Level and WebMechanix Join Forces

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the podcast. Today we're here with some very exciting news. We are happy to announce the official merger of Level and Web Mechanics. And to uh, help talk about that today I'm joined by Patrick Patterson, the CEO at Level. Arsha uh, Mearshaw and Chris Mechanic, co founders at Web Mechanic. So gentlemen, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker C: Yeah. Ah, thanks for having us Miles.

Speaker A: Happy to be here.

Speaker D: Really excited to be here. Yeah. Let's rock and roll.

Speaker B: So yeah, absolutely. Um, let's start in rock and roll with some background, introduce ourselves to everybody. Patrick, you want to start a little bit about you and about Level?

Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So um, first of all, Arsham Chris, super uh, excited, glad we're able to do this this, this morning. Um, you know so Level, we've, we've been around for about 14 years. Uh and our, our promise and our goal has always been to, to be the performance marketing agency we wanted to work with when we were on the client side. Right. Um, and then build the company we wanted to work for. You know, what does that mean for work life balance? What does that mean for um, you know, remote work versus in office? Uh, and so you know, as we've expanded, as we've grown and as we've done a lot of really, really great things uh, over the past year it's been how do we find companies, how do we uh, you know, find like minded companies culturally, um, not just from an employee culture but a client culture. Right. That care as much about their clients as we do, that care about you know, performance and results but also care about people's well being and how to build a great workplace. And so it's been, it's been a really exciting, you know, kind of year and a half of us, you know, talking to a lot of companies. I think Arsham Chris, I told you I've Talked to about 200 uh, agencies up to this point. Um, and uh, you know we have uh, we've come to the finish line uh, with one that I'm really excited about in Web Mechanics and this will be our, our second uh, you know, merger uh, in the past year. We, we were lucky enough to, to merge with Becker Media about six months ago, eight months ago. That allowed us to really solidify our stance as a top three, top two in the performance marketing space for education and uh, you know, really, really excited about Web Mechanics and what that is going to allow us all to do together. So I know we're going to talk about that in a little bit. So but before we do, Chris Arsham would love to hear your backstory and how you got to this moment right now.

Speaker D: Yeah, certainly. So, um, our backstory goes back a really, really long way. Arsham and I are actually cousins. Like, we grew up together. We've known each other since we were babies essentially. Um, and it was, we've always been kind of entrepreneurial over the years. But, uh, at one point during college, I fell in love with the Internet. Like I had a buddy who was like, starting websites and, you know, making Money with Google AdSense Type of a thing. And I just fell in love with that immediately. So I started, um, I started a couple of niche websites, started building traffic, started, you know, blogging, building an email list. And Arsham, uh, studied computer science. He's like bioinformatics major. So he's always been sort of the technical Yang to my Yang. Um, so he would help me, you know, anytime I had an issue with that site. So, long story short, he is then running, um, a startup in college. He's basically like the coo. I was serving tables part time while I was like, building this website empire, you know, during the day. And I got recruited into an agency. And, and I remember like it was yesterday, the first day I was in that agency role. I was like, this is it. Like, this is what I have to do. I loved it. It was just like so much fun. It just didn't even feel like work. Um, so anyway, spent a year or two at that agency. I was their first digital marketing employee. Helped, uh, them build out their whole, you know, digital marketing service line. And then the time was right.

Speaker A: This is back in 2000, like seven, eight. Right. So building out a digital marketing practice. 27. I mean, that's just for some context, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's like inventing fire in front of most people.

Speaker A: That's what, that's the point I'm trying to make. Thank you. Exactly. Right, so Chris is kind of seeing that, um, uh, meanwhile I'm, I'm also kind of seeing it with him. We're cousins again, we're talking, uh, and what have you. And Chris, I keep, keep going with your story. So.

Speaker D: Yeah. And then, so, um, so eventually, you know, I, I got the itch and I was like, arsh, like, we can do this, man. Like, let's, let's just go ahead and do this. And you know, I wasn't like, it

Speaker C: can't be that hard, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, it can't be that hard.

Speaker D: But, um, but I just loved, I just loved the business. I still love the business. Like everything about Agency life, it's, you know, it can be chaotic for sure. It can be stressful for sure. There's a lot of ups and downs, but it's just so much fun. Um, so anyway, I'm belaboring this a little bit, but, um, we started as a pure play SEO company and these were the days like, like Google Analytics had just hit the scene. Like measurement, you know, things like data driven, which are really table stakes now, didn't exist then. So we were kind of, you know, some of the first people on the scene with this data driven, you know, content first, um, approach. Like nobody was publishing content back then. Um, so we started out, you know, just working with local businesses and our ambitions weren't actually very grand at that point. Like we just wanted to kind of have a lifestyle business. But it was working. Like the work that we uh, were doing was working. We were getting referrals left and right and like within six months there was like more business than we could handle. So we just decided like, hey man, let's build this out.

Speaker A: Yeah, we definitely didn't hire a sales team and go, you know, door to door.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Like we just got a couple clients and we were just doing such good work. I suppose looking back on it now, um, but it was easy and fun, right? Because we really enjoyed it. Um, and then we were just lucky enough to get those referrals. And then uh, I had been like Chris mentioned in college running a startup. So I knew all of what it took to kind of like stand up a payroll, you know, do the finances, the legal, the hr, all that stuff. So you know, we brought on some interns at first, trained them up and this is 2009, so 15 years ago and the rest is history. It's just been one foot in front of the other, uh, humbly, uh, growing and learning for the last 15 years. Adding service lines as our custom, as we realize our customer needs. You know, they don't just want more traffic, they want more leads. They don't just want more leads, they want more sales.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So you see kind of the kind of evolution uh, over that time and we've been just super lucky to just uh, like you said Patrick, very, uh, like minded, actually care about our uh, employees, our team, actually care about the results, uh, that we drive. Very aligned to that. It's been part of uh, uh, Chris and I from the beginning. Right. Like you said, lifestyle business. So we care. This is our name on it kind of thing.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: You know, Chris mechanic, web mechanics. Right. So we care at our core and um, that's a core value and we look for people like that too.

Speaker B: Patrick, you said you Talked to over 200 agencies, an incredible amount. Uh, from that we're down to one with web mechanics. So I'd love to hear your perspective on what it was about the company, about Arsham and Chris and the rest of the team that led us to this moment here.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, first, you know, it started I think, with Chris, uh, and Arsham, uh, actually going out and trying to do, you know, the same thing that that that level's doing, which is how do we, how do we grow through acquisition. Right. Um, so, you know, Chris and Arsham were looking, um, to, and I'll speak for you guys, but looking to do their first or second add on, uh, inside the organization. And um, you know, with that we were using the, the same company to, to try to find and source those. And you know, we had been working with uh, that company for a, a while. They knew us really well. And you know, after talking with Arshem and Chris, I got a phone call. I was like, hey, there's this company. And they sound a lot, they sound a lot like you. Like, it sounds like exactly what you're trying to do. It's really, really organic, you know, that they're not looking for it. Uh, but maybe you guys should chat. I was like, all right. And I think like, kind of the same way on your side, right guys? Like, it was like, hey, maybe you guys should chat with this, this level, uh, company. And I think we both kind of came into it with a little bit of skepticism of, you know, hey, like, all right, uh, we're both trying to do this thing and you know, for, for myself, I won't speak for, for you. But like at the end of that call I was like, oh, wow, this could be something really special. And I think what I saw on that was one like our service overlap, like the what we do and what Web Mechanics does. It's very, very similar. Um, you know, there have been some decisions we've all had to make around focus over the past 14 years. What do we focus on? And for us, you know, we came in the education space, so we focused a lot of the needs for education and then B2B. And so we developed, you know, a lot of really advanced reporting, data analytics. We have a data science team, um, you know, web mechanics coming from the SEO and the web background still does the, you know, majority, 80% of it is performance marketing. But you know, their supporting services are, are more around web Development and SEO, um, while still having that data mind and that data background. Right. And it's not because we're not a web shop and they're not a data shop. It's just about hey, what can we focus on in the time that we have? And so what's really exciting is you look at that and you say okay, now we take all those learnings like, like we've been the Same company for 14 years and we put them all together and it's really, you know, that better together. It's, it's not just growing bigger, it's growing better. And I, and I really think that's, that's what I'm really excited about. So the service overlap is exciting. The, the, the industry overlap is really, really exciting. You know we've both done amazing work to establish ourselves in Financial Services, B2B Technology Services, B2B Software, B2B Professional Services, as some of the industry leaders and how to do B2B marketing the right way, which is not easy. Right. Um, and so people that can crack that um, obviously are thinking about it the right way, thinking about trust, thinking about client first, um, and then third it was, it was really you know, kind of the, what put it over the edge for me. And probably the most important thing as I'm, I'm assessing these is the cultural fit, right? We all are going to have to work with, with each other afterwards. Uh, we are all going to have to you know, get along. And so the closer we are together as a culture, the easier that's going to be. And um, know I'm looking for folks that are passionate, that are driven, that want to stay within the organization, that want to grow it, that have a growth mindset, open to change, resilient. You know, Chris and Arsham have done a phenomenal job building an anti fragile organization. And like that is really, really exciting because that takes discipline and it takes drive and it takes you know, day after day doing the work to do it. And you know there's been a lot of times in my career where I could have taken the easy way out. I could have done the easy thing for the quick buck. Um, and you know I think Chris and Arsham and level, we've always made the decision to do the thing that's right for the future. Right, that's right for the, the ten year and the five year and the three year. So that's really I think what set Web Web mechanics apart from the other two 300 that we talked to, let alone the 3,000 that we looked at.

Speaker A: Yeah. Patrick nailed it. Stories, uh, resonates very well with me. You know, Chris and I, uh, it's been in our three year picture to go do strategic M and A. So we were, we were looking to do our own. And uh, when the company said, hey, you guys should talk, we were like, we get, you know, we talk to a lot of these, you know that this is, uh, we've seen this story before, but, you know, we'll hear it out. Let's just see what it is. Uh, but all the things Patrick said, the um, you know, the kind of client overlap, the service overlap, but really the culture overlap, it's almost like, uh, we're, you know, mirror companies. We started around the same time too. I mean, it's just, it's just such an interesting, um, story in that way. And so we're like, okay, this could actually be something.

Speaker D: Yeah. And incredibly synchronistic. Um, um, and, and I'm a believer that things happen for a reason. Right. Um, but like, here's one of the random coincidences that happened. One of my mentors, I spoke with them like several weeks before you, before the initial conversation. Um, and they were asking me like, hey, what do you think about the future? Like, are you doing any exit planning type of thing? And I'm like, no. Like, we're just rocking and rolling. We're having fun. And he's like, let me tell you something, man, if anybody wants to buy your business, like, you need to talk to them. Like, like, take that call. You know, at the very least, you're going to learn something. And I'm like, you realize that I get like four emails a day probably of people, you know, trying to, trying to, uh, buy us or invest or whatnot. And he's like, okay, well, don't take all of them, but like, take one, take some that look interesting. So, um, and then, you know, very shortly thereafter was when that reach out happened, which it was like we were in the mode of, like Patrick was saying, doing the opposite. So we took the call, um, very, very hesitantly. I mean, not hesitantly, but very, you know, in a mode where we really weren't expecting doing anything. Um, but then we really clicked. We really hit it off. And I think from a culture perspective, like, one of the things I'm incredibly proud of, we have always treated our clients, uh, the way that we want to be treated. Like, like in 15 years of doing this, never once have we left a client high and dry. Never once have we left, uh, an employee high and dry. Even a vendor like, we've never not paid a bill to a vendor, that, that kind of thing. Like, we're running an incredibly wholesome business. And in a industry, in a space that can sometimes be kind of shady or seedy, you know, like, there's a lot of firms out there that will pull the wool over clients eyes. Um, but we, like every dollar that we manage, we think of it like it's our own dollar. Um, and I think that's a reason why clients tend to stay with us for a really long time. They tend to grow right along with us people the same way. You know, like, um, I've had a lot of people say, like, wow, you guys have a lot of really long tenure employees there. That's because we treat them like family, you know, we really do.

Speaker B: I'd love to talk more about that, employees and clients, because all three of you, there's like a key, key, uh, part of your answer there. And you know, again, our. We joked about this the last time we did one of these. Patrick was the, the acquisition bingo card. I'll be the first to say one plus one equals three. Uh, and that. All right, well, we're just gonna go there. Uh, so I'd love to, I'd love to hear from your perspective how that's true. One plus one equals three. We've hinted at it, but, uh, main audience for this, this whole conversation are going to be employees and clients wondering what does this mean for me? And so I'd love to get your perspectives on what all this makes possible now.

Speaker D: Yeah, so I can start. I mean, I'm incredibly excited to, uh, meet like a lot of the level clients and vice versa. Because while, while there is quite a bit of overlap in the things that we do, there's varying levels of strength. Like, organic search is really core to us. It was our founding service. I'm like, I can't wait to do a, uh, to do a roadshow and to meet some of the level clients that could really, really benefit from SEO and you know, just teach, like, just teach share. Like, we'll just. We're, you know, we're, uh. One of our core values is learnaholic. And part of being a learnaholic is also being a teachaholic. So, like, I plan to put out just like a lot of content and a lot of just good, uh, information for free to the, to the clients. Um, because, you know, whether you hire us to do it or not, there's a lot happening in SEO right now. You know, with, uh, generative search experience and and all these different things, like we want to arm our clients with the information to be successful moving forward. So I'm super excited um, to basically bring some of our gifts to the level client base and then vice versa. Like level is um, was a really early adopter in the data science, analytics, media mix modeling, uh, areas and those are areas that we're just starting to get into but really super excited to bring their strength over to some of our clients who really need, you know, who really need that type of um.

Speaker A: That could be a big, a big unlock for. I can you know, think of more than a handful of clients where you know that, that data practice could be quite helpful to help them really understand, you know, their attribution and what channels are working and what media mix they need. I think it could be a big unlock for a lot of our clients and uh, I'm excited about that. I also think it could be quite an unlock uh, for many of our team members as well who are interested, uh, who are very, you know, they have that kind of data mind and they just need to go further and I think they can go further faster together with, with some mentorship, let's call it. Right. Uh, on, on the web mechanics side, you know we have a really strong creative and development team. I think that we can bring those services to uh, the level client base where you know, we can build more uh, you know, websites, web experiences, um, that will help conversion rates go up. Right. So that's obviously a big uh, big added benefit in the performance marketing game.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think uh, you know the, the idea that you know, obviously all, all of those things, the SEO, the, the data, the, the web, I think it in general as well, the, the combined expertise of the, the group. Right. So when you're talking about you know now being a 200 person organization, um, you can afford to do things that you can't do at a, a 2050, 100 person organization and you can have experts and centers of excellence and subject matter experts that you can afford to pay top dollar to because uh, that you couldn't prior. And so you know, just the ability to you know, be able to leverage that scale, uh, for our clients. You know, you have a question about a specific, you know a ah, Reddit subject matter expert. Right. And, or you know, organic social TikTok subject matter expert or generative search. Um, these are topics that are really, really important to our clients and then to be able to be at the size and the scale to have expertise, you know, top bleeding edge expertise in these Areas is going to be really, really exciting. And obviously for our employees that creates opportunities for our employees. Right. And, and everything we just said, uh, allows us to grow those teams, those expertise, uh, work with newer clients, uh, expanded different services with our clients, give leadership, uh, and opportunities to every single employee at level and web mechanics. And so you know, that is exciting. You know the, the thing I say a lot and digital marketing grows at about 9% every year, uh, at uh, you know, in, in the world. Right. So every year 9m percent growth. That's kind of expectation. If we're doing 9% growth as an organization, we're just keeping up with digital advertising. So we're trying to do more than that. Right. So when you do that, if you grow 10, 15, 20% as an organization that creates new opportunities for every employee to grow 10, 15, 20% every single year. And you just don't get that most places, right? You go to your 9 to 5, you spend a. I spent five years on the client side. Right. Uh, you know, you don't get five years of experience always. Sometimes you just get one year of experience five times. Right. And so like I think it's really important that we're going to like really exciting that we're going to be continually tackling bigger, badder issues together with really, really smart people. And the thing, you know, one of the things that you know is a huge opportunity is I've had a chance to meet the folks at Web Mechanics and man, they are just whip smart, passionate. Roll up your sleeves folks. It's, you know, I, I say that about Pittsburgh. You know, we like to roll up our sleeves here in Pittsburgh. Um, you know you guys have that culture and like that is going to just unlock so many opportunities for, for your team and our team to work together. I'm just so excited about it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that, Love the centers of excellence, the subject matter experts. Um, I think it's a, I think it's a huge unlock for a lot of people. And then, and then we, we used to say, uh, Patrick, we used to say a uh, year of web mechanics is like three years anywhere else. And I still think that's true.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: I mean part of that agency life, part of it is just the way that our culture is, you know, we love helping people. I meet every single new employee about three, three weeks to four weeks into their uh, role and every one of them like without fail. You know, I try not to use absolutes, but literally every one of them is like, wow, the team here is so helpful. They actually care. They actually want me, you know, they want me to succeed, uh, in my role. Everyone's been so, so helpful. So I think, you know, level, uh, having a similar culture, I think we can just all thrive together.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And. And that. That one year being three years of experience, I will be true. Continue to be true.

Speaker D: Yeah. And, you know, um, Miles, I. I, uh, love fire. Like, I'm a huge fan of fire. And I. I often make the analogy that, like, hey, let's have a bonfire. You bring your wood pile, I'll bring my wood pile and that. And you can make a much, much hotter fire that way. So I, you know, in that way, it's probably more than one. It's probably more than one plus one equals three. It's probably more like one plus one equals four. If you just want to talk about, like, the heat output from a really big fire versus like a kind of a small fire.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker C: I love this. We're quantifying how we're. How we're. How we're coming together now.

Speaker A: I love, uh, using data fire analogies.

Speaker D: Let's go 20%. Keggers, baby.

Speaker A: Look at that.

Speaker D: That's the mantra.

Speaker A: Love it.

Speaker B: I'll, uh, I'll lean into Chris's fire metaphor here. Right? You don't get a bonfire right away. Right. You got to add the wood over time and grow it from, you know, tender kindling and then the fuel. It's going to be the same thing with the merging of the two companies. Right. It's not going to be instant bonfire. There's some steps we have to take to make sure that we have that sustained heat. Ah. That we were talking about. So what are those steps? What state. What steps are being taken to ensure that this is a smooth process for employees and for clients?

Speaker C: Yeah. Lighter fuel.

Speaker D: No.

Speaker C: So, you know, there's a few things. Like, um, the first is we have kind of some design principles. Right? So what. What are, uh, our. What are our rules that we're looking at? And we do this with any large project. We sit down and we say, what are the. What are the design principles for that. For that project? One is we want to make sure that we're employee first. So every decision that we're making, every time we make a change, um, we're employee first. That means how are we taking care of our employees and thinking about it through the eyes of our employees? One B to that is client first. So every decision we make about how we integrate as an organization is going to be. Does it benefit Our client, right? Do they get something out of that integration or is it just, you know, same old, same old? And so those are going to be our first two design principles. The third is going to be, you know, where can we find opportunities for scale and you know, where can we find opportunities to have teams work together, uh, that are really going to benefit from it? We think there's some opportunities right now in some back end stuff. So how do we, you know, get our, you know, our uh, people, operations and our financial operations together in a, in a way that allows us to do invoicing better and hiring better and all of those things better? Um, but again, the, the, the combination of the two companies is going to be about employee first, client first, and then how do we do it better? So it may take a few moments to do that. It may take a week, a month, six months, a year for, for those things to happen. But that's okay as long as we're following those design principles because then we're doing what's important. We're, we're taking care of our people, we're taking care of our clients, and, and we're making improvement every single day. Which, spoiler alert, is what both companies have been doing for 14 years plus. Right. And so it's, it will be no different than what we've always done. We'll just be, get, we'll just get to do it together around a whole bunch of smart, passionate, good people at, uh, you know, and, and solve some really, really big problems.

Speaker D: Love.

Speaker A: I love this design principle. Uh, Patrick, you're, you're converting me over to that. Uh, but it really does make sense. I mean, if, if you actually kind of, uh, peel the onion back, that's what we've been doing.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Like, every decision that I've made has been, you know, what will the team think, how will it impact them? What will the clients, uh, think or how will it impact them? And it has to, you know, the, the decision making is made easy when you, when you have those design principles. Right? It just has to be better for both of those constituents. At the end of the day, that's it. So that's, that's, uh, that's when we have been kind of putting together the uh, integration plan and FAQs for the team and things like that. It's, it's very evident, right? It's like, hey, we want to make this as seamless, easy, uh, as possible. And that's what it's been and that's what we are going to continue to do.

Speaker D: And that's been one of the big selling points for me. Right. Because there's. Everyone's heard horror stories about like, hey, you get acquired and then everything changes. Um, but, but these principles, like, Patrick's not just saying for that for the podcast, like, we've, like, that's. Yeah, I mean, that's. We've been talking about that since the beginning. And that's why, like, I'm super duper excited. Even more so because I can look every single team member and every single client right in the eye and be like, guys, nothing is going to change. Like, you're going to have the same team. You're going to, like, we're still here. Um, and so I'm really excited about this plan of like, you know, people first, clients first, do no harm, and then integrate, uh, like where the synergies live.

Speaker A: It's like stack ranking, Chris.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Like when we do, like, uh, you know, conversion rate optimization, there's like, you know, 10, 20, 30 ideas of how you're gonna, what you're gonna test.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And so you, you stack rank them and you go after the ones that, you know, the lowest lift with the biggest impact.

Speaker C: There you go. Uh, right. Like our matrix. So we use Iron Eisenhower matrix every day. Right. So what's, what, what's going to have the, the greatest lift for the lowest amount of work. Right. Lowest amount of effort.

Speaker A: And we may add to this, like, you know, uh, you know, least amount of kind of feathers ruffled. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: On clients.

Speaker C: Right? Yeah.

Speaker A: It's effort. Sure.

Speaker C: So in, you know, this is our, our second merger, and I think, you know, Chris, the, the, the thing that I'll say is, you know, we, we do want to make sure that people know, hey, the quality of what you have experience will not change. Right. It should only improve. However, if you. We look back at our history, we look back at everything we've done. We have made pivots, we have made changes inside the organization when we've needed to. Right. Um, and I, and I think in general, making sure that, you know, our clients know and our employees know, hey, like, yeah, there are going to be changes because that's what we've always done. Um, but, you know, the quality of what you've come to expect should not change. Right. Um, but, you know, who your manager is or, you know, those types of things may over time change because that's how organizations work. And so, you know, I think like, as long as we're miles, as long as we're looking at this and saying Are we doing best by our clients? Are we doing best by our, our employees? Um, the, the change will make sense. It will be logical. Right. I love, I love when, you know, these emotional decisions become, go down to logic. And when it, when you can get there, it's easy. Right? And, and you're, you're looking at it and you're saying, yeah, this makes all the sense in the world. Why, why wouldn't I do it? Um, and, and that's going to be exciting, no doubt.

Speaker A: Yeah, that definitely happens every day here, just within web.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, change happens right here.

Speaker C: Literally the only constant, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, literally the only constant. And, and like, if I, again, if I think back to how our team makes decisions, like, you know, yeah, sure, there's some emotion in it, but then it does come down to logic and it comes down to those design principles. And that's why I'm loving this design principle so much, because it's like we've been living it, we just never kind

Speaker C: of wrote it down right. Uh, if you love frameworks, you'll love me.

Speaker A: We do like frameworks. We will like you for that.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're going to have to clip that section out just for you, Patrick. That'd be a nice little repeatable video.

Speaker D: That'll be the quote.

Speaker B: Speaking of change, um, curious to hear some of Yalls predictions. This event, how do we think it's going to change things in the industry? What's going to be the stamp that we make as level plus web Mechanics when the bonfire does start raging? Chris, uh, what do you think is going to be made possible, how we'll approach it?

Speaker D: I think we're going to be marketing, uh, powerhouses. Uh, we, for a long time, uh, Web Mechanics was that agency where it was like the cobbler's kids. Right. Like our own marketing was the last thing on our mind. Uh, over the last 18 months, we've gotten really serious about it. We've invested, um, in, you know, people as well as, uh, media content and these different things. And it's really starting to, um, to snowball and have a snowballing effect. Uh, and I'm, that's the perfect example of one plus one equals three, because like, in, in this coupling, like, we'll have that much more firepower to create that much more and better content. So I, I can foresee that, like, we're already pretty dominant forces, uh, like both in edu and b2b and fin surf. Uh, I think, I think that, you know, we're going to be louder, right? You could put it like that. You're gonna, you're gonna hear a lot more from us. Um, and with the combined powers in research innovation, you know, test and learn, um, the. We're not just going to be like spouting BS content from chat GPT. Right. Like we're going to be publishing, uh, publishing like bleeding edge thought leadership type content that um, that other agencies are reading and, and uh, you know, regurgitating.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we do a lot. Sorry, sorry Patrick. We do a lot of awesome stuff within our walls. I'm sure level does as well. Um, and so what Chris is talking about is like taking that amazing stuff that we're doing, um, all the stuff that we're testing, learning from and then being able to have the resources to package it up to then share it with the world at large. A lot of that being clients, prospective clients and prospective employees to show them look at the cool stuff that we're doing. Come join us so that you can push this envelope forward as well. I think that's um, a uh, good stamp. Uh, another one. I think that like in our uh, combined kind of client verticals, uh so to speak, they're, they're all. There's more similar like if you think about you know, education or B2B or financial services, like those sound like three completely different verticals and sure they are but at the end of the day there's a lot m more overlap and a lot more that's the same. That's not. For instance, they're all very highly considered purchases. Right. Um, a lot of times there is multiple Personas that you need to convince. So I think taking our um, design principles now, marketing performance, marketing principles, uh, across uh, the company and training our team across you know, verticals and across skill uh, sets I think is going to be going to make us just drive, you know, never before seen results for clients.

Speaker C: Yeah, you know I, I see kind of three and only three reasons why you would ever work with an agency. Um, but you know, one of the core reasons is you know we're platform agnostic so you know, versus Google where everything is at is a, you know, you're a hammer. Everything looks like a nail when you're Google. Right. The more solution, the solution is spend more on Google. We're platform agnostics so we grab all of those learnings across all of the platforms and so this will allow us to grab more of those learnings um, and make sure that we're passing those learnings on to our, to our clients. The other reason is we work with many clients as, as, as Arsham said, across many industries. So we can take learnings from this industry and apply it to this industry, um, which has actually really like we took some of our best practices for E commerce and brought them into education and saw you know, we were doing some of the first, you know, UGC in Edu, um, uh, a while back and you know, took off like wildfire. Right. And then the third reason is we have resources on staff that you can never have on a client side because um, you could never afford to just have a specialized person for that. So when you take this, we work with all the platforms, we work across multiple industries and we have resources. It creates this matrix in this cube that allows us to really have these specific case studies that are going to solve specific problems for you. Right. And so what Chris and Arsham are talking about is we're going to be able to share those with our clients, our prospective clients, even our employees to get them trained. And that is really exciting. The, the, the thing like on the side as a, as also a developer and a product guy, uh, I'm excited about and how I think we're going to be able to differentiate ourselves even further is you know, this idea of being an AI enabled organization, an AI first, uh, you know, performance marketing company. We've, we used to be a data first marketing company, uh, or a technology first performance marketing company. And you know, we've always used AI as soon as it's been available. Machine learning, uh, all of the different predictive modeling we've been using. I've been using it for 20 years. Right. Um, but I think it's going to be important to showcase that to our clients and have that scale and that ability to really uh, innovate quickly, you know, test, learn, grow with our clients and, and show those efficiency gains uh, across everything we do from you know, bid optimization, campaign management, campaign building, but also like project management and account management, you know, you know, how do we spend fewer hours, you know, organizing the work and more time doing the work. Right. And so you know, that's the other thing. We haven't really chatted about it but we're very like minded as organizations on how we can uh, know, really let those robots do the robot work and let the humans do the human work and become that AI enabled, you know, kind of cyborg, uh, performance marketing.

Speaker A: Love that.

Speaker D: I love that too. Yeah. And um, so AI is developing obviously really, really fast. We uh, have clients of two types. Some are uh, you know, very sort of Future forward and on the cutting edge, but the vast majority are not. And so like, you know, my mental framework is like the, the market, so to speak, can't, can't progress as quickly as the tech. And that's where I think we come in, is basically to hold our clients hands and be like, let's accelerate you up this curve. We have, um, some financial service clients who literally aren't allowed to use AI. Like a mere mention of the word AI in an email, you know, throws up red flags. So, so there's a, there's a broad spectrum and uh, and it's just, it's happening so quickly that like clients need somebody to you know, to kind of shepherd them. Right, yeah, to shepherd them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, so we work in regulated spaces. Education and financial services are regulated spaces. Um, it's difficult when, you know, healthcare, similar, um, healthcare has the greatest, will have the greatest, and has had the greatest impact through AI of any other organization. One of the most regulated spaces in the world. Right? And so it's not about, you know, and for me, I have this conversation a lot. It's not about, you know, how do we, how do we sneak AI in to what we're doing, it's how do we utilize the tools in a, in a regulated environment to unlock, you know, these superpowers that, that we can, we can unlock but still feel really confident, 100% confident, right, that it is fully, uh, compliant and fully within the regs. And actually what I've found is, you know, in a regulated environment, it's actually a lot easier to use AI because you know what regulations are, there are rules. And you know what, AI loves rules, right? And so it's actually a lot easier. And this is something that a lot of people don't think about. It's actually a lot easier to use AI uh, in regulated spaces because you can just say, here are all the rules, make sure you follow them, right? And in B2B, it's, there are no rules, you can do whatever you want. Uh, and so you have to create the rules. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for education. As Chris said earlier in the, in the, in the talk here, I think there's a lot of opportunity for education for all of our clients and saying, hey, this is what we can do. Um, and I think once people really understand, um, you know, what it is and what it isn't, you know, I do a talk on this, uh, all over the world, I talk about AI. Um, part of it is myth busting, right? Uh, there's a lot of myths. Um, and so, you know, I think once people understand what it is and what it isn't, we're going to have a lot of adoption. We want to be ready and we want to be, as Chris said, shepherding our clients towards that future. And so it's, uh, it's going to be a huge opportunity for all of us. And, and that's, you know, you guys have a great technology stack, a great set of technologists inside your organization. And so being able to combine that with our product and our data and our technology here, it's going to, it's going to really allow us to accelerate and really put that wood into that bonfire of technology innovation.

Speaker A: Nice. We're both building our own, you know, AI kind of enablement products right in our own, uh, orgs. So bring that, bring that wood together.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: Burn a bigger fire.

Speaker B: Want s'? Mores? After this conversation, I'll just talk about. So, as we move to wrap up our conversation today, uh, love to give each of you the mic to share some final thoughts. And we want to make sure the key takeaway here is for our employees and for the clients watching.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think. And for me, the moments that, like, kind of define careers, uh, you don't really know that you're in them when you're in them. Right. And they're, they're usually difficult moments or moments of, of change or moments of resilience. And, you know, anytime, you know, you're, you're talking about something like this, this is a transformational acquisition and merger for, for both organizations. And so, you know, this is a moment where there's going to be opportunity for people to step up and opportunity for careers to be changed for the better for across the entire organization. I think it's just really important to take a step back and understand what moment you're in right now. And sometimes you get through all of that and you don't even realize you were there. So, uh, it's not just a moment of opportunity, but appreciation and saying, hey, appreciate. This is a really exciting thing. This is a moment that doesn't happen too often in anyone's careers. So take a moment to be appreciative, uh, to understand where you are, um, and also kind of thank those around you that, uh, were really critical to that. Uh, on the level side, we have done a lot of work, uh, to make sure that this is the right, um, mode for us. We've worked with a lot of teams, our, our, uh, you know, financial backers at Dubin, Clark and a lot of lawyers, a lot of accountants, but also an internal team where it's. It's kind of their second job to, to, to now go in and talk to Chris and Arsham to. And the team to, to make sure that we understand what the business is. So I just like to thank everyone who, who did that. Um, and then I pass it over to Chris and Arsham, but also just want to thank both of you. You know, I, I know you both have young kids, you both have gone through a lot. Um, this wasn't on your roadmap. Uh, this is a second job. I've been there. I know what it is. So, um, you know, I've said to both of you, the, you, you, you have done gone through this process with grace, um, with benefit of the doubt, with positive attitudes. That's not easy to do. So thank you both. Um, and I'm sure you guys have a host of people you want to, you want to talk about.

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, Patrick. That's, uh, definitely resonates. Uh, I'm very. Just grateful to our team. You know, Chris mentioned earlier, we have lots of, uh, highly tenured people, so no way we would get to this kind of milestone, this moment without them. Very grateful for them and the positive attitudes and the resilience to change, um, and the hard work that they put in day in and day out. Um, I think when you talk about opportunities, uh, to capture opportunities and grow, I'm excited to see our team grow into this opportunity and capture some of that because it's definitely going to be there and I know from the past that they can do that. So excited to see that happen. Very grateful to our clients. Right. We've had some very long tenured clients. Um, it's, uh, we're in kind of the win, win quadrant with them and so everyone's winning and that's, that's great. That's how it should be. Always, uh, our community, uh, our vendors.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Like my family to allow me to do a podcast at this hour. Right. Um, but yeah, really excited for. You're right. Like, this is definitely career, uh, moment. So take a step back. Appreciate it. I'm excited to learn and grow myself. Right. So grateful to, um, all of the things in the past that have gotten us here, but also grateful to, you know, you, Patrick, you've been, uh, a good shepherd through this process, uh, Duke and Clark for making, uh, this possible and happening. And I think that, you know, future is just really bright. So put on your, on your shades.

Speaker D: Love it. Put on your shades. Um, grab some firewood. We want you to participate in the party. Uh, no, but I echo everything Sham said. I'm just, like, deeply grateful from the bottom of my heart for clients, you know, many, many clients who, uh, who have supported us and stuck with us year in, year out. Same with the team, you know? And, um, so gratitude and excitement. Uh, this. This. This is a moment. Like what Patrick was saying. This is definitely a moment. There's opportunities for everybody there for the taking. So let's get out and get it. You ain't seen nothing yet, baby.

Speaker A: Let's do it. Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: M. All right. That's a great note to end on. So thank the three of you for your time recording all this and looking forward to more conversations like this in the future.