And I think for a two-year

period, that was incredibly healthy because it meant we were focused on the right things and growing the company in a cash flow positive manner.

And then as I saw that our wedge into the market was working, it really became clear that there was a much bigger opportunity here.

You know, we had users all over the world, like clamoring for the product, upgrading without talking to us.

And I was like, wow, we actually we could be something much bigger.

And that was where I realized, OK, I've never seen this next phase of growth.

Like I need people around me, a leadership team that have seen you know, 2 million to 50 million.

do you recruit that leadership team?

And I think for a two-year

period, that was incredibly healthy because it meant we were focused on the right things and growing the company in a cash flow positive manner.

And then as I saw that our wedge into the market was working, it really became clear that there was a much bigger opportunity here you know we had users all over the world like clamoring for the product upgrading without talking to us and i was like wow we actually we could be something much bigger and that was where i realized okay I've never seen this next phase of growth.

I need people around me, a leadership team, that have seen $2 million to $50 million.

That's where the local ecosystem, having people like Volpe on the board, having Accomplice, our main investor involved, was critical.

It helps me balance my like hunker down in a room mentality with, hey, you know, you actually need to invest in the business to see the kind of growth and product development that I wanted to see.

How did

you? Every time, it's changing now that we've grown, but I feel like I had done every role for a period of time.

Uh, talk a little bit about what that is and how that works.

Yeah.

We-- There were two trends that we saw.

One was a lot of content creators tell us that their audience asks them if there's any way to, you know, enjoy the recipe or whatever without ads.

They ask that unknowing, you know, that the ads business fuels this industry.

Um, but the other trend we saw was that people in food or content creation have been kind of going to Substack and creating a second destination for their content and charging their audience for it.

So when people come to me and ask me what my opinion is, I think Substack's an amazing platform, but I would never coach someone to start creating content somewhere else.

... obviously there's a lot of variables there, but.