From Warby Parker to Diapers.com: David Bell on Consumer Brand Success

Alex Rawlings: Welcome back to the Raw Selection private equity podcast. Joining us today is David Bell, ex Wharton professor of marketing and an early stage investor in consumer companies. Let's dive in. David, if you could share with us a brief insight to you, please.

David Bell: Yeah, brief insight. Well, I come from the end of the earth, a place called Invercargill down at the bottom of New Zealand and now live in New York City. So it's been an interesting uh, journey and uh, this might be fun for listeners. Um, when I was a kid I lived down the street from a guy called Burt Munro and Anthony Hopkins started a movie, uh, about that guy. It's called the World's Fastest Indian. It's about taking an Indian motorcycle, uh, from 1934, fixing it up and trying to race for the world land speed record in uh, the 60s. So it's very Kiwi because he was a tinkerer and he made this crappy old bike go really fast and I think the record still stands to this day. Yep.

Alex Rawlings: Um, so you've been very guys as you, various guys as you've worked as uh, Wharton as a professor on the marketing side and you've obviously been in, involved uh, in investing predominantly in an early stage kind of in consumer companies. So you've invested in companies like Warby Parker, uh, Harry's, um, jet2.com, diapers.com and seen that kind of journey of that business and obviously remained in those companies as they went through to, through related to liquidity events, I suppose. Let's just start with what first. I'm sure you've got plenty of um, skeletons in the closet of businesses that didn't work out. Let's focus on the ones that won. Um, what was it that first attracted you to these businesses to make the investments when they were uh, businesses nobody else had probably heard of?

David Bell: Yeah, that's a great question. So uh, I guess through the process of going to graduate school and doing a PhD and getting into academia, that kind of funnel, um, there was a whole cottage industry of people, Alex, who examined sort of barcode scanner and supermarkets, so product codes from Nielsen and so on. So um, you get an understanding of how like marketing actions like cutting prices, you know, promoting products, changing formulations, how it affects behavior. So I was kind of in that world. And um, when I first company I guess I really invested in was diapers.com and it was started by Mark Lore, who's a pretty prominent entrepreneur in New York City. He did, um, diapers.com sold to Amazon for 545 million. Then he did jet.com and now he has really interesting thing in food that I keep getting bigger. Jet was 3.3 billion. I think, uh, the wonder will eclipse that. So I think what really I liked about Diapers.com back in the day is he was solving a very fundamental problem for a parent. If you got to buy diapers, they're bulky, you've got to go to the supermarket, you might run out. Could you use the channel of the Internet to do that better? Um, I think a lot of great entrepreneurs in the consumer space ask a very general, simple question as they go about their daily life. What's wrong with the status quo? Why do I have to go to the supermarket and have this crappy experience to buy diapers? Why are my glasses so expensive? Why has my toothpaste changed for 50 years? I think when somebody nails a very fundamental question that's sort of visceral to them, um, that's enough to get me interested. And then of course you look at the person's ability to execute. How big is the market? But I think it all starts with like, what's the fundamental insight behind improving a product or a process in that case?

Alex Rawlings: And so the business obviously went through massive growth periods. And I've no doubt as an early stage investor you've followed them like a hawk with regards to what they're doing, why they're doing it, um, what's happy to dive into one or kind of generally all of them. What's the things that these guys did? Well, when maybe your other investments or other potential investments went around the wayside and we've never heard of them.

David Bell: Yeah, I think with consumer, you know, um, one, one place where they sometimes come unstuck and you know, we were talking offline a little bit before, so I actually really like the founders and the company. And being from New Zealand, one of the founders is a New Zealand football player. So it's a company that many of your listeners might know. It's called All Birds. You know, the kind of the funky merino wool shoes that had a big moment probably 10 or so years ago. You know, you take a playing to San Francisco, all the tech bros are wearing them and they were super comfortable. And so. And that company, you know, listed I think in 21 or 22, it's about $4 billion and it recently just sold for 39 million. So obviously a really precipitous decline. And again, it's, it's nothing to um, you know, say anything pejorative about the founders or the product or anything else. But I think it was an instance maybe where the company was, was over capitalized. You know, you had people coming in, investing in consumer companies and maybe giving founders a lot of money to spend it on customer acquisition and so on. So one thing from the vesting point of view in the consumer space in particular, where the upper limit is not going to be multiple tens of billions, it might be several hundred million, um, is to really look at a founder who's doing things in a very, very capital efficient way. Like the first customers you get, you're not paying for them. They love what you do. They talk about what you're doing. You're doing really innovative grassroots kind of stuff to build the momentum. So that's really important in consumer because you can't grow your way to like a massive, massive exit. Whereas if you're doing, you know, an AI company or you're doing Uber or Spotify, you know, you might land at 100 billion. So you can have, you know, you can have a few more bumps along the road, but consume you, you know, they're much more costly.

Alex Rawlings: And as they've scaled and as they've grown, what's been the bit that you know, from an early stage they have obviously clarity over the customers were they won them at a low cac, um basis I would guess from what you shared. And then they've obviously scaled and grow with that scale and growth. What's your take on why they've succeeded beyond obviously the founder, uh, and initial low customer acquisition cost and create those kind of raving fans?

David Bell: Yeah, it's a great question. I think, uh, one thing that's super important in consumer is just kind of showing up in every place that the customers are. So in the early days there was a notion of the direct to consumer movement which you and I starting a sock company and we sell them direct to consumers over the Internet. I think one of the missteps there was is that that's really a business model when in fact really all it is is a channel. It's not a model of doing business. And in order to really win with these consumer products, you need to perhaps have your own stores, you need to be in retail, you need to kind of embrace the full omnichannel experience that customers live in. And if you don't do that in a measured, sequential way and you don't grow it out, uh, you end up in real trouble. So I'll give you a real example with Harry's, right, so Harry's, um, you know, Prince Harry, maybe it's a good, good name. I know the guys that looked at hundreds of names before they, you know, landed on Harry's is that it's elevated but it's approachable. It's sort. So the razor company, right, uh, they're actually manufactured in the, in Germany. So those guys, uh, unlike most other companies in consumer which use contract manufacturing, they actually own their own manufacturing in Germany and they sell in the UK too. So they started out direct to consumer selling razors and blades over the Internet. Then they had little barber shops so people got a sense of what the brand meant in terms of a personality. But then the next step after that is to get into Target, into wholesale distribution. That's where you get the growth and scale and I think the playbook now for a basic consumer product that we might invest in, whether it's food or personal care or something like that is you'll have a direct to consumer piece. You've got to have a cool website and look good, great content. Maybe you drop exclusive product there but then once that's up and running, uh, you then want to get the Amazon flywheel going and get momentum there. And then the third piece, um, is to have a big footprint in the traditional supermarkets, retailers, drugstores, beauty stores. And once you achieve that third piece then you become very interesting to the strategics on the other end, whether it's Unilever, P&G, L', Oreal, Church& Dwight. Because what they have is they have the ability to really blow things up on a global basis through distribution. So sometimes the sequence is different, but playing in all three at some point is usually uh, a necessary condition for having a good exit. Um, uh, unless it's something very specific. So I was at a conference recently in New York saying is there any, anything out there where you could just make money by only doing it on the Internet? And sometimes there's the exception that proves the rule. So there was some dog food brands have got to 100 million sort of subscription. If you think about um, Gruns G R U N S was a big exit recently for over a billion. It's the little bags of, I have them there in my bag in the hotel. Little bags of gummies that you're getting your vitamins. Uh, that was mainly an Amazon and D2C business. So sometimes it happens. But generally you've got to have that really robust omnichannel footprint and it's obviously

Alex Rawlings: a very competitive world. Um, and we see even some of the well known names disappearing and whether that be in a retailer, consumer uh, products, whatever, um, type space. Is a lot of it down to that omnichannel work. Is it predominantly product related? Is it marketing related? Is it, you know, if we talk like from a threat, from an AI perspective and you know, obviously that's a benefit under and a threat for businesses depending on competition. But what do you see as why these companies don't reach their potential, why they don't get there? And I know there's going to be lots of different answers, but what's the common.

David Bell: Yeah, I, I think the ones that don't get there, you know, um, that maybe had a bit of like a marketing band aid. They didn't really have a strong value proposition, a real reason to exist. Maybe there was some sort of little bit of momentum in the culture or something like that that propelled them and then they just kind of faded away. And I think the ones that really endure. It sounds very touchy feely, particularly to an investing audience, but the ones that really get over the hump are the ones that build meaningful brands as well. So a good product is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. And so I'll share a little example that the audience might find fun. And if they've got kids, they're probably using the product. There's a brand called Touchland, just like Touch L A N D. And uh, really interesting founder actually from Barcelona who moved Miami, Andrea and her husband, um, Rugero. And what they did is they took, you know, very prosaic product, hand sanitizer, and they turned it into something cool, into a beauty product. And you know, you can't engineer for things like the pandemic. Obviously that gave a little bit of lift because people now take sanitizer with them. But if you compare that to Purell, which is also a brand worth a couple of billion, it's been around for a long time. Um, Purell has what I call functional value. Like it cleans your hand, but it's a little kind of gel goop, doesn't do much beyond that. But what Touchland layers in is it layers in emotional value. You feel kind of cool when you use it because it's got essential oils and nice fragrance is an important thing. And that also has symbolic value. So you go to the pub for lunch and you take out your watermelon. Touchland people, oh, that's kind of cool. And they spray it. And I always used to have fun when I'd speak at conferences with executives and so on. And I'd go out to Sephora on the lunch break and I'd come back with all this touchland and you see people from 35 to 55, they're smelling them, spraying them. Then you sell that product in the Beauty channel and then the conception of what it is changes, uh, dramatically. So you can imagine too during the pandemic, every man and his dog was making a sanitizer. So you had enormous competition. But that one, because of the cultural relevance, the brand, the depth of the content, all of those, the Disney collaborations, the crocs, that's what really made it stick. So a bit of a long answer. Uh, but I think the ones that I think really win and I think will continue to win, maybe even a technology, you've got to have a great brand. And that's all about the emotional and symbolic connection. As fluffy as that as that sounds.

Alex Rawlings: Sorry to interrupt. Just a quick mention of a long standing partnership with Grata. As you will probably know, uh, the private equity scene is constantly evolving and deal flow is moving now to proprietary and data driven processes. Grata provides you with the data and information of over 7 million private companies. So if you're looking to improve your proprietary deal flow and improve the data access, then reach out to Grata today. Now back to the podcast of the, of the companies that you've invested in. And I think this helps me personally as well as people listening. We talk a lot, we talk a lot about marketing and brand and when we look at things and brands vary kind of subjective and also knocks, we all go, oh, that's a good brand. I mean, you know, if we look at like raw selection. If you're going to start an executive search firm, don't call it something that sounds like dog food or what somebody told me it sounds like a porn channel. And I said that's probably says about you than it is about uh, my choice. But um, you know, we get feelings from names and you know Harry's is going to be. There's obviously an intent around that. Um, if you went Warby Parker, uh, you'd be like okay, sounds but it doesn't really tell me what it is type scenario. Google, you know, Amazon, obviously a big Goliath and therefore have a level of difference. But it all started at some point. Of the businesses that you've invested in, you've looked uh, at um, which ones had the best kind of fundamentals from a marketing and branding perspective. And what did that, and what does that mean when, when you say that?

David Bell: Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. So I'll give um, uh, I'll give I'll give three that are pretty accessible. So I think, you know, diapers.com uh, was a good brand, is actually part of a holding company called Quidsy. So Mark had a whole number of vertical websites that he created that were basically, um, non perishable stuff into your home m with great service and decent prices. Right. So you had diapers.com, saw your kids stuff, they have soap.com, which is your detergents and paper towels and stuff like that. So that case, you know, the brand name is literally very descriptive of what it is that you're doing. And I think there it works because, um, you're trying to convey to an audience that, you know, you're sort of a specialist in something. And what really amazed me about that business, Alex, is before Amazon bought the whole thing, we were outselling Amazon, um, about three to one in Pampers. I mean it's the same product, but somehow, you know, if you've got a kid, you say, well, that guy who's doing diapers.com, he probably knows more about diapers and kids than the sort of generalist over there, right? So in that commodity context, worked really well. Warby Parker, um, successful public company, now has over 300, uh, stores in the United States, uh, and some international stores as well. That's a really interesting brand because it's very American. So the Warby and the Parker is the first and last name of two characters from an unpublished book by Jack Kerouac, who's a very famous American author. He wrote on the Road about road tripping around America. And they really kind of leaned into that American aesthetic authenticity. On the website they used to have a bar chart that would say these guys over there, which is sort of the Loxotica monopoly, uh, that most people don't know. That's who's behind making the eyewear, licensing the brands, owning the Sunglass Hut. There was a very good 60 Minutes expose on it. Uh, it's kind of interesting. So you have the bar chart. Ours cost 25 to make. Theirs cost 25 to make. Our sell for 95 because it's a fair price for everybody. These guys are selling for 300 because they're adding in all this, this fluff because they own distribution and they're effectively ripping you off. So they kind of leaned into this idea of fairness. So in terms of a structure, there's many sort of textbook ways to do it, but I think, um, the one that we like, so it has a few steps. So you come up with a Name or a term or a symbol or a sign design. And then you try to put meaning into that over time to signal the quality that you have. You try to create cognitive associations. So Warby Parker did a really cool activation once they went into the New York Public Library. And I don't know if you and I would make a cut. We might. But they hired all these sort of handsome men and women to go in and sit in the public library. And they're all holding up these books. Alex. And the book will have a name like the Bentley or the Ridge or whatever. And on the outside of the book was actually a name of one of the frame styles that they offered. Right. And then that sort of thing went viral. It's kind of cool because it goes back to their heritage of, um, of being about books and reading and stuff like that. And then we had um, a yellow school bus, which is a very iconic American vehicle. Anyone who's ever watched an American movie or knows a bit about it's the New York Yellow cabs and it's the weird shaped kind of school bus. So there was something called the Warby Parker class trip where that thing rolled around the country and exposed people to the brand. So what you're doing over time is you're sort of building meaning and building narrative and then that sort of takes on a bit of a life of its own to once customers buy into it, um, that helps perpetuate it. And if you're doing. It's almost like you're almost thinking of it as like you're building a movie script or a narrative that's kind of feeding itself and becoming something that has meaning for your customers beyond just the value that you're offering and the product and um, the people that really do that. Well, uh, there's tremendous unlock there. And I think if you look at these various lists of top brands of the world, usually the top one's Apple. They're all products that, you know and they've just done something magical with the product and the customer relationship.

Alex Rawlings: Okay, interesting. I think you can sometimes look a bit, you know, from the outside in, from a fad perspective and ah, um, uh, you know, you think, okay, well they did this, did this. How much behind these guys thinking is the intent behind it? How much of it is it? Right place, right time, how much of it is? Okay, we've done a ton of research, ton of thought and this has kind of happened because I think as a consumer level you just kind of think things happen and you think, oh, they've Got fortune in there because of X and they got because of Y. But then when you look at the whole story thing, you go, well, actually, these guys are really thinking about what they're doing.

David Bell: Yeah, I think it's always a mix. There's always a little bit of serendipity comes into play. But again, since we, we mentioned, I'll go back to, um, Touchland, right. If you, if you walk around the supermarket, this would be a fun thing for anyone in the audience. Your next time you're in a supermarket or a drugstore just walking around, just look at some of the stuff and say, gee, um, that deodorant, it's been the same product for like 30 years and that toothpaste hasn't. There's a lot of stuff that's just legacy stuff that's not particularly good. Some of it even could be toxic, right? So now with your phone and AI, you know, you can scan some deli meat. Oh, my God, there's 15 different things in there. I better just eat prosciutto because it's like pork and salt, right? So people are becoming very aware, like, um, speaking to a great founder the other day, she's going after all the products that are sold for kids, right? And the first product she's hit on is, is to get rid of your hair. Lice. You're a little kid, you get lice, unfortunately, at school. Well, it turns out some of the legacy brands made by the big corporates, um, have neurotoxins in them at very low dosage. But if your kid had lice every day and you kept doing it, it could be very damaging. So there's just a general awareness that the products fundamentally could be bad. The names kind of suck. There's nothing about them. So I think the really good founders lean into a problem and then they try to layer up additional benefits. So with Touchland, you know, Purell cleans your hands, Touchland cleans your hands. But touch, that makes you feel good, also makes you look cool, and it helps you be part of the culture. And then just little nuances, you know, very thoughtful things about the design. So Touchland's design, so you can reach and pick it up with one hand and spray it. There's no cap to take off. You know, sounds trivial, but these little elements, it's a little bit almost goes back to, um, one of the books about Steve Jobs. I think he recalls this, um, encounter with his dad were making some sort of bookcase, and it was in the garage. And, you know, dad was Very careful to make like, the back of the bookcase. Had to be done perfectly. And, you know, Jobs is like, well, you know, why is that? Like, no one's going to see it. It's going to be up against the wall. He said, well, that's not the point. You know, the point is it has to be done well. So I think in consumer in particular, Alex, I think they're really good founders. It's like, obsessive attention, you know, to detail. Um, and it's these little tiny elements of design, color, scent, that people haven't thought about before. Once you bring it into the space. Um, I'll give it other examples. It's sort of a pretty legendary consumer entrepreneur in the United States. His name's Craig Tabitsky. And Craig's had three big swings. He did a brand called Eos, which was this lip balm stuff. And, um, every lip balm you buy, it's always long and skinny, like lipstick. And he's like, what if I made a round one, and the round one's kind of cool and make it pink and blue, and then they can date each other on Instagram, and it sounds so trivial. Then, um, he did a toothpaste brand called, uh, Hallow. And in the beginning, there was the black toothpaste because you've had a few wines for dinner or you drank coffee. So at night, the idea is your mouth's in a different state than when you wake up in the morning. So there's a black one for the night and the white one for the morning. Sold that for a few hundred million bucks to Colgate. And now, um, he did this exact thing that I was encouraging the audience. He was. He became, I think, like the chief creative officer after the liquidity event. And he just would go and wander around the store, and he's like, what's in the store? That's kind of crap. And he. He landed on coffee. Doesn't even really drink coffee, but it's like a $75 billion, uh, market. And now he's got a brand called Happy that he's doing with Robert Downey Jr. And it's just, you know, if you look at it, it's just something cool about the design. You know, the name's cool and, you know, so. So that's a guy that's really just kind of, you know, he's picked apart these things, and he's elevated the mundane. And I think that's what's really exciting about consumer entrepreneurship. And I think we'll see more and more of it with AI because you could take some silly idea that you had, you know, what if I should change the color of toilet paper and. Sounds ludicrous, but, you know, you could probably do it in a couple of days. Right. At least test it out.

Alex Rawlings: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. And, um, what's your, I mean, a bit of a broad question here, but what's your take on where, um, the consumer industry is at the moment? What's your take on where the threats are, where the opportunities are? Um, you know, how the lay of the land sits, uh, without getting kind of political on that front?

David Bell: Yeah, yeah. So I think one thing that's changed, you know, over the sort of, uh, 15 or even more years that I've been doing it, is there's been a little bit of reckoning around the financing and there's been, you know, some brands that were really hot, um, you know, Allbirds, Casper, actually they were great products, but just, you know, probably raised a little bit too much money and then had some difficulties on the, on the exit. So I think now there's kind of a notion of, boy, if it's a consumer brand, it has to be very well capitalized. And also you want the founder, right, to have a great outcome and retain most of the equity on the exit. So if you could get something stood up for, you know, a million bucks, seed money, and then maybe when it's ready to explode into retail, there's kind of a growth round and that's it. If you could do that. Um, there's another guy in the consumer space who's quite legendary for doing this. His name is Moise Ali. And what Moise did, he has a podcast focused, uh, on Exit. Uh, he was one of the first natural deodorant guys, Alex, when that was just a tiny category. He's like, why is everything aluminum and bad for me? And what if I. It's brand's called Native. And I think this is roughly right. Like he, with very little money, got that up to about 20 million in revenue, sold it for 100 million to P& G. And he accomplished that within a very short period, like two to three years. So, uh, if you'd given that guy 500k, the IRR on that investment's pretty good. He's also going to do well out of it. So people, I think have realized are the playbookers, like real capital efficiency. That's the first thing. And then I think the second thing that's different and interesting about the consumer space is I think some of the early successful things were probably about a parity product with just better customer experience. I wouldn't say the Harry's is a fundamentally better razor than Gillette. You can parody Gillette for going from 1 blade to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6. Like all the innovation, but it's still a pretty good product, right? Um, I think now in the consumer space there's a much higher bar to have genuine product innovation. You're a skincare brand with some real science and some real new ingredient, for example. So I think that's changed as well. I think people now, particularly because you've got these tools to figure out who's better A or B, that to win over the long run, you've actually got to have real product innovation as opposed to just go to market innovation. And if you can nail both of those and capital efficiency, those three things, you can have a great outcome for the consumer, for the investor, and also for the founding team.

Alex Rawlings: So what do you read? Watch. Listen to that. You recommend that others should check out, David?

David Bell: Yeah, it's a good question. So I read the typical big media, so poke around to the Wall Street Journal and economists and so on. I also like, um, I have a short form for the news. It's an app called Volv V O L V. So the news just fits, uh, on one screen. So I can sort of keep on top of what's going on in the culture. Um, and then I try and just follow, um, other investors that I think have interesting stories. I try to do my own sort of research. So the way we operate is we try to identify what we think of white spaces. So you could imagine, for example, now, um, there's a big wave around sort of health and wellness and so on. And so you're seeing in New York, for example, um, these brands like Bath House and uh, uh, what's the other one? Always forget. Well, okay, we'll go with Bathhouse. So you know, you go and you pay whatever, 75 bucks and you wander around in your, in your swim gear and you could sit in a hot tub and you can go into a steam room and a sauna and um, cold plunge. And it's just kind of, it's a physical space brand. But I think, you know, they're doing tens of millions of dollars in revenue because people are kind of seeking out to be healthy. There's a whole movement around sort of, you know, GLP1S is a big thing and kind of weight loss. Uh, people are thinking a lot about longevity. You know, how do I, you know, food is medicine. So trying to keep tabs on what are the fundamental sort of existential trends that products can tap into that have some real longevity to them. It's important. Um, and then I have a few um, branding and design agencies that I think do really good work. So I try and stay in touch with those folks. Like what are they seeing, what founders are approaching them. So I guess it's a number combination of media plus offline context plus a little bit of maybe having been an academic doing the desk research to see what's coming. And some things in consumer. These are kind of apocryphal stories, right? Like the guy who took Red Bull from being a Thai Thai. Ah, truck drivers to keep them awake at night. And then it became a global cultural thing around and all the amazing content around being extreme. Right. Like jumping out of planes, riding motorbikes. So there's interesting opportunities, I think for um. I don't want to use the word arbitrage, but I think every culture, every place in the world potentially can contribute something to a consumer ecosystem. So you think about Australia, right? Australians are known for being outdoors and they're out in the sun and this and that. Well, that's a natural place where you could build a great sort of sunscreen brand and bring that to the rest of the world. Like there's a brand called Ultraviolet. You know, it's two ladies in Australia. You can buy it in the uk, this cool brand. It's very high efficacy standards. You know, New Zealand may be known for, you know, fix and fog peanut, uh, butter because we got the best nuts and you know, dog food and God knows what. But, you know, so I think that's also the interesting thing about consumer. And it goes back to the days of Coca Cola. I mean man, if you study that thing, what a machine, that that product is distributed to every corner of corner of the globe. Right. So I think that's, that's also what's. What's interesting about this space.

Alex Rawlings: Yeah, I was listening to somebody m who was saying it's the only drink that can be in the highest end restaurant in the world to the, you know, the greasy spoon at the side of the road, um, it can just be drunk anywhere. It's like the only major real rival to water. It can be consumed at any level and no one goes, what are you drinking that for? Or did you get a Fanta and you're really home? Do you do Fanta? Um, sorry, Right, yeah.

David Bell: You're five years old, you know.

Alex Rawlings: Yeah. I mean, obviously owned by the same company anyway. But the. Yeah, how they've, how they've built that is, is an impressive. Um, and the old adage of Pepsi's got to be favorite in Nova. Do you get a Coke? No, but we don't do Coke. But is Pepsi okay? I bet Pepsi. Love that. Um, love that comment. Um, if anybody wishes to reach out to you, David, post this. How best to get in touch, please.

David Bell: Yeah, so a couple of places they can just, uh, find me on LinkedIn. So just David Bell, B L L Idea Farm Ventures. Or they can send me an email. It's just David. And then at Idea Farm, um, Ventures, just all one word. Always happy to hear from people and uh, chat about this kind of stuff.

Alex Rawlings: Well, thank you very much for, uh, coming onto the Private Equity podcast and sharing your insights into the consumer industry.

David Bell: It's, ah, a real pleasure. Thanks, Alex. Thanks for having me.

Alex Rawlings: And thank you very much to all our listeners yet again tuning into the Private Equity podcast. Till the next time, keep smashing it.