 17:39
  Well- It's early. It's early... it's one per 30-minute podcast. [laughs] Um, we've been talking about innovation. Kyle, you spoke to the importance of kind of...
• 17:50
  W- well, actually, Ilana, you spoke to the importance of, like, focusing in on a thing. We see this outside of automotive all the time. I mean, Slack, I've been hearing some Slack notifications, right? I turned them off.
• 18:00
  Right? I turned them off. I'm sorry. But, but, but, no, it's perfect. It's the perfect time to my- He didn't say who they belong to... my thought, but yeah. Dude, thanks for announcing it to the whole world.
• 18:07
  But now we know. [laughs] For a minute, and I was like, "Oh, damn," but I got out of it.
• 18:11
  [laughs] Slack, I, I'm sure similar to many other tech companies, Slack, as an example, has felt the pressure to expand and, and, you know, try their hand at so many different things.
• 18:23
  But at the end of the day, to your point-They're like, "No, we are direct communication for a specific purpose." Yeah. And I think sometimes,
• 18:32
  I guess maybe this is my unpopular opinion, uh, as I see it specifically to the context of automotive, we assume-- We, we go to extremes. That's our human behavior.
• 18:42
  We're like, innovation means coming up with something new, and what does that e- what do you end up with? You end up with big conglomerate companies who do all things through the alphabet.
• 18:53
  They're, they're integrations, they're a DMS, they're a CRM, they're a website provider, they're a whatever, and they felt the need and, and they've assumed that that's what innovation means.
• 19:04
  My unpopular opinion is that y- innovation is in dialing in your, your focus, like, to your point, and not feeling the need to go to these other things. And how does that relate to dealer?
• 19:15
  To K- Kyle's point, I've been thinking about this as I, as I've been listening. Well, it makes perfect sense, because do I want... Like, do I want the best Nike shoes that I can get- Yes...
• 19:26
  that are most comfortable for my feet? Oh, sorry. Or do I want the Narkes- [laughs]... that you can get, get on a street corner in New York? You know what I mean? Like- [laughs]...
• 19:39
  I want the best thing that I can possibly get for that purpose. Like, I don't want shoes that also pair as a hat. And in automotive, we tend to do that, right?
• 19:50
  We think innovation means I must figure out how to make shoe a hat also and maybe a raincoat, and here we are- [laughs]... and we, because... So, so to your point, that's, that's my kind of unpopular opinion.
• 20:00
  I know there, there's gonna be vendors gnashing their teeth, uh, at this point- Well-... listening to this, but I really think that's the, that's the key in for the dealer listening.
• 20:10
  You want something that's specialized. You want something that's specialized. Now, here's the, here's the caveat on that. I, I agree with that. I agree with that.
• 20:19
  The same time, I think if you can do a few things really well, as long as your data is communicating and it's actually integrated, then you have real innovation.
• 20:28
  And so I, I, I think that, yes, in automotive, there is, there are many companies that are trying to do it all. But at the end of the day, if they did them well and they actually communicated, then it's worth it.
• 20:39
  Well, that would be innovation then. Not if it's awful. The actual innovation- That would be the innovation... would be the fact that, you know, the- Right... three things that are adequate work really well together.
• 20:47
  And in that, you get ease of use and efficiency and effectiveness and all those things. So I would argue- Yeah... that in that, everything working together is the actual innovation. You know?
• 20:56
  And that's, like, back to Slack. That's actually Slack's innovation- Right... is the fact that they do, like, eight things really, really well. Yeah. And then they have, like,
• 21:06
  a beautiful API that touches hundreds and hundreds- There you go... of integrated services- Yeah... which is why Salesforce was interested in them.
• 21:16
  Because n- now Salesforce has a deeper level of integration with every single one of Slack's current API integration partners. Yeah.
• 21:24
  Which I think is, like, when I think about how do I, like, find the specialists and help them integrate, find the specialists and help them integrate. Yeah. And- Work out...
• 21:33
  you know, I mean, I just, I know a little bit about the CDP, uh, and the, the CDXP and the data lake that you guys are building.
• 21:39
  And, like, I think this is just one thing contextually I, I'd like to ask you because y- you know, AutoLeadStar as a company started as an auto lead star, right? It was driven- [laughs]...
• 21:52
  towards leads, and I think that you all are rebranding that, at least through your purposing and technology- Yeah... than not just, like, oh, that's a lead widget, right?
• 22:01
  That it's, that it's much more than that, and I think that you're keying in on what, what we're talking about right now, which, like, specializing on a few things and connecting to the things that y- make that work really well.
• 22:12
  Yeah, exactly. And I think, well, you talked a bit about data lake, which is, which was our most recent quarterly launch event, which was about, I think it was actually last week.
• 22:20
  It feels like it was forever ago- Mm-hmm... but it was on Thursday we released it.
• 22:23
  But the point of that is, yes, we are a marketing execution engine, meaning we, you can drive traffic through our technology, and you can, we'll convert your visitors for you, and we'll, you know, automate lead nurture campaigns for you.
• 22:37
  And that's a part of it, and we don't wanna do everything. We wanna do that really well.
• 22:42
  You can't do that really well without a proper customer data platform, which in automotive is pretty much foreign because everyone's using CRMs which sit in silos to their DMS and to their website. Right?
• 22:54
  Even if you're using the same company for your CRM, your DMS, and your website because you're an automotive company that does it all, it's not actually integrated, which is absolutely insane.
• 23:05
  So the customer data platform actually helps you do that.
• 23:08
  It, you know, there's identity resolution where you can actually find, you know, eight different Jane Does that will go into one profile that you can then actually hyper-target and do the marketing execution on.
• 23:21
  But make sure that you have that 360 view of that customer. Um, obviously, outside of automotive, this is very, very common. Inside of automotive, I think in the next year or two we'll see it.
• 23:31
  Everyone's gonna be, you know, [laughs] everyone's gonna be a CDP as well as CRM and DMS. Hey, C-O, CDP. Yeah, you know me. [laughs] CDP, you know me. That's so funny.
• 23:40
  Which color rhyme with that song is the new criteria. [laughs] It does. It's so funny that you even, it, you even, you know, it went in that direction- [laughs]...
• 23:47
  because I was thinking, for the release, I was like, "We gotta think of a CDXP rap," because that's- Well, you have to, I mean, there's, there's a TikTok- You have to... video that- Yeah...
• 23:54
  could go viral in here, for sure. [laughs] Yeah, we gotta go viral with that, but, um. Oh, man. But yeah, it's, uh, I think it's a really critical part.
• 24:01
  Um, and just consolidating, like, the concept of cleaning your data, consolidating your data, being able to export your data and use it for other things, it's just so uncommon in automotive, but that's the best way to actually understand, own your data, take control of your data, and then market on your data.
• 24:18
  So that's what we're trying to do. Man, this is, um, this is a very needed conversation, especially as it pertains to tech and innovation in the automotive industry.
• 24:27
  Like, the, the industry is ripe for both disruption and interruption.Uh, and so it's been a lot of fun hanging out with you today, Ilana.
• 24:35
  And of course, you're gonna be at ASOTU CON, so we can't wait to connect with you there as well. Thanks so much for, uh, taking some time with us and hanging out with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was a blast.
• 24:47
  [upbeat music] I love the fact that they are intentionally planning quarterly launches, and making a regular cadence, and putting some time and energy into production.
• 25:00
  Because, like, the production is why people-- It makes it easy for people to watch.
• 25:04
  So that level of intentionality, um, bringing to market the things that you feel are most important as, as a tech provider, um, I think that's next level. I'm excited to see what they do with those.
• 25:16
  Yeah, you know, what I, what I find a lot in automotive is everyone is kind of focused on NADA, and what are we doing around NADA. And so that just clears the air on that.
• 25:25
  I also appreciate that they-- that as a company, Auto Lead Star is pushing the boundaries of the technology that we're used to in automotive. They're not just going, "Hey, look, we're gonna make a better X."
• 25:36
  They're gonna be like, "No, we're going over here, and we're gonna do this that nobody's thought of yet."
• 25:40
  Um, now, they might have some market competitors, but, uh, I appreciate their, their intentionality, not just on the content side, but also on the product side.
• 25:49
  Uh, and I'm excited to kind of watch the way that these roll out, as they've only have-- had a couple at this point. I think it's really valuable, too, to just, you know, go off of what you're talking about, Kyle.
• 25:59
  I mean, all of us are kind of nerds on this call. It's cool to be able to connect with somebody else in the development technology space. Um, we all know Kyle can nerd out on some tech.
• 26:09
  But she really brought into focus, you know, to your point, Paul, about the quarterly launches. Uh, I think she really brings into focus what it actually takes to develop something good.
• 26:19
  Like, like formulating a thesis, proving it out, seeing if there's a market for it.
• 26:24
  And I think sometimes the lines get blurred in our industry, especially after the last 30 years, where people are like, "Oh, yeah, just develop the thing." And it's like- Yeah. For sure... uh, no, a lot goes into it.
• 26:34
  So I really, I really love that she brought that into focus, and that they-- I love the word that you're u- that both of you have used, just that intention, moving forward with intention.
• 26:43
  And I hope certainly all of you listening and tuning in felt that same way about this conversation. We know we had a blast, and we're so glad that she joined us on, uh, the Auto Collapse podcast. Hope you enjoyed it.
• 26:54
  On behalf of myself, Michael Cirillo, Paul Daly, and Kyle Mountsier, we'll catch you next time.
• 27:00
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• 27:12
  If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
• 27:21
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? [laughs] Are we rolling yet? Not yet.