Welcome to the Did You know podcast by Varisource, where we interview founders and executives at amazing technology companies that can help your business save time and money and grow, especially bring awareness to smarter, better, faster solutions that can transform your business. 1.6s Hello, everyone. This is Victor with Varisource. Welcome to another episode of the Did you know  Podcast. Today we're excited to have Gary Bernstein with us. And Gary has been a practitioner and a management positions in procurement in companies like GitHub and Clickup. And today's our procurement series, where we want to talk to Gary about the right way to think about procurement. Welcome to the show here.

U2

Hey, thank you so much, Victor. Happy to be here.

U1

Yeah, you you know me and you chatted for for some time and you just have so much knowledge to share and procurement, you know, there's a lot of different thoughts of practitioners and also how procurement should be done can be done. It's just so many, so many exciting questions that go over with you with your experience. But if you don't mind, maybe you can give the audience just a little bit of your your background and story would be great.

U2

Yeah. Of course. Well, first, before I do that, I'll just jump on to what you just said. And like you said, there's a lot of different ways to think of procurement. And when I go through my background, you'll see I have quite the diverse background. So the way I think about it is going to be perhaps different than others, because I've definitely seen in different types of organizations, in different sized organizations, procurement can be looked at or maybe should be looked at very differently. There's going to be some basic tenets to kind of to, to go by. But it is it's going to really depend on the company. So yeah. So after I gone back to business school, after a number of years in my first career and didn't quite know what to do. So I wish I could tell you that going into procurement with something I always wanted to do or something I discovered I wanted to do, and it didn't work out that way. It was something. When I was going to North Carolina State for my MBA, 1.3s Chevron was one of the companies that came around a lot, and it Chevron wasn't a company I thought that I would want to work for, but it was intriguing. And I went to a an information session, and I thought it was a company that did interest me as a result. I got an interview with them, even though I was not a supply chain concentration major when I was getting my MBA, which was why they were there recruiting. I was able to get that interview and convince them to hire me. And so I found myself at this huge company in their procurement, in their procurement team, which was an unbelievably positive place to start procurement, a really good training ground. So I mean, that's where I got the start and, you know, kind of got 1.1s bitten with the procurement bug a little bit. And again, it was a huge, huge company. And after a few years of there I'll kind of skip through this part. But you know, I worked in their energy efficiency group at the end. From there went into Solar City and some other construction company after that. So some more direct procurement where my, my first, my first years at Chevron were indirect. You know, I moved around finally I was in the Bay area for a long time and I, you know, realized it's, you know, being in tech was where I wanted to try to be is just something I hadn't done before. And so I found myself in some roles in tech, 1.1s in tech. And that ultimately led to me leading the procurement team at GitHub, rebuilding it when I was there and during Covid, and then ultimately to be the first procurement hire at Clickup, which was my most recent role. 1.4s

U1

Yeah. No, it's you've had, like you said, such a different, you know, experience in larger corporations like a Chevron. And then obviously Clickup is a, you know, a big company now to some degree not but there's still somewhat of a startup or technology tech startup. So you kind of have different views of that. So again, this is an interesting question. And we always like to talk about maybe what the challenge or the problem is. And then we kind of lead that to to the solution. But what do you think companies usually expect or view of procurement roles in general you think.

U2

Yeah. So again I have to answer this saying it's going to it's going to depend because once again, depending on where the company is in their maturity and and then the actual procurement procurement department maturity can make a difference. But one thing I consistently do see is they I see people looking for for people who want who are going to save money. And that seems to be, 1.3s again, a very it's a general statement I'm making, but is something that's fairly consistent. And but obviously procurement is much, much, much more than that. So, you know, I like when I'm on my interviews or if I'm talking to someone, I want to make sure that I'm selling what I can do and what procurement can do in terms of just the many different values, the value that we can bring to a company. And of course, saving money is one of them, but it's certainly far from the only thing. And but again, that is a consistent, consistent request I see or expectation I do see.

U1

So can we talk about that for a few seconds. Because you know, obviously we work with a lot of procurement folks and I see that same trend or you know, view as well. And I mean, I have my thoughts, you know, but I'd love to kind of get your thinking on why do you think that? You know, I'm sure, you know, a lot of this has become like a habit, meaning, because, you know, that's the easiest, measurable in a way, like ROI of, okay, you save me money, just like you've done sales. You sold something that equals X amount of revenue, okay? You save X dollars. That's somewhat easier to track or that's tangible, maybe. But you talk to a lot of other, you know, maybe security compliance or risk and all of these other things. Why do you think companies or executives don't maybe view or truly, let's call it appreciate? Because I do see a lot of companies do understand or know, but they don't truly appreciate it of, you know, all these other maybe value that procurement provides. Why do you think that is I. 1.2s

U2

I think that a lot of times leadership just doesn't know. You know, it's it's 1.2s it's a general statement, I understand, but sometimes it's, you know, again, depending on the maturity of the company, if you're talking about a young company where you know, they're in growth mode and it's all about selling and, you know, developing that product and selling that product, procurement could be looked on. It's a cost center. You know, it's all this extra cost. What is it doing for me? Well, they can save me money. They can justify themselves being here by, you know, saving X times their salary and they're all in their full costs. But I think that's like the quick, easy way to look at it. And some of the value that procurement does bring, you know, to an organization. Isn't always appreciated up front simply because again, it's sometimes can slow things down and slow things down on purpose. Because it's the right thing to do. You know. Again, there's a balance there and how much it's going to slow down and for what reason. But I generally again, it's going to depend. There's there's leaders that understand and they're sophisticated about, you know, you know, all parts of the organization including what the value of procurement can bring. And but there are others. Again unfortunately I've seen a lot of that is they just they look at it as save money and they don't even appreciate what goes into saving money on top of that. So. 2.1s It's again.

U1

But then. But then if you know, as we get onto the next question kind of feeds off, this is really well, what do you think is the right way to think about it? If you were the executive hiring, let's say procurement team or building on the procurement function, what do you think is the right way or a better way to think about the procurement role? And again, excuse me for being a broken record. It's going to depend on where the company is. But I overall you know, I think I like to look at it and say I can save money, but the way I like to look at it is it's not as easy as like you said before. Saving money is very easy to measure. I think efficiency, gaining efficiencies in processes that are already developed, for example, is one way that can be extremely valuable. And so let's just start on that part. This is just one, one part. But you know, you have a lot of, you know, a lot of the companies I've worked at, it's the individuals who are looking to purchase something are the ones that are facing off with the procurement team, the procurement processes. And a lot of these people are very expensive employees of an organization that their time is, you know, maybe developing the product or again, selling the product and their time needs to be spent doing that and not in the procurement process. You want to reduce the time or make their time facing off in procurement processes as efficient as as possible. So when you when you're when you see an inefficient process in someone struggling through that process, and then you improve them and you improve different areas and you can see that they the time that they spent in the process has gone down. That's real. That's real money there. I mean, it's it's just it's time and time is money, right. So and again, that, that, that, that time, the efficiencies that are gained often just go down the line and the different people who touch parts of the process. So it's not just the user. It can go down the line about who's who is touching their requests as well. So again, I just think there's a lot of efficiency there. Now again, another way to look at it is again, if I'm where I was at Clickup, you know, there they were a startup when I got there. They are a startup and they didn't have a they had a procurement process. It's just, you know, I was brought in as a first procurement hire and it was something where if they're if a company is looking to be more efficient in their their finance and, you know, looking to go public someday, which, you know, a lot of startups do, then having procurement there can help with the compliance. You know, we're enabler of compliance working with AP and working with security and so on. So there's a lot there. That's a that's a huge value. And it's that's not necessarily again. 1.4s

U2

And that's not necessarily appreciated in a sense, though. Yeah. If you're the leader of that company, you realize that's what we need to do for in order for us to be a more mature company, whether we're going to go public to be acquired or whatever the case may be. But again, there are trade offs in the sense of, okay, that might slow things down then how things used to be, but it's going to make you spend your your money more efficiently, get more visibility into what you're spending. There's a lot of value there as well. 1.4s

U1

Yeah. No, I love I love those insights and kind of use cases. And one of the biggest changes, I would say, in procurement in the last couple of years is around technology, right. You know, obviously you talked about procurement a lot of times with people and process optimization. But even, you know, procurement teams can't do it alone. Right? And you're never likely have enough procurement people to cover enough suppliers. The ratio just never really in the procurement favor. Right. You're dealing one procurement person dealing with hundreds of suppliers like that kind of ratio for anything doesn't make any sense. Right. And but obviously technology has helped with that. So the next question I want to ask you is there's you know, obviously a lot of changes in technology around procurement. So how can procurement adjust and adapt and thrive kind of within this with all these new technology available to them now. 1.1s Well, I think the first thing is, is just understanding that they're out there. You know, it's there is so much out there with new technology. So, you know, procurement practitioners such as myself owe a lot of gratitude to people like you and, and the many others that are launching new companies. It's just something that up until a few short years ago, they just didn't exist. I mean, there were the technology, there were technologies out there, and they were as good as they. They were good for the time they came out. But it was it was definitely time. I'm so excited that they're these innovations are happening, and there's just a lot of great products out there, but we have to stay on top of that to see what's out there and understand what what solution or solutions, because it's there's not going to be an all in one. There's always going to be some tie ins, of course, that are going to make the process and all the technologies together as efficient as possible for for the company. But understanding what your company needs and what their strategies are can help guide, guide the selections of those technologies. But again, I think being on top of it because again, it's been really exciting for me, but it's like almost like, you know, I spend a lot of time talking to founders or sales folks from the these companies and it's I love it. But again, it's just like, what's the best, what's the best for that particular company? Because, you know, there's a lot of everyone has their special focus in what they're best at. So, you know, I think the first thing has to be, you know, what's the workflow if it is going to be a, you know, an end to end work, maybe work the workflow technologies and how that's going to help the company. Now again, I'm going to I start by saying that needs to be that needs to be. No matter what I select, there has to be a good end to end workflow. But what else is it that you know that the company I'm working at needs to have, you know, whether it's integrations with specific add ons that might help it or IT, security,

U2

legal, that kind of thing. But just again, being on top of that is really important. But again, you know, the these technologies are enabling what I said earlier, these the efficiencies in the process, which just weren't as you know, they weren't there before. You want to get away from spreadsheets, you want to get away from emails, you want to get away from these inefficiencies that we've seen in the past and that are often there when companies are very young. Because, again, we need new, we need we need efficiencies, we need visibility, we need compliance. So again, staying on top of those. 1.2s

U1

Yeah. So I'm, you know, we're always here to ask the tough questions so people can get the insights. And I got this billion dollar question for you. Okay. So you know, obviously like you said, a lot of technology AI is providing a lot more capabilities than ever before, which is great in one hand. But then you have, you know, leadership, maybe look at those technology and saying, hey, like and also the, you know, procurement practitioners too as well, looking at some of these AI or some of these new technology and worried about their their own job or own work, right. And saying, man, if I buy this thing, you know, maybe my leadership will think, well, you know, if the tool is doing at all, like, what are you doing? Right? Those type of politics, you know, happens within the company. We all know it. We don't talk about it. But, you know, it's all there, you know, and sometimes that's to the detriment of the company because then you're not deploying the advanced technology to help you create those efficiencies. So how do you, from a practitioner perspective, look at technology that could help you, but then also pitching it to executives in a way that they understand it's actually to help the whole company. Right? That's easier said than done, but I thought that would be a great topic.

U2

Yeah. No, I think that the fear of these technologies is pervasive for procurement practitioners, at least of what I'm seeing. And, you know, I think there's a lot of value we can give. And we have to focus on that beyond just what can be automated, you know, what is it that we can offer? So, you know, you're right, though, constantly selling ourselves, that's not anything new to anyone's been in procurement. So you said if somebody made the argument, why should we keep procurement? And I don't know that we'd ask that be asked that question directly. But it's like finding that and where we can step in to, you know, take these processes, you know, continuously improve the processes, which is one thing, right there. I mean, just just putting technology in place doesn't mean the technology, you know, it's technology, but you have to enable the technology to be as efficient as possible for what your your use case is. Right? So kind of being there and being able to do that. Number one, it's you know, when people talk about procurement, you know, the and when the procurement process or processes are talked about in a company, it's it's almost like our own brand. Right. We're procurement. But the procurement processes involve many, many parts of the company. Very. And there's so being you know, having a procurement individual to own that is important because the other departments, they have an important. Parts of the process as well, but it's not necessarily going to be improving how it gets to them and when it gets to them. But procurement can go in there and make sure they work, not just with the use end user, but with all the people touching those requests along the way. And there's a lot of value there. Believe me, I just into some of the people I talked to, they're saying this is not what's this is why it's not working for me. So a lot of time can be spent, hopefully not too much time, but constantly improving those processes. So but again, I understand why why the leaders would look at it that way, especially again, going back to like a startup situation, if you can get a technology in initially and then, 1s you know, grow with it, maybe you can, you know, hold off on your procurement hire, right? I mean, it's often the last hire anyway, but if you have the right technologies in place, the right process in place, you can probably delay it even more. And I'm not making the case against, you know, someone like me. But it's true. I mean, I would rather see, you know, I'd rather be a first hire and come in where they say, this is what we have, and we have this great tech, this great technology or great technology is already here. There'd be a lot less cleanup to do. Right? Because there's what happens now is because a lot of a lot of things are manual. You know, part of those first few months on a job, it's just like cleaning up what had been happening. You know, business had work, business, you know, purchase purchases had been made, but not necessarily the right way. So again, if we want to go forward, we need to organize everything to understand what we have. And you know, how how many license do we have of this. So there's a lot to be done. But yeah, I mean I do think it's going to be, you know, using our persuasion skills. That's something that we've always had to do because we're constantly selling ourselves to everybody in the organization. So it's not going to be it's not something new, but just something else. 1.1s

U1

Yeah. It's, um. No, I love the examples that you gave. You know, I think for most companies, they don't have the tool or procurement and think, you know, you know, having some of those technology, I've seen it. It's not truly plug and play right. You have to use the tool just like a contract tool. Like if you don't work it, it's not going to work itself. It's not going to upload things itself. Right. And so there's still work needs to be done. It still needs to have somebody to manage those tools. And so I think, you know, that's something kind of a great example that that you talked about. So obviously, you know, you've been kind of the first hire in companies before. And that's different than working in a large, you know, team like a Chevron or a corporate. But if you have the guests on tips on what are the top three things that procurement needs in order for them to be successful? And let's talk about maybe two examples of whether you're at a large corporate or, you know, you're the first procurement hire, which a lot of people are aspiring to be. Right. What what advice or what tips would you say are kind of the top three things they need to be successful? Okay, yeah, there's so many. But if I had to say top three, I would start with a focus on customer service. And again there's the end user. You want to make the end user happy. And doing that by making the their face off with the processes as smooth as possible, as quick as possible. Um, but there's also, again, there's the other users of the procurement process like IT security, IT operations, legal accounts payable finance. And then there's then there's the managers in the company, people who want answers like, you know, some something might have well I'll get I'll get to that example. But there's the other people in the organization. There's also you're dealing with suppliers all the time, vendors all the time. So you want to have a good relationships there as well. So again just being comfortable. Um. 1.2s With servicing your customers and making that a focus, while at the same time understanding there's a balance between satisfying your customers and doing what's right for the company, because there's often a conflict there, and you have to you have to balance that and be flexible, which is another part that's a that's I don't know if it's number two, but it's it's on my list of a top, you know, top three things is flexibility because you can think you have the right processes, but there might be a group in the organization that just doesn't work for them. And it needs to be different. So you need flexibility to, you know, to change specific maybe a specific process for a specific group

U2

or just flexibility that this particular this particular purchase, this particular request. We have to maybe do things differently for this one. And here's there's the reasons. Maybe it's just a time crunch that's like a strategy change in the company and something needs to be purchased now. And normally we take this longer process because we wanted to, you know, cross our t's our eyes and but we can't do that. So how do we, you know, protect the company while also getting that purchase out as quick as possible. So again, flexibility and again flexibility with understanding that, you know, we want to change the processes and again change technologies at this time like we talked about. So we be able to be able to be flexible enough to do that I think and I don't know where this lands on here, but problem solving, I always find myself like it's things that are could often be. Like solving a puzzle, you know, a lot of times. And it could be the examples I think of at the company or where, you know, months after a purchase, there might be a question about why we purchased this and what happened here, why do we purchase this many licenses, or how did this happen? How did that happen? And it's really sometimes putting the pieces together to tell the story, because you might have the comments in your your intake tool, but that doesn't tell the full story. There might be some slack or 1s some slack communication that happened about it, or you might have gotten an email or the supplier said this or that. And so there's different things that go into each purchase. So it might be months later where your memory is just not there. So you have to kind of put pieces together. And I find that to be the case a lot. So again, so you know, again, just to go over what I just said, you know, focus on the customer, customer service, problem solving and flexibility. But I'll, I'll add to that to just say as a, as A3A perhaps or maybe it's one A to the customer service part is the ability to speak to all levels in the company and other and in the supplier too. I mean, you might I've, you know, I might get a slack from the CEO and be able to explain something about why we're doing something to the CEO. But I also need to do it to every level of user as well, and to be able to sell to explain what we're doing in procurement, but to also justify, say, or make the business case to leaders so they understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. And again, it's a constant it's a to me, it's it feels like it's a constant persuasion game where we're making sure that they understand what we're doing and why we're doing it, and why that's better for the company that we're doing it. 1.2s

U1

I, you know, I definitely actually share that same thought that I feel like just working with a lot of procurement teams, like the procurement profession is, it's like a combination of consulting, problem solving operations. But it's also like sales, like you said, persuasion, because you're also selling internal focus on why this process or that supplier is better. And and it's just yeah, it's interesting kind of you you mentioned those personality traits. Um, you know, it's yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody sales person to some degree, you're always selling somebody something internal or external. But I totally agree with what those kind of personality traits. But, you know, one of the things the hardest thing I think, that we hear procurement practitioners deal with is user adoption. And it could be user adoption to the tools. It could be user adoption to the processes, just user adoption to, you know, what we're trying to put together. Right. Because they're used to how they used to do it. You know, it's kind of like they don't want these stringent process to slow them down, or at least they feel like it. So what how have you been successful in the past getting users to, you know, with the user adoption, whether to tools or processes that you put together. So

U2

anyone's who's ever spoken to me about this or similar, they're going to this is going to sound like a broken record, but. 1.6s To me, it really comes down to. I think change management is always difficult in the best of circumstances and working with if if the organization has a communications team that is focused on change, change management, working with them absolutely is hugely important. But the success ultimately comes down to. Leadership, the leaders of the company, and they're buying. So once again, you know, needing the persuasion skills to to sell that that what you are doing but to not not just to persuade them to be supportive of it, but to be actively supportive of verbally supportive, like written word. But because, you know, we can just the fact that something's happening may, you know, some people may realize, yeah, someone had to sign off on that. But to actually hear the CEO, the CFO speak about it, whether it be, you know, again, at a company all hands or at a just some sort of intranet, whatever it is to say, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it. You know, that goes a long way. And, you know, and again, sometimes organizations that are big enough where they have a chief procurement officer, even the chief procurement officers speak in that way may not be enough, because, of course, the chief procurement officer is supporting procurement, so it may even be somewhere beyond them. So again, just but having leadership buy in and them to actively speak to it is important because again, you know, they're the focus is going to often be and should be on the product development and sales or sales of the services or products you're selling. And procurement is just this, you know, this back office operations kind of thing they look at. So but that's why it's important to say, hey, our CEO, you know, they're speaking about it. So I heard something about that. Let me listen to that. When procurement comes to me and you know they like. 1s I schedule a, say, a training session, or write a something in the intranet that talks about this new launch. That's happening because, again, without that leadership support, it's not going to be as easy. It it'll be a lot slower as well. So.

U1

Yeah. It's, uh. Yeah. And part of that is the persuasion, like you said, or the executives need to have the vision that this is, you know, good for the business. Um, you know, I think yeah, I think it's a combination of everything you just talked about. And we totally see that, you know, when you have that executive buy in, it truly makes a difference. Um, one of the last questions.

U2

Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to say it almost. I say, and it sounds like an obvious answer, but it's not an easy thing to get done because once again, I said there's if, if, if if leadership doesn't understand procurement doesn't appreciate it, then it's it's going to be harder to get that that active buy in from them. So it's why it's a constant selling job to do that. So I just wanted to make sure I made that point.

U1

Yeah. Are there any tips on how you can make a better selling job or procurement can do a better job selling? Do you think it's more of that personality, like your own persuasion skills or or, you know, different ways to present the ROI? Or have you seen something that you can quickly gonna mention that maybe has worked for

U2

you? Yeah. What you just said, I think goes a long way is like, if can you is there like a business case that you can that you can write up? Is there an ROI that you can be put in as a part of that? You know, it's not always that simple, but I mean, not that that's simple. But, you know, having having that ROI isn't necessarily that simple. But I think you start in your own you know, I often have reported into the finance group, so if it's the CFO getting their ear, making sure that because if you can't get them to buy in, you're not going to get any of the rest of the leaders. So that's you start there and ask for their help because they're, you know, I, you know, in my role may not be able to get face time with the executives, but they can. So maybe it's something where you make sure they understand, appreciate where you're coming from. And then they do that. That's one way to do it. That doesn't always work either, because the CFO doesn't necessarily appreciate or understand it. So but that I would say start there. 1.1s

U1

Yeah I know. Love that. So as we cut a wrap up here, one of the things I'm always appreciative of and I wish more companies would do that is I think procurement, if enabled, empowered correctly, not can can impact not just the bottom line but also top line growth. Right. Which every, you know, CEO and executive cares about, even if they don't care about savings, they care about growth. Right. And sales. Um, do you do you have any thoughts or ideas or examples on how maybe procurement can impact or help companies with top line growth as well through procurement?

U2

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is something I've said more than once here. It's really making the company more efficient, just again, gives more time for for the rest of the team to do what they're supposed to do, which again, could be sales, product development, something as simple as that. It's it's not as maybe what you're thinking about. But again, I think keeping people away from procurement as much as possible in the sense of like being making efficient for them, those operational savings, I think, really pay off over many hours of the year. But there's also I mean, this is more of a an example. I'll give an example that's 1.2s not applicable to probably most, but it's applicable to some, which is why I was using a tool that wasn't a procurement. 1.2s You know, I was using a tool at the company for procurement, and I was brought on a sales. I was brought on multiple sales calls to talk about how we used this particular product for procurement. And it's because the company that we were selling for was. Kind of. They were not quite there. And but they wanted to say, well, maybe we can justify this purchase if we can use it for procurement as well. So I went on there to kind of explain how I used it. So that's again, that's not applicable to a lot, but it is something that we happen to have a product that could be used for so that that's another way.

U1

Yeah. No, no, honestly, I think procurement is one of those roles that can really impact the business in so many different ways in a positive way. And it's just, you know, having the executives and the company to to understand and, but know this is an ongoing discussion. And, you know, we love, you know, being one of those companies that help push the procurement practitioners forward. Right. Giving you guys superpowers to do what you do better, faster, easier. But no last question we always ask all of our guests is, you know, you have you know, you've seen a lot, you've done a lot. If you have to give one personal and or business advice, whatever it is you're passionate about, what do you think that would be? 1.6s

U2

Just generally speaking about

U1

business, generally speaking, whatever, anything, whatever personal and or business advice that you're passionate about or something you believe in. Um, yeah. What do you think? Well,

U2

I'm going to give an answer, but if this is not where you're going, please, please hear me. I'm happy to do that. I just think, you know, going back to those top three kind of top three skills that procurement needs or personality traits, be flexible because no matter what things are going to change all the time as they should often. So it's just you have to be able to let that happen and not let it affect you negatively because you know, the company has their strategy and we are we're there to help them. So just realize where where we are and what our importance is. And, you know, even if we have kind of 1.4s we we came in this Monday morning or this day and we had our to do list. Just realize that things can change. And I think that can happen anywhere. That happened more when I was at a company buying products where it was, you know, project based and, you know, we had products lined up for the specific project. And then we come in one day and there was a change because of permits or something like that. That would happen a lot. And it was just something to get used to, to be comfortable with the constantly changing environment. And that's that's one. And the other part of it is being, you know, in procurement that understand you're in an organization, part of an organization that people don't understand. So be patient with that and understand that it's going to take education. The more people are educated about it. I find people are really supportive in trying to help, like say, hey, here's a suggestion they have and they'll they'll share it with you and be not only open to that, but be encouraged that as much as possible. 1.2s But yeah, I mean in the last I was going to say is, you know, have a thick skin procurement is, you know, I'm used to hearing, you know, people not happy because it's, it's again slowing you down or that and you just understand understand what the problem is and and explain to the user why that is. And again maybe it's it is is a problem with your process. You have to change it. But it could just be that it's slow for a reason, especially when you're going you're in a startup and you go from someone using their credit card at any time to, okay, now we have an official process in place. So I spoke, said a few things there. So if I hope that answered your question, but please

U1

push me. If not yeah man. No, no, there's no right or wrong answer, which is kind of your personal, you know, advice and I agree. I mean, a lot of times I compare what we do in business to our personal lives. Like if you give your family a credit card, just let them spend all your money on limited willing, willingly. Would you think that's a good idea? You'd be like, of course not. That's not a good idea, right? But again, then when you come into business, why is it different like or when we have these, you know, kind of controls or operation process in place. Why is that bad or why is that wrong? And I agree with you. But end of the day we're dealing with people, right. And so everybody. So a lot of time it's it's not the process. You just got to work with people and get to know each other. And yeah, no, this has been a great conversation. And but yeah, you know Gary look forward to partnering with you and appreciate your time today.

U2

Thank you for having me, Victor. This was a lot of fun. 1.6s

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