Neil Patel

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Andrew Brown sold his first company to Google. He is now on his second startup. Which has already attracted substantial funding in its mission to simplify essential operational functions for small businesses. The venture, Check has acquired funding from top-tier investors like Contrary, Stripe, Index Ventures, and Mischief, among others.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • Building trust with investors
  • Surviving crises
  • Andrew Brown’s top advice when launching a business
  • Transitioning from CTO to CEO

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About Andrew Brown:

As CTO, Andrew Brown leads a highly-skilled team of engineers, overseeing the development of the technology that is at the heart of Oyster’s products, while still making time to write code himself.

Prior to starting Oyster, Andrew worked at Google, where he optimized ads for DoubleClick for Publishers, the world’s largest display ad serving system. Before that, he helped build the platform underpinning Microsoft’s Office 365 for Business.

Andrew’s perseverance is one of his most notable qualities, contributing to both his climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro and his determination to camp out for three months to secure a ticket to the Duke-UNC basketball game.

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Connect with Andrew Brown:

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Hey, guys. Todayʼns episode is brought to you by Zencastr. I remember back in the day when I was looking at putting together Zencastr. I was looking for a solution that would help me in putting things together. Essentially, this is what allowed me to bring DealMakers to life. Basically, Zencastr, what it is is an all-in-one solution where you just send a link to the person that you’re looking to interview. They would plug in their computer with their video, with the audio, and then you are good to go. You would piece everything together, give it to your audio engineer or even edit it yourself, and you are off to the races. Now, if you’re looking at getting into podcasting, you should definitely check Zencastr out, and you could also get a 30% discount, and this is the discount code that you will be able to redeem by going to Zen.ai/dealmakers0. Lastly, I was very much blown away when I found out that investing in wine has been one of the best-kept secrets amongst the wealthy. This is now not the case anymore. I came across this solution, which is called VinoVest, and they are a great solution that allows you to diversify investing by implementing or including wines into your portfolio. Take a look at this: wine has one-third of the volatility of the stock market, and yet it has outperformed the global equities market over the past 30 years with 10.6% annualized revenues. It’s a really good way to diversify your portfolio, and you could also get two months of free investing by just going to Zen.ai/dealmakers, and by going there, you will be able to redeem your discount.
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Alejandro: Alright, hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show so very exciting interview that we have today I mean a founder that has been there done it I mean now multiple times we can say and the first company that he did first exit. He actually sold it to Google so I think that without further ado. Let’s welcome. Our guest today. Andrew Brown: welcome to the show so born in South Carolina so give us a little if I walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Andrew Brown: Thanks Alejandra I appreciate you inviting me on today.

Andrew Brown: Yeah I mean I had a a wonderful childhood was really fortunate. Um, as you mentioned ah I was born and raised and in Greenville South Carolina and the upstate that. So right in the the foothills of the Blue Ridge and and appalachian mountains. Um, so had a. A pretty typical you know suburban southern childhood a lot of my extended family is down on the coast in Charleston so spent a fair amount of time on the water on the ocean too. Um, and yeah, it was just ah, a wonderful time.

Alejandro: So talking about you know, family too I mean both are your parents in employment Law. So I mean how was how was how was that because I mean I’m sure there was a lot of very interesting. You know who is right and who’s wrong. You know, kind of ah. You know conversations in the house with all this and legal stuff going on and.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, you know I don’t know that most people would say that interesting is the right word for it because when both of your parents do you know, generally speaking the same type of employment law. It means that all of the dinner table conversations. Ah, tend to revolve around what’s going on in. Whatever given case, they’re looking at that sort of thing which you know when you’re 8 years old is maybe not the ah you know prime topic that ah that you want to be talking about as opposed to whatever cartoon is is on Tv or or that sort of thing. Um. But it’s something that you know we’ll get to it with my current company check. But it’s something that certainly has come back around to be I think actually incredibly helpful to me in terms of actually understanding the way that the economy works and the world works and how law plays into that and which is a big part now of of what we do here? check.

Alejandro: And and with all this law going on in the house I mean how did you decide to take opposite direction and and going to computer science and economics.

Andrew Brown: I think probably like a lot of folks by age. It really started with games. Ah you know I was ah bored in elevatory in middle school and so started playing games on on first. The original Nintendo and then then tendo 64 and and then on on the computer and yeah was building little. Guilds and things with my friends and so I think that really you know started my interest in and and love of technology and I didn’t really pursue it though. I wasn’t the kid in high school that you know was taking you know every possible programming class and I think I needed a little little spark a little something to get me going. And for me that was the iphone. The iphone came out ah right around the time that I got to college and just absolutely blew my mind I think more or less watching the the intro keynote I realized that this was something that was was going to change the world and that I wanted to be a part of in in some way shape or form and so that really kickstarted you know my.

Alejandro: And and talking about the entrepreneurial journey I mean it’s a it’s kind of interesting the way that the the way that it happened for you because right after school you did a very short stint at Google and then from there you went at it as an entrepreneur. So what was that.

Andrew Brown: You know, interesting computers.

Alejandro: Sequence of events that happen. So.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, you know as we talked about I’m from South Carolina my parents are lawyers I’m not one of these people that grew up in Silicon Valley or or knew that I wanted to necessarily start a startup or a tech company from an early age to be honest, halfway through college I don’t think I knew. What a startup was or what a venture capitalist was you know it certainly wasn’t something that was in my plans. So as I got more interested in technology as I learned how to code as I started building someyphone apps ah from there I was you know like any college student I was looking for a job. There was. One summer that I was you know waiting tables at ah ah sort of an oceanside diner of the next suburb I was interning for Microsoft and then full time right out of school ended up taking that job at Google and so at the time that for me was. An amazing accomplishment. It was you know what? I’d been dreaming dreaming about it. You know, help me pay back student loans. You know that sort of thing. But after you know six or nine months there it was pretty clear to me I missed that energy of building something from scratch of getting that you know scrappy team together from the early days to go you know take on something big and. So was eager to to really get back to that environment which I felt like I had been in more in college.

Alejandro: And why why did you decide to go with oyster I mean obviously I say as engineers you always have the weekend projects. You know as they would say you know you have like your little things that you’re working on So how did you go from maybe like a little project to I’m gonna go for this one.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, it was 2 things. It was the idea in the people and I’ll start with the idea I’ve always been a big reader as a kid you know frankly I was a nerd and I loved walking into the library and feeling like just. Really the world’s knowledge was was really at my fingertips there I thought that was just such a cool feeling to be able to go pick up any book off-the-shelf open it and start reading it and as technology came along and improved and Kindle came out and the ipad came out I was doing more and more electronic reading. But that same experience had been lost if I wanted to pick up something and read it I had to go pay. You know 10 15 twenty bucks to do that and is a big user of Netflix and Spotify I felt like that same type of all access. And you know subscription experience should exist in the book world should be something more like what the the public library used to be able to provide and I didn’t see any reason why that wasn’t feasible to build and so and yeah, we then set out to ah to go and make that.

Alejandro: Now What was that the process of really working on this and in that day when you submitted it to the to the app store.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, so it was the the first year year and a half I’d say of a voiceyster was a journey I always warn people about this I think you know quitting your job. Getting started writing those first few lines of code is is always really fun. That was true of Oyster. It’s been true here of check as well. But you know then there’s that period where you don’t have anything yet. You know you don’t have any customers the app doesn’t work. It’s crashing. You’re trying to figure things out. Ah, those could be be dark periods certainly for oyster that the publishing world I think at times thought we were crazy. You know you’re these 22 23 year old kids and you’re going to try and sort of set up a new business model for these publishing houses that have been around for you know, literally in some cases one hundred and fifty years ah yeah they weren’t necessarily interested in in new business models. So it was unclear if we were ever going to launch. Um, but eventually we we managed to you know we managed to sign some really big deals including with big publishers like harper collins and simon and shuusster and others and so ah, yeah, we got to this point where. After this it was a year and a half plus of really really late nights and hard work where you know we had the books I remember opening the app for the first time and seeing like these real books that I do and that you’d see in Barnes and noble like actually there. Ah you know it worked. It wasn’t crashing and then actually hitting as you mentioned that submit button ah into the app store and. If you’ve ever done this but it takes a little while you don’t hit submit and it’s immediately available so you know then you’re every you know few minutes going into the app store and trying to search for the name of app searching oyster and seeing if anything comes up and I remember I didn’t sleep at all that night it was probably five forty five in the morning when finally I you know. Typed in oyster and and the app actually appears there in the store and and you can go and get it and that was just it was just such a rewarding moment of feeling like this thing that we’ve been you know putting so much of our energy into you know over that first year and a half is is finally available here.

Alejandro: And and for the people that are listening to really get it What what ended up being the business model of oyster. How are you guys making money there.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, so we were a subscription service. Um, as I mentioned much like Netflix or Spotify so you paid us $10 a month and you got access then to all of the books in our catalog. So obviously we made money on that subscription fee. And then our costs where we paid out to to the publishers for that content.

Alejandro: And in terms of you know I know that with your parents you know at the beginning pro they were like a little bit like hey what what is our son doing like leaving Google like socha reputable company and and starting something from nothing I know that appearing on the today’s show was saying. You know it marked in you know, quite the moment where they realized that perhaps you were into something here. So so how was how was that how was that moment like.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, it was. It was really cool and and I’ll share two stories with you here. The first one was actually before that launch moment and we were maybe nine months into the company and we were trying to ship the first and. Essentially beta version of the app to our investors and a few of our friends and for some reason that I would recommend no 1 else? Do we sort of set our own internal goal of making sure we had shipped that by Christmas and we were determined to make sure that we we actually hit our goals and hit our dates and so. I was home with my family and you know went to our Christmas service or whatnot and came home. It’s nine o’clock at night and then proceeded to basically pull an all night or over Christmas Eve and and into Christmas in order to actually finish this app and and ship the beta version of it and this was a year prior. My parents had seen me at Google and with this nice job and the whole thing and they’re like. What is this guy doing you know he has lost his mind clearly, he’s excited about it. But ah, you know it is. It’s really taken over his life and and you know we have no idea if this is going to go anywhere you fast forward a year and back home again for Christmas and and we’ve just been featured on the today show. Actually it’s one of the sort of recommended holiday gifts. Ah you know of that season and my mom’s always been a big watcher of the today show while she gets ready in the morning. And I think you know seeing her son’s app you know featured on there is it really was the moment when it really clicked for them is to oh hey, you know this might actually be a thing. It might go somewhere and that was that was a really really cool. You know personal moment for me.

Alejandro: Now How did you all go about capitalizing the business.

Andrew Brown: Um, yeah, so at worster we raised a couple of rounds of funding the first one from founders fund and then later raised ah another round from ah from Highland Capital as well.

Alejandro: And what was that the journey like of going through an acquisition because I mean when you go through the acquisition and it’s done and you know you’ve done the full cycle I think that to certain degree gives you visibility you know into the fact that it’s possible and that you can do it as well. So so how was that. Process like for you all the acquisition with Google all.

Andrew Brown: Yeah I learned a tremendous amount I think first of all what I realized is that you know companies are bought. They’re not sold and so we were fortunate that we had at oyster built a service in an app that was really beloved by its users. Um, I think the folks at Google saw that and it piqued their interest and so they had reached out to us several times over the years to to try and get a conversation started about you know what? it might look like and to combine forces I think that was the the first piece and I think the second piece I learned though is that? ah. It’s still ah, a hard thing to do well I think acquisitions actually have a lot of respect for companies that that really are good at doing that because across the the business side of it. The the human people side. It’s challenging. You have different cultures. You know, different strategies. You know, different teams. You know, kind of working towards different goals being able to actually pull that. Together you know into an alignment and create actually one team that’s all working together is something that you know took a lot of late nights and hard work and and long conversations and I think it was really feeling like we had that same shared vision that ah that you know ultimately convince us to do the deal.

Alejandro: So there in Google you actually were for a few years doing the integration and as they call it the vesting and resting but but obviously once an entrepreneur always an entrepreneur so tell us about your next baby? Check so how the idea of check you know, come knocking and. And and what was that person of hey you know what? it’s the time. It’s the the time has come to do it again to.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So ah I’ll start with the latter part of that it was pretty clear to me that the time had come to do it again. Fairly early on in my journey at Google I’m an entrepreneur at hard and I love building things from scratch. Um, but I didn’t know what. Was going to be next and so I spent the better part of of 2 wo-pl plus years and really talking with with my friends and doing a bunch of research and and trying to figure out you know what that next journey was and which ultimately led us to check in in the I think companies come from different places. sometimes it’s a personal passion you know sometimes it’s um you know a problem that you see in your current job and you’re just annoyed that no one’s built a tool to solve it and in our case, check really came from and some of our earliest customers and we happened to know some folks who had built. Platforms that served small businesses and they had a pain point which was payroll so just to illustrate this a little bit and if you rewind ten plus years ago is a small business owner. Your business wasn’t really online. Maybe you had a credit card terminal if you were lucky and but beyond that. You know you had a manual cast register more than likely you were calling your suppliers and managing your your workforce and I know this having worked in a diner at one point it was a piece of paper on the wall. That said you know Andrew is working on Monday and ah hundred is working on Tuesday that sort of thing and. What we saw from talking with our friends and and seeing the change in the landscape over the last ten years is that that’s now totally different a huge number of these small businesses now have some piece of software that they use as their system of record whether it is. Um, a piece of of workforce management software like home base one of our early customers or whether it’s more vertically specific and a company like service titan another of our customers that serve sort of plumbers and electricians and those types of businesses. Um, and so as a result of these companies all coming online and all adopting. Ah, these new platforms the way they manage their business day-to-day had change but the way they managed payroll had not changed and they were managing their workers and clocking in and out and the time for those workers in these new software platforms and then basically exporting spreadsheets and uploading those into. Legacy payroll players and I truly didn’t believe it when I first heard about it. They were spending hours every Friday dealing with this and ah you know to fix and correct. You know overtime amounts and that sort of thing and um, we we saw the problem and and realized hey if we can actually create a service that enables.

Andrew Brown: These platforms to offer payroll to these small businesses and it’ll be both an amazing business for for these platforms and it’ll enable these these small business owners to focus on what matters for them which is you know, getting more customers running their business not trying to figure out how to deal with taxes and and pay their workers.

Alejandro: So what was that process like of getting the founding team together.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, ah for c check it was very much a get the band back together type of a process. So my 2 cofounders here and 1 of them Eric Stromberg was my co-founder and and our Ceo at oyster and then my other co-founder here Vivek Patel and it’s our cto. Was the second engineer that I hired back at oyster so in both cases we had worked together for many years. At this point I had wanted to work with them both again and and knew really regardless of what I did that they were you know right? at the top of my list of of folks I wanted involved and so. In this case in many ways it actually went the other way we actually kind of got the team together and then it’s spent you know quite a while looking for what the ah the right idea was going to be to go after.

Alejandro: And in this case, why going from cto to Ceo how was that the transition for you.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, it was a very natural one to be honest and at oyster myself Eric and our third cofounder will I really ran that business is a bit of a triumrant so I was not your typical cto that was spending all of my time coding certainly I spent a lot of time doing that. But. Was very involved in the fundraising and in ah negotiating our deals with our publishers and doing the modeling to figure out how much we should be paying them. You know those sorts of things and so you know have that business generalist mind and and interest as well. And so. And I really knew I think coming out of that that I felt like I built the technical skills in that experience but it wasn’t where my passion lie in terms of what I wanted to do next and so you know I think stepping into to the Ceo’s seat here, especially for the first couple of years felt very natural I felt like I knew how to do that job. Ah, based on what we had done at oyster.

Alejandro: And and here so that the people that that are listening get it How how are you guys making money. What is the model here we check.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, so we partner with these software platforms as I mentioned like homebase and like service titan and they build new payroll services on top of us. So service Titan Payroll pro being an example of one of those. And and then they pay us based on the number of companies and employees and that they’re actually processing through that payroll service. So and it’s entirely usage based and we are very much partnered with and aligned with our customers where as they build their payroll business. You know, check makes more money from that.

Alejandro: And now having gone through the full cycle with the previous company with oyster I mean now you had full visibility into what was needed in order to get to the finish line and to kind of like reverse back engineer the process to get there and I think that people especially when you’re thinking about investors is critical. So in terms of now going at it again and thinking about capitalizing the business. How were you thinking about really assembling that team of investors as well.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, it’s something that I thought a lot about I think the first thing that I really realized is that ah you know I don’t want to sort of discount. How important it is just to raise the capital and have the money. But I think that’s not necessarily well, it’s an important thing but it’s not the only important thing what I realized more than anything else is actually the set of relationships and advice and people that you have around the company are in many ways just as important if not more so than the capital itself and I had seen. Both from my own experiences and and those of friends how you know, ah you know, kind of investors who maybe didn’t share the same vision as you or you know didn’t understand the business deeply could you know lead you in the wrong direction or or you know maybe ah at least sort of waste a lot of your time and so. The thing that I prioritizeed is I wanted to make sure that I had really deep trust with the investors that we were bringing on board and getting involved with the company and so you know it was a bit of a unique situation. But that’s why our first 2 rounds of capital were both fled and by actually my cofounder Eric who runs ah a venture firm bedrock capital. And so as a result you know for the first year and a half plus of the company. Our primary investor was also one of my best friends and someone I had been working with for ten plus years and just allows you to save so much time you know we were. Ah, you know in complete sync about what we were trying to accomplish here and I think really gives you that solid foundation to then build the rest of the thing on top of yes, we’ve raised ah about one hundred and nineteen million dollars in total. At this point.

Alejandro: Because how much capital have you guys raised to date. And what has been that journey of going through these say different rounds and and raising all this money.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, so we’ve we’ve raised 4 rounds now we raised a million dollars from bedrock right around and restarted the company and we raised an $8000000 series a would have been nine months or so later. Um. Then raised. Ah and that was also led by bedrock with them with thrive and index both participating. Um another roughly year or so after that we raised our series b that was a $35000000 round. Um, that was co-led by thrive and stripe um, and then more recently just a few months ago ah we raised our series c that was a $75000000 round. Um, that was led by stripe and and so you know as we went through that progression and in that journey. What I found is that. You know it goes back to that same principle I just mentioned which is that you want to know and really deeply trust the folks that you have around the table. It’s really hard to to fire an investor and so if you’re going to bring someone you know, kind of into the fold and be involved with them. You want to really you know, make sure that you share you know aligned vision for the company and a view of the world and. Also a set of values. It’s easy for everyone to get along and when things are going well it’s it’s different when ah you know, inevitably you know you have an up or a down and and you’ve got to really you know, navigate that and so I think sort of the consistent theme in all of our fundraises has been. That it hasn’t been hey here’s a pitch deck. You know, let’s go. You know, kind of talk to 20 different firms. It’s been and who have we developed relationships with that. We feel like really deeply understand our business and that who I’m really excited to work with. And let’s take a very targeted approach and and have conversations with those folks to you know, align the capital around the company.

Alejandro: And how is trust built because I mean they’re still not investors right? So so you need to have that trust to really know that they’re going to be a good fit. So so how do you build that? trust.

Andrew Brown: Yeah I think you can do it in 2 ways and 1 is you can get investors involved but in smaller ways without having them lead rounds or or take board seats that sort of thing and I think that’s a great way to do it and. You know it enables you to have sort of minimal downside and in terms of their impact on the company while really getting to know them and and frankly trying to put them to work see who follows through on. Ah you know the commitments and things that they say they’re going to do all all investors are. Good at selling themselves when they’re trying to win a deal. You know, did they follow through on that over the you know months and years to come I think that’s one you know, really effective strategy that we’ve used and I think the other one is you know, find ways to just try and work together. You know with folks get to know each other certainly in stripe’s case you know this goes back to. My days at oyster when we built our subscription billing engine on top of stripe and ah you know in sort of probably 2013 timeframe had a whole bunch of you know, late night back and forth with their support team and and at times ultimately with with with John or Patrick ah around kind of what we were doing there and so. You realize from that you start to sort of understand the values of an organization and how they approach things and so that can build trust as well.

Alejandro: And and for you guys Covid was quite an interesting period of time you know obviously a lot of small businesses here that you guys are are servicing and and definitely you know quite ah quite a lot of craziness. So so how was that the that process for you all.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, so to set the stage here and in March of ah of 2020 when covid hit. We had just lined up our first two customers home base in service titan and we had just done. Ah, that series a round raising about $8000000 but you’re still really small. We were 5 people maybe 6 neither of our customers had actually built on us or launched jet so it’s at you know, an exciting but one of those really fragile points in time for the business and then the whole world shut down. And and we were left sitting there. You know wondering what was going to happen again. Our customers serve. Ah yeah, almost exclusively small businesses and so it was unclear if their customers were going to be around you know. Ah, month six months twelve months from then and there was just such a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the world and so for you know, a period of several months there literally on a weekly basis. We were watching the small business numbers just trying to see how many of them were open and staying in in really close conversation. You know with those early customers of ours to understand. I mean were they going to be in business were they going to be building new initiatives like their payroll service just truly what was going to happen and so it was as you can imagine a ah really stressful time and I think what I learned from that is 2 things number 1 so much of entrepreneurship is is not the sexy stuff in the fundraising. It’s just putting your head down and doing the work and so and you know if there was a silver lining to it. It’s that we were able to you know with really at that point no distractions in the world other than just what was on the news you know, locked in our apartment sit down and just do a ton of building that I think really served us. Well. Later on and then I think the other thing is that we went really out of our way to try and understand for those early customers. What did they need? What were the challenges in their business. How could we help them? um and we also saw there the fact that they continued to work with us. It really spoke to how important. Payroll was for them and for their customers and to the future of their companies. The fact that you know they they might have even done layoffs but the fact that they you know still stuck with us and and with building that service really cemented. You know again, not just ah, a vendor relationship but actually a true partnership between our companies as we work together to build a new business that I think is. Well, it was incredibly stressful at the time I think has ultimately resulted in you know, much better deeper relationships for us going forward.

Alejandro: And as we’re thinking about going forward imagine you were to go to sleep tonight Andrew and you wake up in a world where the vision of check is fully realized what does that world look like.

Andrew Brown: In our view payroll is something that small business owners and employees shouldn’t have to think about and you know I like to rewind if you go back 100 years you start a business you’re you know, running a little tavern and you need to hire someone to you know deliver the the beers and and bust. Tables. It’s a simple thing to do you just need to find someone. You know you can pay them cash. That’s the end of it. The modern economy just doesn’t work like that anymore. There are now thousands of different taxes hundreds of different government jurisdictions. Um, you know it’s gotten even more complicated with covid with various sick leave laws and these sorts of things. It’s actually just the pure. Um logistical burden on a small business owner of what it takes to actually run their business is truly really difficult and I’ve seen this firsthand from from setting up check and. Running our own payrolls and registering with with all the different states that we employ people in you know it’s truly not simple. Our view is that that should really fade into the background and be taken care of by technology so whereas in the past you know a small business owner might go to their you know, local physical bake branch to. Do their banking and it maybe get their payroll. Our view is that you know all of those typical financial services and all of that you know, kind of labor management and clocking in and out all those services instead of happening. Ah you know offline with pin and paper at a local bank branch are going to happen via these vertical saas platforms. Um. And more generally these software platforms that these small businesses are using. We think these software platforms are now really the the front door to a whole wide array of financial services. Um that these small businesses will be offered whether that’s payroll you know, embedded banking insurance lending. You know there’s a whole wider industry here that that’s building these out and you know what we’re doing with payroll is one piece of that.

Alejandro: Now imagine I put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time to that moment where you were still in in Google right? working at your first job coming out of Duke University and and imagined you had the opportunity of perhaps you know like having a sit down. That younger Andrew and you were able to give that younger Andrew one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now given now that you’ve built scaled. You know, exited one company now you’re on your second one where you’ve raised a bunch of money and. And you’re doing great things I mean what would you tell that younger Andrew.

Andrew Brown: The first thing I tell myself is to just do it. It’s a piece of advice that I give to a lot of other entrepreneurs I personally think entrepreneurship is incredibly hard to learn by taking a class or reading a book or something. There’s so many things that are just. Lived experience. You’ve got to learn what it takes to you know, go out and recruit someone or try and convince someone to give you money or convince a customer that they should sign up for your service even though it doesn’t exist yet and you know you can get some of those I think by by joining companies at early stages and trying it but but more than anything else I think. Really truly just jumping into it was was the most important thing and if I can I’d give myself one second piece of advice to that that maybe pairs with that one which is but just be patient I think you know startups are very much. Ah, what have you done for me lately type of a game and then certainly that’s true of investors. And I think when you’re you know, 22 23 it’s hard to see you know the long arc of time going forward but company building is not something that happens overnight. It really takes you know if you’re chasing at least my opinion to have sort of a big enough vision. But something that takes years if not decades to come to fruition and so you know having the vision in the foresight to understand that what we want to accomplish isn’t going to happen in the first six months or even the first two years and it’s going to be a process to get there and really thinking about you know what are the sort of. Chapters in that journey for the company that you’re trying to accomplish you know over each you know year or couple year period of time I think that’s another thing that has really served me well now the second time around with check that at oyster was maybe a little bit more concerned than just what’s right in front of my face and and what are we doing tomorrow.

Alejandro: And Andrew for the people that are listening. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

Andrew Brown: Yeah, absolutely so I’m fairly active on Twitter almost Abc is is my handle my ah my initials are ah Acb so anyway, almost Abc is is is me on Twitter or feel free to to shoot me an email too I’m just. Andrew at check each http://q.com.

Alejandro: Amazing. Well andrewer. Thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Andrew Brown: No, it’s been a lot of fun Alejandra. Thanks again for inviting me on today.

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