Episode 04

(0:00) Welcome to the BLTNT podcast. I’m your host, Matt Loria, serving up real stories of business, life, technology, and transformations. You’ll hear from interesting people about big changes from career shifts to life-altering decisions, and the innovations that help make it all happen. It’s about sharing those lightbulb moments, pivot points, challenges overcome, and the journeys that inspire us to think differently. If you’re on the lookout for insights to propel you forward, stories that resonate, or just a bit of inspiration on your next BLTNT move, you’re in the right place. Let’s dig in. 
(0:42) Well, welcome back, everyone. We’re here with the BLTNT podcast with a very special guest,  
(0:47) Anthony LaVerde, the CEO of Imagine Entertainment.  
(0:51) Are we morning or afternoon? I don’t even know. Good morning, Matt.  
(0:53) It’s still morning. It’s still morning right now, for the next couple hours, I think. 
So, thanks for being here. I’ve known Anthony a long time, and been a great friend, been a great customer, been a great confidant for helping see me through some challenging times like COVID.  
(1:12) He was kind of the master of COVID. So, glad you’re here with us, and we’re getting a chance to have a conversation about business life, technology, and transformations, which you are full of.  
(1:23) Yeah, the COVID times. I try to forget those two years ever happened, but I appreciate the kind introduction. 
(1:30) You’re welcome. You’re welcome. Yeah, you certainly came from an industry that was all but decimated during COVID, where literally just operations shut down. 
(1:42) Yeah. So, we decided to grow through COVID. Our bank certainly thought we were out of our minds, but it’s that Warren Buffett adage of be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. And we grew to where we are today, which is the ninth largest operator in North America.  
(2:02) So, you have that sign from Warren Buffett in your office, don’t you?  
(2:06) I do. It reminds me every day how we think, and how we grow. And we grow with purpose, and we don’t just do deals to do deals, because one bad deal will wipe out quite a few good ones. 
(2:19) I’ve always kind of thought Paul Glantz, your chairman, even his demeanor always reminds me of Warren Buffett.  
(2:27) He is. He’s certainly well-loved. We joke, there’s the flat Pauls in every theater, and usually one a month is stolen from somewhere, and someone keeps it as a collectible.  
(2:41) And in fact, Rochester High, right down the road, he’s there every year for their homecoming. And he’s well-loved, and certainly the face of the business, and allows us behind the scenes to take the shots that we need to take when we want to try to grow the business. 
(2:57) There was really an interesting thing when Paul told me, I don’t know how many years ago, right? You’ll have to tell us what the timeline was, but he says, I’m bringing this gentleman from New York, and a very dynamic young man, and he had all these great accolades for you, and brought you in as the chief of staff.  
(3:21) And I’ve always just been very impressed with the dynamic that you two have together in just the mutual respect, obviously, but you’ve always been very, I don’t know what the word is, complimentary, or humble, or whatever it’s been. 
(3:39) I can’t come up with the word right now, but your dynamic together, you allowed him to be what he is, and he allowed you to be what you are, and together you make something very strong.  
(3:51) Yeah, there’s two, probably more than two points, but two points that really hit home with me when it comes to this. One is I’ve had a bad boss, and someone recently asked me, what are the greatest lessons you’ve had throughout your career? 
(4:02) And the number one thing I say is have a bad boss, and I did. 
And it gave me the greatest lesson of my career, which was don’t be scared to hire people better than you. And I think in your, you know, you’re the CEO of your company, and your main job, I would think, is to identify talent and put them in the right seats in the bus.  
(4:31) And that’s what I think my most important role, besides diversifying our revenue, which I think we’ll get into later, is to identify talent, put them in the right seats, and get out of the way. 
(4:44) And when it comes to Paul and I, I think we know each other’s strengths, we know each other’s weaknesses, and we complement each other well, but most importantly, he’s willing to take shots. And we have done some crazy things.  
(4:57) We’ve turned theaters into haunted houses. We’ve opened the first sportsbook in the world inside of a theater. We’re getting into the content business right now. He’s not scared to take shots, and he’s not going to crucify you if those shots don’t work out. 
It’s not to say we don’t have disagreements.  
(5:17) We should have disagreements. If we don’t, then we’re not pushing hard enough, that’s for sure. 
(5:21) I’ve witnessed a couple of those.  
(5:23) Yeah, I mean, we’re not disagreeing about things. We’re just sitting back and not growing with purpose or growing fast enough. 
(5:36) And I also think the way we’re structured, we sort of have this triangular effect where it’s our CFO, Dirk Colheed, Paul, our chairman and owner and co-founder, and myself. And if the three of us don’t agree on something, we won’t do it.  
(5:49) It’s this really amazing structure that I think we have that’s special, where we all look at something from a different lens. 
And I’ll tell you, out of all the opportunities we had to grow through COVID, the two deals that we passed on, the three of us did not agree on, both of those deals ultimately did not work for the person who acquired those businesses. They are both no longer operating.  
(6:12) So you had the benefit of hindsight on that from the sidelines rather than the guy who did it. 
(6:17) We did. And I think that is a very unique aspect of our management style and team, and really has saved us and helped us grow. It just, we happen to have our sort of triangular effect that we get to ask each other, you know, in your business, I know you have folks around you, and then you have folks you reach to outside of your business, which, you know, we’re really lucky that we all look at something from a different lens and it’s dynamic and it works. 
(6:46) Well, and you all came from different backgrounds as well. And I mean, I feel like I took those cues,  you know, watching you and Paul, when I first brought in Mark Maheineke as our chief operating officer, and then Mark eventually segued into a different role and still within the company,  very important. And then we hired Catherine Baker to be our president. 
(7:09) And just that acknowledgement of what am I good at? What are you good at? One plus one equals three is quite theright thing and not to be afraid of hiring somebody who’s smarter than you. And I always joke everybody in here smarter than me. I’m not a technical technologist myself. 
(7:27) I’m a strategic technologist, but you know, I can’t install your firewall. So I have to make sure that the person here that’s doing so is far smarter than me. And you can take that into every area of the company. 
And with your business, certainly the scalability aspect, you can’t be doing everything,  
(7:45) right? And so your business relies on process and procedure and which I think is all underpinned by the culture. And so the culture, let’s talk about that and just talk about and let’s kind of go back and forth about, you know, vision and mission here of what are you out to do in the business vision wise, and even talk about maybe your taglines and things like that.  
(8:09) Yeah. It’s a testament to your success too that you identify that you can’t do it all.  And that it’s okay to hire people. I wouldn’t necessarily say smarter, or I just say people that are better than you and they could be smarter, more nimble, you know, better. 
(8:24) Better in some way.  Better in some way. The culture at Imagine is one where we, I’m there to serve our team. 
(8:36) You know, that’s all I’m there for. Again, diversify the revenue, but to our team members, I’m there to serve them, help them when issues arise, otherwise get out of the way and identify talent. And that goes all the way down to our mission as a company to our guests. 
(8:54) You know, we’re there to provide a moment of escapism to our guests in this crazy world we’re living in right now. And to give them a moment of escapism and treat our guests with immense empathy.  
(9:07) You never know what someone’s going through. You’re there to have them hopefully forget everything they’re dealing with that day. Walk into a dark auditorium, cry with someone, laugh with someone, clap with someone, cheer with someone, and just give them the best experience. You know, provide an exemplary out of home experience. 
(9:30) Give them a reason to leave their home.  And that starts from the top down. If I treat the staff or our chief people officer, our COO treats our staff or our team members without empathy, then that’s going to roll downhill to our guests. 
(9:51) So our home office or our corporate office has the same mission as I do to our staff,  to our corporate office, and they have it to our theater staff. They’re there to assist our GMs, our managers, our senior managers in any problems that they can’t solve on their own.  
(10:03) Whether it’s a vendor that’s letting us down, whether it’s a quality control product, whether it’s an issue with a guest that needs a little more attention. 
(10:15) We’re all there rowing in the same direction, and that direction is to provide the best experience for our guests.  
(10:20) I was thinking about you guys and was looking at my Imagine app, right? And it’s the loyalty program, right? And when I think back to first getting to know Paul, then getting to know you, loyalty is a word that resonates with me big time, when I think about you guys. And I think about that from the vendor aspect. 
(10:48) When you partner with someone, I know that you guys buy a lot of products from Gary, right?  
(10:54) You’ve done that for a very long time, right? Your theater equipment. You’ve done a lot of work with us over the years. Even the employees, especially the early employees, because your company did really make a shift of going from that entrepreneurial company to a really steady state. 
(11:16) Maybe steady state’s not the best word, but to a real secure mid-market organization, right? And it takes a lot to boost out of that entrepreneurial piece. 
(11:21) And what I remember was the trust that Paul had in people to do what it is that they do well, right? And he was actually the CEO of another organization as well, or president, I can’t remember- Yeah, president of an insurance company.  
(11:40) Yeah, Procter Financial, right? And he had a whole other full-time gig and was empowering these people to do that. 
(11:53) And they were still treating those guests at this exemplary level, right? Everybody talks about it. You talk about loyalty; you think about Imagine. You think about even when somebody steals a flat Paul from one of your places, there’s a loyalty aspect of that, of they want a piece of it. And it’s kind of become part of, I mean, it’s certainly become quite a big part of Detroit area culture.  
(12:14) Everyone knows Imagine. Everyone says, oh, are we going to go to Imagine if it’s to a movie? My kids think that I’m putting them in prison if I make them sit in a movie theater that doesn’t have your chairs. 
(12:26) And so just that experience that you guys have given, and that loyalty is really, I think, the true differentiator. Yeah. And the entrepreneurial spirit is an interesting one that comes up because we are very much process-driven now being that we operate in five states. 
(12:42) You have to be able to pick that up and have the same experience if you’re in Minnesota or Indiana. But we don’t lose an entrepreneurial spirit, right? You have to allow your teams to take shots, to try new things. And if it doesn’t work, you can’t crucify them. 
(13:02) You can’t really come down hard on them because you’ll lose that entrepreneurial spirit to be willing to try new things. And that’s really important where we want to continue to grow with purpose and not lose that entrepreneurial spirit, but you do have to have a process-driven approach.  
(13:19) So anywhere you go to one of our 28 locations, you get the same experience. 
(13:25) That’s really important for us. And as far as Paul, I think he understands how much the team cares and the culture has grown, and he is always willing to jump in where needed when asked on any subject. And it’s not only being the face of the business, it’s also, can you make an appearance?  
(13:55) He’ll go down to filming a wedding anniversary video that’s going to be up on the screen welcoming a guest. I mean, that takes a lot of time when you’re getting those requests constantly.  
(14:05) So he’s very nimble for us and willing to do anything that’s asked, which is amazing for an owner of an organization our size to do those things.  
(14:15) Yeah. I always find it ironic how you didn’t found the company. You came in and replaced Paul as the CEO. I don’t know if you’re going to replace Paul. 
(14:25) Okay. Paul, if you’re watching this, I certainly didn’t mean that. The fact that you’ve been able continue to expand on the entrepreneurial side of the business has been really interesting. 
(14:38) I mean, you don’t always see that when the company goes from entrepreneurial to hired in CEO.  
(14:46) So you’ve really kept that alive. And what I also love is that when we talk,  you’ll tell me about an idea that’s happening. 
(15:00) And then six months later without any issue,  yep, that one didn’t work out. And we stopped pursuing it. So you can feel the guts. 
You can see where you guys go after it. And then if it’s like, if you don’t get that trifecta agreement between you and Dirk and Paul, understanding that process of how you back out of it and say,  you know what, okay, let’s move on and do something different.  
(15:20) But you have to listen to your guests too when you take those shots. 
You were talking about loyalty earlier.  
(15:31) Actually, today we’re going to be announcing a complete overhaul of our loyalty program, which will now be known as Imagine Rewards. And that overhaul came from direct feedback from our guests on how the reward system worked. 
(15:44) So I’ll give an example of how important listening to your guests is. And in your case, I’m sure the needs of your customers,  if you don’t listen to them, there won’t be repeat customers and you meet their needs. So we realize that there’s a really large addressable market for foreign language films. 
(16:02) So we started showing Indian language films, Bollywood films, and we noticed there was no per caps, no spend on concessions. And we really could not figure out how this was possible.  
(16:16) So because they, are you saying because the theaters were actually filled, but the, but the concessions were not sold out shows, no concessions being sold. 
(16:25) And, uh, we, we do surveys on the back of almost every movie ticket, um, for feedback, constant feedback. We can change those questions on the go. So the next weekend, you know, we, changed the, the, um, the survey on the back of those movie tickets and asked, you know, why aren’t you buying concessions? Literally down to that. 
And we discovered that, uh, it’s, it’s in the, in the Indian culture and in the Bollywood films, there’s intermissions and that’s when concessions were purchased. 
(16:49)  So you, you bet it the next weekend we had concession, uh, we had, uh, intermissions placed on all those films and, and we sold  concessions. Uh, so, uh, it’s just one example of many where you listen to your guests. 
(17:05) Um, they almost become your entrepreneur for you where they’re, they’re, they’re making your business better. And, um, you know, if we didn’t listen to our guests, I bet, imagined would not be here today. Currently not the size of this today. 
Sure.  
(17:23) That’s great. Um, with regard to the new rewards program, I mean, that, that to me is a, uh, the rewards program for you is just always going to be an iterative thing where you’re going to always be constantly bettering that over time. 
(17:33) So it’s kind of an expected thing. I think we would think to see out of you guys cause you’re always constantly improving, but you’re working on some stuff.  
(17:42) I mean, here we are sitting in,  in our podcast studio and we’ve been talking a lot about the fact that you’ve been building out a podcast studio, which is not just a podcast studio. 
(17:54) It’s a whole nother business line that you’ve come up with that you’re, you guys are exploring and actually now have, you know, you have, you have commitments towards it. (18:02) Would you, we’re going to get you over to our dark side. (18:02) I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to then have podcast room envy.  
(18:07) It’s like going to be like, it’s going to be like we’re in a Marina where he’s got a boat that’s two feet bigger. I need that now. Yeah. 
(18:15) What’s the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire? You know, the yachts go by. Uh, no, but you’re right. 
(18:21) You know, years ago, Paul, uh, when he named the brand, imagine, you know, he had the tagline of the magic of movies and more. And today it’s never been more important to diversify our revenue and focus on the end more.  
(18:38) So, we’ve launched a completely new division called imagine more, um, which are taking into a live events, but very, um, structured Q and a sessions with, with actors and actresses and musicians and, uh, uh, doing ticketed events, meet and greets and so on that that’s been very successful. 
We, we’ve been doing that for a couple of weeks now and have had great success.  
(18:58) You said Helen Hunt. We had this past weekend. We had Helen Hunt, Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters. The previous week we had, uh, Nick Castle and James Sue Courtney, uh, who both, uh, played Michael Myers, Nick Castle in 78, James Jude in the latest, uh, Halloween movie franchise. I’m afraid of those. I’ll never see them. It was terrific. Uh, well-received. And, and secondly, uh, part of that we’ve built, uh, a podcast studio, but, um, that uses sort of the, the imagined, um, luxury experience, you know, it has seating, it has a bar, um, and it has a glass, uh, surrounding wall within our lobby. 
(19:44) Uh, so if it’s, if it’s a, you know, a guest that’s well-received, you can sit at the bar and watch the podcast being taped. You can also sit inside (19:49) the podcast studio. 
And the idea is now, um, you know, the grandioso plans, if you ask me two years from now where I’d like us to be, I’d like us to be competing in the content world with the Spotify’s, the iHearts of the world.  
(20:12) And imagine as a brand not only becomes, you know, the theater chain, but also becomes a player in the content space. So, um, we’re excited. 
Um, we’re taking another shot, uh, with the help of folks like you that, that provide, uh, uh, important services to us that, um, you know, we can’t do it alone. And, um, we’re, we’re eager to try this one. 
(20:26) And it’s certainly the most important part of my job right now is diversifying our revenue away from the studios. 
(20:38) We’re still somewhat below, uh, pre COVID levels and on number of releases, not necessarily the guests not wanting to see films. We’re actually at a, uh, if you look at the data, we’re actually at a higher number of guests per film than we were pre COVID. We just have less films. So, let’s talk about that. I’m, I’m privy to a lot of information about you guys in terms of, um, what, what happened in COVID and why you keep referencing that and why the let’s not rely on the studios, right?  
(21:00) That was that you, you, you were in a way burned, uh, by that situation whereby it was almost like you didn’t have inventory to sell to your, to your clients.  
(21:12) So you had these big empty buildings, even when they were able to open the studios had, weren’t making enough films, uh, or enough or enough big draw films to bring people in. 
(21:25) And so, and so that was your inventory. It was like, it was like you were the toilet paper guy, right? You didn’t have any toilet paper to sell, so nobody could buy it. Yeah. 
Or we had a bar without booze. Yeah, no. Uh, so this is a difficult question that gets asked a lot. 
(21:43) Was there, was there anything positive out of COVID? And, um, you know, this, this is one of the cases where you can say the short-term pain is going to be worth the long-term gain where, um, had COVID not occurred, our industry might’ve gone through a three to seven cycle, a lot of just pure testing on the streaming services. 
(22:03) Do we release it simultaneously? Do we release it for paid? Do we just put it in theaters? And what COVID did was accelerate that into an 18 month span where streaming services had the perfect environment to operate. And, um, I think most of them have now discovered that even in the perfect environment, it doesn’t work. 
(22:22) Um, that’s not to say streaming can’t exist and theaters can’t exist. There’s, there’s a wonderful Ernst and Young study that’s out that shows the most prolific streamers are the most prolific movie goers. Um, so we can live in harmony. 
(22:41) Um, but I guess so hesitant to say positive,  but the one positive that came out of COVID was that experiment lasted 18 months and was put to bed. Um, had COVID not occurred, that experiment could have taken three or, you know, like I said, up to seven years for every streaming service to try different things they want to try.  
(22:57) And what I think you’re seeing today is streaming services have realized sports is what’s going to keep people, um, as subscribers and the content theaters are almost an advertising platform for their content. 
(23:18) If they put their product into our theaters with a window of exclusivity, um,  and those in that content does well, folks then watch it on streaming multiple times after, um, you don’t get the same buzz by going straight to streaming. So I think you’ll see consolidation in the streaming industry for sure over the next year. 
(23:37)  You, uh, I, I, I joke basically streamers reinvented cable and we’re going back to sort of a box and a service that has all your streaming apps. 
(23:44) Um, and their, their, their push to sports is what will keep you as a, as a subscriber. I, I think we’re, we’re into the last few days and weeks of, of, uh, being able to just sit at home, turn on network television and watch, uh, this your favorite team without some level of  subscription. Correct. 
(24:12) That’s we’re almost there and that, that will be sure. And pretty soon.  Yeah. 
I mean that whole, the whole delivery mechanisms changing right from, from the traditional television or cable to, to all these streaming services. And I think the next iteration is what’s, what’s going to happen because of AI. Right. 
(24:29) And I was in a, I was in a session yesterday with, um, with a panel discussion with some, some people who are really at the forefront of artificial intelligence and leveraging it in their organizations.  
(24:39) And one of the discussion points was what’s going to happen with content and movies when you can say, you know, Hey, I want to see, show me a, show me a movie with, uh, Bruce Willis when he was in his thirties, you know, with Scarlett Johansson and this and that with a building in New York city or whatever, you know, whatever it might be all these different attributes.  
(25:00) And as soon as the compute power is there to do that fast enough with video, we’ll have that movie on demand type of experience. 
(25:05) And so there’s going to be a further disruption in your business. So I think when we talk about those silver lining moments, right, of the, of the ouch, that hurt. And I learned something from it is if you can’t rely on that product to be the one product that you resell over and over, what are we going to do in the future?  
(25:27) And so I love the diversification, uh, of things and just how you guys are being forward, thinking of that and leveraging that last, uh, well, we’ve seen it in your industry quite a bit too, where you, you have a hardware device that you might install, but every year there’s an update or a subscription or the SAS model as they call it. 
(25:43) Right. Um,  you know, how, how do you guys adapt as, as, you know, imagine calling you and they spend quite a bit of money putting in a firewall or router or whatever it be. And, you know, you’re constantly have to update that to keep, you know, network secure. 
(26:02) Cause that’s,  you know, what keeps me up at night is simply a hack cyber attack that to me, out of everything else we worry about is top of the list. Sure. You know, how do you, how do you adapt a client to, to understand the importance of that constant updating? Yeah. 
(26:22) It’s a, it’s, it’s definitely a challenge, right? In fact, um, early,  early on, uh, I’ll tell you comes a couple of different, um, answers to your question early on. We used to, we used to get into a client, um, especially if we were selling managed it services and we’d say, okay, you know, here’s the price for, for us to serve your, your, your needs.  
(26:40) But then we would come in and we would explain to them, here’s the standards by which, uh, security kind of runs on now. 
(26:50) So if you’re thinking of cars in 1985, the seatbelt was,  it was about all you, all you had on the safety feature list and, and maybe safety glass. But you know, now, no matter what car you go by, it has 20 airbags. You can buy the cheapest, the cheapest Chevy has 20 airbags, a backup camera, anti-lock brakes, multiple, uh, uh, crumple zones and things like that. 
(27:11) All that sort of technology, um, you know, to stop before it hits a person. And those were all, those were all options, uh, prior to being standards. And so that’s kind of what continues to happen in the technology world is that that ball is ever, ever rolling. 
(27:26) So, we used to come in and say, okay, so here’s your managed services price.  And then we would come in and say, in your first monthly meeting, okay, here’s the things you need. 
(27:30) And people were saying, well, that’s a, that’s kind of a bait and switch almost is what it felt like to a customer. And I was looking at this and going, oh my goodness. First of all, some of these security features were some of the lowest margin items we had. And I’m thinking I’m going I’m eroding my relationship with this client. They’re thinking that I’m up selling them after I quote unquote, got them in the door and I’m just trying to make sure they have seatbelts.  
(27:56) And so what we, what we quickly did was we readjusted our model where we said, okay, we’re only going to do business with people who want to do it right. So that at least where we come in today on the, on the first element of our first entry point, we come in and we show them everything that they’re going to need. 
(28:14) And so whether they buy it right away or they buy it down the road, we have, we show them that very clearly. And we have consultants that tell us we’re crazy because we’re spending too much time on people who are our perspective, but we would rather, we would rather not have any erosion afterwards with that. So that’s one thing that we, that we have to work on or that we’ve done to to make things right in that, in that, in that model. 
(28:45) Secondly, though, is that we, you know, we’ve built out a true cybersecurity practice, right? That is working with small and large companies alike, public, private, you know, you name it. And we’re able to build those standards and show every client, okay, here’s the newest standard and here’s why. And so if you’re not looking at enough industries, if you’re not looking at enough businesses, and you’re not out there as a thought leader, so, so we’ve brought in, you know, a very, very dynamic chief information security officer who came from, came from Lear was his private previous employer. 
(29:20) And, you know, people look at us like we’re crazy. Why? Well, how could you spend this much money to do this? And I said, How can we not every every one of our clients is thinking exactly what you’re thinking. And so I don’t I don’t need that worry. 
(29:30) You know, I need to be able to hold my head high that we’re doing everything we can and we’re and  we’re, we’re even pushing the envelope right where we have to go in, you know, we’ll go into a client and say, Hey, you need vulnerability management.  
(29:44) That’s, that’s kind of the newest, low cost high impact offering that’s that’s out there. And we’ve got to say, Okay, here’s, here’s, here’s what that is. You’ve bought windows with locks. This is the this is the item that makes sure that your, your your wife or husband or child closed the window and locked it before we left for vacation.  
(30:06) You know, we’re only as strong as sort of your weakest employee that answers that phishing email, right? And you name it. And, or you nailed it, I should say. Yeah, we, the amount of phishing testing that we’re doing constantly, and I can’t reinforce enough how important it is to work with folks like yourself for cybersecurity, because it is the number one concern, and should be the number one concern on every CEO or CIOs.  
(30:38) And don’t click anything. Yeah. Like, if the prince of some South African nation is offering you a billion dollars, but he just needs a few bucks first. 
(30:52) Unfortunately, they’re not as they’re not as apparent as what they used to know used to be, we could get those, send them to each other, laugh about them. 
And now it’s the the man in the middle attacks, the FedEx, the FedEx stuff, you’re getting a text and an email, you know, they’ve got so many of these data breaches have occurred. (31:12) And it doesn’t matter if you have credit monitoring and all these other things. Once once that information is out there on the dark web, and somebody can can triangulate and say, Okay, I’ve got Anthony’s cell phone number and his email address. 
I can spoof him pretty.  
(31:21) Oh, yeah. Once a month. 
Once a month, my entire team gets a text message from me telling them that I really need gift cards from Best Buy. Yep. Yeah. Luckily, no one’s gone and purchased.  
My team always says that we need imagine. Well, those you can buy. 
(31:32) So, let’s let’s shift over. We’ve really talked about business a lot. You’ve got an awesome let’s talk about life. 
Yeah, we’ve got you’ve got an awesome family. Thank you. Let’s let’s talk about them. 
I what I what I love about your family is that when we first met you had a St. Bernard and I’ve always had St. Bernard’s and so we knew that there was enough of a crazy here that we could get along. I now have a zoo. I’m going to start charging folks to come over and play at the zoo. 
(32:10) Do you have to lie on insurance forms? No. Do you have any insurance brokers? I think we should. Hopefully he’s not watching. Brian, turn off the channel. No. So we now have a Great Dane, a Bernice Mountain Dog and a Bulldog. 
Okay. And two tortoises and a hedgehog and a few cats.  
(32:31) It’s a zoo. It’s a true zoo. And your wife, Carrie. Yes. 
You know, both of us. This is the other commonalities. We’ve outkicked our coverage. 
You know, me with Nadine, you with Carrie. Carrie has this this face that is always smiling. So I don’t think she’s ever mad. 
(32:48) But I would love for you. Really? I would love for you to kind of maybe, maybe just pretend nobody’s listening and watching. So tell me the real Carrie. No, I mean, she how she deals with, you know, I am fully admitting, you know, I am present as much as I can be. I’m not, you know, I love you get CEOs that talk about their their geniuses of time management. Well, more power to you. 
(33:15)I am not,  you know, 100 hour weeks are not uncommon. So she certainly holds down the fort. My girls are definitely a reflection of her. Certainly not me. They’re great kids. Just so proud of them. And they’re their own people. And they’re the kindest kids out there. I think that’s a proud dad moment. 
(33:38) Um, but you know, the thing I judge my kids on is when they get invited over to other families homes and, and, you know, it’s a mom or a dad, you know, giving me the compliment that we welcome them over anytime they’re the most respectful kids. So they’re, they’re paving their own path. And I’m proud of them. 
(34:02) How old are they now? 15 and about to be 14. So yeah, it’s Sienna’s driving, which you’ve gotten a collection of guns and everything. Of course, he has girls. 
So just just so you know, two girls, you got to protect them. Yeah, don’t don’t worry, there’ll be interviews. Anybody that comes over. I’ll call Uncle Matt. Yeah, your girls are great. When when our boys first came to be with us, our we have we have older kids and younger kids, and they’re all adopted to me. 
(34:35) So, I have four kids, no diapers. They all came in at all their ages. But when we first got our boys, they, they got to go to imagine Heartland, the grand opening, and so they had never been to a movie theater before. So they get to meet your girls. They have a they have a dance off, dance off in the middle, quite the dancers in the middle of the hallway there. (34:49) There’s a piano player, there’s all the food you can eat. There’s free movie, record, record, Ralph, you know, you name it. And so that was so so you guys started our boys up at this level where nothing else is good. So, you know, nothing else can compare. 
(35:08) So, they think that that’s just normal, is a grand openings and everything like that. But your girls were so sweet to them.  You know, welcome to men the first day. 
So we always hold them in high regard.  
(35:17) Your boys are amazing. And, you know, I always told you that it’s the most amazing gift you can give someone. So, you know, just I’ll forever be in awe of you and your wife and taking those two boys in. Those are good kids. Thank you. Yeah. Our littlest one just went on his fifth grade, fifth grade camp. He’s gone for two days. So two days. Yeah, that’s not too bad. Two nights. Yeah.  
(35:42) Yeah. So but now they’re doing they’re doing great. And your girls, somebody showing dogs still or horses? No, no, they’re they’re both in in theater and in their own way. My youngest is too smart for her own good. She’s she’s really good at improv and comedy and can can roast dad at any moment and make me feel about two inches tall. 
She’s very good at what she does.  
(36:10) So so she’s spent some time at Second City last summer. She’s going upstate New York to an improv camp this summer. And then my oldest is in theater production.  
(36:21) We’ll spend the whole summer and interlocking again this year to do their production. Oh, sound and lighting. And there are different kids in and paving their own path. And dad just tries not to get in the way. That’s that’s about it. Good. They’re great kids. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, what is a typical vet bill? What are you allocating per month on the on the veterinarian? It’s the food. Never mind the veterinarian cost. 
(36:50) But yeah, we got to have your boys over to see the see the zoo. It’s fun. It gets you not to take life too seriously. That’s great. Try to have a fun house.  
(37:02) This episode of the BLTNT podcast is sponsored by Auxiom, business IT and cybersecurity designed to outsmart chaos. Empowered by Juniper Networks, automate your network with Juniper Networks and the Mist AI platform, the world’s first AI driven wired and wireless network.  
(37:19) So so technology, let’s let’s we’ll do the switch to technology. And then you’re your field. I might have a little little input on this one. But one thing I thought was really neat is that with your podcast setup, you actually thought about you thought about your your not just your guests, but the people who are actually rent so people can rent your podcast room.  
(37:45) Correct. And then you’ve put a whole ticketing system in place that actually replaces the need for them to use Eventbrite or Ticketmaster or somebody that would charge a fee to them. 
(38:02)  Yeah. And so more of the revenues can go directly to the to the to the talent that is that’s renting the room or your star, you know, your Helen Hunts and everything like that. Um, yeah, it was talk about that, please. Thanks. It was important to us to own the ecosystem from top down. 
(38:24) And what what we really wanted to aspire was to to help one, you know, sort of part of it selfish is that a lot of our employees host podcast on their high school kids, some of them are well followed, some of them aren’t. It’s a retention tool for us there during the hours that podcast studio isn’t being used. We want to give them a platform. 
(38:40) So, we’ve not only built the ticketing system we’ve built on our website coming soon, you’ll be able to actually host your content. Of course, you can send it out elsewhere. But, you know, we serve millions and millions of guests a year. And the state of Michigan, we happen to serve more people in LCA, Fox, Ford Field and Comerica combined in a single year.  
(39:03) So, we want to give those folks a platform. So if they do have a really good guest, you know, not everyone can monetize their podcast and sell advertising when they’re small. But if they have a decent local guest, they can use our ticketing system, sell tickets to the seats in the podcast studio and keep that revenue. So it’s a way to also help up and coming talent to develop, you know, maybe they’ll become the next Joe Rogan. You never know. 
(39:27) So, we look at it as we wanted to create an environment that (39:36) is nothing but comfortable for the talent and also allows them to prosper. You know, (39:43) Eventbrite and Ticketmaster, you know, there’s a lot of fees involved and revenue splits. (39:48) We’re not really interested in that. 
(39:55) We’re interested in creating a talent friendly environment for them to succeed. That’s not to say we don’t want to bring in really big talent.  
(40:01) We’re getting ready here to hopefully have three or four in-house podcasts that are well known. Can you talk about any of those? Not yet. Ink’s not dry, but I can’t wait. It’s just, you know, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. It goes back to doing the sports book in a way that was meaningful instead of just throwing TVs up on the wall. 
(40:26) We brought in Caesars, we co-branded the sports book,  and we put in fiber optic lines, you know, directly to their hub in Las Vegas. So you actually have a replica of what’s on Las Vegas on our 42 feet of LED screens. 
(40:36) Without delay.  Without delay, no latency. And, you know, everything is done with the guest in mind, and in this case, the talent in mind, and being able to deliver a high quality experience to get folks to leave their home. 
(40:57) Like you said earlier, if you’re not bringing your customer a top cybersecurity stack, you’re not doing them a favor. And if we’re not providing the best experience to our guests, we’re not, one, we’re not doing it right. And secondly, they might not even leave their home. 
(41:15) They’ll sit on their couch and watch the game at home or, you know, the podcaster will sit at his home and record it versus coming out and trying to build their podcast bigger. So, you know, it’s an entrepreneurial spirit. It’s everything that we believe in is delivering a high quality experience and not for a higher price. 
(41:26) You know, we do joke around sometimes that when you look at our competitors pricing, you know, we’re delivering the Mercedes at a price of a Hugo, because we are not more expensive than our competitors that have, you know, maybe not the reclining seats, maybe still have slopes, sticky floors. We are still priced below them. Yeah, I think that’s always interesting. 
(41:48) The only time we ever step out of an Imagine Theater is if we’re up north. Yeah. And you, you know, you go to what, you know, you consider it a B market, right? And you go, I’m paying as much or more than the experience at an Imagine. 
So it’s amazing the price point you’ve kept it at.  
(42:05)  Yeah, we try hard. That’s harder and getting harder and harder these days with inflation. But we certainly, we certainly know that folks work really hard for their money. And the last thing we want to do is insult them. And guests will ultimately vote with their wallet in the end. 
(42:26) So, you know, going to the movies is still relatively inexpensive form of entertainment, compared to going to an NBA game, a baseball game, a football game, for sure. Concert. Oh, most cases, it’s two and a half, three hours of quality escapism. 
So we’re bullish on our future, we know that it’s not going to be easy, but we certainly have to continue down the path of diversifying our revenue and offering alternative forms of content, but with the same high quality experience that Imagine has been known to deliver. (42:56) Okay, great. Let’s let’s, we can intersperse some more technology. But let’s let’s let’s talk about transformations, because that was something that I was real excited to be able to share with other people who maybe don’t don’t know certain things about you.  
(43:20) One of the things I always find interesting is when I when let’s say we’re looking at Facebook or LinkedIn or something like that. Oh, we’re both commonly connected to Anthony. Oh, Anthony. Oh, yeah, he knows everybody, you know. And the funny thing is, is that you did not grow up here, right? I had it a little easier. I grew up here. But but transformation stuff, let’s lay that out there. You, you grew up elsewhere. 
(43:42) You grew up in a totally different industry. Yeah. Can you walk us through some of those hops, and then just maybe talk about some life lessons out of that. 
(43:53) I mean, we’re all picking up life lessons from a lot of the things that you’re saying, but but kind of where the guts came from to make those transitions.  
(43:58) Because those are pretty big, pretty big moves. Yeah, I grew up in New York. 
My whole career was in finance prior to moving here. My wife grew up here went to Cranbrook. We both had a desire to raise our kids here and have them, you know, follow in my wife’s footsteps and attend Cranbrook. 
(44:19) So eight years, eight years ago. Eight years ago, we moved here. I decided to take some time off to spend with the kids just because of how much time I was working previously as well. 
(44:32) And I moved here without knowing a single individual in the state of Michigan. And for the whole year that I took off to spend time with my kids, drove to school every day, picked them up, did field trips. My job was to have a breakfast and a lunch every day. 
(44:47) I started with an Excel file and I met one person and grew. Remember who the first person you met was? Yes, Bruce Kreidler, who worked at the Greenleaf Trust, the Stryker family office,  family office, and also had a connection through Cranbrook. He was the former director of admissions at Cranbrook when my wife was there and started that one relationship. 
(45:16) And he basically passed my name on to another person, you know, complimentary, saying, you should meet this dynamic young man. You guys will hit it off. And for almost a full year from that one name, you know, ended up with an Excel file with hundreds and hundreds of names, gained a lot of weight, breakfast and lunch every day. 
(45:40) And eventually,  uh, through that first meeting with Bruce Kreidler, which is the funniest part out of all those introductions, um, met lunch, uh, met Paul at lunch one day with Bruce Kreidler.  
(46:01) And Paul explaining he’d monetize his insurance company. He had this hobby business as he called it at the time, Imagine, and, you know, was looking to sort of send a set up that family office model where he would also, uh, invest his, his wealth. 
Um, and it was really interesting because there’s not many folks that have the finance background and then operations background. And we, we joke around.  
(46:20) I think you’ve been at some events we’ve spoke at where we both say we dated a short period of time before we got married, Paul and I, we had a breakfast and lunch and sealed it off at a dinner over not too long of a span. 
(46:36) And we went on to create, um, uh, a family office, which is, uh, derived of, uh, Paul’s wealth, um, uh, some of our board members and two outside families. And then we, uh, we have a long, short hedge fund there. We have a macro hedge fund, and then we have a small angel investing fund, um, which is known as 303 management. 
(46:56) And, um, on the Imagine side, we decided that this hobby business could become something very large and we should, uh, invest in it and grow it. And, um, you know, I think at that time we were maybe seven sites. Don’t hold me to that. 
(47:19) Um, and today we’re 28 through both, um, acquisition,  ground up, build, and some franchise locations. And, uh, and it’s become what it is today, which is almost, uh, 1850 employees worldwide. And, uh, it’s, it’s become something much bigger than I think either one of us could ever imagined at the time, no pun intended. 
(47:42) And, uh, we, we grew considerably through COVID. Um, but I always tell people about the process of, of, you know, meeting all these people, doing these introductions, creating my network. You never know which one of those was going to be the important one, or, you know,  you’re always auditioning, right? You just don’t even know it at the time, but you are. 
(48:07) And, and,  you know, when I met Bruce, it wasn’t really for any other reason other than, you know, it’s the first person I met here in Michigan, but you’re always auditioning and someone might be that person to give you the big break or, or the introduction that, that, you know, changes your career. 
(48:31)  So, um, you know, in any environment you’re in, I would, I, I just, you don’t know if that person’s going to affect you, um, and change your life. And, and hopefully, uh, you know, even meeting you years ago, we ended up finding ways to work together. 
(48:43) You, you never know what that one meeting, that one hello at school or a sporting event is going to mean for you. So I valued every single one of those connections and made sure I found time to have, you know, a breakfast or a lunch with every single person. And I still have that Excel file with all those names. 
(49:05) And, um, you know, it’s, it, it was, uh, have you sold it on the dark web or anything like that? No, I should start a consulting company. I know a guy. I know a guy. 
But, um, let me tell you a quick story, um, um, based on what you just said there. Um, um, you know, when I met Paul, it was through, it was when the Lucidos were opening up their Birmingham location and, um, Fran, uh, Fran, uh, my Heineken Lucido, uh, she, uh, she said to me, you need to meet Paul. 
(49:37) You need to meet Paul. He owns the movie theater next door. Okay. So Paul had just come in from, uh, I think it was a lion’s game or something. He had his lion, lion’s gear on, which before they were good. So, so Paul’s, Paul’s been a real fan. He’s the real deal. 
Um, and, uh, Paul says, you know, I’d like to have lunch with you. I said, okay. So we went to lunch and he says, uh, I’d like you to talk with our it people. 
I said, okay.  
(50:02) So, I went and talked with your it person at the time. And he says, um, you know, we get a thousand calls a day. He says, always ignore him. He says, but Paul said, I need to talk to you. And so he says, uh, he says, can you guys do this? And it was a cybersecurity related item. I don’t remember exactly what it was. Uh, and we didn’t do it at the time. And I said, no, we, we don’t do that. 
(50:17) He goes, no, no, no. I didn’t say, do you, do it? He says, can you, do it? And I said, well, yeah, I mean, I mean, give us enough runway. We’re sure we can do it. 
Right. And he says, okay, then we’re going to have you do it. I said, what? You know, cause it was one of those situations where it was, uh, we liked each other, trusted each other and, uh, gave us the opportunity. 
(50:41) He says, you know, this is what I’m paying with Dell on this thing. I’d want to,  you guys do it for me instead. Now you got to do it right. But, but, but, but you guys do it.  
(50:45) But that’s, that’s Fran just putting the connection. (50:48) That connection. 
I mean, I, you know, here I am wearing my, uh, so Fran’s going to be upset. I’m wearing my, my Apple watch versus, uh, versus, uh, versus, versus a Rolex, but, um, uh, you know,  that, so, so I, I didn’t, I only went to that just to support her and her brothers and what they were doing with the, with the new store. Uh, and then, and then here comes, uh, here comes this, uh, introduction. 
(51:10) So, you never know where things are going to come from. And I do feel like that is lost nowadays with a lot of people, especially when people aren’t getting out of the, you know, out, out from behind the computer a lot is that those people that you meet and those, those genuine connections that you make. And the, the, the je ne sais quoi, the thing, the thing, what, what is, I don’t know what it is about this Anthony guy, but I like them. 
(51:33) Right. I mean, the St. Bernard thing, but yeah. Yeah. Where is Auxiom in the world of work from home? So we’ve got a, we’ve got a little bit of a mix. Um, we have some, we have some folks, uh, that have a little bit of a hybrid model. Um, but we also have started hiring people fully remote, uh, out, out of state. 
(51:54) So we have, we have a number of people that work for us that aren’t, are not, not in the state that, um, uh, that serve our clients quite well. And that’s, that’s been great to really be able to extend the, the talent pool for a very specific, uh, need that we, that we have. And that has been the challenge since we’ve been growing has been, okay, where do you find people with experience, uh, so that they can hit the ground running, um, along with your people that you’re bringing along from, from, from net new. 
(52:20) So the, the vision of our company here is, is to create a legacy company that outlives its founders. And so, uh, in that, in that vision is, is the desire to make something of a, I call it the mini–General Motors, right?  
(52:31) We know that our, well, we use Carrie’s parents because you were from New York. So, so you guys were doing some, some other big stuff, but, but here you could always be a, you could go to high school, graduate high school, get a job on the line and know that you could retire well from, from working a whole career on the line. 
(52:49) You didn’t have to think about moving, moving jobs. You could do the same thing, taking the college track and we’ll just use the example of being an engineer.  
(52:57) You can become an engineer, be an engineer for General Motors, and then not have to hop around your whole life. And I feel like that, that, that, that stickiness, right, of being able to be with a company for your entire career has a lot of value.  
(53:10) Um, the, the comfort that the employee knows that they don’t have to go looking elsewhere for a job all the time, that the company’s going to take care of them on their side. Um, and then the same thing from the company side, we know that the person’s, that their goal is to stick with us. 
(53:25) And so, um, when, when you have that common, that common goal, uh, good things happen. Um, so with, with that, you know, we’re, um, uh, we’re, we’re hiring remote, we’re hiring in person, but, but all in all it’s, it’s to make sure that we have somebody that’s going to most likely stay, right.  
(53:43) I always tell people, Hey,  we’re not forcing you, there’s no handcuffs, but we’re trying to, we’re trying to build the organization with a culture that says, I want to stay here. 
Yeah. I think we’re very aligned in that. Our chief people officer started as an usher. 
Our COO started as a theater level usher.  
(54:01) Um, I mean, numerous staff members at corporate, most of them came from the theater level. Um, I think you have a husband and wife team that are managers too, don’t you? We have a few. Oh, yeah. Um, a lot of relationships have started in a, in a good way at the theater level, because most of, you know, the folks that move up, start with us in high school.  
(54:24) Um, you know, our chief of people officer started us with us in high school, went through high school, college, got a degree and, um, moved up along with us and is now our chief people officer. 
(54:37) Um, we have two husband and wife’s teams that are GMs in different locations, different States. Um, so yeah, we, we hope to build a culture that people don’t want to leave, but that doesn’t, um, it doesn’t mean I’m not happy for folks that get opportunities because we certainly invest in our people, um, which is really important for us. Uh, whatever classes they want to take, um, we’ll pay for, um, we’ll send them to, uh, different seminars. 
Uh, small giants academy is an amazing one.  
(55:08) We’re very involved with, um, they do an amazing, uh, job and, and we send one or two employees a year to the academy. Um, so we’re, you know, if you don’t invest in your people, you know, you’re probably not doing it right. 
(55:26)And if they leave because they have a better opportunity, well,  great. That means you, you’re building some quality people out of your organization.  
(55:30) There’s no reason to knock that. 
Sure. Sure. Where do you, where do you see the next big transformation? I know we talked about that the next 24 months, uh, you want to see revenue coming from a certain percentage of revenue coming from something other than movies. 
(55:49) Um, so we know that that’s the, the, we know that the podcast, the tickets, uh, from that live events, um, where do you see the industry transforming? What would be your crystal ball guess? So I, something that has really started to show its face quite a bit post COVID world is the quality of the experience.  
(56:12) So folks are voting with their wallet and they’re voting with their wallet in a big way, like, like never before. So, um, there are many theater chains that are of our size or, or slightly smaller that do provide a quality experience in the West and the South, um, that I’m very close with their senior management teams and all of the folks that are providing that luxury experience at a reasonable price with empathy and a solid team are all within striking distance of 2019’s attendance. 
(56:54) Um, the folks that still have rocking chairs, slope floor, stale popcorn, frozen pizzas, are all in the 52 to 65% range of pre COVID attendance. So you’re definitely seeing a dynamic shift in folks, willingness to wait a little longer to see a film and see it at a theater. They’re very happy to attend versus everyone rushing the first two days to see a film that it’s out. 
(57:21) Um, so I think that dynamic will only continue to take place. Um, where if you don’t reinvest in your facilities, you’re, you’re, you’re not, uh, folks aren’t going to attend and pay good money to have, uh, uh, not a great experience. Sure. Another thing that I think, uh, is definitely going to show up soon is, is moving away from projection. (57:41) Um, where I think we’re pretty close to, to having one of the first, um, we’re not going too much into detail, I guess what one of the first screens that will not be projection. Um, and we’re working on some other angles of screens, size of screens and immersive experiences that I think, um, for certain guests, they’ll, they’ll like the experience. 
(58:10) Um, but other than, other than that, I think that the number one thing we can do, as I said earlier, is diversify revenue, find ways to use these beautiful facilities to bring, um, more content that folks want to see. Um, I, I think you’re going to see a shift towards scripted TV shown in theaters as well. Um, it’s, we, we saw, saw what happened with the chosen this year, which is, uh, uh, a Catholic based, uh, uh, TV series that showed all eight, all eight episodes in the theater and it did extremely well. 
(58:50) Um, we are seeing interesting, uh, Kevin Costner’s doing a film this year. That’s going to be broken up into pieces cause it’s so long and shown over  a couple of months. Um, that will be a big test of high quality scripted sort of TV series turning into theatrical releases. 
(59:13) Um, and there’s on the horizon in 26 there’ll be, um, more music based films, um, telling stories of musicians, but sort of broken up into a scripted series.  
(59:19) So I think it’s, it’s all about a diversification of the content and then providing a high quality experience. Uh, I, I don’t think movie theaters are going away. 
I think, uh, the cream rises to the top and the folks that are not providing high quality experiences will go away.  
(59:38) Um, but not,  not the ones that are delivering what, what the guests would perceive as value for their hard earned dollar. Um, you had mentioned to me that you saw the leisure business really expanding, um, I don’t know, maybe by 2030 or into 2030 through the 2030s where we really may see this four day work week people, you know, due to automation, due to artificial intelligence, that people will not have to work as hard or as many hours. 
(1:00:10) And so leisure time will be expanding.  And so your, your industry, whether it’s the CJ Barrymore’s of the world who are putting in more money into their facilities to make them, you know, to the cream rising to the top, uh, sort of example to you guys doing what you’re doing. Um, can you talk about, talk about that as a kind of this futuristic, uh, you know, vision that you might, that you might have?  
(1:00:32) I mean, you, you just talked about it too, the AI and the work from home. 
Um, I think the power of AI hasn’t really manifested itself in a way that, that, I mean, I know you see it because of where your seat is.  
(1:00:48) We, we see it in a different way where, um, you’re seeing really smart people put a lot of money into leisure activities. Um, you’re seeing the live golf tournament, you’re seeing the PGA tour have some hedge fund money come in now, Tiger Woods starting,  um, his, his, uh, you know, really fancy mini golf course concept, which I love. 
Um, I think we are going to end up in a situation where we have a four day work week, which, which would immediately have a positive impact on all leisure activity, whether it’s golf, movie theaters, um, uh, adventure parks, uh, you know, across the board.  
(1:01:21) So, um, when, when folks bring up AI, we, we certainly, there’s risk to AI in our industry, which I think the actor’s union will deal with, um, about using an actor’s name and likeness and so on. But for us, we, we certainly believe that when it’s all said and done, that we could be big benefactors of AI where you’re increasing folks, leisure time. 
And again, going back to, well, if we’re increasing that time that they have to have, um, moments of escapism and so on, we need more content.  
(1:01:58) And that’s why it’s, it’s important for Imagine to diversify its revenue stream and ultimately, um, you know, get into the game of, of providing unique content that, that, um, you know, during COVID we’ve invested in two startups, uh, one called Iconic, another one called Metamedia, which are, um, distribution companies that work outside of the studios to go to folks that might be making a small and mid-budget film that want to, uh, uh, distribute it themselves.  
(1:02:40) Um, we, we think, uh, ultimately that, that, that can play out in a way where there’s going to be a need for so much content and unique content that, uh, good directors, good actors might self-distribute in a world where we’re at a four day work week and there’s a lot of leisure time. 
(1:02:55) So, um, you know, we certainly think very far into the future, um, and hopefully we’re right, but we’re not going to be right on everything we do. Um, but it, but right now, um, our opinion of AI is it’s, it’s a net net benefit to our industry, um, based on the fact that I believe we ultimately will end up with a four day work week. Great. 
(1:03:18) Let’s do, let’s, let’s wrap it up here. Um, with one, one question. What, what, what would the advice be that you would have for the 25? I mean, I know you’re only 28, so, so think back three years, but, um, what would your advice be to the 25 year old version of yourself?  
(1:03:37) Uh, it’s the same advice I received when I was 25 and I’ll never forget it. 
I’ve had some really good bosses. Um, and one of the best I had told me it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And, um, boy, that never leaves my mind. 
Uh, process driven approach, uh, and not trying to get there too fast and, and keep your eye on the prize and do things right.  
(1:04:07) Um, things will work out. Um, car, I believe in karma. 
I, I, I believe in treating everyone with respect and, um, giving everyone a shot, uh, to show that they’ll show you their good side eventually. Um, and, and it’s just, it was the phrase that always stuck with me. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 
(1:04:27) Um, if you gotta do things right and you have to have process, otherwise whatever you’re building will ultimately collapse if you don’t have process. Great. Thank you. 
(1:04:32) All right. Well, thanks for being here. Thanks for doing this.  Thanks.