Clate Mask

And it was just, we, we know the small business market because we, that was us.

We understand it.

Um, we didn't raise capital until we'd been going for years and we had a vision that we were going to, you know, we were going to go create something really big for small businesses and,

So those first three years were brutally difficult.

I used to tell people all the time, man, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

But in turn, it actually became the greatest thing for the company because it helped us just create

Tremendous amount of empathy for small businesses, the plight of the entrepreneur, what they're trying to do, and gives us all of our passion to change the world for small businesses with sales and marketing automation.

So that was the first period of dark times.

And then the second period was when we got our product market fit off and our churn went way up.

8% a month.

Yes.

Gross customer return, 8%.

Wow.

So you're basically turning your entire base in a year is, you know, the effect of that.

Yeah.

And that's not good.

Uh, we had raised 17 at the time we'd done our a round and our B round.

And this was like 2010, uh,

And so it's tough because now the stakes are higher.

You've got investors, you're turning like crazy.