Latest / Unstuck Pod / Cash is Not the Answer (Jeff Wallace and Jamie Schneiderman)
Transcript
- Jamie Schneiderman: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Unstuck Pod. really excited today to have Jeff Wallace here. and I'm gonna pass it to Jeff, let him tell you more about his background and the many things that he is focused on today. So welcome, Jeff. Thanks for coming on. Jeff Wallace: Jamie, thank you. Super excited to be here. And yeah, I was looking forward to our time here today. So thank you. I will go back far in my past. I will go quickly so don't get nervous. But I am as I describe myself, I am Brooklyn-born, Jersey-bred Wall Streeter. worked on Wall Street for a few years before deciding to do my graduate degree, my MBA. And since everything I had done up to that point in my lifetime was in the New Jersey, New York area. I went to school at Ruckters, which was also the state school in Jersey. So I decided to go out to the West Coast for a two-year period. as it turns out, I'm a terrible planner. I've been out here in the Bay Area now for 36 plus years. So bad planner, but I love being a Bay Area guy. I love the innovation ecosystem out here, the entrepreneurial kind of vibe. You breathe it in out here, for me at least. it's just been an amazing experience growing up really professionally, minus my Wall Street experience growing up really professionally here in the Silicon Valley Bay Area has been just fascinating. And you know, to what I do now, I was a serial entrepreneur for many, many years. I had some good businesses, I had some terrible businesses in terms of financial outcome, but I learned a lot even in the negative outcomes. And about 11 years ago, a little over 11 years ago now, with some colleagues, we started the first of what's become two startup accelerator programs. One of them is called the Batchery. that one's in our 11th full yeah, into our 11th year now. And then a few years later, we started Silicon Valley in your pocket, which is really a non-US focused program for international founders. And we've we've had the honor of working across 41 plus countries to date with nearly five thousand founders between the two programs who've gone through either of the two programs and been supported by what we do. So it's been an amazing, humbling journey and I've gotten to see lots of places that I never imagined being able to see and participate with. So it's been an awesome journey. And I still I'm a bit of a masochist, so I still start several of my own businesses along that journey. while I'm helping other founders every now and then an idea pops up and I jump in as well. So Jamie Schneiderman: Well, okay. So that was so let's be clear. That was the brief that was the very brief version of of of this. Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Jamie Schneiderman: because I there's a lot and I think you you you narrowed it quite a bit. So let's talk a little bit about you're running two accelerators, right? So I just want to talk a little bit about them. So what what what are the kinds of companies that you're letting in? What do they look like? What are you doing for them? You know, hell help everybody understand what does that look like and feel like. Jeff Wallace: Yeah, fantastic. I I love to be able to share more. So we focus, we're a bit what I would say staged focused industry agnostic. So we've seen a little bit of everything over the years in terms of industry. as I said, stage focus. We're pre seed seeds. So we kind of get the companies when they're really young. and we work with founders. Our our primary focus is to improve investor readiness. That's always our our kind of claim to fame is working with them to vastly improve investor readiness, which really just means we're helping them ensure that both their business and their investor narrative are representing the company in the way that an investor would want to see a company in order to get excited about it and and want to support the company financially and otherwise. So That's kind of at a high level what we do, but we run programs literally as short as one day. If that's what a budget and a client have opportunity for, we'll tailor a program. I I literally am in the process of finalizing an agenda for such a program coming up with a group from Asia that's coming in around TechCrunch in October, a couple months out. And then we've run programs for seven months, you know, where we're in country. For a little kickoff week, then we go remote for a bit, then the companies will find their way to Silicon Valley Bay Area and do something, whether it's event preparation. We've done pitch events on the TechCrunch Pit stage for cohorts. we do investor meetups, we do commercialization efforts, which isn't even around investment. Sometimes it's around helping them secure market pilots, find the right partners. We do advisory board recruitment, helping companies find incredible advisors. that just brings such phenomenal, almost credibility beyond their worth. Like they wouldn't be deserving of such credibility, but we go and recruit advisors that just bring credibility with them to help the companies. So we really do a full service, you know, kind of end to end, one stop shop type experience for founders. Jamie Schneiderman: So you've been doing this like you said, we work with like five thousand founders. it's it sounds like a you know, a lot of work to be doing all the different things. How big is this team that's helping to do it? Jeff Wallace: Yeah, so our team is actually made up of a lot of not employees, employees, Jamie Schneiderman: Mm-hmm. Jeff Wallace: I should say, of our company. We work with a vast network of mentors. And the mentors are oftentimes either people who've had their own either startup journey, maybe they've been in a corporate world, maybe they've been in tech or healthcare. Literally, you pick an industry, we probably have mentors that have served some capacity in that industry so that we can bring the depth of experience and knowledge of our vast network. So our really active network is probably about 80. I'd say 75 to 80 really active mentors that are working in a lot of our programs. And then we have a much broader network into the several hundred that we'll reach into on more of an as-needed basis. But the 75 to 80, they're involved in a lot of our programs on a very regular basis. And our cohorts can range from We could do an individual thing for a long extended period of time, helping a founder, very high touch with multiple mentors working, almost like fractional type roles in some capacity. or we could we've done cohorts of you know 25, 30 companies. So it just depends really on the needs of each client. We're we're proud that we can be super flexible and tailor a program to a company. We don't have a one size fits all. This is what our program is, you either like it or you don't. We kind of say, what are you looking for? What are your needs? How many companies? What's your budget? And we'll work it out and we'll find a way of supporting you. So Jamie Schneiderman: Right. Jeff Wallace: it it's it's great to be able to pull a network with the credibility that our our network has. They're just an amazing group of people. And you know, we're fortunate to have them want to support the companies. And we don't do that, by the way, I should emphasize, on a voluntary basis. We compensate all of our mentors. There's two different Jamie Schneiderman: Okay, great. Jeff Wallace: types of programs we do, one is international. When we're doing international, and I'm talking from a US international context, where those are generally fee-based. So we're just paid a fee based on a budget, and we bring in the appropriate mentors and we pay them an hourly to come in and provide mentorship to the companies. And in our domestic program, we do an equity, kind of an in-kind with the each each of the participating domestic companies. and we actually share allocations of those future proceeds of that equity. with our mentors. So they all earn a little bit of skin in the game. Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Jeff Wallace: we just don't believe volunteering is you know, I've done so much of it. Many of our mentors do a lot of it. We just feel like you should be compensated for the value you bring and the experience you bring. And whether that's in the form of equity allocations or in the form of cash, we just believe people should be paid for what they bring. Jamie Schneiderman: Well, and I and I'll and I'll go a step further because I so listen, I agree with you. And I think the idea of aligning incentives is important, right? So you talk about, for example, Jeff Wallace: Absolutely. Jamie Schneiderman: you talk about the equity side. It's like, okay, well, we all want this to be successful. It's not just, I'm paid for my time. It's like, what are we trying to accomplish here? Will we get there? Right. So you're Jeff Wallace: Absolutely. It's it's a that is literally our selling point to founders on the domestic program is look, we'll take an equity position. All our mentors will share in the equity position that we get as your participation fee, if you will. Jamie Schneiderman: Mm-hmm. Jeff Wallace: and in that sense, there's a pure there it's hard to get a pure alignment. If we don't make value of that equity. on behalf of the company, nobody benefits from it on our side. So Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah, yeah. Jeff Wallace: it is as pure an alignment as you're gonna get. Jamie Schneiderman: So okay, no, this is is great. I mean, I th and I I think that, you know, too often folks for forget about that, right? So so I think I I have Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Jamie Schneiderman: no doubt. So so so you mentioned like sometimes people come in with what they want and you ask them what do you want or what do you need. how often do you find that what they say they come in and they say they need aligns with what they actually need? And Right. You you're looking at all these businesses, have a ton of experience on your own. Jeff Wallace: Sure. Jamie Schneiderman: See so talk talk talk me through that. What does that really look like? Jeff Wallace: I like I really like that question, Jamie, because a lot of times I'll start with the founders, but it can even go up to the program management, you know, group. But I'll start with the founders. And and I was a serial founder for the vast majority of my early career. so I want to say that anything I'm going to say has no judgment in it at all. I'm not judging what a founder's, you know, thoughts and because I've made literally probably every mistake. You know, and then some, and I bet you I've repeated a lot of them. Like so I'm not judging anything when I say these things. I don't want to pretend like Yeah. I just don't want anyone to ever misinterpret that I'm telling you how to do it because I'm smarter. No, I've just, you know, I've made all my mistakes, Jamie Schneiderman: Jeff Jeff, get in line. Je get in line beh behind all my mistakes. So keep so keep going. Sorry, keep going. Right? I get it. Of course. Of course. But I great. Jeff Wallace: right? So founders often believe the one thing they need is cash. And they just think if I just could get money, I I everything would fall in line. Jamie Schneiderman: Okay. Jeff Wallace: And I often believe cash is probably somewhere around the third, fourth, maybe even fifth most important thing they need. And it's hard sometimes, and again, having been a founder, I I was probably not easy to convince otherwise myself. It is hard to convince founders that no, money isn't the thing you're really short on. Money is of a commodity. When you really think about it, money is a commodity. You can get money in a lot of different places, right? You can get it through grants, you can get it through investors, you can get it through revenue, you can borrow it at a bank, you can rob a bank, you could, you know, you can get money in play you can get money. That's not the problem. The problem is, is your story compelling enough to help people make the decision to part with their money in your favor. That's a really different thing. So how you're crafting your story. And what I mean by that isn't about telling a narrative, you know, for the purpose of telling a narrative, it's have you done the homework to show there's a real problem that a lot of people have that they are willing to pay something for that you can deliver a solution profitably, scalably, et cetera. Like that's all that investor readiness that I was speaking about earlier. And so we help founders try to reframe their thinking about how do I tell that story? How do I do the homework to get the information to really make for a compelling story? And then go and talk to investors because now you're armed with the right information that's going to be speaking to them in terms that they want to be spoken to in order to think about the opportunity. So that's the founder side. Program managers, and I just had a conversation with an international program management group. in Eastern Europe this morning. And program managers will almost universally say the same thing to me. Their objective is to create more unicorn companies. That's the objective most of the groups we deal with internationally. If you say to them, well, what's your objective with this program? Create more unicorn companies. That's kind of a major repeated conversation. And my answer is, and I've even posted an article on LinkedIn about it, it is the wrong goal. to chase unicorns. I call it what did I the something about the absurdity of chasing unicorns, something like that. I can't even remember the particular word. I wrote it a long time ago because this is a common theme for years now. And our belief is you shouldn't be worried about unicorns. You should be worried about creating a vibrant, sustainable startup ecosystem. And the way to do that is to think about it if I make a baseball analogy. That's like saying, I want to have more grand slams in the bottom of the ninth when there's two outs. Well, and we're down by three runs. Like that, that's what a unicorn chase is all about. It's an Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Jeff Wallace: absurd thing to chase. What you'd rather have in baseball is a player who gets a high on base percentage, right? They get on base a lot of times. Hopefully the other batters push them around the bases and they score. That is a much better goal. So to me, that's having a great group of startup founders that have successful. Businesses, are they going to be unicorns? I really don't care. Are they going to be sustainable? Are they going to hire other people, create job growth opportunities, grow the economy, cr build bridges to others, either other countries, other regions? That is just what program managers should be focused on, in my opinion. And the very last point I'll make about program managers, there are some countries around the globe that are so phenomenally generous in giving out money to startups. And my normal advice to almost every country I deal with is stop giving money to startups. And what I mean when I say that is I don't want you not to be generous. Of course, I welcome generosity. What I want you to do is understand what it takes to be an investable business. So if you have money as a government to give, which is wonderful, partner with investors who actually know how to vet the investability. Of the companies you're going to give money to. Just because someone runs over and says, I have a startup, here's a check. What you end up doing there, despite your objective, which is to help these companies, you actually end up harming these companies because they don't know what is required to build an investable business with a compelling narrative to make people part with their money. So Jamie Schneiderman: Interesting. it's the give it's the give a man a fish, he'll eat today, teach a man to fish, right? That that that's saying but I Jeff Wallace: Exactly. Exactly right. Jamie Schneiderman: I totally following you. It's very interesting and very counterintuitive because everyone thinks about how do you get cash in everyone's hands back to your point about money being the most important thing or a lot that a lot of folks Jeff Wallace: Exactly right. Jamie Schneiderman: think of. Okay. fascinating. Okay, so so in your programs, I mean. Listen, there's it's there's businesses that are gonna have a whole range of different outcomes. To your point about the get on base, move it around, have success. Like how are you finding it? Do you find that your the accelerators are driving, you know, call it better than n better than average outcomes because of that ment that that sort of very forward thinking mentality about driving the ecosystem and making things successful? Jeff Wallace: In general, I'd like to say yes, I do believe that accelerators are doing the job they're supposed to be doing, educating companies in such a way that it does accelerate the journey and it and it shortens the journey that they're on Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Jeff Wallace: into a positive outcome. That said, there's still an 85-90% failure rate in startups. So Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Wallace: it's still a tough journey. it's not a simple Task to come up with an idea that the world is going to fall in love with and make you, you know, gobs of money and you know huge success. there are programs I think don't do as great a job. and I'm not trying to be dismissive of other programs. I support anyone who supports founders and I I partner with what other people would look at and say, aren't they competitors of yours? Yes, they are, but they have a program and they asked us if we could help, and I'm gonna help. That's just our attitude. But there are times, and this is unfortunate, there are times, and this is in any situation, I think you'll see this, where people mentor a founder, and then the founder finds their way to say, my team, myself, or my others, my other mentor network folks, and we have to unmentor because we actually believe they've been counseled in the exact wrong way. And so we have to untrain sometimes what we think are common but incorrect. ways for a startup founder. And oftentimes what I have seen in many cases is the mentors come from various backgrounds, but those that come from being an entrepreneur have a different perspective from those that have been in corporate or been in venture. And they just don't Jamie Schneiderman: Yep. Jeff Wallace: have that feet on the street experience. They haven't walked in the shoes, but they think they know and they mentor in ways that they've thought are the right ways to mentor. We do a lot of things that I think are a little bit counterintuitive. And it's not because, you know, we're trying to be counterintuitive. It's because we've realized the intuitive way is not working. So let's think what isn't working here and how do we change it? Kind of the don't give money to startup founders. Most people look at me like, what are you talking about? That's how much more could we be generous? We're giving them tens of thousands of dollars. And I just tell them, but you're you're you're harming them because they don't know what it takes now. So you're putting them in a p tough spot. I'll give a very real example of one of these where we had a founder from Asia came over here. They had an app, like a version one of an app, not even like this incredible app. And I said, you know, what's your goal in our program? Like you're here, you're here, you've arrived. Welcome. what is your objective with this program for yourself and your company? They said, Well, our goal is to do a fundraising round. And I said, How much do you look to raise? They said, probably 10 million US dollars. And I said, 10 million. I said, Wow. I said, take a step back. Tell me, what have you raised up to this point? And what have you accomplished? They said, we have four and a half million dollars in grants from the government and other related kind of governmental type entities. I said, Wow, four and a half million. Congrats. That's amazing fundraising. Like that's that's almost unheard of at the stage you're at. So con congratulations. And what do you have? And they said, Let me show you the app. And I said, No, no, well. I mean in terms of the business. I I don't need the app. The app is a solution. What do you have in terms of the business? we haven't started revenue yet. So you have no revenue, you've taken in four and a half million, you've come here to the states, you want to raise 10 million. If you just use napkin level math, you wouldn't you're essentially saying you're not going to sell more than 20% of your business. So you're probably saying you think you're worth $50 million. You have no revenue and you have a version one of an app, which I could replicate in Single digit days, if you give me a coffee break and buy me a birthday cake mix to make. Like it's not impressive enough to justify a $50 million valuation and a 10 million raise. And I said, What business have you done in your region? And they No, we haven't done any yet. We don't want to operate in our country. We want to operate in the US. It's a bigger market. I said, Yeah, but have to prove it. You have to prove it first. And when we started talking in depth, their go-to-market in the US. was literally about 3,000 times more complex. And I'm going to tell you why I'm using that specific number than what it would have been in their country. In their country, they would have had one client to sell. It was a national entity that would have covered their entire target market of ideal customer profile type folks. In the United States, it's at a county level. There are over 3,000 counties in the United States. You'd have to sell each of them independently. And they didn't understand that. So that's a government doing an absolute disservice because that company is entirely not fundable in the United States context, in my experience. They're not going to get Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Wallace: anyone to give them money at the valuation that they think they're at, because there's nothing that justifies the valuation other than the fact that they got the money. And Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Jeff Wallace: that's what I mean. It's not intuitive, but man man, it's very damaging to the company when they are not going to have an easy time trying to take it to the next level. Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. No, no. And I think it's I think it's a fascinating point that you make around, you know, f look, founders often don't know where they are. So so they don't actually know where they are. I had a founder say, I'm ready, I need to raise money just for growth. And I'm like, you're a lot earlier stage than that, right? Different issue, different sets of issues than what you're describing, but I get it. And I so I've seen it and I understand. No, and and I Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Absolutely. Very similar though. Yeah, Jamie, very similar. Jamie Schneiderman: and I Yeah, I'd said to him, I was like, You gotta we have to change your entire set of expectations for this reason and not because what you have is bad. I actually think what you have is great, but we're not there yet. and it's very hard when you're in the middle of this to to see that. So to your point, which is you know, founders don't know, especially if you're a first-time founder, you really don't know. Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Jamie Schneiderman: and then the governments are sort of misdirecting them or or making them feel like they're further like some people and some things are making them feel like they're further ahead. By the way, in the in the case that I'm using, it investors bought in and they were the wrong investors and they thought it was much further along. It's like everyone's wrong now and now we're cleaning it up not because it's not a great thing, but because we anyway, so it's a vi it's an exceptionally tough spot. So yes. Jeff Wallace: Yeah. That's a tough spot. That's a very tough spot. You made an interesting point though that they were the wrong investors. I always say the only thing investors the only investors you should take in onto your cap table. and I can't count how many messy cap tables we see early on. It's just the nature Jamie Schneiderman: yeah. Jeff Wallace: of the way it goes. But I always say you should only take the right investors. And some founders will say, Well, the right investor is the investor whose check clears. And I always say, no, the right investor has three magic words that investors that are not right don't have. They said, What is that? I said, value beyond capital. If an investor isn't bringing you value beyond the commodity of the capital they're infusing into your business, don't Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Wallace: take them. Now, that said, I understand there are some times you just need to put a little gas in the tank. You don't care if it's Sunoko 94 Octane. You just gotta get a little gas, right? Jamie Schneiderman: Ha ha ha. Jeff Wallace: I get it. But if you have Enough breathing room only take the right investors that bring value beyond capital. Otherwise, you're gonna end up in a lot of conversations that aren't the kind of conversations you wanna be having. Jamie Schneiderman: yes. Yeah. Well, and I could Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Jamie Schneiderman: I I could offline talk about a whole bunch of things in this case that are a whole bunch of things, but but not not not for the pod. I not probably not appropriate to share all of it. And I'm sure Jeff Wallace: Not for the pod. Jamie Schneiderman: you've seen I'm sure you've seen all of that and much, much, much more. So okay, so so so okay. You you there's a bunch of things that you've provided in terms of Good feedback, good input, good good ideas and thinking for folks. But I'd like to, if there's one key thing, you've got people who are thinking, wow, I should reach out to Jeff, what's the piece of advice you can give them before they even do that? What's the one big thing that every and I I'm really thinking about founders. What's the key thing that you want founders to be thinking about above all other things as they build their business, as they Figure out what stage they're at, what do they need, all of these pieces. What were where What's the piece of advice that you wish more founders had been given early that would really change the game for them? Jeff Wallace: I guess there's if I could say this, there's three thoughts that are literally colliding Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Jeff Wallace: in my head to your question. The first one is it's emerging more and more in the current day around AI, where I have a lot of solo founders approaching me. And I always say, you know, solo founders are are gonna have an incredibly difficult time convincing an investor you know, to invest. And they say, why? Well, it's super lean. I got AI, like we're great, we're very efficient. And I say, Yeah, but you suffer from the Greyhound bus syndrome. And they go, what? I said, if you get run over by a Greyhound bus, I don't have an investment because the company's gone. I said, you Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Wallace: think solo founders about efficiency and cost and and you don't have to get into fights with your co-founders over anything, I get that. But the reality is, if there's no one to hand the baton to to run the next lap, if for any reason at all, you can't, that's what an investor needs. Investors invest in sustainable businesses. One person is not sustainable. There's a reason, there's a thing called key man insurance, like or key person insurance, I'll say, right? Because we have lots of female founders as well that we work with. I just don't think solo founders is any easier. Some people do argue the other side of that with me. And they say, no, no, in the AI realm, it's much easier. Solo founders totally fine. And I'm like, but the Greyhound Butt Syndrome, like, that doesn't care that AI is in existence. Like, you could Jamie Schneiderman: Well exists, yeah. Totally. Jeff Wallace: get ill, you could get in an accident. I've had friends get in a bike accident. I had one founder, sadly, very young guy, killed in a car crash. Just tragic, horrifying. These things happen. Like that's life. Like so I think founders need to really consider not just that piece of the solo founder, but I've always had partners in my businesses because I want diversity of perspective. One person's perspective is simply a data point. It's not a trend. It's not a direction. It's like one thought. So I think that is one thing around solo founders. Another thing is I I see so many founders get beaten down and chipped away at their confidence and their enthusiasm by negativity of others. I, for whatever reason, feel blessed that I just don't care what others think. I'm going to be me. And if you like me, great. If you don't like me, that's equally great. I get it. Not everyone is for everybody. I'm not for everyone. No one's for everyone. It's fine. But what I mean by this for founders is I've seen a lot of founders go up to somebody and say, Hey, what you think of my idea? They say, I don't know if it's a great idea. And they kind of lose it chips away. It's like a little dinky chip in their confidence and their eagerness. And my attitude is ignore the no's. If they're right, prove it to yourself. And if they're wrong, prove them wrong. But if you believe, you pursue that belief like it's the only thing going. And just don't let others. I often say a lot of times people say no or they're negative, not necessarily on purpose. It's not conscious to chip away at your ego or your confidence. It's I'm stuck in a dead end corporate job. I hate my life. So I'm gonna make sure yours is terrible too. So that's a horrible idea. Jamie Schneiderman: Ha ha Jeff Wallace: You know what I mean? Again, I think it's subconscious, but people just say no to a lot of things. So ignore the no's. Don't go for the solo founder. And the other one that really popped into my head when you were asking the question is about humility. Just be humble, take advice. I've literally been sitting with founders who are pitching me as an investor, so not as an advisor or a mentor. And they'll say I'll offer a little advice and I'll ask some things. And I'll say, Jeff, listen, I don't really need your advice. I just need your check. And I'm Jamie Schneiderman: boy. Jeff Wallace: kind of like, my God, dude. My response is always the same. And it's not a single time that that's happened. I'll literally just look at my wrist. I don't wear a watch and I'll go, Would you look at the time? I've got to go. And I get up and leave. I'm like, you have no humility. You think you know everything. You don't. I learn crap every day from founders who are first-time founders, all the way up to whoever I'm working with. I listen into my mentor calls from other mentors so I can learn. How they're doing things that are different than how I'm doing things. I just have this kind of growth mindset. I guess that would be the term I would say is I want to work with founders who have a growth mindset. And I would encourage every founder to have a growth mindset. Always be learning, always be thinking about what lesson you can take away from every conversation, every person. Sometimes, you know, I'm a little bit older in age. I was with a gentleman yesterday in his mid-70s, early 70s. He's retired. And I know so many people that would look at a retired person these days, and I hate to say this, and they'll just think, that was in your day. It's almost like the okay boomer kind of crap. And my attitude is you have no idea how much you can learn if you're just open to it. So those would be the three thoughts that kind of collided in my head when you asked that question. Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. But by the way, I I just wanted you to know so w one of the values we always had in the business was best idea rules. It doesn't matter whose idea, it doesn't matter where it Jeff Wallace: I love that. Jamie Schneiderman: comes from. It could be the person who just showed up yesterday who's the most junior person in the company. Cause quite frankly, if you separate that, ideas are I like good things are good things. It shouldn't matter who it comes. So so anyway, I Jeff Wallace: The source the source is irrelevant. I love that. I absolutely love that. So Jamie Schneiderman: Yeah. Anyway, but I'm with you and I'm astonished by some of the reactions that I hear. But but anyway, okay, so you and I could go on and on, and there's so many other places to go, Jeff Wallace: Yeah. Jamie Schneiderman: but but let's let's for the sake of today, let's do this. So wha how do people find you? Where where where can people reach you, find you, get hold of you? Jeff Wallace: Yeah, listen, I'm I'm very active on LinkedIn, so that's always a good thing. I'm happy to have inbound messaging on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect with people. you can always check out our website, siliconvalleyinyourpocket.com or batchery.com. my emails, I'm I'm very comfortable. You know, you can just drop me an email at Jeff at S V I Y P stands for Silicon Valley in your pocket. We just shortened it because it was a way too long of an email otherwise. yeah, I'm I'm always happy to connect with people. I use so many communication channels like Slack and occasionally Discord. I'm not as as deep in Discord, but WhatsApp and email and LinkedIn and I'm happy to connect with founders anywhere in the world at any time if if if there's something I can do. That brings value to what their journey is. Jamie Schneiderman: Awesome. All right. Well, we'll put we'll put some links in the description. People will be able to get hold of you. and Jeff Wallace: That's great. Jamie Schneiderman: so anyway, listen, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. that was great. That was awesome for folks who are listening. Jeff Wallace: Thank you. Jamie Schneiderman: and and for everybody who's watching and listening, thank you and until next time.