Todd  
I'm super excited today to talk with Eric Martz. Eric is a 20 year veteran of being an entrepreneur. He's had multiple investments, and exits and businesses that he started. He has a wide range of experiences from for real estate all the way through fintech. And then he's been helping out with Wildfire. So I'm super excited about this conversation today. So sit back and relax and enjoy this conversation with Eric Martz. Good afternoon. I'm excited to have Eric Martz. Here today to talk a little bit about his entrepreneurial background. Eric, super excited to talk with you today. And thanks for making the time.

Eric Martz  
Likewise, Todd, thanks for having me.

Todd  
Yeah. Well, why don't we start a little bit about your background? I think. So. I mean, I just in full disclosure, you help us with wildfire labs, you're a general partner with us. And you spent a ton of time mentoring and helping our folks. Your path to getting to here is probably a little bit different than a lot of other folks. I think everybody's got kind of an individual path to, you know, entrepreneurship. So why don't you start there? And just talk a little bit about how what led you to entrepreneurship? And what did you do? You know, from college, kind of awkward cuz you got some interesting jobs.

Eric Martz  
So I think I'll go back even further, I grew up in a little town in eastern North Dakota farming community, and my father grew up on a farm, but he went into banking. So I have this, this push from the history of farming and the entrepreneurial drive behind farmers. From my grandfather to my father. On my mother's side, it was banking. So I have that this dichotomy of banking and farming, pushing me in the direction of entrepreneurship, I think so from an early age, I worked on farms, I learned the farming industry, that took me on to crop dusting, and, and several other jobs in that industry. I think the thing that really pushed me to entrepreneurship is after years of working in my 20s, I realized that I was creating value and rewards and, and wealth for those people that I was working for. And I thought why, why am I doing this for somebody else I can do this myself. So went back to school, my late 20s finished up a business degree which my degree ended up taking seven years of college. That's me to struggle, struggling in school at a young age and through high school. I think a lot of it had to do with self esteem. And, you know, the inability to focus on things that didn't interest me. But kind of figured it out in my late 20s and was able to get good grades, the last couple of years to get that degree. I interned with a wealth manager on my junior year and thought I was going that route, did a personality evaluation as part of an interview with Salomon Smith, Barney and failed horribly, so that really set things back because that was my career path after I graduated. And again, these all these little roadblocks and challenges just made me realize that no matter what happened, whatever it was thrown in front of me, in my self esteem was growing exponentially and and realize that could overcome those things. I mean, eventually, we I was in the hospitality restaurant bar business for eight or nine years, and really got burnt out on that. Eventually, we started a real estate investment company with a a great friend and business partner, I was the work he was the money. And we ended up building three assisted living facilities. Expanded a couple of them, grew the staff to over 100. And and then we had kids, the whole world changed. And I realized that work was eating me alive. And I had zero time or energy for the kids. And I didn't like that. So we ended up selling our facilities had a good exit. And it gave us the freedom to, to really choose what we wanted to do. Time affluence, and spend as much of it as we could with the kids. So that's, that's kind of my story up to the point where I started investing. And from that point, that's all I focused on.

Todd  
That's good. I think there's a bunch of stuff in there. That's interesting. I think you have made the comment and I think he even said it in this conversation about why would anybody else to work for somebody else when you can work for yourself? And I think you know, I think in theory Lots of people think that's a great idea. I think in practicality, it comes down to some brass tacks, right? It's like, okay, healthcare, can this actually work? You know, maybe I've got a long, I'm gonna work a lot of hours. I think they all enjoy the idea of being my own boss. But I think a lot of them machinations to get there. It's super hard. And so I'm curious. I mean, I think you know, I'm sure at some point in time, you just kept on seeing these patterns and stuff, but like, what made you like, make the jump? Like, what made you like, say, you know, like, I'm willing to do this, did you just not have a lot at risk? Meaning your lifestyle was pretty cheap. You were early in your, maybe your marriage, you didn't have kids and have mortgages, like, you know, all those things help. But man, it's a big chasm to jump to say and just go do that, because I think lots of people like the idea, but I think when it comes down to the work, I think a lot of people maybe shy away from it.

Eric Martz  
Yeah, I think that the one thing, well, two things that helped a lot with being able to take that leap and not stress too much about the finances behind it is that my wife, and I didn't have kids, we'd been married for a couple years, when I left the restaurant industry, and she had a stable income, I got my real estate license, and that could be a stable income have focused entirely on it, but we figured it would just supplement and we didn't have kids. So I could work 12, 16, 18 hour days. And, you know, we were able to be really flexible that way. After getting into the the assisted living market, as part of the real estate investing, my wife was able to transition to a travel nursing job, which fully supported our family for three years, really, until we got afford, for me to, you know, not take a salary at all the first three years that was huge for the growth of our business. And I've always been one to leap and ask later. So I'm a bit of a daredevil and I never really stressed about that too much. My father gave me some advice when I was young, because I was terrified that I didn't have a career path. I didn't have a clear goal in life. He said, "But you're a hard worker. If you work hard, really hard, and do your very best, you'll never have to worry about money. You'll make enough money to survive. Don't worry about it just work hard and focus on on doing the best you can."

Todd  
That's good. It's good advice. It's good that he saw that in you. Maybe taking going back to your partnership with your wife, I think that does de risk some things, there's no question about it. And so maybe talk to me a little bit about the the importance, I think all of us, you know, like our, our partner to and Mike, you know, I think all of our spouses probably have some stories about us. From the standpoint of maybe we're a little crazy. And it's not always been easy for them to be our partners in this. But I think for any of us to have success, we need a successful partner that sees what we're doing, appreciates who we are, and can support us and kind of what we're doing. And, you know, you did a poll a while ago on LinkedIn, that was kind of a tribute to spouses of entrepreneurs. And so I'm just curious, I mean, you've talked about in the short term, but like, how important is picking the right spouse, and in your case, specifically, to your success.

Eric Martz  
I can't stress enough. Obviously, when you go into business, sometimes you end up with a business partner. But for me, my wife is not only my best friend, but absolutely 50/50 business partner, we always bounce ideas off each other. I lean heavily on her advice when when I need it, and vice versa. She is an incredible executive thinker, where sometimes I struggle at that. So she helps keep me organized. And turns down my enthusiasm when I want to dive headfirst. So yeah, so that's good. Yeah. I think for all entrepreneurs having a great partner, if you're not married, then a great business partner to balance to balance your strengths with your weaknesses.

Todd  
I think it's good. Another one that I think kind of goes along the same vein as in you, you've already kind of tackled it, I think in your life is you know, you had an all consuming startup in what you were doing with in the healthcare space there. And then you just realized this was not going to be something that you could easily manage a family with. And I think again, this is one that I think all entrepreneurs struggle with is just work life balance, and what's important, and you know, there's always things there's always fires, there's always this kind of idea of it'll get better, it'll get better, it'll get better. But I think you know, even for me, I think just quitting Concur and saying, my kids are now in high school, and I want to be here for those years and really not make any sacrifices, you know, it's a trade off that your spouse is involved in. But I think you made that pretty early. And so you know, and I think sometimes it's hard for us to turn some of that off and saying, but I want to invest in these priorities that are super important to me. So let me talk a little bit about like, just how you balance kind of work life balance, because I think a lot of us struggle with that.

Eric Martz  
You know, as far as when we had the assisted living facilities, there was no work life balance, there couldn't be like it was, it was worth it demanded all my time, all the time. So I think part of it is choosing what you're going to do and then allocating the time appropriately, I couldn't go back and do the same thing. Again, it wouldn't be possible not if I wanted to have the time for my kids. So when we, when we exited that we took a complete year off and didn't focus on making money at all, outside of some investing. And it really made me prioritize what my goals were, what I wanted to do and what brought me happiness. And then I was able to look for the opportunities that came up and choose what the best route was after that. So I think that would be my best advice to anybody is, if you can't achieve work life balance in your current situation, just start looking for a new situation, like, I've changed careers a dozen times or more, and I'm probably going to change careers a dozen times before I die. So don't feel like you're tied to something like you can transition, it might be painful, you might have to sacrifice but but at the end of the day, Happiness can be achieved by doing that transition.

Todd  
There's a couple of things in there, I guess, maybe just being more pointed. I think figuring out what your north arrow is, what do you value? What are you actually saying is your number one priority, and it's not three number one priorities? It's one number one priority. And so I think sometimes we give lip service to a lot of different priorities, or we want society to like, you know, view us as being, you know, positive. I think it takes some time to go against that green in some cases. I mean, even when I clicked concur, like, I think the number of people that wanted me to go work with them, and I said, I'm never doing another corporate gig, I'm just not. And so, and I think, like, people looked at that and said, That's stupid, you're at the top of your earning potential, blah, blah, blah, you're like, nope, some different priorities, something else is gonna get me up in the morning. But it really took me some time to figure out what that North arrow is, why do I want to continue to work? I enjoy working, I just needed to find the reason and what problem I wanted to go solve. And so I think that's, that's number one. And then I think the second piece to it is, is, we always say we don't have enough time, but I think like, you vote with your time, and I think that people don't understand if you really want to make time for something, then timebox it and then do it like I think it just, we have so much superficialis thing, there's something from Seneca in a life, shortness of life. And I think if we treated time, like we did money, we would be very different. And I think entrepreneurs as a general trend have to do that. Right, they have to prioritize their time very effectively. But I think it's another thing that society doesn't necessarily value. And so I probably said no more in the last six or seven years than I ever have. And partly, it's just because I just I know what I want to focus on. And so you know, there's coffee, and there's all these other things. And it's like, they're nice to do, but I'm just saying no to them now. And so I don't know if that's that resonates with you, or if you have a different perspective.

Eric Martz  
Yeah, I think the time versus money was the largest paradigm shift in my world. And when we stop prioritizing, making a certain dollar amount and living at a certain lifestyle level, and focus more on we want to have X amount of free time per week, how do we achieve that? And then what does our finances look like afterwards? And then can we live within those means, like, that really changed our entire life. So we stopped prioritizing, you know, dreams about airplanes, and boats, and all these wonderful, fun toys and said, Well, if I have to fly, maybe I can rent an airplane, if I really want to go skiing or boating for the day, maybe I just rent a boat, along with our house, you know, cars, everything. So that really helped us a lot and allowed us to kind of write our ticket as far as our schedules go.

Todd  
Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the things that we've kind of said is we tried to optimize for flexibility, right? So if we needed to go do something with our daughter, if we needed if it was a great powder day, that's what we did. And so how do you build a lifestyle around that and that goes, financially, time, all that sort of things. So I agree with you, that resonates. So you know, one of the things kind of moving on from your career once you sold and you took that year off and you started looking at other opportunities from an investment standpoint. Talk to me a little bit about how good did you get better, as Being an investor and what to look for? Did you have a lot of the, you know, the characteristics that you saw in yourself that you knew were successful? Did that all translate into picking winners on other opportunities?

Eric Martz  
Yeah, so, investment, my investment trajectory, I guess started back when I was in college, I had the opportunity to work for a billionaire philanthropist who was donating money to the University of North Dakota, where I was at school. And I got to sit in his office and read business plans for a year, I got to go to the companies he was investing in and dig into their books, I actually got to be a bookkeeper for one of the companies for two months, because he was hoping to find out how his capital was being used, I really got the insight into how very successful investors think and what they look for. And a lot of it is just judged character, and good control over finances. So in my career, with the assisted living facilities, I was forced to manage finances, I was forced to learn the finite details of P&L statements and balance sheets, and how you can control cash flow based on numbers on a sheet, just watching them and understanding them. So all of that experience combined, really gave me I think, a good gut feel for what to look for with an entrepreneur, and then dig into their books and see if it makes sense. 

Todd  
I mean, that's an awesome experience. I mean, that not everybody gets that opportunity to have a front row seat and and get some thinking about, like how a billionaire philanthropist thinks about those businesses. And so just even the ability to sit down and read a bunch of business plans. I mean, it probably took me 10 years to like, accumulate the opportunity to do that, where you probably got to accelerate in a really positive way. This kind of brings up the next piece of it, which is like, what's the role of mentorship prayed for you? I mean, you know, you've you've definitely moved in a lot of different circles, you've taken a core set of competencies and apply them to different industries. But you know, for me, anyway, mentorship has played a pretty key role in my career. I'm curious from your standpoint.

Eric Martz  
Absolutely. I've had a lot of mentors over the years informal, never call them a mentor, they never said they were a mentor. And I've mentored quite a few startup entrepreneurs, and also just just budding growing minds that are getting into business. So mentorships, huge, I can't stress enough to anybody, especially somebody trying to start their own business, find somebody who's willing to spend time with you, and share their knowledge, and make sure you're giving back to them. You know, however, that is, whatever their needs are trying to help them out as well. You'll be amazed at how much you can learn just by osmosis being around somebody who's giving off knowledge. So yeah, huge part of my life.

Todd  
And I don't know, if you're, if you're like me, I think people that ask for time, I generally give one time for free, no problem. But then at some point in time, it's really about execution for me. So you know, it's like, I usually give some homework, you know, go do something like this, that we think is beneficial. But then if you don't get it done, you don't get the next meeting. And so I do think that's a way that even I learned to concur, where it was like if I basically listened to somebody and I said, Hey, I took some of the advice she gave me, I implemented it, here's how it worked out the opportunity for the next conversation. And the next conversation just made it easier. You built credibility and built respect to them. And it wasn't like they saw it as a waste of time. And you were just trying to buddy up to him, you were actually trying to progress. And so I don't know if something like that worked for you. But you know, execution for me is a big thing. As you meet entrepreneurs, it's, it's easy to do coffee, it's a totally different thing to build a relationship going forward.

Eric Martz  
Yeah, there were several of my mentors, where I just worked for them for free for a period of time, because good, I wanted to be in their present and asking questions. And, and I've felt that the best way to do that is just to give back by working hard for them for a period of time. So

Todd  
what about now does that like, you know, it seemed like for me anyway, earlier in my career, it was easy to find mentors. I think as I've gotten older, I still want to grow, I still want to get better. The pool of people that you can draw from that maybe can add value in the same way is maybe smaller. And it's not that we're more successful or anything. It's just like the domain expertise that we're in becomes smaller and smaller. And so there's in so I'm curious from your perspective, if you felt like that, or you've been able to keep kind of a wide network or there's always people of value.

Eric Martz  
I have a very small network, in fact, but when I meet somebody that's interesting that has life experiences that I don't have and I feel like I can learn from them, I try to be a good friend to them try to add value to their life as well. I wish I had a larger network and felt like I could maintain that network. But again, there's a choice to be made. If if you grow your network to a large enough degree pretty soon, it's consuming your time as well. So I've learned sometimes smaller is better on that front. Yeah, right now, I lean mainly on what I would say our colleagues for mentorship with the understanding that I hope to be giving back to them as well.

Todd  
No, that's good. That's good. Well, let's pivot a little bit to kind of maybe Wildfire. And kind of, this is a different model. Actually, let's not go there. Let's go with your broodstock stuff. So you know, one of the pieces that I think you had, that we had talked about early on was kind of your work on the development front. And so boot stack is a huge part of what you're doing today besides wildfire, and your investments. And so maybe talk a little bit about how that came about. And just that opportunity and how many doors that's kind of open for you.

Eric Martz  
So one of our investments a few years ago, was a software company that had gone through some really rough patches, they had been acquired and then shelled even though the contract when they sold promised they would not be shelled. So they ended up in the lawsuit, got their IP back, and we're starting from scratch began to grow, that company, gained traction gained sales. They were starting to run out of money and needed some help. But a brilliant team and super hard working, we saw a lot of potential in it. And they had already been approached several times by larger companies for acquisition. So we knew that opportunity was there. And it all turned out great. They were acquired a couple years ago. And we were all able to springboard off of that and start another software company. So in the process of starting the new company, we acquired some development talent that is phenomenal. And we realized we had an asset and that alone. So Brut stack was brought to life. And the intention behind it is to mentor and grow software, startup companies, versus just developing software as a service. We saw the benefit of actually helping them at all stages. So business plan, funding, potentially mentorship, for sure. And and then software development.

Todd  
And so this fundamentally started with some offshore resources, I just want to make sure like maybe people didn't understand like, there was a development organization in India, that basically was doing some of this development was the asset that we're kind of talking about, and then leveraging that for other startups that you were wanting to help.

Eric Martz  
Correct. Yeah, one of our business partners on the software company is a software developer in India. And his value to the company was he put a team together to build the our software. And he's growing that team. I think we're up to over 3334 employees now, and still growing. And we have a few contracts that are getting ready to start that will probably double the team size in the next year.

Todd  
Yeah, that's good. I think there's some good synergy between that and kind of what we're doing with wildfire, right. I mean, I think there's some overlap in it. But I think the ability to leverage kind of what we're doing from methodology standpoint, get them through the development process. And if they need additional capital or additional resources to continue to grow, and build out their platform, that's a really good, you know, combination in partnership with Rootstech. So we're super excited about that opportunity. And I look forward to running some startups through it. So kind of moving, like, you know, I think you and I kind of met in through the South Dakota School of Mines, in some of the CEO business plan competition, you know, we've kind of run the same circles with kind of Startup Weekend, you've been very generous about, like helping just about any entrepreneur and all these different events. You've got some pretty strong opinions about how some of these things are run from a perspective of what's important. And I think your general thesis is maybe we spend too much time focusing on a presentation versus what the actual reality of a business is. And so and I think that on, so I'm just curious on maybe elaborating a little bit more on that and kind of what your recommendations would be to, you know, young entrepreneurs that are looking for capital, business plan competitions, that sort of stuff, because I think there's a lot of pressure to be articulate, to be charismatic to basically sell a little bit more than maybe they need to, and and, you know, you have to have some of that but I'm curious, I'm kind of what you think they should be doing?

Eric Martz  
You know, I think I think your pitch should always be tailored to what you're trying to accomplish. So with the business plan competitions there, their goal in that is to win the competition and win the prize money so that they have the opportunity to use that those funds to grow a business. I think a lot of what I see in business plan competitions at the collegiate level is that students that are slightly entrepreneurial dive in and they're really good at sales, and they do a great job of winning that competition. And then the money helps pay for their college education, which there's nothing wrong with that, I would love to see more of these winners actually put the money to use to start the company that are talking about, and that requires a completely debt, different set of skills. It requires a lot more focus on the financial projections and understanding what you're saying you're going to do financially, and then be able to extrapolate the data from the financials, to write a clear roadmap in your business plan of, I'm going to accomplish this on month one, and this on month, six and 10 years from now, my company's going to be worth $150 million. And I think you can do that through good financial planning and projections. So that is the biggest piece that I see missing in, in the business plan competitions that I've been a part of, both as a mentor and as a judge. 

Todd  
I think it's good, I think it's a hard skill to learn, you know, especially when they don't have a lot of data, you were just working with one of our wildfire teams on this exact problem. And, you know, I think there's this kind of unique, it's a b2c type of environment. And so in the gaming space, and so it's just not super simple to figure out kind of what your cost of acquisition is going to be what your different marketing campaigns are going to be. But I think your point of this is the thought experiment of thinking through all of those and making assumptions that you can update with actual data starts to provide a framework that is actually based in reality, and your best guess, and maybe there's people that in so that's all you're trying to do is basically think through it methodically, tie all the different elements out and put your best estimate. And then as soon as you run some experiments, update that on a consistent basis.

Eric Martz  
I always tell mentees that a business plan, including the financials is a living document, it's something that's going to grow, it's going to change, it's going to morph, and you have to not only nurture it and do the things that you said you're going to do in your business plan, but then go back and change the business plan to reflect what your results are. So financials, especially if you're projecting out, you need to be able to match what your actual results are, to what you have in your business plan. Because it could significantly change your trajectory. And if you don't make those changes in it, and then analyze it again, you're gonna miss it. And you might not hire a salesperson at the right time or not, not divest of an asset that you shouldn't have on your books anymore at a certain point. So yeah, I think more than anything is, is treat it as if it's a business partner, and it's living and breathing and it needs it needs to change and grow.

Todd  
I think it's really good advice. I think it is kind of the model that basically your business runs off of right, whether it's cash or you know, a customer acquisition or lifetime value, like all of these things. I think it's not, it's not, you don't learn this, because it's important to investors, do you learn it because it's important to your business? And I think some entrepreneurs take a little time to figure that out. So but I think it's really sage advice. And I think if they keep that at the core of what they're doing, and keep updating it as they get more information, they'll make better decisions along the way. Definitely. So, you know, I think Eric, kind of closing out this piece of it. I think one of the things I've always appreciated about you, and I think is what we've been trying to do with wildfire Labs is it's never about us. It's always about the entrepreneur. And I think that means we're not here to outshine them, we're not here to belittle them, we're always there to like invest in them and get there. And so, where do you think that comes from? I mean, do you feel like a lot of that is from just your background in general? Do you feel like, you know, like, we've all had some level of success. And I think I think we all care about just passing that on and continue to see success for them. But I think it is a key component of something that you do differently than most people that I've seen in that role. And I have a ton of respect for it because I just don't think everybody thinks that way.

Eric Martz  
No, I think that's exactly what drew me to Wildfire was the same mentality from you and Mike, the whole team really. I like I said, when I was young, I had a lot of self esteem issues and I think growing through that and gaining confidence and realizing that I can do whatever I put my mind to. never fully got rid of the feeling of what it feels like to feel like a failure, whether you are or not. And so yeah, being humble is important. I've seen, I've seen extremely successful. Well, the billionaire I worked for he, he never graduated from high school, let alone college. But he was a World War Two bomber pilot, he led waves of bombers over Germany, he, he was a very successful cattle rancher, and, and then invested in companies and made billion. And I didn't know he was any different than any other customer in the restaurant that I met him in. Because he was humble, he was a great guy. And all of my best mentors are the exact same way. One of my business partners in the assisted living facility always said, I'm just a dumb cowboy. But he's not. He's brilliant. And he taught me as much as any of my mentors. So yeah, I think, again, mentors are important. They teach you so much.

Todd  
Yeah, I agree. And I think that culture is super important for them to willing to take risks, to ask hard questions, to be vulnerable. I think that's kind of what I think, then there's a lot more value in those relationships, right? I'm not here to tell you the answer. I'm helping you to tell you or help you understand how to get to the answer. Right. And that takes trust on both sides. And so you know, I think that's super important with what we're trying to build.

Eric Martz  
Definitely, maybe the last kind of never be afraid to ask questions.

Todd  
I agree. I think that's really important. You know, the last part I'd say is maybe helping people understand a little bit about the Black Hills. I mean, I think, you know, you grew up in North Dakota, you spent some quality time in Utah. Now you're based in rapid, you know, we left and went to Seattle, and then came back here to rapid to raise our kids. You know, I think the Black Hills is kind of a gym. And as far as I'm concerned, I think there's, it's accessible. There's a lot of things to go do. It's a great place to raise your family quality of life is good. But I'm curious from your standpoint, like why rapid?

Eric Martz  
Utah's gorgeous, it has amazing people great business environment. But it was 17 hours to family back in North Dakota. And that was pretty hard. When we went it was just my wife and I but we really saw how hard it was going to be when we started having kids. And so once we exited the businesses there, and we traveled for a year, and we were looking for where are we going to settle. And one of the criteria we were looking for is if we couldn't be closer to home, we needed to be able to travel home, you know, frequently and not super expensively. So that played heavily, I think into part of our decision to move closer to North Dakota. I have family in the hills here that you know that moved from North Dakota. It's gorgeous here, it has just as much beauty as the mountains of Utah. I like to hunt and fish. So there are a ton of opportunities for that. Also hike bike. I mean, you name it boating, fishing the whole works. The Black Hills, beautiful, beautiful place and Rapid City is what my wife and I both being from North Dakota are used to it's it's a good sized town, but small town feel. Everybody's super friendly and supportive.

Todd  
Yeah, I agree. I it's been a good place to raise the family. And it's been home for a while. So. So the last question I have for you, Eric, I do this with every podcast guest is asking what the kindest thing anybody's ever done for you. I always think it's a good way to kind of remember you know, about humanity. I mean, I think these are people. And you know, there's lots of people that have helped us get there. And so I don't know if you've got a story or something you want to share it about the kindest thing that anybody's ever done for you.

Eric Martz  
I think I would play off of your story about your parents and funding college, you know, saying no to you about funding your college. Probably didn't seem so kind at the time. But I've had I've had a ton of experiences where I've been told no, and it was pretty painful. But in hindsight, it was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me because it was it was one more a pain point or one more hurdle I had to overcome to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. And because I had to go through that pain and that struggle, the outcome was that much sweeter. And, and my confidence that much bigger. So I would say all of those, all of those times that I was told no, or, you know, fired from a job or whatever, that felt like the end of the world at the time, definitely made me a better person.

Todd  
That's good. That's you know, it's thinking about a little bit orthogonally. Right. Not everybody would have said that. And so that's a great story and a great perspective. So, Eric, I really appreciate you taking the time kind of sharing your background and how you got to the point and some of your methodology and thought process. I think that's really helpful and, and I hope other folks see some value in it. Thank you. 

Eric Martz  
Thank you, Todd.