How to Level Up Your Business as a CEO and Founder - Featuring Kristi Hagen

Get in touch with Kristi by emailing her at kristi@roadproof.com.
Start your RoadProof demo here.

Owning a business is a challenge. Knowing how to keep innovating in your business is an even bigger one. Join restaurant owner, motivational speaker, and innovation expert Sara Frasca each week as she guides fellow business owners in taking the next step to level up their business. If you've ever pondered hiring a business coach but want a sample first, come along for the adventure!

Sara Frasca is the founder and owner of Trasca & Co Eatery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, an experienced and engaging motivational speaker, and the CEO of global business coaching firm Point NorthEast.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

You're listening to level up your business, the podcast where we talk to hardworking business owners and leaders and help them solve real issues in real time. I'm your host, Sarah Frasca restaurant owner, keynote speaker and business coach. I've spent my career not only in corporate America, but also as an entrepreneur, carrying on my family's legacy through my restaurant. Now a business coach and consultant, I'm helping other businesses to use creative problem solving and innovative thinking to drive lasting change. Stay tuned to hear some inspiring guidance that will help you to level up your business. There was actually yesterday's. Okay? Yeah. Well, hi, Christy, and welcome to the level up your business podcast. Thank you for having me, I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for being on with us. And, you know, it's really been fun to get to know you. And to get to know your business. I think you are such a visionary and have used kind of technology and your creative problem solving to build a business. And we'll get into that in just a little bit. But it was really fun to be connected to you. So thanks again for sharing your passion, your energy, and I'm excited for you to tell our listeners what the heck you do. Yeah, now me too. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Yes, great. Well, as we always do, we kind of start a little bit with what is your business? What did you build? And how did you do it? So a little bit of a combination of your past? And tell us what your business is all about? And so that's just a small question, right? Tell me everything. And one card actually could take the whole hour. So you just Hello. All right, I will jump to the short of it. I am the CEO and founder of a company called Road proof. What road proof does is that we have official relationships with the Department of Transportation and other camera providers. And we archive and index the traffic cameras across the United States. And we do that originally, actually it started out is that I also am the CEO and founder of an internet marketing agency, and I specialize and service businesses. And due to my background, I have mostly personal injury clients. So personal injury firms. And, you know, traffic camera video is notoriously hard to get a hold of, and having that kind of evidence can really make the difference to clients, injured people. And so I found a hole in the market. And my team was creative and hardworking, and we filled that role. So that's basically the problem that we solved. And so a lot of our clients on road proof, our personal injury firms, but we also work with Rideshare, and insurance companies, and basically any professional business is a b2b business platform. That's literally for video evidence of car accident cases. That's great. And how many of the 50 states are you in at this point? I'm at 22. We have over 23,000 cameras. And on our platform, we have 16,000 virtual weather stations as well. So we're also bringing in weather. It's it's definitely growing from an idea to a reality it has grown very rapidly. It's great. Yeah. And I mean, I think again, my my comment of just how innovative you've been, you saw an issue. Yeah. And you built the solution to solve that problem. And I just, I commend you, because I think it's a big deal. Yeah, and I can say that, right? When you look back on it, you're like, Wow, big issue, big solution. But with anybody who's kind of got that entrepreneur mindset, you see, and you see a problem with one client or one business and you think is this common with more of my clients? And you think, yeah, this is, and so you create the solution, very small, and then scale out. So it's just that you look at the big picture, you think, how does somebody ever create such a big thing, and it's just really just solving one small problem. So but it was I was really surprised when we got into this, that there wasn't a solution already in place. But the more you know, research and experience and just really digging into the industry, I've realized a lot of the answers of why there was a solution to that problem yet. I mean, we've got an overtaxed infrastructure. It takes a lot of commitment. There's it's just really an interesting issue. So I was kind of surprised Sir, I went hunting and couldn't find an answer. You know, it's, it's, again, it's one of those topics that it seems overwhelming like how on earth, we go out and canvass the country and get access to the camera that's on the, you know, highway or the intersection. So will you talk a little bit about just kind of the process of working with the governmental agencies? And I mean, was it, I can imagine it being kind of difficult. And, you know, I mean, when it comes to getting footage, the traditional way is you make a FOIA request, which is a Freedom of Information Act, and you go, and you submit that to your government agency, the DOD, whoever's in charge of those cameras. And most of the time, what law firms were quickly finding out is that they weren't having very much success. So this whole process of doing a FOIA request, and then you wait, and you wait, you don't know if you actually have footage, or if there's even a camera there or anything else. And the reason why that is, is because the department's of transportation are very taxed to like I said, and most of them don't even record the video, for a lot of reasons, one of which is expense in the infrastructure would take the manpower it would take and things like that the states that do record, don't keep that recording for long, some of them are a week, some of them for a couple of weeks. And so that's a really short window to try to try to grab that. And the reason again, is, is time and money. It's we're talking about petabytes of data, so massive amounts of servers and storage space. And like I said, infrastructure, so it made a lot of sense of why there wasn't a solution in place. And again, when you asked about why or how it is working with departments of transportations and different entities that are camera providers, it's how you would think it would be it's a, it's a lot of overworked people just working as hard as they can doing the best they can. very cooperative. So we definitely had a lot of so they were filling a need that they also needed was in place. Sure. And so that really made a big difference. We've also been able to work with police departments, we're opening up our platform to like the homicide automobile homicide department. So we're given we're a resource to those those entities that they need without asking for additional budget without asking for, you know, more manpower in their building. So it's been really, really rewarding in a surprising way. Can you give me kind of like, what, what is the most typical request? Like, what is the, like, kind of usage of your technology materials? Yeah. So regardless, if it's a personal injury, if it's an entity, it's an insurance company doesn't matter. They say, Okay, I have an accident, do you have video, and what we need to do to look for that is we need the time of the accident, the date of the look of the accident and the location of the accident. That's it. So we're not asking for any personal identifying information. Most of these cameras, I would say, actually, let me restate that all of the cameras that are on the roads, these days that have video available, none of them have a resolution that's good enough to capture faces, or license plates are anything that's universal identifying information, you can make out making models of vehicles, things like that, but not anything else. So in order for our clients, or the people who are using our system, the businesses that are using our system, we just need to know time, date and location of the accident. And then we can query our system and find video evidence either of the actual incident itself or aftermath footage. Because these cameras are actually on a 360 degree rotation and they can zoom in. And so if they don't catch the crash itself, or the the incident on the highway itself, they'll turn and look at the incident. And so then you get like the layout of the aftermath where the vehicles are sitting and things like that. And anybody who's in personal injury or in any of that kind of side of of the industry over there knows how much money and time and energy they spend trying to figure out what happened because even people who the accident happened to it happened to them. So they are just witnesses and really unreliable because they don't actually know what happened there there. It happened. Like they didn't get a good view witnesses can be unreliable. So I spend a lot of time and money on accident scene reconstruction, and investigators to try to figure out what happened who's at fault and In a lot of cases, how can we make sure this doesn't happen again? And so having that aftermath footage, you know, half an hour, the video of itself, you just know what happened. It's right there in front of you. So, so typical people are just businesses looking to figure out what happened in a car accident. Okay? And is it only highways that the cameras are located? Mostly, it is interstates and highways, as we've been working with the larger D O T's and getting this big entities, those camera coverage, we are breaking down into the smaller areas, more intersections and things like that. It's just a massive undertaking. And so we kind of went with the big systems first. But there's a lot more systems out there. And a lot of our clients to our personal injury clients will say, Hey, I'm in this area. And I know exactly where these cameras who manages them and what entity who you can speak to there. And so they are advocates for us a lot of times or they're working within the government agencies themselves, and they're saying, hey, let's, let's get our cameras onto this platform so that we can leverage the system as well. So it's, it's been a very interesting approach, because our clients are very proactive because they want this to. So how did they leverage it? Is it like a monthly retainer, and they have access to as many as they want? Or is it like each file each video is a certain price? How have you priced it? Um, well, it kind of depends on the usage. So enterprise level versus like a small, you know, boutique law firm, they'll have we have different, you know, ways that you can approach the system and get on the system. Um, you can either submit your case, in a do a search query, which we just have a one time fee for a law firm or cost $47. You put in this, like the details I told you about the time the data location, you can submit the police report if you want to, but just give us some details. There's an interactive map when you put in the location, so you can make sure your pins in the right spot. And that interactive map also shows what cameras are close by. So you can you don't have to blindly submit that search, you could say you know what this is close to a camera, I want to I want to do that. And then our team of experts scours our system, finds all the videos, aftermath, all of that we bundle it all up, and then we push it back to the law firm. And typically, when we do that, we charge $297 for a video package. So it's, it's very, very affordable. I mean, we just wanted to make it available to as many law firms as we could. And then we also have the ability, depending on your usage to get into the system and search yourself to different ways of doing it. So it's it really just depends on how, how people want to use it. Yeah. And it's great. I mean, I think it's, again, just a really brilliant way for people to gain access to something that again, seems unwieldy, or just, you know, overwhelmingly complicated. Tell me a little bit about your business. So you built the team with a group, if I remember correctly from Yeah, conversation. Yeah. Yeah. The evolution of your of your team? Well, that's yeah, that's kind of interesting. So I started out, I've been actually doing internet marketing, sort of as a research analyst, like 20 years ago, I say that it used to feel like, I don't like that number keeps creeping up, but 20 years ago, so as a research analyst, and internet marketing is studying search engine algorithms, right. And so I was very much on the cutting edge watching everything that everyone did Google, all that stuff. And my job was to interpret what happened and then explain how businesses could make money with these changes on the internet. And so of course, being on the kind of the cutting edge of that, who were some of my favorite listeners, readers, personal injury, associate, you know, marketing associations. So that's how I got connected to the personal injury. And I also was had the privilege to work with some really talented people in online, really talented developers, really talented. Teams, things like that, because I was always looking for the best to interview to say, Okay, look what you're doing. You're better than everyone else. Tell me how you're making money. Tell me how you're doing that. And so I have this really great network of people who were the best and then we work together on stuff. Well, I launched my marketing agency about four years ago. And I kind of said, Hey, does anybody want to do this with me? And I was very humbled by the quality of the people who were like, Yeah, I do. I do. And so We launched my marketing agency, and we were just loving life and doing our thing. But we wanted to build something, not just the marketing agency that, you know, has my name on, it's Christie Jane. But we wanted to do something, you know, it's kind of like three, my two core team members, partners, you know, they were like, Let's do something, let's build something together. It's like, okay, so we, you know, all dreamy eyed everything? Sure, let's just make a business, you know. And so we started a company called knw labs. So and my two partners are Matt and Wes. And I'm Christy. So very creative, right? Right off the bat, we were just like we but we didn't know what we wanted to do. We just knew we wanted to work together and work together on something that we owned, and that we could just kind of make it like a side gig and something that, you know, because we're very creative, talented people, we can do this, my team is a brilliant, so I'm like, Okay, I five, three weeks later, this Opportunity landed on my desk or this idea. And I was like, Oh, hey, you guys, do you want to build this? And, you know, Matt is our wizard developer. And he's like, I can build this. And you know, Wes does branding and graphics and all of that stuff. And he's like, I can design it and brand it. And I was like, Well, I can sell it. And so we started down this path. But we had no idea that this little funny side business would take would turn into what it turned into. Because we were just like, well, sure, let's see if we can build this thing. And then a couple now we're two years in, and it's definitely surpassing the marketing agency as far as becoming a life of its own. So much so that Matt and Wes have had to step into road proof, which is owned by kW labs full time. And so in out of the marketing, wow. So it's been a really big growth moment, we're really started out with just people who love working together, building and growing, and then having an idea, and I think that really is a is important, if you're going to create something is that it's the who you're creating it with is almost more important than what you're creating, because you could have the best idea in the world. But if you don't have the right team, you know, all passionately pushing forward, you're in an uphill battle, it's gonna cost you way more time and money than if you really get your team together, and then decide, okay, look, we're going to do this. So that was really, really blast. That's great. I mean, I think, how many people do you have now that are a part of real proof? I'm just curious. About a dozen about, okay, yeah, we've kept it real small. But that's the thing about the system is that it's really user driven. But you know, we have the experts who do the searches, the search assists to go out and not, you know, scour platform for things like that. And so there's a human element. We are working with other ways to automate. But the funny thing is, is is great as AI is to identify lots of stuff like we're developing an AI to help see during an incident, how fast vehicles were going and things like that. But when it comes to actually finding videos, for these incidences, we realizing very quickly that humans are absolutely necessary, because human behavior is so unpredictable that it truly takes a human to find. Finally, these incidences as far as like the really high accuracy of it, yeah. So there's a human element behind fraud proof, but we're all USA US based. And yeah, it's been a really great adventure so far. That's great. So what's next for road proof? Um, you know, I think that's a hard question to answer because there's a lot of opportunity. I'm really what we're focused on now is getting more cameras into our system, getting more users onto our system, and things like that. But we are also when I was tapping into like the AI side of it. There's a lot of important data. So when I, when I said before, right, it's hard to get this video where the truth is, most of this video in this information is not being captured at all before we came in. So this isn't the only place that you can get this video and this this information, in most cases, so I'm saying 80% of the time, you can only get this video from our platform. And what we found out besides the fact videos for evidence for car accidents and different incidences, a lot of this in some of our roadways are notoriously unsafe, but we can't learn and improve our roadways unless we're capturing the data to truly analyze it and make better decisions going forward. And that's one of the things that we're really seeing with the D O T's and things is that they're also eager to make roadways safer. They're eager to and make dry, you know, things less congested, just less problems on the roadway. And so being able to capture this data and put it into this big data lake is kind of is what we call it. And being able to analyze it for improvements in the future, I think is really where the future of of our data will go. Because in order to train true good, a eyes and machine learning and things like that, you need a lot of data. And so we're capturing that data. And it's really, you know, the entities capturing the interest of colleges and things like that, because they want to train and, and tap into this data for, for more solutions for safer highways in the future. It's great. I mean, I'm thinking of, and I was traveling this week, so I was, you know, headed to the airport, and they're doing construction, and so nothing is marked any longer. And I was, I turned off on the wrong road. And then I had to turn around, and I was thinking, I can't be the only one that's doing this, right, this is crazy. And the, you know, ability to kind of monitor that at a macro level and see the patterns, I can see that being very effective. So that signage is improved, or they can see which intersections are causing the most incidents or so I mean, I think it's fantastic, it seems to me like, it's another great use of big data. Yes, but it's, it's video, you know, or pictures or. And so it just again, it seems so unwieldy to me, but I'm sure that you've built the system that can start to track it and understand it. And yeah, so I mean, you got like, emergency response times the process is there's a lot of processes and things in place that have that are very good, that have been improving year over year, with all the different city levels, municipalities, things like that. But there's always room for more improvement. So that kind of stuff, marking construction zones, things like that. So if we can really use this large data, and analyze it to make better processes on a national level, then there could be a lot more people who, you know, avoid not only being weirdly routed to a place that they shouldn't be and causing congestion and stuff like that, but it can, it can save a lot of fatal incidences on our highway, which is, you know, long term, that's really the goal for everyone. You know, it's understanding what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it in the future. So yeah, it's been it's been very interesting, rewarding thing to get to get into it first, you think, oh, yeah, you know, these departments transportation, these entities, the, the police department, they're not going to like this. But that is the exact opposite of what we found, it has been very much like, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for letting us have access to this, because we open it to I mean, any police department, anybody wants that, we open it up to them and just say, you know, here you go do your jobs. And so it's just allowing, all of those entities have more resources available to them. So we were very happy and surprised by not only the lack of resistance, but really, the collaboration. So that's been really, really great. Well, it ends up as a win win. And again, I think everybody having the same goal of how do we make this safer? Yeah, how do we fix things, and I love the fact that that's, you know, again, a kind of a common goal. Okay, so let me just kind of mention, you know, I think your role as sales leader and bringing new folks on, I want to talk a little bit about how people can get a hold of you, because I think the the I happened upon your business, I was told by someone and so that's my curiosity of like, What the heck are you doing to build this, but first, tell people how they can find you? Well, our company is called Road proof road and then p r o f road proof. Yes, I'm Christie. So Christie at road proof.com You can feel free to email me that's my cell number. It's always on like every good business owner. But if you want to see the system, if you want to see how it works, just go to road proof and book a demo and my team will walk you through it and make it very easy personalize it to your needs. There's no hidden fees. It's such an easy system to use, you know, so that's how you get a hold of us. We like I said cater to personal injury firms, insurance companies, rideshare, those kinds of things, anybody who's dealing with incidences on the roadways. That's great. That's perfect. And we'll leave that up for a minute and also put it in our show notes. Okay, this one is a little bit of a bigger question. And you may need a minute to think about it. But what's keeping you up at night as you think about your business and your future and kind of where you want to go? What's keeping you up at night? Um, well, I mean, the entire business model is pretty lofty. So it started out with one state one, issue one thing, but when you're trying to scale across the entire nation, and you're just running, you're having to contact and deal with all of these different camera providers, which are really, as segmented as every state. I mean, some states have six departments of transportation. And so that's why this has never happened. No one's had a national level database of traffic camera footage ever been? And you think, Well, why not? Well, I'll tell you why. Because I mean, this is ridiculous. You know what I mean? So everyone's great, and everyone wants to do it. But then it's the logistics of actually getting it done, right. And all of all of that stuff. So just the scalability of it. Is, is a lot. It's definitely a lot. So but in because this hasn't happened yet, so I thought, what Come on, but I think I mentioned this to you, and we talked before but you know, are like police and all of that database is for law enforcement was not nationalized until 911. That's when they nationalized the everything. And he thought, why How was that possible? So it's like it takes, you know, a social moment to make those kinds of big changes, right, you got amber alert system, because of that tragedy, things like that. And so what's the problem with road proof is that we are ahead of our time, which is never in the best place to be, you don't want to be the first one, you know, making this road because there's a lot of mistakes we happen. It's better to be the second or third one, as you know, with the business, right? He's the first one is the hard one. And so we're ahead of our time, because there isn't a social tragedy or anything like that, that's really pushed the attention to this need. And so that's the good thing. But because we don't have this huge tragedy that's causing that instead, we're here we're pushing forward before to make things safer. And so when the scalability and just this is a hard, there's a big mountain to climb. And so that's that's been the biggest challenge. But like I said, it's we've been making huge headways. And so it's just got to keep on pushing forward. Yeah, it's an interesting. Me, first of all, it sounds like herding cats. And so it's like, kudos to you and your team for having the tenacity to, you know, go and talk to all these people. And I'm sure it's, there's a lot of follow up calls, and there's a lot of coordination and those sorts of things I can only imagine. And, but I was thinking through just now, like, you know, the infrastructure of our country, with the bridges, and the roads, and the signs and all of those things. I mean, really, the data, and the video becomes another element of that. It's like another if another layer. And so I really think, you know, again, you identified this, this path, I think, you know, obviously, I'm a little bit projecting or having empathy for for you. And if I was in your position, it's almost like, the immense opportunity is overwhelming, because there's so many paths you could take, I mean, you could go to small roads and intersections, and you could, you know, go to a place where maybe you're buying cameras or installing cameras, or, you know, you know, that there's a gap somewhere now, and so you can, you know, own maintain the cameras itself, then I was thinking, you know, gosh, we've got bridges, I mean bridges that you know, and you talked a little bit about a social incident I'm from the Twin Cities area and there was other major Minneapolis bridge collapse and you know, I was just thinking like, gosh, with there was a camera that was monitoring, like, is a structure still stable? And do you know the moment where it tips to that like, ah, timeout, it's no longer stable. And so, I would be on this. If I was in your shoes like on this, you know, like, where do we go from here? There's so much opportunity. Yeah, and that is a big, that's a big thing. When you have something that and becomes bigger than bigger than yourself bigger than your team? Which direction do you go so many opportunities. And I mean, just for an I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. And so I think what you have to do is, you know, keep your eye on the long goals, and then just take the opportunities and take it day by day. And just say, yes, to as much as you can and not force anything, right. So that's, I truly believe that, you know, there's things that are meant for people, you know, that, that you the universe, you know, like, if you're pushing in the right direction and doing the right stuff, then you will find your path, even if it is a little bit hard. So I'm just following that kind of mindset of follow up on the opportunities, don't force anything. But be persistent, right, like every good entrepreneur, be persistent. And we've been really kind of finding our path, but there's so many branches, it's, it's been really incredible. But I think that as these opportunities are growing, then more people are interested in joining us. And then we can have, you know, more focuses and other places. And so that's been been really good. It's just the relationships, but we are definitely looking for more relationships, more people to support the big picture with us and partners and things like that. So that's, that's really great. I mean, I, you know, I think, again, as I think of your business, I mean, you've got, you know, your original founders, and then you've probably built out the team in a way that I guess my recommendation would be to make sure you've got all the functional areas met. So you've got the marketing and the intake, and then you've got the operations and HR and the finance and the admin and it and the technology and those sorts of things. And so, you know, that helps to build the, the leadership, and then the scalability is a little bit easier, because there's always, you know, you're just kind of adding in more layers. So, yeah, because, again, I was thinking through, like, even in your operations, you almost have like, verticals, you know, it's like, yeah, we've got the team that supports the personal injury, and we've got the team that supports the, the investigators for the insurance companies, and we've got the, you know, the maybe it's the public services with fire and rescue and police and things like that. Well, that's really great. I mean, I think, you know, again, it's, that's kind of our job and why our book is called up into the right, it's like, how can we help a business to reach their summit? If you think about a graph, it's like, you know, kind of going up into the right, more revenue, more productivity, more profitability, more retention. And so, again, I think you've got the tiger by the tail, it's, how can you really build that foundation that allows you to not go crazy, right, the amount of opportunity, but to prioritize and methodically move towards that ultimate vision. So it's really great. And I think for my experience, is really just making sure you have the right people in the right seats. And so that's been a really big focus for this year is really making sure that we have these you know, the right operations, the right, you know, and all of these, these pieces that you're identifying, absolutely, because the more infrastructure the more, you know, humanity, you add them that that's where the variables start to really shift and change because like I said, I've been very lucky blessed to have the team that I've had that we've just been working so cohesively for so long, that adding in new team members to you know, fit with our culture and fit with our, our goals, you know, our everything that has to do with the business as is what our focus has been in 2024. So, right, or the slow path is what we've decided not the big path, but yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It's definitely got bigger than we thought it would. But it's so far, we're still having a good time. And that's really what it's been all about, for us is a passion, something that we truly believe in, that we want to come and go to, you know, it doesn't feel like work. What are we going to do today? That kind of stuff, although it is a little bit like herding cats at times, and so we're always joyous, but um, you know, as far as the core team goes, it's we're still really loving what we do. So I hope remains the same long enough for us to pass it on. If that was what happens. Like I said, it is going to become bigger than we are. So yeah, tell me and maybe this is one of my last questions for you, but we'll see. How much are you working on the business versus in the business as the founder and CEO? So for example, you know, really thinking through the strategy and building the team In developing and mentoring, versus doing the actual calls and hiring and training. And so again, I'll say like working on the business versus working in the business, well, I would say, I am the queen of delegation. So otherwise I wouldn't be able to be running two businesses successfully. That's really cool. And then I also do investment properties and other stuff. So I saw I'm really good at the at the delegation, something I learned from a mentor of mine. Bless. So a while long time ago, but so for road proof, I would say at this point about 5050. Cool, yeah. And so more than I was, I really started to nail down and get into the business as far as like, the right people in the right seats this year. So in the last year, I was definitely working on it, not in it. But sometimes, you know, I have to really get in there and get into the operations of things. And figure out make sure everyone is is on the same page and our culture and everything like that I was kind of taking that part for for granted. So definitely 5050 now. So good. That's great. I mean, it's it's different per organization and per leader. But I work I lead the firms. And so yes, they're like, I need to do marketing, but I'm an attorney, I need to do this, but I met core and court, and you're like I understand you. And so then I'm also have the privilege to working with business owners who are stepping away from that, and they actually get to work, you know, on instead of in, so yes, you're definitely speaking my language. Yeah, it's difficult. And again, it's an evolution, I like how you kind of talked about, you know, I was on now I'm 5050. And there might be a time where I'm doing something different. But that makeup evolves over time as the team changes and the business scale. So your flexibility and nimbleness there is is, like I would say spot on so that you can support the business and grow it. Yeah, um, you got to have that kind of, you got to let go of what you think you, you know, like, you think, Oh, this is what success is. Or this is what I should be doing. You know what I mean? So I think that that ability to be agile is really important. If you're going to take a business from, you know, startup to actually surviving. In my, it's great, because I'm gonna go with it, you know, sometimes you just need to be able to clean the toilets, or, you know, be the CEO. Yeah, so, but lately, it's been exactly right. Yeah. So you know, and I also enjoy, I don't want to be one of those people who's who's doing big vision, eye things for the company, but also not talking to the customers talking with what people need, you know, taking on those roles, where I'm interacting, actively actually doing demos, demonstrating our software makes, because you don't wanna be those people like Paul Yeah, you know, I'm a founder, CEO, but I don't really know how this software works anymore. It's an updated so many times. So that's what I would like to always avoid is to have some familiarity to be able to really work with my team, from a place of knowledge and not just a place of well, this is, I hear what you're saying, but it's not important. You know, and I mean, it's really great. I mean, I think can continuing to have that connection with, ultimately, your service, your product and the users. I mean, that will help you to evolve and be nimble, because then you actually know firsthand what is needed. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. Well, any other things that you want to brainstorm in the moment you need help on? You're keeping you up at night? Anything there? Ah, no, not really. I mean, you just nailed it on the head with what opportunities are you gonna take advantage of and, you know, that kind of stuff. And I just think we're just doing the best that we can I, you know, it's, it's also, you know, there's one small thing that I'll touch on, because it seems like I've done so I've seen some of your podcasts and things like that, that in a, it's as a female entrepreneur, it's really much a lot of times feels like a boys club. And so there's not that many female entrepreneurs out there. And there are more and more every day. But I think that our examples and the mentors and the things we have less to choose from, and a lot of the ideas of what success is has been defined by men. And so it's like, what is success? And as more and more women become successful entrepreneurs, I think that it's gonna be really fun to see how we change the definition of success as far as like, we don't need the fancy cars, necessarily. We don't need the big houses, maybe it's more of a work life balance. You know, it's other things that we're not killing ourselves and dying at our desk instead, it's, you know, it other things. So, yeah, that has been a kind of a unique challenge in a lot of ways. Because most of the time when I'm speaking in a room, and I'm talking to enterprise level clients, I'm doing those that it's all men. So, yeah, it's funny, you say that I, I feel the same. And I feel like you have done such a beautiful job of being a woman that is willing to empower other women. And you know, we're you and I, at least from what I know, of you strong enough to scan in a room full of men, but so happy to help other women get in the room? And so I can absolutely, yeah, well, you know, has always been my motto from the beginning. And it's, it's really, right. And so when I, like I said, 20 years, internet marketing definitely started out as a boys club, SEO, search engine optimization, that kind of stuff. Same thing. But you know, we've, as women, like I said, we're definitely branching out becoming more. And there is either they speak about this ruthlessness about amongst women. And I don't think that that's necessarily true. When it comes to successful women, it seems like in most cases, I have been, you know, mentored supported the door open for me, by other women, it's always like, Oh, come here. You know, let me let me introduce you to people like, so. It is very, it's great. And so it's not like a war between men and women. It's just as there's more successful female entrepreneurs, I'm noticing that most of the ones are all the ones that I've met are very inclusive, very supportive of other women. And so it's not this ruthless place that people think it is. Really, it's like, come on, in, let me let me give you a leg up that I didn't get or that I did get. And so it's, it's great. I can't wait to see it for my daughters and, and things like that, right. It's funny. You know, I think as a, as I age, too, there's some wisdom that comes with that, of course, and just this understanding of how, when you lean into who you are, at your most, kind of pure core, I think there's a lot of power to that. And so, you know, even even the other women that I've met, it's like, the vulnerability, the transparency, the openness, the the realness has been something that, you know, I think, I think I'm better able to help other people when I'm as real as I possibly can be. And it's not always perfect. And you know, but yeah, but I really, I think there's a there's a new way for women, like we can be open and honest. It's not how it was when I first started my career where we almost had to pretend that we were super tough. And you're like, you know, I'm working five to, you know, 5am to 7pm. To like, keep up with all the guys. And, you know, I think there's a there's a new way. So anyway, and it's because of soldiers like yourself. Yeah, that are saying it like it is great. Yeah, you are so comfortable with that, and so open and it's, it's refreshing. You do it in a way that is supportive and compassionate. But it's also like, oh, wow, like, that's the truth. And it's so refreshing to hear the truth is to kind but you did, yeah. You said something that I absolutely agree with is that, you know, as we become more authentically ourselves, then, you know, we can support the people. I think that with age, right, you get more comfortable in your own skin. And once you really, like you said lean into who you are, you realize that all the things that you worried about weren't important, and you become more successful, you make better choices, all of that stuff. And I wish that we can just give that same confidence to ourselves and our 20s. And, you know, that whole, like, lean into it, but it is changing. And I think that we're able to make it as examples. We don't have to be that tough. You know, totally work. No personal life, no family. I am a mom, I have four kids in you tell you what, no one in my industry had any idea had children at all. I never I kept that completely separate. Because not only were they judging me, by my looks and my age in my 20s but if they also knew that I was a mother, that would have been like my career suicide, you know, so it would totally and everyone's like, Oh, that's not true. Oh, yes, yes, it is true and So to have to kind of really compartmentalize my life for so long, then you're just you just sort of get over it, but you have some more clout, you've got a reputation, some experience and confidence that you know what I can, I can do this with also without, you know, excuses and other things. So, yeah, it's it's a really interesting business dynamic that is changing. And like I said, for for, I want to see my daughter, you know, it's like, it's changing from the generation before us, to our generation to the next generation. But yeah, it is a lot to do with women that are in these positions of power, who can mentor and support and if anybody is in that position, that can do that for the next generation? I know that my life has been completely changed by women because of that, so definitely, too, because it makes a big difference. Yeah, yes, me too. Well, I mean, thank you for sharing your journey. And gosh, and I'm, I'm actually like secretly hoping that like, clients, I told you, I would introduce you to rope proof, you're hopefully listening. Because you've built such an amazing tool that can help so many people. And so thank you, thank you for doing it. And thank you for being willing to chat with me about it. I know that I'm gonna keep sending people your way, because they need you. They need your terminal. And it's easy to make it super simple. You just jump over here. And when people are on it, they don't go they find value. We just made it really, really easy. So really great saves on the customer service. I'll tell you Well, yeah, gosh. I mean, you've you've really built an amazing models. So yeah, yeah. Good job. Good job. Yeah. Well, thank you, again, for being a part of our show. And as you level up your business, I mean, if you need anything, I'm here, we're here. So keep doing what you're doing. But if we could be of help, let me know. And otherwise, we'll just stay in touch and I'm going to follow along on your journey and just be cheering for you from afar. I need all the help I can get. So definitely I'll be in touch. Good. Good. Well, thank you again, Christy. It's really great to see you again and congrats. Keep up the good work. Thanks, sir. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. All right. Have a good day, everybody. Thanks for listening. And if you're out there and you need help, my comment is always you're not alone. So call get some help call us. But you can do it as an entrepreneur or as a business leader. And if you need point, northeast help up into the right. We're happy to help. So thank you have a great day, everybody. See you soon. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of level up your business with me, Sarah Frasca. If you have a problem in your business that's keeping you up at night. Please join us in a future episode so we can help get you unstuck. Just clicking the link in the show notes and send us a message. Please remember, stay innovative friends