60 : Mike Hauptman - When the platform you're built on goes bankrupt overnight

Speaker A: So any successful entrepreneur is only successful because they failed many, many, many times. And you have to move forward, you have to continue or if you don't, you can. There's always the world of jobs.

Speaker B: Go get a job, go get a job.

Speaker A: Um, and you'll work less hours. You will work way less hours. You'll have time off on the weekends, you'll probably have a better work life balance in the short term. Uh, but you'll be working and doing that forever. One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. It was grit.

Speaker B: All right, all right.

Speaker C: It has been a long time since we last recorded.

Speaker B: Um, this actually won't be the update with Kyle and I, but um, I'm really excited about this episode. Um, um, we're interviewing Mike Hotman. Mike um, is someone that um, has had just a long career in the ad tech space. Um, he owns his own uh, dsp

Speaker C: which is a demand side platform company,

Speaker B: um, called Ad Lib. Um, so go check it out. But I wanted to bring Mike on because Mike has basically been dealing with

Speaker C: over the past two weeks one of

Speaker B: the, just a huge obstacle in that the platform that he had built his product on, um, you know, just a

Speaker C: massive company in the space called Media

Speaker B: Math, just out of nowhere went bankrupt, uh, you know, overnight basically. Um, and so without notice he's had

Speaker C: to you know, pick up the scraps

Speaker B: and figure out, you know, how to handle this situation. And I think this is something that um, is relevant to all entrepreneurs. At some point you're going to go

Speaker C: through and either a number of small

Speaker B: kind of obstacles or potentially a big obstacle like this. And just um, wanted to talk to him about what that's been like, how he's handling it and how he's taking next steps forward. Um, and uh, I think he's got some really good insight. Um, and I think he's dealing with it in um, just a really kind of mature way. Um, and trying to do what's best for his customers and um, best for his team. So um, without further ado, let's get into it. How are you? It's been a while.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, I'm good man. I'm actually. This is the last day at my home office. Uh, in about an hour someone's coming to help break some stuff down and on Monday I'm moving into an off an office about four minutes down the road.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So super local but I've been working from home for five years and got the two and a half year old and nine month old at home now. And it's just getting to the point where it's really hard to get a full day in. And with everything that happened over the past three weeks, I found myself working from the library.

Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that.

Speaker A: I was gonna ask Quiet and the. They don't look so kindly upon phone calls from there. So I needed to move pretty quickly and found uh, a space really close by. It's a really nice looking. It's a really comfortable office, uh, space. I'm looking forward to getting in there and getting a nice little setup for meetings and deep work and all of that.

Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, it's funny you say all those keywords because, uh. So we're. Kyle and I are both part of um, this co. Working space. Right now it's just Atlanta, but they have like. I want to say they have like eight locations. And then I think they actually are opening one in Nashville soon. And then my guess is they're going to be trying to expand this all over the US at some point. But um, it's basically like. So what they do is they split it into two sections. So one section they call the uh. And it's open 24, 20, 24 hours a day. So one section is called, um, the Library of Deep work, which is a bunch of keywords you just used. So like, basically you go in there and it's like a library where they have like those like wooden cubicles and you can go sit down in there. There's like a million sound machines. Nobody's allowed to talk in there. It has to be complete quiet. Um, and then in there they also have um. You've probably seen those things that they stand up in offices, but they're like those little like, uh, uh, sound, you know, sound rooms or whatever you like. You can just go in and no one can hear you. So they have like, they usually have like three or four of those as well. So you can take calls. And then in the front, like the other half of the workspace is basically like a sort of like a cafe or like coffee shop. So they'll have a, um, like one of those really nice, like super expensive uh, automatic coffee machines. Um, and so you can just go in there, get coffee and you're allowed to talk in there. And they usually have music going and stuff. And see a bunch of people working there too. Some people like to work with that sound in the background. Um, and there's like couches and like different places you can sit and stuff. But yeah, it's. I mean it's good. It's like and they try. What they're trying to do is, like, go into all these little neighborhoods. So instead of just being like, only in the big city, it's sort of like, let's. Let's hit these little neighborhoods so people can, you know, the remote. People can kind of stay where they're, you know, where they live, basically, and have like a little spot. It's not. It's not a huge place. They're all like, pretty small. Um, but it's like 100 bucks a month. So hard to beat that.

Speaker A: Or dedicated desks at all. Or just mostly open seating.

Speaker B: Open seating. So that's how it would differ from like a we work or something, um, where you could get a dedicated office or dedicated desk, I guess. Um. But, yeah, so it's a little bit different, but it's kind of like. It's sort of like a. You know, it's the. It's the same use case of people going to like, a coffee shop, except for it's like a little bit more dedicated to being like. It is a workspace that has coffee, basically. And it's in your neighborhood, so you don't have to go far. So we. Yeah, we have like seven around Atlanta, and you can go to any of them and you just pay a hundred dollars a month. So, like, I have one in my own neighborhood. So, like, it's like a mile from my house. I just go over there. But, um. Yeah, man.

Speaker A: Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Speaker B: No, I was just gonna say I totally get where you're at with the kids. What? How old are they?

Speaker A: Two and a half and nine months old.

Speaker B: Oh, man. No, uh, you just had. You just had to have them like, right at the same time.

Speaker A: Uh, we had two under two. I'm not getting any younger. I think we're good now. We have a boy and a girl, so we're going to be good for a little while.

Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that was basically the same as

Speaker A: us on that concept. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I have a thought on, um. There's something to add. What I've been thinking about on this concept of hubs, uh, suburban office hubs. One, there's all this, uh, open retail space, underutilized space throughout America. Uh, you know, mall, m. Malls. You have malls, you have libraries, you have schools that have been shut down. You have, uh, you know, even hotels that can be transformed and reutilized to

Speaker B: create,

Speaker A: you know, local regional hubs for remote workers that are working at different companies. But I. I know. And then we're also going to see companies creating smaller regional hubs in places like this is our Westchester. Huh Hub, you know, so everybody who's living in Westchester, instead of commuting 40 minutes or you know, an hour each way to New York City, 10 minutes, 15 minute drive, uh, whatever the uh, parallel is for Atlanta, all the smaller cities, cheaper rent, happier people, better work, life balance. We're going to see a lot of that happening uh, over the next few years. We're never going to go back to. Everybody has to commute to the same exact office. He'll probably have them, they'll be smaller offices, showpieces for client meetings and just uh, all hands, stuff like that. We're definitely going never be the same.

Speaker B: Totally. Yeah, we've been having that happen um, for quite a while in Atlanta. So like when you think of Atlanta you think of you know like the city but a lot of people have moved to the suburbs in the, the suburbs of Atlanta. So like um, Alpharetta is a big suburb of Atlanta and there's actually like quite a few companies in Alpharetta now. Um, you know, startups, big companies and now they've built these like uh, mixed use projects and things out there that are um, where they bring like restaurants and stuff like from the city, the same restaurants and they'll bring them out there and they you know, put them in this place. And now that place is like all the, you know, that's what, it's all the rage. Um, at least out there. I don't go there that much. But you know, actually that's not true. I've been going there. I've actually started going to the burbs a lot more now um, because my parents live out there and so you know when you have two kids you're looking for a little uh, little downtime, a little uh, more freedom and have the grandparents watch the kids. So yeah, we had, and they have, they have more pools and stuff. So yeah, um, mine are, I got a four year old and a one year old. Um, they're both. But soon to be two and five so um, same, I was in the same ballpark as you basically like same ages. I remember those days. Um, um. And uh, I'm glad to be past those days. But uh, but yeah, it's uh, I can imagine sleep is tough and just uh, like you know, you're already dealing with you know, work stuff. There's always problems with, with uh, if you're starting a company or you're running a company, there's problems every day that Pop up. And so it's like, yeah, I totally, I totally get where you're at. And. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on today. Um, um. And I honestly like, wanted to, you know, I personally want to talk to you about it. Uh, uh. Cause I think it's a pretty interesting. I mean it, it's probably not that interesting to you, but, uh, I think it's something that like, probably most entrepreneurs run into at some point.

Speaker C: Some.

Speaker B: Some kind of thing like this, some sort of huge obstacle that they have to get past. Or maybe it's just a bunch of little obstacles that like, are just coming at them all at once and it kind of like adds up. Um, I imagine at some point people are running into this and I think, I think this year, especially people that raise money and stuff, they're all running into the same obstacle. Like this year, which is, you know, we raised a bunch of money or we raised a Series A and now it's like impossible to raise a Series B. Um, it's really difficult. And so like there, there's that whole classification of companies and entrepreneurs that are running into that problem right now. Um, and just generally the last year has kind of been not great. So I think everybody's been running into, you know, problems here and there. But then, you know, a lot more about what happened with Media Math and whatnot. Um, but just to give everyone a little bit, everyone that's listening a little bit of kind of background. So I, When I started ad reform, um, with Kyle Back in 2017, um, we, you know, we started going out to the market and trying to talk to different people and we met on some forum site or something, um, where you had been looking for a service that was similar to like what we were doing. And um, I think you may, maybe you were just leaving Media Math or something like that. And at the time you were a VP at Media Math, I think. And um, uh, anyways, long story short is you made an intro and Media Math became our first customer ever. Uh, so thank you for that. As I've said many times in the past, got the ball rolling for us. Um, and so that's how we met and we've always just stayed in touch. And um, you know, both building companies in the kind of the ad tech ecosystem. And um, you've been a big help to me, like figuring that stuff out because I don't know it as well as you do. And uh, yeah, so we've, we've stayed in touch recently. There's been some crazy stuff happening in your world with Media Math which is like a, you know, one of the biggest players in the ad uh, tech industry basically going bankrupt overnight. Um, and there's a bunch of companies that rely on them, A uh, bunch of companies built on top of their platform. And so um, yeah, a lot of craziness and curveballs being thrown at every, a lot of people in the industry, but specifically you. And so I just wanted to talk to you about that whole situation, how you're dealing with it, how you're getting past it and you know, that sort of thing. But I want to, I'll give you the floor so maybe talk a little bit about like what the heck happened because I still don't understand, I don't actually know the details other than the fact that they gone bankrupt and didn't tell anybody until they basically went bankrupt. Uh, so maybe you could show more of a light on that.

Speaker A: Um, I don't know. I actually don't know much more about it than that.

Speaker C: What you read?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. What I kind of what the public knows.

Speaker B: But you had, you had a relationship though like with them, right? I think they were an investor.

Speaker A: The, the impact of it I think to myself, to me and Applied is definitely different than most of, most of the other people out there. And that we built a business on top of Media Math so very much affected us. Uh, in the long run, uh, I think we're going to be in a much stronger place. It definitely was a major uh, disruption to our business and created some um, anxiety and challenges and some sleepless nights over the past few weeks. I'm really proud of the team and how we've recovered from that. And I'll get into the whole backstory but yeah, it's created uh some lemons for us and we are in the process of turning that into lemonade. Uh, so the backstory is, was an early MediaMath employee joined in 2010 as the first sales engineer at Media Math and over the course of the next six or seven years uh, built out the sales engineering team, the solutions engineering teams globally and um, at one point prior to leaving in late 2018 uh, I was overseeing a 70 person team there at that time. Also incubating ad lib as a spin out, spin off of Media Math to bring their technology to the mid market and uh, making their uh, ad buying capabilities more accessible uh to mid size agencies kind of the longer tail who historically have not been able to access really premium ad buying ecosystems. There are all these incredibly high Barriers to entry, huge annual contracts and monthly minimums. The platforms themselves are really hard to use. So we set out to make it really easy for any marketer to get a login to a premium DSP and not have to hire specialized traders and new resources to make campaigns do what you want them to do. At the end of 2018, I left MediaMath full time, my full time role at Media Math and got heads down on building Adlib. Uh, my co founder Dan was moonlighting. He also was working at Media Math. We'd actually been working, we've actually been working together since 2006. So at this point it's 17 years. Uh, we've kind of worked together at our previous roles before Media Math. I pulled him over to Media Math and then uh, January of this year, December of last year, he left Media Math full time when he was overseeing API, uh, and UI Engineering, uh, for Media Math. So we set out as these two people who arguably are two of the most intimate knowledgeable about media technologies and how to build on top of their platform, built on top of other APIs, and have been growing the business to where it's gotten now, which um, we're really proud of. And there have been these rumblings over the years and even more recently about some kind of ah, event, um, where Media Math could potentially be purchased or there might be a sale of Media Math to someone like a Delphic or a Vyant. That has always been kind of a lingering, um, not even a lingering concern. There's always been a concern of ours, you know, and what would happen if Media Math were to get sold. Um, and precedent that we saw was, you know, most cases, these companies keep their clients and they stay running. You know, Xander has gotten, you know, which was App Nexus has been bought and sold several times and technology still stayed around. The clients got migrated over to whoever was the new owner of that technology. But we were not overly concerned about access and just everything that we built having um, going away, like the infrastructure actually going away. We always thought that, yeah, they're gonna get bought. Okay, we'd be working with another telco or another company and they'd be happy that we're a good client and we pay our bills and all that stuff.

Speaker B: So yeah, yeah, um, you don't expect a company just, you don't expect them to go bankrupt overnight for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, we were thinking about, we kind of knew that in the long run we should diversify and we should de risk things. But we did not think that what happened would Happen, which was one morning we woke up and we got a message saying, hey, need to talk. And um, it was communicated to us that in all this is a Friday morning, it's the summer. And it was communicated, it was summer weekend of July 4th, like basically the long weekend before July 4th. And communicated to us that media Math was, uh, had filed, had filed for bankruptcy and that our access to the platform would be. Not that our access to the platform, but all campaigns running through the platform would seize. Running at midnight and this was like 9am which means that all of our cash and all of our revenue and all of our clients, um, who depend on us to run campaigns, everything would stop. Um, so that was what you want to hear? Yeah, that was the news and know major heart and stomach moment and major bouts of anxiety and started uh, to percolate.

Speaker B: So once you, your initial reaction obviously just like anybody's would be, is like, oh, and then some level of anxiety. And um, but it, at some point, I assume probably within that 24 hour period, it's like, okay, well there's no point in sitting here and like, you know, just sulking in this. Like we gotta, either we will just sit and sulk and we're done or we gotta do something. There's only two choices. So you guys did something. So what, at what point did you kind of like figure like kind of come to grips with that and then you know, what was sort of like your next move, um, in terms of, you know, dealing with this kind of existential issue?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so my wife came home kind of after that call and is she

Speaker B: work, does she work or is she home with the young one?

Speaker A: She's, she's, she's being a mommy right now. She's, she's taking care of our kids. Um, so she had been out, I think it was my son. And she came home and I shared with her what happened and she was incredibly supportive and um, just wanted me to know that she believed in me and knew that I would figure it out. So that was a really.

Speaker B: Yeah. Even if you don't think you can figure it out, it's when someone's like, oh, you'll figure it out. It's almost like they're telling you, you better figure it out. And you're like, oh shit, I gotta figure this out.

Speaker A: Yeah, right there. My daughter's right there. So I said, okay, I'm going to figure this out. So I, yes, just went for a little walk up and down the block and I started thinking as I do and trying to clear my head. And where I arrived at was there were two options, but one of them wasn't going to be just turning off the business. It was, okay, how do I just get things live asap in any way, shape or form and get some of my clients, uh, up and running? And thing two was, is it time to sell the business? Is there an opportunity now to figure out how to roll, uh, up into a larger organization where we could stop grinding and, like, am I even ready? Like, it was, okay. Thing one is figure out what to do, get things live. That's gonna be a grind. Thing too is stop grinding and just sell what I have and take some chips off the table. So I thought about those two things and made some phone calls. Actually, before I did that, I made a list of our top, like, kind of 80% revenue clients and just personally reached out to all of them and communicated what I knew, which was Media Math is declared bankruptcy. All of our campaigns are going to stop at midnight. I am doing everything I can to reach out to everybody I know to figure out a way to minimize the impact of this to your business. I'm really sorry that this happened. It really sucks that this happened. I hope that we can get you back up and running as soon as possible. That's what's happening. Um, every single one of our clients was supportive, and every single one of our clients communicated that they trusted us to get things back up and running and that they were clients of ours because they believed in us. And that, you know, really sucks. They really sorry about what happened. Also Media Meth. But that didn't mean that they didn't trust and like our product and want to continue using business, uh, doing business with us.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which was another incredible, you know, point of validation and support that just pick me back up, you know, off the, off the ground.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that makes your decision a little bit easier about what to do, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's like, okay, I've got the back, you know, I've got my own support system. Then I've got the backing of my customers. You know, let's go try to figure out how to make this work in some way. And it may be like, you know, I know when we were building, I mean, I'm building on a platform right now with another product. Um, but in our, you know, previous product, we were fully built on. On Intercom, which I would say is a similar level. Like, in that space, they're sort of like a Media Math.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So for those that don't know, like, probably a Lot of people may not know what Media Math is, but like in the ad tech ecosystem, Media Math is sort of like, it's basically like the trade desk media Math, you know, Google Ad Manager, like top, you know, maybe, I guess like Microsoft, um, they're like top five ad tech company in the entire ecosystem. Um, so for them to go like bankrupt overnight is like, would be, is like a massive surprise that I don't think anybody would have guessed. And so, um, you know, in my world, like if, if that were to happen with Intercom, you always have that thing in the back of your mind. It's like, we got to get away from this thing because we got to get, we need to uh, in some way sort of diversify away from this. But like, it's never the right time to do it and there's no real reason to do it, you know, right, right now. Right. So, um, you know, some, sometimes it's kind of nice to have some sort of forcing function to, to get you to do the thing you should have done, you know, years ago, uh, or you should be doing. And so my guess is that without actually knowing, that's probably what you guys are, are kind of like in the process of

Speaker A: forcing. Function is a word I've been using a lot over the past few weeks.

Speaker B: Well, that's one, that's one.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: That's a nice, uh, professional way to say it. Yeah. Forcing function.

Speaker A: Yeah, because we've kind of known, um, we had been in conversations with some friendlies and partners and people that we know in the ecosystem that have access to uh, agencies and other partners that have access to other ad buying platforms. And we've been putting some lines in the water and having conversations over the past year prior to this happening because of the news with the Delphic environment. Because we kind of knew that there may be some risks. We just wanted to make sure that we were going to maybe have some um, backup option. Even if it wasn't going to be great, we could have something. Um, what that meant was we were actually able to get a portion of our campaigns up and running before Friday at midnight when Media Math went off. Had, uh, some friends out, uh, had some people lean in and we were able to migrate our largest client over to a new platform and at least get something going, uh, before midnight. And we basically didn't skip a beat. Um, as far as we did not have a zero revenue, we skipped a beat. Um, it was, it was a smaller beat but we did not have a zero revenue day, which I can't Believe, um, it's amazing. And today, three weeks later, we're at about 90%, uh, run rate as to where we were on June 30th, call it or June 29th.

Speaker B: That's the day that all that stuff

Speaker A: went down, that stuff happened.

Speaker B: Um, so you're a night, you're at 90% of the revenue you were doing before that.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker B: That's awesome.

Speaker A: It's not in the same way. It's, you know, we've got a lot of people doing a lot of manual work and it's nothing like it was. And it's not the future, you know, we're looking at keeps you alive. Yeah, we're looking at more diversified, we're looking at how uh, to de. Risk things even further. Uh, because even though we're planning on building on a well funded platform that is maybe likely a public company, we still need to figure out what our strategy is in the long term such that we are not beholden to a single point of failure.

Speaker B: Well, first of all, that's awesome that you guys are able to do that even if you have all these different, you know, it's not the same process internally and um, but it's to, you know, most of building a company is just sort of like staying alive long enough to, you know, get to that moment where things get, you know, a lot easier. That's how I always felt like in the early days too. Like we um, we just. Yeah, like there was moments where I was like, oh my God, dude. Like I'm not, you know, I'm starting to have kids, I'm not making any money. Uh, the business is not, does not seem like it's, it's going well. Right? Like it's. I don't know. I've seen businesses go well and this isn't it. What, um, do we do? Like what's going on? Uh, and you're. And the one thing I'd always just even like in the lowest moments, I was just like, I just got to, I just gotta, we just gotta stay alive. Like, you know, eat ramen noodles and just keep going and just like sort of outlast everything else. If we can just do that, um, I feel like we'll be like, we'll, we'll get to something that matters at some point and you know, luckily we did. But yeah, it's very difficult in certain moments to kind of like keep that. It's hard to think that way though, when everything seems like it's crashing or just not working or whatever. Like Everyone thinks being an entrepreneur is about the success and all this stuff, but I think it's really about moments like this. It's either lots of mini moments like this or really big moments like this. Like it is for you guys. Um, where it's sort of like this one big thing that like you gotta get, you have to get past it. Like that's really what makes an entrepreneur in, in my opinion is those like crappy times that you have to. The, the obstacles you have to get past and just not giving up. So props to you.

Speaker A: Thanks man. There are absolutely going to be obstacles and, and failures. Um, that is as certain as death and taxes when you're dealing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: With building a business. So any successful entrepreneur is only successful because they failed many, many, many times. And you have to move forward, you have to continue. Uh, or if you don't, you can. There's always the world of jobs.

Speaker B: Go get a job, Go get a job.

Speaker A: Um, and you'll work less hours. You will work way less hours. You'll have time off on the weekends. You'll probably have a better work life balance in the short term.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: But you'll be working and doing that forever.

Speaker B: But your work life balance is, is capped at a certain, you know, level where I think, um, if you can get to. I don't know what, like, obviously you guys have been like grinding hard recently because of all this, which, which makes sense. I don't know what life was like for you prior to that. If you had gotten to a place where like worth, like work life balance was really, you know, flexible and that sort of thing because you guys had the, the machine sort of running. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely been moments like early on in the company where there was no work, work life. Like I was just working all the time and like. And you're also dealing with like the mental side of like, why isn't this working? And like doubting things all the time and that sort of thing. But then you get to a point, you know, hopefully where it gets really like the work life balance is like amazing. And you could literally do nothing for a month, like zero and still gonna be at the same revenue or growing without having to do anything. And that like getting to that point is I think what everybody kind of wants to. Well, maybe not everybody, but like at least the smaller, you know, smaller businesses like, like us, like, they probably want to get to some sort of operation like that where they have some flexibility. But um, yeah, it's uh, it's A grind for a little while, so people need to expect that.

Speaker C: All right, I wanted to break away real quick just to talk about our sponsor for the week, Fetch, uh, and it's Fetch truck dot com. So this is a really cool product that I've used that my neighbor uses all the time. And it's, you know, that challenge you run into where you have something big that you just purchased or something really big that you have to move, and you have no way to move it because it's impossible to pick up and carry somewhere, or, or you don't have a truck or some sort of larger vehicle that you can move that stuff. And so, uh, Fetch makes it really easy for you to just go to their site or go to their app and, uh, find, uh, basically just find a truck or van on demand. And they have all different types of trucks that you can, uh, different vehicle sizes that, depending on what you're moving, it just makes it really easy to be able to access that, uh, when you need it.

Speaker B: But the real thing that I wanted

Speaker C: to focus on that's really interesting to me as an entrepreneur is their, uh, partnership program. So if you have, you know, a truck or some sort of van that you already own or you're thinking about, you know, maybe you're going to buy one, they have this really cool program where, um, you can basically rent out your truck, rent out your van, um, and you don't have to do any work. You basically just sit there. They do all the marketing, um, they put the insurance on the cars, um, uh, and obviously they have the marketplace for folks to find you. So they basically do all the work and you just sit there and rake in cash. So while you hear all these podcasts

Speaker B: out there, uh, and all these different,

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Speaker B: definitely uh, go to the site and

Speaker C: give uh, it a try. Alright, back to the show.

Speaker A: So part of what made this so catastrophic was uh, after about five years of non stop grinding and weekends and working and literally just driving my laptop around with me everywhere I went because I never knew where I was going to be. Having just my five pack little 5G hotspot, my laptop everywhere I went for the past five years. This was the first summer in five years where I wasn't gonna have to do that literally on a island. Little thing out in Panama on my honeymoon was working. This was the first summer that I promised my wife and my kids I was going to be totally present. I was going to have like most summer Fridays, was going to take a couple weeks off. We had a trip to Chicago plan where I was going to visit uh, our new nephew. And this happened. So not only, you know, short term immediate things that blown up, but now we're, oh crap. How far back to square one am I? And am I now going to have to spend the next two to three years grinding again, building on top of another platform to get back to where I was. And if that's the case, I don't know if I can do that again. Like I just don't know if I'll survive personally. Like if I'll be able to keep it together. Uh, so that's what had, you know, that's what has us also thinking more strategically long term. Uh, you know, as we're trying to figure out, okay, how long is it going to take us to get back to where we're going to be? If it's going to take us a really long time, then maybe we take our chips off the table. And it's not as much as we thought we were going to get in the long run in some type of an event, but it's enough. And we can get a job, get some security and some weekends off and have some upside. That's super appealing to us now. Also, we'll have a better sense of what rebuilding is going to look like over the next 30 days and what that timeline looks like. And at the same time, we're having some conversations to just understand if an opportunity to join forces with a larger organization exists, because maybe that just helps us accelerate getting adlib into more hands more quickly.

Speaker B: Yeah, it takes the pressure off. You work for another. You sell, um, the business, and then you work for that company still building the same thing. You're just doing it without the pressure of, oh, this relies on me. M. Completely. Uh, and my family relies on me. So it's like my family's rel. Actually people in the business and my family are relying on me, and their families are relying on them, and it all relies on this business. I. I totally get that. Like, I. Yeah, I mean, I. That's kind of how I, um. With our, like, you know, the, uh, the last, like, year. Well, recently it's been getting better, but like, I don't know, let's say like six months ago in the prior 12. 12 months. So, you know, from.

Speaker C: From there.

Speaker B: So let's say, like, prior 12 months from, like, uh, I don't know, like February or something was like, pretty rough. And I think it probably pretty rough for a lot of people in a lot of different industries because of the markets. Um, and. And then we get that. You probably see me talk about the stupid tax thing that's going on with, uh, sexual in 74. So you're getting squeezed on the profit that you make. Um, but, yeah, so you. But then. So then you start. Think you're just like, oh, man. Like, I. I always just think of the bit.

Speaker C: I'm just.

Speaker B: I. I mostly think about the business in term. We've been lucky to get to the point where I can just think about the business. Like, just the business. I don't think about. I'm not thinking about people and their families and, you know, because I just haven't had to. But then when stuff like that happens, you sit there and you're like, you know, I'm looking at. I sort of look at the business as like a game, right? It's like sort of like a game to me. It's like, how do I get more revenue? And then I'M increasing my profits. Like, you know, you're playing like a little sim city or whatever that game was, right? But then when it starts to get more, when things get squeezed a little bit, you start thinking about like the, the real life implications of all this stuff. And um, and you start thinking about like all the people that rely on, on this business doing well, um, and uh, and who relies on them and you're just like, oh God, uh, then you start to feel the, that's when the pressure comes. And I totally understand why someone would, why an entrepreneur would want to sell at some point and just like, you know, even if they're not selling to make a lot like ton of money, like take a little bit of money off the table and then just mostly just take a lot of pressure off the table. I think that's like a big reason why people sell, especially in, you know, harder times. Whether it's market related or something crazy in your specific world changes. Like I totally understand why people would want to do that from the pressure perspective. And especially like people our age, you know, having kids and stuff and you got young kids and that sort of thing. Like. Yeah, totally, totally understandable. And in the back your mind. So you, you know, I always think of this too. It's like, okay, if I sold like what, you know, what would I do next? And like, uh, you know, I'm in sort of a phase in this in my life where you know, you have young kids, you only have them once, right? And so it's like you want to spend as much time with them as you can. So you can't really go as hard as you used to go on work related things. And you're like, well maybe when I'm like 45 or something, like I'll have more, you know, I'll have more space and energy to get back to what I was before. But I have no idea what I'm going to feel like when I'm 45. So it's like, I don't know. But um, yeah, I totally, I totally get uh, where you're coming from.

Speaker A: Still have enough energy. I'd be excited to start something new. Don't know what that would look like. Um, if we were to have some kind of an exit at this point, you know, don't think it would be anything where if you set, you know, set up in position, uh, maybe, maybe it could be. But uh, don't, don't. I think it'd still be, you know, needing to do something else. Take uh, that and turn it into another SaaS product, an advisory firm, something more strategic.

Speaker B: You guys are working on a lot of different things, like new things and having to like, you know, build on top of new, you know, new things. You don't really know like what opportunities might arise from doing some of these things like, that you may have not seen before. And then on top of that, you, uh, know this. But like sometimes when you, I don't know what it is, like you could be feeling bad about things, um, for a while and then out of nowhere, you know, you, you hit a couple home runs with some, you know, new customers or something and it totally changes the, the feeling you have internally as an entrepreneur. It can sometimes just like totally and just get you like reinvigorated. Out of nowhere. Now you go on like a hot streak for like three to six months where you're like totally, you know, back into it. Um, uh, that's happened to us like so many times throughout, you know, this life cycle and different businesses that we've had, you know, get excited about one and then, and now we're all sudden is excited about this thing again because we've had some success and you really get into it for another. But yeah, like, it's very difficult to go on a dead sprint for. I mean, it's difficult to go on a dead sprint for a year, let alone like five years. Um, and so like you have these little like lulls in that, I think and sometimes it's just random things that sort of pop up or happen at the same time that you jack you back in, um, and get you excited again. It's like getting those new customers and stuff is such like a. I don't think people realize like the lifeblood of an entrepreneur, at least for me, is like momentum, some sort of momentum. And um, when you go on those lulls, like it just like it feels like you just don't have it. It's. I don't know. And then you just like lose. You just don't care as much anymore out of nowhere because you just don't have that momentum. But as soon as you get a little bit of that, it's like it's like drugs or something, you know, it's like you're, you're ready to go. Let's, let's, let's jump back in. Yeah, it doesn't take much.

Speaker A: One conversation can be absolutely life changing. One conversation can make your business and

Speaker B: you just need to one, one new deal. You know, it's some new, like they kind of want this new thing you didn't know was like something people wanted. And now you give a little more focus to that, next thing you know you're piling on more customers. Like, you just don't know where that's going to be. And it's kind of like you're just sort of like if you just. That's, that's why the thing that I mentioned in the beginning is so important in the way you're doing. Just like, stay in the game. Just stay alive and just keep, you know, staying curious and keep, like, just stay in the game. If you stay in the game long enough and you're, and you're curious about, you know, different things, you may hear from a customer and like some feedback or something. Like something at some point, like if you believe in your ability, like it's something at some point is going to pop and you're going to be able to take advantage of that thing. But if you're not in the game anymore, if you jump out, like, you're not going to get there. Um, so.

Speaker A: And keep talking to people. Talk to people. Reach out to your, uh, advisors, reach out to co workers, people that you've worked with, people that you trust, friends, family members. Tell them what's going on, keep talking about it. Opportunities and solutions will manifest from that, from those conversations.

Speaker B: Yeah, totally. I totally agree. Well, I, I am definitely inspired by what you're doing. Um, and I am like rooting for you, whether that's, you know, in what you're building or whether you sell or whatever. Um, I'm, I would do anything I can to help. I hope there's someone listening right now that is looking for, ah, you know, a new, a new ad platform. Um, you should definitely check out Ad Lib. We have used it personally and, and love it. Um, so yeah, I, uh, I'm, like I said, I'm, I'm inspired by what you're doing. I think you're doing the right things. Um, every entrepreneur goes through stuff like this at some point. You just don't know when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen on the current business, on some future business. Like, I have a bunch of friends that have gone through stuff very similar to this, um, one off the top of my head. So we had this guy in Atlanta, you've actually probably heard of this product called Sales Loft. Have you heard of that?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So they built a product that, um, started having a lot of success. It was called Prospector, and it was basically like this, um, this was years ago. They were the first ones to build anything like this. Now there's a lot of products like this, but like, they were the first one to build something where you're on LinkedIn and you can like, kind of, you know, select people or whatever. And it like automatically would pull them into some sort of database and then find their email addresses and stuff like that so that you could then, you know, send emails to them. So this was probably in 2015, maybe 2015. Um, they built this product. It started, you know, obviously there's no other product that does this. So it started taking off like crazy. LinkedIn decided to change their policy in terms of what they allowed third parties to access. Um, and they basically, like, I don't know the exact logistics of what happened, but it had, it was, there was legality around. Like, I don't know if they, if LinkedIn sued them or like, what happened, but basically, long story short is like, they gave them some sort of very short window of time. It's like. And then this is gone. And so they had built up a business. I think they were probably at like $7 million in annual recurring revenue that they had got gone from like, basically 0 to 7 million in like a couple years, which is like, pretty incredible. Like, they were the fastest growing companies in, in the SAS game. And so they have this thing, they built, they built this huge team out on this thing. You know, they probably, probably have like 50 employees at this point. It's all built on top, it's all built on this product. And my wife was at the company. That's why I know a lot about this. So, um, and then, so they're like, oh, what do we do? And it's the same thing. They basically had to figure out, they had to figure out what they were going to build to maintain. Not just like to stay alive, but to like maintain this huge team and not have to do all these layoffs and like, you know, they gotta, like, figure out a new business. Well, they pivoted to this other business, which was basically like sequences. So the, you know, the emails that you're, you know, you're gonna send like seven emails to someone over some period of time. You've probably seen like, other products like that. Um, and so they pivoted to that business and just like went really hard at it over the next like six months and just nailed it. And they knew about that. They knew about that use case because it was something that they had heard from, like, customers that they were selling the prospecting tool to. And so, like, um, you Know, and now that that business is now valued at over a billion dollars, and they sold. I want to say they sold, like, to private equity or something like that in the past, like, year or so. But, like, point is, I mean, it's. You see this happen all the time, where somebody that happens to someone and they have to, like, figure shit out quickly. Um, so, yeah, my only advice is, like, there's plenty of examples of it. You're not the only one that's gone through it. So, like, you know that, like, other people have gone through it. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. But, like, it happens to a lot of people. And I think, um, I think you're doing the right thing, which is like, you know, figuring stuff. You know, doing what you do is, like, figure stuff out, you know, try to take next steps and stay in the game and see what happens. Like, that's all. That's all, uh, that's all you can do. And that's all. And that's what you. You know, that's why I told you earlier, too. It's like, this will be a great story to tell your kids one day once they can understand this stuff. You know what I mean? It's like, to be able to tell. Yeah, to tell them, like, you just built this thing and it just went great, and, like, you had immediate success. That's not much of a story. There's no learning in that. Right. Um, you want to be able to tell them about, like, hard times and how you got past those and how you, you know, persevered through that stuff. And those are the. Those are the types of, like, learning experiences that you'll be able to share with them. And that I think everybody wants to share with their kids. Um, and how you go through hard times. Cause that's what's going to happen to everybody. So I, uh. Yeah, man, I'm excited for you. Uh, I think there's good stuff ahead, and if I can ever do anything to help, let me know. But I think you could probably just help me, you know, a lot more about this space than I do. Uh, I'm just winging it.

Speaker A: I appreciate that, Lyndon. Appreciate you having me on. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, dude. Yeah. Well, you've helped me out a ton. I mean, you were pretty important to us, like, getting off the ground when we had nothing. So, I mean, I. I don't know if we would have a business right now if we didn't get that first customer. Because it was taking forever to get a first customer. We were probably, like, six months in, uh, already feeling the doubts of it. Like, what? Oh, no, what have we done? Like, what. Why is this not going well? I thought we knew what we were doing. Um, and then we just needed to. We just needed someone to give us a chance so that we could learn, you know, get feedback from a customer. Right? It's like, you got to get a first customer before you can do anything because you don't know anything yet. That's why we were failing is because we didn't have any customers. Um, and to get one that and then be able to work off of that, like, it was very, very important to, to our business and, like, where we are today. So I can't, you know, I can't thank you enough for that. For sure.

Speaker A: You're super welcome, man. Um, it's great to hear that it turned into something for you and, uh, happy to make that connection.

Speaker B: Well, it's been awesome catching up. Hey, I guess where, where can people, you know, if there is anyone listening that's interested in the product, um, or they want to, like, reach out on Twitter or whatever? Like, how can people reach out to you and then also find, um, find

Speaker A: your product, um, so you can find us on getadlib.com and quick background on what we do. If you are in the ad buying business, you're a marketer or a media shop and you're trying to scale campaigns and labor costs get out of control and just really hard to make things work with having a lot of humans involved in launching, managing, scaling campaigns. The ad lib technology and our software and our APIs eliminates all that friction, allows you to launch hundreds, thousands of campaigns a day without having, uh, all of those, uh, kind of ad ops resources required, uh, to make that do what you need it to do. Um, so we're excited to get back and up and running on top of other ad distribution platforms as our backbone and continue to, uh, add value to our clients in minimizing the overhead that it takes to get things up and running.

Speaker B: Twitter.

Speaker A: Yeah, personally, I'm on Twitter. It's Haltman. Michael. H A U P T M A N Michael. I think that's it.

Speaker B: Sweet. Yeah, we'll post all the links in the, um, in the little like, episode bio. So everybody has that too. So. Awesome. Well, um, I guess that's it.

Speaker A: Thanks, Linda.

Speaker C: Until next time.