Ruben Naverette, Founder of Empowerpoints, talks about how they have grown their employee engagement tool to $3MN ARR with major customers like Starbucks.
- What Empowerpoints is all about
- How they’ve grown to 12 customers ( with 68000 users ), including Starbucks, doing approximately $3MN in ARR
- How they got their first customer while providing services to them through their development firm
- Why cold outreach didn’t really work for them & how they are betting on affiliate & white-labelling in the future
- Why they turned three acquisition offers & what’s their vision
- How they are completely bootstrapped
Transcript
But I do see an exit. Probably the team. I mean, we've been doing this a long time and I think the honeymoon is, is over. It's been over for a long time. Um, but I think that our goal is to, um, you know, we already had three organizations approach us this year for an acquisition mm-hmm. um, cuz they're looking to, to, you know, get, move into this space and we're an, we're an established player. Yeah. And we've turned those down, but we're not gonna be turning them down in two or three years.
Upendra Varma:Hello everyone. Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast. I'm your host, Today we have Ruben Nav with us. Ruben here runs a company called Empower Points. Hey, Ruben, welcome to the show.
Ruben Naverette:Thank you for having me. I'm pleased to be here.
Upendra Varma:Absolutely, Ruben. So let's, let's get started and let's try to understand what your company does and you know, why do customers pay you money?
Ruben Naverette:Sure. Well, and PowerPoints is all about employee engagement and one of the things that we do, really our core, you know, competency is that we help employees create a system where they can recognize reward, um, and, you know, take surveys with their employees just to keep them engaged. Alright. Uh,
Upendra Varma:makes sense. And who are you primarily selling this to?
Ruben Naverette:That's a great question. You know, and PowerPoints is so broad because it really applies to anybody who has employees. That said, we find ourselves mostly in insurance logistics and in the service industry.
Upendra Varma:Got it. Got it. And, uh, so, uh, just help me sort of, uh, complete the conversation on the product, right? So I want you to pick any of your, you know, uh, most ideal customer and just sort of walk us through, you know, how they sort of use your product and how they derive value from
Ruben Naverette:your product. Sure, yeah. You know, our most, uh, you know, ideal customer is somebody, you know, a business or an organization or a leadership to, um, you know, for that matter who really values their employees and wants to help make their experience better. And so it's all about elevating, you know, a, a good culture within the organization. And so our ideal customers really have an eye toward that, and not just, not just in a lip service way, but in a way where they really, genuinely want to. You know, their, you know, just their environment, their culture. And so they will, um, reach out to us and we will help them on, on many different levels, uh, with their culture.
Upendra Varma:All right. Uh, so let's talk about the pricing model and your business model here, right? Is it just the software that you're selling, right, which includes a bunch of features, or do you do anything apart?
Ruben Naverette:We do do other things apart from that, but everything is included in the price. So when you are, uh, in a PowerPoints customer, you'll pay a fee based on the feature set that you employ. So, you know, you have your basic, you know, recognition piece, and then if you want to add surveys and customer surveys and a wellness, You know, feature, of course that costs a little bit more. However, we do do a lot of consulting with our customers and we do a lot of advisory type of activities. We spend a lot of time with them going over their analytics and taking a look at their culture, and none of that is extra. All of that is included in their monthly price. Okay.
Upendra Varma:Okay. Uh, got it. So let's, let's talk about, you know, let's try to understand a bit about your customers and, you know, uh, customer base of it. Right? So how many customers do you have on your platform as of today? Approximate numbers Totally work, by
Ruben Naverette:the way. Oh, wow. It would be, you know, we have some, you know, we probably have about 12 really good core customers, and all of those are, you know, high employees. So we have thousands and thousands of users. Um, and that really resides within, you know, a small pool of customers that we really focus on. You know, we include some of our customers include Starbucks and Chick-fil-A stores, uh, you know, on that service industry end. And then we have everything from select health to large logistic firms who employ then thousands of people. All over. Yeah. So let's,
Upendra Varma:let's qu I, I got the sense, so let's quantify, like how many users do you have on your platform? I mean, total employees approximately?
Ruben Naverette:We probably have about, um, And I, you know, last I've looked probably about 68,000.
Upendra Varma:68,000. Mm-hmm. that's around 5,000 approximately. And an average per customer. Right. Exactly. Mm-hmm. that's pretty, uh, awesome. Right. So, and in terms of revenue, I mean, you can choose not to disclose it if you're not comfortable with, and just wanna get a sense of where you are as a company as of today.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah. You know, as a company, um, we are, You know, growing, of course we do about, um, just shy of 3 million a year. Mm-hmm. Um, so that is, um, I dunno what that breaks down to be about a month. And then per user, you know, we have our, um, you know, we have our, our card price and then we have different prices that we've negotiated with our various customers, depending upon mm-hmm. what types of, um, you know, what type of. You know, staff that they need or what type of of services they need. Yeah. And
Upendra Varma:okay, so I just, I just wanna understand your growth as well, right? So 12 months before, right. So where were you in terms of your revenue approximately?
Ruben Naverette:Um, we were probably, maybe, you know, we didn't grow a whole lot this year. That's a really good question. We thought we were gonna grow a lot. Out of Covid, but that didn't really materialize and primarily just because the sales cycle in SA is so long as you know. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so we, um, you know, coming outta Covid, we felt like there was gonna be a real, um, A real thirst and a hunger for employee engagement. And there is, but it just takes a long time for that to really hit your bottom line. And so I wouldn't say that we've grown, we've grown maybe 10% this year. Got it.
Upendra Varma:Alright. So there are a lot of things here to understand, right? So let's, let's sort of, uh, deep dive into your go-to market, you know, strategy and your journey so far. Right? I just wanna start at the top of funnel, right? So you've got around 12 customers, so you absolutely know where they come, where they came from, you know, what was that first touchpoint? So just walk us through, you know, that first, first couple of customers, right? So how did they sort of ended up, you know, becoming your customers? How did you know them? Right? What was the process like? So the, during those first 0 2 1
Ruben Naverette:journey. Okay. That's a great question. Well, our first customer came, um, as a result of the fact that we weren't even in PowerPoints. You know, we had a small software development firm and we were developing software for, for the banking industry. And, um, one of our large customers, which was at that time, MetLife came to us and said, we have a problem with, um, employee engagement in our, in our loan division, our home loan division. Um, and we were wondering if you could help us develop a small tool that we could pilot within one of our branche. and help us, you know, kind of understand why the employee environment was so toxic. And so we just started with that. And then when we built that tool, we, we retained ownership of a course. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was really successful and it really grew rapidly within that organization. And then we really focused on making that product work well in that organization. And then we slowly started branching out to similar organizations like. Mm-hmm. And you know, it, it is with any place, you know, employees, they'll work a place somewhere and then they'll go to another place and then they'll recommend us. So most of our stuff has come word of mouth. Mm-hmm. In fact, one of our large customers, uh, they just had an acquisition that's just taking place right now and we'll be bringing on 17 new companies, almost doubling our, you. Because of that word of mouth. Yeah. And, and so, you know, primarily that's where we found most of it's, we've met people, you know, at conferences, at workshops, and it's that personal relationship and connection that's helped us close deals. And so anything, any advice that I could give to people who are. In the SAS field is you really have to get out there mm-hmm. and, um, I mean, it's great to depend on, maybe it's Google Ads or some other approach that you're gonna take to, you know, bring people into the top end of your funnel. But we have found that the most effective way is to build relationships with the people, the customers that you see out there. Mm-hmm. the type of customers that you feel are important to you. And, and that is, I mean, I have to say, those relationships are the most important customers. Like I have a. Who, um, lives just, you know, across the way, and him and I talk all the time. He's a CEO of a, of a large credit union in our state. And, you know, they're coming on board as a customer, but it's about that relationship. So if you can be going to, if you can go to different mixers, uh, CEO events, um, events where your ideal customers are, attend those events and talk to.
Upendra Varma:Right. So, so you mentioned something right, that, you know, MetLife came to you to, so sort of solve their problem. Like who exactly was, was that you, right. So were you a firm, like what were you doing back then?
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, I had a little, you know, it was just me at that time and I had a little software development firm that I had, and this was a while back. This is back, back, back in like 2000. It's been some time now,
Upendra Varma:so it's been 13 years approximately since, since you got that first deal. Okay. Got sure.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah. But you know what, we had an exclusive deal with them for quite some, for a number of years because they were our first customer and because, um, we had developed the product for them, um, and I just had a small little, uh, software development firm and I had, you know, developers working for me that I was outsourcing to, and I was developing small little communications tools in the. Area didn't even see this coming, so,
Upendra Varma:so you were essentially building software and selling it to, you know, these banks, right. So essentially sort of outsourcing their development needs, something like that,
Ruben Naverette:sort of, yeah. They were at, you know, they were our customer. They were kind of our only customer and we were only developing software for them. Mm-hmm. Okay. So we were just u we, they were just using us as their shop to
Upendra Varma:develop. Yeah. It only made sense naturally. Right. So from that journey, you know, transitioning. So they naturally would come to you to sort of ask to build that product. Right. So that made sense. Exactly.
Ruben Naverette:Cause all of our, all the tools that we were developing for them were all based around communications. Mm-hmm. um, but they were, you know, tactile communications. Um, and, and so we. Then they just wanted to take it a little step further because they had a communication problem that was employee engagement and, and how communi, um, employees were engaging with one another. So we built a small peer-to-peer platform for them where p peers could recognize each other, and that's where it started.
Upendra Varma:Got it. Alright, so 2009, you got that first customer, right? So now you essentially built, you, you took that product. Now you got a nice product out there, right? So what happened after that? I know you mentioned networking and all of that stuff. When was that next? That you ended up listening?
Ruben Naverette:That's a really good question. Well, I think first, before we got the first customer, remember it was just me. Mm-hmm. and I realized I needed help on this. And so I brought on, um, a at that time he was a gonna be our coo, and then we brought in a ux UI guy and then we brought on a sales guy and I gave them equity. To partake, participate through the years. We eventually transitioned to where I took a backseat as the, the, um, chief Innovation Officer, and then our, who was firstly our coo, he became our c E O. So we swapped roles there a bit, just because I'm more on the creative end and he's more a leader. Mm-hmm. Um, which was a really good transition. Now in terms of our next customer came actually as a result of, I was on a. And there was a wine tasting on the cruise. And um, we were going around the table and people were asking, what do you do? And I said, oh, I have a little employee engagement customer, or an employee engagement, you know, company. Now granted at this time we only had one customer, so at that point then, The guy sitting next to me said, I have a logistics company and I need you, And we exchanged numbers and then he became a really good customer, still a customer to this day. So that was our second customer. And then we went into Google Ads. Mm-hmm. So we thought, how do we expand this? And so we started running Google ads and that's how we got Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A.
Upendra Varma:You got Starbucks from Google Ads.
Ruben Naverette:Yes we did. And we don't have like the big Starbucks, like the corporate Starbucks is. We started out with a couple of independently owned Starbucks, um, in Miami, Uhhuh And then once we, once we got, had our foot in the door and that company that owned that Starbucks also owned Chick-fil-A and Einstein Brothers Bagels. And they had a few stores in the Miami area. And then we just, um, Took that seriously and then, you know, took that forward.
Upendra Varma:Got it. So I wanna talk about the conversion funnel as well, right? What happens after, you know, let discuss here, but I just want to ask you one question, right? So like, it's been almost 12, 13 years, and you're saying you got it on 12, obviously very big customers, right? So why is that number so low? Was that strategic? Or, you know, like, because you, you had all of these top of funnel potential channels, right? So why, why is that number looking so low for me? Obviously the revenue is still higher. Just wanna understand the backstory.
Ruben Naverette:It's looking so low because this is a very difficult process. Mm-hmm. like probably about, um, uh, to a magnitude of a hundred, you know, more difficult than we anticipated. Okay. We've, uh, we're kind of on our third salesperson, you know, our head of sales right now. The sales cycles are so tough. Um, you know, employee engagement is a want to have, not a need to have. Mm-hmm. And so it's really important that customers see their pain points. It's an extra expenditure kind of, that they don't see as a necessity so much. It's, it's somewhat of a competitive marketplace right now, so we're competing often against going up against some really big players in the space who, who do things well. I mean, and we do everything well too, but, um, so that, I mean, there's just been a confluence of factors. We've tried a lot of things, you know, in. This year we tried a cold outreach program. We invested a lot of money into a big cold outreach system. We had, um, Salesforce, high velocity sales plugged in, ready to go, and, um, we had, we hired a firm to come out and do a cold outreach with phone calls and emails. We bought Zoom info so that we could get their intelligent, um, data. We did all that and didn't really make any traction with that. So what,
Upendra Varma:so why is it so, like, I just wanna understand it so you. You send a bunch of cold emails to the relevant persons, right? Something's gotta happen. I know. I mean, it might not be 10%, but you've gotta have some, some percentage of them sort of expressing interest. Right. So what didn't work out there? Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Well, what happened is, you know, because of our ideal customers, like a higher number of employees mm-hmm. it's not like, you know, um, a mom and pop place that has 20 employees where they can make quick decisions. Mm-hmm. what happens is you have large organizations and you're offering enterprise level software, and you have to jump through a million hoops in order to close those deals. Yeah. Those deals are significantly harder to close than smaller deals. I'll tell you what, the deals that we did for Starbucks and Chick-fil-A because. Smaller organizations really on the ground in terms of we were doing store by store, were easier to close. um, than some of these companies that you've never heard of. Mm-hmm. just because these companies operate, they have a lot of, you know, when you operate on the security, on the, um, enterprise level, you have a lot of security, you know, hoops that we have to jump through. A lot of vetting that has to happen and there's just, it's just brutal. Yeah. And you know, that's probably
Upendra Varma:one question. Is it a project thing that you really. Don't wanna sell to, you know, uh, customers of, you know, smaller number of employees, customer, or is, is it really producting that your product only makes sense for companies? There's a lot of employees. It
Ruben Naverette:really, we found that it only makes sense for large organizations who really can execute a system and a program of this type. Mm-hmm. Um, simply it does work in smaller organizations. It, it needs synergy. Yeah. This kind of thing needs synergy and for there to be a lot of people on board. And so we've been o you know, marginally successful, you know, in smaller organizations, but we found that our churn is much higher in smaller organizations than it is in our larger organizations. Our larger organizations. Those relationships last years. Yeah. and at some point, you know, we're getting to decades now. Yeah. Whereas some of those smaller ones, they don't make as much money. The churn is higher, they're more maintenance, more customization for fewer people and for fewer dollars. So, so it's really, you know, our sweet spot really is actually, is kind of between, you know, 300 employees and 2,500. And that's really a sweet spot for us. Yeah, I mean, we're just, we're bringing on our organization of 4,000 here pretty soon, but, you know, which will be a challenge, but
Upendra Varma:yeah. Yeah. So, so talk about the sales cycle, right? So you mentioned it's really, really tough to sort of close those deals, right? So, so how does the sales cycle look like as a pretty, how much time does it take? for that, you know, lead to get converted to a customer, for example.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, good question. Well, usually the sales cycle starts out with some kind of a cold outreach or some kind of inquiry that comes in. Mm-hmm. And then what we'll do is we'll immediately go into what we call, uh, our initial discovery, and that's where we have a conversation with the customer, the potential customer, and find out what are their needs. Because our product is really broad and it, we can customize it down pretty narrowly. So it's really important that we understand what. So once we get an understanding of that, once we have that discovery meeting, then we usually schedule another meeting. If, if it's a good fit with, you know, more stakeholders within the organization. And it's at that point that we'll do an en entire custom build. It's like a demo. Build that with their colors, their theme, and then we'll take them through that. Now, that usually takes around, you know, sometimes. Two or three or four, uh, different demos that we'll have to do as different people within the organization take a look at the organiz, uh, after to think. Then we'll get to the quoting phase, and then we negotiate that. Then we have to get a con, you know, a contract in place, and then it has to go through a legal process. And then once that, you know, once that's all been done and everyone's signed on the dollar line, then we can begin with our implementation. And
Upendra Varma:approximately how much time does this take on average from that initial point?
Ruben Naverette:Okay, that's, uh, on average it's probably about four to six months for us. Mm-hmm. got
Upendra Varma:it. It's not fast. Yeah. Obviously it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. So, so I wanna understand your deal win rate. For example, tomorrow if I bring in, bring in, let's say a hundred, you know, cus a hundred sort of leads to you, right? Mm-hmm. So how does the CU deal win rate look like? Right? How many of them actually do you end up converting to, uh, paid?
Ruben Naverette:Um, I would say like, you know, we are conversion rate. Um, that's a really tough one. I'm just trying to think of what it was this year. So, so yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So yeah, I would say that, you know, two outta 10 maybe. Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:Yeah. So, yeah. So my next question naturally is like, if I pour in more leads in into that funnel, can you, can you still maintain that 20% conversion rate?
Ruben Naverette:I think we would actually probably improve on that just because as you go, you learn. Mm-hmm. you know, as you have more at bat, you do, you know, you do learn better. Mm-hmm. And so I think that we would, um, I, I think, I think so. Yeah. I think we, yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, so if, if that is true. Right. My next question obviously is basically you've got a bunch of companies, obviously I think you must have that big a network that you can just even handpick these customers, right? So tomorrow you could just pick these 50 odd customers, right? Is the path from 12 customers, so let's say 20 or 50. Is it, is it an easy one? Is it as simple as saying, okay, let's, let's just pour them into the funnel and we'll end up converting them, or is it not? Well, I
Ruben Naverette:wish we could do that. I wish we could just go out and grab people and put 'em in the funnel. And
Upendra Varma:what's stopping that? What's, what's, what's really the hurdle there?
Ruben Naverette:what's stopping that is, you know, finding that those people to put in the funnel. Once we get 'em in the funnel, then we're good. But finding, you know, organizations that are number one, open to what you have to present. Mm-hmm. have the budget for it, have the appetite for it. Have also the philosophy behind, um, the whole idea as employee engagement and paying money to help workers work harder when you're already paying them money and then giving. Like gift cards and things like that and spending that extra money, that's a real hard sell in today's business, especially with the recession. And so finding those people who are like willing to take a meeting. and who are like in that space, you know? And also, here's another real interesting point. We start often with HR departments. Mm-hmm. And that's kind of where a lot of this begins. And that's a real hard place to start because they're so busy, they're so overwhelmed, they're slammed. Especially this time of year with open enrollment and things like that, you can't even get a meeting. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's a real challenge. And so we've. All kinds of different things. And this next year we're doing an affiliate program, um, and we're doing an ambassador program. So we're in, we're gonna invest in, um, some new ways and some new things. We're always looking at new things to do, and one of the things we're also thinking about doing is some, um, what they call, um, Was it user generated content where some of our users we're gonna, you know, offer them a really significant commission to, you know, put content out there for us. So we've got a couple creative things up our sleeves that we're gonna try cuz we just haven't Ha we've not had much luck with the cold outreach and we've had good luck with, um, Google ads and so we're gonna start, we're gonna put an some new money into that this next. we put all of our money into cold outreach this year and we're, we're, we're stepping away from that. Mm-hmm. And we might keep a little bit on that cuz that, you know, does path marginally, but we have to try other things.
Upendra Varma:So what does your gut say? You, right. So which of these investments that you're gonna make, right, which of them are actually going to take you from let's say 3 million to 10 million?
Ruben Naverette:I don't think it's Google Ads. Mm-hmm. I'll say that. But I think that what's gonna take us there is going to be, um, some sort of affiliate program. Where we pay a really high commission. And then we also, um, you know, get some influences out there who love our product and who promote it with some kind of user generated content. that's what I think is gonna get us there. Just because I, I, I've noticed that that's really a, a direction people are going and a lot of people are looking for ways in which to earn money. Mm-hmm. And so why not, you know,
Upendra Varma:put a, the, the whole point of affiliate marketing makes sense. But the question is, does it apply really to you because you are targeting, uh, Companies with 300, 500 employees. Right? So who exactly are you trying to convince here that your product is going to make sense for you through, through your affiliates?
Ruben Naverette:Yeah. That, yeah, that's a great question. Well, are you familiar with Sensei, the candle maker? Uh, no. Um, they have an amazing affiliate program and what they, why that makes sense for us is because we are gonna associate our pro, our, our PowerPoints with the ability for, uh, uh, an individual person to, to make it their own. Sort of like being able to go, okay, I'm now in the business. You know, your mom could now be in the business of employee engagement. Mm-hmm. she could build a business on our platform. She could earn an income, she could have a career. You know, not, it's not just an affiliate program. And I said affiliate program, but really what I mean is our ambassador program where you could build your own business within PowerPoints you can be the representative you're
Upendra Varma:talking about white labeling it, essentially changing the name of it. Oh,
Ruben Naverette:a little bit. It's sort of like a little bit of a hybrid in, in terms of white labeling it. And yes, they do have that ability to do. um, we're really gonna focus more on them being part of the PowerPoints family and empowering them to build their own business in that direction. I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are looking for non unconventional ways to make money, and PowerPoints is such that, you know, we've bootstrapped it the whole way. Mm-hmm. so we don't have any debt. and we don't have any DC money. Um, and so it's all paid for it.
Upendra Varma:That's that's awesome. Yeah.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah. So, I mean, and the product is built and it's been, you know, running for the last 10 years. So it's been, it's it's battle worn. Um, it's not going away. It's not fragile. Mm-hmm. it's not gonna break. Um, so we've been through all of that. So now we just have a product that we can sell. And because there's high margins on it, we. You know, leverage that with some kind of an ambassador program. All
Upendra Varma:right, so Ruben, one last question. Right. So what's the future here? Right? So, I mean, you've both traveled it amazingly. You, you've got, you reached up to that 3 million r mark, right? So what's gonna happen in the next five, 10 years? Right? So what's, what's the vision here?
Ruben Naverette:I do think the vision is for, you know, we've had a really good time building the product and we believe in, in PowerPoints, and we believe in the mission of the organization as a whole. But I do see an exit. Probably the team. I mean, we've been doing this a long time and I think the honeymoon is, is over. It's been over for a long time. Um, but I think that our goal is to, um, you know, we already had three organizations approach us this year for an acquisition mm-hmm. um, cuz they're looking to, to, you know, get, move into this space and we're an, we're an established player. Yeah. And we've turned those down, but we're not gonna be turning them down in two or three years. Don't say that. So, so
Upendra Varma:what, so again, this is, it's very interesting, right? Why did you turn them right? Is it, is it the valuation?
Ruben Naverette:Um, well, yeah, that's a great question because we really felt like there was still gas enough in our tank mm-hmm. that we could ride this out and make the company more valuable with more customers over a period of time. Whereas we felt like if we sold now, sure we would get a really good payout, but we didn't feel like it would be what it could. If we put a little more, a couple more years into it and really went hard. So
Upendra Varma:we really, yeah. So were these, you know, acquirers were, uh, is, was that an, uh, was that supposed to be a strategic acquisition? Like they wanna take your product and then a good, they wanna do something else with it? Or are they just looking at you as a simple, you know, uh, high margin business that they could just run and put it on our auto pilot something? No, one
Ruben Naverette:of 'em was really looking to accentuate their existing tools because they had, they had a limited, they had you. A, a basic system and ours was mature. Mm-hmm. And so they were looking to add a lot of features. Like some of the things that we do is we're integrated with Ticketmaster Best Buy, you know, Travelocity and stuff like that. So we have all these other things that are integrated in our system that just came over years through maturity. And it was a newer company and so they were looking at a ways to expand and add features quickly. Another organization had a lot of, had huge. With a, a aspect of our, our, our, um, our system that made them money. Mm-hmm. And so they were not even in this space and they wanted to leverage that. They wanted to own our organization because they felt like, well, they had another thing going on. They were getting some big national customers and they knew that our, our tool, um, really made them money significantly. And so they wanted to acquire that cuz they wanted to make sure that the tool was always gonna be in. and they wouldn't lose. Mm-hmm. um, when they expanded into those other customers. So there were weird reasons why. Yeah.
Upendra Varma:You know, makes sense. Makes sense. So in couple of years, right? Is is it gonna be that, you know, what, what's the Northstar here? So what are you aiming? Is it that growth rate or is it, you know, increasing the number of customers and revenue? So what exactly are
Ruben Naverette:you looking at? It's increasing that revenue because that's going to give us the biggest payout. And we really feel like with where we are now and how we've grown over the last couple of years, and. The different things that we, what we're looking for really is we're looking for something that where we can scale in terms of, you know, growth. Mm-hmm. And we really haven't found that yet. I mean, Google ads have been okay. Facebook ads, total fail content on LinkedIn, not so much. I mean, we've tried, I mean, you know, it's cold outreach, not so good. We're gonna try a few other things cuz if we find something that we can really scale growth, if we find something that we know is just like a, a. Machine that we can put things in and get stuff out and we can guarantee and we can do those numbers, then we can scale in such a fashion that in two years time, you know, we're we three or four times what we are now, that's the goal and we feel like it's out there and we haven't found it yet.
Upendra Varma:Got it. Alright, Ruben, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I hope you're scaling PowerPoint. Thank you so much. Much greater heights.
Ruben Naverette:Yeah, thank you so much. It was great talking to you. Yeah.